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SHADOW CALLING
Listen to me: A woman secretly craves
being possessed by her man
Not just possessed but taken.

That’s not a rape fantasy
(though for some kinky broads it might be)
but it’s not holding back.

I contend women need a powerful man
with whom she can surrender herself completely,
feeling safe enough to temporarily visit her shadows.

That does not mean rough sex
(though it could for some) but it does mean
you better be the goddamn maestro

in the behind-closed-doors personal porn film
being recorded in each other’s minds.
Where all your secrets are laid bare.

I am fifteen years in with missus
and have never banged her the same way twice
(though I’m not opposed to that).

Her complete surrender to you sexually
is PART of what helps her replenish her power
after making sacrifices under the caregiver archetype.

The nastiness she engages in with you privately
is what allows her to function as the goodly wife in public.
She needs the contrast, as do we all.

It’s the calling of the shadow

 

Power & Love
©CHRIS WALLACE, 2022, all rights reserved

Could you make her smile?
Could you get her to trust you?
Could you make her feel safe?
Could you do that just because you can?

RAPPORT MADE EASY

Here’s the secret to building rapport. Never mind Tony Robbins’s long-winded and over-complicated videos teaching NLP modalities like matching and mirroring. Go ahead and watch them but you won’t learn rapport that way.

Listen to me and you’ll do just enough of what some of those cover, but instinctively. Why? Because I’m not going to ask you to be mechanical or to be anything other than yourself. I will do is teach you how to adopt the kind of mindset you need which will make the rest of it come naturally.

Do you believe you can reinvent yourself if needed? Can you rise to a challenge if circumstances merit? And this: act as if and soon you are. Because it’s no more complicated than that.

Neither did I pull this out of my ass this morning. I have a long history of engaging with people and this has left me with an intuitive approach around others. I have also taught my technique to hundreds of people over the years, male and female and watched their success with people improve immediately. It is easy to learn once you know how.

And that is the thing: It is also unlikely I would have ever noticed these rapport factors if I weren’t forced by context to tease out its component parts so I could teach it. I ran door to door crews for most of my adult life. Well, at least the parts where I had a job… where I had an actual job. You get what I mean.

In a family of eleven, I was smack in the middle (with four brothers and four sisters, and a mom and a dad). I went door to door as a kid single digits in age looking for a job to earn a few dollars shovelling snow or mowing lawns and canvassed all the businesses up on Bank Street near my parents’ home looking for work. At eleven, I worked the carnival, first sweeping floors in a midway restaurant for 12 hours per day, but eventually working a dime-pitch right on the midway.

I started working door to door selling Maclean’s, Chatelaine and TV Guide for Maclean-Hunter in 1972. I’ve run sales crews and trained hundreds of reps on the finer points of sales and crew managing. I’ve worked retail in men’s clothes at several shops. I sold one of the first customer loyalty discount cards in the early 1980s using teams to the public and to businesses. I ran flower teams in Southern Ontario and BC until the late 1990s.

I sold energy to farms and businesses and manufacturers for three years until a few years ago.

Before that, I organized teams to sell subscriptions until newspapers were hurt badly by the move to digital, ending after 13 years as senior VP of Canada. I had up to 150 reps under me with 15 managers in 7 cities working for a dozen newspaper clients. And I have coached, counselled, and mentored people professionally for the better part of three decades.

I realized what I teach you here was the key to it all by watching myself and then recording what worked and sharing that with my reps over the years. Through repetition, I was able to boil it down to two parts of the same factor. To apply it as I teach it requires you shed all neediness and insecurity and expectations. You will soon see why.

The secret to building INSTANT RAPPORT with people is to treat them AS IF you have ALWAYS known them while assuming YOU ALWAYS WILL.

That’s it. But you must believe it to pull it off because it’s no small thing.

Come from THAT place inside you. Do not give yourself a moment to think anything or anyway else. When you look into their eyes, you see someone familiar. You see their history, and you see them yesterday and today and tomorrow and long into the future by just glancing at their face. They must see this in your eyes in return. They must.

That is a critical factor: authenticity.

Sweep your side of the street. Be pure of heart. Your words and affect and body language must be congruent. Failure to be real instils distrust.

You have people in your life you have always known. Perhaps it’s siblings, parents, children, long-time friends. What does it feel like to interact with them? Easy? Good. Make it exactly like that with everyone. No exceptions.

Would you hide yourself from your brothers or sisters, or from your mother or your father, or from someone you had worked with for many years? No. You would be natural and easy-going and even vulnerable and open. Your life before them would be an open book, and because of this, more often than not they respond in kind.

Why is this? Because the congruency of your approach makes them feel safe.

It’s the key to human interaction, to something called the social engagement system. When we meet someone or feel under stress, the ventral vagus connecting the brainstem to the heart and lungs and the trigeminal (tri-facial) nerve is activated. We look to people’s faces for signs of acceptance and especially, for reassurance.

The prosody of one person’s voice calms the other.

In fact, all arguments between people have this at their crux. One or both feel unsafe and want reassurance and is not or are not getting it. All those fights you had with your girlfriend were because you or she needed reassurance. Are you there? Are you with me? This is how human beings attach to each other. Same for women or men or old or young.

Wherever I go, missus is always surprised how people respond to me. If I’m left alone with someone, she expects I will know something personal about the individual, sometimes in minutes. It’s just because I treat people like I have always known them and always will. And I assume the same about them. Because of that, I’m an open book and they feel safe.

Can you use this for evil? You can but it’s hard. People’s sixth sense for safety is strong. Most can spot a fake (incongruency) a mile away. Others scare easily and take a bit more to warm to you.

Hold fast to the good in you.

To genuinely and openly treat people this way takes power. It takes love. It takes your masculine power and love—of which you have an abundance in reserve. Do not deny it from yourself or others, share it with the world. A man who uses his power and love in service of himself and others finds meaning and freedom.

Part of that freedom is being able to talk to anyone at any time in any circumstances. It results in a little less pain in a world built for suffering.

Warren Bennis (1925-2014), a great American leadership scholar said “Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it’s also that difficult.”

The simplicity is in self-acceptance. It is compassion for yourself which leads to compassion for others. It works the other way around too. When we love others, in no small way we love our self.

We are all perfectly imperfect souls.

Just do that, everywhere, always. Lead with power and love. No burned bridges, no unsaid or unfinished business. We are all brothers and sisters here folks: kin in the great human family. Can you use this for good?

Stay powerful, true and free…

Power & Love
cw

 

© CHRIS WALLACE 2020, all rights reserved, advisortomen.co

TAKE A WALK WITH ME
If I could encourage you to do one thing in the coming year (or tomorrow), it would be to commit to daily walks. I have been doing them for years, and they are integral to my mental health. Turns out I did not just discover this, having felt the pull of the woods since I was a little boy.

On my parents’ street growing up in the 1960s, ma once told me there were some sixty kids on just our end of the two-block length of Falcon Avenue in Ottawa’s south end. The city put a tree in front of every house property road allowance. These were small saplings which grew a little each year.

But a few TALL trees grew on property lines in people’s backyards, towering over the houses, like giants to a young boy’s perceptions.

Refuge for most of us meant the fields at the end of the block where three primary grade schools, one French Roman Catholic, and one of each Roman Catholic and Public schools in English. All these were once part of Grandma Mason’s farm who kept her home still on Brookfield Avenue between the schools. Behind her place was a fallow ten acres but could have been a hundred to my little boy’s mind. I found great spiders and bugs there all summer.

Beyond all this were train tracks, and beyond these, Sawmill Creek. That is where I spend my best times as a child, rafting, exploring, hunting with bow and arrow, tobogganing in winter, and swinging from a great rope at the swinging tree in summer.

There was a well worn single-file trail along the north side which contoured the winding creek but also rose and fell with the grade. Marvelous, the kind of path you felt you could just walk on forever. It was a place to imagine, to simplify, to recover and soothe.

I was not doing anything others had not done before me. Maybe you remember something like this from your younger years. Most of us spent some time in the woods as kids. Indeed, it is how we evolved, to be outside and explore and revel in nature every day. It turns out our minds calibrate to the outdoors.

A little science
Researchers have discovered a 20-minute walk in nature acts as well as medications like Ritalin to improve impulse control and focus for ADHD kids.

Walking through an arboretum sees working memory improved by as much as 20%. Come back in from a walk and your ability to proofread and catch errors in your writing goes up. You can answer questions quickly and more accurately if given a speedy cognitive test.

And what about that incessant worrying we sometimes do? There is nothing like walking outside among the trees and plants to alleviate symptoms of depression. No wonder people love to nourish their soul with a little (or a lot) of gardening. It is better than valium. Your best stress reliever is not a few drinks at the end of the day, but time spent in nature.

Very little of our time is in the fresh air. Most city kids do not even play outside daily. With more than half the world’s population living in cities, a number which could reach 70% by mid-century, we are outside starved. This is unnatural, counter to how we evolved over millennium.

A reference
In The Extended Mind, Annie Paul notes that many of the man-made landscapes around the world carry influences from our past. The way Japanese gardeners prune their trees to look like the branches of trees found in East Africa to the great estate gardens of Europe to New York’s Central Park to how southern US landowners irrigate their rain-starved properties all stem from the same archetype.

“We like wide grassy expanses, dotted by loose clumps of trees with spreading branches, and including a nearby source of water. We like the capacity to see long distances in many directions from a protected perch…  And we like a bit of mystery—a beckoning promise of more to be revealed around the bend,” she writes.

Turns out it’s embedded deep within our psyche.

With nature around us we are smarter, more emotionally stable, less stressed, and more productive. Hospitalized patients who have a window view of nature recover faster and require less pain medication. Big companies are on to the production connection and are adding plants to their workspaces.

How I use it
Since I moved on to acreage almost six years ago, I have benefited from daily walks. I intend to do four per day but often get less. And, I rarely skip a day. To that end, I keep an uneven trail of about a quarter mile mowed of grasses in summer and cleared with a snowblower in winter. I sometimes exercise by tossing a 20lb ball around it at least once in the several times I go around in a day.

Do this tomorrow
Normally it is a walk of about 15 to 20 minutes. Most people over-breathe through the mouth in their daily life at 12-18 breaths or more per minute, according to Daniel Nestor in his book Breath. He says optimum health require 5.5 breaths. So, I take these occasions to practice slowing my nose breathing to 5-6 breaths per minute by counting to six on the inhale and to six on the exhale. Once I have the pattern down, I just relax and look around while I walk. Sure enough, I come back to my office feeling like I am ten feet tall.

Mix it up
Often I will take one of the side-paths off the main trail and head in through the trees just for a change. I have Cedar woods to the north and Pine to the south. This random wandering helps me regulate my body’s stress but also acts as a salve for my mind, kickstarting problem-solving and making my writing easier. It also helps me better serve clients each day.

One of the most peaceful things I do for my self-care is to meander through the two-hundred acres without a real plan. This is often my “big reward” on a Sunday for a week well done. I am well-equipped with woodsman tools and can be gone an hour… or be gone for three or more.

I will bush whack a bit here and there, look for animal sign, find plants I’ve never seen before and a lot of green. The predictable repetition of being in the forest is a bit like being in the relaxed state of a hypnotic trance. If you step into the woods, in less than a minute, its effects take hold and heart rate and blood pressure settle down.

The BIG picture
The forest is always bigger than I am. “Nature… inspires a feeling of abundance, a reassuring sense of permanence” says Annie Paul. In that sense and beyond, it can trigger awe, that wow feeling we can often find in nature. When I found a Red Trillium plant growing by a creek in the back woods last June, I sat there just admiring it for about fifteen minutes. I had never seen one before and didn’t know they existed. I felt the same way the time I found Doll’s Eyes flowers in full bloom not far away. So cool.

Professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, Dacher Keltner, calls awe an emotion “in the upper reaches of pleasure and on the boundary of fear.” It is from there that we open our minds to discover and assimilate new perspectives around us, especially the possibilities and potentials in ourselves and in others. We are all of us under the same heavens of infinite wisdom.

I hope you go for more walks. What would it take for you to make this part of your life? That, no matter what, you give yourself the gift of time in nature? Put away your phone, and allow the left-right-left-right cadence of a walk in the woods activate the harmony of your hemispheres.

I am going for one now.

May you all be awed…

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours.

Power and Love,

Chris Wallace
advisor to men

ADVISOR TO MEN: SEMI-PALEO COOKIES

TURN ON OVEN pre-warm oven to 350 degrees
2 cups almond flour (I like the whole nut grind—sometimes I substitute a bit of coconut flour)
½ teaspoon of baking powder
1/3 cup organic dark chocolate chips (omit if desired)
1/3 cup coconut flakes (or substitute with any dried fruit)
1/3 cup crushed fresh walnuts
¼ cup butter
3 tablespoons Maple Syrup
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.
1-2 eggs
____________
Mix the almond flour and baking powder with a whisk. I add the dry chips, flakes and nuts and mix it all while it’s dry, while others might fold it in as they add the wet ingredients
Mix the butter, vanilla extract, maple syrup and egg(s) together and then add to dry mix
Fold and stir muscularly by hand with stout baking spatula until well mixed.
Place golf ball sized balls of mixture on parchment paper on your baking pan or size as desired.
Flatten with spatula and round edges to hold shape given chips and nuts
Bake for 20 minutes. Cookies don’t expand like regular flour.
Keep a watch after 15 min checking the bottom of one for just the right colour.
You may need to exercise cook’s prerogative and test by nibbling on it.
Place remainder on cooling rack and call the kids to see who gets dibs on which ones…
Watch a family movie with your children or read them a story before bed.
Tell them you love them even more than cookies. Swear it’s true.
No kids? Practice this recipe in case one day…
Or do the same with your missus or partner.
Tell them you love them more than cookies. Swear it’s true.
Enjoy this minor reward guilt-free.
Tell yourself you love you. Swear it’s true.
True and Free
©2021 CHRIS WALLACE advisortomen.com

SOCIAL DISTANCING: lessons from prison

As unprecedented as this pandemic situation is, whether you conceive it as highly intrusive or a mere inconvenience, a re-alignment to daily living which permits you to maintain your sanity is needed.

The goal is to isolate people so that the virus can run its course while we chase it down and remove its ability to replicate itself. At some point, we hope to see the last patient or person affected and see it off forevermore.

We don’t have a choice.

If we do nothing it would mean an overwhelming of our current medical resources with no guarantee the virus wouldn’t just keep mutating. Then, the whole round starts over again. The idea of catching the affliction and becoming immune could be a fleeting strategy.

The ideal solution is to let it die by not hosting it anywhere.

Of course, governments are falling over themselves to enact powers allowing them to get this done. Freedoms will be curtailed, if not voluntarily, soon legislatively.

It is your freedom I’m going to refer to here.

Specifically, you have no doubt by now been told social isolation is required. The Spanish Flu of 1918 (50,000,000 deaths ) and SARS (10% death rate) in the early part of the 2000s are our comparisons.

This time, no one is messing around. You are staying home.

_________________

HOW TO DO TIME

A guy appears before a judge for a minor offense. Judge finds him guilty and sentences him to 30 days in prison. The convict pipes up, “30 days judge? Ha! I can do that standing on my head!” So, the judge calmly replies, “Is that right Mr Defendant? Well here’s 30 days more you can do standing on your feet…”

Case closed. Next!

Every kid going to prison for the first time hears about the dummy who doubled his sentence. It never gets old.

So how do you handle staying indoors or at home for up to the next 8 months or longer?

I’m reminded of the times I was in prison. I know, I know, already I’m referring to having to stay home as prison instead of the modern conditions most of us live in. For sure, the penitentiary or reformatory or county jail is not the same thing.

Regardless, there are many similarities depending on your frame of mind.

I tell you this because several times in my earlier years I was tossed inside. Most often, my life began to unravel immediately. Why wouldn’t it? Fact is my life was hardly “together” in the first place. Usually, I was apprehended and kept in prison on remand until I pled guilty.

The problem with doing time is all the stuff you had going on out there on the street either falls to shit or must be done through intermediaries. That is risky because the more people between you and your “stuff,” the higher likelihood of things going wrong.

Look, plenty of guys have done more time than me. I was lucky. Hell, I am lucky to be alive. But I bet each of them will agree with the things I’m about to tell you.

You might be like the newbie con whose life has imploded and he (or maybe she in your case) is still attached to the life they once lived (as good or as bad as it might have been).

In prison parlance, we call that, “shaking it rough.”

So, in case you are shaking it rough, here are my rules for doing time.

1. Forget about the outside
Nothing torments a new guy in prison more than to find his body is behind bars while his mind is still on the street. The first few months after going in he’s arranging visits and mail and phone calls trying to control the uncontrollable. It’s enough to drive him nuts.

The day I decided to NOT think about any of that was when I lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. I remember that decision like it was yesterday. I was walking through C3 range, it dawned on me and said fuck it… and I let it go.

It wasn’t like now I could enjoy myself. No. Not at all. But the difference was palpable. I probably stood two inches taller. And I laughed a little more.

The infamous ball-busting you see in movies like Goodfellas really happens. I never laughed so hard as I did in prison. At times, I felt a little guilty having so much fun. It’s all in how you look at it. You can laugh like that.

Plus, we have the internet. From home use any number of platforms like Zoom and Skype and WhatsApp and do calls all over the world. All videos and all, mostly free services so  you can ball-bust online as good as the old days. Fughetaboutit.

2. Make your cage a home
In prison, we didn’t have much so I learned to appreciate the smallest thing. Taking the environment where you will spend most of your time and making it work well for you is a critical step. Sure. happiness is a decision, but your environment is a BIG factor.

There’s not much you can do in a regional detention center but once you are sentenced to a prison, you can put some of your stuff in your cell. And you can barter with other guys to enhance your limited ambience. If you must be somewhere, (like a prison cell) and you have access to materials and have a say, why not make things as homey as you can?

Nothing gets wasted. A paperclip or a pin has a value. Take an old cassette player motor, a Bic pen tube, a hemming pin (or sharpened paper clip?), a splinter of wood like an eighth of a Popsicle stick thick and some ink from an art supply kit and a little scotch tape or thread and presto, you’re in the tattoo business. OK, maybe don’t try that one at home.

What could you do to set things up for a long-term stance at home? I bet there are many things. With the right mindset, you can make anything work. The trick is to focus on what you have and not on what’s missing

3. Embrace the suck
Sure, maybe you run a company or a department or some other “important” job which requires your expertise. How will the world ever operate without your wonderfulness? Truth is, it doesn’t matter. If it runs or does not run is no longer the question, at least temporarily.

This is the situation we are in and come hell or high water the powers that be are going to insist everything is shut down. And, there are NO bombs dropping outside. How nice is that?

Just as I couldn’t walk out of the county jail while awaiting sentencing or later, the penitentiary, you will be encouraged to NOT leave home.

By the time I got to the farm camp where I could walk away if I wanted, albeit for an illusory short term freedom while on the run and more time added to my existing sentence once apprehended, I got good at doing my time. See the parallel?

Embrace the suck. Do your time. Otherwise, you will shake it rough. You don’t want that.

4. Routines equal predictability
When you first get to the Big House, you do ten days or so in a newbie range. The only way you can communicate with the guys “in population” (who are there doing time already) is through a window overlooking the yard.

I was a common room man. Guys I knew reserved the job for me right while I was waiting to be transferred in out of the holding range. Once I adjusted (read: said fuck the outside), I took pride and care to set up my rudimentary environment with as much certainty as possible. This despite living with a bunch of killers and other assorted deviants.

This is a saviour… the habits that is.

I followed a daily routine with only slight variations on weekends for a Sunday visit and the odd Saturday movie night in the gym. Otherwise I did almost the same thing every darned day. I was up first and went to get food for the range. I used contraband and influence with the kitchen guys to make sure our range had lots of eggs and milk and other stuff.

While everyone else was at work (making license plates, etc.), I had the freedom (said loosely) to read, write, nap or hit the weights. After lunch every day I ate four pieces of toast with honey with a glass of milk, took a 20-minute nap and headed to lift. Like clockwork. I didn’t even have to think, just do.

Soon, one day blended into the next and I lost track of time. I didn’t check the calendar and just lived moment to moment, putting one foot in front of the other and appreciating only what had to be done next.

Eventually I felt like I was suspended in time, not aging, just… recharging. You are recharging your life.

5. Growing means not dying
You want to learn new stuff whenever you get some down time. Sure, you could take up welding or become a good chef inside. You can do that at home too. Speaking of kitchen crockery, I learned advanced crookery.

This including having an Ace lock gaffe made for me by the guys in shop. It was beneath me to ever use it when I got out… but I had one. Opened any pop machine or laundry room locks at the time.

I made a variety of contacts I could exploit later, dealers, importers, thugs. I learned the dissection of famous crimes from the actual participants and added to my knowledge about everything gangster.

It was decades ago. I’m not that man anymore, not by a long shot.

You will use your time more productively. I have faith in you. What’s something you can do? Learn a language? Write a book? Do your ancestry? That last one will pay dividends for generations. Bada boom!

6. Imagination is your best friend
The thing with not being able to go anywhere is it’s all in your mind. I read. You can read, right? I read James Michener among others, Hawaii, Chesapeake Bay, South Africa and was transported around the world. It was pure escapism. And I read other stuff too. I even read the bible. Where there are books, you can learn.

And I wrote, a lot. I couldn’t write worth a shit, but I had a letter per day going out and a letter per day coming in from my gangster’s moll on the outside — all in pink envelopes doused in perfume. Nothing gets the conversation going like the scent of a woman.

Remember the heroic lessons of psychiatrist Victor Frankl surviving the death camps. It’s almost embarrassing to compare that to this but the point is to honour what he taught us: you decide what meaning to give things. No one gets to take that from you. You are a meaning-maker.

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” You can’t write anything these days without a Friedrich Nietzsche quote so there you are, one of his best.

7. Accepting others as they are
In many ways the “law of the jungle” prevails inside but there is ample opportunity to grow as a person too. Well, maybe “ample” is the wrong word.

What it does is force you to accept others as they are. You know why? Because at that point we are all in this together and no one is going anywhere. Familiar?

The hitman and the bank robber, the crime of passion murderer, the mob guys and the entrepreneurial cocaine cowboys, the dealers and the pimps, the bikers and thieves and the drug addicted, all of them are in the same place, with all their faults… and possibilities.

In such a predicament, it’s a good idea to suspend judgment and look for ways to survive and even support each other regardless of what brought you to where you are. You’ll avoid shaking it rough and do easier time.

8. Authorities are just doing their job
We called them screws. The prison guards unlocking and locking our cell doors or the access doors to various parts of the prison are just human beings like everyone else.

They work for different masters perhaps, the warden, society, a higher morality, their wives and children. But at their core, they are to a man (or woman in some places) just doing a life bit on the installment plan.

That means if you are doing less time (sentence), you have an advantage right? You go home one day.

See what I did there?

Often, we see freedom where there is none, and see a prison where none exists.

9. You can’t sleep away your time
The idea was you were “robbing the man” of his sentence over you the more you slept. This appealed to the immature nihilist in me. “Fuck them.” I thought, “I’ll sleep more than anyone.”

This meant I developed a BIG Valium habit for a few weeks trying to game my sentence. It was bullshit.

I was like a dog chasing its tail. It left me open to attack and caused me more trouble than it was worth. At the crux of all addiction is a quest to narrow focus. Truth is, I can choose my focus without any help.

Lucky. I figured it out fast. Time is time, just do yours.

Also, what if every addiction craving is just the universe demanding you be more powerful? What if not answering that call is a denial of your spirit? What if it’s just a way to stifle the voice for good in you?

Ever hear of a guy who is sentenced to a long term and has an epiphany at some point? Mutha starts to study and gets an education and eventually gets out and TURNS IT ALL AROUND. (I sort of fall under that category).

You know why we like underdogs so much? Because that is human spirit in action. It’s an irresistible force within each of us demanding we overcome. It’s the will to live and live more; it’s the best of us, the best of you.

How else might we answer such a call? Horace Mann said, “Be afraid to die until you have won a victory for mankind.” Do your part… however small.

Look after your sleep and your body.

It’s the Bodymind, not the Mindbody.

Locked in a cell, we’d use whatever is at hand to create our own gym. Heavy books strapped with a towel becomes a dumbbell. A stool and a bunk become a perfect place to do endless dips.

There are countless ways you can innovate to take your environment and turn it into something which will ensure you are tired enough to sleep like a baby soon after lights out. All health is predicated on sleep.

Which reminds me, lights out is always ten o’clock.

Inside or out. Good habits. No excuses.

10. Everybody gets out
In my country, almost every inmate eventually dies or gets out.

Sure, there are hoops to jump through. You might have to appear in front of a parole board to show you have taken an interest in your improvement as a human being. Courses, training, new attitudes. they all count. Outreach to the community is another way.

You could first get escorted passes, then unescorted passes, then maybe live at a halfway house while you find a job. Finally, full parole and a form of freedom.

It’s likely this current set of circumstance evolves in the same way. Expect there will be a staging back into normal life at some point.

That’s not now. Not yet. We’ll let you know. Did I mention there are no bombs dropping outside? Remember that. But you will be ready when the time comes. Stronger, calmer, more confident and assured. And, rested.

In fact, I was talking about this in one of my men’s groups last weekend. One of the fellas is a refuge from the Syrian war and talked about what it was like to be in your home where you normally think you are safe but only, some people are bombed and die there anyway.

We don’t have to worry about that kind of bomb. We must live in our houses and apartments for a few months. When you get out of prison, depending on the length of time you spend inside, things are different, a lot different, or almost incomprehensibly different.

A buddy of mine did 18 years for a crime he didn’t commit. He finally got the conviction overturned and gets out to no business and no wife and his only son had been murdered. He survived, found a strong woman to love and goes to work everyday. He’s the only guy I know in his 60s who is in better shape than me. He went in with no internet and came out to websites and email, and no family.

Trust me, you can do 8 months. You can do it standing on your head.

Things will be different. Nothing stays the same.

But you will be out.

Stay powerful, never give up
cw

Christopher K Wallace (Wally)
Advisor to men, mentor at large
websites
advisortomen.com
ckwallace.com

©CKWALLACE
2019 all rights reserved

reach me here and we can talk/

Should you do ‘shrooms for depression and anxiety?

Is micro-dosing the way to go?

There’s been greater curiousity around this subject in the last few years, particularly as the war on drugs is acknowledged as failed policy. Ayahuasca improves mindfulness and cognitive flexibility a day after its use and has been shown to produce brainwaves like a waking “dream state.”  Magic mushrooms (psilocybin) can reset the depressed brain. There are studies coming in regularly on the beneficial use of psychedelics for anxiety and depression and to bolster cancer survivors.

From the original use of the current party drug ecstasy as a marriage therapy communication tool and the widespread use of LSD under the influence in part of misunderstood Harvard professor Timothy Leary in the 1960s and 70s; to the ayahuasca clinics popping up all over Costa Rica for everything from addiction to existential angst; to John Hopkins in the USA recently opening a psychedelic clinic for anxiety and depression, psychedelics are making a comeback. Not yet mainstream but more and more acceptable.

And millennials brought up on the widespread use of ADD medications are now using micro-doses of LSD and other psychedelics to maintain focus and “live life to the fullest.”

Psilocybin was my thing many times in the 1970s, and LSD was THE THING for a while. The Brotherhood of Brotherly Love out of California supplied the whole North American market. Out on my own and searching to replace my big brothers, I hooked up with those in the inner circle.

It was a different time. In the early 1970s, just walking down Montreal Road in the Ottawa satellite Vanier on a Friday you’d be accosted every half block by someone selling Green Moroccan, Brown, Red or Blonde Lebanese, Afghani, Nepalese, and other hashish. Kashmiri hash seemed to be a water pressed variety and was slightly streaked with feint white mould often reported to be opium or heroin, which, of course, was bullshit. Psychedelic mushroom or microdot or blotter acid (LSD) was just as ample and the working stiff looking to escape stress on a Friday night paycheque in hand had choices galore. .

I took many psychedelic trips during those early years, part escape and part cultural pressure. Only, often I’d have to babysit someone as their operating system was updated or torn down on a trip.

Regularly, reality and the effects of the drug became blurred as the person believed their mind entirely, refusing to accept it “just the drug.” I never had that problem because I never doubted the effects I felt in my body and my brain were fully drug induced and would eventually go away. I knew I would come down. Others I have done these trips with?  Not so much. One day I will write of my last acid trip.

Applying what I know now against those experiences, I would say it can help temporarily dismantle ego from what I remember. If rigid ego-constructs are an impasse to someone’s progress in dealing with their malaise, under the right conditions I can see how it would be helpful.

I have seen it and applied it to myself at a time of great personal turmoil. What I think it does is bypass ego which tends to obstruct the true self, allowing the person to experience a greater connectivity to all living things while retaining a sense of supernatural or mysteriousness. It’s as if one can peer behind the doors of consciousness and see something of the soul and spirit at your core.

But, be forewarned: it’s a crap shoot.

I’ve seen people benefit from a single trip and it resulted in them adopting a new life regime.

The day after tripping with them, things were different. They changed internally and more changes were to follow in the coming weeks and months. It’s almost as if they had seen the future during their experience as they were, rejecting that needy or mistaken part of themselves, and had a new path in front of them finally. One thing all of us felt was a sense of awe. That can scare you or uplift you.

I’ve been there when trippers beside me spoke of love not forthcoming from their parents, instead finding a more powerful version of it in a greater entity, as if their experience on the drug gave them a glimpse into the wisdom of the universe and their vaunted place in it. At some point talking it out, they acted as if seized by a otherworldly spirit giving voice to the soul.

Off they’d go get busy making sure they lived their vision, somehow unburdened and free while retaining humility and awe, perhaps even a slight fear or maybe just a great wonder. They had seen things from beyond while their brain was on overdrive, fired up by not only adrenaline and cortisol but also by dopamine and oxytocin.

“It’s all love man, we are all loved, I love you, we are all children of God,” they might say. Peace.

I’ve seen others do it, and like it so much they do it again. And, again. Because the pain of staying who they were before the trip is greater than the fear or uncertainty of stepping into who they might become while under their hallucinations. It’s as if their imagination and creativity had become trapped and cries out to be let go, to be set free.

During their trip they become reacquainted with a truer self, often a younger version of self long buried and they desperately want to NOT lose contact with that part of themselves ever again. There is a power in communing with your environment on a universal plane, knowing your part in it all was assured.

Until after a few months THIS reality you and I know doesn’t compare. The ego that calibrates every day living cannot be summoned to perform the ordinary duties of self-concept. Self concept is destiny.

My little buddy Mikey (one of my old reps) came out to Vancouver to visit in the late 90s and told me about a summer of doing shrooms back in Hamilton. He was a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon, sent here by his father with his stepmother and her children, his half-siblings. He was an outcast, skinny, bad skin, a huge nose. We taught him how to go door to door and he developed a huge booming voice and confidence that got him noticed. In grade eleven, he was selling joints to his school mates and suddenly became popular for the first time in his life.

Handing back the joint on that first night during his visit, he said, “Sometimes at home in our apartment, I know my brother is watching me. I can just feel it.” Oh no. BINGO! I looked at him and asked him a few innocent questions to confirm my suspicions.  “Mikey,” I said calmly, “that’s paranoia and the beginning of drug induced psychosis. You will need support as you regain your ego capability. So, here’s what I want you to do: go back home and get your stuff and move out here right now. Can you do that?”

He agreed. I tended to look after my reps and often I was the big brother or father figure they didn’t have, the only male influence in their lives who gave a shit about them.  If I asked him to move near me he would do it without question. I spoke with him a few days later after he landed back in Hamilton as he arranged to move out here more or less permanently. Only, he never made it.

The next night he threw himself off the 7^th floor balcony of his apartment and died. I will never know the full story but managed to confirm with my old Hammertown reps his story and his drug use history.

As near as I can tell this is what happens. The ego is what you take on from your environment, parents, teachers, grandparents and others who teach you how to conform and become part of the tribe. It’s how we form a self concept. Self concept is how you see yourself contrasted against how you believe others see you. It’s a balancing act of various parts of your personality which allows you to benefit from the interdependence of your tribe. It means survival.

Yet, the true self, that inner self part of your psyche is always there. It lays hidden, dormant, but nevertheless yearns silently all the while, relaying the stirrings of your soul. All your ancestral influences coupled with the collective unconscious of mankind and added to by your databank of prior experiences since birth contribute to soul. Soul very much exists in the present and past for it is a great memory of you and your place in universal history. The soul’s voice is the spirit.

Psychedelics can open a portal to the inner self of the psyche. It can bypass ego and self concept and allow you a visit with the interconnected being you were born as. That little boy or girl playing outside in the backyard at 3 or 5 or 6 years old has much of that inner spirit in play. Remember those years if you can and appreciate the naturalness and wonder of your existence.

You don’t need psychedelics to reach this part of your self, but you can’t know that. You haven’t seen it like I have. It would be unfair of me to pass judgment on you because I have seen what is beyond the curtain and come back intact while presumably you have not. I have seen good trips and bad trips, too many to count. You don’t need to go but if you do, I wish you a good one.

But be very careful my friend. Some disconnect from the ego and regain it again.

Some do not.

Stay powerful, never give up
cw

©CKWallace, 2020, all rights reserved

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Read this about depression for background

DEPRESSED?

LOVE
One of the things I espouse is the idea men are often hampered by expectations around the subject of love. Particularly, I see unconditional love as a myth unintentionally perpetuated mostly by women in the normal course of providing care and attention to their children.

The child fully buys into the idea of mom’s unlimited love as a survival-based strategy. Afterall, bonding with mom could mean the difference between life and death. She answers the child’s every cry, nourishing the babe from her breast while expectations for her attention become unconditional in the child.

The connection to the mother is so fundamentally etched into the youngster’s psyche that his growing world revolves around her attention. Understood, accepted and encouraged in children, anything more than remnants of this force is suspicious and pathetic in an adult male.

The sooner a man can disabuse himself from the expectation of unconditional love, the faster and more assured will be his ascent into manhood. This separation is painful and tends to be avoided but must happen. Define manhood, or even adulthood, however you like but it must include a goodly measure of autonomy from reliance on family of origin programming, the mother’s influence especially.

A man who does not do this will search for his mother’s love in his partners. Chances are you will still find something of your parents in those you pair up with in life anyways, that’s the depth of their influence.  The people we love are simply a tableau upon which we project our inner needs and desires. Beware of expecting unconditional love.

What about love in general? It’s continually defined down through the ages by poets and scientists to great writers and ordinary individuals.  Oliver Wendell Holmes said that love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness. While others say love is an exquisite adaptation, a coping mechanism that ensures species survival. I say it’s an almost useless concept in your relationship.

Men should be aware of its power and give a nod to its existence, but not much more. It’s too vague, too immeasurable, too prone to illusory definitions rooted in personal history to be of much use as a guiding force in your marriage. Instead, a man holds reserves of power and love in service of himself and those around him he cares for in defense of meaning and freedom. You feel love when you give it away.

Concede love describes attachment to each other and leave it at that. Take it off the shelf and give it a poetic turn now and again, but not for day to day utility. Instead, use lust as your measure. Each of us is possessed with anima/animus, the influences of each sex; love is the anima, the feminine, while lust is the animus, the masculine.

Stephen Porges speaks of a love code, saying it has two parts: “Phase one is social engagement, which uses cues of safety via engagement behaviors to negotiate proximity. Phase two deals with physical contact and intimacy.” (Porges, Stephen W. The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory: The Transformative Power of Feeling Safe p. 123. W. W. Norton & Company, New York).

So, phase one: presence, phase two: physical intimacy. I don’t know if you can extrapolate from this to the attachment questions suggested by Prof Sue Johnson: “Are you there? Are you with me?” Truth is, these two forces—connect and contact—are the essential elements of love.

In the Kinsey Institute New Report on Sex (Reinisch, St Martin’s Press, 1990. p. 76.) Dr. John Bancroft of the Centre for Reproductive Biology in Edinburgh, Scotland, speculates the non-reproductive functions of sex include strengthening of the pair-bonding, fostering of intimacy between partners, providing pleasure, bolstering self-esteem and reducing tensions and anxiety. No kidding John.

Masters and Johnson write about a person’s readiness for love whereas Kinsey Report author Dr. Reinisch thinks this is worth expanding further to the idea of a readiness for sex. Now, we are getting somewhere.

ORGASM
Consider women’s sexual peak is later than men’s, and by a far margin. The report says, “Most men in adolescence and young adulthood report more frequent orgasms than do older men from all sources, including nocturnal emissions, masturbation and intercourse… On the other hand, women experience their highest number of orgasms from their mid-twenties to their mid-forties.” So, why would that be?

In my view, given these years are smack dab in the middle of her pair-bonding days, and she’s likely long with child if it’s destined to be so, we ought to realize female orgasm is less about reproduction and more about intimate attachment. Same with men.  Each ejaculate has from 40 million to 1.2 billion sperm. At just once per day, the math for procreative possibilities in a year are mind-boggling. Fuhgeddaboudit.

Remarkably, a woman’s ovulation period is 12 to 24 hours… once per month. Yet, she can blow her stones every day of the week all year long at any hour she chooses. Why would nature give her that ability for just 12 hours ovulation 12 times per year? Or, 12 days out of 365?  At just 3%, man, something doesn’t add up.

I think the reproductive aspects of sex between adults is a minor function embedded in intimacy which primarily uses orgasm as its bonding agent. The bonding hormone oxytocin is released during childbirth and when else? Orgasm. With benefits from increased serotonin to greater blood flow to the brain. Post-orgasm, women keep producing oxytocin for a period of time.

It’s about the orgasms. OK, I’ll go further and suggest sperm is the glue which holds us together. And, that’s not even considering sperm as nutrition: with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties and which may also play a role in mitigating a woman’s anxiety and depression. Come on, it’s super bonding glue.

Also, just think of what that means… to have an orgasm in front of someone. Usually stripped naked, the body and its every crevice is exposed so that your partner has full access. You lack weapons or protection: no armour or shield, nor a dagger hiding under your cloak or fur. Caution is thrown to the wind.

There is no hiding during orgasms, it’s a surrender to each other. The abandon of orgasm sends your face into contortions of pleasure where you must risk your partner’s glances. Only she sees you this way, just as only you see her this way.

For me, if a woman doesn’t make good faces when she’s coming, there is no hope for us. Her smell and climaxing facial expressions are what determine if we shall meet again unclothed. If she shudders during the moment, even better. I have no idea where this comes from in me, seems shallow, but it’s real.

Think of the moment of orgasm and its inherent temporary loss of control. Who is it that “stands on guard for thee” while you engage in your moment of bliss? Of course, your companion does. We do it to, and for, each other.

What is she first… this woman you profess to love? Is she first a mother? a worker? a businesswoman? a friend to her gal pals? an advocate for your children’s education? a community member? a churchgoer? All these and more I’m sure.

But she is first a sexual human being. This is her essence and no amount of time or bearing of children changes this essential fact. She is sexual, treat her so. Burdened by the caregiver’s dilemma, caught between not wanting to appear selfish and feeling taken for granted by the very people she looks after, you are her defender. You see the real her, the authentic wild woman she keeps in shadow.

What of it that her best fertility years are two decades between 15 and 35, though her best orgasm years go another decade or more far beyond? What does this say? When you consider living to 50 years was a full lifespan until a couple of hundred years ago, it may mean she gets hornier as she ages. It requires a male defender by her side who makes her feel safe enough to visit this side of her egalitarian spirit.

TRUST
Orgasms equal trust. When we have regular orgasms with someone, we trust them. Orgasms between a couple are the ultimate physical manifestation of “Are you there? Are you with me?” the two essential ingredients to attachment. As I like to say, “without trust, you’ve got nothing.”

My mother had ten pregnancies in twelve years producing nine children. My sister moved into my parent’s home in a basement suite when the old folks were nearing their eighth decade in age so she could keep an eye on them. Every Friday night my dad tiptoed into my mother’s room and they were intimate; she could hear them. They went like this until ma got cancer at 85. Dad died recently but he could still get his dick hard from what the staff at the old folks’ home told us.

The need for sexual touch never leaves us. We are always down to let our partners play with our balls and to fondle her pussy. It’s the grand and not-so-secret of privilege and submission we each accord other… and it never goes away.

My woman once raised rabbits and when she’s not up to a full copulation, she may engage with me in the shower. She calls it, “servicing the rabbit,” a nod to the rule of placing the female rabbit in with the male for mating (which she taught me you never do the other way around as the female rabbit might kill the male for intruding on her territory. Ouch!). I often “service her” in the mornings when I’m half asleep and she’s… well, just lying there. The point is that quickie orgasms between a couple are one of the easiest ways to ensure and protect your intimacy bond. “It is I who has access,” it says.

So, how do you swing this with your woman? You need to negotiate it. It’s either that you assume the sale at the beginning and secure her agreement, that this part of you never shall wane, or you need to kick start it now. Men lead; women command.

What if there are children? More reason to set this tone outright or reclaim it.

When the airline attendant does a pre-flight address, they announce something like, “In the event of a loss in cabin pressure, masks will fall from the ceiling in front of your seat. Please ensure you put on your mask first before attending to small children.” This is a good simile for the mindset you need regarding you, missus and the kids. Parents need to put themselves first. It’s the pair-bond that must hold priority, for without it… the children are imperiled.

The best thing you can do for the children is stay together. The best thing you can do for yourselves is to live harmoniously putting your marriage and relationship first. Orgasms are like insurance against divorce. Rare is it we leave someone who is giving out regular orgasms. Orgasms also act as an attachment barometer.

I encourage you to have this discussion, to tell your woman some of what is contained within this essay. See if you can get her to agree to make your physical life together a priority. Over the years I have found most women who embrace this are quite good with it, feeling as salty and as earthy as nature intended.

I flirt endlessly with my gal careful to never appear needy. The idea is to sell her on our differences. She can express herself verbally and perhaps get her nurturance needs met through her girlfriends and the caring of children and in some cases, by looking after elderly parents. You admire the scope of her emotional life but share no such tendency of your own.

Instead, like many things about men, you are rather unidirectional. It’s one of your great masculine gifts, the ability to concentrate on one task to the detriment of all other distractions. You also are less hampered by needs for emotional regulation comparatively. We men express ourselves physically, and our lust is its primary manifestation. Can she feel lucky that she is the object of your desire? Can you be that man?

Never let a man leave the house hungry or horny, goes the maxim. Plenty of truth to this one for sure. Everyone likes to be someone’s chosen.

And what of the silly notion that she’s always vying for a higher status male?

Let me just say that she likely bet on you when you had nothing, putting the lie to this idea. Only if forced she’d choose in her best interests because she could. Should she not? Trust me, be her powerful man and her preference is to stay put. Why? Because people will do almost anything to appear consistent. You are the devil she knows. Give her orgasms, you devil.

Ideally, even when she’s not up for immediate action she may circle back and take care of you both at some point later. Usually that day or the next. You do a version of the same. You neither pout, nor sulk, nor ever, ever beg. It’s like sleep makes diet and exercise healthful… and orgasms make marriages work. She understands this because there is a part of her that needs it too.

So, it’s a question of mindset. Your woman can understand this precious gift between you needs to be maintained with regular orgasms. It’s how men express themselves and we don’t have a woman’s depth to act otherwise. Don’t you dare let anyone shame you into believing this is somehow selfish or wrong. Nonsense. That’s an argument begging rebuttal, to be met with unapologetic masculine desire.

I’d urge you to pick your time and have this frank discussion and make sure these desires are not left unmet. Ideally, from the start you could insert orgasms somewhere in your vows, either outright or as a secret word to signal your intent with each other. “In the name of God/The Universe, I, (groom/bride’s name), take you, (groom/bride’s name), to be my (husband/wife), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish by providing endless orgasms, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.”

What if you have a fight? “Don’t touch me!” might be yours or her reaction. You need an understanding this could happen. Make a deal right now that reconciliation is sealed with an orgasm. Better still, let it be known that each may turn to the other for reassurance at any time and request proof of commitment, sealed not with vague notions of love, but specifically with orgasms. Are you with me? Be bold, create a win-win for you both.

LUST
I have been with missus seventeen years and we have two children, a boy now ten and a girl now twelve. The boy has some medical challenges and Missus was often up two or three times in the night to attend to him in the next room. She has the same hormonal fluctuations and spotting between periods and horrible cramps as any gal. Outside of more serious sickness, we give each other orgasms.

Because I treat her first as a sexual human being, that honeymoon period people refer to at the beginning of a relationship has scarcely ended between us. I’m always after her ass. I flirt with her constantly, encouraged by her intermittent reinforcement in the way of attention… and by access to her body.

Ma died after a two day vigil in her living room attended by her nine adult children and a number of visitors. As we sat around waiting for the funeral home to arrive (and take her out of her house “feet first” as she had often insisted), dad started to reminisce about their sixty-two years together. He told of escorting her home at the end of their first date and trying to steal a kiss. She had punched him right in the gut and doubled him over. My father said he was like “a moth to flame” around her ever since. He always wanted her, right to the end.

Let me tell you again: everybody loves to feel like they are someone’s chosen. Everybody. You, me, everyone. No exceptions.

Your job is to be her powerful man, and she your loyal woman. That’s the dynamic.

Do not apologize for being male (unless it gets you an orgasm) and never deny your masculinity. Just as you appreciate her feminine gifts and all the ways she enhances both of your lives, insist your masculine energy be equally respected so the two of you may celebrate while rejoicing in the safe haven you have found in each other.

As a man ages he gains wisdom and may discover the profound connectivity of all things around him. Your appreciation for art, literature, music, nature and things ethereal may know no bounds. Compassion expands along with it: find it early, find it late, we must all find love.

You may realize the universe does not make mistakes and we are as we should be, including our sexual expression. May your private moments with your partner help you see the awe in each other.

Put lust first and let love take care of itself.

 

Stay powerful, never give up
cw

©CKWallace, 2019, updated 2023, all rights reserved

Dedicated to Lt. Commander (ret) Howard C Wallace, 1929-2019, & Caroline Wallace, 1928-2014 R.I.P

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One of the things which plagued me for many years is a sense of personal shame. I don’t mean ordinary shame, the kind you get from using poor table manners or coughing without covering your mouth. Those slight corrections by adults are necessary and acceptable.

Nope, I mean a different kind of shame, stronger in intent and effect. It’s a shame deeply internalized stemming from the messages from those around you, one that says you are broken, perhaps irretrievably. You haven’t simply made a mistake, it’s your operating system which is instead called into question. It makes you the odd one out, the black sheep, tossed aside as part of the cost of doing business in the family making model. In my later years, I framed this contention in the worst possible terms, often referring to it as my “piece of shit” shame. Pain does that.

You see, I felt broken most of my life starting early. My time as a child was not a happy one. When I protested whatever conditions were at the crux of my toddler discontent, ma would laugh. I would say, “it’s not funny ma,” which to her became cute, as if “it’s not funny, ma” was an endearing slogan representing my youthful self assertion. Melancholic disaffection is evident in the recent photo I posted of myself as a wee boy with dad and a few siblings. Misery abound has followed me since.

As it is with so much family of origin programming, into the world at large I went after first finding, confirming, and compounding my worthlessness at home. That day at 15, when father told me there wasn’t room for two roosters under one roof, where I was tossed into the cold October with a weekly stipend of $10 each Wednesday until my sixteenth birthday a month or so away, was simply an inevitable confirmation of my low worth.

I was born a 9 pound and 10 ounce baby and given the name of the Christ-bearer. It was to become my modus operandi: weighted by sin and accumulating more. I went from fat baby to Little Chrissie, a nickname given to me by my older sister and mother. It was only later I returned to Christopher, with stops as The Wolf, The Shooter, The Doctor, The Professor, Wallypops and more along the way. Little Chrissie still resides somewhere… in here.

All of us are born with a soul and a spirit. We can’t measure them, but we know they are there. We have an inkling, and both forces operate beneath the surfaces of our awareness while we are nagged at by each in turn. To deny them as unscientific nonsense is to turn your back on a fundamental part of the self.

When searching for answers, cutting off access to even these ethereal parts of existence is like going into battle with less ammunition instead of more. Everyday life can be as blissful as it is painful, and confusion is a necessary part of our maturation. Life gets better when we get better at life, and an appreciation for soul and spirit is another aspect of personal mastery.

I conceptualize the soul as ancestral epigenetic influences passed down through the methyl groups of my DNA mixed with mankind’s collective unconscious. We know both exist, quantified by recent advances in psychology in the first case and the seminal works of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell and others in the latter. Grandmother’s hardships are felt for generations despite completely different conditions. Holocaust survivors pass along their pain soulfully to their children and beyond. Alcoholism runs in families.

The same symbols arise over and over in mythology and religions around the world, often despite no known contact between cultures continents apart. Even my father while writing his own obituary, felt a pull to include a paragraph about his founding immigrant to Canada and the generations since, as if he knew to pay homage to his soulful self alongside his lived life.

It might be better to understand these things by asking just how much awareness we have in the first place. We know the unconscious exists. Action potential in brain firing neurons has already shown we live emotionally and interpret events later. Sperry’s split-brain research a half century ago, continued by his student Gazzaniga and followed by advances in cognitive understanding by Nobel winner Kahneman and added to by Ariely and others cumulatively shows we are mostly deterministic.

Consciousness is slow which confirms an unconscious. When something comes into awareness it has already happened, then we scramble to explain it. Jung would tell us the psyche is buried by the self trying to learn to conform and then buried further because of the personae (masks) we wear in our various roles co-existing among each other during everyday life. It is anyone’s guess as to how large the unconscious is. It might be awareness is 20%, another 20-30% is your personal subconscious, and fully 50% might be collective unconscious. No one knows for sure.

Whatever it be, it’s more than we think. We are all born with a sense of justice. That’s collective unconscious. We are all afraid of the dark. That’s collective unconscious. We come into this world afraid of heights. That’s collective unconscious. Children who have never seen a snake will naturally fear them. That’s collective unconscious.

Suffice it to say there is a part of us which, while immeasurable and mysterious, is no less real. Should we have occasion to be far out in the desert, away from city lights, or perhaps up North in Canada’s arboreal forest, looking up at the night sky will reveal the Milky Way in all its glory. Whose spirit is not lifted in awe at this wondrous sight? What of a sunrise with its first blinding brilliance as it cracks the horizon to the East? Who cannot but feel their spirit stir at such a sight? Great art, music and natural wonders are just some of the ways the spirit appears in us.

Whereas the soul represents some essential part of our now and includes our past, the spirit begs us to add to our soul in the present, but also future expressions of all the potential and possibilities unmistakably bestowed upon us by a universe of infinite wisdom at the very moment of our conception. We see time and time again how the spirit rises in people, how they come back from adversity and confusion only to find their way forward, often beautifully.

I rarely shed tears, and funerals and the death of loved ones only stirs me to attend to the necessary at hand, perhaps as a way of mitigating my pain. But give me an overcoming, show me the undaunted human spirit and I am more surely moved. The underdog story, the impossible triumph occurring when people reach somewhere inside for the spirit’s calling and answer, fills me with an awe attributable only to a collective soul, the part of me that is also a part of you.

Potentials and possibilities, this is what the spirit whispers… Perhaps it’s just a feeling of something more, something unheard, a nagging sense your destiny includes not only a duty to others, but also a duty to yourself. We must listen to hear; it’s how it works. And for that we need to feel safe, secure enough to bend down and put our ear to the ground, listening for the distant rumblings of soul and spirit galloping forward with their message of hope and faith, of aspirations and dreams not yet fulfilled.

What did they call you as a child? Who were you before conformity demanded you squelch the noise in you, turning you down for the sake of convenience? Well-intentioned I’m sure, it’s this imposition of civility upon the savage child which often sacrifices the spirit. We can find innocence and the purity of our imagination lost to rules and uneven punishments for being nothing more than children. If that was you, take my example.

Move to protect that part of you which still exists and needs you now more than ever. In my case, I speak to Little Chrissie and tell him he is not alone. He has Wally, older, wiser, more capable, resourceful, and especially, more powerful to look after him now. The fully mature Christopher can reassure this part of me and re-parent him the way I’d want to protect and reassure my own six-year-old son.

I might say, “I’ve got you Chrissie, I’m here now. No one can hurt you; I won’t allow it. I sense your unease and let me tell you: I’m bigger and stronger and more powerful, and I know all about what you are feeling. You have me on your side. You are safe with me Chrissie, you can come out now, the danger has long passed. It’s time to live your dreams once more. It’s time to fly, to shine, to rise up and do whatever it is you were intended to do. We are a team, you and me, an unstoppable team. Join with me now.” Chrissie listens, he was always a good listener.

Criticism is painful for the shamed. Yet, criticism has a gift as a signal for what needs to be done. Before I let Chrissie know I had his back, criticism stung and devastated, confirming once more my uselessness and waste. Now, I can see criticism as a barometer of my shame, allowing me to measure its dissipation from the inner world of my being. Aroused from its slumber, shame is instead acknowledged. I say, “Oh look, there’s my shame again. That’s what has got Chrissie’s attention but he’s safe here: it can’t hurt us anymore. I’m just going to let that go now…”

Soon criticism is as fine as a compliment, just feedback. Criticism does not speak to my soul nor my spirit for these are part of my inner self, exclusive to me, in my realm alone. It’s just an environmental report representing the reporter as much as any true reality. It’s like when I had a bad hair day in high school and suffered the embarrassment of my imperfections. At some point I realized that no one really cares about my hair, it was their hair they cared about. In the same way it is their criticism, and I only make it mine by choice, the same way I accept kindness. Both are only real when I make them so.

I wonder if you might have a talk with your younger self and see about reassuring them now. Maybe you won’t do that now but soon you will. When you do it’s likely you will find this relationship allows a dialogue to continue and become stronger. As the conversation ensues over the days and weeks and months, suddenly you will find its your spirit with whom you speak.

By making room to acknowledge your soul and nourish your spirit, a deeper strength begins to manifest itself in your life. This is the power of the ages. It’s the gift of your being, the indomitable spirit rising and living its destiny. Answers come more easily; the path forward more assured. A man who uses his power in service of himself and other finds meaning and freedom.

Not because you can, nor because it is something you want for yourself, while, of course, you do. No, not just that at all, for it is more, it is something you owe. By honouring your spirit’s pact with the universe you are set free.

Like the man said: thank God almighty, free at last.

Stay powerful, never give up
cw

Christopher K Wallace
Advisor to Men, Mentor at Large
©2019 CKWallace, all rights reserved

Let’s talk about spirit or anything else in a free call here

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Feelings live in the body. Huh? Did I get your attention? It’s kind of an important idea.

Need proof? Well, for one thing we know trauma locks the “freeze” part of fight, flight, freeze and feint into the body. Take that as your “proof.” We can carry trauma in the body for the whole of our lives, can’t we?

I still get a sore back sometimes when I feel powerless in a situation. Hurts like hell, so bad I can sometimes have a hard time standing up. But… no pain, no bliss. Makes me want to ensure powerlessness is not a big part of my life.

Ever tell someone, “you give me a headache” or a version thereof? How about when mom said, “wait until your father gets home” as a little boy or girl? What happens when we anticipate punishment? Do our guts flip? Do our bowels move? Do our hands go cold and clammy?

Let me ask you: what are you doing to take care of that body of yours?

Are you lifting? What? Weights are only for guys? Think again. Humans—both men and women—have lifted heavy objects throughout our history just as a matter of course. Don’t let the last hundred years fool you. We are still the people our collective evolution made. If you are not presently lifting, start there, and never stop. Never.

What about yoga? That’s just for girls? Give your head a shake. Men have been involved in yoga from the beginning, haven’t they?  Look at those swami guys in loincloths bending and twisting. I bet they sleep like babies at night. Fallen out of practice? Restart or continue, and never stop.

Late comedian George Burns did the 11-minute 5BX system every day and lived to 100.

Perhaps you have convinced yourself the body is somehow separate from your mind. That it’s just there to transport you around. Maybe you think it’s sort of the engine room and sewage infrastructure of your being and can somewhat be taken for granted.

After all, the body is beneath you, right? Not a great idea (did I just write that?)

Disconnecting from the body is why we get out of shape, put lousy foods into our mouths, neglect our sleep. We can develop contempt for the body. Where is that from? Maybe from good intentions as we push ourselves physically as children, demanding more and more from our frame and then losing touch with our anatomy as ego takes over and social standing prevails. We go from a narrower internal focus and widen to a more external one as we develop.

Get this: if feelings live in the body, it’s also where your unhappiness resides. Think about that.

Whoa. Unhappiness is something we try to avoid. Is that why we avoid our body? Does this mean if I neglect my body, I am refusing to face my unhappiness? Maybe. You decide.

Let’s talk about those feelings for a moment. How’s that all work anyway?

Feelings are predictive (not reactive) responses based on what is going on in the body (interoception). The vagus nerve complex connects the body and organs to the brain and reports on its condition faster than awareness. Sure, the brain signals the body but when it comes to the vagus—also known as the tenth cranial nerve—more than 80% of its neurons are afferent, meaning they signal towards the brain. That’s a lopsided signalling system for good reason

At any given moment, this basic reporting from below is what the brain uses to predictively meet circumstance and put you in a best-guess emotional state—beneath your awareness—all based on your databank of prior emotional states since birth (what else would it have to go on?). It then corrects after-the-fact according to the social reality before you

Ex. You come home and are snappy at a roommate. Later you eat and realize you were responding to hunger because you had not eaten all day. The body determined your state.

Think about this: A baby has very few feelings, restricted to things like crying when hungry, discomfort when it needs changing, or the need for its caretaker’s gaze and physical attention.  But as its experience grows so does its feelings repertoire. What this means for you and me is this: the only way to create new feelings is to live new experiences.

If you want to shift your state change how you think or what you do. Language and focus are both mental and physical so act as passkeys to unlock the doors of state from either side.

The body is faster. And, more lasting. If someone has an anxiety attack with their gullet flipping and breathing labored and progressively shallower, a painful knot can develop in the sternum area, that center part of the chest where the rib cages meet. Jogging brings relief in minutes.

Feeling a bit tense? Do ten burpees. Can’t do burpees? Why not? Don’t lie to me.

OK. Do ten deep knee bends, or some jumping jacks, or dance for fuck’s sake. Get moving. Even if it’s just to smile at yourself in a mirror. If desperate, bridle a pen across your mouth to force it and feel what happens.

Thoughts reflect what is happening in the body. What heresy is this, you say? How is this possible? The hungry example above explains it. It’s because consciousness is slow. If something comes into your awareness, it has already happened.

What? How can my precious mind not be in charge? Well, it is… and it isn’t.

It takes over once consciousness allows something into your awareness. Not before. That’s where free will starts. The rest of the time you are responding to your body’s needs, and those constitutional signals continue as you think. It’s why the Greek said an unexamined life is not worth living. He was probably a little pissed at realizing how things really worked.

We live emotionally and use our brains to “rationalize” things after. And whose side do you think the brain takes in most of those explanations? You betcha: yours. It’s your inherent bias.

And what is the brain relying on to come up with those handy explanations or rationalizations or excuses? Indeed, messages from the body. Messages whose main function is to keep you safe and which are all based on your prior experience. It’s motherfucking humbling…

I have more bad news. no one else has ever experienced life as you have, and so cannot feel what you feel. I know, I know, some people are em-paths, and maybe you’re not. I call bullshit.

Fact is empathy is always a projection of one person’s feelings onto another person. What we have as human beings is enough shared experiences between us to make it seem as if we really feel what someone else feels. But we don’t really. Some just try a little harder.

And all those times you just can’t seem to relate to someone else? Stop beating yourself up. It’s probably not that you’re an unfeeling psychopath (who are actually very good at what we regard as empathy and use their ability to read emotional states, especially body language and facial expressions, to manipulate people and circumstances for their own benefit).

It’s more like you just don’t have those kinds of experiences being shared and so can’t even fathom what they might be feeling. That is perfectly normal and so, cut yourself some slack.

Here`s something else that is pretty important about the body. Your microbiome. These include the bacteria, archaea, fungi, protists and viruses that come along for the ride. You’ve been colonized since coming down the birth canal and out your mother`s vagina, and then you’ve been adding to them throughout your lifetime.

Ten times as many non-human cells and human cells inhabit “you,” and these suckers need to eat as they perform necessary functions in one of the greatest symbiotic relationship known. They benefit humans and we can’t survive without them. We are only beginning to get them.

Knock out a bunch of them with antibiotics and your behaviour can change. A researcher from UBC had an assistant whose son was sick many times as a child. Antibiotics brought on autism-like symptoms. After a few years of frustration, she gave him a fecal-transplant, and repopulated his gut with her organisms. Symptoms went away. Now the kid has grown and works in the same lab as where his mom once did, under the same professor.

If you have a skinny sister and a fat sister, and the fat sister can’t seem to keep the weight off despite years of dieting, what would happen if the skinny sister gave the fat sister a fecal transplant? By repopulating her gut with missing microbiota, would she lose weight more easily?

What about mood. Think you crave certain foods in response to some mental process? Well, no, we’ve established that’s not how things work. The body will tell you when it needs glucose, we’ve established that too. But what if what if what you eat really does affect how you feel? What if how you feel is greatly influenced by the quality of your diet? What if how you take on the challenges of your life are largely determined by the foods you eat? We think it might.

Oh my, what if you really are what you eat? What will you do with this information?

You think you live someplace. You might even have an address on a street. Maybe you also have an apartment number, and maybe its got letters in it too. But that’s a construct. It’s artificial. It’s a place you go to when you need to park your stuff and pick up your mail or rest your head.

For where you really live is above a mere house or apartment or hut on the savannah or cabin in the woods. It’s much, much more for it is a place where the forces of all time have gathered.

It is where your ancestors used the methyl groups of your DNA to send you their gathered messages against a backdrop of mankind’s collective unconscious, thus giving you a soul. The soul exists because we sense it is there while the spirit is its calling. One is more past, one is more future; one is more static, the other moves.

The spirit is lifted at a sunrise, while gazing at the stars, at art and nature, often at each other. It’s also what calls to us, often as a stirring. The soul and the spirit form the inner self we subjugate as children developing ego while learning to conform. The masks we wear bury them further.

Yet, if we listen the spirit calls us from somewhere deep inside. Usually we point to our heart or guts or halfway between, somewhere inside the middle of our torso as its source.  It is the blessing of the cosmos in its infinite wisdom, the force behind the sun and the stars, the same one which gave us life and demands we manifest a powerful existence.

It is that part of you which contains all of your potentials and possibilities, all safely residing in the body: the universal address of your existence.

How will you get to know it, take care of it, listen to it and move it?

How about today?

Stay powerful, never give up
cw

Chris Wallace
©October, 2019, all rights reserved

Advisor to Men, Mentor at Large
advisortomen.com
ckwallace.com

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