May 15, 2013

Tasks That Bark

Some tasks, especially tasks involving organizing or cleaning up, are like small dogs that bark like there’s no tomorrow when they see a bigger dog (you). It’s those tasks where you think “it’s going to take me sooo long and it will be sooo boring… I better go watch TV instead.”

Well, guess what? I say things like that to myself all the time, but then eventually stuff starts piling up and I muster the courage to turn on some music and just do it. And you know what happens?? It’s usually done before the first song even ended!

This happened to me just now. I had the idea in my head that my room was so untidy that I would die of boredom before I even finished cleaning it. But I had to do it, so I put on some music and bam, I was done in about 4 minutes. This is the kind of situation where I think about my past self and want to punch him in the face for being such a wimp and wasting precious hours on youtube because I didn’t want to clean my room for four. freaking. minutes.

So, next time you’re faced with a similar task, use this short and maybe effective process I just made up:

Imagine the task as a small dog barking at you. Really picture one of those dogs that are so small they look like shape-shifting rats and have a high-pitch bark that makes everyone secretly want to stomp them. Are you afraid of it? Hell no!
Put on some music and just do it. They say “if it takes more than a minute, do it right away.” I say “if it takes less time than a freaking song, why haven’t you done it yet??”

Have a good night, folks. *lights fade*

May 10, 2013

Stop Trying And Start Doing: A How To Guide

Despite Yoda’s famous quote “Do. Or do not. There is no try,” being known by a lot of people, trying is still commonplace. The problem with ‘trying’ to do something is that it creates a weak mindset; trying to do something implies that it is OK to fail, which is precisely the option you need to rule out, especially if you are working on a hard goal.

It is rare for me to give my all and do my best when I am only trying to do something. Being lazy or even quitting is simply too easy. I believe you might have the same problem, which is why I want to propose one way for you to stop trying and start doing.

Usually when you just try to do something, it is because you would like to achieve that goal but either lack desire for it or believe you are not capable of doing it. Or it could be that you desire the outcome and know that you could achieve it but lack the self-discipline it would take to accomplish it. Otherwise you would simply decide to do it and then do it.

So how can you take the things you have been ‘trying’ to do and transform them into things you will actually do? I think the first step is to turn your ‘I’ll try’ into an ‘I want’. “I’ll try to lose some weight,” then becomes “I want to lose some weight.”

At first glance it seems you are taking even more power away from your previous statement. If you are trying to do something, it is implicit that you want it, but wanting something does not mean that you will do anything to accomplish it. However, this modification is important since it releases you from too big an attachment to the outcome and allows you to better focus on the specific steps you need to take.

The next step is to specify your goal. You do not need to do this with every goal, since some are already specific enough from the start. After specification, our weight-loss goal would be stated as follows: “I want to lose [insert desired number, e.g. 20] pounds.” This way you can compare your progress to the end goal. Making the goal more specific also helps you focus and makes the goal more concrete.

I don’t believe specifying a desired time for accomplishing the goal to be helpful, since it puts you under unnecessary stress. However, you might want to do this in some cases where you find the date important.

These first steps are important for both smaller and bigger goals, but from there on there are a few slight differences between the two that are worth exploring a little closer.

For Smaller Goals

By smaller goals I am referring not only to goals that are faster to achieve, but also that are straightforward. An example would be to want to find something you have recently lost. If your goal is “I want to find my wallet,” you already pretty much know what you have to do. Still, I suggest you break down the goal and state it like this: “I want to find my wallet, so I will look for it in all of my jacket pockets.” Once you have done that, and if you still haven’t found your wallet, think of the next most common place it should be, and focus on searching for it there.

The point is that you are not busy thinking about how hard it will be to search the whole house but are focusing on the specific part of the house you are searching.

Another example would be a goal like cleaning your room. Right now, I have to go through every piece of clothing, every book, every piece of paper (basically, everything) in my room in order to decide what I will take with me to college and what I will give or throw away. If I think about it like that, the goal looks pretty impossible. Not because I think I wouldn’t be able to do it, but because I’m scared by the amount of work my mind is telling me it will be. So, I think of it in smaller terms. A few days ago, for instance, I went through the clothes in two of my drawers. Next I might do the third drawer, then my desk, etc.

I like to picture this process as seeing only the next 100 meters in front of you, not because you are blind, but because you know better than to look beyond them and instead prefer to focus on what is happening right now.

For smaller goals like the ones of the examples, it is enough to simply divide them in your head. If you’re looking for your car keys, it might not be very useful to write all of the steps on a piece of paper, since you are likely to already know them by heart. It is, however, important to have this division in mind and learn to focus only on the next or current step towards your goal, since focusing elsewhere drains your energy.

For Bigger Goals

These are the goals we usually ‘try’ to accomplish and at which we usually fail, because they demand that we change something about ourselves in the process of achieving them. The biggest example would be “I want to lose X pounds.” Most people believe that if they just follow a certain diet or exercise program they will easily succeed, but the problem is that this type of change doesn’t last if it is not accompanied by some form of personal growth. You may lose the pounds while on the diet, but once you get back to being ‘yourself’, you’ll just gain them back.

In order to lose weight, you have to become a healthier person and not just have healthy habits for a month. If you want to become financially independent, you not only have to work hard, but you have to learn how to manage money, feel comfortable having a lot of money and raise your ability (both psychologically and physically) to give value and receive money.

Very often when you set such a goal, you are not entirely sure of how you will accomplish it, and that is OK. The problem is that most people are afraid to want something they don’t know how to accomplish, which is why they can remain in a state of ‘trying’ to lose weight for years. In order to face this problem head on, set a ‘sub-goal’ that will get you closer to what you want and which you know you can achieve. An example for a health sub-goal could be “I am going to inform myself about health as much as I can for the next two months.” You then buy a few books such as Perfect Health Diet and The Primal Blueprint and others and take a look at my post on the science behind a grain-free diet. For two months, all you need to do is read those books and otherwise absorb as much information about health as you can. (Not all goals need a date, but it is important to set a date for how long you will inform yourself in order to avoid analysis paralysis.)

Now you have a specific sub-goal that will get you closer to your main weight-loss goal and have no other worries because you set out to do something which is within your reach. You are no longer “trying to lose weight,” you are “informing yourself about health, because you want to lose weight.”

After you have completed your sub-goal, it is time to set another sub-goal that will get you even closer to your main goal but which is still within your reach. When the bigger goal involves change, it is important to evaluate what you have learned from the previous sub-goal in order to be better able to define the next one. It is likely that you will get too much information and won’t be able to apply all of it at once, so make sure you filter the information and choose something you are not too uncomfortable with (change is often uncomfortable, so that’s unavoidable).

For instance, you could eliminate sweets from your diet for a month or maybe jog for 10 minutes every morning for a month, in order to later turn those changes into habits. In any case, you want to identify the next thing you could do to get closer to your objective and do it. It is likely that some of the sub-goals you set will not be purely mechanical but will rather involve some inner change on your part. This is good.

But be careful on how hard you make those sub-goals: too easy and they might demotivate you for not creating enough results, too hard and you won’t stick to the changes. When in doubt, make the goal easy, so that you know you can achieve it. Since you’ll probably be wanting to create a habit, one pushup per day is better than thirty pushups the first day and zero the rest.

However, if there is a step you feel would be very beneficial in your journey but for which you might need some extra help, there are processes you can use like burning the ships and making a bet to stay accountable. I’m currently using both, each with a different purpose.

Burning the ships

Right now I am working on a collaboration with Jack Peterson from FindYourGreatnessDaily.com which involves me doing some interviews for his podcast. Jack has given me a lot of liberty on this, so I get to choose whom I interview and what I ask them. I’m very excited about the project, especially since I have never interviewed anyone before.

Intellectually, I know that I can pull this off and create some great interviews, but I am also becoming aware of insecurities regarding the interviews. One of them is that, while I can think of many people I’d like to talk to, I can’t seem to find the right questions for them. For some people this might seem silly, but it is a very real problem for me.

So I decided to ‘burn the ships’ by first asking for an interview and setting the date and only then worrying about the questions. That way I will put myself under pressure to create good questions, and I know that I usually work better if I am under some kind of external pressure.

If your next task is one that you could put off indefinitely (and most likely would, due to some kind of insecurity or fear), then find a way to ‘burn the ships’ and make a commitment which will increase your desire to accomplish the task.

Making a bet

I have also decided to, during the month of May, always wake up at 6:30 (even though I don’t have to anymore) and follow a strict paleo diet. These are things I know I can do, since I have done them before, but which I didn’t stick to in the past when I have tried them. They are pretty ordinary to me, so I feel like I need an extra push to actually commit to them.

Luckily I found some people who also wanted help for their goals, so we created a group to keep each other accountable. On that group I told everyone that I had made a bet to myself: every time I don’t wake up at 6:30 I have to take $20 and for each non-paleo food item I eat I have to take $10 and at the end of the month I will then send a letter to Monsanto Corporation* thanking them for their service to humanity and giving them the money. If I complete the challenge, I will have the pleasure of burning the letter and shall buy myself a pair of XeroShoes.

You’ve probably noticed that this process is a specific adaptation of the previous one. I like to use this when there would otherwise be no one to keep me accountable. (In the case of the interviews, the interviewee would act as that person since they would be the first to notice I hadn’t really prepared.)

Summary

Here is the whole process in steps with a different example in brackets:

Turn your ‘try’ into a ‘want’. (I’ll try to get a good grade on my oral exam -> I want to have a grade of X or higher in my oral exam)
Create small steps that you know you can accomplish that will get you closer to your goal (I am going to summarize everything I need to know about topic 1; I am going to summarize everything I need to know about topic 2; I am going to ask my teacher for previous exams, work on the answers and ask for the corrections so I can know what I still need to study; etc.)
Only focus on one step at the time. Give that step your full dedication before moving on to the next one.
To help with bigger change
1. Burn the ships
2. Make a bet and have accountability-partners

*If you don’t know why I hate Monsanto from the depths of my being and you are into finding out what is wrong with the world, a quick (or long) Google search should give you all the information you need.

April 30, 2013

Welcome, High Existence Reader!

I recently had the honor of having a guest post published on the very successful blog High Existence. It is called 4 Practical Philosophies That Will Empower You and I am very grateful that Jordan Lejuwaan allowed me to share it with the HE community. Speaking of which: there is a very high chance you just found this blog through that post! If you did, or are otherwise a new reader, this is for you.

First of all, thank you for checking out the blog! If you’re remotely interested in personal development, you will get a lot value both from what has been published in this blog as well as from what is still to come. So, please…

Have a look around

This blog is relatively new and has 37 posts so far, so it’s fairly easy to have a look around. Still, if I had to pick five*cough*six*cough* posts I’d definitely like you to read, these would be the chosen ones:

As you can see, I write about several topics within the bigger concept of personal development. If you are new to it, I invite you to also read my series on how to start your personal development journey (here’s the first post). The rest of my posts can be found in the archives.

Why you’ll want to stick around

Obviously, as a blogger, I don’t simply want you to have a look around; it would mean the world to me if you also stuck around and became a reader rather than a visitor. These are a few of the reasons of why you’d want to do so:

We can relate. You’re probably not a personal growth guru. Well, neither am I! I’m facing many of the same problems you are and am just starting out on this journey too, so you can be sure that the answers and ideas I provide here do not come from a place of arrogant superiority; rather, they come from a genuine desire to help and from an understanding of what it feels like to need guidance myself.
You care about the core topics of this blog. Yes, this blog is about personal growth, and I know that not everyone is particularly interested in it per se or even knows what it means. But, in essence, what lies underneath the words ‘personal development’ is simply a desire to lead a happier and healthier life with better relationships to yourself and others, a sense of financial freedom and to basically improve every aspect of yourself you find worth improving. Don’t you want that? So do I, and this blog is meant to help you on your way.
Good stuff’s on the way! If you look at the archives, you’ll notice that I haven’t published much in the month of April; I have been busy with school and traveled a lot. But now everything is changing again! School is a few days, an oral exam and prom from being over, and then I’ll have all the time in the world to provide you with awesome content. You can expect more articles, a free ebook and a newsletter. I’m also a few months away from college, and when I’m there I’ll have tons of new things to share with you on topics like productivity and owning your day (which is something I’ll have to learn how to do myself!).
BONUS: I’m going to make this blog one of the best personal development resources in world, so you can be proud to say that you’ve read it since the beginning!

So… here’s what I’d like you to do:

if you’re into those things, follow me on Twitter or like my page on Facebook;
subscribe to this blog using your email (box on the right), so that you get all new posts delivered to your inbox and so that I can send you a personal email inviting you to join my newsletter as soon as it is created (and you’ll get the free ebook, too!);
that’s it!

Thanks again for reading this and I do hope you enjoy my blog!

P.S.: ~~Soon there will also be an about page where you can learn more about me, so that’s something to look forward to as well!~~ Check out the about page here.

April 17, 2013

How To Have Deep Conversations

Having deep and meaningful conversations correlates with more happiness. Whether it is the cause of such happiness is yet unknown. I know I really enjoy deep conversations, and am assuming you do, too. Yet, most of the time, we engage in small talk and are either unwilling or unable to push the interaction to the next level. To the latter I write this post, explaining what I see as a plausible way to have more deep conversations. To the former: read this before coming back.

What makes a conversation ‘deep’?

If you’ve had a deep conversation, you know what it feels like. And yet it is hard to exactly define what specifically separates a ‘deep’ from a ‘not deep’ interaction. Some people stress the importance of a connection between the participants, others point out the sharing of beliefs and opinions, still you could see a meaningful conversation as one involving an analysis of some sort, which then might lead to a change in beliefs. This way, you also get better understanding of the other person. Though deep conversations can deal with all that has to do with the self, other possible topics can include society or education, for instance. Important attitudes of the participants which help move the conversation forward are respect, openness and curiosity. All in all, I think there is a linking element to all the aspects mentioned, which is growth.

The above list of traits is not exhaustive, but it should help defend my proposition: a deep conversation is one which strengthens the connection between the participants and stimulates growth within them, therefore acting outside and inside the individual people, so that the whole (very loosely defined) is larger than the sum of the parts (the individual participants, their own thoughts, beliefs, etc.).

This is also a reason why people seeking personal development also want to attract deeper conversations, which probably makes them happier, too. So now the question remains: how does one manage to have more deep conversations.

How to:

Attitude

Your attitude definitely plays a large role in whether you’re able to initiate and maintain deep conversations. These traits are those you’ll want to focus on improving:

Respect: Being respectful encompasses a long list of qualities that your should show to your conversation partner, some of which are also in this list.
Openness: By sharing and being open you are encouraging the other to do the same.
Open-mindedness: Be open to what the other has to say, in fact, expect to learn from it. Instead of judging, accept the other person as they are. This will increase their trust in you and signal that they can be open with you. Also, expect to change your mind, or rather, accept that you might change your mind. Going into a conversation and expecting to leave as you entered is counterproductive if its purpose is to stimulate growth, right?
Curiosity: Ask questions and listen to the answer. There’s nothing like knowing the other person really wants to know what you have to say to encourage you to let it all out.
Assertiveness: If you have boundaries, define them. Don’t be afraid to tell the other person that you don’t like talking about a specific subject. If you don’t do this, the other might keep asking questions you don’t want to answer and that will make the interaction awkward and less enjoyable for both of you.
Trust: Trusting and being trustworthy are very important. Who is going to want to share their deepest secrets with you if they suspect that everyone is going to know about them the next day?
Honesty: There is no point in lying.

Hopefully, if you truly want to enjoy deeper conversations, you know the importance of the above 7 traits and know how to apply them.

Depending on how used to having deep conversations your social connections are, you might already enjoy lots of deep interactions simply by displaying these traits. Sometimes, though, you might have to show or tell the other person that you’re not looking for small talk and that you’d like to talk about things that really matter to both of you. If everything goes well, the other person will agree (there’s no point in trying further if the other person doesn’t want to) and ask “well, what do you want to talk about?”

In the past, I’d say “whatever you want to talk about,” which would lead to some rounds of passing the responsibility for the choice of subject to the other and could end in figuring out that we simply don’t know what we want to talk about. And that is true. Sometimes people simply want to talk, they want that connection, no matter what the subject is. And yet, to talk, one needs at least one subject.

Subject

I’m assuming you don’t usually know what you want to talk about. Usually when this happens I’d suggest playing the ‘question game,’ which means that everyone gets to ask questions to the other person in turns. This might go very well and give you a lot of insight into the other person without having to constrain the conversation to just one topic, or might not be helpful at all.

Still, questions are very useful when trying to start a deep conversation. Instead of hoping the other person will come up with a good topic, have a few questions ready yourself.

Being the curious person I am, there are a lot of more or less general questions I’d like to ask everyone. Of course there are specific questions you’d like to ask some people but not others, still maybe this list will help you:

Is something / what is making you anxious right now?
Why do people lie?
Do we control our emotions? How?
Do you believe in God?
What are your goals?
What’s important to you as / in a person?
What do you want to improve about yourself?
Is happiness a choice?
How far do we control love?
What are your thoughts on gay marriage?
Can someone love more than one person at the same time?
What are your thoughts on polyamorous relationships?
Could you go 30 days without complaining?
What do you think of meditation?
What’s the meaning of life?
What’s you purpose?
Should drugs be legal? Which ones and why?
Are people inherently good/evil?
Are people responsible for everything they do?
Can you be happy when you’re sad?
What is unconditional love?
…

Basically I wrote down questions as they appeared in my mind. There are probably many more that I wish to ask, but this list does its purpose anyway. So now it’s up to you: write down questions you’d like to ask. You can even write down questions to specific people.

Now you know how you can start a deep conversation. The next step is to be able to bring the conversation into a state of flow.

Flow

“If you’re making the conversation flow, it’s not really flowing.” (me)

During small talk, one needs to keep attaching questions after every answer so that the interaction doesn’t get to a halt. Flow has to be forced upon the conversation, so to speak.

If you’re having a deep conversation, though, flow is just a natural part of it. You shouldn’t have to worry about what you’ll talk about next. In fact, you might have to worry about how you’re going to stop talking because unfortunately you don’t have all the time in the world.

Although you shouldn’t try to make flow happen, you can create the conditions for it to arise on its own. Luckily, these are the same conditions that allowed the conversation to start in the first place, especially curiosity and openness. By maintaining a curious and open mindset you are almost making flow inevitable. Also very important is the connection to the other person, which will make them want to keep talking to you.

Notice too that most of the questions I suggested above are open-ended, meaning they cannot be answered with a simple “yes,” or “no.” Open-ended questions encourage the other person to say more than what was specifically asked about ad thus encourage flow as well.

If the conversation does come to a halt, you might want to acknowledge that to your partner and ask whether (s)he wishes to continue talking or suggest a different topic. If the answer is yes, then you can simply pick another question from the list and ‘start over’.

Practice Makes Perfect

Maybe your first deep conversation won’t last very long or be very personal. That’s fine. Keep doing it and you’ll improve your skills. You can even practice online, in sites like Omegle.com where you are assigned a random stranger to chat with. Be patient, though, because a lot of people there will want to troll you or have only superficial conversations, which doesn’t mean that you won’t find gems (and you will).

Now go!

March 23, 2013

Responsibility

A big topic in personal development is taking responsibility and being in control of one’s own life. You’re told to stop asking “why me?” and start asking “how can I learn from this?” and “what can I do to make this better?” when faced with an undesirable situation. And that’s all good. In fact, it’s one of my core messages as well. But today I want to delve into the topic a little deeper. How much control do we actually have? How much responsibility? If you’re giving a PowerPoint presentation and the computer crashes, is it your fault?

I like the idea of everyone being 100% responsible for their own life. That means that there’s never anyone to blame but yourself, which can be considered somewhat frightening, but it also means that you have the power to fix whatever you consider ‘wrong’ about your life.

In theory, and if you ignore a few key aspects, this seems about right. You can control your thoughts and your actions, which means that you’re in control of the results. If you didn’t get to where you wanted, it’s because you didn’t put in the work / were too negative / depended on others who screwed you / etc. etc., and it’s all your fault.

But what about your genes? You can’t control them, can you? And maybe your parents didn’t give you a good education. Or you just happened to be born in the wrong place at the wrong time and grew up in an economic recession that didn’t allow you to ever be financially independent.

The questions, arguments and examples above seem to suggest that the responsibility and control we have over our life are to a great extent illusory. And yet, I still act on the basis that I am 100% responsible for my life (most some of the time, at least). Later in this post, I will explain why I don’t think the statements in the paragraphs above are contradictory, and how I think you are responsible for your life. But first, let’s have a look at what two great minds of the 20th century had to say.

Freud vs. Sartre

I am by no means an expert on Freud or Sartre, and the ideas I will present as theirs are likely to be oversimplified. Nonetheless, I think they offer helpful perspectives and will contribute to this debate on responsibility.

In Freud’s world, individuals are greatly influenced (if not controlled) by their unconscious mind, which in turn was influenced and, in a sense, created by a person’s upbringing. The early relationships with one’s parents as well as other experiences during infancy were thought by Freud to be of special importance in the development of the unconscious and of subsequent symptoms he would call neurosis and hysteria later on.

One could conclude that Freud believed in some degree of predetermination. Since the unconscious is formed before the conscious mind and continues to grow and exert influence over it throughout a person’s life, it is only logical to assume that people never have full control over their mind and actions. On top of that, we are, by definition, not conscious of our unconscious mind. This means that, even if we wanted to be free, we could never really know what it was that was secretly controlling us.

The only way Freud saw for us to at least get some control back was to make unconscious thoughts conscious through various psychoanalytic techniques. However, this process would require years of work, a lot of money, and could never recover all of one’s repressed thoughts and emotions.

What does this mean with regard to responsibility, though? We’ll come to that later. Let’s first see what Sartre had to say about all this.

Jean-Paul Sartre’s whole philosophy of Existentialism stemmed from one assumption alone: that there is no God. Because of this, people are brought to the world without an inherent purpose or essence. When we are born, we simply exist, and it’s up to us to create our essence through our actions.

Sartre dismissed Freud’s notion of the unconscious as unscientific and said that human beings were ‘condemned to be free’. Because there is no ultimate reason for our existence, there are also no excuses and we are fully responsible for every action we take. After we die, it is our actions that determine who we were (in a very literal “you are what you do,” or rather, “you are what you did,” sense).

Instead of saying that we should be responsible for what we do, Sartre proposed that we are invariably and always responsible for all that we do, without exception and with no way out. Even if you deliberately limit your freedom, he’d say, you can only do it because you are free, and there is thus no escaping freedom or responsibility, for that matter.

What’s it to be, then? Are we only a little bit free and mostly governed by our unconscious mind or are we condemned to be free and responsible for our actions with no possible excuses until we die? Let’s first take a look at why the very first examples in this post were so confusing.

Control and Responsibility

The reason why the examples I gave in the beginning seemed to contradict each other is because they didn’t belong in the same category. Some made you wonder what you’re actually in control of, and thus what is ultimately your fault, while others tried to make a point about your responsibility(/ies). Differentiating these concepts was what helped bring more clarity to this discussion in my own mind, and I hope it helps you get there, too.

Control

I’m defining control as being able to choose a specific outcome. Within the control category, there are then things that are within our control, if only theoretically, and things that are outside of our control.

An example for something I can control to some extent is how I move my arms. I can choose to move my whole arm up, bend it at the elbow, let it fall, move only the hand or a specific finger, etc. I can’t, however, play the harp, because I do not have the necessary control. Theoretically, though, it is possible for me to gain more control of my arms and learn to play the harp. Controlling, then, is not black and white.

Outside of my immediate control is the arm of someone next to me. For as hard as I try, I can’t move someone else’s arm as I can my own. An even clearer example are the laws of nature. Even though I could try to manipulate someone into moving their arm the way I want them to or use force to try to control it, I cannot change the laws of nature. Gravity is there whether I want it or not, and so is the electric force. Time will dilate and my mass will increase if I move faster no matter how hard I wish I didn’t know the theory of relativity and that the world made some sense again.

We might not be in control of everything around us (in fact, there are probably a lot more things we are not in control of than things we can actually control), but that doesn’t mean we aren’t free. It simply means that our freedom is limited. And luckily for those of us who wish to have a big influence on our life and the world, there are ways to gain more control.

Having more money, better connections, people working for you, the respect of others, being famous, etc., gives you more control and influence over many aspects of your own life and even of other people’s. Ultimately, though, there will always be way more things outside of your control than inside. I like to think of it this way: no matter how rich, happy, healthy or well-connected I am, someone could shoot me in the head and kill me anytime without me even noticing. My point is not that you should fear what you can’t control. Rather, you should accept your vulnerability and the fact that there are things you have absolutely no control over.

You actually gain more control over your life by ignoring the things you can’t control. You might not be able to stop something bad from happening to you eventually, but you can control how you will perceive it, what meaning you’ll give it, and how you will respond to it. When you stop fussing at the fact that something bad happened to you, that’s when you can start choosing how to respond and ultimately determine what impact you’re going to let that situation have over you.

There’s a saying that goes: “Life’s not about waiting for the storms to pass… It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” That’s what this is about. Bad things will happen. Deal with it.

And by this I mean: take more responsibility. But what does that mean, exactly?

Responsibility

Dictionary.com defines responsibility as “the state or fact of being responsible, answerable, or accountable for something within one’s power, control, or management.” (emphasis mine)

Thus, when I said you are 100% responsible for your life, I lied. You are 100% responsible for what is under your control. In short, you are responsible for your decisions. So while I, like Sartre, believe that you are always responsible for all your decisions, I disagree with the notion of being responsible for everything. As Freud showed, you can’t even control everything within your own mind, let alone your surroundings and the world. You are, however, responsible for your actions and your reactions to external circumstances.

Here’s an example to clarify: You live in a really nice suburban house with a great garden. If a dog comes and shits on your yard, it’s not your fault. But now it’s your job to clean it up.

Because you chose to have a garden and not protect it completely from dogs (through a high fence, dog-targeting lasers or whatever), you have to accept the possibility of a dog shitting on it. After the act, you’re the one responsible for cleaning the garden (if you want it to be clean, that is).

This story teaches you two steps that have to do with responsibility.

First, you have to accept that all your actions have consequences. Some might be more probable than others, but you can’t forget that it is possible for you to be hit by a falling piano because you chose to walk on the street. Note that the most important word here is “accept.” You have to fully accept the possible consequences of what you do and draw power from that vulnerability, not the other way around. Otherwise you’ll be paranoid all the time because you’ll give your power to control your emotions and thoughts away to possibilities, which is the opposite to the fifth power of what I’m trying to say with this entire article.

Second, you have to take full responsibility for how you deal with whatever happens. This step might be even more important than the first because, to a large extent, your ability to consciously respond to what happens to you will determine the quality of your life. Of course the quality of your life doesn’t boil down to one decision, which is why it is so important to always take ownership of your thoughts, emotions and mindset. If you habitually steer your life towards positivity with positive thoughts and emotions, you will build positive momentum. If your days suck and you complain about it all the time, you’re going to feel ever worse, which is going to help you make your days suck even more. Take an example of two imaginary people who just lost their jobs.

The first one is habitually negative. By this I mean that his usual thoughts create emotions he doesn’t want to experience and, when faced with a situation he doesn’t want, he resorts to thinking those same thoughts. He probably also extends that negativity to the people around him, thereby attracting more negative friends into his life and repelling the more positive people. He would probably blame the system or his boss for having made his life miserable and expect the government to create a new job for him. Meanwhile, he stays at home playing video games and drinking beer and sinking further into his own negativity.

The second one is usually upbeat and positive. He is initially sad with the news but remembers that he can feel whatever he wants and goes back to feeling happy. From there he realizes a new sense of freedom he didn’t have before. Although he liked his last job (why else would he have applied for it?), it didn’t leave him with enough time to pursue a business idea he had had with a friend. So he finds a part-time job that meets his standards and calls his friend-and-future-business-partner with the news.

Who do you think is more likely to succeed (whatever your definition of success is) in the long run, even though both were faced with similar situations? And do you see why it would be unwise to base that judgement solely on the decision they made after losing their jobs without taking into account their usual state?

Well, guess what, you are responsible for your usual state, and all of the others in between!

Before we go on, let’s take a look at a question I asked in the beginning: if you’re giving a PowerPoint presentation and the computer crashes, is it your fault?

We now know that the issue at hand here is not whether or not the crashing is your fault. Assuming you have no direct control over the computer, projector, software, power outlets or any other factors that can influence the projection of the presentation, a crash can’t be your fault. What can and should be discussed is where the responsibility goes. The defining factor here is choice.

If you chose to do your presentation using a medium that might not work, be it a computer, specific software, or something else, you are no doubt responsible for dealing with it when it fails you. It is still not your fault, but you can’t blame anyone else and can’t expect them to fix your problem for you either.

What if it was your teacher who demanded a PowerPoint presentation? In that case, you can’t be responsible, for you had absolutely no choice whatsoever, but it remains your problem and you will probably be expected to deal with it. It is not fair, per se, but it’s the truth. This goes to show that sometimes we have to take more responsibility than our ‘fair share’.

This is one of those situations which separate the weak from the strong. Strong people take the extra responsibility while weak people run from it like the plague, blaming everyone else and giving all of their power away in the process. Again, the distinction between those who take a lot of responsibility for their own lives and those who don’t is not black and white. And while most people fall under what could be called a ‘normal’ or ‘healthy’ range, it’s worth considering two extreme cases.

Related Syndromes

At the very ends of the spectrum are the people who either ignore everything I just explained or don’t understand a crucial part of it. They can both be considered ‘weak’, since their mindsets, despite being almost diametrically opposed, deprive them of power and of a positive attitude. The ‘syndromes’ I will describe may have some similarities to mental illnesses, but they are not to be regarded as such. I believe that most people suffering from these ‘syndromes’ can improve their lives by raising their consciousness, becoming aware of what they are doing, and taking appropriate action.

(A)pathetic Syndrome

Like the name suggests, people suffering from apathetic syndrome are… you guessed it: apathetic. They take as little responsibility as possible for their outer and inner environments, blaming other people and outside events for their mood and their mood for their reactions instead.

They see responsibility as being inevitably linked to blame and always give it to someone else. They are the victims of the system who don’t try to turn their lives around because of the ‘economy’ or any other ghost-enemy. They are not content with their lives, but think it’s not their job to change them.

It’s not that these people are powerless, they simply choose to ignore whatever power they have and the possibility of getting more. Instead of at least trying to figure out how to fix problems they are faced with, they say “it’s not my fault!” and expect someone else to fix their problems for them.

If you are suffering from mild apathetic syndrome yourself, or find that you could be (d)evolving in that direction, you can slowly take control of your life again. Here are the first few steps I would suggest based on how I started taking more responsibility for my own life:

Make sure you understood the concepts explained in the article. Having a theoretical understanding of where you should be gives you more clarity about how you can proceed next.
Pick one goal and stick with it. Theory is good, but it won’t help if you don’t put it to work. You don’t need a complicated goal-setting process for this. Just pick one goal you can see yourself achieving with some effort within a short period of time (a week or a month, for example).
Choose a topic and learn more about it. One way to start taking control of your life is to be more informed in general. The more you know on a certain topic the better you are able to make decisions and the less you’ll be influenced by your environment.
Pick an area of your life and take control of it. Revamp your eating habits, start going to the gym or decide to take responsibility for your finances. You train your ‘responsibility muscles’ by using them, so choose an area of your life and take control. Inform yourself however you need, but don’t let anyone tell you what to do in that area. Slowly you can start taking responsibility for more parts of your life the same way.
Eliminate your biggest time waster and use your time differently. If you currently watch a lot of TV, stop. You’ll find you have a lot more time on your hands and can now use it as you wish. As a bonus, your overall happiness level may rise simply because you stopped watching fear inducing shows like the news.

Take one of these steps and implement it as soon as you can. When you start seeing results, come back and implement another one. They were made to help you gain more control of your life by consciously making decisions and thus choosing how you want to live.

If you don’t identify with the description of the apathetic syndrome, you can use the tips if you notice someone who could use a little push to try and get them to take more responsibility for their life.

My Fault Syndrome

As the name suggests, the person I’d characterize as suffering from MFS regards every negative situation as their fault, conscious- or unconsciously. Along with the helplessness that comes with apathetic syndrome, they are also filled with guilt.

Their problem is not so much taking responsibility, it’s taking the wrong kind of responsibility for the wrong thing. Instead of focusing on what they have power over, they feel guilty for things outside of their direct control. This is not only very frustrating, it also doesn’t in any way help fix whatever it is you might want fixed (which is part of the reason why it is so frustrating).

Let’s take a look at an example. Say an MFS-er ‘hurts’ someone else’s feelings. The MFS-er is going to be very frustrated to know that they were the cause of someone else’s suffering when he realizes that there is nothing he can (directly) do about it. Other people’s feelings are their responsibilities, and all we can do is change the way we say things; we cannot force them to change their feelings (that’s outside of our control), but we can try to convey our message more clearly (which is inside of our control) and give the responsibility for any interpretation to the person interpreting the message.

Here’s another example: when a strong person loses his job, he may initially try to figure out what he did wrong, but will quickly turn his attention towards how he can be better in the future (so that it doesn’t happen again), and what he can do immediately to remedy his situation, whether that means applying for more jobs, starting a business, or whatever other action applies to his specific circumstances. He would also not harbor guilt, because he takes responsibility for his thoughts and emotions and knows that he works best when in a positive mood and focused on the immediate present and the future instead of the past. The MFS sufferer simply doesn’t leave the first phase (feeling guilty and sorry for himself) and thus takes significant more time to move forward.

So, in short, these people either (1) take more blame than they should and don’t focus on what they can change or (2) get trapped in feelings of guilt for things in the past, which makes it more difficult to move on, or they do both, blaming themselves for something they couldn’t have avoided for a long time after it happened.

If you find yourself in this situation or know someone who might be, take a look at these tips and implement a few of them or show them to whomever you think might benefit from them:

Forgive yourself. Write down what you feel guilty for right now and really forgive yourself for everything. It may take a lot of time, so don’t expect to be guilt free in one day. Choose the easiest thing on the list, work on forgiving yourself for it for some time and, when you’ve managed to do it, move on to the next.
Learn to focus on the present. Throughout the day, remind yourself to be present especially when a concern from the past pops up in your mind. Do not blame yourself for past mistakes or think about your regrets. Rather, work on fixing what you can right now and forget about what you can’t fix. For more one staying in the present and why it’s so important, check out my article Now Is All You’ve Got, and Part 2 as well.
Learn to separate your responsibilities from those of others. This one is going to take more time and I can’t really teach you how to do it, but here is one tip to get started: if the way you feel is your responsibility (and it is), then the others are also responsible for how they feel. Be careful not to fall into the trap of ridding yourself of all responsibility and ignoring your duties – if you have read this far, you already know that is not the way to go either.

Your Personal Syndrome

In case you haven’t noticed, most of the distinctions I have made so far aren’t black and white, and this is no exception. Not only can our degree of apathy or ‘my-fault-ness’ vary over time (even within the same day), we can also jump from one syndrome to another on different occasions. While most people are strong in the same way, weakness can manifest itself in a variety of ways.

So, instead of trying to figure out whether your actions are more apathetic or MFS-y, you can look at them as either weaker or stronger. The formula to becoming more responsible for your life and stronger, then, is very simple: find out where you usually make weak decisions and make stronger ones instead. Stronger decisions not only make more sense, they can be felt, too: taking the necessary responsibility leaves you with a feeling of being powerful, while the opposite may provide a sense of false relief but will strip you of your power in the long run.

How To Become Stronger

This article already provides plenty of tips and concepts to get you started on your way to becoming stronger and more responsible. If there were one last tip I could give you, though, it would be to read personal development material.

Whatever material you can get your hands on – be it free blogs like this one and others (this article lists some of my favorites), ebooks, books, audio or videos – consume lots of it. You will be introduced to a lot of notions and ideas that will further help you take more control of your life and you will slowly raise your consciousness by reading material from people who are more conscious than you in particular areas of life. I truly believe that the one habit that contributed the most to my growth in the last several months has been to read a LOT of personal development material.

Along the way I have noticed that this is a very long-term investment – I have read about many concepts last year that I am only beginning to grasp right now, and I believe it is because, at the time, I wasn’t developed enough for me to be able to understand them. I also believe that it simply takes time for our subconscious to assimilate an idea – such as the vibe of financial abundance, the notion of being responsible for one’s own life, etc. – and fully integrate it into our identity.

Repetition is also important: if you read about one topic only once, you might forget it before you even had the chance of starting to grasp it; if, however, you read a certain post every few months along with others on a similar topic, not only will the different perspectives help you ‘get it’, the repetition will tell your subconscious that the topic is important to you and it will do most of the work of understanding it for you. Then one day you’ll be minding your own business when it simply clicks. And that is an awesome feeling, I can tell you that!

March 19, 2013

Productivity Tip: Meaningful vs Petty Snowball

I love watching series. Although I never watch TV, there are at least 5 series which I follow online every week, and in total I end up watching more episodes than that because I am still trying to catch up with the latest one I started watching (2 seasons done, 2 more to go!).

Tuesday is usually the day when I watch more episodes, because most air on Sunday or Monday and I have the whole afternoon for myself on Tuesdays, but today was a little different. I watched an episode while having lunch and another one after finishing my most important task for the day, and then I went to work on a very long blogpost*.

I finished working on it at about 9 PM (with some breaks in between) and something happened: I was very proud for my work because I really like the post, but I didn’t feel like rewarding myself by watching another episode. Instead, I wanted to write more! I even tried to do something to distract myself but here I am, writing some more because it just feels right.

The little episode – no pun intended, or was it? – made me wonder about meaningful work vs. distractions and time-wasters. I had already noticed a pattern in my behavior: the more episodes I watched or the longer I surfed the web, the more I wanted to do it and the harder getting to the meaningful work seemed.

Today I watched the opposite happen! After having spent so much time over multiple days writing a post that turned out to be more than 4000 words in length, I didn’t want to stop. And the only reason I didn’t think of starting another long post was because bedtime was approaching and I really need my 8 hours a night.

So before I go to bed now, I want to leave you with this: you know about the snowball effect? The one where the more positive action you take, the easier it gets to be positive and the same for negative action? Well, see this as the meaning vs. petty snowball. The more you do that has meaning – either to you, because you created it, or to someone else, because they will learn from it / enjoy it / receive help / etc.; and what I did fulfilled both -, the more you’ll want to do meaningful things. The same way for petty things that don’t contribute a dime to society or to you. So choose wisely

And another tip: if you want to stop a petty snowball on its tracks, start taking a little positive action (like taking a shower) and then proceed to ever more meaningful work as the day(s) progress. Make sure you start building your meaningful snowball early every day, so it’ll have time to get nice and big and crush the petty ones on its way.

*I’m giving the post a few days before I read it again and figure out if I want to change anything. It should be published later this week. (edit March 23: the post is up, click here to read it)

March 13, 2013

Raw Paleo Experiment – Review

As you may know, I experimented with eating a raw paleo* diet (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should read “Raw Paleo Experiment” first) from 2/11 to 3/3. I shared some of my experiences in other posts, but there’s enough to be said that writing a review makes sense. Without further ado here’s my raw paleo experiment review:

Practical Aspect(s)

The first problem I encountered before deciding to start the experiment was convincing myself that the food tasted good – or at least didn’t taste horrible. Well, let me tell you: it ranges from almost no flavor to delicious. My favorite raw meats are heart, fish (which tastes much better than cooked, in my opinion), shrimp and beef steaks. I had already eaten plenty of raw fruits and vegetables before starting the experiment, so those were not a problem. The only thing I didn’t enjoy eating was raw liver, which I only ate once. Maybe I’d get used to it had I eaten it more often, as some people say that they love it.

Having eaten like this for three weeks in a row, I can tell you that it is not as complicated as it may seem. In fact, knowing what you are and aren’t allowed to eat might be the hardest part, but it is also a lot of fun, especially if you enjoy learning about nutrition. Putting the ‘rules’ into practice is very straightforward.

Assuming you have the ingredients at home, all you need to do when you’re hungry is eat. You can spend some time concocting a beautiful dish or just eat some meat or fruit by itself, which takes less than one minute to prepare. It’s really that simple. Still, some planning issues might occur, since you should freeze the meat for two weeks before eating it. Here are some tips to avoid getting out of food:

Buy a lot of meat at a time, so that you always have some in the freezer. Whenever you have less than one week’s worth of meat in the freeze, it’s more than time to go buy more. Ideally, you should leave the meat in the freezer for two weeks before consumption, but you won’t die if you eat 1 week old meat once in a while. Your improved immune system can handle it.
Have a lot of ‘back-up’ eggs. If you somehow manage to almost run out of meat, you can have some egg-meals to buy yourself time.
Defrost every day. Before going to bed, put the meat you’ll be eating the next day in the fridge (for dinner) or on the counter (for lunch), so that you won’t have to panic-defrost it right before a meal. You’ll be very grateful for your diligent past self when all you have to do to eat is put the meat in a plate and chop some vegetables.
Be creative. If you run out of food anyway, stay calm, and be creative, you’ll figure it out. Besides, fasting for a day is healthy .

There is one set of situations where coordinating a raw paleo lifestyle will be harder, and that is when you’re somewhat dependent on someone else. I, for one, am 17 and still live with my mother and many siblings. She buys most of our food, so it was sometimes harder for me to always have enough of the ‘right’ food, especially since I don’t have a lot of time to go grocery shopping.

If your situation is similar in that you’re not 100% in charge of your food (or don’t want to be, for time or money-related reasons), make sure to plan ahead before you jump into this trial so that you know how you’re going to make it out alive. Your disadvantage also comes with an advantage, though: you’ll have a chance at becoming more independent and learning how to manage your resources.

If you usually buy and prepare your own food already, the logistics of switching to a raw paleo diet will not be a big deal.

Consequences

Although a lot of people swear by this diet and say it has completely changed their lives, given them more energy than ever, cured them of X and Y, etc etc, I didn’t really experience many physical changes. Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t have any noticeable negative effects, and, looking back, and I did feel ‘lighter’ than I do now on a cooked diet. However, I didn’t get a happiness- or energy-rush.

When I think back to my raw paleo days, even though I might not have gotten the splendid results I expected and wanted, I know that I learned a lot from those three weeks. Mainly, what I learned and the consequences of doing the trial can be separated into three categories: weight-loss, growth and other lessons. Let’s start with the simplest one.

Weight-loss

During the first few days I lost over 1kg (2.2lbs) without wanting to. I quickly understood that I had to do something about it or else I’d start getting too skinny, and made an effort to ingest more calories, which wasn’t that easy. Losing weight on this diet is almost effortless, for three reasons:

Fewer calories. Removing processed sweets can significantly reduce the amount of calories one eats, and so does removing the carbs (like pasta or rice) that usually accompanied your cooked-meat dishes. I, for one, lost weight probably because I ate the same amount of meat or just a bit more at every meal, but did not eat the rice that I used to have with the meat, meaning that I ingested fewer calories overall.
Better calories. Eating a lot of carbs + fats is a recipe for weight gain. In a nutshell, by significantly reducing the amount of carbs one eats and separating them from the fats, our body doesn’t accumulate as much fat and learns to rely on it for energy instead of relying on blood sugar. The whole process is a bit more complicated, and it’s explained in the resources I provided in the opening post.
More satiety. A raw paleo meal leaves you satiated instead of craving for more. Before the experiment, I’d usually be very hungry by 9:30 am (eating breakfast at 7 am). When I ate fruit and 3 raw eggs for breakfast, I often wouldn’t be hungry before 12 o’clock. I still forced myself to eat two apples at about 11:20 in order to get a few more calories in, but I could have lost a lot of weight just by skipping the morning snack I no longer needed.

That said, it’s probably easy to lose weight consistently and keep it off on this diet, if you want to. Unfortunately, it’s also easy to lose weight if you don’t want to. Here are some tips you can use to get more calories in:

Add fruit before meals. Fruit doesn’t have a lot of calories, but by eating two bananas 30 minutes before lunch and again before dinner, you can add about 400 calories to your daily balance. I got into the habit of eating two pieces of fruit some time before my big meals, because it wouldn’t ruin my appetite (I’d be hungry again 30 minutes after eating the fruit, because it goes through the system so fast) and was an easy way of eating a bit more.
Add fat to your meals. From olive oil in your salad, to avocado to bone marrow to pork fat, adding some fat to your meals will also provide you with easy calories. Pork fat has about 630 calories per 100 grams, so you really don’t need a lot to get extra calories. I added one or two slices to my steaks.
Grated coconut. This deserves a special category because it provides cheap calories, which come predominantly from saturated fat: the gold of the paleo diet. At 1 € ($1.29) per 200g and 600 calories per 100g, it’s really cheap, calories-per-buck-wise. Add some to your salads, have some with honey as a snack, blend it with your ground beef, etc.
Just eat more. If you’re still losing weight, just increase the amount of everything you eat, especially the meat. I’ve learned not to rely on nuts for many calories, since they may be harder to digest.

Growth

The best part of this experiment was definitely the growth experience. I learned a lot during the whole process and became more mature as it unfolded. I think the experiment was worth it simply for the growth it provided me.

First of all, I learned a lot about nutrition. As stated in the opening post, I read more than a dozen books, lots of articles and even scientific studies to prepare for this experiment. This opened my mind to a lot of things and cleared many misconception I had before. I learned that a diet is not the healthiest just because ‘ethics’ say it should be (see the vegan diet) and that a balanced perspective should look at the morals, the science and the personal experience of users behind a diet in order to determine how nutritionally viable it is.

I also reinforced the knowledge that beliefs are interchangeable. I used to think the raw vegan diet was indisputably the healthiest possible diet, and now I know exactly why it isn’t. So what? Sticking to your beliefs is the antithesis of growth and should be avoided. We’re here to learn more about the world, not pretend we know everything and close ourselves up to new perspectives.

The social aspect of the diet also taught me a thing or two. I learned to be less dependent on other people’s opinions and less sensitive to ‘hate’. Other people’s believing my food had no taste or was down-right unhealthy got me wondering how they could know that if they’d never tried it and what mysterious vitamin I was missing from not eating nutrient-vampires like grains. I didn’t close myself down to other people’s opinions if they were backed by a valid point, rather I learned to see them for what they are, petty opinions unworthy of my worrying about them. Now I filter what I listen to, so that I can pay attention to what really matters.

On top of that, I am now much more aware of what I eat. I know exactly why the cake I had earlier today was bad for me and am able to make decisions based on truth and knowledge. Does that mean that I only eat 100% healthy food? No, but whenever I eat unhealthy food, it’s because I choose to do it, and I know the consequences. I’ve gained a new level of control over my life and make a lot less uninformed decisions. I am responsible for myself and this experiment has made me a lot more aware of my responsibility.

I’ve also learned not to seek approval for awareness-raising experiments other than my own. I’d never have done this experiment had I listened to everyone else around me (or asked them, for that matter) and I would have missed lots of cool growth and nutrition lessons. The next time I want to do something crazy, I’ll just do it. If you want to try something new, there doesn’t have to be a reason to do it other than that you’ve never done it before and will probably learn a ton from it.

Other lessons

There are two other things I became aware of that don’t really fit into the other categories.

First of all, I realized how addictive cooked food really is as soon as I started eating it again: I could eat some foods forever and never be satisfied. When I’m not hungry, eating raw food seem like a chore, while cooked food feels very appetizing.

Also, I learned that eating too many nuts can lead to… ugh… digestive problems. They are not very digestible and should be reserved for snacks.

Now What?

I probably won’t be doing any other food-related experiments soon, but will keep writing on other topics. I also expect to come back to this experiment in the future (perhaps in a few years) and try it out for 90 days with a few changes, one of them being that I’ll eat predominantly meat.

To sum up this experiment, I’d like to say that it’s definitely worth it and that you should try it out for yourself to see what effect raw paleo foods have on you.

*I ‘cheated’ a few times during the trial when I went out for sushi and ate the cooked rice and by eating roasted peanuts twice. Since these ‘cheats’ were fairly small, I don’t think they influenced the whole experiment much. If you’re going to try out the diet, allow yourself occasional cheats like I did, and it will be easier on you psychologically (assuming you can handle it and won’t go on a non-paleo cooked food binge).

March 4, 2013

Raw Paleo Experiment – Done!

Today, 3 weeks into the experiment, I’m calling it quits. Not because it’s hard – it isn’t – or because I don’t like the food – I love it – but because a few planning mistakes meant that I would be living on way less calories than my no-weight-loss plan allows. So, to ensure that I will not starve, I decided to end the experiment after 3 weeks instead of 4.

I have learned a lot despite the shorter amount of time, and will be sharing my lessons as well as more recipes soon, when I am less busy with other activities. In the meantime, I’ll be eating a mix of cooked and raw paleo.

February 15, 2013

Meditation – One Mile At A Time

Most people listen to music when they run. The music helps them keep the rhythm, motivates them and, most importantly, distracts them. I used to do it, and, if you run, I assume you listen to music too. Here’s why you should stop and how to make the most out of your musicless runs:

When you listen to music, that becomes your focus for the first few minutes and maybe every time a chorus starts playing. Then it becomes your background noise – a crutch that helps you keep running while you think of more important things, worry, or otherwise become the slave to your mind’s power. And your spiritual development suffers for it.
You also pay less attention to your surroundings as you block outer sounds and recede into your head. Instead of paying attention to the beautiful trees, the sky or the buildings, you worry. And your happiness suffers.
Your body suffers as you stop concentrating on proper form and just hope the pain will pass.

This is obviously a very grim way of putting it, and it’s possible that running with the music on won’t be the cause of your misery and consequent suicide. I do, however, believe that there is much you can gain from even a few runs without your headphones. When you give it a try, make the most out of your run by focusing your attention on your body, form, breathing, environment and creative projects. Here’s a process to get you started:

When you’re beginning your run, whenever you feel tension and periodically throughout your run, pay attention to your whole body from the bottom up.

Feet. Do your feet make a noise when hitting the ground? If you’re running with proper form, running on asphalt should produce minimal to no sound. How are you positioning your feet? You may be running with your feet pointing outwards or inwards. If you notice yourself doing it, experiment and see whether it is more comfortable to run with them pointing straight ahead.
Legs. Are you making your strides too short or too long for your legs? Do your legs feel comfortable? Are you lifting your feet too much after they hit the ground? There are many details you could perfect if only you paid attention to how you move your legs and what effects that movement has.
Belly and chest. Do you have side stitches? Do you breathe shallowly into your chest or deeply into your belly? I have found that side stitches are to the diaphragm like cramps are to other muscles. When you stretch your muscle, you relieve the tension and it stops hurting. You stretch you diaphragm by breathing deep into your belly. And remember, side stitches are a blessing, not a curse.
Shoulders. Are your shoulders tense or relaxed? Try to relieve any tension you find by relaxing your muscles or lifting them up and letting them fall down multiple times.
Face. Are you frowning? Is your face and jaw relaxed? Sometimes when we focus, we tense up our faces without even noticing. Pay attention to the muscles in your face and relax them.|| This simple process will enhance your running experience while training your focus and teaching you about your own body. It is also a lot more useful than spending that time worrying about problems you may have or otherwise wasting your energy thinking. Here are some bonus steps: ||
Mind. When you’re more in touch with your body and have managed to relieve some of the tension you didn’t even know you were accumulating, it is time to ‘focus’ on having a clear mind. Do not think, but let your thoughts pass and focus on the gaps between them. If it helps, focus on the landscape and keep your thoughts simple like “oh, what a nice tree,” or “I love how the wind on my face feels.”
Creativity. If you’re doing it right, some thoughts are coming up in your mind, but you’re not paying attention to them and they quickly dissipate. Now here’s the catch: eventually, there will come a thought that you will want to think. But wasn’t the point of fall this to stop thinking? Well, yes, if that’s what you want. Another way of using this is to simply ignore thoughts that are neutral to you or make you feel bad, and explore the ones that make you feel good or are about creative projects you are doing. For example, I came up with the idea for this article while running. Instead of dismissing the thought, I explored it. Thus, when I arrived home, I had the layout finished in my head and simply had to type.

Your own meditation

After you’ve experimented with this way of meditation while running, feel free to create your own process tailored to your spiritual goals and personal struggles. Or just keep using the process I described. Either way, hopefully you’ll start seeing your running habit/obsession as a way to own your mind and not just your body.

How are you meditating while running?

–
Image(s) courtesy of MAMJOHD and slgckgc

February 13, 2013

Raw Paleo – First Days (First Impressions, Typical Meals, Challenges)

Currently I’m nearing the end of day 3 of my raw paleo experiment. The experience has been mostly positive but also challenging.

First Impressions

The first discoveries I made about the diet by trying it out were that, contrary to what one might believe when only reading about it, it is delicious and simple.

Until now I have had raw steak, shrimps, salmon, beef liver, duck legs and bacon. And all of them except the liver were delicious. I had had other kinds of raw food before, such as fruits and vegetables, but I am now often reminded that they, too, taste wonderful. They sure don’t provoke the same explosion of flavor a cooked sauce might, but their tastes are always unique and delicate.
Another feeling I get towards the taste is that I find it to be more genuine than cooked food. I know this might sound weird, but I feel that I really like raw food without being addicted to it. When I smell cooked food, I get an urge to eat it, even though I might not be hungry. However, raw food satisfies me. I could eat pasta with ketchup until I’m completely stuffed and still not feel satiated. On the other hand, when I’m eating raw meat and vegetables, I sense when I’ve had enough and don’t feel and urge to eat beyond that point.
This knowing-when-I’ve-had-enough ‘skill’ is probably still weak, though I certainly feel its presence. I’m curious as to how it will be developed throughout the experiment. And I’m happy that I’ll be able to enjoy such wonderful foods on the way .

On thing that turned be a bit off when thinking about trying out this diet in the past was that I thought I’d have to do a lot of planning. After all, I’d have to be careful when buying my animal products, freeze the meat for at least a week before eating it and make sure I always have enough fruits and vegetables and nuts for snacks. In practice, though, it turned out to be much simpler than I’d imagined.
It was easy to find a good supplier of meat near me (a quick Google search did it), and I found that the person selling the meat was very helpful (I’d never bought my own meat at a butcher before, so I needed the help); any other products I can get with regular visits to the supermarket, so they aren’t a problem either; and most importantly of all, the speed at which one can prepare a raw paleo meal definitely makes up for the lost time spent putting the meat in the freezer, organizing it so you know how long it’s been there and making sure it’s defrosted by the time you want to eat it. If you want to eat, all you gotta do is put the meat on your plate, add a few vegetables if you want, and start munching. I’ve found that eating duck legs is easier to do with your bare hands, so you won’t even need knives and forks every time.
Plus did I mention that the food is delicious?

Typical Meals

Whenever I researched weird diets like this one, I always looked for typical meals, so I could get an idea of what to expect to be eating. Unfortunately, I didn’t find a lot of them. Though I’m still in the beginning and can’t really say that I’ve had enough meals to decide between what’s typical or atypical, I’m glad to finally have an insider’s view on what is really eaten in this diet. In case you’re also wondering what goes into the mouth of a modern caveman, I’ll share some meals I’ve had with you:

For breakfast I usually have some fruit (apples, bananas) and about 3 raw eggs. To eat the eggs, I do the following process one egg at a time: put it in a glass of water (if it floats, I won’t eat it), crack it into an empty glass and swallow it without stirring. It’s pretty easy once you’ve gotten the hang of it and it’s only disgusting the first few times. I also sometimes ‘supplement’ my other meals with an egg, just to make sure I’m getting enough calories.
As snacks I will eat fruit and/or nuts. One snack I enjoy a lot is walnuts with grated coconut (which happens to be a really cheap source of calories: over 1000 calories per Euro, which is awesome since I’m trying not to lose weight). I just put some walnuts in a bowl, cover them thoroughly with grated coconut and eat it with a spoon – it tastes awesome.
For lunch and dinner I will have some type of meat or fish with a vegetable salad and a sweet potato if I’m doing strength training the next day. There’s one particular dinner I’m very proud of. It took maybe 7 minutes to prepare and look and tasted amazing. I’ll let the photo speak for itself:

The ingredients are: spinach, sweet potato, carrot (hidden in the photo by the spinach), cilantro, salmon, walnuts, berries and olive oil.

Another recipe I recommend you try out is a raw soup: Blend one avocado, one cucumber, cilantro to taste (I like to put a lot), water and lemon juice / apple cider vinegar until it has the desired consistency. If you want, add some chopped mushrooms on top of the final product and the eat it. It is very refreshing.

Challenges

There are to things that may become challenges later on, but are only annoyance as of yet.

The first of them is that I’ve lost 1kg (about 2.2 lbs) since starting the diet. For some this might be good, but I do not want to lose weight at all. I currently weigh 60.9 kg (134.3 lbs) and am about 1.70-1.75m tall (around 5’8″), so I definitely do not need to lose more weight. Long term, I want to gain muscle mass and weight, but for now I’d be happy to just maintain my weight.
On the positive side, I’ve read that it is normal to lose a lot of weight initially when switching to a diet such as this one, and I hope that by consuming extra calories this problem will be fixed.

Another things that is becoming annoying is that I am starting to get cooked food cravings. All of the smells when my mother is cooking for the rest of the family are close to irresistible, but I’ve been able to control myself so far.

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If you want to use me as a guinea pig before trying out the raw paleo diet yourself, feel free to contact me with questions or aspects of this challenge you’d like me to pay more attention to and write about. I’ll do my best to help