A couple of weeks ago I encountered my first real hater – A DJ from NZ who read a few of my posts and then
ripped into me, full troll style.
It was like a punch to the stomach, and then another few on top of that. I knew he was just angry at life and feeling shit and trying to lash out to make himself feel better, but goddamn was it not fun to be on the receiving end of his words.
It hit a nerve, because he got me right where it hurt – it’s scary as hell to put my face and the contents of my mind out there in the way that I do with Project Self, and from time to time my mind sneers at me out of nowhere… “who are you to be putting yourself out there all over social media? People are judging the bejaysus out of you yo.” “Who are you to be running a business and managing a team?”
“Get back in your box, Andrea”.
When I first started Project Self I heard through the grape vine that my writing had been misconstrued by some old friends as me telling people that my way of living a bloody good life was better than theirs.
Which was (hopefully obviously) absolutely not my intention. My blog is only meant for people who resonate, and who might be in the position I was in a few years ago.
My intention with Project Self is to re-inspire people who do feel like something is not quite clicking in their life in the same way that I did. It is not to try to tell anyone that is already happy with their life that they should be doing anything differently.
What I do know is that feeling insecure, lacking confidence, anxious, indecisive, and in a job or in a life that feels dull is a very horrible place to be,
I was there only a handful of years ago, and I still go back there from time to time, but I’m able to pull myself out a lot more quickly than I used to. Which is why I’m so passionate about showing people how to train the mind not to make life so bloody hard.
Because if I met my former self now, I’d tell her – Hey Andie, You know how you were looking for the answers? I found some! Do you want them? And she’d say,
“F off you arrogant knob. How dare you tell me you know how to live life better than I do.”
But deep down, she’d still be curious.
Because that which makes us most defensive is that which we know (deep down) to be true, even if we won’t admit it.
A few years ago one of my bosses planted a seed that changed my life.
He could see that I was suffering from the daily grind of my mind. I was crippled by the indecision of what to do with my life. I couldn’t control my moods and would be happy one day and an irritable bitch the next. I caused havoc in both my relationships with two very beautiful, patient, tolerant men, who I treated really badly.
He mentioned this thing called mindfulness, and bought me a book on mindfulness.
What hippy crap, I thought,
but I also knew that he was a really successful, charismatic man, the kind of man people are drawn to because of their bubbliness and energy, and he had an awesome wife who he was still very much in love with after 10 years of marriage.
There was a part of me that knew that I wasn’t ever going to be able to be that kind of person, I just wasn’t a positive, happy person, I was realistic. But there was just a tiny part of me that wondered how nice it would be to have that kind of life. And so, about a year later,
I read the damn book with the stupid name.
And to my surprise, it made sense to my logical brain.
There were parts of it that I skipped over because they didn’t fit in with what I believed to be true, but there were parts that made so much sense I couldn’t ignore them.
That guy, Cliff, planted a seed in my mind that life could maybe be better than it was.
I wasn’t ready to water the seed for a few years, but it just sat, dormant in my brain, waiting til I was ready to attend to it.
And eventually I did, and it slowly grew. I fed it with knowledge, bit by bit, reading more about mindfulness and ways of training the mind to calm the f down and stop being so mean, and I started to meet people all over the world who knew what I was talking about and who taught me more.
Essentially, this my mission with Project Self.
I want to try and plant a few seeds, because I’m so infinitely grateful that Cliff did the same for me,
even though most people would have looked at me like a stubborn, cynical lost cause.
I believe that when people learn to tame their minds, they become the kindest, most motivated, and inspiring version of themselves; they have a greater capacity to help others; and they inspire everyone around them to be better. I truly believe that the way we can change this mad world we live in starts with us taming our minds, one Neville at a time.
So when my mind asks me “who are you to be doing this?” I just let it bitch, because if Cliff had asked himself who was he to be giving out life suggestions, and many of the legends who have given me advice since then, I would still be stuck in a deep rut that my mind was busy digging many years ago.
Haters gonna hate, no matter what we do in life.
So we may as well do something we can really get behind and believe in.
I am really passionate about showing anyone that resonates with my blog posts that there are more versions of our life than we realise, and it’s up to us (and our ability to train our mind) as to which version we end up with.
