Luke Skywalker confronts his father, Darth Vader, in a final climactic duel before the evil Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi, the final film of the original Star Wars trilogy. This is resemblance of the struggle within our mind. Some self talk propel us forward. Some self talk pull us backward. The side we have to choose. The decision we have to make. The choice we have to take. A battle between saboteur and sage.
Hence, the message of weakening our saboteur and strengthening our sage is what Peter Lee, DTM, ACC Coach (ICF), hopes to deliver to participants of Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club's "Mental Fitness In A Turbulent World" workshop held on 21 November 2020.
What is happening in today's world? As reported in The Straits Times, experts predicted the ongoing pandemic will have a long-term effect on mental health in Singapore. They are, unfortunately, expecting more cases of depression and anxiety. Therefore, naturally, the questions arise. How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your work? Why would you want to learn mental fitness?
Responding to the first question, Club President Rusman Hadijanto, CTM, CL, DL5, mentioned his work life is like a roller coaster ride, moving from job to job. This is due to the right sizing of the enterprises he had worked for. These enterprises are facing financial constraints. Valliappan Selvamani, CC, CL, added he is now working longer hours at home. He treasures the interaction with his colleagues. Hence he felt a sense of loss when this interaction is reduced. Helena Lim, CC, on the other hand, is affected little as she has already been working from home for five years. She opined the crux of working from home is time management. She enjoys playing with her pet dog for stress relief.
 |
| Active responses from participating members |
Peter gave thanks to Rusman, Valliappan and Helena for their sharing. He went on to describe his own experience. With the onslaught of rapid technological changes, many jobs had extinct, or are already on the verge of extinction (in Peter's words, "becoming dinosaur"). The pandemic is accelerating this process. Assisting his clients to think of possibilities for raising skills and productivity, work on their strength, to ultimately cope with taking on new roles is his occupation. This transition to adapt to the nation's economic restructuring efforts would not have been smooth without mental fitness.
To help participants understand the parallels between physical fitness and mental fitness, Peter posed another question. What is Fitness to you? Just like any physical fitness, mental fitness is a continuous journey. You need to constantly build and maintain the muscles to perform well. Your capacity to respond to life's challenges is in proportion to the strength of the muscles of your mental fitness. Figuratively, it can be thought to be similar to: physical fitness levels needed to climb Bukit Timah Hill, Mount Kinabalu as well as Mount Everest are all different.
There are three main uplifting impacts to your life in having good mental fitness; peak performance, peace of mind and healthy relationships.
Positive Intelligence is a term crafted by Dr. Shirzad Chamine, a professor in Stanford University, synthesizing the four areas of science, namely; positive psychology, neuroscience, cognitive psychology and performance science. Using factor analysis to discover the root causes, three core muscles at the root of mental fitness are identified. They are; Saboteur interceptor, Sage and Self-command.
The master saboteur, Judge, comes in three modalities; self judge (eg. blaming oneself), judging others (eg. skeptical) and judging situation. Upon further explanation of the characteristic of each of these modalities, Peter invited participants to give their thoughts.
Sarah Ong, IP1, gave an example of intercepting the Judge, taking a leaf from the travel restriction. Do not think of the present pandemic in a negative light (judging situation). Holiday makers can still explore interesting places in Singapore.
Beside the Judge, there's nine other accomplices. They are the Controller, Hyper-achiever, Restless, Stickler, Pleaser, Hyper-vigilant, Avoider, Victim and Hyper-rational. Each of these has a persona and its residing in all of us, one taking precedence over another.
 |
| Majority of Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club members are Hyper-achievers. |
The saboteurs and sage reside in different regions of our brain, survivor brain (with voices of saboteurs) and positive intelligence brain (with voice of sage). Both perform important functions and are essential. The survivor brain alert and trigger you to immediate action to move away from pain and danger. Ever heard of fight or flight? The positive intelligence brain is the knowing brain asking, is the pain long enough for it to be useful (realization, wake you up, etc) and short enough not to permanently damage you? Staying in negative emotion (saboteur) hurts ability to see clearly and respond with empathy, curiosity, creativity, or laser-focused action. Saboteur might generate success but not happiness. Sage generates your highest success and sustained happiness.
That leads us all to the sage perspective - every outcome or circumstance can be turned into a gift and opportunity. To highlight the wisdom behind this perspective, Peter brought to the table the stallion story, 'Sai Weng Shi Ma' (塞翁失马). The message is, not over reacting to every single event. Just had a patch of bad luck? Do not worry, just wait it out. It is just as likely to turn into good luck. Click on the YouTube clip, Maintaining Perspective, below to learn more about this stallion story.
To embark on the road to mental fitness is analogous to visiting a gymnasium to do weight lifting reps, short for repetitions. There are Positive Intelligence Quotient (PQ) reps for mental fitness too. Self-command is henceforth like upgrading your operating system to quiet your saboteur and activate your sage thru these PQ reps.
Ten seconds PQ rep exercise:
Please put the thumb and first index fingers together and rub, feeling the ridges with intense focus for 10 seconds.
Cheng Kok Siong, TM, commented the ten seconds PQ rep exercise brought his mind to a focus, and a sense of peacefulness felt.
Two minutes PQ rep exercise:
Please sit comfortably with your spine straight and relax. Your head straight. Your chest open. Your feet flat on the floor. Please close your eyes when you are ready. Take your right hand and place it on your heart. And notice your heart beat. Your heart beat sensation might be very subtle, so you might need to move your hand around a little or press a little harder to feel your heart beat through your hand. Just keep noticing your heart beat. I start count, gently let them go and refocus.
Now put your right hand on your stomach and notice the gentle rising and falling of your stomach with each breathe.
Now do some reps with your sense of touch. Rub your fingertips gently against each other with such a tension that you can feel the fingertip ridges on both fingers.
Take your time and whenever you feel ready, open your eyes.
Tan Siew Foong, TM, commented the two minutes PQ rep is soothing and helped her to calm down.
Always remember, lasting positive change requires twenty percent insight and eighty percent mental muscle just like any other physical discipline. Do have the readiness, willingness and capacity to take on upping the level of your PQ for continued success.
 |
| Heartfelt thoughts from participants as the workshop come to an end |
For a deeper dive into the subject matter, check out the awesome book, Positive Intelligence - Why Only 20% of Teams and Individuals Achieve Their True Potential and How You Can Achieve, by Dr. Shirzad Chamine. Also click on the YouTube clip, Know your inner saboteurs: Shirzad Chamine at TEDxStanford, below to learn what are now between you and your true potential.
Written by Wee Chee Sian, ACB, ALB
