Tag: meditation

Change of seasons

Once again the mornings are warmer, and the ground does not freeze my feet. My breath no longer shows white in the dark. The sun climbs out from over the horizon quicker than it did a week ago, and every new day its aura soaks into the black sky a little bit earlier.

It wasn’t as cold as the previous year, though. The spring may prove to be a warm one, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the summer were to be hotter than those of recent memory.

It is raining again, and the rain will continue through the next few weeks before the earth grows hot. Two days ago, the rain sprinkled down lightly enough that I could swing the kettlebell without taking shelter between sets. The handle became a bit too wet to safely grip, though. I found a dry towel in a bag among the things outside that I haven’t yet stored away. I used the towel to wipe the handle down before each set, but eventually I left the towel on the handle and threw it aside just before the set. Some of the chalk on my hands washed away from droplets on the handle, but I was able to keep a firm enough grip on the bell.

Rain is good. It teaches you to not take dryness for granted. Stand in the rain as you train and you’ll learn that your grip on the bell isn’t as solid as you thought. A little slip is okay, but you need to play with the pull of the iron to keep your grip. Keep the handle in your fingers, or else your palm will blister and tear.

Rain will also teach you about your grip on the ground, with your feet. In the rain you’ll need to pay extra attention to keeping your big toes planted and pointed forward, still spreading the floor and not letting your feet swivel out. This has a lot to do with how you distribute your weight through the swing, and your hinging at the hips. You’ll learn to concentrate on driving the force down into the ground as you stand tall.

I think of the garden that my mom let me tend two years ago. Most of the vegetables I planted by seed are gone, brown caked rectangles of dirt where they once sprouted green and fresh. The collards alone survive the negligence of the past years, new stems ever pushing through the earth, mindless of heat or cold or rain or none. Unkept, the stalks will thicken to the size of a child’s wrist, scaly and strong, leaves massive.

Together with the earth, mankind turns in seasons, as man is one with the earth and not separate from her nature. As with a vegetable stalk that becomes tough, the mind becomes calloused and set in its ways, until there is little use left. It is time to cut the plant at its base, leaving the roots in the soil, and allowing the overgrown stalk and leaves to dissolve back into the earth, to become fodder for new growth. Nothing is lost, and everything dead is put to use again by the universe.

Do this with your thinking, with physical training, with social relations. Let the dead shell drop about you so that you can change. There is a point where the things that served you well, the skills and strengths and patterns you employed, may restrict movement. Do not be afraid to cut back into the armor to develop a stronger, more flexible, more resilient, more reasonable suit.

When men in our society train to increase strength, particularly with use of the barbell for absolute strength, they tend to go too far. It is human nature to become excited about one’s initial gain in physical power. A man often finds trouble once the regular increases in his training weight are not so easy to lift. He feels fear that he is not as good as he was in the beginning, when he could surpass himself and beat his own weakness. Most men quit, afraid of hurting themselves. Everyone else continues, stupidly. Rather than determine the level of strength that is necessary for survival and the degree of fitness sufficient for his duties in this life, the stubborn man continues to try to lift more weight. He pushes on, ignoring the pain in his joints, the diminishing abilities to move freely, and the unnecessary burden of nutrition and sleep to sustain the exercise.

Few take the time to slow down and think about the plateau they have reached before pushing themselves too far. This kind of man, whether it be long after many trials of stupidity, or a brilliant first encounter, realizes that his strength does improve in a linear progression. He also does not measure, nor does he care too much about, the numerical value of the weight he can lift. What’s important is how he moves the load.

Women generally know the futility of stubborn training. When a strong woman trains her strength according to her own sense, she tends not to push beyond a reasonable level of difficulty. She rarely injures herself or trains to a degree that inhibits normal movement. And yet she often becomes stronger than many men. Men should learn from strong women how to train strength.

What a great time it is to explore our strength. It takes strength to maintain calm, and how vital it is to remain calm when it is easier to let your fear take hold of you. Wake up, brilliant men and women! Continue to develop your strength, improve your diet, and clear your mind of unwanted thoughts, a little every day. If you find your season changing, shed your old skin and let yourself grow anew. Do it aggresively.

Do not let anyone else control your body, or your movements, or your mind, or your heart. Breathe freely, and act according to your principles. If you are young and strong, encourage those around you who are old or weak. Smile even if you are afraid. Do not let their fear seep into your mind, and gently assure them that all is well and promote good health and courageous living. Who else will do this, if not you?

Remember that each of us can choose how to behave. Be calm. Be brave. Treat your fellow man with dignity and respect. Create peace and solidarity within your family and let that be shared with the rest of your community. Do not give furtive looks at others as you pass them in the street. Don’t listen to too much news. Respect authority but don’t lose your mind in whatever you do.

Live powerfully,

Steve

Seven Minutes

There’s a lot of talk about mindfulness. People are striving to be in the present and enjoy the moment.

There are certainly effective ways to make it easier to be in the moment. Remove distractions.

When you are spending time with someone, for example, switch your phone to airplane mode. Or turn it off. There. That’s a whole portal of messages, notifications, and pings that you close. And keep it that way until you’ve said good bye to the person or people with whom you had committed to spend time.

Now the only thing that will distract you from what someone in front of you is saying is something the person next to him is saying. And notice the organic ebbs and flows of conversation. They say conversation naturally slows or pauses every seven minutes…

Live powerfully,

Steve

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What I’ve Been Chewing

I know it’s been too long since I’ve written to you.

I’ve been traveling and figuring things out lately, and haven’t sat down to write in a while. There’s lots I want to share with you. Here are several things I’ve been pondering, developing, and talking about with people around me. Most of them you’ve seen from my blog before, but wellness is never a one-time deal for me. Being healthy is about practice, trying, developing, and building layers.

These items mostly came out of traveling and being “on the road”, meaning no gym, no permanent home, limited resources for training and cooking. I hope you find this useful, whether or not you’re traveling. After all, I started a lot of these things while working in a corporate office and living in Los Angeles. So it’s all transferable. Here they are.

Gentleness

There’s a book I love called The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving Kindness, by Pema Chodron. It’s about the wisdom in accepting your circumstances, loving yourself, and not rebelling against who you are. The book is written by a Buddhist teacher, mostly for people seeking the philosophy and technique behind Zen meditation. I read this in college, and the book has carried over to all other aspects of my life. Including physical training.

One of the biggest downfalls of the fitness industry is that consumers are not encouraged to take things slow, to work on themselves gently, and to train for the long game. Trainers, coaches, supplement companies, and magazines are full of the notion that the body has to be broken to become better. It’s your body. You don’t have to break it, or suffer, to become stronger. That’s not how things work.

In the short run, you might get big muscles, snaky veins, and a six pack. I understand the need to have these things. It’s been pounded into our psyches by mass media, and it’s part of our primordial urge to be fit. But what about the long run? Will you be well, functional, pain free, and freely moving years, decades down the road? Do you care?

There is a way to be strong and to remain strong for the long game. And that way involves gentleness. It requires you to learn about your body in every possible way as you develop your wellness. Be gentle with your eating. Be gentle with your body, your moving, your training. Be gentle with your mind. This comes into play when you realize that you are not going to get some specific result immediately. Eating a salad today won’t make you skinny, lean, and virile tomorrow. And it doesn’t help to eliminate fats, proteins, and carbs from your diet. See how going rough leads you into a downward spiral?

Step back, make gentle pushes, observe results. Test yourself, but don’t break yourself. The object of the game is to grow, to learn, to be healthy, happy, and capable.

Barefoot training

Feet have a structure and function that work only when they are unhindered. You have the ability to redevelop your foot structure, the right stance, the right walk, and the right movement patterns. It starts with taking off your shoes. Go barefoot at home, around the hood, and wherever you can in the outdoors. It’s just one of those things that gets easier the more you do it. So start tiny.

We will see many products hit the “barefoot” market. Shoes, sandals, socks, sports equipment, and hopefully even transportation that lets us be close to barefoot all day long. I think this is progress. However, these products do not make you barefoot. Simply using your bare feet is different. Barefoot cannot be replicated. A “barefoot running shoe” is not barefoot. It is a shoe.

Train barefoot. Do strength training without shoes or socks. You can do them all if you start from zero, go gently, and progress responsibly. I have done deadlifts, squats, kettlebell, and body weight exercises barefoot. Orthopedic insoles did not help me. I had prescription plastic insoles for most of my adolescent years, into college. The pain of walking, running, and standing in shoes went away like magic. But guess what the price was? My feet got flatter and weaker, more prone to strains, and less and less able to hold me up the way they are supposed to.

Then I started following Kelly Starrett, and shed the insole supports. I wore flat shoes instead. Then I wore huaraches. But nothing beat walking barefoot outside, running barefoot on the grass and sand, and lifting barefoot at the gym. These activities, over three years, rebuilt the shape and mechanism of my feet. I now have arches.

So this is where I would link you to a product that I used, but I can’t because there is no product. You just simply need to take off your shoes and socks. However, there is technique that you need to use for proper development. Just like with all other parts of your body, such as your knees, your back, and your shoulders, for example, feet have a correct position and movement pattern. Place your weight on the parts that are meant to hold weight: the sole, the outer blade, the balls of your feet, and the toes. You’ll see that your arch, or insole if you don’t yet have an arch, doesn’t have to touch the ground. You’ll feel that springiness in your step. Walking, running, jumping. Try them all barefoot.

Figure it out and rebuild yourself from the ground up. If you need coaching, I can help.

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Fat first

From five years of self experimentation, drinking butter coffee almost every morning, traveling and eating for optimal energy, and talking with others experimenting with eating more fat, I continue to find that “fat first” works. This means eating fat for the first meal of the day, whether that be in the morning or afternoon or night. It means eating fat before eating other foods during any meal, or at least at the same time. Try grass fed butter melted into rice. And “fat first” means making sure to eat good fats, from good sources. Why?

Because fat is filling, fat is the building block of cell membranes and your nervous system and your brain, and fat gives you energy. Eating good fat from healthy animals ensures that you get the nutrition your body and brain needs before you fill up on other things like starch. Eating fat first means you get satisfaction and feel fuller from it. It helps guide me in my meals, because as long as I eat good fats I know how much of other stuff to eat. I feel more balanced in my urge to eat rice, veggies, and meat when I am eating good fats. Don’t think I don’t eat carbs. I eat lots of carbs, because I need it for my body composition, level of training, and daily activity. But my eating is moderated by the fat I’m eating. I guess I can say that fat is my primary source of satiety and energy, and my starting point for measuring hunger and portions.

Here’s an example of how fat is my nutrition measuring tool: if I feel the munchies, cravings, or urge to eat dessert at night, despite having eaten dinner, I’ll rewind through the day to see how much fat I’ve eaten. Most times, I’ll realize I forgot to mix butter into my rice, or didn’t have my usual butter coffee, or didn’t get the chance to eat any good quality fat that day. If I can, I slap a slab of grass fed cow butter onto some sweet potato and have at it. Fat first.

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Kids and perfect form

I am fascinated by kids who are allowed to develop physically without the restraints of bulky sneakers, cribs, seats, and overprotection. My friend lets his son walk, run, roam, climb, and play more than most parents I’ve seen. He also lets him do this barefoot, even outside. When shoes are necessary, they are soft, flat on the bottom, and flexible enough for the feet to do their natural job. The result is incredible.

My friend’s son is a dense-bodied mover, and he is able to hold his core rigid when he’s lifted off the ground, flipped overhead, and swung back down. He holds perfect spine alignment as he deadlifts a suitcase off the floor. This beloved mini-athlete sometimes gets into a yogic child pose, stretches out on his belly, and lifts his arms and legs off the floor in a reverse plank. It’s all play to him. And he’s barely a year and a half old.

I laugh and marvel at his feats of mobility and strength. At the same time, I feel excited about what this little kid represents. He shows me it’s possible to have a perfect squat as natural and easy as yawning. He proves to me that movements like the deadlift and positions like straight feet and straight spine in the squat are natural. It gives me an example to follow. Since the kid hasn’t been molded into cushy shoes, and since he hasn’t been confined to classroom chairs, his movements are intact. He pushes his limits all the time in the weight of the bins he lifts, the suitcases he pushes, and the stairs he climbs.

Doing these things is challenging in themselves, but doing them with minimal risk of injury and optimal strength is natural only because limitations are not yet put on our little friend. So what if you’re starting today, having already gone through the body-morphing gauntlet of “civilization”? You’re not alone. Modern life’s walls came up, boxed you into the appropriate shapes, and contracted your physical and spiritual expressions into the norms of the day.

It’s not about being a kid, or about glorifying childhood or youthfulness. No. Just look at the human form in its beginning stages, and you can find movement and position as it was meant to be. You can train your malleable body to obtain the strength, movement, and positions of human expression. The full squat, the unhindered overhead arms, the use of joint torque, and spine alignment are all obtainable with training and practice. Possessing natural physical expression and the strength to maintain it will free your mind and soul to build toward your greatest goals.

Live powerfully,

Steve

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Happy For Now

Right now, I’m happy.

It’s not that I’m well-rested. Nor that I’m well-fed. Nor that I’m sitting in a comfortable home on my earthing mat. Nor that the sun is bright outside, promising a beautiful day for training later. It’s not that I have family near me. Nor that I feel vibrant, strong, mobile, and well.

I’m happy because I am appreciative of all of this. I’m happy because this is what I let myself expect, want, and feel good about. I desire more, ultimately. I have dreams. And I will see them through. But I am at the moment, just now, here, satisfied with who I am, what I am, what I have, what is here.

I am not ecstatic, overjoyed, or excited. I am calm, serene, and still. I won’t be in this state for long. I won’t be happy all day, every day. It will fade, and I’ll enter one or another mood, state of mind, point of focus. And that’s okay. Happiness to me is about moments. It’s about ebbing and flowing, entering and exiting a state of awareness, an appreciation of the environment. And as transitory as it is, I still enjoy it and have it when I will.

Happiness for me is something to pull in and hold when it comes, then let go when it’s gone. What choice do I have? I can’t hang on to something that’s no longer there. Happiness is something I can be sure will come again, even though I let it go this time. Happiness is not nature’s permanent gift to me. It is a temporary reward for a state of mind I build. It is a result of mental, emotional, and physical work I give. And yes, it will fade. The rich aroma will run out. The warmth will dissipate. And I’ll accept that, in order to fully embrace and enjoy it when I have it.

To be sad, to grieve, to feel glum when happiness fades, can give way to greed. Greed is the opposite of happiness. To continuously want more, to not enjoy while something is in my hands, is to be greedy.  Greed is an absence of appreciation. It is constantly grabbing for something else, just out of reach, letting the good I have in my hands slip out in my grope for something else. It seems simple and innocent enough to feel this way, but you can see how greed feeds dissatisfaction, unhappiness, sadness, and anger. These feelings can lead to cruelty. Why should someone want to act gentle, considerate, and positive, when they are never satisfied? When they feel discomfort, unquenchable thirst, and grating want? Something as innocent as reaching, when you have something already, can lead to shameful consequences.

Happiness is not settling, though. Being happy does not mean you sit for the rest of your life once you’ve gotten something you appreciate. Settling is a determination not to grow. Happiness, rather, is the momentary appreciation of what I have, and it doesn’t dictate that I will not work for something else. It is a continuous state of taking, basking, and letting go. In this way, I can be happy all my life, although I won’t be happy every moment of life.

This is the difference that confuses many people, myself included. Happiness is not an ultimate state. It’s not a heaven at the end of life, a permanent place to dwell and forever feel “good”.  Quite the contrary. Nothing is good in infinite quantities. Golden retrievers, the Prius, coconut water – how undesirable they’ve become through ubiquity! Scarcity makes a thing valuable, cherishable, desired, delicious. Happiness is scarce. It is a rare fruit, something I can come upon, pick, and enjoy at points along the road. How much better a single, ripe pomegranate by chance, hanging from a happenstance tree branch, than a boxful at the store? If you have something all the time or everywhere, it’s just not as good. And that’s why happiness is so sought – because it’s so rarely had.

How to be happy more often then? It has a lot to do with your placement of needs and means of living. What you expect from yourself, others, and the universe will determine the threshold at which you find yourself satisfied. But you can see that this isn’t all. Even if your “current” needs or wants are eventually met, your standards might have changed by then. The other component to being happy, then, is to hold steady the expectations you’ve set for yourself – at least until you’ve achieved them and allowed yourself to reap the benefits of that achievement. Even if for only a moment, you will be in possession of happiness for the appropriate amount of time, and at the appropriate time.

You don’t have to do this consciously, like keeping a record of the things you want and then checking them off one by one. This sort of blatant, systematic approach might kill the whole thing. But if you are the type to need or take extreme satisfaction from doing such methodical things, then it might benefit you. You might actually find clearer, more recognizable moments of happiness. For others, the process can be a bit more touch and go. It can be something you think of every once in a while, setting goals and making note of your desires and only coming to it again when it is in front of you to achieve.

Either way, it’s important to see that happiness isn’t a permanent state of being. At least it’s true for me. And that being happy, when you are, can be a deliberate action, especially if you are not in the practice of allowing yourself to be happy. Study yourself. Are you the type of person who puts off reward, and feelings of satisfaction or achievement, even if you have truly done something well or achieved or gotten in possession of something you desired? Do you delay these feelings of gratification because you would rather wait for a greater moment of accomplishment, the ultimate desire met?

There’s much benefit from this sort of discipline. However, you might want to break down the accomplishment into smaller segments. Because as great as the reward may be for that ultimate accomplishment, you may never find yourself enjoying it or being happy. For, when you do reach it, how do you know that you won’t simply feel that there’s something better? And there’s always better, given the type of person you are. As much as discipline can give you great results, it takes discipline to acknowledge when it’s time to rest and celebrate. To never feel happy or satisfied can damage your well-being. It is good to let yourself enjoy what you have accomplished, although it might not be the ultimate goal.

That is, if happiness if what you really value.

Live powerfully,

Steve

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Me, enjoying a coconut on a Bali beach. Happy. photo and editing by Audrey

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Choose Better

You have more options available if you meditate.
This happens because meditation can help you make high-level decisions. What does high-level mean? It means that the decision comes from a calm, focused state of mind. You will be more and more able to judge a problem and create a solution for it that works in a positive way. You will be able to rely on your logic, experience, and instinct. The instinct you rely on will be of a deep nature, rather than a reactionary instinct.
On the contrary, a low-level decision is reactive. Something scares you, and you jump. Someone makes you angry, and you attack. There’s little focus on the underlying problems. Attention turns from what matters, to what is in front of your face. There’s lots of hurrying, hustling, and bustling to put out fires.
Think of Bruce Lee dodging a punch. He could spin around and crouch into a corner with his hands covering his face. Low level decision. No other options will present themselves. Or, he could side-step, let that incoming fist graze his cheek, and punch straight back into his opponent’s face. Deep instinct. He’s still on his feet, still has his eyes open, still has his composure. Lots of options.
Real world example? Okay, here. Has your boss ever come up to you with a quick request for something irrelevant and totally not on your priority list? What was your response? Did you end up just doing it? Why?
Enter high-level mindset. Your default response is no longer, “Okay I’ll do it right now”. Instead, your natural, deep-instinct feeling tells you this is not as important as it may seem. It’s something your boss may not realize is irrelevant. She’s in a rush for it because her boss wanted it from her. You’ve got more important things to do. Really. But you know you shouldn’t tell her that.
So you say, “Okay, I can see that’s pretty urgent. I’m working on xyz right now, that you wanted me to get done by tomorrow. It’s taking my whole week and I’m making sure it’s finished by when you need it. Do you want me to put this aside, though, and help with this new issue first?” And watch the world take a different turn.
High-level decision. The more of these you have, the less busy work you end up doing. That’s because you’re coming from a place that is focused on getting the right things done. It’s the beauty of “managing up”. You are able to recognize, from your unique standpoint, what’s important. And when you recognize what’s important, you give less urgency to things that aren’t important. No one, not even your boss, wants to be seen as ineffective. If done with respect, you will get respect for prioritizing.
Your emotions will no longer stop you from finding the most effective ways to get it done. If your heart was beating fast from reading the above scenario, you’re not alone. Mine was too. I’ve been in that situation countless times. Only when I developed a hold of my mind, control of my actions, did I start responding better to such emotional circumstances. And I grasped it through meditation.
Let me share something from the other side of it. I was also the boss of employees. And I also put my staff through these situations. I need something, quick. Please do it. Put aside your other tasks, this is more urgent. I saw that with this management style, people were doing what I asked. But often, they had more important things that were getting swept aside.
As I discovered that meditation was helping me become effective, I wanted to help my staff develop the same sort of prioritization. Not everything I say or ask for is of the utmost importance. Let me know if I’m out of line. I cultivated an atmosphere of dialogue.
This was healthier for my team. People needed to be able to do the good work they did. So I started to encourage push back. I would tell people to actually let me know if what I’m asking was getting in the way of something more important. And guess what?
When one of my employees took a deep breath, turned and looked me in the eye, and sincerely said, “I have abc that needs to be done first. Can I help you after?” More often than not – as a matter of fact almost always – I would rethink my priorities.
Do I really need this thing? What’s most important for the organization –  for our mission? And if my request paled in comparison, I would delay it, do it myself, or tell my boss we had more important things to do.
So there you have it.
If you come from the right place, you can take ownership of the situation. You can stop the freight train, take a breath, and set priorities before making a move. It doesn’t matter if you are an executive or a front-line employee. Make high-level decisions. Have more options.
Meditation brought me to that place. Have you tried this?
Live powerfully,
Steve

Ever A Traveler

I’m on a bus back to the Bay Area. We’re somewhere on Interstate 5 between the 46 and 41 junctions. To the west the blue mountains separating us from San Luis Obispo sleepily lay. Between us and the mountains stretch acres of dry, golden flats. Methodically straight rows of corn and fruit trees come and go at intervals.

The bus is a double decker, laid out spaciously and set with large, vista-friendly windows. Still, the seats are a bit short, and it gets to feel crowded after a few hours. I must be spoiled after a month back in the states. In Thailand we would have been rejoicing that there was A.C. and a bathroom, no less.

I was worried that after coming back from our travels my wife and I would return to the same old life. That being back with family, friends, and the people of our environment would quickly bring us back to the same lifestyle.

But I’m surprised to find today, on this bus, how happy we were to be going somewhere again. I didn’t except it. We were straight up gleeful as we put our bags away, found seats, and buckled up.

Once a traveler, always a traveler.

There’s something about having removed ourselves from familiar society at length. We suspected that life was different elsewhere. When we found it to be true, we saw that we could live differently. Not just in the fact that we weren’t working, though that was a big part of it, but also that we could get along with different infrastructures, languages, cultures, and geographical locations.

We weren’t tied to any one place in the way we thought we were. Or at least me. My wife had grown up on the other side of the world, then moved to the states later as an adult. She’s also traveled far more than I have. In a sense, this stage of her life might simply be a return to the familiar.

It’s almost like having a crutch removed. Actually it’s more like having a third leg torn off, and discovering that it’s possible and quite more advantageous to move around with just two. There’s a sensation of a great skin having been peeled away, like a shedding snake. Yes, it’s a bit traumatic. To be honest, there is pain in leaving a home and a lifestyle.

We sold, donated, stored, or dumped everything we owned in the blink of a month. It had taken years of hard work to buy most of it, and a lot of thought and heart went into the style and feel of our cozy apartment. It was our love nest, not for a baby, but for the time we grew into steady, working professionals together.

Our home was our safe haven. It was where we cooked and enjoyed our dinner, where we slept, where we brought friends for hilarious games and vulnerable conversations. It was as much a part of us as our organs, like an extension of our hearts. We expanded like vines on a tree into our apartment, becoming yet again better versions of ourselves in a new stage of life.

To let go of our home was to have an organ removed. It bled, it hurt. We cried, we yelled. We desperately struggled to rid ourselves of everything even as our hearts told us to keep it. We were tired beyond tired.

And we were scared. But fear was the one thing we were prepared to handle. It was the battle we had committed ourselves to fight in order to move to this next stage of life. Fear, I knew.

It was the one thing keeping us from what we wanted to explore. What if? What next? How? The unknown haunts anyone daring to step outside of her life as she knows it.

Committing to travel meant accepting fear and deciding to look on the other side. It’s always a decision, at the end of each day.

So we accept consequences, act with decency and accept grace as it comes. But we never lose what we learned. And that is that we are ready and willing to face fear to see the other side.

Live powerfully,

Steve

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What I’m Learning From Regular Meditation

Of course I’m going to say it’s awesome. But I’ll get specific for you. I want you to know what exactly is happening for me. Meditation has already been a quiet, but gargantuan, force in my life. Regular meditation, though, is a whole other beast.

I haven’t been perfect this past month. Sometimes it was only once a day. But for the most part I meditated upon waking, and before going to sleep. With the exception of a few days, I meditated at least once every day.

The thing I really noticed was an increasing awareness of myself. I heard the words I was saying. I felt the emotions I was feeling. I saw the thoughts I was thinking.

You might think this is obvious stuff. Who doesn’t feel what they are feeling? Let me go deeper. When you get up in the morning, what’s the first thing you think? What is the very first word you say each day? What do you feel? Are you happy? Sad? Excited? Or maybe angry?

Believe it or not, there is a first emotion. A first thought. And more tangibly, a first word. If you believe that the beginning of something sets the tone for the rest of it, then your first everything of the day might be worthy of observation.

I heard a Buddhist monk say that there are actions of the mind, of the mouth, and the body. These are thoughts, words, and physical acts. We have responsibility for all of them. I’ve been noticing my actions throughout the day.

One thing I don’t like is how I curse. I feel like it hurts people and it adds little positive value to anything I’m trying to say. But I do it because I like how it feels fresh in the moment. It’s a thrill thing. After meditating regularly, I’m actually aware of myself doing it in the moment.

I’m just more able to pay attention to how it feels, what it sounds like to other people, and what I think about it. Right in the moment. Here’s the crazy thing. The next time I’m talking, I actually feel a curse word coming. It’s like a good time, a nice spot, for a curse word to emphasize my point. And I choose to not say it.

There’s a lot of other words to use to express myself. And when I don’t curse, I still say what I want to say. I just don’t feel like it’s me to curse, even though I’ve been doing it since junior high. It’s one of those things that I don’t do for a while, and then I pick it up from somewhere and mindlessly start cursing again.

Mindlessness. That’s what I’m shedding through regular meditation. Why make actions left and right with no attention to the quality of my impact? Am I that lazy?

Meditation is building up an awareness, stronger every day, of myself. It makes sense, because in meditating we are paying attention to ourselves. We breathe, we pay attention to the smallest thing in the world, our breath, and in that we are able to see clearly what out minds hold.

We also see that our minds keep a lot inside, but we don’t have to be the things that run through our minds.

I see thoughts about myself, about other people, how I feel about situations, and I realize day to day that these are simply thoughts. My actions will come from a place of wellness and happiness. At least I want them to, and I’m finding it more doable recently.

Let me know if you’ve noticed something similar from meditation, or if you just naturally have this sort of awareness.

Live powerfully,

Steve

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

Rollin’ Through The Five

I got up early today.

At five thirty I was blending my coffee. It was dark outside with the first layer of light painted on the sky. As I threw out the trash I saw the lights on in the neighbor’s open windows across the street. The asphalt still had a bit of yesterday’s heat under my bare feet. Not a sound in our neighborhood.

Within an hour we were packed up and heading for the freeway with our friend. It’s to L.A. we go. Four months before, to the day, we had set out from San Francisco for Jakarta. The start of our travels. We had come from L.A. in a desperate rush after getting our apartment packed and cleared. Today’s pace is relaxed.

The first leg of the journey, where the 152 winds inland from it’s junction with the 101, is the most beautiful. The early morning sun, that bright, silver sun, makes the valley grasses shimmer and the San Luis Reservoir glow. The hills rise and fall along the road like waves of a green ocean, black cattle riding them like sea gulls.

Maple brown horses thoughtfully chew grass by their fences. They have the same complacent expression as a human sipping coffee, staring out of a window. I wonder if they feel as warm and content as they look. If so, we have that in common this morning.

As much as these horses look right at home in those fields, I have to remind myself that they’re standing out in cold weather. There are no chairs, no comfy porch, or cushy couch for them to use. There’s just grass and dirt. It’s foggy and there’s probably insects flying all around them. I saw one horse, just one, with a purple blanket covering its back.

I wondered if I could also be comfortable in such a setting. Could I be content with just what was necessary and beautiful around me? With the ones I love close by, could I continuously live my days with only the bare necessities.

Seeing those gentle creatures reminds me of mornings at the park. I would make some coffee and bring it with me to sit on the grass and meditate. Sometimes I would breathe deep and sink into the very depths of my soul. At other times I simply listened to the birds sing, ascending into a hypnosis from the rhythmic chirps. There’s a way that the breeze runs through just so, and makes the leaves rustle, that lulls me into a trance.

I love the way bees float. They clumsily drift toward the flowers, gripping on to the bright yellow center where the nectar awaits. They pull themselves forward and dunk their heads deep into the well of life, oblivious to the pollen that sticks to their legs and the fact that they propel the cycle of life.

Nature is such that the universe thrives on countless agents acting in their own self interest, playing minuscule parts in an immeasurable orchestra that sounds the music of life.

There is so much to appreciate at the most rudimentary of parks. I wouldn’t want to live in a park, or even out in the nicest field. But there is something to learn from sitting outside for a while, doing nothing and observing everything. Perhaps, as people, this is one of our universal self interests. And from plunging into these moments, we might unknowingly pick up pollen that spurs life elsewhere.

Looking forward to a nap and some good times in Los Angeles.

Live powerfully,

Steve

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

Expressing Emotions with Awareness

Feeling emotions and expressing emotions are two different things. Some of us get angry but don’t say anything about it. We just feel the anger. Others of us say something about it. Some of us do something about it.

My usual response to emotional situations is to hold back from expressing myself directly. This is a survival tactic I developed from being in a highly emotionally charged family and work environment.

There were so many people around me with emotional turmoil, it seemed harmful for me to blab about my own emotions.

This backfired, to say the least. I grew up with a lot of repressed feelings. I got through work situations with a “professional attitude” but had to let the feelings burn inside of me. In my mid-twenties I was a field of blackened tree stumps, a wasteland of a forest fire.

I learned from my mistakes, but it was too late for me to recover in the same environments in which I had died. The roots were charred, seeds were turned to dust. There was no springing of life where I was. So I left.

I traveled for four months to get out of the ashes of my life. I had cultivated enough positive mentality and nutritional practice to get myself healthy and moving again before I left. Travel freed me from the stagnant waters of anxiety and allowed me time and space to meditate, rediscover myself, and stretch out in a spiritual and physical sense.

I met new people, took part in new cultures, and grew in love. My wife and I, through the constant adventure of finding our way, expanded our hearts and built courage. We lived our dream of seeing, learning, sleeping, and waking in new worlds. And now even home is a new world.

Meditation was key to my awakening to my misery and grasping an optimistic view of myself. It helped me in several areas of life. Strength training, sleep, and fear were a few areas of growth through meditation. Recently, through meditation I reached a breakthrough in how I express emotions.

I noticed a difference in my awareness of emotions and expression after several days of meditation. My sessions were two times per day, 5-15 min each time. Nothing big.

However, when a recent emotional argument broke out between me and someone close, I noticed a difference inside. I expressed myself through my emotions, but I was fully aware of myself. I could hear myself talk, see what I was feeling, and feel what the other person was feeling. This was very unlike other times, where I would have gone blank in the head.

The awareness allowed me to process what was going on, during and after the argument. It also allowed me to start the forgiveness process. Since I was “there” while it was happening, I remembered how I felt, and why, and what triggered it all.

The reason this happened was that during meditation leading up to this day, I had been focusing on how I felt. As I breathed and came into a centered disposition, I let my feelings float up into my awareness. Whatever I felt, I let my mind rest on it. I breathed, identified the emotion, felt it plainly and deeply for what it was, and sometimes even visualized the root. Then I breathed again and let it go.

This built awareness of my emotions. It made me feel okay with what I was feeling. I used to get uncomfortable with the fact that I was emotional. It felt like a weakness. But this awareness practice was facing reality. I accepted myself as an emotional being.

I still felt upset after the argument, I still dealt with the residual emotions, and all of that. But I was in a place where I could build on the experience. Rather than wallowing in confusion, I learned about myself. I thought forward to the next time I would be in that sort of situation. And instead of feeling apprehensive, I felt excited. I wanted to grow!

I’m not saying I’m a saint and we should have a day for me because of this one incident. But I hit a definite pivot point in my emotional life. This is an area of discomfort for me. I’m not used to getting deep into my emotions, and evaluating them, let alone talking about them.

But I’ve been trying within that past few months to dig into this and grow. And I’m learning the importance of expressing versus simply feeling emotions. The key is awareness.

Live powerfully,

Steve

Studies on Meditation and Emotion Regulation and Mindfulness

 

The Whip

Last week my family and I went to Half Moon Bay to get some seafood and soak in the wonders of the beach. We were exploring a little section of water near our favorite restaurant and found this giant kelp stalk. It was a good twenty or twenty five feet long. The base was as thick as my wrist, and it thinned out to about finger width at the tip. A perfect whip.

We played around with it a little, trying to get some whip action out of it. There’s a finesse to the handling that’s needed to get the perfect whiplash effect. After swinging forward, you have to pull back just at the right time, and the right amount, to have the tip snap forward and hit your target.

Stupid, I know. But fun.

So I practiced a bit with this giant sea whip until I got the hang of it. Pretty deadly. It cracked real hard at the sand when I did it right. Poor seaweed.

Anyway, there’s something to the art of whipping that translates to self mind control. I’ve been dealing with anger over an issue for the past few years. When something triggers it, I get furious and can’t seem to control my words and thoughts. It’s been destructive to me and the people I love.

In trying to control myself, I was keeping things contained. I found that I was only letting the pressure build inside. For years I let my anger build up. It would leak out here and there, in bursts of reactive words. But I kept myself from letting it out and expressing myself full force. This probably sounds familiar to you.

Then, recently, I was meditating for several days in a row. I didn’t really feel much different, but something interesting happened. During a casual conversation, someone said something that triggered my anger. And instead of trying to avoid myself, and hold it in, I faced the anger and expressed myself. Strongly. I felt like I was being harsh, but I also didn’t want to just let things slide.

Afterward, I felt sorry that I had burst out in anger. But something was different this time. Although I didn’t try to filter what I was saying, I was fully aware of it all. I was present. I saw myself and heard myself and the person I was talking to. I knew that I was here, and what I was feeling and saying were real.

This helped me to process what was going on. I had asked this person not to talk about things that offended me before, but more out of reaction. I wasn’t really present to the fact that this was really hurting me. So I didn’t let myself speak fully from my heart. I kept feeling that I should just keep my anger in, instead of being right in expressing it.

I talked with a friend recently. He was explaining that being fully present to ourselves as we act in emotion helps us to process it. And if it’s not right, not how we want to be, we will be much better able next time to control that action.

From this experience, I find the opposite to be true too. If I’m fully present to a correct action as I do it, especially when it’s something scary like expressing anger about something offensive, then I will feel more confident in doing so the next time.

The trick to doing this right is letting myself do. Letting myself talk, or act, without filtering or holding back. At the same time, being present to it. It’s like the whip. You’ve got to let the whole length of it extend, being yourself fully, when it matters. And through mindfulness and reflection you’re in that fine level of control. It will effectively create the snap.

I’m looking at these two things as the ingredients for successful, mindful behavior change. Consistent meditation is key. It’s what helps you to be there in the moment when you most need to be.

More living and experimenting to come.

Live powerfully,

Steve

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily