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EVOLUTION & CHANGE: more push and pull from life

Cognitive dissonance: holding two confliciting beliefs. It’s akin, or like a cousin to, guilt. It’s uncomfortable. Most people take the path of least resistance and adopt the easiest route to re-establish comfort. However, doing that often means compromising self-concept, which as you might know, is destiny.

Ex: A guy sees himself as an honest man. Yet, catches himself bullshitting while talking to some people. He senses it in his belly then or later, and doesn’t like how he feels.

So here, he can either rationalize it–and tell himself something like, “Everyone bullshits a little bit,” or a version thereof.

However, if he does this, it means a shift in his self-concept, a watering down of his values and belief in himself, and a polluting of the ideal of how he believes others see him.

He’s now nothing special: a “bullshitter” like everyone else.

This is a weakening of his self. It’s a weakening of his manhood, and that lessening of his power will translate into every area of his existence. Soon, he can expect to use this same lazy template to rationalize other aspect of life: his body, his relationships, his work, his very spirit.

The more difficult challenge for him is to take the interoception he reads from his body and realize this was a call to action.

This is what men do. They lean into things, even when those things are uncomfortable, painful, and involve short-term loss. A man with an intact sense of himself knows if you give him an ax and point him towards a forest, he can build a life.

A man who knows he is a man, remains dangerous. He guards against anything which would dull the sharpness of his edges, carefully honing himself like an ax, or a sword, or a mind.

He may choose to never bullshit again. He may choose to retract (a beautiful word and technique available to anyone) his words with those people, and re-establish his worth in his own eyes, and perhaps in theirs. He may choose to be more careful in the future and stay precisely on the side of truth.

The same is true of any change. Life progresses and we must adapt to it, or die. Each day you are caught between your old self and the possibility of a new you. The old self is comfortable, you know him well.

The new you is uncertain, less known, and perhaps a little scary. Part of it is because your self concept has two aspects: How you see yourself measured up against how you believe others see you. What a balance you must negotiate.

The motivation stall is wrapped in two things: one is your old self/new self dichotomy being played out as per above. But another factor could be perfectionism. That’s a common facet in men, and indeed, of procrastinators everywhere.

We can become afraid to act and make a mistake and, be judged, so do nothing. The risk is judged too high, best to immobilize myself, frozen here, I take zero chance. Now, I am plagued with “what ifs” and “if onlys” and “coulda, shoulda, woulda” self-flagellations. These add to my inertia.

So, the answer is to watch for the above. Sometimes, just starting at something is enough to entrain the rest of you… so you become fully involved in a task. Starting is everything.

Worth repeating: Starting is everything. Do one rep, commit to 5 minutes, get moving, but start at something, anything.

Soon your natural inclination to live takes over. All humans seek to stop time, to cheat the forward movement of their lives, to stop the linear progression they know ends in death.

And the only way to stop time is to get so deeply engrossed in doing something of complexity and which demands from us a progression of competence. This flow state stops it all, and is the natural boundary of spirit and body. It’s where passion and strengths and focus meet. It’s our personal heaven while alive, available to anyone one of us.

This all is made easier if you are getting time in to take care of your spirit needs. Planned and merited reward is a key part of taking care of yourself. Do not allow the demands of those around you to snuff out your spirit. Do not ask, but take it, impose your spirit on life. You are no good to anyone with a weakened spirit, so do the thing which allow yours to soar high.

It’s good to plan “I will do this and then I’m going to do that” and have the “that” as something which rewards you. Play is spiritual, especially play in nature, outdoors, where you evolved. Planned play is a key way to take care of you, your spirit. Do not let this lapse in your life.

All of us as human being have a core worry that other people will discover we are imperfect, and not good enough, and that this discovery will mean we are not worthy of love. It’s a story we tell ourselves, derived from nature’s needs.

Understanding this, we can seize our power as men and write our own narrative. It’s our story to write.

What story are you writing about you?

Stay powerful,
cw

KILLING SPIDERS: A Metaphor for Marriage
As a boy, I lived with my two brothers in my parent’s basement. Dad had the old man who lived next door put up some walls to divide up some of the space. No ceiling, just open rafters and cement floor. It was full of spiders.

They were everywhere. Of course, mostly you’d see them at night but practically anything left undisturbed for a day or so might hide one. Touch something in the basement and one would scurry off madly. Any corner with a bit of dust in it and chances there was also a cobwebbed hideout holding one of these predators.

I had difficulty sleeping from a young age and often stayed up reading. Out they’d come in the night. It got so I would stare at the page of a book and suddenly get a “sense,” a Spidey-sense call it, where I somehow knew there was one nearby. Like the feeling you get sometimes when someone is staring at you. You look around and, sure enough, some dolt is fixated upon you with bulging eyes as if they’d been at it for some time. It was like that, a little unsettling. A human you can stare back, with a spider, it’s just… a little spooky.

Whenever it came to me in the night, I could lift my eyes from the pages in front of me and in the dim light, see a spider somewhere near, hanging down from its thread of silk, ready to explore my bed. Sometimes it was inches from my head. Right there.

Or, I’d look at one of the walls and let my eyes linger, searching the wood chips in the press board, until I found the crawler which had summoned my attention, hiding there somewhere, in play sight.

Years later, I thought I’d put this all behind me. I was long gone from the basement with its eight-legged denizens and had lived in many places since.

Now, as a married man, for some reason it returned.  Missus had been her family’s eldest, coming as she did from a Northern Ontario mix of French and English parents. She was… outdoorsy, and pretty much fearless.

I’m not sure how it happened first. I suspect she encountered a spider and I demurred somehow. Perhaps, I only hesitated.  It’s my conjectured recollection she may have seized the moment to act. She was competitive that way. Perhaps, I’d already told her of the basement. I don’t remember.

I’m sure I did later or at some point. Likely, I had at a time we were both high, the drugs or booze fueling a prattling on about ancient nonsense. The eeriness of those spider encounters late at night while under the influence of Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Bradbury, Herbert and others would have been hard to resist retelling.

My father had gone through a sci-fi stage in the later 1960s and early 1970s. He read a couple hundred of these paperbacks and they were left around for his nine children. It was a time when our family had a bookcase in every room, even the kitchen. I read them all, not exactly an antidote to sleeplessness, but still.

It was much later, after going in during 1981 and spending all 1982 inside, and when I’d been transferred from the penitentiary to the farm camp next door, that dad came by for a visit. He brought his whole sci-fi collection and donated them to the meager library there. It was pure escapism, something the guys were thanking me for to the end of my bit.

So, however it happened, my missus at the time took over spider duty, and looking back, she seemed to relish this power over me. Blinded by self-importance, overlooking my own shortcomings, what at first was an acknowledgement of her courage at breaking stereotypes, well-intentioned but misguided idealism,  experimenting with role reversal after the social movements of the 1970s, it soon became an self-emasculating indulgence of male weakness.

See, I let her kill the spiders. Then, and going forward. All of them.

I could have killed spiders. I knew how. I’d killed many of them, maybe hundreds in my time. But I let her persuade me with false concern. It was, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” and up she’d jump with her winning smile to take care of the critter before I could give it another thought. It seemed harmless.

And, to me it was just a fucking spider, for fuck’s sake. “Look, if you want to kill the spider have at it,” I thought, slightly amused even. But it meant something else to her.

And, the more she was willing to kill spiders, the more I was willing to placate her. I felt obligated to be grateful. I played along. She was doing something for me it seems, and so I should be thankful. I was still essentially a polite Canadian boy.

It was part of my nice-guy syndrome. In those days, I championed people around me but with a covert contract in mind: when I tell you you are great, hopefully you will do the same for me. I’ll feel liked, even loved for it. Nothing for nothing. I faked my appreciation, as if it mattered, for her sake I told myself.

I didn’t have the self-worth to stand my ground. I sensed the con but stuffed it. What was I thinking? The tune goes, “I once was lost, but now I’m found, t’was blind, but now I see.” Hindsight.

For men are not loved for not killing spiders. This was a gambit that was ass-backwards. I’d fallen into a trap. I’d been given just enough rope with which to hang myself. I’d been led down the garden path. Like Tony The Waiter said, “Anyone can be walked, Chris, it’s just a matter of approach.” I was being walked. I was walking myself.

I’d been closed using my own words. For now, she had a weakness she could point to. She could use it as a token, a gambling chit, for leverage. She had constructed an Ace gaff for the Ace lock to my status. She could turn her counterfeit key and empty me at will, like the coinbox on a pay washing machine.

But what did I know at 25 or 30? Not much. I was too busy making sure I wasn’t killed that week, less worried about my image in front of her. I had not yet learned that women cannot abide a weak man, no more than a man can abide a disloyal woman. I needed pain to learn the universal pact between these energies. And, suffer I would.

For a woman can sense weakness in a man from afar. Using all the powers of her practicality, verbal skills, double-hemispheric thinking, and acute intuition, she can sniff it out like a cadaver dog looking for a body. Abuse of empathy is her birthright.

She maneuvers covertly, gathering intelligence,  watching and recording patterns, divulging only as much as needed to serve her pragmatism. Glad-handing, she can draw out her mark like a carney running a midway joint. She can run close interpersonal game as well as a politician can game the public.

And when she confirms weakness, she will sometimes tell you. You have heard me say this kind of woman is exceedingly rare, a unicorn in fact. It’s far more likely she will either rub salt in the wounds of your weakness or hold you in silent contempt.

General truth: Women don’t fuck men who don’t kill spiders for them.

In fact, it gets much worse. Killing spiders is a minor but fair representation of a man’s usefulness to a woman. Part of his power, but also of his expendability. Killing a Black Widow or Brown Recluse is not her risk to take. It’s ours, us men, because better we than she.

Give me a hundred years of feminism, that fact won’t change. Not now, not likely ever. Why would it? Self-interest is paramount.

No one should lament this lopsided arrangement. It is just how things are. She is more precious as the carrier of life. Who am I to question these forces? What hubris do I require to tell the universe it is wrong?

If you were going to bet, should you take odds based on a social movement embraced by a tiny minority for at most a century, more like a few decades? Or, should you go long on your investment based on Mother Nature herself?

I take nature. I wager on the force which says there are a hundred million stars in the Andromeda Galaxy and shut my mouth. You know what else? We lack awe. All of us. It took a long time to get things working as well as they do, why fuck with it? It took forever to train men to be married men, let’s not go off the rails now. We need to see ourselves as smaller in the the grander scheme of things. Awe, more awe.

My first marriage didn’t last. Big picture says that’s predictable, but you never know. Having trouble at home? Who kills the spiders?

My current missus is afraid of spiders. That is, her sister is afraid of spiders and the more she visits over the last 13 years, the more missus has become an arachnophobe. That’s fine with me.

I just don’t want the fear of spiders transferred to my children. So, I teach them about spiders, about all kinds of bugs. Practically every jar or plastic dish in my house has been co-opted as bug carrier. The kids are both fine, they think bugs are cute. Daughter calls them pets. Poor kids, I should get them a dog.

And, when that familiar shriek sounds out at home, I know what’s up. I like being relied upon and I don’t fail her. I have a Pseudo-Scorpion living in my bathroom behind the mirror who preys upon the drain flies which peak in numbers in the summer. It’s too cool to kill.

Other times, I’ve acted more drastically, especially when the cold of fall sends scurrying critters indoors for shelter.  Strolling over leisurely to capture her spider, I have looked at her and crushed it in my bare fist. Then walked away to wash my hand off, ignoring her reaction.

Me and the missus? All I can tell you is things are good at my house. Good indeed.

Stay powerful.

© Christopher K Wallace, Jan, 2019 all rights reserved
https://advisortomen.com/boardofdirectors/
https://facebook.com/groups/advisortomen/
https://ckwallace.com

Tough Love

I was drying out in the Civic Hospital. It was back in the early 1980s during the AIDS scare, but long before the discovery of Hepatitis C in 1989. I was in an isolation room as a precaution. So much was unknown then.

My liver markers were all off: leucocytes, reticular counts, liver function tests and bilirubin. I was also quite jaundiced and tired. Things were catching up with me.

Lying alone in my single room in the middle of the day, I was surprised when Ma popped in unannounced. I hadn’t seen her for a while so it was a mystery as to how she knew I was there.

She was her usual kind and accepting self, offering encouraging words and faithful support. But I noticed she was rushed, her answers short, a tension just under the surface of her demeanour that I couldn’t quite grasp and put a reason to.

After a few minutes, she told me to take care and that she was leaving, mentioning my father was outside waiting to see me. Of course, she didn’t give me enough time to ask why he hadn’t come in. She said goodbye and hurried out of the room.

As my gaze followed her out, she swung open the heavy door with its tiny porthole window common to the isolation ward. There I could see my father in rumpled suit jacket and tie, purposefully pacing back and forth in the hallway. Before I could say anything, she was gone and in he came.

I tried to say hello but he cut me off. Coming closer, he spoke with just a hint of some ill-defined emotion, the kind you might see when you can’t tell if the person is hurt or angry. He said something like this to me: “Christopher, if you keep living the way you are, surely, you are going to die…and soon. When you do, we will gather together as a family and mourn your passing. It will be our last goodbye. Afterwards, we will bury you and then… we’ll forget you.”

With that, he turned and walked out.

Admittedly, he’d caught me off guard. I was stunned. I was in a hospital after all. What a jerk, I thought. As the door closed behind him, the pressure in me rose. I railed internally with questions, invectives; the cussing in my mind going off like fireworks.

He had left right away, so it wasn’t like I could argue with him, making it even more frustrating. How absolutely unfair of him, I decried to myself.

Outraged, in my mind’s eye I saw myself in my hospital nightgown, following him down the hallway, demanding, what exactly did he mean by that whole “forget you” bit? And who was HE to be speaking for all of MY brothers and sisters? There are eight of them; had he done a poll? Was this all based on their consensus? I wanted to call them and check for myself.

The scene revolved continuously through my mind as I lay there on my bed, him long gone. I must have stayed steaming for quite a while, fuming to myself over the images. Mumbling at times out loud that it was none of his business, damn it, how I chose to live my life. This was my problem, not anyone else’s.

But in time, I calmed down. I couldn’t stay agitated forever. Eventually, my anger subsided enough to return to a kind of normal. My breathing slowed, my thinking became more introspective. The scene was still fresh in my mind. I kept going over its details: the way he’d left me there by myself; the harshness of his judgment and the finality of its imagery. Suddenly, I felt alone, very alone… and saddened by it all.

I thought about my sisters and brothers. Childhood images flashed by, with them as freckle-faced kids on adventures we’d shared. I was so hurt; I felt a clear and justified self-pity. It was cruel to come into someone’s hospital room—a real medical patient with real medical issues—and say stupid stuff. Anyone would sympathize with how wrong it was.

I felt sad, lonely, and sorry for myself, resigned even. It was all so depressing. As if I didn’t have enough problems.

The more I thought about it, I remembered the way my mother acted during her short visit. She was clearly preoccupied. She had gone through the motions of visiting, but betrayed a hidden agenda. It was then I realized my mother had been in on it from the start. It was a damn set up!

The nerve of her to come in here with her “sweet as a lamb” approach and then help him pull off this kind of bullshit. She was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, that’s what she was!

Now I was mad again.

I could just imagine the two of them concocting their approach for maximum effect before arriving. “He’s in isolation?” he would have asked. She would have replied, “Yes, that’s what the others are telling me. Here’s the room number.”

Dad would have given marching orders: “You go in first; I’ll wait in the hallway. Don’t stay too long. I don’t want you making him feel any better.” She would have assented — like the devoted wife she was.

What a supreme jerk, I thought, envisioning how the whole scene played out in the car on the way over. The gig was up; I was on to them. That’s it, no more Mr. Nice Guy from me. They’re cut off!

After a while, having made that decision, I calmed down. My mind slowed its racing thoughts. My indignity had peaked and ebbed, like a tide of tension leaving shore for sea.

I felt alone again. Now, I was down. I felt it in my body, tired, sorry and sympathetic. It was sad, you see.

I imagined myself at a funeral, my own, watching all of my siblings mourn as they got ready to bury me. I could see my sisters crying in pain like they had when I’d been punished as a child — or like the time my father tossed me out of the house at age 15. I regretted I wouldn’t see them again, that I would have caused them pain. I was hurt, not for myself, but valiantly I thought, only for them.

That’s when I realized it was my father who was causing this anguish to befall my siblings. It was he who was making them turn their backs on me and to literally leave me in the dirt. It was he who was demanding once again the ultimate ostracism of one of his family members. Once more… what a jerk!

Now I was mad again.

The infinity loop

To be honest, I swung from one side of those emotions to the other for a long time after the incident at the hospital. I had no idea why; I guess I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. I lacked the resources to give me a deeper understanding of my father’s intentions. Neither could I see the basis of how I was reacting to his attempt at tough love; as an effort to shock me into seeing my life as it was.

If I tell you a good joke, you will hopefully laugh. After a minute or two, you will stop laughing as your brain normalizes whatever incongruence made you see the funny.

If you watch a sad movie, you may be so moved by its story and characters that you weep. Once your tears are discharged as pent up tension, your body will adjust, return to some kind of equilibrium and crying will stop.

This is the familiar homeostasis at work on your emotions, returning them to a balanced state. Laughing at a joke or crying over a sad scene in a movie are times where we suspend our own personal disbelief to get the full emotion—laughter or tears—of a situation. In our personal lives, it’s less easily managed simply because we have more at stake: our sense of self.

So picture an infinity sign with two opposites of emotion on each of its ends: frustration, blaming, anger, etc., on one side; sadness, self-pity, depression, etc., on the other.

Something happens to trigger us emotionally. Start anywhere in the loop; it depends on the person.

Let say at first we become frustrated, angry, blaming or even fall into a rage. You can’t remain that way forever so in time we return along the eight towards our feelings centre—our internal balance.

However, since whatever triggered us wasn’t resolved, the pain remains… and staying in the centre is temporary. Instead, we might continue on to the other side of the loop, moving from frustration, blaming and anger to experiencing sadness, self-pity, depression, etc.  In turn, we can’t remain like that forever either. So at some point we return towards emotional neutral.

But again, since we weren’t able to resolve whatever it was that got us so upset, we think about it until we are angry again. This can go on for days, weeks, years even, where the cycle repeats over and over to exhaustion. Tony Robbins calls it the crazy 8.

It creates a tension inside us that craves relief, often an escape by whatever means necessary. Some go and get drunk; a way many choose to deal with emotionally charged events when lacking resources to respond in a more empowering way.

But it’s a never-ending loop, darn it. That’s why the infinity symbol is so appropriate: it goes on forever. The trick is to escape the infinity loop at the top, as opposed to exiting out the bottom. Taking the high road is the perfect metaphor, and it starts first with our own re-adjustment of the meaning we give things.

None of us is immune to the emotional swings of the Infinity Loop: attachment, fear, our expectations, shame and guilt, all of these conspire to put us under their emotional control. Where we differ is in how fast we can extricate ourselves from its cycle. That takes courage, honesty, acceptance, a fair bit of humility and forgiveness even; and often it takes space.

It’s all in the meaning

It took time, a few more years in fact, but eventually I resolved things in a way that gave me a deeper appreciation for what the old naval officer had been trying to do.

I realized it was my lifestyle that was causing others pain; but more importantly, I had no right to do that to people who loved me. Up to then, I might have thought it didn’t matter because I couldn’t acknowledge anyone cared. I had such a low opinion of myself that in my shame, I felt I had rights to self-pity, anger, and the dysfunctional life I lived. Perhaps I could let my guard down and see things by the light of a different day.

That minor shift allowed me to reconstruct the episode with more insight; in a way that to my mind gave us both back our dignity. I assigned new meaning to the hospital episode with my father based on a more profound perception of his intentions.

He wasn’t there to hurt me; he was there to protect himself and the others from the hurt I was causing by living so closely to destruction and death. It wasn’t malicious at all. In his clumsy way, it was an act of caring for his family. By extension, it was a desperate attempt to care for me too.

In the ensuing years after the hospital visit, I kept thinking of the old man and the way his lip quivered as he struggled to get the words out quickly so as to not lose the power of what he had to say. I’d overlooked the impact of that image in the aftermath of my reaction. But it was there; embedded in my subconscious as tiny flashes of recall, unavoidably part of the scene. All I had to do was focus on it.

He was in my hospital room, a deeply faulted man but still a naval commander and patriarch to a family of nine children—five of them grown sons—trying his best to be tough when it was obvious by the look on his face his heart was breaking. That’s the image’s meaning that has stayed with me.

His love wasn’t so tough; it was just plain love.

Stay Powerful,

Christopher K Wallace
©2015 all rights reserved

https://advisortomen.com/board-of-directors/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/advisortomen

We are coming up on the holidays, when many will get a chance to reconnect with families and friends. Maybe you’ll take a short vacation, either as a break from the cold of winter or to enjoy winter itself. It’s also a time when some of us tend to pack on a few extra pounds.

Today, I want to talk about overeating. I’ll share my food pep-talk, the one I give myself.

I’m inspired by those before and after pictures where people transform their bodies from obese to healthy. I’ve never been big, but I admire those folks, perhaps telling myself, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Now at about 5 feet 9 inches (and shrinking) and never over two hundred pounds, I bounce between 170 and 180 depending on my exercise regimen and especially, my diet.  My jeans are the measure of how I’m doing. Tight pants on my belly pisses me off just enough to get me to do something about it. The mirror is more feedback, especially looking at my profile. I guess I’m still vain enough for it to have some effect. I don’t want to lose that.

The Deal
I’ve struggled enough with diet over the years to sympathize with those who tend to binge on foods—usually ones not particularly good for them. Fact is, once we learn to overeat, or especially to binge on sweets and high calorie carbs, food is no different than alcohol and drugs.

What else would we call it but an addiction? I say it’s similar in more ways than not. Like smoking, drinking, drug use, porn or gambling, we engage a series of biological, behavioural and cognitive processes to support our actions.

That men drink, and women eat is supported by science. Again, there are plenty of women with booze problems and plenty of us guys with food addictions, so this is only helpful in a very general way.

I’m not suggesting any man who overeats tell himself he’s eating like a woman; nor am I suggesting to the overeating woman she should drink instead. Not at all.

What was confirmed recently is the right side of the vagus nerve, the 10^th cranial nerve which connects our stomach to the brain, fires dopamine receptors in the brain stem when we eat foods we like. Umami, or savory, is one of the five basic tastes along with sweetness, sourness, bitterness and saltiness. These form the basis of pleasurable eating.

Normal people stop eating when they feel full. Regular folks can eat one cookie and pass on extras. Dieters, on the other hand, learn to ignore the body’s signals about satisfaction, and continue beyond what the body requires and, more importantly, beyond their own rules about eating.

That’s the same with people who wind up addicted to drugs and alcohol. We adapt to the hangovers, the paranoia, the sickness and mood instability, ignoring basic homeostatic imbalance in favour of continued use.

I had to work hard at becoming a junkie, a booze-hound, a pill-popper, and a dope-smoker. I can assure you none of which are experienced as “all butterflies and rainbows.” And that’s just the physical effects, never mind the mental excuses I used to support my habits.

Dieters, just like alcohol and drug users, use rationalizing powers to continue to eat when we know we shouldn’t. If I’ve been good, following my diet and exercise regimen, and then fall off-plan, I should stop when I realize it.

Mostly likely though, I might eat that extra row or two of cookies instead. The reason I do this is because I write it off. I tell myself: “I’ll get back on the program tomorrow.” Sound familiar?

How is that different from a relapsing drinker? The guy who says, “I’ll get straight, just not today; it’s one day at a time right?”

Learning to Ride
Let me ask you something: when was the last time you rode a bicycle?

Now, let’s imagine you had not ridden a bicycle for many years, maybe five or ten or even twenty years. Could you get on a bike today and ride it? Of course, most likely you could. You never forget it.

It’s in the nature of that kind of learning, at the pons and striatum parts of the brain. There’s both a physical and mental component to riding a bike. In fact, it engages the whole chain of being: physical, emotional state, feelings, thoughts and actions. It uses the special powers of focus and language to effect competence on two wheels.

I watched my daughter learn to ride a bike in my backyard two years ago. I saw her starts and stops, the glimpses of success against the feedback of her failures, her crashes and her frustrations. Her self-talk went from negative to cautiously positive as she kept at it. She can ride no-hands now. It’s automatic for her. My boy is five, in spring, off go the training-wheels and he’ll do the same. Neither will ever forget how once learned.

That’s what happens when we learn to eat and overeat. All behavior is supported by antecedents and consequences. Triggers and rewards. Food is no different.

When we’ve been there before it’s much easier to do it again. It’s why the relapsing drug or alcohol user quickly returns to the same level of use. If I was a ten-beer-a-day drinker, within a week or two of relapse I’m right back at the same level of drinking. If I always smoked a bowl first thing in the morning, a few days into cannabis use and I’m all about the wake-and-bake. If I had a half-gram-a-day heroin habit, with access I’m back there in a couple of weeks (if not dead). Food is no different. Dieters can eat too much like we can all ride a bike. We’re good at it.

In fact, it’s a critical exercise in self-care to realize and take note of what triggers our overeating, just as it’s worth having a heart to heart self-talk about what needs we are really meeting. Antecedents and consequences.

The Crux and The Cost
Here’s the thing: at the crux of all addiction is a search to narrow thinking. It’s a way to take many thoughts and turn them into fewer thoughts. It doesn’t much matter if someone uses porn, food, gambling, or the usual mood-altering drugs of alcohol, cannabis, cocaine or heroin, or even pharmaceuticals. Narrowing of thinking is the goal.

Guy goes to the bar on Friday and has all the week’s worries on his mind: bills, missus, bosses, clients, children sometimes, parents, taxes, rents, car repairs, etc. Has 2-3 beers and all he’s thinking about is pizza and pussy. Or sports.

That’s narrowing of thinking.

The drug and alcohol user will hijack the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal—fight or flight) system to put themselves into a mild (or greater) fear state to narrow thinking, to quell the stress of life and escape the self.

It’s using stress to fight stress. And it works… until it doesn’t.

Food does it too. While food doesn’t trigger the body’s HPA system the way mood altering chemicals do, it has similar cognitive influences. Here’s why:

Ask yourself what goes on in your mind when you’re overeating? If you’re like me, it’s often something like, “I really shouldn’t eat this.” That’s accompanied by a kind of guilty pleasure where I’m torn between the good food or treat and the image I have of myself as a sane and capable adult who can manage diet. The for and against self-talk going on hijacks my thinking to the point of escape.

As you may know, cognitive dissonance occurs when we behave in a way that is inconsistent with self-image. But here’s the screwed-up part: we tend to take the path of least resistance when this happens. Instead of learning and shoring up our approach, we tend to give in.

If I see myself as an honest man and find myself bullshitting people, the right thing to do is to admit my exaggerations and course correct. If I don’t, what I’ve done is accepted a lesser version of myself. I end up altering my self-concept.

Self-concept is how I see myself up against how I believe others see me. It’s also destiny. One of the biggest factors in all addiction is self-concept and how we give into dissonance, thereby accepting a lesser version of ourselves in the process.

Suddenly we see ourselves as a righteous junkie. Rationalizing alcohol use by saying “it’s legal right? Don’t you live longer drinking a glass of wine every day?” as you finish the last glass and toss your empty bottle into the recycling. We might see ourselves as “pleasantly plump” or better, “I need a bit extra to fend off the cold,’ something we can use up here in Canada. It’s all bullshit, and we might call it as it is and look for a deeper answer.

Because when I say to myself, “I really shouldn’t eat this” what I’m doing is not thinking about all the other bullshit in my life, while getting a mild dopamine hit at the same time.

And all that guilt is painful, the to and fro of my thoughts and craving just helps me narrow my thinking even more. I stuff what my body is telling me, my sense of fullness, the cavity activated by sugar in my mouth, the rules I had about diet. In some twisted way, this is the peace I seek from my existence.

Until the only way I can deal with the dissonance over time is to change my self-concept. The problem is accepting  my lesser self, allowing it to rise instead of the person I want and choose to be. That’s a bigger cost later.

First thing about all this is to realize the whole overeating bit as an obvious quelling of overthinking. And if those thoughts are predominantly stress producing, more reason to try and quiet or change them.  In this sense, it’s a quest for control. So, I now ask myself, “what am I escaping from?”

It also means your body (and mind) is working properly–it’s seeking to alleviate your suffering somehow. That’s a good thing but it’s just the tendency—overeating or going off-diet—is the wrong choice being made in response to stress. With awareness, you and I can do better.

The Gift
Think of a time when you were at your happiest doing something. All of us have periods where we engage in an activity which we found interesting enough to be pleasurable yet had enough complexity to be challenging and keep our attention. This made us focus to a high degree. Concentrating while learning to ride the bike may have been like that for you. Or perhaps it was something else.

You may recognize this description as something akin to a “zone” or “flow.” When there is a confluence of passion, talent and focus, with enough complexity to keep us engaged, you can enter a state which literally seems to stop time.

Think of moments in your life when you remarked, “where the heck did the time go?” You have been in this zone. All of us have. It can come from any endeavor which is challenging enough and requires a degree of competence making it pleasurable, forcing us to concentrate at a high level.

I suggest this is the perfect expression of our existence under the sun. It is then we are in harmony with our surroundings, where we feel like we are earning our right to life. We seek to return there in our everyday moments to alleviate our existential angst, because it stops time. In the zone, we don’t feel aging, while still moving ahead. It’s powerful magic. I’m suggesting this is the real drug you seek.

The first time we are aware of having hit a zone we are astonished at its power. Perhaps there’s a part of us which seeks to deny this manifestation of living lest we find ourselves unworthy. And isn’t it always that in part? Isn’t it always that we think somehow we won’t measure up, that we won’t be good enough and because of this, we won’t be loved?

It’s the human need to belong again, clouding judgement and creating just enough fear to keep us humble. The question is not whether I should eat that box of donuts; it’s whether I will celebrate my existence?

Though, what have we got to be humble about? After all, of the 40 to 200 million sperm vying for the egg which began your life, it was you who made it to the finish line. Not some other contender, perhaps of a different chromosome mix. I could have been a girl, and if you’re a girl, you could have been a boy. You were chosen as is.

Who are we to question the wisdom of the universe? It’s easy to remember: the Andromeda Galaxy has a trillion stars. A trillion my friend. Whatever same force created THAT created YOU. This is infinite wisdom.

So, my suggestion is to ask yourself just before you feel like eating blindly or compulsively, before you feed the inner pig (which exists in us all) that you pose the question I ask myself: “How else can I narrow my thinking (in a way that honours the life I’ve been given)?”

For whatever your mix of talents and passions, you are unique, a chosen soul for good reason. It’s not just about satisfying needs and alleviating fears or decreasing stress and being comfortable.  It’s what you owe. Yes, indeed.

It’s what you owe for winning the greatest prize of all: a life.

Stay powerful.

CKWallace
Advisor to Men
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“There’s been a stabbing'” —Sid Vicious, Sex Pistols

Often guys ask questions around the subject of legacy. What is it you want people to remember about you long after you’re gone? No one gets to choose how we are remembered so I’m never sure how to answer. Is it a waste of time, a focus on a future I cannot control? Or is it a legitimate concern? I don’t know.

Legacy makes me think of a time many years ago when I had been stabbed in the abdomen.

It was over an old beef and the guy picked a fight with me after waiting for me to come outside of a treatment centre I was staying at after withdrawing from a heroin and cocaine addiction. Fucker was laying in wait for me just the way we knew how. I should have known to watch out but got careless. I’d had an argument with my woman over the phone and slammed down the receiver and walked outside. It was the moment he was waiting for as he sprang out of the bushes.

I was surprised when his first punch was to my stomach as I grabbed his throat to punch him in the face. Right away he broke loose and ran away, after glancing for a split-second at my midsection. Puzzled, I noticed blood seeping from my abdomen. It was blacker than the night so I knew he’d hit deep. Rushed to the hospital by friends at Our House, the clothes on me were cut off in emergency as I lay on the gurney.

Surrounded by the team, the doctor begins to snap on rubber gloves as he questioned me as to what happened. He tells me he needs to probe my rectum for blood. I felt weak and getting weaker, cursing the travesty of this personal invasion. “Faggots,” I thought to myself, angry because at the time it’s my best go-to emotion.

Suddenly, I’m on my side and his fingers are up my ass. I vomited.

Because I was looking right at him, he had to jump back so that the remains of my half-digested supper just missed him full on. A nurse had put one of those curved stainless dishes next to my cheek but I overshot it by far. As it was, I thought I probably got some on his shoes. I can still see his horrified look, the “what the fuck?” look of disgust flashed for a second before his face collapsed immediately and returned to a normal look of concern.

“Sorry doc, sorry for puking on your shoes,” I mumbled. To which he looks at me a little incredulously and answered, “No problem Chris, really, it’s OK.” That’s when I passed out.

The head trauma surgeon had been summoned to operate on me while I was unconscious. I know this because he came in the next day shortly after I opened my eyes and told me how I’d died and they managed to save me. He was a tall, handsome fella, greying temples and clearly a master of his game.

He told me how many pints of blood I needed and so forth. Said he was pretty sure they got all the cuts to my stomach and liver because the knife had been used saw-like fashion in a quick and repeated in-out manner. Then he told me something weird. Said if I ever wanted to come in and talk to him about what had happened, he’d make time for me.

I remember my first inclination was to ask myself if he was gay: the gangster homophobia again. Clearly he wasn’t. No. It was someone offering to lend a hand, proffering encouragement without expectation. He was just being a good person, and with a schedule like his, it was a deeply honourable gesture. I had time to think about all this while I recovered in those few days afterwards. I’d been shot in the chest the year before and that had hurt but the stomach bit was much worse. Standing was a real bitch.

What if I’d died there and then in that hospital? Up to this point, my life hadn’t amounted to much. In fact, I had a bad case of terminal “piece of shit-ness’ as my core worth. My legacy thus far was as a failed human.

Yet, here was this busy and super bright man, top-of-field type, and he was offering to spend some of his valuable time with me: a gangster-junkie, denizen of the deep street. I tell you: it sort of blew me away.

Lying there, a vision came to me, one where my family buries me as my father had once predicted they would. This conversation had occurred in a room just like the one I was in now, at this very same hospital the year before when I was detoxing from junk. In that visit, he said I would soon die, and the family would bury me…and forget me. Daydreaming, I imagined the funeral and the burial, catching a glimpse of my burial stone and it’s inscription:

Here lies Chris Wallace, 1957-1985, “Sorry, I puked on your shoes.”

It would be a fitting epitaph, perfectly encapsulating my life until then. I remember thinking to myself after sitting on this image and idea for a day or so, finally declaring to myself: “This simply won’t do.”

I’ve been crawling back from despair since. I was down low, and it’s been a long haul back from the violence and uneven attachments of my youth. The early years of life create a powerful template,  a child’s fear of abandonment and the internalizing of shame become set in personality, requiring awareness and work to reverse and remedy.

If you can imagine this happened over thirty years ago. It took the first year to recover physically and cure my lifelong insomnia. Another year to get back into some kind of shape after having my arms riddled with needle marks, busted knuckles and arm, being shot, hit with bats, being run over and all the rest. It took five years just to stop craving cocaine.

I eventually lost a marriage that was probably never salvageable but raised a fine son in the process. And I turned my love of reading and learning into an ongoing education, feeding my spirit. I only returned to prison once about ten years later for a few weeks. I intervened in a fight when three punks were attacking a friend. My record got me charged and convicted. I’ve been pardoned for it all since.

But that day in the hospital counts of one of my great epiphanies in life. Another was promising my two year old son I’d do my best to be his father somehow, which is what had brought me to that treatment centre in the first place that fateful night.

Along the way since, I helped people as I could. I studied hard as a behavioural science tech and graduated first in my class. But that was no measure of immunity for the work I needed to do after being down for so long. It took me 30 years to get all fucked up and it appears it’s taken me the equivalent time to recover. Just as my descent into madness was a gradual one, so has been my comeback.

After solving the riddle of addiction a few years ago, deeper truths continue to bubble up, slowly making their way to the surface of my awareness. Maybe it’s coincidental to my confidence, to my sense of being able to survive in this world among peers and a greater community. Perhaps I could say this past decade has been the happiest time of my life, if happiness is even a thing.

It’s from this personal history of weakness that I realize it’s often common in others. We can allow all manner of failing to seep into our lives and without realizing it, cover our personal power like mould on old vegetables. We can cower where courage is needed. It is grow or die; it’s entropy: rest means decay. Life demands action and expansion, or death by neglect.

So I use the idea that a man should recognize, harness and grow his power in service of himself and the people around him as a way to live a life of meaning. This is what sets him free. It’s a freedom I taste often and it is neither an intoxicant nor a sedative. It’s simply freedom from the tyranny of existence. No less. A Wallace’s birthright is to spread a message of freedom.

Horace Mann says: “Be ashamed to die before scoring a victory for mankind.”

As someone who has carried shame most of my life and can fall back into the programming of my earlier years, shame is a constant enemy. Then, I knew I was broken, and this made me ashamed to show people the real me. It was much too risky, my abandonment fear too real.

There’s no room for shame in my life now. There’s no room for it in yours either.

Following Mann’s advice, reserve shame for the avoidance of death. And what is this victory he demands? Who knows? It’s certainly not to squander whatever gifts we have. No. To do so would be to question the infinite wisdom of the universe, which gave us life. Infinite wisdom. There are a trillion stars in the Andromeda galaxy. A trillion. Come on.

Know this: when we dispense with the idea we are broken and not good enough, abandoning the notion others will never love us if they see us as we really are, we gain a tremendous power. It’s your legacy of freedom.

In large part, when we take care of shame, legacy takes care of itself.

Stay powerful.

Christopher K Wallace
© 2018 all rights reserved

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Thank you, Oh Universe, for this virus.

It was brought to me upon the wheezing, coughing, and sneezing wings of friendship. As such, it is not purposely malicious; but instead, a sign of communion with my fellow man.

Far worse it be to never have a cold. For this would mean my gifts to others were never shared, neither their gifts with me. Sadly, this could mean my demise, at first in spirit, later physically, leaving me a hollowed-out shell of self.

If I never caught a cold, it would mean I was isolated and alone: Death to a human.

No. I realize you are but one of a legion of cold viruses that circulate my world, forever re-combining with bits and pieces of each other. I fear thee not… for each time we meet my body learns to defeat another foe.

Though, it takes a week or two to best you, your specific kind never possesses me again. Each time, particularly you, and your malevolent symptoms, are banished from the kingdom of my being for evermore.

You are but an inconvenience.

And neither shall I feel much guilt in transmitting your existence to others. Though, I take great care to protect the weak, the old and the very young from your trials.

For myself, rather than see you as harm, I see you as opportunity. To me, you are an exercise in immunity and I am up for that task.

The occasional lament overheard, those times when what seems like complaint makes its way past these lips, let me explain: It is because my work is being interfered with, nothing more.

For this is what men do; work in many ways defines us. Though the interruption is temporary, it is not tolerated. A cold is often cursed for daring to detract from our noble cause.

Let no one be mistaken: a cold is nothing to a man.

Nothing at all

 

Christopher K Wallace

©2017 all rights reserved

ckwallace.com

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CAUGHT IN A RAT RACE?

Feeling like you’re stuck in a rut? More rodent metaphor: like you’re on a hamster wheel spinning too fast to jump off. Spending part of your time wound up like a cornered rat who jumps straight at an attacker before running away? Are you like most November vermin, coming in from the cold looking for free food and lodging to survive winter?

I like to catch and kill rats, not feel like I’m in a race for survival with other rats where my chances are slim.  Like these dead fuckers in my traps.

But I have indeed felt this way for some time now. Caught in a race, and not one of my choosing. You see, this is a post about reinvention. Mine, yours, anyone’s.

EVENTUALITIES
I thought I was doing well in the newspaper industry. Despite its faults, it’s a product I could get fully behind because in many ways it matched my values. The idea of informing a voting public about the executive, judicial and legislative aspects of gov’t so they could make informed decisions at the voting booth seemed like worthwhile. Though I could see the corporate influence eroding its power under a concentration of newspaper ownership, it was still idealistic at its core. It is still necessary for democracy.

After running a team, I managed to rise to Canadian senior vice president of the largest paid sales subscription service in North America. With over one hundred reps and a dozen managers spread over seven cities to mentor (some of whom helped train me), it was a job I loved. My intention was to sail into the sunset on its low six-figure compensation.

Things didn’t work out. After the last big recession, advertisers migrated online, and the papers lost their financial base. By 2015, they’d shrunk even more and become desperate. The public turned away from the format, unwilling to recycle something that purports to cut down trees, nor sacrifice the convenience of digital news on demand.

I’d had a little boy in 2013, a child to add to my daughter, born in 2011. The boy had medical problems. Just as I contemplated moving to Chicago to take on a market and replicate a large and successful campaign we’d managed in Los Angeles, the medical insurance alone meant I had to turn it down. Regrettably, all this left me no option but to look elsewhere for work.

DEAD-ENDS
The energy business in Ontario had become appealing once again as the provincial government added 50 billion in spending on renewables, a cost borne by ratepayers. With a legislative majority in charge, locking in electricity prices in the face of steady increases made sense for my business customers. It helped me get out of the newspaper business, and after a couple of years, I was doing well. But there was little room for developing the kinds of teams which characterized my role in anything I’ve ever done. I’m a builder, first and foremost.

Added to this, in time a change of government stopped adding costs to the operation of the electrical grid and the public expected a roll back of pricing. Regulators also tightened up the consulting side of things with new policies. The company used this to justify cutting CPA compensation in half.  Instead of taking any of this seriously, they demanded people “do whatever it takes” to be successful. Suddenly, I saw a high turnover of reps, led by an echo chamber of managers who were little more than Machiavellian opportunists.

When I broached the idea that the kind of pressure the company is putting on sales with such dubious fundamentals was bound to attract martyrs (high conscientiousness, people pleasers) and personality disorders (narcissists, psychopaths, etc.) the company CEO’s flippant response was “we all have a personality disorder.” Well no. We don’t.

So here I am, sixty-years old, about to reinvent myself once more. I have a young wife and two small children. Times like this are perfect to really take stock and try to get it right. Rather than consider this a trial, it’s a blessing. I’ll tell you why.

BLESSINGS
First off, Corrie put me onto The Boy Crisis a few months back, and I finally got around to reading it. In it, there are 55 ways dads contribute immensely to a child’s life. In fact, it’s better to have a mom and dad in the home, but if you could choose only one, the studies say the kids are better off with dad. I can’t tell you what a shot in the arm this has been.

I wish I knew earlier because I tease missus I’m the baby whisperer. When my daughter was a born, she was difficult to put to sleep. No one had her number like I did. Not her mom, not her favourite auntie. Give the child to her dad and I’d put her out in no time.

Around the house, I noticed I was much better getting the kids to pick up their toys, help with chores and at settling disputes. I was excellent at getting them to eat, put to bed, and a myriad of other ways necessary for effective parenting. Yet, I felt a little sheepish about it and I know why. I had bought into the stereotype that “mommy knows best.” Truth is, sometimes she does, especially when the kids are sick, spotting it days before I do. Almost everywhere else, I’m ahead.

Ideally, it takes two parents to raise a kid, so her contribution is huge. Mine is too.

For example, I’ve been cooking some meals. We eat healthier when I take care of supper. My boy has a collapsing trachea and was on 70% liquid diet. In a few weeks, I have him on 90% solid food. I’ve even gotten him to use a fork the odd time—the little savage. My daughter is excelling at school in two languages. We get to speak French together, so it’s like a secret communication between us no one else in the house can understand for now. Pretty cool.

I’ve been the advisor to men for many years. I used to be a counsellor, but that freaks guys out. Then I called myself a coach, now everyone’s a coach. So, I’m an advisor—takes the pressure off us both. But ever since I graduated first in my class in the behavioural sciences, I like doing it no more than half of my time. Anything more burns me out. This keeps me fresh.

PURPOSE
As some of you know, I’ve solved the riddle of addiction. On top of that, there’s a few other key teachings which benefit men I’ve found, especially with personal relationships, parenting, and managing life in general. I’d like to get my message out somehow to larger audiences. I think every man should be in a continuous growth process. It’s why I figure the best deal for men is in a low-cost monthly mastermind like Board of Directors or something like it.

Outside of being a dad, nothing is more satisfying that when a man tells you the work we did together changed his life. I’d do it for free because I can, but without skin in the game, it’s not as effective. People should pay something for value so that they value it more. I’m a bargain they tell me, though, I wouldn’t know and part of me says it’s not for me to decide.

So, at my age, I’m going to take a real estate license. I think it might be just the way for me to go. I’m a hustler—meaning I’m not afraid of work—and I’m good with people. I act diligently as their champions, so selling houses and businesses should be up my alley. I once had a real estate license in the early 1990s but let it go. I’m familiar with its basics.

Missus is doing photoshoots on the weekends and cleaning houses for cash during the week. I admire a gal who can roll up her sleeves and get to work. Financially, we’re fine but she likes to stay busy now that the kids are both in school. I’m happy to have time in front of the computer during the day. Maybe I can write those two books waiting for me.

All this to show that no matter what age, a reinvention of self should be the norm, and not in any way something to fear or worry about. I’m excited about it. I’m encouraged I’ll be able to choose who I work with and who I don’t. I know real estate has its share of the unscrupulous. I intend being the best I can be.

I’m telling you all this so that if you find yourself wondering if you should stay or go in whatever work you’re in now, know that you can and will reinvent yourself. I suppose you could say I’m trying to inspire you, by showing you there are smaller versions of Colonel Sanders happening all around you. He didn’t go anywhere in life until his late fifties.

We never lose the ability to be something else. When we played cops and robbers, doctors and nurses and monsters and whatever else as children, we were those characters. Self-concept is destiny. How I see myself measured up against how I believe others see me is a key driver of human activity.\

LISTEN AND FLOW
And that’s the thing. Like acting, reinventing your life and self-concept is always possible. Circumstances often force your hand, and sometimes you decide to play cards you weren’t sure you even had. As you know, a man who finds his power and uses it in service of himself and others will find a life of meaning. It is here where his freedom lies.

To this end, I’ve spent a few weeks listening to my body. I’ve spent some time in tune with my chain of being, paying attention to interoception—the messages sent to my brain by the body—and decoding its consequential thoughts. Thoughts are reflections of the body.

It’s through this examination I’ve been able to find my way forward. You may have heard me say I suspect what lies locked away in your body by way of epigenetic methyl groups passed along from your ancestry, and the totality of emotional states from your life’s history, constitutes your soul.

Indeed, they call this process soul-searching for good reason. If you find yourself similarly challenged, try going within, understanding the answers are in your body. Move, move more, and move more again. The chances are revelations will appear as you sweat, while exerting yourself. Or soon after, quietly calling forth influences of distant lineages, as answers begin appearing as ethereal whispers. And you will know.

The body is the universal address of your existence. It is there, where ancestral past meets feelings carried from experience, where being calls for full expression of passions and talents, fully engaged, content and focused, where you stop time. This is your zone. The more I search for it, the more I find my flow. You can too.

It was Horace Mann who said:

“Be ashamed to die until you have scored a victory for mankind.”

Life has a purpose for us all. We cannot seek to question its wisdom in ultimate deceit. The gift of our humanity is in the way we rise to create order from chaos. We must not ask what we shall receive. We only seek to answer how to use the gift of this life, so we may repay what we owe.

Where shall you find victory my brother?

Where shall you find freedom?

Stay powerful,

© CKWallace Nov, 2018 all rights reserved

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QUALITY RELATIONSHIPS

It’s true what they say: The quality of your life is measured by the quality of your relationships.

Most of us are lucky if we can count on one hand the people we consider close enough to confide in, to turn to in times of turmoil and trouble. Even, to be able to say “I love you,” to someone, be they man, woman or child.

Or, just to check in and connect, somehow, on some level, to let others know you exist while recognizing they exist too. And I’m not even speaking about only being able to tolerate someone else’s company. Or liking them.

Liking a person is kind of important if you’re going to consider them a friend. You think? I bet we’ve all had friends at some point we didn’t care for, people we really didn’t like.

One of our brothers tonight called to say his dog passed away. It was an honour to take his call.

Thirteen years he watched over his friend. It was a runt from a champion line, but because of a heart murmur, it was going to be put down. My friend rescued the little pooch.

He spent ten grand getting her a heart operation way back in the early days. At six months it was attacked by big mean dog and had to have 18 stitches, undergone without complaint. All her teeth had been removed…

And today, bringing her into the vet to see if there was anything he could do to make her more comfortable, she waited patiently in his arms in a room.

He looked at her, she looked at him, she closed her eyes.

She was gone. Just like that. As if, “thanks boss, but I’m 95 in people years and we’ve had a great life together. Goodbye.”

His daughter is 21 today. Most of her remembered life this little dog was part of it. As her father, this rough-around-the-edges son-of-a-gangster won’t tell her now. Not on her birthday. He’ll wait and tell her later in the week in person. He’s like that now, a man. He wasn’t always.

And that’s the thing about life and love. We may start out with not a lot of it in our heart but if we give it time, if we allow it for ourselves and others, it will find us.

They say there are three levels. One is “what can you give me” type love. It’s Janet Jackson singing “what have you done for me lately” while shaking her ass. Fuck off.

Two is a trading relationship. We trade with others all the time.

You tailor my suit coat for a hundred bucks, saving me from throwing out a perfectly good suit jacket I had made in Hamilton by Bruno the Tailor in ’89, and we’re good. Do it right and I’m happy, you’re happy.

But is that love? I don’t think so. Yet, many of us have only a trading relationship to come home to every day. And that’s the thing, you see: It’s not quality.

It’s why my gruff friend, as hard as any guy, grieved today. Because his little dog gave him nothing but level three: unconditional love. The dog made itself belong to my friend, unquestionably, irrevocably, and loved him even on days where my friend may have been unable to love her back.

It’s part of a man’s DNA to take care of others. If he does it or not is another thing. It’s not enough to call yourself a man because you produce more than you consume, so there’s extra to go around. It’s bigger, much deeper than that.

I once knew a fella whose background was the Irish Mob in Canada. Eastern Canada based, he worked out west. I think it was mostly because all the guys above him had been whacked.

Those Montreal Irish, The West End Gang, purportedly connected to the IRA guys back home, scared the shit out of the bikers and the mob most days. They made Montreal bank robbery capital for many years. Forced the Canadian Bankers’ Association to undertake drastic changes in their procedures.

I noticed he always had a small dog with him. Little thing, probably a Bichon/Poodle mix or something. One day, I asked him, “Hey George, no disrespect or anything (respect is big with goodfellas, like a fucking religion), but why is it I see you with such a small dog all the time?”.

Fucker looks at me quickly, stares me in the eyes. I brace myself just a tiny bit. Suddenly, he softens a fraction and says to me matter-of-factly, “Because little dogs need protection too.” His eyes held mine for a moment and he looked, well, very human. Obviously, I accepted his answer.

In fact, I thought it was the best response ever. Sure shut me up, and no, I didn’t probe further. I knew there was something more to it but it wasn’t the time. What else could I say?

My friend today telling me about his little dog filled in a bit more about what George meant. See, my friend told me he grieved more today for this little dog than for his own mother and father when they passed.

More pain than the death of his mother or the death of his father?? Is that a sin of some kind? Maybe.

It’s just both guys had experienced little in the way of unconditional love in their lifetimes. Yet, their humanity, surrounded by a fortress of protection learned in a lifetime of pain, was there, mostly hidden, but intact.

It just took one little dog to bring it out.

In the quiet moments away from others, the loyal pooch and master found and celebrated what was important.

Not sad at all, I say. More like, hopeful. It’s a reminder to recognize pure love when we see it and know it’s real.

Because there lies the real power in life. If we are not standing up for good, we can’t even call ourselves neutral. Because good is love, and love is what counts. Indeed, it is love which is powerful.

Today, I salute all men and their dogs, big or small. Condolences to all of us who have lost a beloved pet. They are like family, perhaps even more. Man’s best friend is also a bridge to what is best in a man.

Find it early or find it late, we must all find love.

Rest in Peace Trixie. 2005 – 2018

Thank you.

Stay powerful gentleman,

CW

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The Zone of Happiness

This week as I traveled about, visiting the lives of others along the way both online and in-person, I was struck by a few things I’d like to share with you. Specifically, I want to talk about narrowing thinking and how it lies at the crux of the best of human experience.

When I think of those times in my life when I was firing on all cylinders, it’s when I’ve been able to focus at such a deep level my total being was engaged in living in the moment. It’s when the distractions of my surroundings are inconsequential to what’s before me. It’s when time seems stands still.

I’m not sure if you know what I mean, but if you think back, you’ll quickly remember a scene from your history where you were so engrossed in what you were doing that all else didn’t matter. I wonder if you realize it’s at these moments when we are at our happiest.

Let me qualify that statement.  I surely don’t mean a form of bliss where we are like Snoopy just grooving to Schroeder’s piano. Though this is sometimes a part of it, it’s by no means the template against which we should judge our affective experience in these circumstances.

What I mean by happiest is more like we are blissfully unaware of feeling at all. At least, the tyranny of emotion is lost for the moment, and we leave behind all feelings of inadequacy. Our usual level of vigilance changes, but it’s not that we let our guard down. No. It’s because something else takes over.

That something is a feeling of almost limitless power, or better, power being expressed at the limits of our abilities. This is when we hit a zone, or our zone, and whether we hit it accidentally or on purpose doesn’t matter. What counts here is a condition which lies at the pinnacle of human expression. It’s as if we know it’s where we belong, a place where good things, sometimes great things, happen.

It’s a serious manifestation of our gifts coming together all at once, without being aware of limits or constraints which might cast doubt upon our competence. It’s more than confidence because it’s a blend of the mental and the physical, a symbiosis, the meaningful whole of an action. It’s the Gestalt.

Practice, Focus and the Impossible

The quick and easy way to hit zones is to practice over and over so new competence is ingrained in the cerebellum, like never forgetting to ride a bike once learned. Being able to shut out distractions is next, narrowing down focus to what is before you, so time is lived second by second, or not noticed at all.

When the first two conditions are met, the longer you linger there, the more chance you have of hitting the heretofore impossible. That’s when you stretch, using your powers of concentration and emotional equilibrium to push the boundaries of your skills. It’s a time when we truly get out of our own way, allowing whatever talent we have to sing fully, to express itself at its peak and beyond.

I’d sometimes get like this after a few years of shooting snooker. In my best games, I wouldn’t even notice my surroundings except for how they were needed to play the game. It didn’t matter who was watching, or what my opponent did. My eyes were on the green table cloth and the balls. My whole body and mind was an extension of the cue and cue ball and I could make that ball do my bidding without regard to limits. I’d control the game in a way far above my normal play.

I say the zone is also when we feel most alive. The connection between our existence and the world around us blends seamlessly, acting as one, without boundaries and without fear or need to explain. We are poetry in motion. We are the poet.

It’s as if we are nodding to the Universe, acknowledging its wisdom in choosing us, in bestowing a chance at life to this very being. It’s when we are fulfilling our promise, the pact we have with life itself.

Cheating the Zone

Sadly, I don’t think we get enough of it. And the peace and power derived from visiting our zone has such appeal that we often try to recreate its essence in other ways. Unfortunately, these are often maladaptive, poor substitutes for the real thing causing more harm than good. What lies at the heart of these coping mechanisms is the desire to narrow thinking, to thin out the complexities of life and simplify what occupies the mind.

Drink a few beers or haul on a joint and watch your thinking narrow accordingly. You’re in some kind of zone alright, but it’s not a celebration of your personal power. It’s a artificial hijacking of your sympathetic system, putting your physiology into a fear state to narrow your focus to escape danger. Whereas the real zone slows your heartbeat and focuses your power, this effect increases the heartrate and scatters your competence.

And it works—soon all your thinking of is pizza, or pussy, or fighting. Or you have slowed your body down, frozen, like a deer standing on the road staring at headlights. Or the rabbit you see on the neighbours lawn, immobilized, heart beating as fast as a snare drum, hoping it blends in.

For some, TV, food, porn, gambling, cigarettes, shopping all have the same capacity to narrow focus artificially, from an external view but without engaging the internal power and talent which exists in all of us. The suicidal try to do the same thing, narrowing their thinking down so effectively to escape the pain of life until, tragically, their options run out.

External vs Internal

The eyes see out, I like to say. So much of what we do is triggered by what the eyes can take in. Like all of our gifts, sometimes our qualities can become faults. Too often we see and respond without considering what we really seek. We all need to narrow our focus, to feel alive and celebrate our gifts in the moment. Too often we seek to do this by taking a pill of some kind, by relying on the environmental, the external solution to what really can only be solved internally.

You might expect I’ll speak now of finding more adaptive ways of narrowing thinking, of recognizing it’s draw as a fundamental expression, and encouraging you to make better choices. But here’s what I was taken with this week:

Turns out we don’t need 10,000 hours to become competent at something. See, the way I just wrote that represents the impression I took from reading Malcolm Gladwell’s famous missive about learning a new skill. It’s my own nonsense and represents the way I, along with most people I know, have misinterpreted the commitment he writes about. He’s talking about elite level mastery, world class level competence.

Old Dogs, New Tricks

In a TedX talk I watched this week, Josh Kaufman talks about researching Gladwell’s misunderstood recommendation and finding it takes around 20 hours to learn a new skill adequately. Of course, I thought when I watched him, I’ve learned plenty of things in less than 10,000 hours! Kaufman breaks it down further, suggesting just 45 minutes a day for about a month will do the trick. This is a refreshing antidote to the Gladwellian notion that it takes 5 years of hard slogging to achieve respectable competence at something.

I have 20 hours. 10,000? Not so much.

In just under an hour per day for a month, you could learn a reasonable amount about something or get good enough at something to then decide if you wanted to learn more! Piano enough to play Fur Elise, a language well enough to visit a foreign country, how to weld so you can make… anything. It just goes on.

Well, there are twelve months in a year, and how many in a lifetime? If average lifespan is 80 and we take just 50 of those years as potential months of learning, that’s 600 months of opportunity. Or 600 new skills we could potentially get good enough at in our lifetime.

Oh my, where have all my excuses gone now?

I was thinking about this when one of the guys in my men’s group told us a family friend killed himself on Tuesday. Booze was a big contributing factor. These are always tragic. People will say the suicidal was selfishly passing their pain on to the living. It’s possible. Though suicidal people who have lived through attempts tell us they thought they were doing everyone a favour. There are no good answers.

Fear Works: Just Not Well

Every day I run into folks who are affected by this scourge—attempting to narrow thinking by taking short cuts—using drugs and alcohol to kickstart adrenaline and cortisol in their system, not realizing that this IS their addiction. It’s not so much the booze or drugs, it’s these fear hormones which create an emotional state providing relief from the complexity of their existence.  While in fear, your focus is on survival, a much simpler scope, aimed at satisfying much baser needs.

And food and porn and gambling all do the same thing to a degree, using intermittent reinforcement to distract and narrow focus, attempting to gain a reward by way of a shortcut. Our eyes see out. But it’s here where the maladaptive breaks down: it’s like a dog chasing its tail. We never quite catch up.

And we don’t grow. Confidence wanes further for there is no competence in these.

There are no new skills to be found in that box of donuts, the next six pack of booze, the next shopping spree at the mall or the hardware store, the next pack of smokes or cannabis dispensary. You could argue there are skills to learn from the next porn clip you watch but that really depends how long you’ve been watching, doesn’t it?

The Search

What if we all realized this is what we were trying to do: narrow thinking. It’s our natural way of shutting out all the noise. Done right, it’s escapism with benefits. And it represents the only true way of meeting the need to live fully engrossed in the moment.

All sorts of things are like this. Watch any teenager who has mastered a video game at a high level. They get into a zone and if there wasn’t a clock on the screen and levels, they’d make time stand still. Look at their eyes, and they never leave the monitor. A friend of mine use to fly fish with such concentration that rather than go ashore to take a piss, he’d let it go in his neoprene waders and rinse them out later.

Neither of these extremes will kill you. Some of the other ways we narrow thinking can and will.  Yesterday I came home from a rather challenging week. Though I’m grateful to find myself alive every morning, I’m no more inured to the pain of life than anyone else.

Rather than go blow my mind with dope or booze, I instead sought ways to just calm myself and heal. Oh, I know there’s still pot kicking around here somewhere. And the beer store is a few blocks away. Heck, I could swallow a few Percocet, bumping up my eighth of a tablet dosage to two or three full tabs and I’d be nodding in no time.

And these would have left me hung over this morning, feeling dissonance for having compromised my pact with nature, knowing I was ungrateful for the life I have been lucky enough to win. These would have eroded my confidence, which in turn, would affect my competence. If I still drank I’d be sipping on fear and pissing out confidence. Hard earned confidence. This is the truth.

And that’s what meditation is for. No wonder it’s so popular. Even if you don’t meditate, a walk will narrow thinking just as well. Ten burpees is a pretty good reset. A run will kill off any anxiety attack. Perhaps I’m at an advantage because I have a slew of cognitive behavioural strategies I can implement to narrow my thinking. Well, these have come with practice. I also slept very well last night, something I had to practice. We build character, no one hands it to us.

Come to think of it, I had to learn to drink in a dysfunctional way too. In fact, I worked hard at it over time, just as I did with the rest of it, from dope smoking to heroin use. Gees, it took me years just to learn how to roll a joint. Cocaine definitely took some getting used to—fed my paranoia. I puked my guts out first time I did heroin.  All of these things took concentration and trial and error before I could successfully use them to… narrow focus.

When measured up against all these, it’s actually easier to learn to narrow thinking internally, by far.

Think of those times when you entered into a zone of competence, and remember how good that felt.

These days, when things get to me and I feel like I need a break, knowing the secret, the real impetus of my condition, that what really begs my attention is just to narrow my focus, I have other choices.

And in a month, looks like I might just have one more.

You could too.

CHRISTOPHER K. WALLACE

Advisor to Men, Counsellor at Large
at ckwallace.com

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Kaufman’s TedX talk: