Thriving

All sorts of things assail us daily: viruses, sales messages, crappy snacks, vapid conversations, noise, silly ideas, our own circular thoughts, diesel fumes... It’s not good or bad, it’s just how it is. In recognising this I can both avoid some of the things and strengthen myself against those I can’t avoid.

I’ve been too impatient, wanting all the changes in my health, wealth, love and happiness to happen yesterday. My hurry has led me to be less effective and to daily chastise myself for not doing enough and not improving fast enough. I’m adjusting my time frame to something much longer. With the pressure off I reckon my progress will be smoother, I perform best with some pressure but not with unreasonable pressure.

Hypothesis, experiment, observations, analysis, peer review - that’s performing an experiment and gauging the effects on your life and health. Then repeat. It’s a good way to progress and not get stuck

Both take very little time or energy and are incredibly powerful as tools for reducing pain

Musculoskeletal pain is so common. Like most things, there isn’t ONE cause or ONE solution. Here are a few basic steps that helped me immensely. Warning: it’s not a quick fix, but it is very simple.

It’s not the getting it right and it’s not the huge visible changes, it’s the commitment to keep chipping away a little bit each day. Even when a few days get missed, getting back to it and chipping away some more to create our work of art

There’s a happy medium between flip flopping on what behaviours and actions take me forward in my quest for full capabilities and being too dogmatic and inflexible. I never suspected that the simple act of keeping a health journal would be so impactful in allowing me to walk the tightrope between those two states

After a long search I’m now working with a professional on my remaining health issues. I’m excited and grateful. Overcoming mould illness is the first step.

I started 3 months ago and my adherence has been pitiful. A Clarifying Conversation leads me to refocus and recommit

Clues from inside us tell us how we are doing and whether there’s a health problem. Their intensity and our ability or willingness to detect them varies depending on the state and situation we are in. Well, at least that’s true for me. I’m monitoring my clue-detection skills and aiming to refine them. I want to do this so as to get better at knowing when to take an action that will lead to better health, ie to thriving!

It requires patience, embracing confusion, looking for sensory clues, having no preconceived ideas of being naturally “good” at something and priming oneself to believe we are as capable of skills acquisition as the next person.

I’ve been an over-preparer all my life, spending time thinking of all the things I need to learn and do before I take an action. By recording myself without all that preparation I’m aiming to learn by doing, as opposed to learn by over-thinking. I’m aiming to build a skill over time by doing the thing I wish to become skilled at.

A personal training session highlights how weak and unprepared I am in my legs. Good to know. I can do something about that

Opportunities and emergencies will pass through our environment. We can be caught unawares or we can set our system to ready for action

In order to perceive something subtle there needs to be a degree of peace and quiet in the environment. This is the Weber Fechner law. A flame is bright in a dark cave and imperceptible on a bright sunny day. Our internal signals are clear when our system and habits are more still and imperceptible when we busy ourselves and buzz around with a multitude of inputs. Becoming a skilled noticer and quietening our life enables us to detect important signals. From there we can build and test hypotheses as to what foods and habits affect us in what ways

Using bloodcalculator.com and some routine blood tests I’m allegedly 10 years older health wise than my actual age! AND filled with toxins! Well I’m partially deflated and partially thrilled because it’s all fixable and I’m already doing a lot of the things required to fix it and I’ve already dialled in patience and perseverance

I learned this in 2015 and layer by layer have been deepening the understanding that was instinctual. So ridiculously simple. Moving around on the floor using conscious awareness to direct attention to the contact or interface with the ground. Harnessing ground forces, polarisation of muscles, ground as anchor, trust in my nervous system getting what it needs. The result has been clear gradual reduction in pain and dysfunction

I discovered it in 2015 and then entered the training program in 2017, I’m currently teaching classes once a week and make it a daily practice to do some for myself. It’s a series of eurekas, not so much one big dramatic one as I had hoped, but numerous important ones I had to learn to notice and celebrate. Now they come thick and fast as long as I keep my awareness awake

There are the practical active habits I gave 4 examples of lat time, and there are the attitudinal habits, the mindset ways to approach habit creation. Then there are the things I removed, which I’m calling the non- habits

I recap and recommit to my purpose and intention with this podcast. Of all the practical implementable habits, the core four I’ve found most powerful are here. Food, movement, circadian cycle, feet

The police called me a victim of an offence because my car’s plates were stolen. I wonder about the subliminal effect of that word and similar words, how they convey a disempowering message that slips in under the radar

Have been realising that all these seemingly small habits over time add up to much more when they all start coming together

I learned a valuable concept from a documentary about horses and how stress builds up and can be spat out

I have found these two things to be mutually synergistic, and feel pretty happy about that!

Never heard of it? Made known by Mike Mew, British orthodontist. Placement of the tongue, mechanics of the swallow. Extraordinarily simple and huge in its ramifications. Posture, strength, face shape, airway, snoring, sleep apnoea, neck and back pain, dental alignment and probably much more besides. I’ve just found it and am loving it

My progress with it, tweaks and beginnings of benefits

I have patterns of emotions, of movement, of thoughts. I’m learning to catch myself when I fall into them and practicing the art of creating better alternatives, over time, incrementally

At times I’m buffered by contradictory self critical thoughts or outside stressors and feel distracted from what it is I’m wanting to do. Here are 5 things I’ve found that bring me back to a quieter clearer state

Common sense, your intelligence, your choices are the tools to avoid sunburn and increased risk of skin (and other) cancers. Blanket indiscriminate use of chemical sunscreens is not necessary or helpful and doesn’t build your best self

The current wave I’m in is confusion/chaos. In it, I’m riding some sneaky demons that car-selling exposed.

Update on how it’s going and my ongoing education about it

This is a story that’s quite well known and illustrates beautifully the clear effects of an inadequate diet on the individual AND their progeny and future generations. We are not cats but we’re not so different from cats either

My pondering a life decision and weighing up instinct with wisdom with bullshit

Our environment in the early years is key and has a huge impact on our future AND can always be mitigated in later life with good habits

Thought conundrums, oxalates and how we dump them, thiamine and polyvagal and all the other ways to explain how we feel and function. Trying to make sense of how it all ties in together. Does it?

The phrase gets used a lot . What does it really mean? How do we reconcile our aversions to certain people?

I did a 4 hour intro to WHM we did 5 rounds of the breathing and then some ice bathing!

Short ep on fight flight freeze and changing the state of stress I was in to something a lot calmer through self talk

Moving between physiological states

It’s not just sympathetic and parasympathetic, it’s 3 different states

Tips, information and guidelines on how to be healthy and thrive can cause confusion, overwhelm and a form of freeze where we shut down or give up. It’s a fine line. I wonder what the best course is

Lots of toxic things abound in food, in homes, in cosmetics and skin care. All are pretty easy to avoid exposure to

My take on how to look after our largest organ, hint: not messing with it too much.

Best juice I got from my movement explorations was messing around on the floor

Just don't eat any, ever. Unless you enjoy being chemically castrated, pacified, manipulated by religious and corporate agendas.

Just as important as food, whole body movement is much more than exercise and has all the benefits for a long luxurious wonderful life

What we take on as a new thing we are bound to question, doubt, and then either abandon or recommit to. This is natural. Don’t worry about it.

My first health intervention was food, back in 2013, with dramatic results. Summarising the general principles and ideas behind an ideal human diet for health

In my book about what habits I cultivate that lead me to the life I want the first one is to work on a project of creating a certain way of perceiving our world. This sets the ground for building the more practical habits such as what foods and physical actions to dial in

Being “judgemental “ is commonly judged as bad, immature, evil, etc. But what’s at the root of that impulse, is there something there that is actually a necessary self protective mechanism which we then overlay with invented meanings?

Reflecting on the secret lives of lucky cows with high IQs and active social lives as well as on my long car trip through large scale industrial monocrop agriculture in Brazil, death on a grand scale, poisoning the earth and other cheerful topics.