I write 1-minute insights daily. Below are my latest. Like? Enter your email to get updates.
I help busy people do inner work.
I write 1-minute insights daily. Below are my latest. Like? Enter your email to get updates.
What is inner peace but the act of dwelling in harmony?
And what is harmony, but a living feeling of balance?
One of the reasons I think we modern humans find it so hard to dwell peacefully… is that we live in a world of stimulants and irritants designed to do precisely the opposite—throw us off balance.
The ploy is simple: peacefully dwelling humans don’t feel any particular urge(s) to buy anything. So make them feel ugly… make them feel inferior… make them feel left out…
…And what just so happens to pop up on the other side of those campaigns? The product or service you can buy that’ll fix the very problem they created for you in the first place.
The modern day path to success—if we define success as dwelling in harmony—should be (1) to eliminate as many of those polarizing and irritating campaigns from our perception as possible and (2) to include as many of the opposite as we can find.
…Then, we can finally begin the (inner) work of balancing what’s already been polarized and irritated thus far. Leaving us… eventually… feeling more neutral… more present… and more peaceful in the small moments that make up the majority of our lives.
I have heard it said that camera roll communicates priority. Because moments you consider important or remarkable within the context of your life—you capture.
If your camera roll is filled with family cheesing, friends posing, and animals wildin’ out… it’d be pretty easy to see how they would be considered important.
If your camera roll is filled with watercolor skies, natural scenery, and breath-taking landscapes… you might say the outdoors are important to you.
If you camera roll is filled with crowd-filled venues, ecstatic dancing, and roller coaster beat drops… you can see how music, dance, and experience would be seen as important.
…But what if your camera roll is filled with something else? Something that, if you were to list out your top priorities right now, wasn’t on your list? Something that you would actually not want people to reference and use as insight into what’s important to you in life?
What if all that was filled in your camera roll was pictures and videos… of you? What do you think that communicates? How would that make you feel? There’s no right or wrong answer… just an idea worth contemplating.
I don’t understand a lot of poetry I read.
And I think many times, it’s because meaning is encoded. And decoding doesn’t just happen after one pass of the words.
There’s an intentionality with just about everything in poetry. From specific word choice, to word count per line, to line length, to rhythmic structure, to breaks/punctuation/capitalization, and so on…
In other words: what poetry might be missing in length, it adds in encoded depth.
And to the most careful and keen of readers… that depth may be uncovered and enjoyed in full.
And to those who give the poem a once-over, scratch their head, and simply move on with their day… confusion will be what they’re left full of.
And you know what…?
It feels to me that the same is very much true for life…
P.s. Trying to decode some meaning? You can check out my poems here.
Yesterday, I found myself sitting stuck between the idea of staying in or going out… and I spent upwards of 30 minutes staring out my front window trying to decide which path to take.
See I was tired from the day and am always down for a relaxing night in. But I also had the chance to go see an incredible DJ play two hours away from where I live—which was an event I had been thinking about on and off for several weeks leading up to the day.
And when the moment came to make the call… I couldn’t decide. And the longer I waited, the more stuck I felt.
…Until I had the following thought: there will be a time when I won’t even be able to entertain this as an option anymore. And staying in will just be the default.
And with that… I gathered up the energy I had, bought the ticket last minute, packed up a toothbrush and some power bars, and hit the road.
I know for sure it would’ve been something I would’ve regretted if I didn’t go. And if you ever find yourself stuck in a similar situation… maybe a similar line of thinking can help you get to where your life’s limited energy has the potential to take you… before it’s too late.
For those who have lived through intense physical and emotional experiences (i.e. abandonment, abuse, betrayal, trauma, manipulation, etc.)—defensive layers against the world almost become a requirement.
Otherwise, the repeated pain becomes too much to bear. And so layers of armor go on, walls are built, and ways into the tender softness of a person get closed off and locked up.
It’s no wonder, then, that once the intensity subsides… and a person grows or escapes into a more tame, calm, predictable environment… that they can feel numb to many of the more tender, soft, physical and emotional experiences of that environment—you’ve go armor on, walls built, and locked gates!
…Of course you won’t feel the warmth of the sun as it touches your armor… or the raindrops as they fall gently from the sky onto your helmet… or the cool, calming earth beneath the steel on your feet… at least not yet.
Like a flower, you need to give yourself time and space in this new environment. Your nervous system is used to desert-like conditions… intense storms… dramatic changes in climate. You’ve built walls and layered up in armor to protect yourself against the harsh conditions you’re used to getting bombarded by.
Gentle feeling comes back only after you’ve taken some of that armor off. After you’ve opened up. Once you’ve relaxed into the moments of normal, modest weather and have allowed yourself to feel as you did when you were a kid—before the desert and the storms and the pain.
It’s not that you don’t feel… it’s that you’re learning how to feel again.
There’s the thrill of a roller coaster… and there’s the thrill of hearing someone say, “I love you”—in an I see you kind of way.
There’s the thrill of buying the latest luxury item… and there’s the thrill of walking barefoot in the sand—free of desire.
There’s the thrill of sexual pleasure… and there’s the thrill of sitting in a rocking chair, next to a life partner, reflecting on the pleasures of having done life with them.
I hope you get to experience both in life.
And maybe even more so, I hope when the time is right, you’re able to move from the former in the above examples, to the latter.
Because it’s the latter… yes… it’s the latter, indeed… that holds a depth to the thrill that even the highest roller coaster drop could never compare.
One of the most important resources in a martial arts school, are the martial arts instructors.
And one of the limiting mindsets I’ve recently uncovered in myself is: when an instructor is needed, It’s only then that I’ll start training a new instructor.
But, once an instructor is needed, it’s often too late and too rushed to get them adequately trained.
And so rather than waiting for someone to say, we need someone—a new goal I have is to start preparing instructors well before they’re needed.
…And the need for instructors, I suspect, will only continue to grow in proportion.