The upside of feeling down about yourself

Health is the force multiplier of all of our other attributes.

It’s the catalyst that drives us to fulfill our potential, the fuel that enables us to engage the rest of ourselves and the constructive force that propels our life forward.

And if we’re willing to take care of ourselves without guilt or blame or justification, then the daily momentum of all those healthy actions will build the foundation from which everything else grows.

The problem is, becoming healthy is not only a lot of work, but it won’t happen in a linear or tidy fashion. In fact, things will mostly likely have to get worse before they get better.

Here are a few questions that have been helpful in transforming my own health journey.

What part of your life has formed a critical mass of toxicity?

Are there any unhealthy habits that you are so disgusted at and shameful of, that you simply can’t stand anymore?

It’s a harsh line of inquiry, but it’s also a powerful starting point. After all, disgust is highly primitive and powerful emotion.

Think about cavemen. Disgust led to aversion. If somebody tried eating a potential food source and instantly started to vomit blood, they walked away from it. Over time, that reaction became evolutionarily advantageous for our species. It protected us from poisonous substances, food or otherwise.

Fast forward to modern times, and the same experience of disgust still applies.

But it’s not only around food, but anything that is potentially hazardous to our health.

Reminds me of the day my longtime addiction to soda finally ended. Out of nowhere one morning, my ritual breakfast pop suddenly tasted like carbonated cough syrup. It was simply repulsive. Not only in the moment, but also in the past.

Started thinking to myself, wow, how could you have sucked back three cans of this swill every single day?

My life now feels healthier as a result. All because of that one moment of disgust. For which I am eternally grateful.

Look, there is no such thing as perfect health. We’re all broken and struggling in some way.

But the healthier we are, the more of our other abilities we can tap into and use, and the more of an impact we can have on the world around us. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What are you going to give up to become healthier?

Seeing isn’t believing, it’s conceiving

According to the rules of quantum mechanics, any given particle’s behavior changes depending on whether there is an observer.

Researchers clinically proved that reality does not exist if we are not looking at it.

Now, this marvel of nature primarily applies to the atomic scale. But as a thought experiment, let’s consider the interpersonal application of this idea.

What if being seen is precisely what brings people into existence? What if creating acts of visibility in moments of anonymity is the very thing keeping our species alive? What if, without our chaotic and celestial collision between each other, we are all just trees in the forest that nobody hears?

Perhaps the world truly is a mirror, in that we are nothing until we look at each other.

A few years after my nametag experiment began, there was also random of kindness project whose core mission was to instigate social change by giving homeless people nametags.

Chad, the founder, said that he was inspired one evening while overhearing the name of a local homeless name. Once he learned that information, he stopped looking at that man as a panhandler, but a person that he wanted to know more about and help.

And so, he wondered if that experience could work on a larger scale. If he could bring more people into existence, simply by helping them get seen.

Now, originally, his idea was to distribute thousands of giant nametags to local homeless people over the course of one weekend. He thought it would be great if the homeless started a movement, or an uprising, where every street corner would be occupied by people holding up a sign, demanding that they be seen as human beings and not trash.

After months of mostly positive meetings with local homeless organizations to help with the distribution of signs, a unified effort proved to be impossible. But rather than let this idea die, he thought it could even have more impact if he distributed nametags to hundreds of photographers around the world and let them photograph homeless people in their community, and then compile the images for a website, a traveling photo exhibition, various public awareness campaigns, a book and a several coveted socially responsible advertising awards.

Chad’s nametags gave people no choice but to see and be seen. Formerly invisible people were brought into existence.

Funny, that was my exact same experience on day one of wearing a nametag twenty years ago, and every day since then.

It’s actual magic.

When we introduce the chance to be observed into the interpersonal occasion, life is created.

Because seeing isn’t believing, it’s conceiving. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
How do you cope with the fact that most of life has no witness?

There is no us and them, only one universal we

Wearing nametags in foreign countries is an exciting experience.

Having traveled around the world to a plethora of cities, it never ceases to amaze me just how easily and quickly a nametag builds bridges to people who don’t speak my language.

Forgive my grandiosity, but the sticker always seems to be this icon of peace, gesture of hospitality and a translator in the global dialect of humanity.

Because everybody knows what a nametag is, even if they don’t know what it says.

Korean culture, for example, tends to be intensely hierarchical, formal and collectivist. Especially when it comes to people’s names.

But during my travels to that country, we paid close attention to the type of nametags people wore.

Starbucks, we discovered, actually encourages employees in that country to use nicknames as a friendly practice. Turns out, these fun monikers are preferred over formal names, which can often be quite long and difficult for customers to pronounce. According an interview with the coffee store’s public relations manager:

The horizontal name culture creates a more natural environment for their employees. It’s part of an evolving culture that considers everyone. Nicknames on employee badges avoids the small awkwardness of customers saying hey or excuse me. 

Who knew nametags could introduce such a refreshing sense of egalitarianism?

That’s quite a victory in a socialist state.

But it’s a lesson for any businessperson. Nametags or otherwise, let’s find ways to allow people to stop viewing each other as separate category of person, and start seeing each other as members of the same family.

Because language barriers notwithstanding, there is no us and them, there is only one universal we. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What do you see when you see people?

Where the wounds are, the gift lies

Camus once wrote that we are just biological matter spinning senselessly on a tiny rock in a corner of an indifferent universe.

Which is true, but while our biological conditions are not our fault, they’re still our problem. We all have a responsibility to deal with whatever spell has been cast upon us.

Maybe be grateful for it. Maybe even use it to our advantage. Maybe even use it to create value for others.

Rumi said that the wound is the place where the light enters us, and so, perhaps the highest gift we have to offer the world is born of the very wounds we have received.

Here’s a compelling question to get your head in a new kind of direction.

How are you using your pain in a way that benefits others?

Because odds are, whatever torment you went through, it’s not unique, it’s not too gorgeous to be taken seriously, and it’s not something you can’t redirect into a useful form of service.

Refocused and channeled, it can become a weapon and not a liability.

For starters, think about the aspects of your circumstances that could be viewed as a gift to be treasured. See if you can express gratitude for the very thing that caused the original wound.

Sure, this is no easy task. Especially if you have not given yourself the dignity of grieving your wounds in the first place. Hell, it’s hard to talk about the part of you that’s still bleeding.

But then again, you do help lift the curse by naming the demons first. Might be worth it.

At that point, you shouldn’t need to look very far to find ways to metabolize your pain into purpose. Because you must know at least one person who will find peace in your story. One person who might benefit from the insights, perspectives and lessons attached to it.

When was the last time you spoke with them? Think they might like to hear from you?

Look, where the wounds are, the gift lies.

Your faded scars and past turmoil might be the ticket to helping others who are spinning senselessly on this tiny rock. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What if a wounded soul, broken heart and scrambled mind became a superpower?

The Twelve Dirty Words of 2020

Carlin’s list of seven dirty words you can never say on television famously received a citation from the federal government.

The supreme court upheld that those words were the ones that would infect our soul, curve our spine and keep the country from winning the war.

And yet, there are so many other words out there that inflict far more damage than a harmless term like piss.

Today we’re going to explore a dozen of them. Twelve particular pieces of language that have personally caused me a disproportionate amount of suffering. Each one will be paired with one question that challenges you to think about the degree to which that word might be causing you distress.

1. Deserve. Are you constantly keeping count of you feel you’re entitled to?

2. Fair. When did you start believing that cosmic justice revolved around you?

3. Expect. What is your ego clinging to that you vehemently refuse to let go of?

4. Demand. Does manipulating life into granting you all of your desires actually work?

5. Must. Are you escalating your normal wishes and preferences into absolutistic desires?

6. Earn. How would your stress level be different if you believed that the labor was reward enough?

7. Insist. Which dream are you destroying by requiring it be fulfilled instantly?

8. Right. Do you get trapped in thoughts about what should be coming to you?

9. Have. Does manipulating the world to coincide as nearly as possible with what you think you should have?

10. Owe. What good fortune do you already have that you’re taking for granted?

11. Entitled. Are you conscious about what you have established as expectations for yourself?

12. Should. What is your dominate emotion when things don’t turn out exactly how you hoped?

Each of these twelve words points to the same thing.

Buddhists actually have a word for it. Upadana means attachment, clinging and grasping.

It’s the first noble truth, and the primary source of suffering in the world.

And once we learn to let it go, not even the supreme court can keep us down. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What dirty words might be infecting your soul?

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