What's The Big Idea: John O'Connor - The Art of Being With What Is...and Using It For Good
“With trauma, we carry an unseen wound.”
Today’s guest: John O’Connor
His big idea: How release your idea of what should be happening, become extremely present and use what is.
John O’Connor is a father, husband, Executive and Performance Coach living in New York. Professionally, John has worked with thousands of clients over the past decade, working with top-performing CEO’s, entrepreneurs and people on a mission to create change in the world. He is a Certified Master Coach and Certified NLP and Brain Based Leadership Trainer. He leverages his unique multi-disciplined approach utilizing the unconscious mind to help people activate their potential and reach the next level in both their personal and professional lives. John offers 1 on 1 coaching, 1 day in-person deep dives, corporate workshops and is a lead facilitator of Men’s retreats for EVRYMAN. John actively competes in BJJ, is an avid snowboarder, has a meditation practice for the past 20 years.
Listen to What’s The Big Idea on your preferred platform below:
Key insights Shared:
A lot of times, we see ourselves through the lens of other people. In men’s work, a lot of who we “are” is reflected back to us through other people.
Qualities in group leaders 3 states of being - being fierce, being playful and being tender.
95% of what we “do” is unconscious. People struggle when they attempt to challenge the unconscious and change patterns in behavior.
All sensation is communication from the unconscious mind. The physical body, in some ways, is a part of the unconscious mind, which is how John started thinking about communication from the unconscious mind through massage therapy.
What is coaching? Developing a relationship to allow changes to begin to happen. Shift how they see themselves and how they behave. What John calls “activating potential.”
The skill of being present: Trying to “figure out” things is the problem. It’s the “figuring out” that creates the tension and blocks the creative flow.
How do we “get off the battlefield” a relieve some tension
It’s hard to learn how to fight as someone is going to punch you - the key is developing healthy practices outside of triggers where you can train the nervous system to relax.
3 practices that John teaches
Centering piece: Similar to triangulating someone’s location with three points on a map. John uses this “triangulation” mind set for centering. Begin with connecting yourself to the Earth, breath into your stomach and picture the sun above you and the ground and earth below.
Breathing round: have the breath enter your head, go into your body, and follow the energy as it goes to your feet and into the Earth. This helps bring the mind into their body.
Opening: John opens to his ancestors. We all walk around like we’re separate and walking alone, no man is an island. John thinks about all the genetic data that makes up his ethnic background.
What is constellation therapy: An reenactment type of therapy, kind of like a “psycho drama” where you take an experience, an event or trauma and two people play parts of this event or trauma.
How to emulate being in an anxious state: hold your breath, tighten your chest, furrow your brow and focus on a potential future reality that is not good.
How to train the opposite of anxiety - calmness and curiosity: first relax the jaw, begin to take full breaths, release judgments, reactions and narratives. Imagine yourself as completely safe.
Releasing the belief that you don’t have time: This takes a lot of time to train in the nervous system. Tell yourself “I have time” it acts as a flow trigger. Create this feeling of timelessness.
When you’re tense because of a lack of time, you fumble and fail. When you suspend the belief that you don't have time, you can work in a state of flow and accomplish more.
How we experience anxiety: A lot of people have trained their nervous system to respond to pain, tension “the whip”
Figure out what you truly want, find something that will pull you forward instead of trying to move away or be pushed by the things you don’t want.
Anxiety is a lack of skill.
It’s a call to arms, what are you not taking care of or addressing that’s creating this anxiety.
How do we find motivation that isn’t anxiety and stress? If you’re using this in your 30s and 40s, you’re using an outdated model for motivation. What types of motivators do we need to take you to the next level?
The root of most of our suffering is from disconnection -
Disconnection from the breath, from the earth and from other people.
Shame comes when you have not integrated your experience. Not yet framed the experience as a part of the developmental journey.
Part of getting over shame is owning the fact that these behaviors are a part of who we are, they’re an emotional step of growth. You can start to forgive yourself for the shame of the past simply by behaving differently.
There's always a polar opposite state that exists in the psyche at all times. If someone is anxious, out of touch and out of control, there's always the potential for change, for the polar opposite of those behaviors to manifest itself.
Leveraging the way the nervous system works: If you picture a state in the future, your body is going to react to it and have a physical response. Imagining something scary / anxiety inducing can result in negative physical response from your body. John channels the opposite of this response with his clients asking them how they will feel after they accomplish something significant and how will be as a person when the achieve this certain goal. They really embody how it’s going to feel when it happens.
This energy and state is the type of state you want to be in when you begin the first steps towards a certain goal. Vibrating with the physical sensation you want to feel when you reach that point.
To learn more about John and his work:
Visit John’s website here