Facing Fears and Shifting Gears: Mental Health, Neurodiversity, and Making Positive Changes

"Sometimes it's better to travel than arrive"-Robert M. Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"Life doesn't always take you where you think you want to go. Enjoy the ride anyway! Sometimes we get lost or make a mistake, but as painter Bob Ross would say, you can turn a mistake into a "happy mistake" if you choose to.********************************"Facing Fears and Shifting Gears" is a...

Learning a new process can be tedious and boring. But the truth is, the moments we are living in make up our life. Just like the quote by Allen Saunders which was made famous by John Lennon says: "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans". So, learning to enjoy the process instead of waiting to get to the destination.*********************************"Facing Fears and Shifting Gear...

"When you're depressed, you're living in the past. When you're anxious, you're living in the future. When you're at peace, you're living in the present."-Lao Tzu, Chinese Philosopher. Practicing mindfulness is living in the present, focusing on what you're doing, when you're doing it, and doing things in the correct order.*********************************"Facing Fears and Shifting Gears" is a podc...

My Zen Motorcycle Habit #7 "Look in the Direction You Want to Go, Not Where You Don't Want to Go" is probably my favorite. It is the one thing that really helps with the "fight or flight" fear response, not just on the motorcycle, but in life as well. When you think of what you want in life, are you actually thinking in terms of what you don't want? "I don't want to be vulnerable", "I don't want t...

Something about dropping a motorcycle makes you feel so stupid, even if you are not hurt, and even if it is not broken. There were so many times, while I was shopping for my first bike, that I saw motorcycles at the dealership with about 50 miles on them, and one scratch on one side. It was obvious, someone had fallen and not gotten back up. When we fall down, and give up, most of the time it is o...

Learning new things requires us to take our time and go at our own pace. Learning new things also requires facing our fears. Not just when we are learning to do things that are physically challenging, or even dangerous, but also learning things that disrupt what we previously believed to be true. People are afraid to learn about things that challenge everything they are comfortable believing. Some...

My Fourth Zen Principle of Good Motorcycle Riding Habits in Chapter Four of "The Zen of Learning to Ride a Motorcycle" is "If You Break Something, Fix It" We are living in a disposable society. Instant gratification, then throw it away. We don't fix things or recycle things nearly as much as we could, and this includes not just physical things like vacuum cleaners or television sets. It also inclu...

In this week's episode, I'm discussing chapter three of my book "The Zen of Learning to Ride a Motorcycle", which is the #3 Zen Principle of Good Motorcycle Riding Habits: To Think and Plan Ahead, and Take Care of Your Future Self. When we do thing like use credit cards, leave dirty dishes in the sink, or when we don't wear all of our motorcycle gear, we are "stealing from our future selves". When...

Respect where you are on your journey, and go at your own pace. Easier said than done, right? Starting when we were kids in grammar school, our learning and growth processes were monitored by standardized milestones, and if we didn't reach those milestones at the same time our peers did, it seemed to be a problem, and something that we carried with ourselves into adulthood. "Facing Fears and Shift...

Reacting Versus Responding: What is the difference? Reacting is a prehistoric instinct. Responding is a cultivated skill. How does it benefit us to retrain our brain to learn to pause to respond, and put our prefrontal cortex in charge. "Facing Fears and Shifting Gears" is a podcast about mental health, neurodiversity, and changing our perspective when life brings us challenges, in order to heal a...

Toxic Positivity: What is it and how can being positive be a toxic thing? Don't we WANT to be optimistic, happy, positive people? Yes, but when is being "positive" inappropriate and stunting our growth and transformation in life? I'll tell you in this podcast how to honor our grief and sorrow so we can turn a challenging time in our life into a positive breakthrough and change! "Facing Fears and S...

I began to suspect I was on the autism spectrum two years ago when my computer's algorithm started suggesting articles and videos to me about women who are on the autism spectrum. And after almost two years of therapy and testing, I was officially diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Level I. Why did I think I might be on the spectrum and why did I feel the need to obtain and official diagnosis? I talk...

What are executive functioning skills? For years, I just thought I was a "messy person". And I hated it. I was ashamed of it, actually. I was jealous of people who seem to have it all together: Their bills are paid on time, they always have clean laundry, they show up on time for appointments, their meals are prepped so they never end up at a fast food drive through in a hurry, and their house and...

Yes, it's really a thing. Cherophobia is the Fear of being happy. Why would anyone be afraid to be happy? Cherophobia is not recognized as an official diagnosis in the DSM-V, but it is something recognized as falling under an anxiety disorder. Sometimes people are afraid to allow themselves to be "happy" or experience joy because they fear something bad will happen. This can happen to people who g...

Hello! My name is Leslie Reyes, and I'm the author of the indieBRAG award-winning Amazon best-seller, "The Zen of Learning to Ride a Motorcycle: How I Faced My Fears, Shifted Gears, and Found Healing from Anxiety, Codependency, and Depression." I have worked as a psychiatric and chemical dependency nurse, yoga teacher, and I'm also a motorcycle enthusiast. I have seen mental illness up close, firs...