Dear friends,
I've had a horrendous week.
My van, Donna, was stolen and last seen in Poland.
It's devastating to lose something so central to my life and work. The theft has left me drowning in a soul-crushing amount of paperwork and German bureaucracy.
One moment, you're enjoying the sun after surviving a brutal Berlin winter, and the next, you're trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare.
I'll share the full story when I'm ready, but for now, I want to highlight an important question: What do we do when life gets in the way?
Specifically when it feels that no matter what you do, you cannot get to your central focus or driver.
In the following reflections, I share my thoughts on persevering through tough times, safeguarding our mission and building a system resilient enough to withstand life’s extremes.
This week’s newsletter is a small act of defiance against the thieves.
Let’s dive in:
Part 1:
Don’t Reject the Problem, Embrace It
It is human instinct when a new problem arises to think “why me, why is this happening to me?”
We too often forget to properly consider this “why?” Instead of leaning into it, we turn away.
The paradox is that the more we want the problem not to exist, the greater the problem becomes.
My initial shock and disappointment at having my van stolen was soon compounded by the fact that all of my short-term goals were derailed.
All the time I had allocated for the album was swallowed up by the labyrinthine maze of the German bureaucratic system.
Feeling bleak while sitting in Polizei Precinct 54, I read Robert Frost's quote, "The best way out is always through."
I realized that to reclaim my van and my creative life, I had to confront the situation head-on.
And that is the paradox of problems.
The only way we ever solve them is by the hard decision to turn and face what we least want to do. In that confrontation, though, we find not only something new in ourselves but also the potential resolution of the problem.
When life gets in the way, remember Frost’s words; sometimes, the best way out is through.
Donna Mission for Ukraine 1
Donna Mission for Ukraine 2
Part 2:
Accept that Circumstances Have Changed
When life gets in the way, it signifies that our course has changed.
We resist with all our might because where it says we have to go is not where we want to go.
The problem is that our willpower is insignificant in the face of life’s greater will.
Our circumstances have changed, and there is nothing we can do about it.
I felt this when staring at the empty slot where Donna had been parked before she was stolen. With all your power of will, you want to change the reality before you, as if you can undo that which is.
Yet, all roads to resolution require a degree of surrender. The van might be gone forever, or the police could recover it.
Either option, though, would require adapting to new circumstances.
It’s only when you attune to the new playing field that you discover what cards you have left to play.
And that’s the thing: there are always cards to play.
In the words of Jimmy Dean:
"I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination."
When circumstances change, adapt.
Donna arrives in the Alps full of gear to shoot a short film for “The Dark Tenor.”
Part 3:
The Decision to Take Action
When life gets in the way, we mourn.
Often, it’s not the new circumstances that steal our time but the time we spend mourning.
Now, I understand that mourning is underwritten into some circumstances, especially when it comes to human loss.
However, with everyday problems, this capacity to mourn can lead us into the trap of feeling life is against us.
It leads our capacity to act into an emotional sink, out of which all of our energy seeps.
The paradox is that the one way we can defy the fates is to meet them head on.
They ask: who are you?
What extra can you find in yourself despite how they have conspired against you?
This week, my inbox has been inundated with questionnaires, document demands, and report requests.
After my initial feeling of sadness followed a feeling of overwhelm.
Yet the only way to deal with overwhelm is to swim out into the overwhelm itself. And that means taking action.
You buy back the freedom for the work you love by bringing the best of yourself to the work you most resist.
Writing the songs for “The Isolation Diaries”
Part 4.
Fragmentation vs Focus
When life gets in the way, it throws a gauntlet before us: Will we fragment, or will we focus?
We are never quite sure why, but our tendency is to find safe haven in distraction.
Distraction however, is only a metaphor for something deeper that’s happened psychologically.
We have fragmented, and the way we avoid confronting how uncomfortable it feels is to dilute ourselves.
That’s why we lose so much time to social media—not just because it’s easy and spoon-feeds us, but because it allows us to be there without really being there.
The hardest thing is to take control.
We choose not to because pulling together the shards fragmenting in different directions is scary and emotionally draining.
It's why we choose to self-destruct; to centre means confronting the unspeakable. How, after all, do you pull together chaos?
Your first weapon is the courage to turn towards it, that is, to turn your focus on that which you would rather not confront.
Focus is a form of courage.
Experiments in the See Alpen, Italy
Part 5
Harness Your Darkness
When life gets in the way, sometimes it is something light and distracting, but often it is dark and threatening, uprooting us from the world we safely resided in moments ago.
Part of our resistance is that we don’t want this darkness to exist. We want the version of the world we had before, the world which we had mapped and in which we felt centred.
However, as our familiar world disappears, so does our positive energy. We don’t know where to draw from or what to do with the darker energies now surrounding us.
It’s at this point that we have to renew our relationship with the dark, as well as what we find within us.
Faust said:
"And so I turn to magic’s infernal powers, to see if I can draw from spirits’ strength what I need.”
This is the point—you have to understand the mathematics of the dark.
Sometimes, it only responds to something that expresses its own nature.
When you are pulled into its minus and feel nothing positive in yourself, don’t be afraid to draw from your own minus, your own powers of the underworld.
The clash of these two minuses, these two adversarial powers, conjoin to make a plus, restoring order to your world.
In this way, two negatives indeed make a plus.
Don’t be afraid of what you find inside yourself. Have the courage to use it.
Heart flooded by Romania
Part 6
Overcome Your Excuses
When life gets in the way of what you want to do, you can either use it to facilitate excuses or use it to find something extra in yourself.
When Donna was stolen, I had two choices: either accept that I couldn’t do the bare minimum of what I hoped to achieve this week or use it as an opportunity to test my systems.
In my creative life, I have a flywheel system where I first write my newsletter and then use it as a hub and wheel system.
Out of the wheel are the four spokes of creating a long-form video for YouTube, a script for my Podcast, and short-form written content and reels.
Because my system's foundation is robust, even with the addition of days of unexpected work, I managed to adhere to my weekly approach.
Simply put, my system proved itself more robust than being targeted by a crime cartel, ground down by German bureaucracy or even the desperate sense of personal loss I felt.
Feeling your emotions does not have to mean giving in to the negativity of the world or using it as an excuse not to pursue the higher path of becoming who you are.
Yes, life will get in the way, but no, it does not mean it has to stop your deeper mission.
Finding Shelter before a storm in Bulgaria
Part 7
Defeat is Your Opportunity
One of the things I’ve had to work through since Donna was stolen is the mind's inclination to feel defeat.
That manifested in a sense of defeat about aspects of my life that were not progressing as I’d hoped and ate away at my optimism that being proactive might increase the chances Donna would be found.
The reality is that life will sometimes get on top of you, and as it does, you will experience what defeat feels like.
The question is, what will you find there?
Because the great masquerade of defeat is that it is final, that it is our end, that there is nothing left for us.
But defeat is not a finality; it is a phase.
And if you listen inside that phase, you hear a pulse - the heartbeat of resurrection.
What are you going to do with that pulse?
Who is to say this is your ending?
Whose to say this is not your beginning, that what you have lost can be found and that maybe, just maybe, that your dream might yet manifest?
In the words of Maya Angelou: "We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated."
Thank you everyone for your support,
Love Jim
For paid subscribers:
Part 8
What You Have, Not What You’ve Lost
Part 9
When Life Strikes Out, Counterpunch
Part 10
Anticipate the Challenge.
Heading into the Scottish wilderness to film “The Isolation Diaries”
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