Posts Tagged ‘health’

Emotional Control is Essential

Posted: April 20, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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It is hard to see external events as neutral.

Of course we are going to dye the world in the colors of our thoughts and emotions. How could we not? Are we taught that in school? I’m pretty sure the playground and cafeteria experience(s) of school teaches us the opposite.

How can we regulate our emotions?

Because we have to. We can’t be hot heads. We can’t be basket cases. No matter what our ethnicity, gender or astrological sign(s) may tell us. We can’t go flying off the handle at people, places, events and/or situations because our emotions are stirred up.

This goes for positive and negative emotions. Because getting to high when things go well leads directly into getting to low when things go poorly. Emotional regulation is mandatory for us to achieve our goals and be successful. Whether the goals and definition of success is externally material or internally immeasurable; we have to be able to control our emotions.

Is there anything more challenging? I suppose not identifying with our thoughts. It’s safe to say a majority of people living on planet Earth are completely identified with their thoughts and/or emotions.

We are easily distracted because we are so deeply identified with our thoughts and emotions. It’s why in America social issues are always at the forefront of political discourse. Because then the working class or 99% will fight amongst themselves over emotional hot button issues rather than on issues of economic equality and the historical lack thereof.

Awareness is the way out.

Maintaining separation from one’s thoughts and emotions can be the work of a lifetime. What do you think monks in monasteries are doing with their time?

To become aware that we are not our thoughts or emotions, we are the consciousness behind them, is one thing, to stay in that state is a whole other ball of wax. Today during my meditation practice I was barely able to stay focused on my breathing for a couple of five counts over the course of twenty minutes.

But we have to try. Especially in the area of the comment section. We have to try. Emotional regulation is as important to our health as breathing exercises, eating well, and hydrating. Easier said than done, just like everything else in this world.

A meditation practice in combination with studying philosophy and spirituality has been a big help for me over the years. Along with a regular journaling habit.

Using the Calm app for meditation, reading The Daily Stoic for philosophy, and watching Eckhart Tolle and Alan Watts videos on YouTube makes up my most frequently used daily routine along with a one page thought vomit journal entry.

For many years now I have utilized supplements to help with my mood. Ashwaghanda, Theanine, and St. John’s Wort has been my go to stack for a long time. I recently took out St. John’s Wort to save a little money since I currently can’t afford all the supplements I would prefer to take. I know other people have had good results with GABA, Kava, Rhodiola, and flavored Magnesium Powder.

Emotional control is the work of a lifetime. If it were easy, the world would be unrecognizable. Why create problems for anyone else if one feels good or neutral all the time? So we try to take things one choice at a time. But we have to try. Well, I do at least. Maybe the people reading this by nature or nurture have had emotional regulation in the bag since childhood.

If that’s the case, I’ll have what you’re having.

More Literal & Metaphorical #WeightTraining Please

Posted: March 26, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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I love weight training. It is one of three things I recommend to every human being. It is one of the things I love that is actually good for me.

Weight training has positively impacted my life as much or more than any other external concept I’ve encountered while I’ve been alive. I’ve been regularly weight training for two thirds of my life now.

I don’t plan on stopping. All physical exercise is a marathon, not a sprint. Weight training is not something one does for a season, it is something one does for life.

Every year that goes by more and more scientific studies come out showing greater and greater benefits of weight training. Broader benefits and deeper benefits. Physical benefits, mental benefits and social/emotional benefits. Benefits for children and benefits for the elderly. Benefits for living longer and benefits for living a higher quality of life.

There has been and will continue to be resistance to weight training because of it being intertwined with bodybuilding. Male bodybuilders are to weight training as female instagram influencers are to yoga pants. They go hand in hand but only represent the egomaniacal extremes of the user base.

Most people want to exercise and benefit from weight training for practical health benefits. Not because they are seeking external validation from strangers via their smartphone to compensate for an internal lack.

For every fitness influencer covered in athleisure shape ware from head to toe while they photoshop their selfies, there are 10,000 people who would benefit from going to their local gym, a few times per week, to see and feel tangible physical benefits of exercise, surprisingly quickly.

Warm up, lift some weights that challenge their effort and comfort level, do some cardio, stretch, cool down, go home, shower, and eat. Anything beyond that moves into intermediate and beyond which one can find infinite information on in the growing podcast and youtube fitness video sphere.

Weight training helped me in the deepest, darkest times in my life. From depression, to burn out, to grieving the deaths of both of my parents. It helped me to feel good, feel challenged, feel accomplished, feel pride, feel growth. I wish that for every person I meet which is why I recommend it to everyone regardless of demographic or type.

Weight training also makes for great analogies and metaphors. Meditation, another thing I universally recommend, has been called doing bicep curls for the brain. Seeking general challenges and discomfort has been called weight training for life.

More weight training for all and more weight training metaphors please.

Notice how I am yet to bring up aesthetics. Except to poke at the social media narcissists who use perceived visual fitness achievement as a fix for their addiction to attention. Aesthetics is a by product of weight training and exercise in general.

Exercising for aesthetics can be a path the dark side of the fitness world. See fit fluencers and steroid abusers. People who are chemically and surgically enhanced, making a living, by living and lie. Lying to anyone and everyone, including themselves, that their aesthetics can be achieved with discipline, consistency, and whatever products they are selling.

I’ve had multiple IFBB pros tell me when it comes to who is on gear/has had cosmetic surgery vs naturals; muscle mass volume to body fat percentage never lies, ever.

So use common sense, although I’m not so sure how common that is anymore.

But common sense would dictate all humans engage in some form of physical exercise unless they spend their days engaging in physical labor for the job/career.

Use it or lose it. That applies to your body and your mind. Physical and mental ailments and deterioration are often brought about by physical and mental inactivity. The happiest and most spry elderly are the most active. The saddest and slowest youths are the most sedentary. Use it or lost it.

More weight training for all and more weight training metaphors please.

Living for our Present & Future vs Our Past

Posted: March 9, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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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.

Let #Laughter be thy Medicine, Medicine thy Laughter

Posted: February 24, 2024 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional, Stimulus Space Response
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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.

“a merry heart really does a spirit, soul and body good like medicine” 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.

Be Aware of #CognitiveDistortions

Posted: January 15, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Every day I have a reminder of my phone set to go off that says “I am Aware of Cognitive Distortions”. 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.

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