Posts Tagged ‘health’

Living in the present moment sounds so simple, too simple perhaps. If it was easy for people to be present, rather than identified with their thoughts, emotions, and/or memories, the world we live in would be unrecognizable.

Our past makes us who we are. What led us to this very moment in time? Our past. For better and for worse. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Our past choices became habits became patterns became the way we lived our lives. Many people live life unaware of this fact and even more are unaware that we can choose.

Meditation has been a life saver for me. Those close to me have heard me say that many times by now. Meditation helped me break the hold of identifying with my thoughts, my emotions, and as Eckhart Tolle says; my life situation.

We are not our thoughts, we are not our emotions, we are not our life situation.

What a wonderful concept. A moment of internal liberation. If only it was a one time, permanent fixing, magic pill, cure all. Meditation is not a magic cure all. Nothing is. The discovery that I am not my thoughts, I am not my emotions, I am not my past trauma was the beginning of awareness.

Awareness is the way out. Becoming aware was the first step, of the first day, of the rest of my life.

Step by step, day by day. One thing at a time. One choice at a time. That is how we live in the present moment. That is how we live for our future self that we would like to become. That is how we separate ourselves from our past, our trauma, our inapplicable teachings, our perceptions that no longer serve us, our old ways of doing things.

It’s just like most things in life; simple NOT easy.

Sure we can try, but what happens if we fail? What happens if we don’t try? What happens if we succeed? What happens if we sabotage ourself? What happens if we give up? We happens if we achieve mastery? What happens if we try, try, try again and nothing external changes?

First, gratitude. Always, gratitude. Gratitude is gravity. Gratitude is glue. Gratitude is what you lay the foundation on top of.

Then…

Step by step, day by day. One thing at a time. One choice at a time. We choose, to do what we can, with what we have, to the extent we are capable of doing.

Change is hard, change is slow, change can be painful. If the opposite were true, the world we live in would be unrecognizable.

So we have to forgive ourself. We have to accept ourself. We have to love ourself. We have to support ourself. We have to cheer on ourself. We have to champion ourself. Life can be hard enough. Change is made harder if we are hard on ourself.

Simple NOT easy.

It can seem overwhelming. It can seem insurmountable. It can seem impossible. That’s why we do things of this nature;

Step by step, day by day. One thing at a time. One choice at a time. One breath at a time.We choose, to do what we can, with what we have, to the extent we are capable of doing.

That is how we live in the present moment. That is how we live for our future self that we would like to become. That is how we separate ourselves from our past, our trauma, our inapplicable teachings, our perceptions that no longer serve us, our old ways of doing things.

Simple NOT easy.

Worth a try.

Laughter is good for the soul.

Genuine, deep, belly laughter is the way to inner peace.

Not nervous laughter or polite laughter or doing the physical, literal equivalent of typing lol at the end of every line of a text message or DM.

Laughter that makes your whole body move…thats the good stuff.

ā€œa merry heart really does a spirit, soul and body good like medicineā€ Proverbs 17:22

It’s easy to forget how good laughter is for us. So easy, it’s natural.

During bouts of depression or even just a string of bad days, when something struck my funny bone it was like the parting of the Red Sea.

Living life makes us forget, laughter helps us to remember.

Real laughter has aftershocks like an earthquake.

Our breathing changes, our muscles tense then relax, we feel aligned and at peace. A temporary state of ecstasy we wish we could bottle and take on demand.

Real laughter bonds and creates memories with people and events.

It feels great, it’s spontaneous, unpredictable, unreproducible as much as we may want and may try. We try to replicate the experience early and often. But it’s different each time, a little less than the real thing.

We all wish we could capture it, bottle it, put it in a pill, pump it to our veins.

Laughter is pure. It’s a reflex. It’s involuntary.

It feels great…just lovely.

I just had a belly laugh that inspired me to write. I saw a clip online from something I used to watch as a kid. I laughed so hard if someone was walking on the sidewalk outside I’d be surprised if they couldn’t hear me.

I laughed so hard I started swearing for no reason.

I laughed so hard that a half hour later my body still felt different.

What a wonderful part of life. What a piece of simple, practical magic.

Let laughter be thy medicine, medicine thy laughter.

Every day I have a reminder of my phone set to go off that says ā€œI am Aware of Cognitive Distortionsā€. It only goes off once per day. I could probably use another two or three…dozen reminders over the course of the day, as could most people.

Cognitive distortions or perceiving reality inaccurately, is as natural and normal and easy and automatic as breathing. Is it possible for people to not interpret and assign meaning to the things that happen to them? Yes. Is that the normal, commonplace way most humans live? No

Framing what happens to us in a positive way is obviously preferable. But if the majority of people had a positive way at looking at the world, the world we live in would be unrecognizable. We’d be closer to the Garden of Eden than not.

Negativity is natural. It’s part of how we have evolved. It’s how we have survived from hunter gatherers to farmers to the industrial revolution to the information age. Unfortunately the information age has put cognitive distortions on steroids. Social media echo chambers, travel vlog FOMO, influencer sensationalization, hustle culture, face filters and photoshop.

All designed to exploit our tendency towards cognitive distortions; to think less of ourselves, more of the content creators, so that we will spend our time, attention, and emotional reactions on whatever they’re selling.

Being aware of cognitive distortions brings a bit of wisdom to the information age that drowns us collectively and individually. Awareness is the way out after all. No magic pill. Awareness is less than action. But often right action won’t come unless awareness is there.

Positive, productive, beneficial cognitive distortions are preferred to the negative. It is almost always better to frame what is happening to us in a way that is productive as long as it doesn’t bring harm to anyone else.

Today however, as an exercise in having our feet on the ground while our heads’ are in the clouds, lets try to observe the external reality we live in with objectivity first. This is as it is. Acknowledge the is-ness of the moment. Be aware of what is happening without assigning labels. Then take action from there.

This is Eckhart Tolle 101. Practical. Applicable. Real world helpful.

Separated from the spiritual enlightenment and fulfillment practices that Tolle is synonymous with.

sportsrollajclogo2

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By @anarchyroll

Why does it matter that the NFL is offering bribes, pulling money for concussion research, and having their actions investigated by Congress?

The body cannot exist without the mind.

In America there is a growing concern, over the growing number of people who are being diagnosed with brain trauma and mental injury related to sports participation. Specifically there is a growing concern that football is too dangerous to be acceptable to be played.

The concern was initially limited to the participation of youths in pee wee football.

But the concern has morphed into concern that even adults should not be playing.
Why the concern for grown ass men who can make their own decisions? Because traumatic brain injuries seem to be less of RISK of playing football and more of an UNAVOIDABLE CONSEQUENCE with every passing research study.

The NFL knows this. The writing has been on the wall for decades but so many money is up for grabs that it is only natural that they would do what was in the financial interest of their $9 billion business to suppress as much of the science/information on brain injury research as possible.

Protecting financial interest seems to be the number one excuse for doing despicable things in America. The NFL’s actions in regard to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is despicable. So despicable Congress has publically called them out.

Something so bad it made Congress come together and actually do something? Eek.

 

ssrlogo2ajclogo2@anarchyroll
10/21/2014

The paradigm of physical exercise is false. There is no such thing as just exercising the body. The mind, heart, and spirit are always worked out and remolded just like biceps and abdominals.

When the Centers for Disease Control is listing the mental benefits of physical fitness, then there is more to the topic than just a series of rah-rah, feel good statements and slogans.

In America, where there is an obesity epidemic, any excuse to exercise is a good excuse. Pushing the limits of one’s physical fitness is hard, very hard, if it wasn’t then more people would do it. It should come as no surprise that those who battle depression also are less physically active than the average person.

Working out really is hard. Fitness models, bodybuilders, athletes, and supplement salespeople would love it if you believed that you are just an unmotivated sloth. But, show me an insanely fit man or woman and I’ll show you a person who is dependent on supplements like a crack addict. To work out completely naturally, with nothing but water, food, and sleep is a difficult proposition. Add a full time job it’s that much harder. Add in family, friends, hobbies, and the human condition and it is no wonder that the entire developed world isn’t dealing with an obesity epidemic.

The sick joke is that fitness inspiration through imagery of unrealistically, aesthetically in shape men and women can have an inverse effect on the desire to even get started. After all, how much time, effort, energy, money, ambition, and sacrifice is going to be required to become as fit as those Instagram fitness celebrities?

This is where a paradigm shift is required. Paradigm shifts take as much time, energy, and effort as all the crunches and clean eating required to get a ripped 6-8 pack. BUT, a paradigm shift can be as simple as seeing something differently and taking action differently based upon a different vision/way of thinking. The paradigm shift in this case is to see exercise as not just exercise for the body, but as exercise for the heart, mind, and spirit as well. A way of becoming more fit as a whole person. Not just as an aesthetically pleasing narcissist. But to be healthy, literally from the inside out.

Anxiety and depression are the thick thieves of living life. I can attest that from experience. If doing some push ups, squats, crunches, weight lifting, yoga, jumping jacks, and jogging can do it’s part to combat these twin towers of terror in daily living, why not? It’s cheaper than a Prozac prescription. But self-mastery is hard, and that’s what we’re talking about when we’re talking about the need to exercise for the benefit of mental health.

Self mastery is hard, very hard. If it were easy then everybody would do it.

I can’t pretend to have all the answers. I can only speak to what effect physical exercise had on me while I was in the throes of my depression as an adolescent. I used exercise as a distraction. I used it as an excuse to not deal with my larger, more encompassing mental/emotional problems and disorders. I would go to the gym after detention during my high school years. Rather than seeking advice from educated, trained personnel I would pump iron and run laps. As time went on I found yoga and meditation.

Lifting weights, doing cardio, practicing yoga, and meditation were/are all wonderfully helpful distractions from “getting help”. But any singular or combination is infinitely better than watching television, surfing the internet, spacing out, laying in bed awake, remembering past negative events, and/or imagining future confrontational events; all of which I am guilty of doing repeatedly if not habitually.

We are all flawed beings. We all seek to be perfect, if not at least better. We’re all doing our best, even if our best is not good enough. If physical exercise can improve our mind and our spirit, then why not set aside ten minutes, to a half hour a day a few times a week to becoming more whole and making a good faith effort to fill the hole in our soul?

The effort required to expand my comfort zone to putting the effort in there, fuels my effort to expand it elsewhere, and I hope it does for you too…