Emotions flavour every part of our experience. Emotions are our psychological engine room driving the meaning and connection into the experience of any moment in time.  If emotions are the engine room and our expectations are the fuel source. If our expectation of any event or moment in time is far exceeded by our experience, we feel emotions ranging from joy to full blown ecstasy. If our expectations fall well short of our experience, we feel anything from disappointment to full blown depressive moods. If our expectations are met, we will feel anything from indifferent to sweetly satisfied. It is incredible how something so simple is so powerful.

Expectations exist on both macro and micro levels. On a macro level we have a broad expectation of how our life might look like by the time we are 30, 40 or 50 and so on. Whether we are aware of it or not, how we are feeling about ourselves, and life overall can be hugely influenced by comparing expectations with the reality of our experienc...

A meaningful routine is not to be confused with the mundane or ordinary. A meaningful routine is an experience you have on a consistent basis through specific times of the week.

In other words, by engaging in a hobby which sings to your soul, which helps you establish a meaningful routine which gives you something to look forward to many times per week. This in turn, provides us a base layer of certainty, which is needed especially in times of uncertainty. 

One of the key avenues to becoming emotionally fit is establishing a balance between certainty and uncertainty. When this dynamic is out of balance, we either feel overwhelmed and stressed or bored and disengaged. When balanced we are better positioned to handle the unknown with more vigour, direction and clarity.

Recently I had a running injury which took me away from my meaningful routine and for many days I was all at sea. Scattered, and easily distracted because I lacked that familiar structure running provided. My wife then ...

Behind the scenes of letting go, is what we decide to focus on and what we make it mean. Are we focused on problems or solutions? On what we have or what we are missing? The past or the future? 

Here is another question I have personally found to be very useful as well. How is this a problem for me right now in this moment? We can only view the past or the future from right now, in this moment. Nobody has ever been to the past or the future. Sure, we can think about it but we can’t go there because all we have is this moment in time, right now. 

All moments are just moments in time and will pass. This is because the now is not everlasting, it is ever-present. This is a crucial distinction. The ever-present is continually changing. Nothing stays still, the good, the bad and even the ordinary. 

Let’s enjoy the adventures of the ever-present moment and what these precious moments keep transforming or experiencing.

Thanks so much for reading, cheers Joe Pane. 

Emotional fitness is learning how to continue to transform your relationship with uncertainty. The quality of our relationship with uncertainty matters immensely as it is a precursor to all growth.  Growth is the perpetual need of the human condition.  It is the very fabric of life; without it we cannot progress in who we are becoming and who we need to be to handle life’s inevitable challenges and problems.

There are 5 key components of emotional fitness, of which all contribute to this all-important relationship to uncertainty. 

1. Identity – our self-concept. By having clarity of who we are we can connect with the certainty needed to tackle difficult problems. This certainty is about backing oneself.
2. Life Stages – our journey from ambition to meaning. This is the journey from ego centricity to heart centricity. Focusing on what we can give rather than what we are getting, enables us to create a functional and purposeful meaning when navigating anything difficult.
3. Values – our emo...

As 2025 fast approaches, we once again face a new chapter in all our lives. We have become the accumulation of all choices, decisions, and actions we have and have not taken. Naturally this will continue into 2025 and beyond.

When we don’t make that choice or decision, we cannot see what lies beyond it. Often when faced with significant decisions which will impact our lives and life direction, we can become guilty staying still. Our ego’s addiction to certainty comes to the fore and can complicate choice points. 

The ego’s favourite tool is fear. It loves engaging in the ‘what if’ talk, dealing in inuendo and hypotheticals, of which the majority will never come to fruition. When the ego is driving the bus, it prefers to stick to well known routes. When our spirit or soul drives the bus, we embrace the adventure of the unknown. We go down roads which have never existed.

Carl Jung identified that we can live in one of two worlds. Those two worlds are the conventional world or the spec...

The ultimate purpose of embracing uncertainty is that it eventually leads to all of us becoming an authority on ourselves. This means by doing hard things we begin to awaken aspects off ourselves which we never knew existed. 

These new parts, which have always been available to us, will prove to be very useful for any future challenge we need to navigate. For example, when I worked in real estate in the late 90s and early 2000s, I did a lot of cold calling and door knocking on the streets. We also had a mentor in the office who loved teachers like Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar and Brian Tracy. 

Embracing the fear and discomfort of going out cold calling looking for new business, and listening to people like Jim, Zig and Brian, unbeknown to me was preparing me to have my own business one day. It was such a great preparation for what was to come. 

Becoming an authority on ourselves also means we create a deeply personal sense of wisdom. Emotionally fit people have a quiet sense of wisdom. What...

Have you ever been instantly triggered by someone for no logical reason? Have you ever found yourself overreacting to a seemingly innocuous comment? What about anger? Have you ever become overly angry about something that is a mere inconvenience?

These emotionally riddled triggers can be shocking, surprising and even downright confusing. They can take us and the people around us by complete surprise. Human behaviour is complex. It has been said that every where we go, there we are. Carl Jung once said that all perception is projection. In other words, every where we go, we can only experience aspects of ourselves. More accurately said, every where we go we can only experience aspects of our unconscious mind projecting itself onto the screen of life.  These projections can vary from inspirational experiences through to experiences we detest. 

The negatively charged experiences can become very difficult to accept when we experience in others triggers or qualities which we detest or ref...

It has been years since I have set ‘goals.’ The thought of setting another income goal, or health goal, or business goal I find draining, repetitive and boring. Goals are often confused with targets. Nothing wrong with targets if they help you focus, so go for it if it works for you.

What if instead we did this ONE new thing? This ONE new thing beautifully fulfils one our most important needs: our need for growth. This is our perpetual need. Without growth we die. Nothing stays still for very long. Everything in the universe without exception is expanding or shrinking, breathing out or breathing in, green and growing or ripe and rotting.

The precursor to growth is uncertainty. Uncertainty is presented to us in various forms. It can be experienced in an array of flavours and colours.

It can be experienced by embracing (instead of resisting) challenges presented to us. It can be invited into our lives as a form of adventure, or for some of us in the form of variety and  the wide choices and...

Most people on the planet can, with great clarity tell you what they don’t want. However, if we asked the same people what they do want, in most cases we would be met with blank stares, a vague response or most certainly would lack the same level of crystalline clarity.

Mostly, this is because what we don’t want, we have already had, and we either hated it, or we are bored of it, or a blend of both. Lots of people also remain stuck in what they don’t want. This is because of a secret addiction, an addiction to certainty.
This addiction comes in many disguises. “Better the devil you know…..” is the most common disguise. Most people would rather stay in that ordinary, relationship or job, which lacks love or any kind of joy because it its known. For most the unknown, is scarier than the known.

Ironically, the opposite is true. Given that growth is a perpetual need of the human condition, all growth is in the unknown. Staying in the known us scarier because the inevitable destination is...

In life, we only have one thing that we can hold onto in order to experience anything. That one thing is our perception. No human alive has direct access to reality itself (unless you are a mystic…in that case you wouldn’t be reading this!). We only have access to our perception of reality. Our perception is our interpretation of what we are seeing, hearing and feeling.

If this is so, how do we let go of the reign of perception? If we could, what would we have left? Do we want to let go of its reign? Why would we wan to let go of the reign of perception?  This all depends on how important it is for you to be or become emotionally fit. This also depends on how much you value peace and stillness. Being emotionally fit, means we can effectively navigate life’s guaranteed uncertainties. It doesn’t reduce how uncomfortable uncertainty can be, but it improves our capacity to see clearer and make wiser decisions.

The 3 layers of perception are:

1.Imagined truth.

This is the most superfici...