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How To Stay Centered When You're Skiing Off a Cliff | Angel Collinson

Aug 31, 2020 54m 33s 30 insights
Angel Collinson is a badass in every sense of the word. She's one of the world's best extreme skiers, a meditator, and a climate activist. In this conversation we explore Angel's mindfulness practice and how it helps her stay centered even when she's skiing off a cliff, her work on Capitol Hill, and a tricky and raw conversation with her dad. This is another one of the episodes we recorded pre-pandemic, but which remains relevant. Where to find Angel Collinson online: Twitter: https://twitter.com/angelcollinson Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AngelCollinson/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/angelcollinson/?hl=en We care deeply about supporting you in your meditation practice, and feel that providing you with high quality teachers is one of the best ways to do that. Customers of the Ten Percent Happier app say they stick around specifically for the range of teachers, and the deep wisdom they impart, to help them deepen their practice. For anyone new to the app, we've got a special discount just for you. If you're an existing subscriber, we thank you for your support. To claim your discount, visit tenpercent.com/august Other Resources Mentioned: Waking Up with Sam Harris - https://www.wakingup.com/ George Mumford - https://georgemumford.com/ Citizens Climate Lobby - https://citizensclimatelobby.org/ Protect Our Winters - https://protectourwinters.org/ Jay Michaelson - https://www.jaymichaelson.net/ Ten Percent Happier Newsletter - https://www.tenpercent.com/newsletter What if We Stopped Pretending the Climate Apocalypse Can Be Stopped? - https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending Angel Collinson Annihilates Alaska: The Rowdiest Women's Skiing Segment To Date? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNrOI94nSTw #TGRwinterland: Angel Collinson - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOIM2pQ7ekk Additional Resources: Ten Percent Happier Live: https://tenpercent.com/live Coronavirus Sanity Guide: https://www.tenpercent.com/coronavirussanityguide Free App access for Frontline Workers: https://tenpercent.com/care Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/angel-collinson-278
Actionable Insights

1. Cultivate Detailed Visualization

Engage all your senses—sight, sound, smell, touch, and body feelings—when visualizing an outcome or scenario to make the mental rehearsal more powerful and effective.

2. Practice Intuitive Self-Awareness

Develop self-awareness to recognize when conditions or your personal state are not optimal for a task, and trust your intuition to back down or postpone to avoid negative consequences.

3. Train Mind for Centered Response

Practice mindfulness meditation to train your mind to quickly return to a calm, centered state, helping you manage stress and respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively in chaotic or emotionally charged situations.

4. Reframe Challenges as Growth

View significant challenges, difficulties, or tragedies as opportunities for personal growth, learning, and discovering valuable insights or ‘silver linings’.

5. Challenge Self-Imposed Limitations

Identify and actively challenge your own ‘mental governors’ or self-imposed limitations, and seek external perspectives from trusted friends or mentors who can often see your true capabilities more clearly.

6. Choose Your Emotional Response

Recognize that you have the power to choose how you respond to any situation, regardless of external events, and that your perception and chosen response shape your experience.

7. Visualize for Difficult Conversations

Before engaging in a difficult conversation, visualize the best possible outcome, including positive reactions and feelings, to manage anxiety and prepare for a constructive dialogue.

8. Visualize for Optimal Performance

Before a challenging task or performance, visualize the ideal scenario, running through it perfectly in your mind to enhance preparation, confidence, and mental readiness.

9. Identify Safety Nets in Planning

When planning for complex or risky situations, visualize potential problems and identify ‘islands of safety’ or contingency plans to ensure preparedness for unexpected challenges.

10. Treat Your Mind as a Tool

View your mind as a tool that can be trained through consistent practice to work for you, making it more effective in achieving desired states and actions.

11. Find Zen Amidst Chaos

Understand that meditation is not about eliminating thoughts or distractions, but about repeatedly finding moments of peace and calm within challenging or chaotic circumstances.

12. Reduce Mental Static with Meditation

Use meditation to ’tune the dials’ of your mind, reducing mental static and white noise, making it easier to enter a flow state and focus effectively.

13. Practice Kinder Communication

Engage in mindfulness meditation to improve your communication, leading to more thoughtful, less reactive, and kinder interactions.

14. Let Go of Worries

Develop the skill of letting go of worries, trivial concerns, and self-criticism through meditation, fostering greater acceptance of your present situation.

15. Prioritize Mind-Body Self-Care

Prioritize self-care for both your mind and body to maintain a state of homeostasis, which helps you recover faster from stress and emotional upset.

16. Define What You Live For

Shift your focus from ‘Is this worth dying for?’ to ‘What do I live for?’ to identify and pursue activities that genuinely make you thrive and feel alive.

17. Navigate Identity During Change

When experiencing an injury or significant life change that impacts your identity, actively use mental tools to explore who you are beyond your roles and activities.

18. Perform Identity Thought Exercise

Regularly conduct a thought experiment: imagine losing all your current roles and physical abilities, then define who you would still be and how you would want to show up in the world.

19. Use ‘The Story I’m Telling Myself Is…’

When experiencing self-doubt or negative thoughts, use the phrase ‘The story I’m telling myself is…’ to recognize them as subjective narratives rather than objective truths.

20. Embrace ‘Begin Again’ Mindset

Cultivate self-compassion by embracing the mantra ‘begin again’ at any moment after making mistakes or experiencing setbacks, allowing yourself to restart with kindness.

21. Foster Conviction and Confidence

Develop strong conviction and confidence in your abilities and goals, recognizing that self-doubt and second-guessing are primary obstacles to achievement.

22. Use Meditation Apps for Accountability

Utilize meditation apps to maintain accountability and consistency in your daily meditation practice, even for short durations like 10 minutes.

23. Integrate Morning Breathwork & Visualization

Incorporate breathwork and short visualization into your morning routine to center yourself and prepare mentally for the day ahead.

24. Support Women’s Collective Success

Counter the scarcity mentality by viewing other women’s success as a positive force that elevates everyone, rather than a competitive threat.

25. Raise Capable Children

When parenting, avoid making exceptions or ‘dumbing down’ activities for girls, treating them as equally capable to foster confidence and break through societal limitations.

26. Live Authentically on Social Media

Strive to share your authentic process, including struggles and self-doubt, on social media to promote vulnerability and counter unrealistic portrayals of life.

27. Normalize Self-Doubt for Causes

Acknowledge and normalize feelings of self-doubt and hypocrisy when engaging with major causes; redirect energy from self-criticism towards positive accountability and collaborative solutions.

28. Identify Your Climate Action Lever

Determine your unique ’lever’ or area of influence (e.g., social media, company connections, voting) and actively use it to advocate for climate action.

29. Call Congress on Climate Change

Periodically make short phone calls to your congressional representatives to voice your concern about climate change, as this feedback is reportedly scarce but impactful.

30. Vote with Your Dollars for Change

Consciously ‘vote with your dollars’ by supporting companies and organizations that demonstrate a commitment to sustainability and positive environmental impact.