Hot Tub Follow Up - Metaphor Tested!

Last week I spoke about the lessons I learned from a hot tub floater. This week, that metaphor was put to the test!

Come along for a little journey as I share how rough my week started, the tools I used to navigate the storm and the beautiful and unexpected byproducts this experience had to offer.

I feel this might be the best thing I've recorded to date.

I hope it lands with you, resonates and gives you a few takeaways from my experience.

Enjoy!

@ikescoaching

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Alright, welcome back to another episode of bogeys and breakthroughs. And you want to talk about fucking bogies and then breakthroughs. That was my week. Uh I'm recording this on a Friday, and from where I sit now compared to where I was Monday morning, holy smokes. It feels like I went on a year-long retreat or something like that. It's been quite the journey. So I got a bunch of notes here, and I think I'm gonna try and I'm gonna free-flow this as much as possible, but also stick to the notes because I have so much to say on this topic today. A reflection from my last podcast on lessons from the hot tub floater. The one challenge I feel like I have when it comes to doing, you know, call it a solo podcast is staying in flow, not having a lot of gaps. But I want to take my time with this and try and be as coherent as possible, walk you through what I went through, how I processed it, how I handled it, what came out on the other side for me, lessons learned, and yeah, byproducts from the whole situation. So it's so funny how life presents itself. Like I have this metaphor show up for me well, months and months ago when it comes to the hot tub floater, and then I record the podcast, and it's like the universe goes, Hey, alright, we're gonna put this to the test. So without further ado, here's how shit went down. So I feel like I've been vibing pretty high, like things have been good. Um making progress. Uh yeah, life life is feeling grounded. I'm on a positive trajectory, you know, easily handling the ebbs and flows. But I woke up Monday morning sad. I just I felt sad as the day went on. I dare describe it as a mild depression. Uh, it wasn't super dark, but it was just this thick friction, this thick fog that was just there. And it's like one of those things going for a run, the journaling, the meditation, the whatever, it's just the mind was too noisy to settle down to take any of that self-care in, or using those as a tool, no matter what the tool could have been, to get out of it faster. So I had to surrender to what was. But yeah, I mean, just to remind myself here of some more feelings that I felt on that Monday, you know, what was really loud in my head was it's a Monday morning and I am not on a job site. I, you know, it feels like a Saturday for me. And although I have work coming up and I'm doing stuff behind the scenes for the golf club and coaching and content and you know, trying to enjoy the summer as well. I just had my ego was freaking out. I just I guess it didn't feel safe or fucking something, but I was just like, I should have been anywhere else but in my backyard. And I went through this phase of like, I don't deserve this. Like, I who who am I, sort of thing to think I'm I could be call it retired on a Monday? Like I'm I'm outside doing things I want to get done, and so is the you know 65, seven-year-old retired neighbor across the street. I'm like, we're doing the same thing, but I should be at work, and so point being is like for me and many of us, the conditioning runs so deep that we need to work Monday to Friday, have weekends off, you know, have a couple vacations a year, and that's it. Yet I have worked really, really, really hard over the last 20 years to get to a point, and especially in the last five to you know, 10 years, say, like focusing on building a life I want to live, like creating my own reality. And now that I've gotten here where I have created this flexibility as being an entrepreneur and a business owner, and I'm able to, you know, do what I'd like to do when I want to do it, and be able to attend all of our girls' activities, sporting events, uh, school activities, etc., there's just so much flexibility. Yes, being an entrepreneur, there's a lot of hardships and pain that comes with it, but there are some tremendous payoffs. And you know, like my friend Ari says, there are no solutions and only trade-offs. And so, with entrepreneurship, that is couldn't be more true. So, with all that being said, that was kind of hopefully you can you can feel that or understand it, but like that was the energy I was in, was just like, holy fuck, like yeah, it was a deservingness, and again, my ego not feeling safe, and maybe it's my nervous system and not feeling regulated, it's all those different things, right? So um, the eerie thing for me was it just felt like it came out of nowhere. So, as much as it might have been my ego, I saw a couple things online and actually spoke to a couple people about this once I was feeling you know grounded enough to share it. And they had a similar experience. So I think there was something in the ether, it was existential, there was something outside of myself, and so it was a reminder, you know, and I'll speak to this later, but a reminder to bring more compassion into these moments because sometimes it is outside of our control. Like it could be uh a hormonal thing, it could be an environmental thing, it could be an energetic thing, a spiritual thing, something that you know is attacking us, for lack of a better phrase, that we have no control over. So it's kind of like you know, put the seatbelt on, fucking grab the holy shit handles, and just hold on for dear life as you navigate the uh the ebbs and flows of what we might be going through. At least that's how I was handling it. So speaking of handle it, that's my next note here. The when I when I have these days, the one the one challenge I have is I get really quiet. And it's fine because I go inward and I don't lash out at anybody, I don't get angry, I just I kind of like separate myself from the family, and I just go inward and really get quiet and really try and process what's here for me, and try and trust that this is serving a purpose. The the one pain point I have around this getting quiet is it puts a little bit of stress on Terry because if you're new to the podcast, that's my wife. Um she doesn't know how to handle me other than giving me space, and that's the best way. But like if she was to come up and and give me a hug or this and that, something along those lines of affection or you know, support, love that way. I just don't think I'm open to receiving it. I just haven't got wise enough yet where I could just go, hey, just I just need a hug. Um it's it's it I just don't feel like that's a self-care remedy pill, quick solution that's gonna work. I really have had success in the past just getting quiet, and it's I I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. All I know is that when I do go inward, I know I'm gonna come out the other side with greater clarity, and that'll be you know something I share about later as we continue on here. But that's you know, I had a lot of shame and guilt show up on Monday around even that situation because it's like I I know better than this, I'm wiser than this, I can be a better human than this. I've been in this rodeo too many times to know that I should be able to snap myself out of it. But again, it's like this fucking fog is so thick, there's no getting out of it, and it's it's it's I'm telling you, it's no different than that metaphor of the hot tub floater getting stuck on that step. That bitch is not moving until the right environment presents itself, until it's maybe learned its lesson or it stopped and smelled the roses and got what it needed from that stuckness, and then all of a sudden the right wave, the right alignment, the right energy comes along to knock it off the step and it just continues floating, and then it's back in alignment and it's back in flow and it's back living life again. So the wild thing for me is you know, this this idea of being stuck, it works on the macro level, but also micro. So this week for me is a is a micro example, and then you know, for the last year, two, six months, whatever the duration of time is, that's more of a macro example. You know, times when we are we're stuck for a longer period of time, yeah, things might be okay and it's mediocre and we're getting by, but there's just this this staleness that's there. Like I would describe that as the macro, and then again, when we have these, when I have these little uh one day, two-day flare-ups, um that's what I would consider a micro-level stuckness. So working through all that, I I'm recognizing that it's a part of my ego, it's an old, it's an identity, it's an old story that's dying. And I think that's why it feels so painful, is because it a piece of us is dying. So on that Monday, all those things I described that I was feeling, and the reasons I was feeling them, that that part of me is dying. Like I feel on this Friday, right now, sitting on my deck recording this podcast, I feel born again. I I feel renewed. And if I I don't have this vigor and this uh desire to share this with the podcast and the recording, and just this renowned refreshed energy, if it isn't for the contrast of Monday and that and that dying energy. So yeah, man, woman, it was a trip. And so the other way I handled that was I had a to-do list on Monday and I wanted to accomplish as many things on it as possible. So while I'm processing, I and I've gotten pretty good knowing like when I need to have a nap or when I need to yeah, go for the walk or jerk, whatever the modality might be or the tool required, like I think I've got pretty attuned to knowing what it is, and for whatever reason, I just knew Monday it's like, no, I had these plans on the weekend that this is what I wanted to accomplish this week, and so I'm just gonna put my head down and get it done. And you know, with that, when I had and made my to-do list in my notes and I started checking off, you know, each item. It also, you know, I got the hit of dopamine, I found compassion, I found resiliency, or reminded myself of that, you know, call it a memory bank, tap memory bank, tapping into the reminder that I'm gonna get through this and it's gonna be okay. And again, I think from a you know, call it a drug perspective, that that dopamine good feeling chemical started to reduce the cortisol and the stress and um everything else, right? And so that was I think that was a huge catalyst for my success of getting through that Monday was was that to-do list. And so that was my experience. And you know what came of this into Tuesday was gaining more experience and more patience with myself, and it was funny because I had a chiropractor appointment on the Monday. Yeah, I went to that, and still working through my things. I think I had a lot of energy be released in that session and what as well, and I think that sort of helped things. And the other thing that helped too was sorry, where I was going with that was I felt sorry, I felt really fatigued after that chiropractor appointment on Monday. So then into Tuesday, I think just going through this war, going through this dying experience, my body was exhausted. And so on Tuesday morning, I went to uh my workout class, which was excellent, and I felt energized, and there was a couple things I wanted to do that I've been putting off. So I got those errands done, and during those errands, I had some amazing synchronicities, and there's no point in sharing them because they wouldn't, you know, matter to you, but they related really strongly to me. And it was a wink from God going like, Hey, all right, you you got through the fire. We we we forged yourself through that fire, and here's a couple nudges to go, you're on the right path, you know. Um, so that was that was really beautiful. Um and then I came home and I just felt exhausted. I I just it's like I was depleted, and so I took a nap. I came home and I'm like, nope, the house is empty. Terry uh took the girls to their camps and Ella's work, and uh she had some stuff to do herself, and so I I knew I had some time where the house was gonna be for sure quiet, and I passed the fuck out. Um, and the beautiful thing about my naps is when I'm ready for one, it feels like I am on drugs. Like I've I've never done any hard drugs. Um I could go down the list, but no, I've drinking and smoking weed is about the only thing I've ever done. Um but I get into this state where it almost feels like a coma. I don't know what if coma feels like, but I can only imagine. It's just like this this warmth that comes over my body, this numbness, this it's just like this this numbing blanket that's just oozing all over me. And you just melt into the while, I was laying on the couch, so you just melt into the couch, and it's like you don't want to wake up, it's so good, like it just feels so good. And for my naps, they usually last 45 minutes to an hour. I don't set an alarm, I just feel like I know my body's gonna get up when it's ready, and it's always around that time. And and sometimes when I go out into this state, um, it takes me a little bit to get into that numb flow, if you will. And then when the time is right, I just kind of come to it. I'm like, okay, that's enough. I've had enough, and it's like my intuition saying, okay, it's time to move on. And I get up. And so again, what came out of this Monday and half Tuesday was you know, these beautiful synchronicities, these reminders from the universe. And then when I woke up, I had these beautiful messages from Ari, who had listened to my Hot Tub Floater podcast. So I was like, How divine is that? Isn't that fucking amazing? And so, what I'd like to do right now is play those messages. I got her permission, but I'd like to share them because if you listen to the Hot Tub Floater podcast, and if you haven't, I encourage you to do so. But this is was Ari's takeaway and her reflections to me, and so I'd love to share them, and then we'll pick this back up when she's finished sharing.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

I think the main thing that I'm hearing from your podcast is like the power of sl of slowing down and pausing, and that that's actually by design and and meant to be in life. And what is it to not need to force and push through and you know, ignore our feelings? But actually I I actually think it's really intuitive that your your business actually goes with the seasons and that you built into your business, you get a a pause, a reset to then enter in in September again and find new vigor and excitement and passion. Maybe not September, but um yeah, just like how much we miss when we don't slow down, how much we don't feel when we don't slow down, you know? I think like what I heard you say is this slowing down period has allowed you to recognize maybe um things that feel good and aligned, and like what actually alignment feels like, and also what doesn't, like what needs to be shed and released and let go, and what's still gripping you, and I think there's always more room to slow down. I really do. I think our world is so fast, like even how we live, and I bet you we are slower than most. Um I still think like at least I'll speak for myself, I still think my life is it it doesn't leave as much room as I think it could for really good deep contemplation. And you know, sometimes I just I I dream or I fantasize about like what it would be like to like live in a small little community and have very little in a schedule, if nothing at all, and spend two hours a day just like in contemplation and meditation and yeah. Uh when I reflect on my time in Bali, for example, it's like the days were so simple. I would wake up, I would do my movement, I would have 90 minutes to do a yoga practice, then I would meditate for 45 minutes, then I would journal and reflect and contemplate, and then I would eat lunch. And I feel like, you know, even in that lunch hour, it's like I could taste taste my food more and enjoy it more and enjoy who I was sitting with and connecting with, and then after lunch, it would be a nidra and then a yin practice, and then some some sort of learning, and then the day would be done. And I did that for three weeks, and it's like it didn't get boring. I actually got so much, like so much creativity and so much vigor. And it it comes back to this thing where it's like if we never allow ourselves to get bored, I I do think through boredom we find creativity, um, which I just think is so phenomenal. So that's what I uh my mind, that's where my mind goes when I listen to your podcast and your reflections. And just like, I think you're so beautiful with metaphors, Jeff. And like seeing, you know, something like in your hot tub. I don't know what the thing is called, but the thing, the thing, and like what that is a metaphor for. It's like there's metaphors all around us. Like life is literally always speaking to us. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

So what I love about those messages, it was just a beautiful reminder of what slowing down can do for us, what slowing down really means, and how much more we can slow down. And you know, I I think I've mentioned this, but like in my golf and growth program, I have this chapter and they're called Slowing Down to Speed Up. And I think it's so true. I I can I can see at the start of this week, even though I I've had a busy week, it feels like this week has been a month long. Like I feel like I've been in a retreat, it has been so expansive for me. Yes, painful, but also super expansive. And I I haven't had one of these weeks in a long time, and so I'm just recognizing actually in this moment, like how grateful I am for the contrast and for the death and the rebirth. Um, and so oh man. Um, yeah, so some of the byproducts of this week and all the work I did on myself and my ability, and I think that's one of my strengths/slash superpowers, is willingness and ability to sit in my own shit. And the more I do it, the better I get at it, I guess, and the more I recognize that it is serving a purpose. And I know this week that you know, through the list of byproducts I have here, it's like I I healed part of myself and I alchemized the pain that I was feeling, and my body is feeling better because of it. I've accumulated more wisdom. Like I Know that the next time this pops up, I can even listen to my own podcast now and remind myself that hey, we're gonna get through this. And and Terry was beautiful too when I was talking about this. Once I felt uh comfortable talking to her again, uh, you know, her reminding me that hey, you you've been here before, and you know that you're gonna come out of the side out the other side with greater clarity. And I mean, that's what has achieved has been achieved, like more I feel like I've been more clear than I ever have been. Um and and because of that quietness with Terry, when we do communicate again, our relationship gets stronger. I'm able to share, she's able to share, and it strengthens our relationship, believe it or not. So by me taking some space and her giving it to me, we're able to rejoin and really support each other and love each other more and know each other on a deeper level, and so it really strengthens our relationship. And I and I and I also suggest that it it strengthens the relationship with my friends because you know it allowed me and Ari to talk about it more, and so it strengthens that relationship. And then what else showed up for me too is like I am worthy of love. I know that sounds kind of silly to say out loud, but uh there was a part of me at the start of the week that didn't feel that, I didn't feel deserving. And so knowing that I love myself, I am loved, you know. And the example would be when I finished my class on on Thursday morning, I was sitting uh in the lobby with uh with my three female friends, and somehow it came out that yeah, the start of my week was not the sexiest. And they really fucking loved on me and they really pushed me to have a reflexology session with my one friend Kaylee there, who who offers that service. And I was you know, reluctant to it, and I tried to make a couple excuses, but like these three would not stop. I'm like, okay, Jeff, just receive for fuck's sakes, just just receive this gift, and so I did. So Thursday at 11 a.m., I had my first first reflexology session, and it was fucking divine. I I would probably, if I had a vote to do that or a full body massage, I would for sure do the reflexology. It was a tremendous experience, and it made my whole body feel better. It made me appreciate my feet, and you know what? I'll I'll podcast that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna make a note here. I'm gonna do a podcast on um my takeaways from reflexology because it was such a a beautiful session, and and what I'll share there to not get too far off topic, but a realization I had is when Kaylee was you know working on my feet, the one reminderslash realization I had was one, she's an angel, two, I'm loved, and three, I'm having interaction with God. Like, of course, whether we're outside smelling the roses or we're talking to a stranger or we're making love to our spouse, or you're in a massage and someone's taking care of you, that's interaction with God. And I think that what that's describing is actual presence, like being so present in the moment, you know, so present to every conversation we have, so present to every weight we lift when we're in the gym or in a fitness class, like that is interacting with life and interacting with God. And so I just had this, you know, tremendous sense of gratitude for her and where I was on that Thursday morning, and oh yeah, it was really beautiful. So maybe I will share more to that later on, but that's a that's a core takeaway from that experience, and then man the next thing my next takeaway or the byproduct was extreme creativity, like my hand can't write fast enough, my fingers can't type fast enough, like just the amount of creativity rolling through me. And I actually played golf with my brother Thursday evening, and we had a couple tailgate beers afterwards, and it just or I don't know how it happened. We just started talking about like it's it was weird how it actually I gotta think about this more. It was just he he just randomly brought it up, but we started talking about content for my golf and grow stuff, my coaching and and using the golf course, and uh oh, just all these different amazing things, and I'm just like wow, I got so jazzed up. You know, one might suggest I got semi-hard over it, uh not fully, but just semi. But uh no, it was amazing, and yeah, it was a it was a beautiful, beautiful way to end the round of golf. I played really well. Um, Wednesday I'd shot 88. Last night I shot 80, and I should have been better. Um, so I've I've fallen back in love with the game. This this extreme creativity I'm talking about is is bringing me life. It's stimulating me, it's generating more confidence and certainty. Um so I'm really I'm really excited about uh the things Kurt and I had talked about, and even the things I've been dreaming into and the things I've been thinking about and bringing them to fruition uh and bringing them to life. So I'm I'm really jacked about that. Um so that's cool. And then the other thing was I really started to think about from the creative standpoint, you know, with our oldest playing uh uh competitive volleyball, and this is our last year, as this will be 18U this season. I really started to think about how I can convert my golf and growth program to volleyball. And so I've actually reached out to her coach, and we're gonna have a meeting about me supporting the team from a mental performance standpoint because uh, again, through my mind factor work, what I'm learning on the golf course without even practicing, with just strengthening my mind and focusing on process and being in the present moment, and acceptance and gratitude, and all these things that are making me a better player without actually really changing my golf swing, I know it can apply to anything and everything, and so I'm a little jacked up to think that I could uh support Ella and her volleyball team. So we got a long way to go, but I put it out there into the ether, and we're gonna see if it goes anywhere. So I'm stoked about that. So um, to wrap this up, what I will share is I sent a note to uh a friend of mine. Her name's uh Elisa Kurt Karilowitz, she has her own podcast. She's uh she's an outspoken individual, she lives in her truth, her authenticity. She's an amazing woman, uh, she's a powerhouse, uh, an accomplished athlete, um, an accomplished entrepreneur, uh, a great coach. And so, anyway, I was sending her a message and it was about some other things we're we're doing together. Um, but then I had sent this one separate note about like how fucked up my Monday was. And right now she's she's pregnant and she's due, I believe it's in September. So she's going through all the feels and and uh her body changing and and all those different things. And something that really stuck with me that actually applies to the things that I'm learning through the Mind Factor certification program. And she said to me, Jeff, we're human, we all have these days. And she goes, What's been working for me is I allow myself at the start of the month, I allow myself to have you know three to four bad days. And so when they pop up, I just accept that it's here because a majority of my month is, and I'm paraphrasing all this, but you know, she's saying a a majority of my month is excellent, but those couple days are gonna pop up that just fuck your rate up. And so I just it was like a lightning bolt went off because again, the things I'm learning through the mind factor and through golf and my journey with golf, it applies the parallels to life are insane. And one of the things that my mentor here, Carl Morris, is coaching is when you before your round of golf, and I learned this uh through his podcast, but also when I did his one on one or pardon me, his one day um seminar last year, there was about 12 of us in the program, and he went around the table and he asked everybody how many bad shots they think they hit in a round of golf, and everybody had their answers, and it ranged from you know five to fifteen. And so his whole point was in this exercise was it is important when you start your round of golf to allow yourself to make those five mistakes, those five poor shots or poor swings, or maybe it's 10 poor shots or poor swings. Because what we're doing is we're allowing ourselves to accept an outcome that hasn't happened yet, and it reduces the pressure on being perfect and reduces the pressure on needing to be um consistent because consistency is a bit of a lie as well, because consistency, you know, when it comes to golf, is like making a repeatable golf swing so you never make a mistake. Well, that's not possible, that's perfection, it doesn't happen, and the idea of going through life perfect is not gonna happen. And so I think you can see almost visually these examples I'm sharing, and when Elisa said that, I was just like, Yes, I need to do that at the start of every month and just write it down because if you have the bad day, you're like, okay, it's gonna happen. And and then what happens is you almost start, you could start tracking that. Okay, so if I'm playing golf and I and I track my poor shots, next thing you know is okay, it went from 10 to 8, and then eight to eight to five. And then I progressively get better because through that I'm gonna be recognizing patterns, I'm gonna be recognizing what's causing the poor shot, and then same thing with life. It's like, okay, if I'm giving myself five bad days, I'm gonna have 25 good days, but five of them, I'm accepting they're gonna be poor. Well, if I start to document that journey, I'm gonna find some evidence through that experience, and I can utilize that to my benefit and go, okay, well, I'm over the last three months I'm recognizing that all right, by the 10th day of the month, I have this. Well, what happens? You know, whether I was why was I unregulated? Was I not sleeping well enough? You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The list goes on, right? So that's that was I think a major takeaway as well for me for the end of this week was allowing myself to have some bad days and not be perfect because it's not gonna happen. Life is not gonna happen that way. So, anyway, that's uh that was my week in a nutshell, as they say. Um, I'm excited for next week. I'm excited for this weekend. Our friends uh Dan and Ariana, who you just listened to, uh, they're putting on their Everlove Festival. It's a three-day weekend retreat, all things wellness and healing, and expansion and growth and human elevation. Like it's it's gonna be great. And this is their second time around, and I'm really excited to see uh the changes they've made. I know Ari's really excited. Um, so yeah, I'm stoked to go and support them and experience humanity on the uh the most beautiful level. And who knows, maybe I'll check in and do a uh do some talking about what I experienced through the different workshops I did there. So anyway, thanks for being here. I hope that uh does something for you. I know it did something for me. This week was a fucking roller coaster, man. Like, actually, you know what? It wasn't actually a roller coaster of the ups and downs, it was more so starting down. Actually, probably more like a rocket ship. Well, the rocket ship has to still come down, so uh whatever that well uh I don't wanna I don't wanna put a label on this metaphor. The point is, it wasn't up and up and down as much as I might think. It was a steady climb. It was a steady climb from level to level, and I think that's amazing. I think that's the trajectory we want to be on. We want to reduce the amount of dips and the depths of the dips, and we want to just steadily climb, just steadily climb through this life. Alright. Like always, if you feel like anybody could uh benefit from this listener to the podcast, please share it with them. I'd I'd love to uh have some more engagement. Um it was awesome. I posted for the first time in whatever that was since April, and uh I had like 20 downloads or something after I posted last Thursday. So that's awesome. So thanks for being here, and uh again, don't ever hesitate to reach out if you got something to share, comment, question, I don't know, yell at me. Feel free to give me shit. I don't know. But uh there's no such thing as bad publicity, so give it to me. Anyway, thanks for being here. Have a great weekend, have a great week, and uh we'll talk to you soon. Much love.