IGX

Amazing story of a guy who became a Navy Seal and overcame so many nightmare situations from early childhood that would have killed most people. At the end of each chapter, is an assignment, which I'm currently doing. It's a lot of work, but it has been productive so far. Highly recommended.

What’s your favorite assignment so far?

Read it last month. I always love seeing what the mind is capable of.

Great you're getting mileage out of it, Lenny! I read it years ago when things were a lot more frivolous and fancy-free. Didn't look at doing any of the tasks.

I'm not reading the book quickly (2 chapters in 2 weeks) but am doing the lessons at the end of each chapter. I've had a virus and have not been able to practice all that much. You'll have to read the book to know what the assignments are exactly. One of my goals, there are 2 others I haven’t worked on yet, (on a podcast he said aim for unreachable goals) is mind/body/spirit healing and mental health. He says to put up post it notes of the 3 goals under that category. I forgot to read them each day and have started to do that, but I have still been working on them when I have the energy. I have to buy journals to record my progress which I have yet to do but expect to.

My 3 subgoals related to mental health with their strategies are either posted or easily available to read. I have a lot of strategies ranging from Buddhist practices, different schools of humanistic psychology, changing my breathing, somatic practices e.g. feeling my feet on the floor, the 3 dimensional space around me, and where the tension is in my body and how to release it. Also including something from Jocko Willink he calls a step back, which I recently learned about on a podcast I think with Huberman I didn’t post. I walk back one step back and can either do any of the above or try to view the situation differently. I’ve been listening a lot to Goggins who said there is one second to decide on how to act which I try to do -sometimes longer than that. I can either defuse what I’m working on in the 3 subgoals and get calmer or enact one of the above strategies. They aren’t the only ones I’ve used but this is enough. I’m very curious and was blessed with being able to study (still do) a lot of different areas so that’s how I know this. I started this in 1970 and really got into it seriously probably in 1980 or so.

Sub Goals
1 Less emotional reactivity mainly anger and rage
2 Dealing with negative thought patterns.
3 Letting go of self-hatred and regret over the sense of being a failure due to a lot of life changing decisions that seemed for the best at the time. I sure would do it differently if I could, but if I had to relive life with my parents, nothing would be any different, and I’d be here writing this letter.

PD Ouspensky (you have to check him out) thought that reincarnation, I think his version is called eternal recurrence, involved reliving your life over and over until you get it right according to his definition. In really poor health, not long before he died, he returned to England and walked to a lot of places he had been where he felt he fucked up saying, “Next time I must remember.” What does that mean? At the very least get into a higher state of consciousness where he could witness himself, not identified from personal ego and make better decisions. If you want to know more check it out. His teacher, GI Gurdjieff, said there is no reincarnation. Do I believe it? I don’t know. I’ll either find out if there is an afterlife and continuation of consciousness. If it’s lights out, then I won’t, and I won’t need to.

In any case, certain past decisions bring regret mainly but not including a couple girlfriends. One wanted to leave me after our first summer living together. She agreed to stay. If I had to relive it, in my mind at least, I’d tell her go and leave me in peace. I’ll find somebody better. At least I can laugh, but I sure couldn’t 3 and a half years later when she broke up with me, and I had a broken heart for a year and an empty hole in my chest. I still can’t believe it. There’s another who I spent a lot of years in love with who I fortunately didn’t marry, after living with her briefly thinking we’d marry. I went overseas thinking she’d join me at some point but didn’t. It took me ten minutes on a phone call of 40 minutes that cost over 100 dollars believe it or not (I didn’t know the expense at the time) to get over her. I was in love with her again since about 2015 when I called to apologize and have more or less let go the last year, but the final nail in the coffin was realizing she’s a few years older than me and this may be her last decade when Dr.Peter Attia said that decade is pretty bad for almost everyone. Falls from muscle mass loss (sarcopenia) which are more of a killer statistically over 65 than any other cause.

If you want to know more details, I should really be paid. I have an MA in psychology and worked in 2 medical clinics and privately here and in the USA plus a lot of other somatic education that I described with my hands and in group classes where I worked with people who had all kinds of neuromuscular pain -back, neck, shoulder etc. and had a lot of success.
I post a lot of this kind of information in the hope somebody here will actually get some help for themselves or their family. At this point, I don’t want any online clients (not that I expect you to pay me) but I won’t answer with any more details. Finally, Goggins’ process has been helping moving me towards unreachable goals which is a good thing. I’m in no hurry to get to chapter 3 right now. I have a lot more work to do first. Hope this was helpful.

Thank you for your honest and thoughtful response!

And I love the idea of unreachable goals. Haven’t heard it worded that way before.

Bram. Appreciate your thanks. Honestly if I didn't get a thank you from anybody, that was gonna be the last detailed post, which it may be anyhow. I tried yesterday to get out of a really bad emotional state and did what Huberman said and a lot of what I know until i couldnt continue probably 25 minutes later. I got calm for a little while, but it really didn't help. I realized that Dan John said one of out of 5 workouts is good, 3 average (my take is the average could change over time) and 1 won't be good. So i had a time it didn't help, but i haven't lost faith. I'm still working on it. I listened to another Goggins podcast which I will post because of your gratitude on a separate thread. I don't know you, Bram, but you seem like a really nice guy who does a lot of good in the world. Take care of yourself the best you can. There are almost never quick fixes to a lot of serious issues people deal with especially when you reach your 8th decade like I have. You might get lucky, but that's not been my experience in this life. Dealing with this is any kind of physical training. You have to keep working, get a sense of when to back off, etc. and stay in the game as Dan John terms it.
Have a good weekend

I appreciate your kind words!

Please keep sharing your thoughts, I always read your posts. You’ve done a wide variety of interesting things and offer a unique-Lenny blend of fitness and self-development work.

Hope you have a good weekend too!