Email subscribers, you can right click to download the podcast or click to listen in your browser with this link.

Hello readers, I was busy living life this past week, so I didn’t get a post/podcast up for you on Tuesday.

This is things evolving a bit. Today’s episode is straight, no script, no editing, Shooting from the Hip.

Enjoy.

Email subscribers, you can right click to download the podcast or click to listen in your browser with this link.

Words have power.

Take “Fuck” for example.

The dictonary definition of fuck is:

sleep together: have sexual intercourse with.

This literal definition means to have sex, so big deal. Most of us have sex, and we enjoy it at that.

It’s not that simple though. Fuck is a much more complex word. As we know, the word is used in many different ways, It’s an adjective, a verb and a noun. It’s used positively and negatively. In fact, “fuck” has become one of those all purpose words that can and does mean just about anything depending on the context it is used in.

So let’s break it down. It’s a collection of four letters.

“F” originates from the Semitic letter vâv that represented the /v/.

“U” is also Semetic in origin, from the letter Waw by way of the letter Y. It also shares a relationship with “F” via the Romans.

“C” comes from the same letter as “G”, and is again Semetic. The origin letter is gimel.

And “K“, from the Greek Kappa, and, surprise! Also Semetic as Kappa is derived from the Semetic kap.

Here we have four letters, all Semetic in origin, which really means nothing at all.

And that’s the point. This word, has no power.

In fact, things only have power if we give them power.

Does this idea bother you?

If it bothers you then you need to take a step back, because understanding the power structure is one of the keys to living the life that you want to live.

As an example, this is the desktop wallpaper I have on my laptop:

"Don't Fucking Procrastinate" from Good Fucking Design Advice

Last week I talked about how terrible I am at getting shit done, and after writing that post I was able to let go of this idea that I can’t get shit done and start actually getting shit done.

Shortly after that I realized one of my biggest problems is procrastination. It’s not that I can’t get shit done, it’s that I don’t.

And this wallpaper serves as a not so gentle reminder to me of that fact.

By the same token I have already changed my approach to bedroom activities with my wife, and though it’s only been a week, I think there has already been some incremental improvement.

Last week’s post was a major catharsis for me, and in letting go of these things I have freed myself to make the changes that I want to be.

This is power.

I’ve come out of the other side with the understanding that nothing in life has power over us unless we give it power.

The victim you know in your life, the one who always has something going wrong? They have surrendered their power.

We surrender power to our governments, we surrender power to our jobs, our bosses, our friends, our family, our spouses, everywhere in life we surrender power.

When we look at the power structure it seems overwhelming, and it becomes a very scary thing. It’s a terrible monolith of all that we have given up, and in many cases the return on investment sucks.

Giving up power is easy.

Taking that power back is not.

One of the most important things you can do to begin reclaiming power is to let go.

I may sound like a broken record, but if we just let the fuck go, things become much, much easier.

From what I’ve written before you may have gotten the idea that in letting go we become cave dwelling yogis eschewing all of life in favor of solitude and a diet of nettles.

You couldn’t be more wrong.

The arc of letting go lends itself to that idea when you approach it without an understanding of where we land after letting go.

That landing place is a place of power.

It is the place where we see that nothing has power over us, unless we give it power.

Here’s the thing, we sit back and give up our power, however every time we give up that piece of power, we are sacrificing something within ourselves.

For instance in sacrificing power to the government, we surrender earning power through taxes. We surrender freedom under the strictures of law, we surrender our rights in the name of freedom, and we surrender our freedom in the name of safety.

The government is easy to pick on because it is so universal, but there are other examples of surrendering power.

Such as the surrender of power a victim of abuse gives to the abuser in a relationship.

Such as the surrender of power to the idea that we must have a job to create income.

Such as the surrender of power to the idea that you can not do something.

For too long I accepted the power structre. Now I no longer accept that as the only option, and this opens up a realm of possibility to me.

It doesn’t mean the world falls into my lap like an oyster bearing a pearl. What it means is that the world is my oyster, and all I have to do is find that pearl.

Because it’s all out there for the taking, and here’s the thing, if you don’t take it, someone else will. This doesn’t mean we’re fighting a zero sum game, where I’m trying to amass power for myself at the expense of others. It’s just the opposite. If we see this and let go, we all have the opportunity to take. There is plenty out there for all of us, the distortions are in the acceptance of the status quo.

When we let go, it becomes a zillion sum game, where everyone wins.

And when you let go and land, you gain a deep seated understanding of this. I don’t mean the cognitive recognition of this idea that has you nodding your head to as you read this.

I mean the kind of understanding that is in your bones and blood, that beats through your heart and sets itself in at the cellular level, so that every breath, action and thought is in harmony, making you a being of will and power.

I mentioned last week that there will be changes around here. I have let go of the idea that I need to follow some formula for success in this blog, to write a certain way, to post certain things. I have taken back my power to express myself here, and with that power, here are some of the changes you will see:

A re-design/branding of this site. I’ll ultimately be moving things over to spyrosheniadis.com. Right now it’s just a clone of this site, but things are in the works.

My approach is opening up and letting go in my writing. This means the frequency and timing of the posts may change as I move forward

The podcast is going to grow and change as I explore ideas for sharing with you and telling stories through that medium

I’m going to be exploring my voice in photography. I’ve focused a lot of attention on my writing, and photography has always been a love of mine, and this is going to eventually wind it’s way into this space of expression that is me.

Now, let the fuck go, and reclaim your power by tweeting and liking this so everyone can see that you get the power structure, and you’re not gonna take it anymore. (bonus points to anyone who catches the reference here and leaves it in the comments, in fact I’ll throw in a 1/2 hour Skype call to anyone who gets it and leaves a comment.)

Email subscribers, you can right click to download the podcast or click to listen in your browser with this link.

I have to admit I was a little scared writing this because I’ve become comfortable in this little corner I’ve been carving out for myself.

That being said, comfort is the balm of the unaware and in order to continue writing my own story I have to push my boundaries and bleed from the eyes from the effort I put in to this.

This isn’t a hobby, a side project, it is something I love. I love writing, and I love this topic I am exploring, but really, what I’m exploring, what we’re all exploring, is life.

You’re supposed to be specific in your blogging niche.

Well, I can write about this stuff and it’s great, but there are other things that interest me.

Among other things, I like

Art
Economics
Food
Cooking
Life
Money
People

So things are gong to change a little bit around here. This blog is really a continuation of my #portaraitaday project and to continue that I have to really explore myself as much as I write content that is enjoyable or useful to you dear readers.

So things are going to change.

I’m probably going to swear more. See, here’s something you don’t know about me. I like to swear. I really like the word “Fuck”.

It’s a beautiful word. I worked in a couple of different factories over the course of ten years, and if you know anything about factory environments, you know that the air is blue with cursing. For example in a factory we worked in we would measure things in terms of cunt hairs. So if we had to make a tiny machine adjustment, it was a “cunt hair” and if it was a super tiny adjustment, it was a “red cunt hair”

That’s kind of dirty and I don’t really talk like that anymore, but I still curse. I use to be too loose, swearing around kids like the bad uncle that doesn’t watch his language. I don’t really want to be that guy, but my language here is going to get a little more colorful.

Because in the end, as my friend Tim writes, “It’s all about me.”

It is, but it isn’t, and what you’ve been reading, that is me. Don’t think I’ve been hiding. I am genuinely me in this space, but I haven’t opened the door of this writing space to all of me.

Which is interesting because when I was working through my portraits, that was raw, and it was all me. All of it, the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, foul, clean, bright and beautiful.

Becasue in the end, life is about me, it’s about you, and everything under the sun pertains to that.

And that means I’m going to talk about whatever the fuck I want.

To open this up a little bit I’m going to take a page from a bunch of other bloggers, who bare their souls and lay it all out here in public.

Here are some other things you may or may not know about me. (If you’ve followed my portraits or twitter for awhile, some of this may not be new, but I know I have some new folks out there reading as well, so here it goes.)

I’m a selfish bastard

I try not to be, but more often than not I am. This means that many times I am not as kind or loving or caring to my wife as I should be, and it is something that I am ashamed of. In putting this here in this public space for all of you to read, I am letting go of that shame, and opening my love to my wife. I love her, but I’ve let my selfish nature get in the way for far too long.

I’m terrible at getting shit done

I am so bad at this. I look good and organized on the surface, but right below that I’m a disorganized mess. I’ve tried lots of different methods to get things done and keep track of what I have to do and so on and so on, but I just haven’t found anything that works for me yet.

I suspect this is something like my care for my body. It’s not that I can’t do it, it’s that I don’t really actually want to do it yet. Despite the cognitive yearning I have for being more effective in things, I haven’t found the well of desire in my heart and soul to fuel the simple act of getting shit done like I have in caring for my body.

I’m mediocre in bed

You may or may not want to hear this, and I should have included this in the “We are men” post, but sometimes I just suck in bed. My sex drive is a little fucked up, which may be partly because of my thyroid, but is more than likely because of item number one. (the selfish bastard part)

I ejaculate quickly

I’m not fixating on sex, but these are some of the things that have been gnawing at me and in exorcising them I can let go and change them. I know this is partly physical, and mostly mental, so if any of you guys out there reading have tips, let me know.

Turns out I’m not alone in this. I can last anywhere from 3-5 minutes, which is okay, but not great.

I’ve tried counting, and controlled breathing helps a little, but when my wife and I are doing our thing, she makes me feel good, and you can’t always argue with that so any pointers will help.

I’m actually kind of shy

It may not seem like it, and others say I have an easy way with people, but I don’t always feel that way. It goes back to the bit I said last week about talking to women, but often I’m scared shitless talking to anyone.

I don’t understand men

I explored this a little bit in my #portraitaday project, but if you look at my twitter stream and look at who I have the really intense and deep converstaions with, it’s women. I don’t get men, and I have this inability to hold longer term conversations with most of them.

I don’t even try to go out of my way and befriend women over men, it just happens.

I have big fucking feet

Size 16 to be exact. Oh, and that thing about big feet and big dicks? Not true. Average here.

I haven’t talke to my father in over six years

This isn’t entirely true, but it is effectively true. I did talk to him for less than 5 minutes a couple of months ago after I found out he nearly died from a blood clot, but that wasn’t a meaningful conversation. It was hardly a conversation at all.

I was the kid in school that got picked on and bullied

I hated school for that reason. Fucking hated it. I spent most of my childhood buried in books. I don’t regret that, and I’ve let go of that hate and resentment over what happened, but as I was living it, I hated it. The name they taunted me with in school was Booger.

I pick my nose

I did it when I was a kid, and I do it now. The difference is now I use a kleenex. How the hell else am I supposed to get the boogers out? And don’t pretend you don’t pick your nose. It’s like masturbation. 70% of people admit they masturbate, and the other 30% are lying (I’ve heard that quote before but I don’t know where it’s from. I’ll happily credit if you link me up in the comments)

I masturbate

Yeah, like you didn’t see that coming.

That’s it, this is me. There will be more, as I change and grow, as I let go and learn.

Tell me something about yourself in the comments.

Now, take your finger out of your nose and show everyone you’re not afraid to be who you are by sharing this via the tweet and like buttons below.

Email subscribers, you can right click to download the podcast or click to listen in your browser with this link.

“Don’t compare your inside to someone else’s outside.” – Karen Walrond

Lynn Fang at Upcycled Love wrote a wonderful piece encouraging women to stop worrying about what society says is beautiful and realize that you are beautiful already, right now, just the way you are.

When viewed through the lens of society men suffer our own pressures and expectations.

There is man, and there is Man.

Man is a buff, sports loving, beer drinking, car fixing, stereotypical Man. Man does not cry. He always looks effortlessly buff and has the perfect combination of Brad Pitt scruff and George Clooney suave.

Man is supposed to have 6 pack abs and know the stats of the top ranking NFL quarterback, the top 3 point NBA shooter and the most current collegiate football rankings in that fucked up system they use.

Man is supposed to swear.

Man’s cars are fast, tough and cool, unless they’re trucks, and Man can fix anything.

Man is confident, cool, good with the ladies and bad with emotions.

Fuck that. This is for all the men out there.

We are men

We cry, we don’t have six pack abs and I don’t give a crap about sports

We are men, and we’re not all confident

We are men, and my scruff looks nothing like Brad Pitt’s and my arms don’t look like Vin Diesel’s

We are men and we don’t always like to get our hands dirty, we don’t all like to fix things, and some of us have no idea what the fuck a box wrench is

We are men, and we are perfect just the way we are

We are men, and when we talk to women, we’re usually scared out of our minds

We are men, and all we really have in common is X and Y chromosomes

We are men and that’s nothing to be ashamed of

We are men and that means liking sports is fine, but so is liking art, a good romance movie, a smutty book, or a hot fast car

We are men and there is no reason to not love ourselves

We are men and all that means is that we’re human

We are men, and we don’t have to be the idea of Man

We are men, and we need to be ourselves

We are men, and I don’t mean to be cliche, but men, we were born this way

We are men, this is who we are

We are men, and we should love ourselves because

We are men

If you’re a man, love and accept yourself and let the world know about it by sharing via the tweet and like buttons below. If you are a woman, support the men and women out there in loving themselves by doing the same. Share and spread the love.

This week I am guest posting over at Love and Trash (post link). The guest post will be up tomorrow at noon PST time and I welcome and encourage you to visit Love and Trash, it’s a great blog with lots of great people writing on a variety of topics.

As an exclusive and thank you to my regular readers and subscribers I have the podcast for the guest post ready for  you today (albiet a bit late since we just got home from Portland, Orgeon). Enjoy!

END NOTE

The podcast is a reading of my guest post over at Love and Trash and is 8 minutes and 54 seconds. Feel free to leave feedback in the comments. You can now subscribe to the podcast on iTunes

Email subscribers, you can right click to download the podcast or click to listen in your browser with this link.

Hello and welcome Love and Trash readers! I appreciate you stopping by.

Here on marinating the mind I write and explore the depths of awareness and self, looking into the motivations behind what we do and how to get past the idea of self that is built upon us over time by society to discovery of the self we have within.

I also podcast my blog posts (as of 4/12/11) and for my regular readers and everyone stopping by from Love and Trash, and you can download the podcast from the Love and Trash post  here.

You can read more about the blog and me on the about page. Here are a few of my most popular posts:

The Importance of Immersion and How to Cultivate it

How Privacy is Ruining the World and What You Can Do About it

Why I Think Maslow was Wrong

How You Can Change the World

I appreciate you stopping by and if you like what you’ve read you can subscribe via email, RSS, or you can pick up the podcast in iTunes.

Thanks again for stopping by!

Email subscribers, you can right click to download the podcast or click to listen in your browser with this link.

On Thursday my wife and I are flying out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; we are headed to Portland, Oregon for the World Domination Summit.

This trip is going to be pretty amazing. I’ve never flown on a plane, I’ve never been to Portland or the west coast, and I’ve never been to a conference like this before.

It will be even more amazing because I’m going to meet my mastermind buddy Niall Doherty, and a friend from Twitter, Kat Ostrow. (If you’re going to be at WDS, give me a shout. I’d love to say hello!)

All in all I expect it to be pretty awesome, but leading up to this trip there has been something in the back of my mind that is both sobering and inspiring me.

As we fly out of Milwaukee, my sister in law will be flying out of North Carolina. She is not flying to Portland, or any destination in the US. Instead, she is flying to the Guangdong province of China.

She is flying to China to adopt a child. This by itself is pretty amazing. This is her family’s second adoption, they adopted their 8 year old son from South Korea when he was born.

But this adoption is different. The child she is adopting is four years old. She only speaks Chinese, and she has spent her entire life in a Chinese orphanage.

Just think about this for a moment. This girl’s entire worldview is about to be shattered. The entire structure of her life is about to change and be rebuilt. Her environment, her language, her eating habits, her friends, her social circle, even her name is going to change.

I can’t stop thinking about this, about how monumental this change is going to be for her. When I think about it, it inspires me to question my own worldview, to crack it open, to examine what I accept and what I believe.

This is a challenge because we live our lives with worldviews that we accept as individuals and as a group. These ideas ultimately form not only the shape and fabric of society, but the shape and fabric of the self.

It is deceptively easy to live without examining these assumptions. In learning that seeing the world is the key to seeing the self we take time to look past the categorizing we do in our environments, which gives us an opportunity to see these things in a clearer light, but at this stage it is important to go further.

When you consider the very remaking of your existence, as is about to happen to this four year old girl, taking time to examine the brick in a wall or to say hello to a person working as a store clerk is not quite enough to understand what is really happening.

It is here we step beyond and begin to question the filters and assumptions we hold. In looking past them we can see them, and in seeing them we can begin to change them.

For example, I’ve been questioning the need to own a home, and the base conflict over owning a home boils down to this:

I am torn between the urge to root myself in this community, and the urge to be untethered. I am questioning the ties that a home, a mortgage, and the things that accompany it all bring.

However in the beginning, I wanted to own a home. I wanted to own a home becasue that was a worldview that I accepted.

The idea of home ownership has been writ large into the fabric of American society. It is an idea that has been perpetrated upon us by government, and has trickled throughout society in such a way that few people question the need or desire to own a home.

Yet we can see the damage that idea has brought to the economy.

Despite my questioning, the foreseeable future has me living in a house, but within that I continue to question and embrace change. An example is the idea that I need to use soap and shampoo to bathe myself daily.

Niall Doherty coveres this nicely in this post, (in which my wife is quoted for a female’s perspective). It’s a bit of synchronicity that Niall and I seem to have read the same article at the same time and embarked on the same questioning of this idea.

With that in mind, my wife and I stopped using soap and shampoo in February, and you know what, they are totally unnecessary. (Read Niall’s post for more info)

Last November I began to question the food that I eat. I had, for my entire life, been a typical American in that I ate meat, cheese, dairy, processed foods, and all of the other goodness that industrial farming has made available to us.

I ate, and I ate, and I ate, and as a result I weighed 310 pounds. At 6’2″ I wasn’t grossly obese, but I was definitely overweight.

Up until then I was generally aware that the food I was eating was slowly killing me. I was also aware that the food I was eating is mostly sourced through processes that not only strip the food of its inherent nutrition, but also destroy the earth we inhabit. (If you’re interested in my take on food you can read the guest post I did over at the Jewish Cooking Chick)

I was aware of this, but not really doing anything about it. I had been exercising and had lost a good 40 pounds or so, but it wasn’t until I read Alicia Silverstone’s The Kind Diet that I was able to truly see beyond the ideas about food that I had accepted.

After that, I adopted a vegan diet.

Eating a vegan diet means that we have no animal products in the house, no meat, cheese, butter, milk or other foods that require refrigeration, and so lately I’ve been questioning whether or not we need a refrigerator.

When we return from Portland our fridge will be mostly empty since we will have eaten everything before leaving, so when we get back we’re going to unplug the fridge and see if we can live without it.

This experiment will necessitate a change in our buying habits, but that’s something that’s worth questioning too. Do we need to buy a dozen apples at a time? If we buy a half dozen instead there’s no reason we can’t keep them in the pantry and eat them before they naturally begin to deteriorate. These are after all plants that thrive naturally in the earth’s atmosphere.

The changes that I am embracing and the change our niece is about to experience are very different. If we look at the progression I just illustrated we can see that all change has rises out of a trigger or event. I didn’t just walk into the kitchen and say,

“Hey, what the hell do I need a fridge for?”

First I had to question the food that I eat. Before that I had to question the impact the food I was eating had on my body, and before that I had to question how I was taking care of myself. Within the space of taking care of myself I questioned whether or not I need soap and shampoo, and the umbrella over all of this is the questioning of where and how I live.

Change does not have to be earth shattering in the way that my niece is going to experience, and here is what you can do to embrace the power of change.

1. Be aware

Raising your awareness allows you to be more cognizant of what is around you, and in that cognizance you will be able to see what in your worldview needs questioning.

Just like in the progression above, it is my awareness of place and connection that allows me to see the threads connecting these elements together. When I embrace the power of change in one thing, I see the things that are connected to it, and I can question and evaluate those things, and again embrace change.

2. Be open

The most dangerous thing about a belief is when we are not willing to entertain any ideas outside of our own.

When you are open, you accept that there is more than one way, and by being open you create a flexibility that allows you to entertain the entire realm of possibility. This openness is the next step. Being aware allows you to see the threads that tie the elements of your worldview together, and being open allows you to accept that your worldview is not the only view.

This doesn’t mean you have to accept an outside idea or reject your own ideas, but by being open, you create the possibility, and in possibility there is infinite opportunity.

3. Take action

Change is the agent of the future, but without action we can not effect change.

Seeing the threads that tie your worldview together and opening yourself to ideas outside of your worldview reveals the realm of possibility, but unless you are willing to take action, the possibilities will wither and die.

This does not mean you throw the baby out with the bathwater. Taking action seems like a monumental step, not unlike adopting a four year old girl, but action is much smaller than that.

For instance, you can unplug the fridge for a week and see if you can live without it.

You can stop using soap and shampoo for a couple of months and see if it’s an idea you want to accept.

You can write down the very next thing you have to do in order to be the change you want to see in the world, and get yourself one step closer to being there.

Change isn’t just the agent of the future, it is an inevitability. Change will happen, with or without you. The only real difference is whether you are going to embrace change, or be swept away by it.

Our four year old niece is about to be swept away by change, and in the beginning it will probably overwhelm her, but I believe she will adapt and quickly embrace change instead of allowing herself to drown in it.

As my wife and I hop a plane to Portland on Thursday Portland Oregon and the World Dominiation Summit will lay out on the horizon ahead of me, but much of my heart and mind will be with a four year old girl in China..

Imagine you are a four year old girl in China, and imagine the earth shattering change of being taken from the only home, language and people you’ve known. See and embrace the power of change and if you believe in that power, spread these ideas via the tweet and like buttons below.

Email subscribers, you can right click to download the podcast or click to listen in your browser with this link.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – [emphasis added] US Declaration of Independence

Happiness is a tricky thing to understand. We feel endowed with this right to happiness, and as we move through our days and lives we often feel that this happiness is lacking.

There has also been a ton of research done on happiness, just look at the Google search results:

Happiness nets 163,000,000 results

Happiness research nets 44,600,000 results

and there are 771,000 sholarly articles on happiness.

In our lives and the society we live in today we find ourselves seeking happiness in the belief that it is our right to be happy. That not only do we deserve to be happy, we need to be happy. This kind of seeking shifts happiness from a state of being to an end in itself, and ends up tying it to external conditions.

The most generally accepted external condition for happiness is financial wealth. However when we look at the research we find that more money doesn’t really make you happier.

The main reason more money does not make us happier comes down to something we’ve talked about before.

More.

More is a relative concept. What that means is that the perceived value of what we have changes relative to what others around us have. So if I have a salary of $75,000 a year, I am happy according to this study. But if I have that same $75,000 a year, and you make $150,000 a year, my $75,000 suddenly has less value in comparison to your $150,000.

Understanding that relative value changes lets us understand that what we believe will make us happy changes. The key here is the perception. In fact one of the most powerful concepts to understand is our perception

It is with our perception that we accept and define the conditions of our lives and the world around us, and it is with our perceptions that we accept things such as relative value.

This goes deeper than just relative value and delves into the belief systems we hold and the facts we accept within those belief systems.

Just look at the statement I made above about financial wealth being the generally accepted key to happiness. This is a perception, we accept the idea that money will make us happy. We think it will make us happy because with money we believe we will have the freedom to, “do what we want.”

While more money can afford us a certain amount of freedom to “do what we want”, the relative nature of value creates a cycle that Penelope Trunk illustrates here:

As a society, we are not actually all that interested in happiness. If we were, people would stop relocating for jobs, people would stop eating french fries, and people would stop scheduling their kids for activities that happen close to dinnertime. If anything, I think people are focused on hiding the fact that they desperately want more money and more passion in their lives even though it’s not fashionable to admit it. [link]

I would disagree that we aren’t all that interested in happiness, just look back at those Google results. I would argue that this desperate and relentless pursuit is an ill guided attempt at pursuing happiness, and it illuminates a couple of things.

First, it highlights the relative nature of value. People “desperately want more money and more passion in their lives”, despite the money they have to relocate for jobs, eat french fries, and have their kids in activities. Yet these very activities show a passion for the relative value we think these things will bring us.

Second, it highlights the real crux of the problem, which is that we don’t know what the hell we actually want.

We think we want happiness, and we pursue more money to get it, so that we can do what we want, but when we get that money, we don’t know what to do and then we’re still unhappy. We think we want our kids to do all of this stuff, so that they’ll be happy and fulfilled, but we don’t actually know if they want to do any of it, or if it even makes them happy.

We just don’t know.

The fact is that money has an impact on happiness, but not in the way we think. Money, affords us not happiness, but an alleviation from unhappiness.

On a national scale, it has been shown that country to country, higher GDP leads to higher overall happiness. However, when you examine higher GDP nations what you find isn’t more happiness, but less suffering. This is because higher GDP nations have less infant mortality, better health care, readier access to food and longer life spans.

People in these nations are happier because their children arent dying and their basic needs are met without much struggle.

Therein in another layer of perception. When a level of basic needs are met with less struggle, the relative value of our happiness changes and we seek further fulfillment elsewhere, thus elevating the level of our basic needs through relative value.

It is here however that we have to pause and take a look at what exactly we mean by happiness. When you think of happiness, what comes to mind?

Not so long ago happiness in life was securing survival and perpetuating your family. Rising above the struggle to feed and care for your family was a happy and meaningful life.

As society changed and advanced, we looked for struggle elsewhere. This is when happiness shifted to the workplace. Here we pursued happiness through our jobs, we were lawyers, doctors, executives, manufacturers, etc. The pursuit of a career became our struggle because it was no longer a struggle to sustain ourselves and perpetuate our genes.

Now the landcaspe of employment has changed, and jobs are transitory and less meaningful. As of early 2011, 86% of jobs in the United States are service sector jobs which are arguably more demanding, less fulfilling, and lower paying jobs.

This change has moved our desire for meaning and fulfillment out of the workplace and into the realm of the self, bringing us closer to the root of happiness, to the true affective nature of happiness. Yet by most measures we’re still evaluating happiness as a relative measure of how good we perceive our lives to be.

Happiness is defined as a state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy, [link] and if we take pause and raise our awareness, we will see that happiness is both pervasive and absent from all the scenarios mentioned above.

Do you laugh at work? Do your spirits lift as your spouse or partner walks into the room? Do you smile as you walk down the street? Do you whistle a tune in the shower? Do you savor the deliciousness of a piece of chocolate?

Do you recognize these things as happiness? They are. This is the affective nature of happiness.

Happiness is not a salary or a job or a person or a place. Happiness is the thread woven throughout our lives that ties all of these things together. Happiness is the challenge, joy, humor, frustration, and contentment we find in the things we do, and happiness is also the challenge, joy, humor, frustration and contentment that doing the things we do brings us.

So it is here that we can see that the pursuit of happiness in our lives is relative, and it is in the pursuit of our lives that we find our happiness. Not as an end point to be reached, but as a by-product of life.

In other words, It’s not what you do in life that brings you happiness, it’s how you do what you do.

Which brings us back to the Declaration of Independence, and I believe the authors of the Declaration got it right.

It’s the Pursuit of happiness.

Can feel the joy that these ideas bring me? Can you feel the challenge and struggle of creating this piece that led to that joy? If so feel free to re-define your pursuit of happiness and share this via the tweet and like buttons below.

Email subscribers, you can right click to download the podcast or click to listen in your browser with this link.

I don’t have a new post this week. Instead I offer you podcast of one of my favorite posts from the archive: Naked Yoga. As an update since this post, I’ve now lost around 80 lbs, though I don’t know for sure because I don’t weigh myself regularly. I also left the gym I had joined and I now practice yoga daily.

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I practice yoga naked. I have been practicing yoga with more serious intent for a couple of months now and it feels like a very natural extension to this path that I’ve been on.

This also relates to my daily portrait project from last year. I remember when I started the project I would contort and twist my body into different poses. It was like a physical manifestation of my efforts to remove the shell from around my heart and untie the knot of emotions that I had been choking on for so long.

Over time the physical contorting lessened as I learned to let myself go emotionally. The transformation took place over time and as I closed the project last year my portraits reflected the peace and happiness that has been growing with me as I learn to share the love in my heart.

The yoga poses I practice are a reflection of the stillness I continue to pursue along with the comfort I feel with my body. Each pose challenges me and I learn to conform the pose to my body as I work my body into the pose. As my body finds the equilibrium my mind rests and I find there is little room left inside my mind, heart and soul. The peace fills me.

The stillness is yet elusive, but like the perfect pose perfect stillness is never achieved. Instead I take each pose and each moment to breathe, feel my body and acknowlege the thoughts in my mind as I allow them to float by.

I practice yoga naked because it feels right. The clothes that I was wearing when I first started practice were cumbersome, they would get in the way and distract me from the breath and my body in the moment. I feel freer when I practice naked and my body flows more smoothly and I feel more comfortable and whole in that freedom.

Last July I joined a gym and started an exercise program. For the last six months I was following the stronglifts 5×5 program, with which I have had great success. I lost 45 pounds as of my last weight check and more importantly I have gained strength and balance, making my body healthier than it has been in a long time.

Now though as I move forward and pursue yoga I look to transition away from the stronglifts program and to focus more on yoga for my fitness and health. There are a few reasons for this.

- I exercise alone, and with that comes a strong danger of injury as I get into heavier weights, particularly in the squats, overhead press and dead lift.
- My goal was never to be a muscle man, but to be fit and healthy. Weightlifing requires continual progress and additional stress to be most effective. I haven’t found a way to achieve equilibrium in this kind of strength training.
- To continue to strength train I will either need a gym membership or to purchase my own weight equipment.

Conversly the benefits I am finding with yoga are

- Equilibrium. I am able to accept myself in each moment and yet in each moment I can feel the efforts my body is making through the pose.
- Mobility. I can do Yoga anywhere. I don’t even really need my mat.
- Whole body wellness. In Yoga I have found areas of my body that were being neglected by the weightlifting program.

What I have learned from Yoga

There is no perfection

I’ve talked about this before and in yoga this is a constant reinforcement. There is no perfect pose, no perfect body, no perfect blog post, painting, photo or book. Nothing is perfect. Everything is perfect. By putting the whole of our sincere efforts into what we do and accepting that nothing is perfect, we achieve perfection.

Achieve Equilibrium

The body is not to coform to the pose, the pose is to conform to the body. As I make efforts to find the pose there is a point where my body and the pose join. This is the point where I can feel the stretch, when my muscles are trembling on that edge of almost too much and I am breathing peacefully.

The same equilibrium must be applied to our lives, pushing ourselves to that edge and holding in that moment. We need to recognize that we have limits and that limits aren’t bad. We need to recognize that sometimes there is a too far and that’s okay. Equilibrium is the point right before too far. Resting in that place is where you want to be.

Always Seek the Edge

It is then in the next practice that your edge has expanded. When you accept equilibrium in a pose you give your body the chance to prepare itself for the next time you embrace this pose. In doing so you expand your limits without going too far. Yoga is also about challenging yourself and by using equilibrium to expand your limits you challenge yourself without going too far.

In all things accepting that there is a limit and that our limits can be changed and moved with our sincere efforts allows us to challenge ourselves and accept ourselves as we are. This is the harmony of growth without ego, the beauty of emerging into ourselves. Instead of trying to force and control our limits we let them grow with us.

There is always and edge and we can always find that edge.

Be Audacious

You might think this doesn’t pertain to yoga, but I think it does. I practice yoga naked in part because the clothes get in the way, but also because it feels audacious to do it. People don’t generally practice yoga naked (though I’m well aware I’m not the first, last or only one doing it). Practicing naked makes me feel more confident, a little naughty, and a lot good for giving myself permission to do this. That confidence translates into a richer practice in which I feel the ability to accept the challenge of the poses and expand the limits of my body and mind.

Additionally poses in yoga are audacious and challenging. Moving your body in these unconventional ways is an expression of a desire to go beyond the norm to find something greater. However these poses are not challenging for the sake of challenge. Each pose gives you benefit, through the pursuit of stillness, acceptance of the moment, the opening of the body and stretching and strenghening the body.

Likewise in your pursuits you need to be audacious, but not for its own sake. There are people who do things simply to do them and doing a thing for the sake of its outrageousness reduces your net gains from the experience. Instead apply this willingness to be audacious to the things you truly care about, the things on your short list. In doing this your audaciousness with expand the joy you have in pursuit of your passions and will help you grow as you challenge yourself in something you truly care about.

If you agree with me be audacious and tell your friends and family what you think by sharing this via the tweet and like buttons below. Namaste.

Email subscribers, you can right click to download the podcast or click to listen in your browser with this link.

We looked at the problem we have with balance last week, but now we’re going to look at balance itself.

Balance is not perfect and perfect balance is no more achievable than any other perfection.

So I wanted to pull back and step outside the system that we talked about last week to look at balance from the outside. (I realize that I just cautioned against this last week)

From a distance, we see that true balance is different from the idea we have of balance. When we think of balance we think of harmony and peace. It conjures up idyllic zen gardens with meditating yogis living a blissful, soulful existance. We think of life free from pain, agony and difficulty where everyone is happy and nobody suffers.

This is not balance.

If we pull back for a moment we can see the earth, and the teeming mass of life that lives here. This is balance. This is the system maintaining itself despite everything we do from within.

It is messy and chaotic.

There is joy, beauty, love and peace.

There is conflict, pain and suffering

The problem is that we associate balance as “good” and unbalanced as “bad”.

For example, we are supposed to:

Eat a balanced diet

Have fair and balanced reporting

Balance our checkbooks

Balance our personal and work lives

And balance our relationships

All of these ideas of balance are supposed to make our lives better. We perceive unbalanced as messy, dirty and bad.

We have to remove these associations from the idea of balance.

When I talk about balance I don’t mean that zen kind of balance, because that kind of balance doesn’t exist as a panacea. It exists within the system, but not as an achievable total of the system.

Look at the earth as a whole. This planet is one large ecosystem. It is comprised of trillions of smaller and smaller ecosystems.

And by our own reckoning, it’s a mess.

We have earthquakes, tsunamis, oil spills, pandemics and epidemics. There is starvation and global warming. Economic bubbles bursting, massive hoards of wealth with masses living in poverty.

It’s a mess, and it’s partly a mess because of more.

But it is also a mess because we perceive it to be a mess.

If we let go of those perceptions and look at balance without expectation, we will see something very different.

For example let’s look at wealth distribution. In the United States studies suggest that 10% of people hold 90% of the nation’s wealth.

Think about that for a moment and see how it makes you feel.

This wealth distribution is generally viewed as unfair. Anger and the desire for more create the expectation that this wealth should be spread out evenly among the populace.

Here’s what this looks like through our normal lens of perception.

you like my little drawings yes?

This looks extremely unbalanced.

But if we look at it like this:

one more for you.

We can see the natural balance. In this example the wealth on the two sides of the scale totals 100%, matching the 100% of people on both sides of the scale.

I recognize the question of fairness and equality. The question of whether or not it is right that 10% of people hold that much wealth when so many people live in deprivation.

These are questions that are looked at through the lens of fairness and expectation, questions that don’t have clear answers.

Let’s assume for a moment that fairness and balance are the same. Now take a look at the wealth distribution systems such as taxes, charities, socialism, markets and theft and ask yourself if these systems promote or execute fairness?

Now ask yourself if they promote balance?

I think the wealth distribution example above suggests that they seek a natural balance despite the our own interventions in the system.

Now let’s look at a different balance, the balance of our presence here on earth.

Right now, we’re consuming 1 and 1/3 the resources the earth is able to provide.

That is out of balance, because of more.

As a response, the earth seeks equilibrium. To achieve that equilibrium, it has to offset the consumption of humanity, it has to reduce the consumptuion, or provide more resources.

And this equilibrium sought by the earth is a is a confirmation that there is something greater than us. I don’t necessarily mean God by this, whatever that means to you. Rather this is to demonstrate that humanity is not the pinnacle of all of this.

We are at the mercy of not only ourselves, but of the earth that we live on.

Look at the earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados, blizzards, droughts, diseases, and other natural and man made phenomena that have deeply impacted humanity. These phenomena are an expression of the system we live in seeking it’s own balance.

This is balance, and it encompasses all of the messiness of life that we don’t associate with balance.

Just as the lion eats the zebra. Is that fair to the zebra? Maybe not.

Is it fair to let all zebra live to overpopulate their habitats, decimating their own resources? Is it fair to let them suffer the outbreak of disease, famine and death that will bring the zebra population down to a level that their environment can sustain?

Maybe not, but I believe that the outbreak of Chronic Wasting Disease that came to Wisconsin’s deer population was exactly that. Pushed out of their environments by our voracious development appetite, deer in Wisconsin are unable to find habitats that can sustain their populations. Chronic Wasting Disease is a natural balance exerting itself to bring the population in line with the habitats left to them.

So just as the lion eats the zebra to achieve balance, man hunts deer to help achieve balance.

What does this mean? It does not mean that I believe people deserve to die in the disasters that seem senseless to us. They are senseless from our point of view, but that is because our worldview assumes that we are the pinnacle of existence, and that death is to be feared.

But death is balanced by life and destruction is balanced by creation.

And knowing all of this, after taking a moment to look at it from the outside we have to ask ourselves the question we all ask at some point in our lives:

What does it mean?

It doesn’t mean anything at all.

The core idea that I’ve been getting to week after week is letting go, and this is the ultimate letting go. Letting go of all of our understandings, expectations, feelings, assumptions, wants and desires.

Including the idea of balance.

This is not a summit I have reached. I am not preaching down from on high. I am looking up, standing at your shoulder and, seeing that it all matters, and none of it matters. It is all balanced.

I seek balance in my life, equanimity for myself, and my balance is upset by the person who does not understand or care to cultivate balance.

And that itself is a balance.

So when you think of balance and seek it in your life, Accept and embrace the messy untidy nature of life. Accept that the dirty, horrifying, sad, messy and painful existence that we live in is full of wonder, life, joy, love and happiness.

Seek balance with an understanding that life is life. It is not for any reson. It is not to be squandered. It is who we are and it is how we express ourselves.

We often seek meaning and purpose in life, and with that comes expectations.

Seize that meaning and purpose, but leave out the expectation. Take up the game and play it with all of your heart and soul.

Forget about the score. It doesn’t matter.

This may seem very pithy, contradictory and amorphous.

It is.

This is exactly because life is not precise. There is no prescription, no answer, nothing but the existence we make for ourselves.

How you approach that existence is entirely up to you.

Embrace the messiness and grab the purpose and meaning in your life, live it hard with all your heart, and if it seems fair or balanced to you, share this via the tweet and like buttons below.

Email subscribers, you can right click to download the podcast or click to listen in your browser with this link.

Humanity has a problem with balance.

Our cognitive abilities are the key to our humanity, but it is also our cognitive abilities, and all that comes with these abilities, that destroys our innate understanding of balance.

As thinking humans, we understand the concept of more

and we want it.

That want, that desire, is something to be let go of, but this hunger, born of more is strong enough to shatter the planet left unchecked.

What we lose in our cognition and rabid desire is the understanding of balance.

Balance is the idea of enough. Balance is the understanding that one person has no need for a million dollars. that one helping of food at your meal is enough, that my yoga pose may not look as good as yours.

Balance is the acceptance of contentment in this moment.

When we throw things out of balance with more, our instinct is to try and exert control over the situation, environment, pose or place we are in.

But if we step back and look, we will see that balance is something that naturally cultivates itself.

Look at the ecosystems of our planet. These are balances that have developed intuitively over the millenia of earth’s existence. They are systems that balance themselves naturally, without intervention. They are systems that embody the spectrum of existence, birth and death, joy and fear, sickness and health, dominance and surrender, violence and tenderness.

These systems intuit and maintain balance naturally because all elements exist within the system. They are present within the system and they are present in the moment. Within that presence, they inuit the understanding of enough, and through that intuition they exist in a harmony.

Our hubris as humans on the other hand takes us out of the ecosystem. By moving outside of these systems we fail to see how they work.

When we move outside of these systems, we are able to see the parts. We can see causes and effects. We can build models and understandings of these systems, but what we do not do is immerse ourselves within the system.

Yes, there is partial, objective immersion for the purpose of discovery. This is different because we maintain our awareness outside of the system. It is because of the shifting of our awarenss that our greatest asset, which is our ability to see things objectively from the outside, also becomes our graetest failing. It becomes our failing because it prevents us from being inside the system with awareness, intent and harmony.

And when we are not fully immersed within a system, present, aware and intent, the ramifications of our actions become lost to us.

Practicing Yoga is an example of this.

When we practice yoga, we seek to lose ourselves within the poses. We seek balance, the point in the pose where our unique body meets the pose and they join together.

This is not necessarily a perfect rending of the pose, rather is is the palce where the body conforms to the pose, but more importantly, the pose conforms to the body.

Yet when we practice yoga, it is easy to get caught in the perfection of the pose, and in seeking perfection, in seeking more, we upset the balance. We begin to look outside of the system, we remove ourselves to try and see from the outside what to do to make things perfect on the inside.

This is where we look in the mirror, wondering if we can straighten the spine a little more, or tighten the core a little more, or push deeper into the stretch.

This is where we find ourselves looking at others in the class, or watching the video, dissecting their poses in an effort to push past the balance between body and pose into the realm of perfection and mastery.

But notice that when our intent and awareness wanders from the mat, we fall. When we remove ourselves from this system and look at it from the outside, we lose the intuitive awareness of the system, which causes us to lose our balance, to waver, and to fall out of the pose.

This is why consciousness and awareness of the world around us is so important. With consciousness and awareness of the world around us, we can feel the balance, and then we can grow ourselves in that balance. We can flourish intuitively and we can better understand the actions we take in the present moment and the changes that those actions will create.

To cultivate balance:

Pull Your Awareness In

Not so far in that you are pulling into a silo of the self, just pull it inside of the system. Pull it in and try to feel the parts of the system moving around you. Feel your connection to the parts, the people, the environment, everything. Removing your cognition from the equation will let your awareness reign, and this will allow you to feel it.

I have only participated in one yoga class, I practice almost entirely at home, but in this class, I could feel it.

I could feel the other practicioners in the class with me, I was aware of them moving through the poses as I moved with them. There was a unity of awareness and intent that built itself and created a synchronicity between us.

This was not synchronized yoga, we did not move in perfect unision through the poses, but we all had an awareness of ourselves moving independently through the poses, combined with an awareness of where we were in the class.

Observe

Once you pull your awareness in you can observe from the inside. Observing from the inside is different from observing from the outside. Observing from within is seeing the world, and your place in it. We are often told to observe, to go to the mall and see all the unhappy people, go to work and see the misery of the corporate grind, go to school and see the brainwashing of our youth.

This is terribly easy. It is easy to sit and observe that which is moving around you, but seeing your place in it, as part of it, is much more difficult and important.

In that yoga class, I was able to observe the class and my place in it. This was not an outside observation. As I moved through the synchronicity of the class I was aware of my relationship to the pose, to the other practicioners in the class, to the instructor and to the environment.

Watch the Ripples

The easiest way to begin seeing your place in a system is to see the changes your actions create. The ripples of your actions are the extension of your intent, and awareness of what those ripples do will do more to increase your understanding than years of objective observation.

Again in this class, we were practicing, and I saw the ripples of my own actions. We were in tree pose, a pose I normally have no problem with when practicing at home.

In that moment, I lost myself into tree pose, and then I moved outside, looking at the others and at myself, and I tried to push further into tree by bringing my leg up, my chest further out and my arms higher up.

I took these actions, and I fell. I lost the pose, I lost the balance and I temporarily lost my place in that environment.

I moved back in, pulled my awareness back and re-opened it to that synchronicity and took tree where I found the balance, and felt the harmony of myself in the system.

Begin to cultivate your own balance. Pull your awareness in, try to feel yourself as part of the environment you are in, and then watch the ripples of your intent moving outward as you share this via the tweet and like buttons below.