Life Hacking v5.5.75..short and sweet.

Yep, life hacking.  I was thinking this as I was looking at theme templates on a site that I just bought a theme from for a website I am building and realised that I really don't have to know coding to make a really cool site once I get stuck into it and learn how to "hack" around with various tools that are now available to the general public due to the massive advancement in technology and more specifically, SOFTWARE advancements.  So, instead of learning HTML, CSS etc. (I'll pick that up as I go I am sure) I am concentrating on workarounds that I don't have to go back to school for and get pretty much the same results.  Well, what the heck does that have to do with recovery and or "self help" in this day and age?

Traditionally, most people go through the steps of "recovery" and choose one of just a few main paths or a combination thereof : 12 step programs, psychotherapy/talk therapy or a combination of those coupled with medications.

That's kinda like going to the website theme template place, ordering the cool looking theme on display in all its glory and expecting your own version of it to look just like the one they are putting up to grab your attention!  Believe me, it won't look that way for sure unless you know something other than just being able to change the pictures inside it, use their limited menu of colours ( I hate when autocorrect says I spelled colours wrong..colors is wrong! ;)  and not have the scratch for a graphic designer do up the bits that really make it POP!

So what to do?  What if your just starting out and you can't afford a graphics guy/gal?  You improvise until you can, and many times, you will find out that you don't need the traditional person that does that job by combining a few other tools that are now available to get the same end result.  On the surface, nobody will know that you used some cheesy online graphics program to manipulate the graphics instead of using Photoshop and, after you do a few sites, hey presto, you can either use some of the money to get educated yourself, OR just hire that person you needed.

In recovery, you also don't have to do JUST "what the Dr. ordered" either.  There are lots of "Life Hacks" that you can use and implement that will speed up your journey and also open your mind to new ways of doing things-which, by the way is half the battle, turning on the Neuroplastic ability of your brain to make new pathways and new thought processes that will, in fact make you into a completely new person!

No longer is psychology and the inner workings of the human mind/psyche the proprietary realm of psychiatrists, doctors and scientists (many of whom are also in need of some life hacks themselves but are stuck doing the same thing over and over...)  that study how the body and brain effect one another (psychoimmunerologists (sp?)  Yes, I will have to use Grammarly on this later...or not, I write in conversational english where anything goes ;)

Face it, the old ways obviously did not work and you may have been through this a few times already. Remember that saying that only people in multi-level marketing schemes used to hear at all their Ra-ra meetings but is now commonplace due to meme proliferation on facebook?

 "The definition of insanity is doing something over and over again the same way and expecting the outcome to be different each time."

Whoever came up with that one was a genius for sure!
Hmm, I just had a thought: from where I am sitting, in my comfortable chair in my room that is part of a residential treatment program, most of the people I know here have been through this process numerous times.  Like, more than a few.  So, if that is the case, it means they did have some success, but it did not last and they are back for round...whatever it is.
I personally didn't make the decision to go through the pain of asking for help with changing myself only to go back and do it all over again.  I have done that on my own too many times. No more "over and over again" for me. NO SIR!  Now that I'm "in the system" and have assistance from a wide range of traditional resources, I am also going to keep on implementing "life hacks" to assist in doing it just once, in a new and fresh way.

That's why its called "Self-Help".  Reading books on the subject will arm you with the knowledge to get somewhere, BUT, until you start HACKING AROUND in your own head and shaking stuff up in there, you will inevitably end up with the same tired old template website version of yourself that really hasn't changed much except on the surface.  So, start hacking around and exploring new methods of treatment.  Maybe go and see a tarot card reader or visit an energy medicine practitioner that also has a medical degree.  Help comes in so many flavours now that its possible to sample them all and then build your own self help system literally from scratch!  You have the old framework available in a template version.  Now get to it and hack around and build yourself a nice custom Life-Site of your own!

In wellness, gratitude and thankfulness to be alive RIGHT NOW.  Today is a new day, and there is so much to do.

Update:  Here is a site I just built.  After a bit of practice of course!

www.livingfromheart.ca  - Kate, the owner of the site, did the graphics and all the content.

I just set it all up and built the backend bit.


EM

Recovery is in the air.

Just when does "recovery" start?  That, is a very good question.

For me, it started while standing at a sink at my in-laws house in 2008--ish, its hard to remember timelines on all this stuff-- I had my shirt off as usual because doing anything remotely physical makes you sweat like the proverbial pig when you are a 250lb bodybuilder (no, no not one of those guys wearing a sweater at the gym talking like Ronnie Colman imagining that it puts them in the same realm as...a real bodybuilder. Eat, sleep, train, sell juice on an international scale aspiring to the same ideals of the perfect physical condition called "huge and shredded" and compete at least once a year on the proceeds so you can see just what you accomplished during the last year: repeat.)

Yes, I do tend to get into over-explanation but I am finding that its entertaining to many that read my stuff and without a lot of explanation, many concepts are misunderstood by the reader or can be misconstrued due to the proliferation of internet warriors of all kinds proclaiming their god like knowledge of everything from muscle building to the mechanics of our not so physical universe.  All from a quick google.  And, funnily enough, Russell Brand has a very similar approach to his writing as I discovered yesterday while listening to his book "Revolution" on Audible.  Highly recommended to anyone struggling with adversity...


Ok, so there I was, shirtless, the light sweat from my chest was now producing a trickle over my always present abs and going down into the band of my underwear.  Pants are always baggy when you have huge legs... and my fingers were actually starting to get wrinkled because I was doing something willingly that you could not have gotten me to do in the past even if you tried!

Beside the sink is a book.  Its title is "the power of now" by Eckhart Tolle.  I was reading it while doing the dishes.

At that time, TPON was still selling like hotcakes but I had not purchased it.  It was either my father or my brother that had bought it for x-mas for me.  I had begun to start to read such stuff for some reason that I could not remember.  It sounded all peaceful, this "Consciousness" stuff.

So there I was, doing what I always did if I came across magical stuff like this.  I would give it an honest go!  Ok, wash dishes slowly.  Take your time.  If you do it properly as described, you will reach enlightenment.  Well, I was really frustrated by the end of drying because my mind was going faster than when I started  trying to figure out why it wasn't working!

FINE! I'll do the conscious walking thing instead!  (people use the buzzword "mindfulness" now more than consciousness because if you add a "C" then you get into the whole God thing...but I digress).

SO, there I was, walking up the stairs, book in hand.  Reading the description of how to do it...well, I got to the first little landing of the double up twisting short stairs to my wife's old room where we were staying while we looked for another place to stay as I had just quit a good job for the first time in my life without having another one to go to. (Nothing to do with drugs..those helped me motivate a rather large amount of people that I helped with physical transformations. One even started calling me "the north american Tony Little" due to my massive exuberance for life and always being fun and energetic.  If you can't hear the sarcasm, go back and start again at "Nothing to do with".)

I reached as far up the railing as I could and using the action of both my legs, torso and that 20" arm to propel myself up the last 6 steps in one go.  My usual.  Get it done, fast.  If you can't do it right, don't do it.
If you can do it right, be better at it than everyone else.  Perfection; its a wonderful thing.  I ambled into the room.  Its all pink and white and frilly.  Typical for a childhood dancers room.  Cheerful.  There is a bookshelf that sits with the bottom shelf directly on the floor.  I toss the book on that bottom shelf.  What a waste of time.  Fucking Consciousness.  Quick cap-O-"G" will do the trick better.  Hit the stopwatch... 1.5 hrs to go before I can do it again!

I'm not depressed, sad or lonely.  I have tons of friends that call me for help every day and ask advice about their own problems.  People can tell when your onto something, even if you don't know it yourself.

If you ever worked or played with me up until 2009 if you weren't part of my "inner circle",  you'd not have the foggiest idea that I had been 'round the clock dosing on GHB, a potent mind altering substance that, when I started making it in the kitchen of the condo I was renting the sunroom of in downtown Toronto across from "the gardens" was my answer, nay, the HOLY GRAIL for not being able to sleep for more than a few fitful hours after coming home from working the front door at the Bohemian, a cozy, crazy little bar just outside the downtown core of Canada's unofficial capital city of Toronto  for the last 10 years.


My usual routine between 1997 and 1999 was:  Goto York U on the subway/bus in the morning, starting at 6:30am with 6 meals packed in my big blue cooler bag (yeah, I was that guy in the front bothering you with good food smells!), learn about all things physiology and biology, come back home, goto the gym til 7, try to catch a few hrs of sleep if I could manage to get around to it between dropping off some "gear" to a customer so I could pay the rent ...hmmm.

This is getting long.  My little sister is probably thinking "why didn't he listen when I said your blog posts are too long??" haha.  So I'll leave it at that.  When you are a writer, you have to write.  Off to work on that website now. . .its coming along great and I'll pick up where I left off.

Oh, O-N-E more thing before I go.  Don't judge a book by its cover.  Some of the most emotionally and psychologically damaged people hold positions in society that make them "healers" and "helpers" as they struggle internally with the cognitive dissonance of doing one thing openly while passing off physical and emotional behavior usually associated with the truly openly mentally ill while they hide behind their outwardly "healthy and happy" exterior.  This is where it starts. Recovery. When you hit the pain threshold.  When it just hurts to much mentally inside to go outside without quenching your own "guilt, abandonment, shame, un-looked at-unrecognized-mental-anguish-with-a-quick-use-of "drug of choice/alcohol/medication here".

Mental Illness - Those are not a bad words.  They are words of hope.  Everyone is the same inside; once you get over yourself and whatever outward mask/suit of muscle armor, perfect fake breasts-ass-lips-etc. big car, fast times, joyride to your own personal hell you are on, you may realise that YOU are only  prolonging the pain by doing whatever it is that is masking it.

Until next time- Have hope, let in joy, be at peace when you can, and above all, love yourself.  Recovery..Its contagious.

Doing MY best, every day, in every way.

EM

*quick editing job..there may be some mistakes!

Constant Contact Conflict

So at one point yesterday I was like "I might not be able to write consistently on the tennershoes blog! I won't have enough really good, valuable stuff. I mean, I could be like our 5 million view Youtube celebrity I saw in the paper today and just write stuff that is "entertaining" and do youtube videos that are funny...but what real benefit would that have on the person/s reading the blog?


Then I posted this on my fb wall:

I am the farthest from being a facebook troller that you can find, BUT, before I answer a "charged" post or comment on FB, I will take a brief peek at the first few posts on a persons page that made the comment...and if their page is full of "grumpy cat" memes and a daily dialogue of complaining about life and how they stubbed their toe etc. I don't bother commenting ... it is just a lure to get you to join in their misery and usually the equivalent of banging your head against a wall with glass embedded in the bricks. . .really hard and painful to endure. If you find yourself in constant conflict, how long will it take for you to notice that in each conflict there is one constant: YOU. You are the only person that can end the constant conflict by ending your own inner conflicts.

And BOOM! before it was up for more than 30 seconds, I already had people liking it. Maybe it struck a cord, plucked at some heart strings or made a person or two have a look at the "wall of their life" and go "hmmm, there are a lot of grumpy cat memes on my wall of life--like that fight I had with my sister over..wait, I can't even remember because it was such a silly argument".

This is all it takes!  So many are in pain but are looking outside for the problem that they fail to see that in every situation that you experience, the common denominator is YOU.  Nobody can make you sad, mad, upset etc.except YOU.  I found myself angry one time while I was doing a video chat with my little sister.  She thought I sounded funny/not myself and asked if I had taken any substances other than coffee (you get the picture I am sure) and I immediately felt my blood boil.  I had not taken anything and haven't for 6 months as of this very day BUT the anger was there and I got mad.  But it was not really at her... IT WAS AT ME!  Because if I had not been the person that I was for almost twenty years, taking substances that alter my mental state in an attempt to escape from life and mentally and emotionally hurting not only myself but also my family and friends, she would never have asked me that question and I would not have gotten mad...even if she did ask it.

So, when you get mad at someone for accusing asking you about something/some behavior or just making a statement about a subject. . .take a moment and analyse with real honesty and self introspection;  "what might I have done in the past to elicit such a question in the first place and why am I mad/angry now?"

Family and friends worry and stress over us.  All of us.  And getting mad solves nothing.  Drilling into the feelings and not just leaving them buried set you up for a great day every day--instead of a grumpy cat day -- Well, I'm off to grab a coffee before I get on this phone call coming up; Have a better and better day in every way.  And stay off my wall if your name is Tardar Sauce today ok?  ;)

EJM

Plugging back in?

I was just thinking right now that I have a few meetings coming up with more than  one person on the same day.   I have not done that for a while now.

One important Mental Health message: If your so busy becoming "successful" that you can't take real time out for yourself (read: REAL DOWNTIME doing nothing or activities that are relaxing and centering) at some point, you will stretch yourself to a point that you will snap.  Just like a useful rubber band that is doing the most simple looking task like holding a stack of business cards together on your desk.  If you leave that rubber band stretched out long enough doing that simple task (its still stretched) which could be like you doing what seem like "your daily routine" it can get old, dried out and eventually, you will pick up that stack of cards and it will just break.  There are tons of memes out there that are all about how much energy we have when we are on the right path etc.and I may be wrong here but "the right path" has nothing to do with how many cars you have in your driveway or how big that driveway is.  I would like to propose that the right path is one that leaves you feeling energised AND feeling refreshed each and every day -- not groggily drinking a coffee in the morning and feeling anxious because you might be missing some "important" meeting.
 Its been ME time for 6 months as I am going through recovery...  And the ME time is going to continue until I have come to a point that I know I can then slowly plug back into the fast paced life BUT only to the point where I am not feeling over-stretched!  If you know  someone that is going through a tough time mentally or dealing with some adversity, the best thing you can help them to do is FULLY UNPLUG. They don't need someone who has no experience with this recovery thing telling them stuff like "you need to get back to being a regular person and feel fulfilled with a job etc. etc.
Going back at "regular life" too soon is a sure recipe for disaster.  I would never have said this before because I was the worst one for it,  but now that I have been in this little world called "recovery" for just this short amount of time I keep seeing the same pattern:  The person goes back to work etc. and immediately has a relapse after it looked like they were doing so well.  What is the point of doing a task (this one being helping yourself get well) if you are going to shoot yourself in the foot by going back to exactly what got you to this point in the first place before you are really ready?

Just some thoughts for the day.  Take your time: people will understand.

EJM
 

Just a Thought?

I was recently thinking about the late Dr. Wayne Dyer and a video I had watched of him where he was speaking of a friend who read the Tao te ching and how this one book changed his friends life from alcoholic to actualized being.  If you are struggling, this book is one that I recommend to everyone.  It can help to open a new door to your life. Drugs, Alcohol, depression and anything else can be overcome. If you really feel you are not where you need to be in any area of your life. . .don't give up. Resilience is one key.  keep looking, asking and searching.  Every time you DO something different. .TRY something new. . .THINK a new DIFFERENT THOUGHT. . .you will make new neural connections and new patterns will start to form. . .and the new you will eventually emerge. I know that while I have read many books in my life, one of the first people I ever had the pleasure to listen to on tape was Dr. Dyer when I was not much more than 10yrs old.
Dr. Dyer came from "nothing" and had his own personal demons but always persevered, eventually influencing millions and being the most prolific character on PBS in America with more appearances in that setting than any other person in history up until the time of his death in 2015.
Here is a link to one of Dr Dyers awesome Youtube videos, here and also one to his excellent books that takes you on a journey with the Tao te Ching (dow-De-CHING) http://www.amazon.ca/Change-Your-Thoughts-Living-Wisdom/dp/140191750X
Have a better and better day in every way:)
EM

Feeling a bit twisted up?

 "I'll hit the gym tomorrow extra hard and nothing but celery tomorrow..." Ever heard yourself say something like that? It was right after  that queezy feeling in your gut because you know you had to buy a new belt because your old one no longer fits.  Yeah, you KNOW you bought that new belt so you didn't have to keep being reminded that your little excuse factory can put out as many new justifications and theories as it likes but at the end of the day, what you have been doing is not working.  If your like the entire population of the planet, you invariably have moments of cognitive dissonance.  "Cognitive dissonance relates to the concept of being exposed to information or having experiences that conflict with our existing base of “what we know.” The theory holds that our minds are not always flexible or rational when it comes to evaluating uncomfortable information or questioning our own beliefs." -- http://www.truthmove.org/content/cognitive-dissonance/

In the above example, CD will occur and feelings of guilt will arise if for example the person in question at one time became used to doing an insane amount of training to keep their over-consumption of certain foods that make them feel good at bay.  So for a time, they actually did make up for their night binging by doing extra hrs at the gym and/or combining that with starving themselves for a few days afterwards.  This is still avoidance behavior disguised as something that looks to most as "healthy" and can also be justified as healthy by the person doing it as well!   Then, one day they woke up and looked in the mirror and realised that what they have been doing for years (and maybe telling others they were proud of their "work ethic" etc.)  is obviously not working.  But because it used to work so well in the past they will start to make up "extra stuff" in their head to help explain away the current situation and continue to repeat the same cycle over and over again while adding even more unhealthy behaviors like purging to the mix.  Justifying your behavior to yourself or others will do nothing to end the pain.  I could go on for donkey's years with examples from everyday life but I know I tend to run on:)

You may begin to notice if you follow this blog for any amount of time that I many times use diet folly as an example piece for human behavior as eating is a necessity that nobody can go without and is something that has a lot of baloney surrounding  it (yes, yes, pun intended) due to the fact that a large proportion of the population experience a huge amount of CD around the fact that they have no control over their food intake even though they profess to all that they "eat healthy" etc. etc. AND they truly do believe that they do.  The mental discomfort is caused by the fact that what is actually happening visibly as well as internally is not consistent with what they are telling themselves and others. "I portion all my food, I'll just have half of that piece of cake" --meanwhile, back at home in the safety of the basement they scarf down a gallon of ice cream--  Justification, running away, sticking your head in the sand and saying "lalalala", xbox, binge watching tv, sleeping all day, taking a pill/drink (prescribed or otherwise) --and sleeping all day-- cell phone glued to hand --wait, selfie stick glued to hand?-- this is potentially longer than santa's naughty list!  I think you are starting to get the picture.  There are an unlimited amount of ways to distract or numb ourselves from the pain of CD instead of changing the behavior causing the pain.  The majority may seem innocuous at first but they all start chasing each others tails. Why not just change what we believe by arming ourselves with new knowledge backed up by new behaviors so that we can begin to have congruence between what we do and what we say.

Stop living in Denial!

If I seem like I'm picking on "dieters" and "exerholics" I won't be avoiding the fact that my own personal journey has been full of CD that I found a myriad of ways of quelling.  So I'm no spring chicken to this whole avoidance thing. 

I think it went something like this:
 Feel uncomfortable about how you think others see you? Start living in your basement gym and getting some muscles; great you can lift more than everyone else pretty much now so going to the weight room at the high school was awesome! Positive reinforcement.  Ok,  that helped a LOT, lets step it up to working at a commercial gym and taking a few fat burners, hold on, your taking drugs now which you have told people up to that point were wrong and you would never do!  You never even took tylenol!  Meh, well, those ephedrine/caffeine/aspirin stacks you made up with your own mortar and pestle were not so bad and heck they give you a great buzz and tons of energy to run around and not sit still enough to be introspective.  well, I've done enough research now to show that its ok to do a couple of moderate cycles of steroids per year (this was before the internet and most people thought the gym was some weird place that you only wore spandex too).  Ok, avoid family and people from childhood as much as possible, check--that's uncomfortable enough as it is!  Better than having to explain that to them as well.  Have a cap of "G" and pop some E and hit a rave or two or three...  restless and need some more distraction?  Just develop a series of co-dependent relationships with people that have no problem hanging out with you exclusively and spending most of your time isolating as much as possible unless your high and you just don't care; be sure they either do the stuff you already do so you don't have to justify yourself or are happy to participate.   Not happy with University and the current GF? Go for a 30 day holiday in Europe and then stay for 3 years --YES, it was fun a lot of the time  (I may eventually publish that book I keep on planning) -- but running and hiding won't save you from the pain of change, it just prolongs how long it takes for you to go through the fire.

It is just now that I am acknowledging fully that it takes a huge amount of courage for anyone that is going through change and without an amazing support system and good friends it would be all that more difficult.  In a way, my addiction pattern through the years has ended up being a blessing in disguise, anything less would not have been enough to bring me to my knees.  I'm the one that helps others, remember? :)

Using this format which I enjoy immensely to help inform others while at the same time solidifying my own understanding and helping myself to go through the pain of this positive change is one of the most refreshing and energizing things I have done in my life.  No wonder I spent last week sleeping during the day.  I think I unconsciously knew that this blog was inevitable and once I started I couldn't go back so that was my Ego's way of trying one more time to get me not to take that final plunge  (I repeat: old behaviors WILL keep on resurfacing disguised as something else).  Heck I even took up smoking full time around 2009 after I quit bodybuilding and taking GHB for 15 years. I didn't have to justify that..just hung out with people that smoked or did not care.  I even drove truck for 3 yrs so I could be in the smoking gang!  Its one thing to check into a detox because nobody has to know...its another to start opening up about it. 

Don't worry, your not alone:)

Well,  this must be the reason I picked that old pair of shoes as the logo for my blog--old shoes are comfortable but at a certain point, they are no longer cool--and if you keep rolling your ankle when you do more than shuffle--it may just be time to throw those old "tenners" on the proverbial telephone line and walk away proudly in your new kicks!
The new shoes will give you some blisters at first, but after a while, you can run faster, jump higher and look cooler than you ever did in the old ones!  Heck, even buy another cheap pair of tenners, its better than the old ones at least. (yep, that ol' harm reduction model does have its merits.)

Take away for today:  Change (especially positive change) of any kind is going to cause a person to experience the pain of CD in some form or another.  This can make people give up on ever being able to become the person they know deep down inside that they can be...that better version of themselves that can step up and challenge their own belief systems and put them to the test rather than making up some new mental construct that explains away their personally detrimental behavior and. . .dare I say it, behaviors that hurt others in their lives more than themselves? 

I'll leave you with this quote from an out of print book :)  Yes, I did copy it by hand JUST FOR YOU from that old scanned pdf I found in a deeply buried google chrome bookmark that has been following my around for years!

Have a better and better day in every way.
EJM

"To every transaction between individuals -- whether it be between friends, lovers, parent/child, patient/therapist -- each person brings with him/her a set of belief systems, or inner maps. I believe that most of these belief systems are effective and enable individuals to obtain their desired goals. However, some of these belief systems may be less than effective, and may lead to painful destinations. The individuals who come into a therapists office seeking help, also bring with them a whole history, a whole background, a whole set of belief systems. Most of these belief systems are constructive and useful -- otherwise those individuals would not have survived long enough to seek help. But, in areas in which they are evidencing pain and dysfunction, their belief system, is either "the problem" or prevents them from finding the solution. It is as if...once upon a time they were given a map that indicated that San Diego, California was really San Francisco, California. They have spent a great deal of their life trying to prove to everyone that San Diego is San Francisco, and sneaking up to San Francisco and moving it brick by brick to San Diego to prove that their map was really right. I believe it would be much more helpful to them to help them make a new map." Steven Heller, Ph.D. - Monsters and Magical sticks.

Getting out of your uncomfortable protective shell.

So I was finishing up some new blog stuff and this awesome video came up on my fb feed.
Its short but really meaningful. Take some self time,  give it a watch and I'll be updating with some thoughts on it tomorrow or later today.   

Ejm

https://www.facebook.com/naftaly.pollak/videos/vb.100004279329370/583597745126198/?type=2&theater

Today is a new day

So I woke up this morning. ..late. Usually I'm up and at it pretty early. But sometimes when we are going through big changes in life, we have to have patience with everything. The one thing you have to be patient with is YOURSELF!

Giving yourself time to change is crucial. There are so many “self help” books out there telling amazing transformational stories that it would be impossible to read them all and each one is unique.  Just like you are.

If you have been around a few years, much of what you do (probably around 90%) is routine and can be either beneficial to you or it can also be routines that do not serve you positively at all. A good example of this could be you learned that people would not bother you if you just hid out of sight when you were younger. Out of sight, out of mind as they say.  Back then it was ok because as long as your homework got done and you came home on time for dinner, nobody said anything and you were all good.  It was like you had “auto-safety control.”

So that behaviour served you back then and made you feel safe; even though you may have felt lonely, you were still ok. Fast forward a few years (like 30 or so) and take a look at that same behaviour. Are you still hiding out (isolating yourself) or doing "adult" hiding behaviours so you feel safe? These can run the gamut from sleeping all day/binge watching TV and just doing “braindead” stuff that allows you to not think about what it is that you are doing with your life and why you may or may not be happy/content. Many addiction filled lives have started off this way, innocently wanting to feel safe and accepted.

You have to step outside the “comfort box” that you made for yourself and at first, it can be difficult. Just like the pair of shoes that grace the cover of this blog, they sure look comfortable but the performance is probably lacking.  If you find yourself depressed, lonely, single or just not able to interact with others in a meaningful way, you have to sit down with yourself and ask some questions. The first one could be “who am I? Now, this may seem like a big question to start with, but big issues like depression, addiction and other mental health issues don’t just disappear if you hide in a corner or drink yourself under the table at every opportunity that you get when you are not doing something that would be considered productive use of this, the greatest gift that you will ever receive. It’s the gift of life!  No other beings (that we know of so far) have the ability to change what and who they are at any time that they wish.

Time to transform?

There are of course, some very standout and great examples of people that have reinvented themselves overnight and made some drastic changes to their lives that then affected thousands and in some cases millions of others. But, we are not all one of these super achievers right now, in this moment. So if we want to make a change, where do we start? By looking at your life (remember that question: Who am I?)There is a good quote from Dr. Bruce Lipton in “biology of belief” aka “the wisdom of our cells” for those that like it in audible format. He says “If you want to see what is going on in your subconscious mind, look at the printout of your life”. Let’s take a look at that. The subconscious is a dark and murky area for most that have not taken the time to learn how their brains work on a basic level. Looking at the beginning of this blog post we saw that a learned behaviour was to go to a safe place (ie. your room etc) where you could do what you wanted with nobody around to say anything or make you feel a certain way. Your subconscious, being the nice learning computer that it is, figured out a few simple solutions for you back then when life was really simple (no job, no family, no kids, NO RESPONSIBILITY of any kind yet) and unbeknownst to you, you are still doing the same thing and wondering why your life is not going how you feel it should. Remember that time you had the new job opportunity but instead of doing up a fresh resume and getting your hair done/beard trimmed and pressing your suit, you went to your man cave, turned on the tv and made sure the door was closed because you were not feeling safe as a new job is a huge change and seems like it might be a bit uncomfortable. 

So, hiding in the school library behind a stack of books just changed into your man-cave with the door closed and a case of bud

 If you can see that what you are doing is exactly the same behaviour, just wrapped up in some new clothes, you are on the right track. Once you can see what you are doing is not a positive thing anymore, the first thing to do is acknowledge that and begin by doing just one thing differently. Like I am writing this blog post. For me, writing is an outlet that I really enjoy and teaching is also something I love. So by sitting down and writing this, I am making myself think more intensely about what it is I am doing to change my behaviours at least just a little bit each and every day. It may be that nobody reads this and I will be the only one getting the benefit (how selfish!) of my own writing but at the end of the day, it helps to do some real self analysis instead of the same old routine that used to be good to you but now is not serving you later in life. So, get out of your cave and go and do ONE new thing today that you have not done in the past. If all that entails is walking to the cafe on the corner with your laptop and having a coffee out of your comfort zone without the safety of four walls and your xbox controller, that is a start!  

Get off that ol' treadmill

Change happens immediately, once you start! Nothing big, just start small and then you can build on that one change and before you know it, you will look back and all those small changes will look like a whole new life! I started writing like this over 8 years ago and never did publish anything officially but looking back at those last 8 years, although I may have done a lot of running and hiding and what looked like I was falling apart, in the big picture I am so much farther ahead in how I run my life (far from perfect!) that it is hard to stay down even when life delivers what at times can seem like a kick in the teeth just when you think that everything is running smoothly (or maybe you were just playing that old “safety” loop and what appeared to be everything going “ok” was just another version of you hiding out from life and wondering why you woke up one day and you seem to have nothing to show for all the time you have spent on this earth.

Well, I am going to get my laundry out of the dryer and head to the gym during the day. . I have not done that in a while so a daytime visit to a gym it is! One more step in the thousand steps of the journey:)  

EM