Hakim Tafari is qualified to give advice. He has been down and out and contemplated suicide 4 or 5 times. Now he reaches for growth, understanding, peace and freedom. I listened to an interview with him on the Rich Roll podcast (which I absolutely love, by the way) today, and right at the end was the juice.

JUICE

He says there is beauty in suffering. In that if you can endure it and move through it, you will appreciate so much more in your life.

BEST JUICE

He said: When you’re making a decision and you’re scared to move on it, DO IT.

“Those situations where you might see that light at the end of a tunnel and that light might be the size of a pinprick, the thing that I would tell you is crawl, walk or run to that pinprick, because that pinprick is going to be the size of the sun sooner or later”.

Of Jamaican origin, and now living in the USA, Hakim is a master of Kung Fu and Tai Chi. He’s a herbalist, massage therapist, vegan and a practitioner of a few spiritual traditions, including Daosim and Buddhism. He promotes running as a pathway to mindfulness.

MORE JUICE

Change is hard but if you’re not willing to go there, nothing is going to change.

His message to the person who feels stuck, their life feels like it’s at a dead end, and they have this sense that they’re here to do something and yet the puzzle pieces aren’t connecting, he says..

“If you are ever encountering uncomfortable situations or you have opportunities that feel stifling or very scary, jump into it…There’s always been an air of me being kind of scared, nervous and should I make this decision? And every time I talked myself out of it something said do it. And that little thing that always tells me to do it, I do it and 10 out 10 times it’s been the best decision I’ve ever made.”

“You have to know that that journey is worth it…I’m glad that I went through the stages of my life that I did, whether uncomfortable, whether scary, whether dark, I’m glad that it brought me to where I was. At the end of the day I just said fuck it, I’m just gonna do it, and I did it.”

Hakim said he realised he had to jump off the rabbit wheel. “You’ve got to tap into your spiritual faculties and especially men, who have this bravado where we feel we can’t be vulnerable”. Vulnerability was one of the biggest tools that helped him break through.

“The more vulnerable I was the more things became liberating. If you can strip away the onion of the ego, all the insecurities, not feeling valued, – it’s all part of it. If you don’t let it go it’s going to become a big backpack on your back and it gets heavier and heavier and it breaks you down physically and spiritually.”

Did you find this inspiring? I’d love to know. This one really resonated with me…

Takeaway Truths

Stay present, look for the signs, trust yourself and know what you want
Change is not easy but sometimes you have to take a leap towards your goals
It’s never clear-cut with a red carpet rolled out and everyone cheering you on
Make your list of wishes and wants so you can identify opportunities when they come
Be prepared to be vulnerable to get to where you’re going
Decide to work on letting go of the old stories, beliefs and insecurities keeping you trapped
It helps to know there is so much hope on the other side of suffering, and it’s so worth it