Primal Disconnect

We seem to need timers to keep us awake, coffee to push us through the morning, and ambien to get us through the night. When we workout, we take all the pre and post supplements that juice our cells with 500% the normal cortisol and amino acid levels we should be stabilized with. Use monitoring systems to know when our heart rate is too elevated, calorie counters to know if our salad has to much dressing and might break your ketotonic state.

Be primal for a bit, listen to when your body should wake up, without an alarm. Go out on a weekend with a sleeping bag and tent to see what happens when you sleep under the stars. Turn off your devices at home and watch how quickly you feel alone and disconnected. And that’s a good thing, because it makes you realize how afraid you are to be by yourself.

We’ve become so disconnect by placing these technological filters on our natural feedback processes, trusting pseudo science and hand picked studies to make your case seem right for the path your following.

So calm down, drink some wine, sit on your couch and have complete quiet. Your mind will let you know how comfortable you are with yourself.

Making Positive Affirmations Work

I know I know, the title already breeds of complete bullshit. ‘Visualize and Materialize! Think of having it and It Will Come! Feelingly lonely? just imagine the girl you want an she will appear!’

You can tell when the person telling to those things feels slightly odd, in a non normal way. Where you start to wonder what they actually think beneath all the positivity they profuse (they being the anyone selling you their book, session, religion, ect.)
I’m not trying to say that or sell you that I’m right. I’m actually the one to have believed in the idea of The Secret (look it up if you haven’t heard of it) when I was back in high school. Desperate nerds who can’t get girls will tend to believe in a lot of ideas to try to escape the solitude of being alone.

But what I do think is that your mentality and approach of how you speak to yourself, when your alone or in your head, greatly impacts the outcome of circumstances and how you perceive your current situation. You could say half full, half empty type argument.

I’m venturing into this idea because of a recent book I’ve been reading and applying to my own life. The back story is that I started to become pretty depressed about my situation: overwhelmed at work, leveraged and invested in a business concept that I’m now worried will fail, alone, sad…you get the picture. I was browsing Reddit in the suicide/depression section, wallowing in my own self made pity party, when I stumbled across the book recommendation called ‘what to say when you talk to yourself.’ You’ll have to read it to get the full benefit, but the idea is that we’ve been conditioned since birth to have a negative inner voice when we approach any situation in our life. How our subconscious is always at work when we go about our day. How our internal programming is corrupted from our environment, and needs a reboot.

And it made a lot of sense to me. When I would wakeup, instead of focusing on the day and how I’ll go about achieving my objectives, I would worry about the problems that would show up along the way. I would look at myself in the mirror and see the ugly scars from the years of acne I had I college, instead of appreciate the muscle mass I’ve packed on and how I was down to the low teens in body fat percentages.

It sounds like stupid shit, but to me I was so negative internally that it was ‘manifesting’ itself in my external surroundings.

The approach to change from the book taught me that your conscious mind, the part you argue with in your head, is what your subconscious continues to listen to and repeat in your life. And that to change it, your mind literally needs to hear the change you want in your life.

So the book has positive practices to recite in the morning that makes me laugh cause it seems so unbelievable, but somehow I feel better at the end of saying it. Feels dumb, but you have to try it.

All in all, I’m trying to convey that although the concept of positive self talk and affirmations brings about the baggage of the motivational speaker who’s trying to jack your money, there is actually some truth when it comes to speaking to yourself in a positive tone, and generating positive results over time (or at least lessen the mental impact of the negative).

Think about your own self talk you have in your head, and think if you need a new ‘mental software package’ to make you become the person you dream of becoming.

The Fear Of Judgement

Ever change what you’re going to say or do because you know others will be judging what comes out of your mind? It’s a recent battle for myself after beginning this blog, related to the posts I’ve made and opinions I’m beginning to develop.
When I think that others are listening to my voice through my writings, I begin to subconsciously change how I write to be more sensitive to try to appease the “audience”. Even if no one is listening to what I write or say, the fear that you will be judged based upon your work begins to dissuade you from showing who you really are.
This happens for me because when I put out my thoughts and opinions, I’m putting my ego on the line. People can make the snap judgment and jab at who I am, and it can hurt! Although it’s not the same as a basketball game where it’s a physical battle, the same type of lump in the throat feeling develops when I begin to write a paragraph that’s crap, or when I’m about to hit the publish button.
The fear of being judged occurs when you know that your work sucks compared to how you see yourself in your mind. Personally, I know that I have thoughts and theories in my mind that make great sense and bring perspective to the world, but when I put it down on paper, it sounds like a 12 year old with verbal diarrhea trying to convince you that I’m right. The feeling of validation when someone likes a post, or comments on my blog, or sends me a validating text, encourages the weak side of my mind to continue down the same type of atmosphere. I want to experience the same pleasure, so I tend to do the same action.
This type of continual cause-effect relationship has been reflected in studies with chimps. In recent years, researchers completed some studies on the impact of stimulating the pleasure receptors by electrical impulse. They hooked up electrodes to the chimp’s reward side of the mind, and then left a button in their cage that would trigger the electronic impulse that creates pleasure in their mind. The chimp, previously normal n stable, would now sit by the button and push it continually until it passed out or died from starvation. Instead of continuing its normal life and achieving its daily goals, the pleasure of validation (done here by electrical impulse) overrides the internal drive to go after what you want to achieve.
I feel it’s the same type of issue when you write with the goal of hoping other people will give you that validation. The personal development by writing for myself is being replaced by a cat-and-mouse game where I plot what people would want to hear, or would be less offended, and execute on that thought.
So here’s my opinion: You shouldn’t placate your fear of being judged. You shouldn’t sit around and write, then delete what you wrote because the idea might get you labeled as a nut/psycho/feminists/misogynist. The label means that you actual matter to the world. That people actually care about your opinion (even if it’s negative flack). It’s a societal feedback loop to teach you about your own ego and own opinions. Sure you might be wrong, but over time you can change your thoughts based on your life experiences and what you learn from others.
With that said, writing should be done in a private setting, for yourself. Only after you begin to coalesce an opinion on paper, when the idea is flushed out, is when you should begin to think about the posting and audience. Because if you only think about the end goal of showing your thoughts to others, you’ll miss out on the personal development you receive from the process of figuring out what’s actually going on in your mind.
Stand for something, say something you actually think, and take the flack that other people will bring with open eyes and ears. You’re being judged on all levels, internally and externally. So if you want to do something, but decided to not follow through because of the fear of being judged by others, you’re going to internally judge yourself as a weak individual. No matter what you decide to do, judgment is being made (not necessarily a bad thing). Do your best in this life by developing thoughts and sharing those thoughts with others, because you never know what value you can bring to others.  Who knows, you might just help someone on their own journey, save their life, or be the final push they need to go after what they want to achieve in life.

The Beginning

My moment occurred at my cubicle desk in a large corporation. Fresh out of college, great gpa, no debt, white male, tall, single, athletic, engineer…society is stacked in my favor, to the Nth degree.

But is this what life has come to? Waking up at five in the morning in order to come to work and feel overworked with long term projects and short term fires, surrounded by individuals who willingly work 12-15 hours for no additional pay. And of course team unity/conformity is building the pressure for me to fall in line and do the same.

We’ll guess what…fuck…that…shit.

I’m not here to spend 50% of my waking time locked down geographically and stressing out in return for a small amount of paper that pays for my ability to continue on this path.

This is the beginning of my journey to becoming an iconic man, physically, mentally, financially, and spiritually. A man who goes after what he wants without reservation. I know moving forward is going to be an overwhelming task, and many will stand in my way (including my own mental barriers), but I know it’ll be worth the effort in the end.

So I write this as a statement to myself and to the world. I write this to hold me accountable outside my own journal entries. I write this to inspire those who feel just as stuck in their route routine.

The time is now to take the first step…