How my brain protected me from reality

and how it held me back

Last week I mentioned how my brain protected me from the pain of retirement. So this week, I thought I’d share how my brain did it, and how that messed with my career transition.

I never thought I’d be good enough to play professional rugby, and to go on and have the career that I did was an absolute dream.

However, retiring coincided with the death of my Grandma, and even though she lived to 90, her death took a huge toll on me. Couple that with the sadness that a great chapter of my life had ended, and I was in a bad way.

Saying goodbye: My last pic of Grandma

My thoughts started racing ahead to my own death and my mind became foggy, as all the sadness left me drained and unable to get out of bed.

But after a few weeks of lying around, my brain started generating inspiring stories about my future. Stories that gave me hope and the energy to get out of bed and embrace retirement with the same attitude I did with Rugby.

Why do our brains protect us?

Protecting us from reality is a defence mechanism our brains have to help us cope with challenging and overwhelming situations. This is great, except it can lead to denial and dissociation, which is when we escape from reality, and what happened to me.

I was convinced the next chapter of my life would be as great as the previous, as my brain assured me that Alfred would be a huge success and I had all the skills I needed.

“No one believed you’d become a professional rugby player. Yet you played the most games for the Brumbies and represented your country. You never thought you’d have an award-winning pub and a great family. Yet you do. There’s nothing you can’t do Ben. You can do it.”

My brain in the months after retiring

That was my mindset in the months following retirement and I was full of myself, which was a stark contrast to the hard-working mindset I had during my career. But my brain was just trying to make me feel good by protecting me from reality, and I remember thinking "Geez I love how my brain focuses on the positives and makes me feel good."

But not facing reality meant that when problems arose with Alfred, I blamed everyone else, believing it couldn't be my fault.

After all, my brain had been telling me how great I was, and how could it possibly be wrong?

How that held me back

Reading this might surprise you, as I’m not the type of person to boast. But I was doing so internally, which can be worse because your loved ones can’t correct your thinking by highlighting knowledge gaps, and bring you back to reality.

And this mindset, driven by my brain’s desire to feel good, blinded me from the hard work and self-improvement I needed to do for Alfred to succeed.

Starting any business requires crazy amounts of hard work, but a start-up also requires clear thinking that’s grounded in reality, because you have to see an opportunity others aren’t. After all, if the opportunity was obvious, it would be done already.

But exploiting that opportunity is fucking hard, and requires many hard looks in the mirror about where your skills are short.

For me, communicating Alfred's mission and my "why" was my greatest shortcoming, as I’ve struggled to slow my mind down long enough to engage others in the journey.

Instead, I just ploughed ahead thinking “I don’t need to slow down to communicate the mission and opportunity. Isn’t it obvious?”

And looking back, I realise that was my brain justifying to itself that it doesn’t need to do the hard work of slowing down, as it prefers to rush.

Which until recently, is something I’ve always struggled to do and would prefer to get going and make “progress”. Although, it was usually progress in the wrong direction.

How it stopped

So I guess by now you’re wondering how I stopped and woke up to reality.

Well… unfortunately it was the pain of depression that snapped me out of it, and forced me to accept that I couldn’t keep going how I was. Kinda like a mid-life crisis, as my brain finally faced up to reality because it knew it had no other choice.

I’d done everything I could to look after my mental health, but the pressure from the situation my arrogance had put me in took its toll. Selling your home during a pandemic to fund 2 start-ups while your pub is closed, with no backup career, and 3 young kids is not wise, and I can’t believe I thought I could do it.

But I guess that shows the depths of my delusion, and waking up was very very painful.

We all know someone like this who won’t face up to reality. And sadly, I don’t think there’s anything you can do to help them. Only intense pain from mistakes caused by ignoring reality will wake them up.

If you know someone like this, just let them be, but be ready to support them when they hit rock bottom. And when they do, don’t try to make them feel better. Just let them know you believe in them, even if they’ve lost belief in themselves.

And if you are struggling, please, please don’t be like me. Don’t parade around thinking your shit doesn’t stink like I did. Don’t ignore or bury your issues. And don’t keep heading down a path you know deep down isn’t the one you want to be on.

Whether it’s an unfulfilling career, a draining relationship or declining health, dealing with reality is going to hurt and take time.

But the earlier you do, the less painful it will be.

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