The true measure of success is a calm nervous system.

Yesterday I saw this very simple statement that helped connect the dots between all the different threads of my work. I think that all of us, knowingly or unknowingly, are seeking the same thing.

As I wrote in ‘Why we all need to stop worrying about climate change and what to do instead’, the hijack of the human nervous system is the underlying driver of both global ecological breakdown as much as it is creating the day-to-day difficulties we experience, trying to find our way through life.

I published the little monologue below on LinkedIn and it clearly touched on something true for many people. As such, I thought I’d drop it in here for those not hanging around on LinkedIn (well done you, keep it up).

In future I may record something that explores this in more depth - I’d be very interested to know how you relate (or not) to this and how it shows up in the work you do, or the way you live your life.

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All my work is in service of this kind of success. And to me it really is the *only* success that matters.

You can have all the money, attention and opportunities you want but a twitchy and constantly aroused nervous system affects your health, your relationships and your ability to live creatively.

It's sneaky, too - our culture is built on a baseline level of stress arousal that you will not even be aware of.

That stress arousal is sometimes the result of external stimulus, touching on an internal 'trigger', but sometimes it's just something inside of you that just got stuck and keeps running.

It's programmed into us through our school system, politics, our legal system.

We're taught from an early age that there are winners and losers, it's me vs you, there's a right and a wrong, you're either with me or against me.

You need to think ahead, you never know what's going to happen, what if, what if, what if...

All of this creates an accepted norm which is a life of planning and strategising, horizon-scanning, ruminating and second-guessing.

It's worse now than ever because humanity seems to be winding itself further and further into a frenzy of consumption and conflict. At the same time we're bombarding ourselves with a constant slew of bad news and other people's shiny lives.

We don't know how to re-locate our attention and find the solid, steady ground of a rested nervous system.

But I had to learn. I was told this directly by my own body, through multiple burnouts and mental health challenges.

I knew if I didn't find out how then I would suffer for the rest of my life and probably not last all that long.

So it became my inquiry, and my inquiry became my work.

And here at 44, I can now see it's the thread that runs through everything.

Qi Gong taught me to become insanely sensitive to the state of my nervous system and quickly bring about the state of rest whether I'm training or doing the washing up. It's literally magic.

I created my conflict programme with the basic principle that whatever is happening, everything is OK. Learn how to find your solid ground and everything will flow from there.

Believe it or not, it's one of the reasons I trained to be a blacksmith and why I teach martial arts - I wanted to learn how to stay calm and creative when everything around me is on fire or trying to knock me out.

And it's not hard to see how it led me to train as a forest school teacher - because there's nowhere I feel more at rest than in a woodland.

I need to add that I've not 'arrived' at some destination or transcended to some kind of guru status, I'm a learner on a pathway that doesn't have an end, but I've learned a hell of a lot along that path.

And whatever I've done, you can too. You might never have been taught how, but you can still learn.

It takes work, it takes practice and it takes turning your back on a culture that wants you to stay stressed.

F**k that.