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Ben Bidwell

Ben Bidwell

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If there’s one question that perhaps unites us a

If there’s one question that perhaps unites us all, it’s what is our purpose? We live in a world where celebrity status & financial power have become so celebrated. It’s led human behaviour researcher @brenebrown to understand that the biggest shame trigger for kids is being perceived as ordinary. We’ve been taught that we must do incredible things to live a purposeful life. A worrying & harmful attitude to have in my opinion. Yet I heard @tonyrobbins say that out of all the billionaires he’s interviewed, he feels only @richardbranson truly embodies a sense of deep happiness. Meanwhile, I think we can all be clear that celebrity status doesn’t automatically mean a purposeful or happy existence either. So when it comes to finding purpose, it seems to me that we might be chasing a warped perception of what life is truly about. Tomorrow (Thursday), 6pm, I am going live here on instagram with ex professional footballer @vincent.pericard to discuss finding purpose & our journeys to uncover it. Vincent achieved what many dream of by playing in the Premier League, did it give him a true sense of purpose though? What’s happened in his life since those days came to an end? We’ll find out tomorrow evening - I’m excited to share the conversation & our perspectives. I think it might shock you as to what is really true for us 🙏🏼❤️.

We live in a thinking world, one where we love to

We live in a thinking world, one where we love to work things out. Thinking is important - it’s vital in the work environment, or when we are creating plans for the future. Our thoughts help steer us to live safely. But over thinking is tiring & heavy, its a draining way to live - we live in a tired society… What’s more, we can’t think our way into relationships of depth & meaning. We can’t think our way into a deep sense of connection with either ourselves or the important people around us. We can’t think up the purpose of our existence. These things sit deeper than our thoughts… Instead, we live in an emotionally closed world. One where feelings can be perceived as weak & can appear inconvenient. But, when we shut off our feelings, we miss the most beautiful things in life. Feelings aren’t here to be buried or numbed, they are hear to help, guide us & to connect us to one another. We experience love by surrendering into the feelings of connection, they often can’t be explained or rationalised, love isn’t something to be thought. Most of us don’t have a problem hearing our thoughts - they reach us loud & clear. What is a problem is how disconnected we are to the inner human experience within us all. It’s time to find a healthier balance, it’s possible to be both healthy thinkers & healthy feelers. It’s here where I believe true emotional intelligence lives ❤️.
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📸 @juliaseye

I believe deep down we all seek love, but there’

I believe deep down we all seek love, but there’s a part of us that unconsciously steers us away from it. I believe that some of us are scared of love because we’ve been hurt in the past & a part of us wants to avoid the possibility of experiencing that pain again. It means we put barriers up to stay safe & don’t let love fully in as a result. I believe many of us don’t know what deep & meaningful love is, we won’t allow ourselves to connect with the depth of our emotions to do so. I believe a disconnection from love leads us to chase quick wins that often conflict with who we want to be. This can take us away from our deepest values & from there we chase quick wins even more to take us away from the pain we then feel within. Now we could be talking about addiction. I believe inner work is key to experiencing deep & meaningful love. I believe most people chase quick wins instead, because, whilst ultimately less fulfilling, they are easier to obtain. I believe love is the foundation upon which we should build the rest of our life. I also believe we are wrongly taught the opposite. I believe the true measure of success is directly related to the amount of love we connect with. Both for ourselves & others. On Tuesday, 5.30pm, I am going live here on Insta with love & relationship coach & author of upcoming book “How to find real love in a superficial world” @persialawson . Maybe Persia will agree with my perspectives above, maybe she won’t. Either way I’m intrigued to find out & dive deeper into why love matters & how we can find it in a world that does it’s best to keep us at surface level ❤️.
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📸 @paulnelsonphotos 🪄

I’m on a mission right now. A mission to find mo

I’m on a mission right now. A mission to find more freedom & less being busy, more laughter & less feeling stressed, more flow and less chasing. I’ve come to realise that if I don’t consciously look to address these things, I find myself being pulled into a state of doing, stress & comparison. That’s the busy & competitive London energy that I feel around me, I can unconsciously get sucked in. To help me fight for my own authentic corner, I have to ask questions of myself. What kind of life do I want to live, what makes ME feel alive deeply within, what are MY greatest values & am I aligning my behaviour with what matters most deeply to ME? The answers that tend to arrive out of these questions are very different to the path I might find easiest to follow. Here lies the difference between living consciously & unconsciously. The world delivers us plenty of temptation, are we choosing what’s truly right for ourselves? It might require hard work, sacrifice, being judged, as well as fear of the unknown & not fitting in. But if we aren’t making conscious choices in line with our deepest values, perhaps we unconsciously choose an empty heart? If you go within & ask yourself the same questions, what truths come up for you?
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📸 @paulnelsonphotos 🪄

It’s been a rollercoaster week, there’s been h

It’s been a rollercoaster week, there’s been highs & lows, excitement & challenges flowing through the days. As I said to a friend, the weird thing is that it’s a strange experience for me to be so in touch with what I’m feeling, when 10 years ago I was completely shut off to what was within. I’ve learned that connection to my emotions can bring judgement & awkwardness in the wrong places. But, more importantly, I’m also aware of the good they can bring; deeper connections, more meaningful relationships & the opportunity to feel love. Without love, I’m not sure we can ever feel complete? So I surrender into any all my emotions & won’t judge them as good or bad. Instead they are part of the flow of the life that I am fortunate to experience. Now I’m signing off the week feeling a lot, but, above all else, proud to be a man who is vulnerable enough to experience what’s within. I’ll continue to feel into the moments & to own my emotions, rather than them owning my behaviour in ways that don’t truly serve me. In doing so I feel alive, like a human being having a human experience. The way society has taught us, some may find this strange or even weak, but having lived with a closed heart in the past & an open one now, I can assure those who might judge - I know which way I’ll aim to choose from here. My heart will be open as long as I have the knowledge to allow it to be ❤️. Thank you for listening, have a great wkd, with much love, Ben ❤️
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📸 @lawrenceprice_

Our mind can be a nasty thing. Wired to focus on t

Our mind can be a nasty thing. Wired to focus on the threats & challenges around us, it sees competition & fears for a lack of acceptance. Our mind doesn’t speak our truth, it speaks from fear to keep us safe. It’s not aligned with our deeper human values of self actualisation, love & connection, that comes from a different place… Our heart speaks a different language, it comes from love & sees no competition. It seeks self expression of the unique person we truly are & is present in the moment, curious not judgemental. It’s authentic & raw, whilst still being kind & compassionate. When we disconnect from our heart & leave it unheard & unexpressed there can be emptiness within. When we are brave enough to listen & express it, there is truth, flow & connection. If the energy of love is missing in your life, either for yourself or with others, I’d suggest the place to start is learning how to listen to your heart ❤️.
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📸 @paulnelsonphotos 🪄

Men’s health week: To mark the end of men’s h

Men’s health week: To mark the end of men’s health week, I wanted to share some truths that I used to believe as a man in relation to mental health. Some may resonate in an uncomfortable way, but if challenging, I hope they’ll provide introspective value as a result: I believed that I’d only need to work on my mental health if I had something wrong with me. My naïve perception was that those who worked with coaches or therapists were probably just emotionally weaker than me. On the contrary, I believed a sign of strength was denying & burying emotional pain. To help me do so, I unconsciously numbed my emotions & consumed instant gratification as a quick fix to happiness. The strange thing was that the more I consumed, the higher my standards got for what was required to make me happy. I believed that loving myself was an unhealthy desire of the ego & instead it was better to try to appear cool to others. It was a fine balance that I never mastered. The reality was I was misunderstanding that a healthy mindset is in fact the opposite. When we truly love ourselves in a healthy way, there is no need to try & be anything other than yourself. I believed that the more boxes I ticked & validation I received, the better I’d feel about myself. That was my route to success, but it was also a chase that never seemed to end 🤔. I believed that the lack of fulfilment I felt, was down to a healthy ambition. I believed that if I achieved more, I would eventually feel truly happy. Having experienced these beliefs myself, I hold no blame for any men who have similar beliefs or experiences. What I will say is that having learned what I have, I now believe that emotional growth is where a more fulfilling life exists for us all. That requires deep work that often isn’t easy, but it is absolutely worth it 🙌🏼.
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📸 @paulnelsonphotos 🪄

🥳🥳 festivals are back later this summer & I

🥳🥳 festivals are back later this summer & I couldn’t be more excited to share that I will be speaking at the incredible @wildernesshq 5th- 8th August 2021 at Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire. I can promise open, honest, emotional conversation - probably even more so than usual given it will be in front of a live audience again! It will truly be a beautiful experience to meet any of you attending in person, please come and say hi 👋🏼. If you have festival tickets you can now book to join one of my sessions here in the following link or from the @wildernesshq bio - https://www.wildernessfestival.com/book-experiences/wellbeing/ . I can’t wait to be back on stage in front of people 😆🥳

Men’s health week. For years we (as a society)

Men’s health week. For years we (as a society) have often judged our health by how we look. For us men that can show up in different ways, in my case it looked like trying to look big & strong - it was then that I thought I’d feel healthy / good about myself. The message is now spreading that mental health matters - what I’m hearing is we are finally realising it’s one thing to present well, but another to feel good on the inside. The two can be related on the surface but if we want to feel truly alive & deeply fulfilled, the work we have to do is internal. By internal I mean working on our mindset & learning to reconnect with & align our behaviour with our heart’s deepest values. We’ll struggle to find peace of mind, if we don’t understand how to find peace of heart too. So my message to men this week is this: There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious to achieve a good job, money, a nice car, handsome looks etc, as long as there is a realisation that these things will only feel so good. Inner peace requires an unravelling of the masks we learned to wear from a young age & re-connecting to love. These might sound foreign concepts to many, my suggestion is that the more foreign they sound, the more important it is to do the inner work. So to supplement @daviddeida.live words: “Stop waiting” for something outside of you to fill you up.
“Feel everything” so that you can heal & love.
“Love achingly” with purpose, clarity & passion.
“Give impeccably” with an open heart.
“Let go” of who you’ve been taught to be. This week I’ll be here for various live conversations to elaborate on the above, starting tomorrow (Tuesday) with @elevate_london at 1pm & @themanwhisperer at 6pm BST. I’d love to answer any questions around the masculine journey & why men behave as they do, so please feel free to ask during the live or drop a comment below 🙏🏼. With much love, Ben ❤️.
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📸 @paulnelsonphotos 🪄

I love waking up to the sound of nature’s tranqu

I love waking up to the sound of nature’s tranquility, nothing to hear but the birds singing playfully & the trees rustling gently in the wind 🌳. I love the sound of waves rolling in on the beach. Time after time they arrive, each one slightly different, each one calming 🌊. I love teasing my mum, asking her stupid questions knowing that she’ll bite in response, it makes me smile & never gets tiring (for me anyway) 😝. I love the feeling of a long day in the sunshine, skin sun-kissed, hair salty, body warm & glowing ☀️. I love the feeling of grass under my feet, it just feels so right 🍃. It’s the small things that bring me alive, I’m feeling grateful for a beautiful wkd. Happy Sunday to you, what can you feel grateful for today? 🙏🏼❤️.

Much of my inner work has been about reconnecting

Much of my inner work has been about reconnecting & allowing for the love naturally within me to flow & be expressed. It’s an energy I suppressed for a long time having created a story in my head that I needed to be strong, tough & unemotional if I was to thrive as a man 🙅🏻‍♂️. So I put on my armour, “manned-up”, worked hard to change my physical appearance & did my best to be the person I thought I should be. There was mixed success, it didn’t come totally naturally to me & I lacked authenticity, but I ticked enough boxes to feel reasonably accepted😐. We (men & women) can all benefit from tapping into our healthy masculine energy, it’s the leader within us. The problem comes when we go all in on this part of us, & block out the expression of who else we can be. As a Human we are wired to love & connect. Whilst the masculine energy is great for focus, clarity, determination & getting things done, if we are stuck in this space we become shut off from our heart. When I lived a masculine energy based life that was disconnected from my heart, I experienced emptiness within. It led me to constantly be searching, chasing life, always doing, rarely being. There was little connection to meaningful love. Perhaps this might resonate for some, given much of the world teaches us (both men & women) to give so much time & energy to our masculine. So, these days I’m grateful for the warrior within me, he gives me a huge amount. The difference today, is that he is only part of who I allow myself to be ❤️.
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📸 @lawrenceprice_ 🤗

I’ve been meaning to say & write about this for

I’ve been meaning to say & write about this for the last few days - happy pride month 🥳🙏🏼❤️🌈. It matters to me that I share this, because I believe in a world that allows us all to represent & celebrate what’s true within our hearts. Less judgement, more connection. I also recognise that it takes courage to stand up & celebrate who you are, especially when it doesn’t match the majority. So happy pride to all! May we continue to fight the cause for less discrimination & more equality. Let’s celebrate love & let go of discrimination on the basis of gender, race or sexual orientation. Hearts see hearts, love is love, our deepest beauty lives within ❤️. 📸 @lawrenceprice_ 👏🏼

I’ve said it before & I’ll say it again, I’m

I’ve said it before & I’ll say it again, I’m not perfect & nor are you. Perfectly, imperfect? Absolutely. Beyond our imperfections can we live with truth & honesty to build trust with both ourselves & others? It’s here that we can have a healthy relationship with the face that we see in the mirror, a relationship we have every moment of every day. Can we be stronger than our ego & show up despite our fears or failure, rejection or embarrassment? Because giving ourselves the possibility of trying is what allows for hope & freedom to exist. Can we apologise with sincerity when we make a mistake & embrace a change of behaviour thereafter to show our apology is sincere? Can we live with compassion for ourselves & others through an understanding that we will make mistakes, so that when we do fall short or experience moments of failure or shame, that’s ok? Can we own our flaws, so that our flaws don’t own us? Can we be brave enough to have the tough, vulnerable conversations about where we’ve screwed up, because integrity matters more than our ego’s connection to shame? Can we choose integrity over perfection, can we acknowledge that we are at our best by being perfectly imperfect & integral in our communication around that? Can we act so that we can tell the truth about how we act? And if we fall short can we sit in our vulnerability & own our limitations so that we can grow beyond them & show up better in the future? Can we own our sh*t so that we can build connections without barriers?🙏🏼❤️

I didn’t feel like a king growing up. In fact I

I didn’t feel like a king growing up. In fact I felt the opposite. There was a belief within me that I was low significance, unimportant, that my voice didn’t matter. Of course I was wrong, everyone is of value & I was most definitely loved. But these were stories that I was creating from as young as I can remember, & at that time, I didn’t have the emotional maturity to understand things differently. Looking back today, I am aware there was pain within me, I was out of alignment with my truth & didn’t love myself - it left emptiness within. My ego’s response was to tell me to start making myself important. It wanted to fill the wound that I experienced as a result of the pain I felt for not feeling of value as a child, because it associated that pain with me being unsafe. As I grew older, my ego grew louder. It led me to try to become who I thought I should be. I did a good job, in achieving some things that society deemed a success, I started to feel seen & a part of me finally felt of some value. But whilst externally things appeared to be good, I hadn’t yet learned what my deepest values were. That meant I was impressing others, but I wasn’t in tune with my core values. I’ve learned that societies expectations & our own deepest truth are rarely aligned. Thanks to the many coaches I’ve worked with, my own self study & the likes of @men_withoutmasks , I’ve been able to understand my past, find compassion & step more into my truth today. It’s that work that allows me to feel more free, a freedom I was always seeking. We all have a story behind the fears we bury. There shouldn’t be any shame in that, but it does take inner work to let it go. Today there are many days when I do feel like a king, but also an acceptance that there’s plenty of growth in me yet. That can be both scary & exciting, either way the goal is to keep showing up for what I’ve learned is my truth, & to do so as a humble man but also an ambitious one. A truthful man but also a loving one. Always learning, never believing he knows it’s all. That’s a king, that’s who I was born to be ❤️.
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📸 @honathanjunter

Time in peaceful nature, with good people, animals

Time in peaceful nature, with good people, animals & children is what I’d call a brilliant bank holiday wkd 💚. Whilst London is full of opportunity & adventure, over the last year especially, I’ve noticed how draining I find the energy of a big city. It’s really struck me how I open my front door to a world where everyone appears to be in a rush. I’m aware that, in the city, my inner voice (that seeks conformity) often feeds off the energy around me & buys into the busy nature of the London environment. In doing so it’s easy to teach ourselves to miss the beauty of being present to the small things, instead we move swiftly onto the next thing. Be busy, be busy, never stop & appreciate what’s already here. This might sound like a foreign concept, but I believe an emotional superpower is being both grateful & present in the now, whilst still retaining a healthy ambition to better yourself & grow. They can appear opposite ways of being, but they don’t need to be, we can be grateful, present & still hold a healthy ambition. So I’ve made a conscious effort to spend more time in nature in recent times, this wkd included - it’s been so beautiful. Although I have to say, I’d forgotten how tiring kids can be - see picture 5, taken at the end of a long day with three amazing & highly energetic children! I had about 2 mins to myself, 1 minute in & I was in full power nap mode! With love 🙏🏼❤️.
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📸 @juliaseye 🙏🏼

Friends are people of the same weird type ☺️ @

Friends are people of the same weird type ☺️ @alexcrockford @iamjoelburgess @lawrenceprice_ ❤️

It takes strength to love because we carry fear ar

It takes strength to love because we carry fear around rejection or failure. It takes strength to love as man because we have grown up subconsciously being told that emotions are weak. It takes strength to love because we live in a world that says do, do, do, & love requires for us to be. It takes strength to love because it asks us to release rational control & instead feel into what’s inside of our hearts. Ps - Tonight at 6pm BST I am going live with Naturopathic Doctor and Herbalist @dr.elderberry , to learn from Elderberry about how nature can heal us. We’d love for you to join us and ask any questions that come up 🙏🏼❤️.

#worldmeditationday - meditation is a buzz word is

#worldmeditationday - meditation is a buzz word isn’t it? In recent years we’ve cottoned on this free tool that we are told can help us with so many challenges, yet how many truly go there? It’s undoubtedly played a huge role in my journey of personal development over the years, here are my thoughts that I hope will be helpful: Forget about any perceptions you have of “meditation”, don’t even call it that if you’ve learned to perceive it in a certain way. Instead understand that when we close our eyes & sit in quiet, our senses naturally focus on going within. In this space it’s easier to go beyond our rational thinking mind, opening the door to a connection with the deeper part of ourselves. It’s here we learn about our truest values. When we learn about our most meaningful values, we have the choice to consciously steer our life in a direction that truly serves us. In a busy world, most of us follow our thoughts, but these are rarely aligned with our heart’s deepest wishes. So I’d say meditation is the gateway to a deeper connection with who we truly are. No teacher can teach us that, we have to learn it for ourselves. Whether you choose to call that meditation or not, it doesn’t matter, either way, time getting to know your deeper self is time that can serve your future well.
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📸 @juliaseye

When I started working with a coach, one of the fi

When I started working with a coach, one of the first things that stayed with me was “be careful what you say to yourself, you’re listening”. When I really became of aware of it, the internal chatter I regularly heard (from as young as I could remember) was things such as: “I’m not very confident”, I’m not good enough” & perhaps most interestingly & personal to me in later life “I never orgasm”. Then I came across a saying that told me to “watch your thoughts, they become your words. Watch your words, they become your actions. Watch your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny”. It was becoming very clear to me that my self talk wasn’t serving who I wanted to be. A big part of my healing was learning the reasons why I created this internal rhetoric, but that’s another story for another time. Having learned of it’s significant impact, I’m constantly working on my self-talk & decided to make it our theme for the month inside Heart Space this May. As part of that conversation I am thrilled to be hosting a talk tonight, 8pm BST, about the science of self-talk & how it impacts our lives on @heart_space_community where I’ll be joined by one of the world’s leading experts, the incredible @davidrhamiltonphd . David is someone I hold in the highest of regards. He has incredible scientific knowledge, combined with the kindest of souls who is full of love. I cannot wait to reconnect with one of my favourite human beings & share his insights to help us all grow. How we talk to ourselves is the foundation of how we show up & feel about our life. It’s something we can all work on & improve through understanding, introspective work & disciplined practice. My current self talk is that tonight’s conversation will inspire & help those who join us🙏🏼❤️.
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📸 @paulnelsonphotos 🪄

Things I’m currently working on: turning up the

Things I’m currently working on: turning up the lights more brightly... It can be easy to get complacent can’t it? The kiss that once made you weak at the knees, can become something you barely give time too. The sweet treat that you used to love, now just tastes normal. Sometimes we only notice how special something is when it’s gone. With nature being the theme for mental health awareness week at the moment, I ventured off into a park on Friday afternoon with a specific intention of giving awareness & appreciation to the magic around me. I went to the same park I’ve been to many times, but this time I looked deeper. I noticed the variety of the incredible birds that flew above me & watched how they flew. So elegant, so magical. I looked into the trees & noticed their strength & the different colours of leaves they blossomed. Such powerful things, yet still so soft & giving. I looked at the shapes of the plants & flowers & the beautiful art they created. So colourful, so amazing. The more I looked at them with open curiosity & wonder, the brighter their colours became. We became those “strange” people standing motionless staring at the beauty of nature. We climbed the trees, watched the clouds float by, smelt the scents of the flowers. In these moments I became increasingly aware that it’s not what we see, it’s how we truly see them. The same things I had walked past many times without impact, were now amazing me, I truly mean that. It was as if the lights had been turned up brighter & I could see nature in a new, more magical way. So when I say I want to turn up the lights in my life, I mean I want to be more curious about everything that matters around me. I want to notice the hairs dropping in front of my partners eyes, I want to notice the sensation of their touch, I want to taste the food I eat more deeply, I want to appreciate the love & presence of my parents, I want to notice the beauty of life, I want to feel every feeling. What a Friday afternoon it was. I mean it could have been just normal, but it wasn’t, it was special, because we saw it that way ☺️💚.

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