From One Release To The Next

One of the cool things about teaching LMI’s RPM is that there are four releases each year at the start of each season. We get the music, learn it and then teach it for 3 weeks before mixing older tracks back in. Getting the music every 3 months changes the instructing work flow enough to have each release feel like a distinct period of time, unique and memorable. I like this because it causes me to stop and consider what I was doing during when I was learning a previous release.
I take particular pause at the revelations that I’ve had between release 50 and 51.

  1. It takes time to recover and heal from big changes in life. Certain parts of the recovery will be quick, others will seem like they have occurred only to pop-up again.
  2. The way I have been living my life is unsustainable because it no longer represents the manifestation of who I am – I’ve changed a lot since I dreamed my dream so I need to dream another one that reflects my present wishes and entitlements.
  3. I do not take action quickly and actions make me feel better. Almost any action makes me feel better. It really doesn’t matter what it is so long as it stops me from sitting there thinking about stuff that I can’t control, can’t know and can’t possibly care about.
  4. You don’t have to enjoy what you are doing in order to be doing something purposeful. You just have to be doing what you set out to do.
  5. Do the small things quickly, buy the convenience items, find out what is stopping you from letting go and take care of it. Letting go from time to time is important.
  6. There can be a lot of changes in three months, but if I look closely, the signs of change were there for a while. There are few surprises when I’m willing to take a long honest look at myself.

Bring on 52!

Tough Question To Not Have An Answer For

About a month ago Sharon asked me what I liked doing. Simple enough question but I could only reply with “riding my bike” which isn’t the best answer to give someone who has a rich social life, an infectious personality that brings people up and a sense of humor that is broadcasting and wildly funny!

My answer was not what was expected, or maybe wanted, but it was the truth and as soon as it left my month I had a suspicion that something very significant had happened. I think my answer obliterated the understanding Sharon had of me because what she’s known of me has been fun, activity based stuff and a genuine passion for doing whatever. When I replied with biking all of that other stuff got whitewashed and we were left with one very interesting and dynamic person and one introverted self-isolationist, looking at each other with two bewildered and slightly silly looks on our faces. From here there were two directions to go and so we each took a separate path away from each other. Mine was a path away from the present me who didn’t know what they liked doing towards the person I used to be before I let me drift away.

My answer was as embarrassing as it was revealing. Who had I become, and why? And why don’t I know what I like doing? Why is riding my bike the only thing that I was able to muster when asked about it? Who was I being when I answered her question? How had I become this person?

Well, I caught a break sort of. I got a concussion a couple of days later and the doctor suggested that I take a couple of weeks off of thinking too hard about anything. The truth was, I didn’t have a choice, I wasn’t able to function normally. The concussion drove me down to the pits of despair, as they can do. I was lost. In my diminished state of function I wasn’t able to see anything in my future and, worse, I didn’t see anything in my past. And my present had me sitting on there, head in hands, pit in my stomach, confused, scared and in serious need of something of purpose.

I was beginning to see that I was still in recovery from a number of relationships and hadn’t actually let any of it go and I didn’t know what I liked doing because I have either been in a relationship or in the end of a relationship for years the last 5 years. I hadn’t let it go so I was still acting the same way as I used to. I was still thinking the same way too which meant that I hadn’t started to re-expand my interests to find my own passions again. When Sharon asked I wasn’t going to say that because I didn’t realize it, but as I sat there I knew I had missed the moment to live in the present. I had on some level made the decision to substitute thinking about the past for actually doing something. Given that the brain rewards itself each time it makes a correct guess, and given that I wasn’t engaging the physical world, I had no difficulty manufacturing the information I needed to not more forward in life.

I was living in the past and as each day passed, I was living further and further in past. Each moment saw me becoming more and more detached from the present reality. I was fully committed to whatever it was I was creating and I was really good at it! This manufactured suffering became a habit and I needed to get away from it so I rode.

The purpose of the bike riding was escape, then aesthetics, then training. This leads to me riding too much and getting less than optimal training effect. I’m also prone to burn-out and fatigue. But it’s the opportunity cost of riding so much that made the answer to Sharon’s question so lame – I don’t do very much else for fun because I have been using cycling as a way to escape something. I had stopped doing almost all of the things that I used to enjoy and spend this time pushing my body to the limit first to forget, then to look lean and finally to ride faster. So this means, in one way, that I haven’t even been riding my bike for fun either.

On that day when she asked, the completely honest answer is that I don’t like doing anything. I do one thing a lot but not for fun. I do it to escape which I’ve labeled fun.

Hmmm…..so I’ve set out to find what I like doing so that I can, by the end of the summer, write a better blog about it.

Closure Begets “Closure”

For a very long time I have struggled with closure when it comes to past relationships. I thought I had a handle on it, it’s the feeling you get after a relationship has ended when you no longer think about the person, the relationship you held and no longer wish for the future you believed you would share with the person. This understanding seemed to cover it for a very long time, I just thought that I wasn’t very good at it. Closure was just a skill that I was deficit in.

But that’s really silly when I stop and think about it. There isn’t such a thing as closure. There’s “closure” but that’s a concept, talking point, mental state about which people talk like they have a common understanding of what it means. But I don’t think I have the same understanding of closure as a number of my friends, clients and even members of my family.

The state of mind “closure” is the “not really thinking about it in a negatively influential sort of way” that I always understood it to be. There’s mostly agreement about this.

Closure, or the action we take that allows us to reach the closure state of mind, is decisive action to commit to a different future that is based on a logical analysis of all the information available. It is decisive because you run through a check list of all the concerns, eliminating them one by one until there is no reason left NOT to commit to the new future. The doubt is eliminated by this thorough examination of the facts as you know them. If at some point in the future you were to question the decision, you can be confident that you don’t have to be concerned because you performed your due diligence. You’ll adapt and change based on new information, but you don’t need to think about it again unless you get new information. This is the process by which we get closure and achieve the closure state of mind.

When I chuck this realization into my brain and let it do battle with my world view, there is an exciting feeling that builds right where my unconscious mind materializes as awareness. The sense is that of a lightening of mind, a freedom, like I’m suddenly able to run again, and as I do, useless pieces of me are burning off and that helps me run faster. It’s like I’m escaping the gravity of something that was dark and I’m off into an open expanse of nothingness.

For the more scientifically minded, it’s like the mental energy that was being sapped by continuing to think about things that had not been properly analyzed and actioned on is now available for other tasks and this is experienced as a boost in brain processing efficiency.

The consequences of this are pretty cool. First off, you get to stop thinking about stuff that you shouldn’t have been thinking about anyway. Second, you get to feel better because you aren’t thinking or agonizing about this stuff. Finally, you are smarter in a relative sense because you do have more processing capacity, which will improve you concentration, memory, and other executive functions. Lumped together, these represent a huge improvement in the quality of life.

So if you’re stuck on something from the past or have gotten into something now to stop the pain of the past, that a few moments today to write-out the check list as to why you’ve close of that part of your life. You may be surprised to find that a much better quality of life is just one self-dialectic conversation away!

A Note From The Recovery Road

Got a great email from friend the other day. She is one of a group of about 5 people I am fairly close to who ended a long term relationship in the last year – a marriage of more than a decade. Her reply was in response to a message I sent talking about a sense of having forgotten who I was and having very few clear memories of the preceding 6 months. I love what she says, particularly about transition friends can be here today and gone tomorrow. In these times of regrowth, we take was we need from where we can get it. It can come from unexpected places and doing unexpected things.

Yes it sure has been a wild ride for me and I am getting my life back together. You mention the spring, but I think the whole year has been a blur, for me at least! The waterfront trails are amazing and you are more than welcome to drop by. I sent you a few pics last night. I have been there for 2 weeks now.

I know exactly what you mean by losing interest. I went through the same thing. It does come back though. I have had a couple people at work telling me that they think I am sharper at work now. I think your personal life tends to overlay over your professional life even if you don’t want it to. Time does heal and I know what you mean about losing your identity. That is why I am open to new experiences now and this is about self discovery. And I will be going camping for the first time in my life this week end with a girlfriend and her family. I know nothing about it, but I am keeping an open mind. At least I will try it.

There are times when I feel like I need someone and the loneliness comes in, but I can divert myself and when the time is right, I will meet someone. You can’t force it and should not need someone there. But this is when friends can play a big role. And these transition friends may be here today, but not here tomorrow.

Keep your spirits up and keep working on the family business and everything will fall into place like it should. It all works out in the end. Do enjoy your summer and your time outdoors, since it is really short.

Addictive Relationships

In early May Sharon lend me her copy of “I Don’t Want to be Alone: For Men and Women Who Want to Heal Addictive Relationships” by John Lee. She had found the book to very helpful. I read some of it and put it down. At the time it was because I was tired and needed to try and get some sleep, but over the next few weeks seeing the book sitting on the shelf started to nag at me. I told myself that I was too busy to pick it up and last week I gave the book back.

Now that the book is gone, I understand why it was nagging me. I stopped reading it because it was making me uncomfortable. I had been approaching the book from Sharon’s perspective, trying to see and understand how and why the book resonated with her. You get no insight when you read that way because you’ve already made a judgment that taints your ability to experience the lessons yourself. But, as is the way with thought fragments, enough of what was being read made it in and started to make me feel uncomfortable.

And I remember thinking when I was reading it that I could see myself in each of the characters to some degree. Unfortunately, I wasn’t reading the book backwards so any identification with the characters meant that I was relating to them as they were before they uncovered and solved their problems. Oh oh! Better put that book down Pat, if you don’t you’re soon going to find out that you don’t want to be alone; and frankly, are terrified of it. Fortunately Sharon had finished the book and was able to coach me towards having the experiences I needed in order to see this fact.

I fall in love quickly and completely. It is a poets love, consuming, passionate, intense and, sadly, codependent. And as a poet in love, I write and I broadcast out the state of being in love because that’s helps me to feel things. Some of the stuff is great, some of it is good, but most of it is just words typed out to allow me to experience a happy emotion that I think I should share with someone. If these efforts are liked, I do them more until they stop being liked and then become annoying. But I perceive the change in receptiveness as someone checking-out and, since I’m terrified about the prospect of being alone, fear grows, taints my thoughts, and things breakdown rapidly. I’m not fighting for a relationship, I’m fighting for what I feel is my entire identity.

It isn’t a good way to live. Fortunately, Sharon saw it quickly and did what was needed for me to feel the rapid breakdown and identify why it was happening. Now the challenge, addressing the codependency issues that I have been unconsciously expressed for most of my adult life and to move my life to a point were I can want a partner in my life but not need them in order to function. That is my next journey, and I really do owe finally finding the path to Sharon. Thank you Sharon!

The Moment Of Possibility – Where I Go Wrong

I wrote the following on April 25, 2011, 11:21:01 AM.

These are fine moments in life! If there is a time to allow yourself to live in your head it is when you find yourself being liked by someone you like too. Right now before many words are spoken, before many actions are taken, thoughts of the possibilities exist without the constraints of reality. There is nothing now so the only possibility is that of anything. It doesn’t last long. Words will be spoken, actions will be taken, reality will soon introduce something that begins to shape the future by eliminating certain possibilities.

This will happen because that is what happens. One moment becomes another as time rolls on. No matter what becomes of it, it is fun to stop and think about a bunch of things that are not there, yet or never will be.

I dream about a future that does not exist, I float through thoughts of things that are pleasing, exciting, confronting, enjoying them, trying things on to see if they are something I’d like to do. Then, I being to manufacture the circumstances by which I’m  able to make the chosen dreams a reality. Setting-up meetings and making excuses to chat, all the while releasing my mind from my commitments to the old dreams that don’t seem to matter anymore. I change my attitudes, my behaviors, and the way I think about life.

It’s obvious where this was coming from and it’s obvious to me why it doesn’t work very effectively for anything other than creating a muse, and heart ache. It helps me write, it helps me feel like I am alive after feeling dormant and waiting for so long, it does feel like it’s real and like it’s what I’ve been wanting for so long. But it won’t last because it isn’t real. It is fantasy tangent taking me away from that which they know into a world that cannot possibly come true.

It’s a poets love, rooted in make-believe and about to melt down.

Refinding My Passion For RPM

When I first started teaching RPM back in 2007 with release 33 my desire to be the best instructor possible was insane! Even for me, I was single-minded. It was easy to get lost in because it let me work really hard and there was structure to follow and I tend to do better with structure when I’m starting off with something new.

I taught as much as I could and started to get better. I got a little burned out in the first 6 months because I did it so much, but my energy came back when I went down to 2 classes a week. My passion for RPM has stayed pretty high up until about 6-9 months ago when I started to dread it. I taught decent enough classes, but they weren’t really doing much for me. I drifted over to focus on my own cycling classes and released myself from any RPM. I had considered giving it up completely.

In early June release 51 arrived and when I got it I thought about it wondering if I would care enough to learn it as well as I need to. I listened to it, loved track two – Halfway Gone and basically played it over and over again.

A little while after that an instructor friend copied me on a message to a new cycling instructor saying that I loved what I did and may be of some service to him as he finds his way. He has the fire for RPM like I had fire 4 years ago. He’s really driven to improve and be better than he was yesterday. Each day needs to show some improvement and he’s going to the limit to have the experiences he needs to be better. It’s contagious and I caught it!

The last few classes I have taught have been some of my best in the last couple of years! They’ve been a lot of fun, I’ve known the choreography because I’ve heard the songs 100’s of time and the right words and coaching seem to flow out of me spontaneously and with no conscious effort. A few participants have commented that it’s nice to see me back to what I was doing before. The classes were okay before, fun and hard working, but it has been evident that my mind was not completely on-task. This weeks classes have seen me being completely present with the participants, working them, coaching them and leading them again, both in body and in spirit. I’ve really enjoyed the trip back to and rediscovering my one of my passions.

So for me, release 51 has been paired with release 33 as significant and, in many ways, life changing. It’s a wicked release and I’m really looking forward to teaching this week!

Why You Are So Screwed-up – Part 1 Nature

Okay, you aren’t that screwed-up, but you aren’t entirely right are you? Life doesn’t seem to flow the way it does for other people. Everyone else seems to have an easier time with things. Happiness for others is simply a matter of smiling, for you it’s a matter of getting or doing something to be happy about. Success for others is easier too, they just seem to put the time in and everything falls into place while for you, you work and struggle and battle the inertia of mediocrity for months to get the smallest piece of the pie only to find that it’s not apple, it’s made out of liver and dirt and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

But the thing you may be missing is that everyone is you. We all have the same types of struggles as you and we are all prone to make the same mistakes as others. They are suffering life as you are suffering life and they look at you and think the same things you do when you look at them – life is so easy for you while I have to struggle. It’s people, it’s our innate perspective to view us as the center of everything, struggling against all the odds to carve out a tiny piece of happiness, that everyone else is trying to steal.

And as weird and paranoid as all of this may sounds, it is true from an evolutionary and therefore genetic point of view. Your body is running a program, the foundation of which was written during a period of time when the above, based on scarcity, was true. EVERYONE and EVERYTHING was out to take what you had; be it your shelter, your partner, your food, your off-spring or your life. Our ancestors did have to take on this me against the world approach or else they would get killed or not reproduce. Simply put, the paranoid attitude that flows out of us so easily is there because we’ve evolved to have it as our default emotional state.

But this program is antiquated. It hasn’t really been relevant in western society for a long time because of an excess of everything. We have specialization of labor, shelter, and laws so we now have the ability to engage the world in reflective ways vs. immediate or survival terms. Our ability to fire our fight or flight response using thoughts is actually a hindrance in an environment of excess because there is no real need to empower a reactive logic-inhibiting system. The successful happy people spend as little time reacting to their emotions because they understand the role they plays and what they are good for, and what they are really bad at.

What does that mean?

Well, simply put, you need to start using logic or rational thinking more and your emotional system less. Very very simple to say, tough to understand and even tougher to put into practice until you know what it feels like.

What does that look or flow like?

Your actions are direct and goal orientate; something in your environment will change as a result of the decisions your make and the actions you take. This is different from the emotional approach which tends to engender a sense of fear and loss which stirs fear / anger and then action to address these negative feelings as opposed to the trigger. There should be a sense of peace and a feeling of improved momentum – as though you are building up speed and power on a purposeful journey. And your life will get better! Not only will things begin to get easier, but you’ll soon notice that a there are a lot of people in the world who aren’t out to get you or wanting to see you fail. In fact, you will begin to draw in people who take the same logical problem solving approach to their life.

In conclusion to part 1, you are screwed-up because your biology favors you acting in a way that promotes a sense of scarcity and therefore a strong desire to hold onto what you have; even if this means acting in a wildly illogical way. This is because the environment from which our species evolved favored those individuals who possessed this trait – the code that shapes behavior is selfish because it was written when being selfish offered a survival advantage. Part 2 will deal with the nurture aspect of the equation, which we have a lot more control over and which has a much bigger influence on us than foundation program that influences consciousness.

Go Train Confusion

An east bound train pulls into Oakville station at 2:25pm on track 2 and not track 3, which was the track they posted for the next east bound train, at 2:28pm. The platform 3 is pretty full. There was a moment for about 5 seconds after the train stopped when things just continued as normal. But then it happened, the herd became individuals and things got interesting.

As the train pulled-up and stopped I did wonder why it was there. If that’s the train I need and I miss it, my plans are blown. If that is my train, I need to be on it so I need to move. I look up and there are people making the way to the stairs, I move with them. Decision made and action taken.

As I walk I’m looking around, most people are still standing there waiting. I drift over to the track, look back and see nothing. No train coming, not for miles anyway. I continue to the stairs and find my way to track 2.

I get on the train and take a seat where I am able to see the track 3 platform where about 10% of the people still stood.

The announcement was made that track 2 was the 2:28pm east bound train and the remaining people began to make their way over to the train. I asked one of the last people why they waited and didn’t go with the herd and she said that she was just going to assume the board was correct until they made an announcement. She was not moving until the official word was given.

There was a lot of social referencing going. The early adopters needed one person to go and that left 90% of the people still waiting standing. As time past, the chances of a 2:28pm train being on track 3 decreased and people started the move to track 2; their confidence in track 3 decreased and their confidence in track 2 increase. After a certain point, around 2:28pm everyone who was on the platform would likely remain there until they get official word. They would have let the train leave the station if it hadn’t come.

I moved because that seemed like the most probable outcome given the situation, and my confidence in that decision was boosted by other people taking the same action I committed to. But it was odd. At the moment there really wasn’t enough information to go on, just a guess based on the information that was available, the experiences I’ve had and a willingness to take a risk and leave the herd.

Post Concussion Syndrome – Life In A Dirty Pit

Over the last few years, I was able spend some time with Rachel after she received a couple of concussions. She had a few moments of bad luck and knocked her head off some ice and off a dresser. The ice one left her unable to remember key peoples names for about 6 hours, the dresser turned her into a paranoid crazy person for a week or so. It was a challenge to watch because she was suffering, it was evident, and because she wasn’t normally a paranoid person. What was actually frightening about it was that SHE was convinced that she was feeling herself. Her athletic therapist friend Louise called during an argument about me trying to hurt and change her and simply told me that if Rachel wasn’t acting herself, take her to the hospital because there’s a good chance that she’s injured her brain. It took about 4 weeks for her to return to normal and her recovery was an emotional roller coaster of up and down mood, forgetting simple things and struggling to find the right words or thought.

I had the misfortune of sustaining another concussion a few weekends ago. It’s funny looking back at it because I was able to rationalize a lot of craziness that doesn’t make any sense to me now. I was messed up yet I felt like I was fine and everyone else just changed.

The injury was fairly simple, horsing around while white water rafting, and I jumped off the boat spinning and twisting all erratically. I hit the water spinning, tumbling and on the side of my head. There was a stillness when I hit the water, after a massive slam to the side of my head followed by a hissing. I remember floating up to the surface of the water thinking “oh oh, that was stupid.” I was dazed and confused as I swam back to the boat. I couldn’t hear anything from my left ear, had a head ache, was having some trouble figuring out how to get back into the raft and I was beginning to feel sick to my stomach.

We ate a few minutes later, but I had to leave a few times to throw-up. I was beginning to get irritable and a little paranoid, the sickness and headache were building and I was looking around at people wondering who they were and why I’d be in conversations with them. We got back on the boat and things continued to degrade. The head ache and sickness were becoming really bad and I thought about sitting out the next set of rapids, the Coliseum, because I had a feeling the boat was going over. I stayed on and, as expected, the boat threw-out all but one person. My next memories after feeling the boat void its contents into the river were of being underwater, eyes open looking around wondering if I was going to hit the rocks I saw coming at me or if I would be able to float to the surface. Well, I did both.

I didn’t need the second impact to make my day any worse, but I got it. We got out of the water and I puked my face off. My head was killing, my knee was opened-up and I was becoming unhinged. We get off the water about 20 minutes later and I throw-up again. We get back to the camp grounds, I go and change, get sick and start drink water hoping that I’m just dehydrated. But the camp ground isn’t the same as it was when I left. I looks the same, but I don’t belong there. I don’t know any of the people anymore, even the people I’m there with, and I have a growing level of suspicion of everyone. I begin to withdraw into myself because I feel so wrong.

At this point I start to notice that my left ear is leaking. It’s mostly a clear fluid, but there’s a little blood in it. This did not register with me at the time. Simply put, I thought “my ear is leaking. I guess it should be, I hurt it” without so much of a thought about lumping the symptoms together to get a more complete view of what was going on. Head impact leading to  head ache, confusion, irritability, paranoia, nausea, and fluid leaking from the ear. I don’t realize it yet, but for the next week I am going to be this new person, someone who was very much like Rachel after she banged her head on the dresser. A confused shell of a man, small, weak, scared, in a daze, with only flashes of memories from of the time between rafting and, well, right now.

When I visited the doctor they told me my ear drum has a sizable rupture so there must have been some impact. They said it should heal within 6 weeks so my hearing should be fine but that I need to see a specialist to make sure things are normal. They didn’t think much about me not going to the hospital to get checked-out once the fluid started coming from the ear but they weren’t surprised either because if I had a concussion I wasn’t going to be thinking right. Concussions are tough to diagnose, impossible days after the fact, but based on the symptoms and what happened, there’s a good chance I had one, but we’ll never actually know.

All in all, this recovery left me feeling drained, emotionally empty, and completely confused. This was a “in the pits” type recovery that is both extremely erratic and wildly irrational. I’m more than 10 days out and this morning is the first morning since it happened that I have finally gotten a handle on what has been going on.