What does it mean to be okay?

It's a word that is often used as part of a greeting, "Hey, how are you doing? "I'm okay and you?" Yet many of us are not okay, and it's not just because we might have different definitions for what it means.

For Game Changer Protocol I defined being okay as,

"I am okay. I connect with my inner peace as I let go of my stress. This means experiencing inner peace, feeling fine and being alright, breathing deeply and freely and being at ease. "

So, let's check again, when you read this definition - are you okay? Really? If you had to rate yourself out of 10, what number would you give yourself?

My experience over the last week of co-parenting 2 young kids who haven't been sleeping a lot is that I haven't been okay ... not really. For me bad sleep leads to poor thinking and less resourcefulness (and let’s face it, shorter tempers) and then on top of that you compound how you are feeling with end of year tiredness. So, if you are experiencing your version of this, what do you do? Who do you reach out to?

If you are like millions of men, and increasingly many more women the answer is no-one. You ignore, self-medicate with food or alcohol (or both) and your mind-body system becomes even less okay. We often call this experience being stressed and for many career oriented individuals this type of prolonged stress, which is kind of Stage 1 Burnout, can be a bit of badge of pride.

Former Stanford Lecturer Dr Bruce Lipton in his book The biology of belief sheds some light on what is happening at a biological level when we are stressed. Simply put the body has two core switches on a cellular level, Protection and Growth. Protection is the state that creates excess adrenaline and cortisol to prime your muscles into Fight/Flight mode, to save your life. 10 000 years ago this was a critical survival skill to stay alive for day-to-day life threatening events, such as avoiding being eaten by a hungry sabre-tooth tiger hiding behind a tree. However this survival response comes at a cost; whilst your system is flooded with cortisol and adrenaline, growth is negatively impacted.

In modern times we have much fewer day-to-day life threatening events, however the same protection mechanism can be triggered by ‘perceived’ threats. Even though these perceived threats aren’t real, physiologically the threat takes the same toll on the body, we call these perceived threat experiences stress.

When you are stressed, your body's recovery and restoration slows down and so you have less resources to try to consciously break the cycle. For the athletes that I work with, this can raise the risk of injury, can contribute to lower performance and will slow down growth and development. For the executives I work with it can lead to fuzzy thinking, mishandled meetings and performing well below their peak. For parents it can often be a harsh response where patience would have been better.

So, what can be done?

Exercise, better sleep, better food choices, meditation and a change of environment all provide indirect benefits, and are highly recommended. The challenge with these options however is that they sound simple but can be hard to implement. 

If you fee like you don't have more than 5 minutes to spare (and maybe not even that!), and you want to get more direct benefits, the “I am okay” Scan from the Game Changer Protocol is the answer.

I have shared below the first half of the “I am okay Scan” – the part called Supercharging, so whilst the full technique is more powerful and accurate, by just doing these 5 steps, you can start to accelerate your journey back to okay.

 Supercharging – I am okay.

1. Find some time when you won’t be disturbed. Switch off your phone and remove the temptation to be distracted by putting it in a different room. Grab a pen and paper and make yourself comfortable. Draw a line in the middle of the page to create two columns: A and B. In Column A at the bottom of the page write down: ‘I am okay.’ You should start at the bottom of the page and work your way up.

2. Next, write down the answer to the question: ‘What would it mean to me if I could have, know and experience that I am okay: I connect with my inner peace as I let go of my stress, fully and completely, no matter what?’ If your answer is positively stated (E.g. ‘I will be at peace/happy’ etc.) write it down, one line up, in Column A. If your answer is about what you don’t want, for example, ‘I won’t be scared anymore’ write it down in Column B (one line up) and ask yourself the question: ‘So if I am not that what would I be instead?’ Write that answer in Column A on the same line.

3. Now think about your last answer in Column A and ask yourself: ‘Having that, what would that mean to me?’ and write the answer down one line up. If it’s positively stated it falls into Column A and negatively stated - or what you don’t want - it falls into Column B. Any answer in Column B needs to be converted into a Column A answer immediately with the, ‘So If I am not that what would I be instead?’ question.

4. Keep on answering the ‘Having that what would that mean to me?’ question five times or more whilst focusing on the last answer in Column A. You must still use the same writing process (Column A for positively stated and Column B for negatively stated). The process of building up this positive energy is called Supercharging. Stop doing this step only when you start to feel yourself smile or your face feels full of positive energy.

5. Once you have Supercharged, “I am okay” imagine taking that positive energy and moving it wherever you need to in your body: to let your tense neck, challenging stomach, busy mind or sore back know – that you are okay again.

Supercharging is the first phase of Scanning which is the core technique of the Game Changer Protocol, the next steps after Supercharging are to use the positive energy you have created and coach that into the mind/body system by identifying where in your mind/body you are 'Not Okay'. To learn more about how to do that, and how to use Scanning to fully internalise the 10 core healthy beliefs that combine to create healthy self-esteem, click on this link now.

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