Focus

The process of harmonization goes hand in hand with the development of sensitivity. If you start listening, for instance, to the nutritional needs and (pseudo)allergic reactions of your body you’ll inevitably become more sensitive to foods. The body is a powerful probe. Use it with ease. Or else… you’ll miss the mark. (As in: alignment gone awry. Srsly.)

Synching up: a kind of retrospective of my life between ages 16-32

Syncing with the body or the practice of letting my body take over and render me headless

 

/This is my longest post to date in which I look at and connect some strands and trends in my life up until this point, right before turning 33. The common thread that’s running through this retrospective is the story of getting lost and confused within the reverberant echo-chamber of my head and finding my way out through relaxing more and more into my bodily impulses/

 

Recently I’ve made a huge discovery which is less a discovery than a remembering, I think. Listening to lots of Adyashanti tapes in the last couple of months has definitely played a big role in accelerating all this…

 

Meditation comes to me—I find. What’s more, it’s stalking me and slowly creeping over me, spontaneously and stealthily, it’s gradually overwhelming me. Nowadays, I find myself feel compelled to sit down and let my bodily stirs take over, to become headless as it were. I especially like to do it outside somewhere in the sun with my eyes closed and attending aurally (to the surrounding sounds) first. By easing into a grounded state of stillness where I am more cognizant of the subtle stirs in/of and around my body I know I am onto something essential.

 

My stretching and mobility routines evolved in a similar fashion, actually. I’d been dabbling in yoga for quite a while before I gained any inklings about what type of stretching actually work for me. For years, I was doing headstands and other top-intense postures but totally out of sync with my body. No wonder I barely ever felt revitalized by it. I was stretching everything I thought would benefit me without regard for what my body actually required. In fact, it’s been only around a year ago that I started to attune to its actual needs—which is literally working my way from the bottom up. I remember one sunny day in the garden accidentally discovering (by rotating my hips while leaning my torso in different angles) a tight muscle in the right side of my lower back, which presented me with a clue to follow. Ever since that discovery I’ve been conscious of aligning from the body rather than the head, by simply bringing more attention to my sensations. As a result, I have also recognized how intricately things hang together in my body. My fallen arches and popping knees, my lopsided gait as well as my slightly protruding gut and buttocks had all been related and kinetically linked. My abdominal muscles have played a key role in bringing my crotch out of its dysfunctional sunkenness, so to speak, to which functional training (with kettlebells, barbells, clubbells and foam rollers), Scott Sonnon style mobility drills and a short run in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu contributed a lot (by helping me develop significantly stronger core strength).

In short, discovering and corrective stretching against non-negligible musculo-skeletal asymmetries (neuromuscular traumas) that I have acquired/nurtured since a long time ago has also stealthily taken over me—I find.

 

So this is my huge discovery. Healing processes converge and con-spiral in the context of awareness. All it takes is noticing. Such a nobrainer—literally. I notice something and then I follow its lead. For a very long time I’ve been doing just the opposite: trying to do things from the neck up, from the head (hooked on fancy tips and ideas) out of sync with my body, disregarding its actual needs, impulses and appetites.

 

 

Now, if you are interested, here follows a short overview of other areas this has taken place in my life:

 

 

Growing up, I turned out to be quite a heady persona which was aggravated by the vague and subconscious but more and more intense confusion I felt as I was drifting away from the idyllic site of my childhood. Secondary school, university, working as a language teacher, PhD studies, moving to the capital, losing my girlfriend, living and working with people from all walks of life—with every new stage it felt like I was putting my life on a stronger and stronger hold, I was kind of suspending everything, subconsciously, waiting, in essence, for my past in some form to return in the future. I’ve pulled away from people in the present to prepare for those in the future who I think truly belonged in my life (like the people in my past I felt did).

 

Over these drifting years—spent in the spirit of disorientation—I have developed and resolved (as well as aggravated already present, probably congenital) mental & health challenges: a sluggish liver and sluggish bowel movement, migraine headaches, facial skin problems, low libido, a milder case of social anxiety/paranoia, excessive introspection & intellectualism, etc. In tandem with these failing conditions the more and more intense confusion that I was subconsciously experiencing drove me to clutch an ever tighter conceptual grasp on things, which, in fact, only (re)generated that confusion. In my 20s I became a truly head-heavy fellow. (Certainly, there is some basic susceptibility behind all of this. Things typically tend to come to a head with me. Unchecked tension and poorly managed stress bubbles up into my head and presses against my whole being from the top down as it were.)

 

A couple of years in PhD studies (literary theory) nicely complemented my heady escalation. I became an avid reader of literary theory, philosophy and cognitive science. I wanted to solve an Aesthetics puzzle that was growing in scope by the day. In essence, the same symptom has surfaced as in my teaching career I wrote about here, namely that I couldn’t just do it like a professional: impersonally. For me it had to be about the Truth. And part of the Truth, of course, was that I was conflicted inside as a person. So I was trying and trying but to no avail. I amassed an impressive but rather sketchy overview of intellectual history in my head, and even though in the back of my (hanxious) mind I knew that I could never cobble together the Truth from tesserae of theories and fancy ideas, I had no clue how much I was actually spinning in endless circles. To be honest, though, I really enjoyed most of the stuff I’ve read during these years, some of them truly fascinated my eager mind, but I had to give up the whole PhD thing because I was just plain lazy to put in the work in the end.

 

Falling in love and trauma-bonding with a girl didn’t help matters either. As a matter of fact the majority of my ailments arose within the context of our relationship. For 8 years we have been silently suffering from feeling smothered (her) and abandoned (me) respectively and when finally she broke up with me (on the wings of a new romance) I finally reached a tipping point. Since that pivotal moment the light has been seeping through the cracks, to wax poetic, ever more intensely and my body began to stir under the debris of my fragmented ego.

 

During the recovery I still got lost in the head a lot, of course. There were short-lived flare-ups of love-sickness with other girls and—to complement one extreme with another—short and rather innocent episodes of pick up artistry (gaming) as well. Slowly and with the help of online mentors I managed to come to my senses regarding intimacy and relationships, though. As a matter of fact what I’ve learnt from people like Owen Cook, Alan Roger Currie, David Deida, Alex Allman and Roosh V. were things that I already knew in my heart of hearts, but I may never have summoned the courage to take ownership of them were it not for these men. In a way these people empowered me by going against the grain of their ego themselves. In short, what they taught me to cultivate was transparency (to my heart-felt impulses).

 

/Incidentally, looking back I can see how tight a game I actually had before learning about game. That’s how I managed to ’’get’’ my girlfriend in the first place: I was just perseverant (and turned on I guess) like never before. I was all in—win or lose—and her months-long resistance just buckled under my zealous but seemingly cool-headed advances. After the break-up when I learnt about game through a random YouTube recommendation of one of Owen’s videos, I started experimenting with manipulating girls by exaggerating my confidence and cockiness (which, given my profession as a teacher, wasn’t that hard to pull off). Frankly, it was quite intoxicating because usually it really did work, and though I never went all the way, I managed to create many leads and witness how much girls tend to fall for certain vibes. But then I noticed that I actually became gimmicky and contracted in the manner in which I engaged women. I was putting on an act really (—now, just imagine the type of relationship that would come of putting on an act to get it going: luckily I skipped that phase). In fact, looking back I can see now that most of the girls liked me despite my game and not because of it. Before my gaming period the romantic flare-ups, in fact, were all due to girls being drawn to my simple, innocent and naive naturalness. But there the problem typically was that I felt an obligation to reciprocate and I practically forced/hypnotized myself into things I didn’t actually want. What game helped me with was to come to my senses and see and exercise the courage to own what I truly want and drop what I don’t. [Ironically too, I finally saw (in retrospect) how many girls actually did want to get involved with me over the last decade while I was busy convincing myself that I was unlucky with them. I ignored all their indirect invitations and passively rejected all of them only because I was afraid of the unforeseeable repercussions.] At any rate, I think I have come full circle now: I have come out of my head enough to see romance for what it is.

It is what it is.

Not more.

Not less.

So come what may, I don’t care any more: Transparency trumps all. ;)/

 

Another front where I got dragged down an endless rabbit hole was diet. Again, I came upon some exciting notions on YouTube (via Sean Croxton and his channel UndergroundWellness) which gave me some ideas as to what to try to help my girlfriend who was experiencing eating problems at the time (shortly after we moved in together). Indeed, her stomach was a perfect barometer of the level of anxiety we were marinating in. So besides eliminating gluten and sugar and vegetable oils I introduced her to the idea of the GAPS diet (Natascha Campbell) which soon was tempered with the less restrictive palette of the PHD diet (Paul Jaminet). We did it together hoping that soon she would feel better but what actually happened was quite unexpected. Her condition worsened to the point where she had to be referred to a facility to recover while my condition improved a great deal. My migraines were gone and I literally felt as if a fog has lifted off from my brain. Naturally, I got zealous again—right around the time I lost interest in my academic pursuits—and I started supplementing and seeking superfoods. I got a second-wind, so to say. Finding information online about health and nutrition became a newfound obsession and in tandem with the nutrition stuff I also bought into the whole lifestyle spiel. So, I was on track once again, trying to find the best information out there in order to upgrade myself on all fronts: nutritional, social, sexual, financial, etc. I even fell for that bulletproof hype for a while, subscribing to their quarterly box as well when I could barely afford such unnecessary luxury.

 

I think all of this low-key frenzy really culminated when my girlfriend came back to her senses in that facility she spent almost half a year and resolved to break up with me in January 2013. My head just couldn’t take it any longer. Something cracked. And that’s when the light started seeping through.

 

In retrospect it’s rather conspicuous how I tend to lend my focus and energy to certain projects and get fixated on them until they fail to yield the completion or the sense of coming home I was secretly hoping for. There has been a sequence of boom-bust cycles being iterated with less and less intensity from around age 16. Today, at least, I feel in between. My center of gravity has descended to somewhere between my head and my gut.

 

I’m still watching what I eat but less strictly. Inspired, for instance, by Ray Peat’s perceptive tips (eat for heat) I gave up some practices that didn’t seem to work: I stopped intermittent fasting and avoiding sugar. On the spiritual front too I’ve also gained crucial anxiety-resolving insights, nevertheless I still try to solve interpersonal glitches from the place of a self in control. As a matter of fact, my obsession with the Truth (á la Adyashanti) is the latest incarnation of the boom-phase and in a way it has been the governing obsession underlying all the others, I think. The difference is that now I know and own it. I’m in it but not consumed by it: I’m somewhere in between. Whether there is a beyond to this in-between stage I don’t know and I don’t care that much either, to be honest. Right now, this is where I’m at. And that is all that matters.

 

 

The way I see it: Our body has so much more to say than we’re willing to give it credit. All problems arise once we start executing ideas we entertain in our (socially conditioned) mind rather than relax into the truth of the moment and follow its lead as it ripples through our whole being, top to bottom. To live a (mindful) life worth living we must (re)learn to speak the language of the stars that the body speaks.

 

Rhythm Is A Dancer

although I purport to post every day on this blog
I had to cease doing so
I had to let the pressure of it go
and revert to post every other day instead
for sometimes I can churn it on a daily basis
but often it poses a real challenge to squeeze new ideas out of my neural tube
being that all I basically share is variations on a couple of themes I hold dear
even though the majority of these ‘insights’ are iterations
they are lighter and brighter versions every time..
at any rate,
usually it happens in lumps
things just pour out and then I post fragments of it for a few days and then I have a dry spell which I try to fill in with quotes that I find insightful
I think this is how musculo-skeletal strength (~alignment) evolves as well
I cannot train day in and day out
there are anabolic and catabolic stretches during the process
there are plateaus and surges and dips
the trick is to align with the undulations
and not choose to be wilfully blind to them
sometimes a long break makes wonders

incidentally, the previous post is a good example of something being forced
in contrast to what’s happening right here
this post is more “in tune”
(and I almost went “all or none” again–so typical of me–abandoning this space for much longer)
but here is the insight:

the idea of doing something on a regular basis quickly turns into a stressor when it loses its context

instead of committing to an abstract idea, an agenda
it makes more sense to stick to the truth of the moment

one has to appreciate the Rhythm
and trust it,
especially when it falters

any attempt at controlling it backfires
since there is no way around the truth

relish the surges and the dips
trace the fluctuations

relax

that is the best you can do!

Align With The Truth Of The Moment

cultivate your capacity to listen to your body
relentlessly,
tune into its ripples
by relaxing into them a bit more every single day

notice the signals on ever subtler scales

does your body temp drop after ingesting certain foods
do you have blood-sugar dips (triggering cortisol surges) throughout the day

where is the tipping point for each of your stimulant,
do you notice after what point does listening to music, for instance, start depleting (rather than stimulate) you energetically

how much rest do you still need to fully recover from the energetic deficit you have incurred during those stressful hours

do you go to bed when you feel like doing so or when you know you are supposed to

track the see-saw of give and take
take ownership of your triggers and fluctuations

listen

let go of the echoes that riddle your awareness and haunt your conscience
trust the cues within

here is another gem from Marcus:

“The conscious liar sins to the extent that his deceit causes injustice: the unconscious liar to the extent that he is out of tune with the nature of the Whole and out of order with the nature of the ordered universe against which he fights. And it is fighting when he allows himself to be carried in opposition to the truth. He has received the prompts from nature: by ignoring them he is now incapable of distinguishing false from true“

It’s About How Hard You Can Get Hit!

so Conor ended up tapping out at UFC 196
Nate proved stronger and proceeded to sub him

I haven’t yet seen the whole fight
only snippets of it
but something tells me
Conor ‘overextended‘ this time
to use his own word

his Self-image got the better of him
and the anxiety over success overwrote the joy of the fight

thus, regardless of the actual result:
Conor lost because he got something to lose
and Nate won because he was there to “kill or be killed”
he had nothing to lose,

the dynamics tilted towards Nate
because Nate let it come to him
he wasn’t grasping for it
he was making room for it

plus he is “stronger”

I guess

but let’s not forget the room that Conor made for the UFC over the last year or so,
now, that’s something truly breath-taking…

—

on a related note,

I also kind of see a parallel
with the way I am tweaking my diet:

in my attempt to up-regulate my metabolism/the inner fire
I incorporate more and more of the pro-thyroid foods that Ray Peat advocates and get overwhelmed (i.e. overstimulated/stressed) slightly when triggering some kind of craving I end up drinking raw milk, for instance, beyond my digestive capacity…

much like jumping two weight-classes in a matter of 3 months

but then,
without going over the line you wouldn’t know your ‘limits,’
you wouldn’t really gauge where you are actually at,
once you get knocked down you stand a better chance of finding your bearings

it’s all about alignment

at square one
you start small
and then build incrementally up
feeding it progressively
keeping it alive and ever roaring but always sustainable

to juxtapose Marcus Aurelius:

“Wherever it is in agreement with nature, the ruling power within us takes a flexible approach to circumstances, always adapting itself easily to both practicality and the given event. It has no favoured material for its work, but sets out on its objects in a conditional way, turning any obstacle into material for its own use. It is like a fire mastering whatever falls into it. A small flame would be extinguished, but a bright fire rapidly claims as its own all that is heaped on it, devours it all, and leaps up yet higher in consequence“

Joy

follow
rather than chase

The CommUnity

imagine all the [insert your name in the plural here] of the world mingling in the middle of a gigantic square..

paradoxically
the more you strive to differentiate yourself
the more seamlessly you blend into the big bland of others
that is, the more you differ on the surface the less authentic you are
authenticity is the common denominator
that only the rare breed align with
and yet, alterity is the essence of life
the less you bother about differentiating yourself from the human mass the more you differ from others

ratcheting up

it’s simple

it’s about supply and demand
is the amount of stimulation, pressure or stress you expose your body to adequately balanced with a surplus of rest, recovery, recreation and nutritious food that you can easily metabolize
in other words: is your lifestyle sustainable?

“everything comes to us that belongs to us
if we create the capacity to receive it”

[Own] The Context of What You Are Doing

your true intent is to heal your deepest wounds

if you don’t own and act on your true intent
all you do is ab-use others
and further damage your self

your true intent is to relax from your structural imbalances

to align
energetically

it all starts beyond the realm of (saving & losing) face

a couple of examples:

(1) in training, lifting weights your true intent is ligament alignment,
balancing your musculo-skeletal system

there is no better authority on this than Scott Sonnon:

“Be weakness-focused, create exercise opportunities for the weaknesses to flex and restrengthen themselves; balance comes as a natural by product

“Weakness is neural shut-down. Hold, until you switch back on

“The exercise you most hate is the one you need most.

“Test the ranges, find the restrictions, build the fundamentals, practice the skills, and only then train them at high intensity

(2) following dietary advice your true intent is appetite alignment
balancing your hormonal system

to my mind this is the best advice regarding proper nutrition:

“Optimizing health and increasing energy requires consuming a diet of easily digestible foods eaten in proper frequency and balance. The trick is learning to understand what foods are easily digestible to YOUR body and what is a proper frequency and balance for YOU” — EastWest Healing

(3) in intimacy your true intent is boundary alignment
balancing inter-personal needs

the best authority on this is David Deida:

“If a man prioritizes his relationship over his highest purpose, he weakens himself, disserves the universe, and cheats his woman of an authentic man who can offer his full, undivided presence”

etc. etc.

and sometimes the seemingly sleazy is nothing but a form of psycho-social therapy, an intra-personal alignment: https://youtu.be/DR2j2RC0Ytk?t=1h51m

Pay Attention

tune into every little wobble you experience
they give way and give away your attempts at Self-sabotage

your reactions hint at unresolved tensions
and neurotic holding patterns

they show where you are at
where you are presently standing in your own way

breathe out
relax into them