Sunday Story...Stuff

Sunday Story…Stuff

I have a lot of stuff. Books, cds, knick knacks, bric-a-brac, tschotkes, junk, stuff. I have tried to eliminate a lot of my stuff but it just seems to continue to multiply. I fear it may take a concerted effort on my part to really get to the bottom of all my stuff and get rid of it. It will take a decision to jettison it, to release it back from where it came. And in that release I will let go of all the things that stuff carries along with it. The memories, the little tendrils of hope and pain and success and failure. Because tied up in all that stuff is a life that has been lived. Maybe that is why all that stuff is there…it represents the life that has already gone before.

There is other stuff I am carrying around in my life. It is the stuff I carry inside of me. The stuff I have picked up over the last few decades, especially when I was a little person. This stuff I picked up to keep me safe, to keep my hopes and dreams alive, to keep me functioning in a confusing and difficult world. This stuff is the decisions I made as 5 or 10 or 15 year old about the world and the way it works. And now at 50+ years old my life is still being ruled by the decision a 5 year old made based on some event (good or bad) that happened to him.

Huh? I mean seriously…a 5 year olds decision is running my life? Think about it…Maybe one of your parents left you at that age…your 5 year old made that mean something to him or her. That child made that event mean something…love isn’t real, people who love you leave, I am not worthy of love, I don’t count. And from that meaning that child begins to live a life. And he or she makes decisions based on those meanings. And for all the years forward the decision that get made are made with that meaning in mind.

This is an integral part of our human condition…we make meaning. We create a story about events so that we can make sense of the world and understand our place in it. These stories become our stuff. And our stuff becomes more ingrained into our lives and gets really difficult to change as time goes on. That is assuming we can even recognize it as stuff. Because we train ourselves to think that this stuff is real and real important to us. We even let this stuff become who we are…it defines us.

Does your furniture define you? Does the house you live in or the car you drive create the person you are? No they don’t. The person you are defines the house and the car not the other way around. But we let this other stuff, stuff we picked up 10 or 20 or 30 years ago drive our lives and set the parameters or who we are capable of being. What if you had other stuff? What if you decided today that the stuff you are carrying around isn’t really yours anymore? What if you just took all that stuff out to the curb on trash day and left it to be taken away? Now what?

Now you get to decide who and what you are to be. You see getting rid of that other stuff…the boxes in the garage, the bags hanging around in the closet, the piles of things gathering dust on the shelves are holding space for the things that might really please you, might really bring joy and harmony to your world. Getting rid of your psychic junk does the same thing…if you create a new meaning, new story about the events in your life you are changing your past. And when you change the past you change the future. By eliminating all that old stuff you get to make room for the stuff that is going to serve the you that is here now, not the you of 45 years ago. The question is…do you dare?

Do you have the courage to recreate your life? Do you have the courage to be the person you really and truly want to be? Most of us are so in love with our stuff, so enamored of the people that our stuff has had us become that chucking that stuff away is just too frightening. This is the creation of a new you, one that does and says things in an adult way in a way that serves the integrated whole.

Do you dare become who you really want to be? What will you do without all that stuff holding you down and molding you into some person a 5 year old thought it would be safe to be? Do you really want to go on being that person? It’s safe and comfortable, granted, but is it really serving you in a way that has you living a life of optimum health and fitness? You see health and fitness isn’t just about your physical body…it is the whole package...mind, body and soul. All healthy, all fit, all working at their very highest and best.

Why not take all that old stuff and put it on the curb? Start with the physical stuff…all the junk lying around your house and garage and get rid of it….make room for stuff that will be more fun and alive. Then go upstairs in your mind and start cleaning out those old stories and ancient movie reels and make room for some new ones. Then get started on your soul. What beliefs and suppositions are you walking around with that really aren’t yours anymore. You might as well find some new ones of those too.

Riddle me this Batman…Who are you going to be when you get to be who you really ought to be?

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Me and my shadow

Sunday Story…Me and my shadow

I have a shadow self, several of them to be perfectly honest with you. My shadow lies very near the surface these days; it is not buried at all. I like my shadow; it is not scary or frightening any longer. I enjoy knowing and understanding this part of me that does not always live in the full light of day.

This was not always so. There were many years of my life that I was not aware of my shadow. That the actions and activities I was engaged in were part of some dark and devious parts of my psyche that I was not completely cognizant of. And there were many times parts of my shadow were running my life and I didn’t even know it until I awoke one day and wondered whose life I was living.

We all have a shadow. We all have bits of life that live under the rocks and detritus of our inner landscape. Some of them we buried ourselves. Some of them just got pushed away when they no longer served us and forgotten under some pile of trash in our mind. Often our forgotten hopes and dreams live in these shadows. Along with the parts of us that could make them happen. Sometimes they are the parts that we had to hide from the world to keep them safe. Sometimes they are the parts that we could not bring out due to fear.

I realize some of you may be saying, “Nope not me. No shadow over here. What you see is what you get.” Well…if that is so good for you. However you are a highly unusual individual, to be so completely aware and conscious and fully integrated…drop me a line because I want to spend a bunch of time with you. In my experience, however, (and that is all it is) people who claim not to have shadow are very scary indeed. Somehow they have managed to delude themselves, or hide those parts of their personalities from themselves so well that they can no longer see a shadow. The more light there is the more shadow there is. Congratulations you qualify as a very scary person in my world.

Often we do not realize what our shadow is or where it occurs. Maybe we don’t want to know, after all the shadows can be a bit scary. And turning on the light over there could reveal some things that are starkly unpleasant. Yet if we don’t do this work a couple things will be happening. As a matter of fact you might want to look this short list over and see if you recognize any of these things. If you do you are on the road to realizing just where and how your shadow is manifesting in your life.
• If you find yourself in addiction (drugs, alcohol, food, sex, love, etc) your shadow is in play
• If you are enabling someone else’s addictions, or you are being co-dependent your shadow is operating.
• If you find yourself having the same problem over and over again (jobs, people or more) it may be because your shadow is trying to get out and have you pay attention.
• If you have ever wondered how you ended up in the place where you are your shadow may have been driving the bus of your life before you woke up and took over the wheel.

Your shadow is not bad. Please do not think of your shadow as something you must get rid of or that you must cleanse or shake free of. Your shadow is there to serve you. Your shadow serves as very important foil for the parts of your personality that live more in the light. The light cannot exist without the dark and vice versa. The two of them are tied together like the sun and the moon and the sun loves the moon.

The idea is to understand your shadow and to befriend those places you are not aware of and to re-friend the ones you buried alive all those years ago. We turn the light on and start pulling the boxes out of the corners and opening them up to find out what we stored in them. And then we can start using them. Or at the very least to put them in their proper storage places and labeled to we can get at them when we want them.

You may be wondering how to find your shadow? It really isn’t very hard if you start looking. Every wonder why some people just irritate you? It is more than likely that person is carrying some part in the light that you keep in the shadow. Take a close look at those people and start exploring how you might be like them. Yes you might be like them in some little hidden outpost. Maybe someone you work with is especially challenging and it isn’t really about the work but it is about that person. That person may be dripping some of your shadow out that you really don’t like to face. Like they are arrogant and egotistical and well a royal pain but you are never like this, right? Here is s real zinger…our children often carry our shadows. They come into this world to teach us things about ourselves (and here you thought it was the other way around). The question is are you willing to pay attention and get the lesson or are you going to try to ignore it and hope it will all go away? Because it won’t go away.

The goal is to become ever more integrated; to enlist the shadow as an ally and put it to work for the greater good of your personality.

Of course you can ignore it and wonder why the universe keeps throwing the same drama and trauma in your path. Why your relationships keep showing up the same way with the same sort of problems. Maybe it really isn’t you at all. After all you aren’t the star of your own movie are you? You aren’t the common denominator in all your relationships. You aren’t the one with the drama…it always THEM, THEY are the problem.

Really? I mean really? Think about it. Maybe your shadow selves are having a bit of a joke in your life and you aren’t in on it! Or not. Maybe I am all wet here.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Food, Its not just for dinner anymore

Sunday Story…Food…it isn’t just for dinner anymore

Food is not just a matter of putting calories into your hopper. If it was we could just have some sort of gruel that would provide the necessary calories (energy) and nutrients and be good to go. Unfortunately it really isn’t that simple. And if it was maybe I could get away with eating ice cream and chocolate all day along with a multivitamin and that would be sufficient. Wouldn’t that be nice!

Food is tied up into our emotional being. If it wasn’t there would be no bulimics or anorexics. Weight would not be an issue because we would only eat to survive. Instead we have placed food in a position of soothing us, replacing love, and even meeting our need for companionship.

Food is just food. It is on one hand just some version of macro nutrients (protein, carbohydrate, and fat) and on the other hand it is the responsible for how I feel, day to day and hour to hour. Some of this is chemical…sugar does certain things to my body chemistry, proteins break down in certain ways, carbohydrates create an insulin reaction in my body, fat gets processed through my gall bladder and liver. All of these amazing things are done automatically and without thought.

The thought comes in as we are deciding what and when and how to eat. And that is based on our social conditioning, the way we were raised, and the associations we bring from childhood about food in general and certain foods in particular.

Think for a moment about Thanksgiving (since we are coming upon that time again). There are things about your Thanksgiving experience that are uniquely yours. They are all tied up in the memories you have of Thanksgivings past...the smells, the sights, the fights, and the fetes. And for you, the meal will not be complete unless there is some particular thing on the table, prepared in a particular fashion. It really has very little to do with the food itself, with the calories present, the protein or fat or carbohydrates. And it has everything to do with your emotional body and the relationship you have with food.

How do you feel about the food you are about to eat right now? Is it just sustenance? Is it going to soothe some raging beast inside your soul? Is that piece of chocolate going to validate your existence? How about that fried chicken leg, doughnut, or box of crunch a munch? Why do we tie so much up in our food and then refuse to sit down and eat with gratitude and intention? Does it really make sense?

What I am saying, what I am proposing is to change, shift, transform your relationship with the food you eat. If the relationship you have is at all times healthy and fulfilling then don't change it. But if you find yourself craving certain foods...be it chocolate, peanut butter, candy, cookies, fried okra (?), or what have you, then it may be time to take a good look at what is standing behind those overwhelming desires. What did you miss out on? What did those foods supplant?Why those foods and not others?

One of the simplest ways to look at the issue deeply is to clean up your diet. Eliminate the anti-nutrients, the toxic foods, the empty calories and the industrialized edible food products from your diet. Notice I said simple...not easy. In an earlier iteration I wrote of deciding to eliminate these foods...sugar, dairy, processed food, industrialized food, grains, and even more radically...potatoes, legumes and beans. All of these things carry toxins and anti-nutrients into your body. Eliminate them for 30 days. Then re-introduce them one by one and see how your body feels and reacts when you do.

How does this shift your relationship with food? It will force to to become intentional about your food choices. It will force you to think about what you are going to eat and why. No longer will food be something to be forced down over the kitchen sink. And while you may choose to eat it in front of the television you will make the choice. Food will require planning and shopping and yes, some work. But it is the work of your soul...the work of nourishing your body and nurturing your spirit.

You will eat green stuff. Some meat, hopefully sourced from natural sources, nuts, seeds, fruits and healthy fats. Today I walked around a number of food vendors and decided to eat this exact way...the only thing I could not control was the sourcing of the material, for that I had to depend on the word of the vendor. I did not feel deprived that I wasn't eating pizza, or calzone, or dimsum, or some other food that may be tasty and unhealthy. Deprivation is in your mind. As I write this I can feel the food surging through my system, fueling my organs, energizing my cells and allowing my mind to race from idea to idea.

I am grateful for food that fuels my body. Grateful to the animals that died so I may eat, grateful to the humans that worked to bring it to me, grateful to live in a place where such abundance is readily available to me. This is what I mean when I talk about a healthy and healthful relationship with the food I eat. Bon appetit!

Namaste

John

“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”

www.martialartsnevada.com
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