Written by: Rosalyn Palmer, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Phil Connors is my hero. He is the central character in the movie Groundhog Day, played by Bill Murray. Without explanation, Phil gets trapped in a time warp of waking up repeatedly on the same day (Groundhog Day, February 2) in a small town that he at first despises on an assignment he is contemptuous of (covering the TV reporting of Groundhog Day).
Phil is an ambitious TV Weatherman and likes the bright lights and big city. Trapped in this loop, he cannot change his external world or circumstances. The movie follows his reaction to this strange imprisonment as he moves from grief and despair at his predicament to exploitative abandonment as he realizes that there will be no repercussions for his actions, however terrible.
It is only when he goes beyond reacting to, and instead embraces, his ‘new normal’ that he grows as a human. Phil realizes that only by changing from within can he change what is around him and in so doing he starts to look out for others and see the good in them. He grows and develops too and sees the same environment with new eyes. Over time, Phil turns the worst day of his life into the best Finally. As a better version of himself, he breaks the loop and wakes up in a future that is far brighter and more filled with love and joy than his past ever was.
I’m a coach and therapist. I’ve had over 30 years of being around NLP and hypnotherapy and personal development and I know from my own experiences and training that beyond reacting to what happens to you and embracing change you must also love and look after yourself first. Like the oxygen mask analogy where you have to make sure you are breathing before you can help others, this has never been more important than now. The mantra “I am enough” is well known and this simple statement can overcome much self-doubt as the world around is changing. Yet it takes commitment and repetition to make it familiar, because, via our primitive survival brain hardwiring, we cling onto what is known and familiar even when this is brutal, such as beating yourself up in your head.
The last year and a half have put many of us into a seemingly unending tailspin as the old, familiar patterns of our lives and what we believed the world around us comprised, have been stripped away.
Deprived of our ‘regular’ world and busy routines this can leave us, like Phil Connors, running a gamut of negative emotions as we face the crisis head-on. However here is an interesting fact: the Chinese word for crisis consists of two characters: wei, which translates “danger,” and ji, which translates as “turning or changing point” or “opportunity.” So, embracing this and any time of change and ‘crisis’ as a weiji moment instead can be a great opportunity to break out of the cycle.
What better opportunity in fact, than to connect with ourselves just as Phil Connors did?
We are connected beings and are hardwired for this. Our primary and most fundamental human needs are for connection and protection. A human baby, separated from or abandoned by its mother will survive a matter of hours. Our very DNA knows this so we seek connection often at any cost.
That is why many of us feel so isolated when we retire. It is why my Great Uncle Bill went to play dominos at the Miners Welfare every week. To be connected and accepted by those he felt familiar with. He hated having to work down in a hot dangerous coal mine but he loved the camaraderie with his colleagues.
There are times, perhaps now, when this external connection is impossible. However, the reality is, that no matter what you do on the outside, you have to feel connected in the place where it matters most: inside.
The great relationship expert Ester Perel says that what we all crave most in a relationship is intimacy. And this spells out (phonetically) Into Me See. We crave interconnectedness and this has to start with seeing into yourself. Now is the time to practice being grounded and free from too many external distractions as you grow and heal from the inside out, instead of the other way around. Having done this (repeatedly) I admit it is not easy. Jung for one recognized that the fear of the ‘unseen’ is, in reality, a projection of the fear of our own unconscious, those hidden parts in us that we cannot quite understand with our conscious and habitual minds. Those wounded, broken parts of our inner child that we usually keep ourselves busy or numbed away from in order to escape uncomfortable feelings. Now is the time to do that inner work and free yourself from old unwanted patterns of thought and behaviour and break your own Groundhog Day.
Take time to be compassionate towards others and start with yourself. Look into the heart of yourself. Hold your hands over your heart and speak a compassion meditation to yourself repeating the phrases “May my heart remain open and protected. May I be at peace. May I know that I am more than enough. May I be happy. May I feel love. May I be well’.
Connect to others also from a place of love. I’ve found myself signing off from emails and my newsletters with Love Ros rather than Regards Rosalyn. It just feels right. I start conversations by asking “How are you feeling today?” or “How is the family doing?” and hold space like never before to listen to others in an authentic way.
To mention Groundhog Day again, don’t you want to grow from this and take the positive things you’ve learnt (or are learning) forward? I do. Albert Eisenstein said, “To interrupt a habit is to make it visible; it is to turn it from a compulsion to a choice.” By planning now, you can use the time away from any old repetitive life to create a new and better one.
Yesterday is a dream, tomorrow but a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore to this day. Sanskrit Proverb.
You have this. You can make this time into a personal time of victory for you and that is whatever is right for you.
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Rosalyn Palmer, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Rosalyn Palmer is an award-winning transformational coach and therapist, combining advanced rapid transformational therapy/clinical hypnotherapy & NLP-based coaching to create deep desired changes. She works 1-2-1 with clients and via her group courses.
As bestselling author of the award-winning self-help book: ‘Reset! A Blueprint for a Better Life’ and three other Amazon bestsellers, Rosalyn makes emotional wellbeing accessible to all. She enables high performers to live their best lives that feel as good inside as they look on the super-successful outside.
Rosalyn draws on extensive business experiences - in top London PR & Marcomms (‘retiring’ as a self-made millionaire at age 40 after a stellar career helping clients including Tony Robbins and Edward de Bono) and the insight of being conflicted when the outward vision of your life doesn’t serve you. Added to this are her deeper values and life-experiences born from many challenges including cancer; redundancy; bereavement; menopause; divorce; financial loss that broke her open to finding out what really matters in life and how to live a life of balance and joy.
As a natural communicator, she is the well-being expert for radio show Girls Around Town, has a monthly newspaper column, and two podcast series: Monkey Business and Life Alchemy.
