The Decisive Moment
In the preface for his seminal piece of work The Decisive Moment , Henri Cartier-Bresson, the godfather of photojournalism and co-founder of the famous Magnum photo agency describes the idea behind the book’s title as; ‘the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance on an event as well as a precise organisation of forms which give that event it’s proper expression’
Monsieur Cartier-Bresson’s intentions with his work and desired outcomes was very different to that of our work here at The Damian Browne Method, however this moment of awareness; ‘the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance on an event’ resonates deeply to the core of our mission, alongside his creativity.
The Decisive Moment at The Damian Browne Method describes a specific moment of choice during a convergence of mind, body and spirit.
Let us explain with a little caveat; this is based on the trainee having some modicum of drive within their physical practice; be that an individual pursuit or team sport and the actions, training, performance and competition of both.
During any physical endeavour you will arrive at a specific moment within this physical act where you will experience a negative mental state induced by the physical stress. We know this stress as physical fatigue, exhaustion, hyperventilation, lactic acid build up and a broad spectrum of perceived discomforts, even pain.
"Fatigue makes cowards of us all" - General George Patton
The mental state this physical stress induces is subjective and truly only you know what this feels like to you, but to make an association to this moment, some of the describing adjectives would be; negative, destructive, chaotic, dark, uncomfortable, weak, heavy, panicked, pain, dread, shocking, overwhelming, fearful, confusion, the list goes on.
One’s default wiring when first experiencing this state is to do anything within its power to make it stop, go away, be no more. We called this, '1st level thinking'. This is when you perceive you are at the edge of your physical limits, but you are not. There is more. There is always more. This discovery will be empowering and as you explore and expand your capacities, over time it will become equally terrifying as you realise the line of confronting reality about oneself that has to be thread to continue to improve and grow.
These specific moments of physical stress hold extraordinary opportunity for personal evolution. This is much bigger than your performance, although that is a fulfilling reward. It is here, in this lived moment of stress, doubt, weakness that we can re-engineer the hardware of our brain, through the software of experience. We do this by learning to control the moment, despite the debilitating physical effects we are experiencing, using a two step process led by awareness and followed by concentration.
The extraordinary opportunity for all of us to profit from, in these moments, is a choice, albeit a partly hidden one. The disturbing properties of our mental state can veil this choice to us, but it is always there. That choice is in how we choose to respond to the stimulus we are experiencing. Austrian holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl said, 'between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose'.
People mediate and practice mindfulness for decades to widen this ‘gap’ between stimulus and response, to give them more control over how they act and react. Both worthy and beneficial practices but both lacking a somatic element which is deeply important to building true mental fortitude, resilience and self belief. To hardwire our brains we need physical action. Committing to and practicing to make ‘better’ choices while fighting the effects of self-induced physical stress is one of the greatest journeys you can bring your mind on.
The 4 Controllables Method guides you to make, what we deem, the right choice in this specific situation; continue rather than quit, endure rather than stop, persevere rather than slow down. It does that by preparing your awareness using rehearsal visualisation to upcoming stress points within your physical practice, making your mental resets more available to access using connecting cues and questions and teaching you to redirect your attention to something within your control and concentrating on the details of the action of that controllable. That redirection of focus to concentrate on something within your control, neutralises the effects of the physical stress on your mental state, so you experience the present moment, a state of ‘no mind’. Think of this as a mental depressurisation. One moment you have this overwhelming negative haze clouding your mind, a feeling of heaviness if mild to panic or chaos if extreme, then you become aware of this state through some internal flag and once aware, you can change it by redirecting your default focus by concentrating on something specific about one of the 4 Controllables. We do this using Step 2 in the process; a prepared cue or question and suddenly you are present, in a state of ‘no mind’ although you don’t know this as you are in a state of ‘no mind’. In a strange dichotomy you will only become aware you accessed this state when you feel the negative effects of the physical stress again in your mind.
Here’s why we say this is transformational: Nothing has changed in your output. In fact it may well have increased, however your experience of the physical stress has totally changed. The effects have gone from a varying degree of negative (minor/mild to extreme) to neutralised, just by choosing to respond to the stimulus in a certain way; concentrating upon something that is in your control (1 of the 4 Controllables)
This choice creates a paradigm shift in your reality. Simply put, you believed you were going to quit, continuing was out of the question but you found a way to transform your state and its effect over you while continuing with the stressful movement, action, with no loss in performance.
Put another way, you had an overwhelming urge to stop, the internal experience was absolute chaos, you were filled with thoughts that induced negative emotion, debilitating and disempowering in their nature because you felt weak, vulnerable, saw parts of your character you didn’t like, maybe even were shameful of, but through a simple choice of what you deliberately concentrated on you controlled the experience of that moment and redirected to/ or accessed a state of nothingness (in terms of effects).
I describe this new found state as neutralised because the effect of time and physical duress over your mind has gone. By deeply concentrating on a specific part of a controllable you access an almost mental nothingness. Hence why I like to think of this as “meditation through pain”. By experiencing this moment of destruction, chaos, quit, and overcoming it internally, you have distrubed some deep fundamental beliefs you held about yourself and your potential. This peak experience is liberating and the importance of these private victories cannot be overstated in a spiritual sense.
These moments are character deepening because it was just you versus you. You are in a fight with a side of yourself that is ugly, fearful and powerful, one that all of us have but few dare to shed light on and happily keep hidden away in the deepest recess of our mind. The thing is it might be hidden but it’s still having effects on you, your behaviours and your relationship with yourself. By facing it down in these moments of choice you empower yourself and start to build yourself up through genuine self respect for what you endured through your own power. By continually putting yourself in a position to make a positive choice in these Decisive Moments and living that experience through the actions of your nervous system you will raise your levels of self belief and self worth, overtime accumulating in self mastery. And all from a simple choice.
