These tools helped me ride the waves of life – practices, techniques, skills that are in harmony with the human body and living on earth. A lot of this was unlearning for me, what I was taught wasn’t working, and I started asking how is my body designed to function and what changes can I make to feel better.
I grew up hearing the old, "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." As a kid I would rather have my dad yell at me or lecture me than to hit me. Now as an adult I almost feel the opposite. In martial arts class we did an exercise where we tried to trigger or neg or name call each other, simulating a bully on the street. I couldn't do it, it was harder to say nasty things to someone than to try and choke them to death or break their leg.
Then there is the saying the pen is mightier than the sword.
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As someone born and raised in an urban and suburban environment it's easy and normal to be disconnected from nature and the elements. Lots of climate controlled buildings surrounded by concrete and asphalt, and the "wild" spaces are often parks with rules and curfews. When I lived 50 feet from the bay I would go outside every sunset in the winter and wonder how the wild birds and animals could stand the cold? And yet they did and seemed perfectly fine and comfortable in both air and water that is below 50F. When I was kid we went surfing in 50F water in just a short spring suit or boardshorts, my son and his friends regularly wear just T-shirts or even shorts in the winter while I am wearing a hooded down parka. I know a couple of surfers around 50 years old, one wears just shorts and the other shorts and a thin neoprene vest, in winter, and they tell me they are not cold. My introduction to this seeming madness was a Wim Hof workshop on Treasure Island.
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Growing up I believed there were only a few acceptable feelings: happy, rage, and sadness if someone died. Any other feelings, like say anxiety, was a sign I was broken or a "basket case". Also I could only call in sick to school or work if I was bedridden with flu symptoms or injured and couldn't walk. No one ever explained thoughts to me, and I had no concept that I am not my thoughts. Richard Branson said business opportunities are like buses, there will always be another one coming. Thoughts are like this, so we can let one we don't like go and wait for another thought to come along shortly. Or some folks say thoughts stop altogether, and they just be in peace and bliss. I have experienced this for about half a day and it was magical, one of the most incredible afternoon into evenings I have ever experienced. Colors and textures and all of San Francisco were beautiful and incredible, so enjoyable and peaceful and amazing.
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Science or Pseudoscience, what's the difference and why does it matter? Well as I write this a big famous airplane company is having problems with their planes and there are questions about ignoring safety during manufacture. I want to fly in a plane made by people who use science to build a plane that will takeoff fly and land safely and comfortably.
Wikipedia says, "Science is a rigorous, systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world."
An unbiased honest scientist could have inspected or looked at the planes in question and made predictions about how they would fly or don't. They have tests for the doors or whatever other part is the problem, and had those tests been done they would have hopefully raised concerns and fixed the issue before flight.
So science is a method. We observe something in...
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I have found that relationship tools work, they are helpful and improve my relationships. Like a good shovel it just works, you might get tired of digging ditches and want to quit, but the shovel still works regardless. I say this because in one of my relationships I had the tools to understand our dynamic and I was unwilling to put up with the dysfunction. Maybe if I did whatever she asked our relationship would have improved. For me first and foremost I need to be treated with kindness and respect, if this doesn't happen I will leave the relationship. So the tools work, even if the relationship does not. This is not a save the relationship at all costs course. Or said another way I must first be kind and loving to myself, I must have something before I can give it to another.
Here is a podcast I recorded in the second year of my second marriage: Divorce – How I Survived, Thrived, and Remarried.
No married couples gave me a manual or tools before I got married, they essentially let us get onboard a ship and head out into the pacific with no sailing instructions and no life preservers nor life boats. I ship-wrecked twice and it was really painful and difficult, so below I share what I learned and hopefully help you relate and take care of the ship you and your partner get into.
In person Relationship Guidance is also available.
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