Ted Lasso Episode 9 Season 4 - Life Be Lifing

<p> Hey there, it's Michael. Welcome to Whole Again, the show that's here in support of the person you're becoming and a meaningful life. And have you ever noticed how life be lifing? We like to think our lives can be controlled, that we can put them in tiny boxes, all compartmentalized. Almost like tidy chapters or seasons, like a season of struggle, and then a season of joy, and then a season of grief, and then a season of happiness.</p>
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<p>It just seems so perfect, like a Marie Kondo makeover, where everything has its own little box. But unfortunately, that's not how life works. Life works just in time. It just brings it whenever it wishes to bring it. So you could be having a high peak moment in your life one day, like I was only a few days before my accident, and then Hulk Hogan comes in and body slams your ass, and now you feel the struggle.</p>
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<p>You feel the pain. Life doesn't wait. It just sends what it wants to send. Now, luckily, as humans, we can hold competing, or what looks like competing emotions, together all at the same time. Life is messy. It will always be messy Wanting it to be any different, in a way, is arguing with reality. And that brings us to episode number nine of season four of "Ted Lasso."</p>
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<p>If you've been following along, you know I've been recapping season four and trying to mind each episode for tips or lessons on mindfulness and resilience that we can weave into our lives. So watching the episode is not simply transactional. We can use the Ted Lasso wisdom to better our lives, to step into who we wish to become, to step into that meaningful life.</p>
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<p>And if you haven't seen episode nine, as I've done through the whole series, I promise you no spoilers, which makes recording this episode for you really tough for me because a lot of shit went down, a lot happened. We had moments of pure joy and exuberance, and we had moments of grief. We had periods of worry and anxiety, but also moments of excitement.</p>
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<p>The episode is an example of life. It gave us all of it. There will be moments in the episode where you will laugh your head off, there'll be moments where you will feel motivated and inspired, and there'll be moments where you'll be, "What did he just say?" And there will also be moments where you will cry, or at least I did.</p>
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<p>You'll feel all the feels, as the kids say. I like to think that this episode is a grown-up episode. It doesn't simply allow you to settle into that good, comfy, country Ted Lasso vibe. It deliberately stacks moments of pure joy where you feel mudita, appreciative joy, alongside moments of profound heartbreak.</p>
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<p>This episode is a reminder that the greatest news in your life can happen on the exact same day that you receive the hardest phone call of your life. That is life. That's what this episode represents. Which brings me to my last bad day, or at least the label of it I discovered early on in my recovery that all the moments in your life are neutral until you label them.</p>
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<p>I also acknowledge that in a course of a day, I live thousands of different moments. Some are, meh, unremarkable. Some are joyous and happy. Some are awe-inspiring. Some are challenging. Some you would say are bad. On any given day, I could have a wide variety of different emotions. I can feel them all. And when I get to the end of the night, and I think back on the day, if I still have love in my life, if I have people who love me and they love me back, then I can't call the full day a bad one.</p>
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<p>That's why I labeled my accident my last bad day. I was like, "It's time for a new mindset." Saying something's bad or even saying something's good is too binary. Life is complex. As I mentioned earlier, it's messy. Life gives all of us all of it Mindfulness teaches us to create some space so we can be with whatever shows up.</p>
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<p>We can be present, we can be thoughtful, we can be responsive and not reactive. We can have the strength to hold competing emotions at the same time, so we don't allow grief to overwhelm gratitude. And this doesn't mean that we won't hurt still. There'll still be pain, and the reason why there's pain is that usually when we lose something, when something, quote-unquote, "bad" happens and we're grieving perhaps, right alongside that grief, there's love, and that's why things hurt the way they do.</p>
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<p>But what I've learned along the way is that a hard day isn't defined by the pure absence of light. Because even in our cracks, the light can get through. There are moments, even in our most challenging days, where something good is still happening, and those good moments are still real, they're still valid, and they're still yours to keep.</p>
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<p>Again, we can hold both all the different emotions all at the same time, and this ability is called emotional complexity. It's what happens when we have emotional maturity, that we can realize the hurt, the grieving when one chapter is closing, but at the same time, we can be excited about the new chapter, like how we might feel when we switch jobs.</p>
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<p>Or we can be really anxious about what's gonna happen next because life is so complex and it feels so uncertain today. But at the same time, we can still feel grateful for where we are now. Here's the thing: when you stop demanding that your life needs to be all that and a bag of chips before you're allowed to be happy, something inside of you shifts.</p>
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<p>I know this from experience. You begin to realize that you don't need a perfectly sunny day to still appreciate sunshine And you don't need a cloudless night to appreciate the stars. They're all still there. So this week, I don't plan to provide any color commentary on what's happening with the characters or the plot lines, except I will say that we take a break from Alice's Kintsugi hero's journey progression.</p>
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<p>I'm sure we'll get back to it next week. Instead, I'll just invite you to watch the episode through this lens, that life be lifing, that we're strong enough and you're strong enough to hold different emotions that often feel like they're competing emotions all at the same time. You are strong enough to carry both.</p>
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<p>You can be heartbroken and hopeful all at the same time. You can be grieving and growing as well. Because this is what life looks like when we're fully living. It's really how we live a meaningful life. We hold all the different feelings, sometimes all at the same time, and we still find a way to keep pedaling because you're strong enough to do so.</p>
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<p>And as always, thanks for listening. Thank you for being here. And until our next episode, remember to celebrate your scars as golden symbols of your strength and resilience. And don't forget to have fun. Storming the Castle.</p>
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<p>And if you wish to learn more about creating beautiful ripples and how to prevent a bad moment from turning into a bad day, please visit my website, michaelobrienshift.com, and sign up for my newsletter called The Ripple Effect. And join us each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday here at Whole Again, and discover how you can heal, grow, and become more resilient, and celebrate our scars as golden symbols of strength and resilience.</p>
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<p>Until then, remember, you can always come back to your breath. You've got this, and we've got you</p>