vegan athlete – Page 14 – The Conscious Pilgrim

easy does it

“I can actually be stubborn as an ox, when I choose to be – so I imagine it’s time to stop choosing to be.”

There’s nothing quite quite so humbling and self reflective as someone’s uninhibited criticism of you. Even when the emotion is removed, there are nuggets of truth, or at very least nuggets of perception – but even then, someone else’s perception of you is always the truth to them.

If someone is mean to me; especially if it happens on multiple occasions, it’s no stretch for me to conclude that the person in question is mean. The fact that other people love them and can be vulnerable and safe with them doesn’t change my perception. So, when I act the way I act and someone finds it smug or distasteful… well… I am those things.

I know I can’t govern how I’m perceived. I can only control my actions and reactions – so I naturally move forward with a newfound sensitivity to how I might be behaving – at least for a while – and in the meantime I try to create a new habit or a new outlook that is move loving and inclusive. It’s a tall order for an introvert such as myself but there’s no reason why I can’t learn this new behavior as an individual – after all, we as a society do this all the time. There are a lot of words and phrases that we’ve said that are no longer acceptable to say in polite company. We collectively gave our heads a shake and made some improvements.

My issues are more behavioral though. I know I can come on a bit strong and I’m pretty hard to argue with on certain topics – but I can learn to have a little more grace. I can actually be stubborn as an ox, when I choose to be – so I imagine it’s time to stop choosing to be. The last thing I ever want to do is make an enemy out of a friend, or negatively impact someone’s life so badly that they consciously decide to run hard in the opposite direction, not only physically but spiritually.

To carry that guilt would be the absolute worst.

Truth is, I can have a little more grace with myself, too. I honestly get the worst of my own criticism and I’m certain that I’m not the only person who is my own worst critic. I put a lot of pressure on myself to be a certain way – the most disciplined, the most hardcore, the smartest, the strongest, the best musician, the most poetic, the most impactful, the most available and the most efficient.

What I have learned recently is that I find things that save me and I envelope myself in them. Veganism. Music. Endurance Sport. Most recently: My Car. These things come to me when I need them most and I throw in hard with them to a point of obsession. I’ve done so negative things as well… junk food… booze… pills… and I have become the worst example of humanity available at the time.

But I still look myself in the mirror and am ultimately grateful for the fucked up weirdo I was, because that fucked up weirdo got me here… and I should go easy on him.

And if I can extend grace to my worst critic… then I can extend grace to anyone.

So… easy does it.

happy where you are

It’s pretty easy to be happy when everything is fine… a little harder when it’s not. I had something knock my positivity a little off-course a couple months back and it’s been difficult to reclaim my bearings a bit, but I’ve gained clarity on things in a way I thought I understood before; and maybe I was right, but is much more obvious to me now.

I’ve heard lot about being happy where you are, which is ultimately the foundations of the phrase ‘money can’t buy happiness‘ but I’ve always had difficulty squaring that with my motivation to move forward and do more, being the goal oriented person that I am. Only recently have I realized that in the context of my everyday losses & victories that I ultimately couldn’t possibly be any happier than I am right now. My struggles are my own, but the truth is that I wouldn’t trade them for anyone else’s. I am self aware and moving forward, and over all I am happy – in part because I am happy moving forward.

I suppose I got it into my head somehow that the term ‘being happy where you are‘ gets broken into 2 halves, (a) ‘being happy‘ and (b) ‘where you are.’

‘Being happy‘ is not a foreign concept, but ‘where you are‘ somehow presents as some stationary place, as in ‘if my life never changed, would I be good with that?’ but that’s really not what it is. It’s more momentary and granular than that. As I type this, I’m sitting at my laptop and I am happy doing so. After this I’ll be doing something else and I’ll be happy with that – and it will lead to something else.

What I’ve come to understand is that rather than a term with 2 halves, it’s a term with an action and a qualifier. ‘Being happy, where you are.‘ and I’ve realized that ‘where you are‘ for me IS moving forward. When I am right now is putting time and action between myself and an undesirable circumstance, and if I’m being truly honest with myself then I must acknowledge that every day since that hard situation happened is better than the day before it, because progress is cumulative.

The only place we allow our failures to define us is in the mirror, and most of us would never allow someone else to talk to us the way we talk to ourselves. You wouldn’t allow someone to talk that way about a close friend, and a close friend would come to your defense if someone was slinging slander at you.

I can’t speak for you, but the little fat kid I see in the mirror needs me to defend him. After all, he got me all the way here… and objectively, here is pretty great, and he worked really hard to do so.

If we’re going to live in a frame of mind where problems compound on each other (and most of us do, regrettably) then we must also allow our victories to compound, or we’ll never feel that sense of balance or accomplishment, and we’ll never really be able to ask ourselves: “Am I happy where I am?” without fearing the answer.

So we either DON’T allow our problems to compound, or we DO allow our victories to compound. That’s a matter of preference I suppose… but in the checks & balances, I’m willing to bet that a lot of us are closer to being happy where we are than we might think.

pursuits

I like to do hard things. Hard things have historically included feats of endurance, like an olympic length triathlon course or a half-marathon, and while those things are obviously still hard, this has been a different kind of summer.

The fitness portion of my life, although still in existence, has felt a bit directionless lately. I’ve been struggling to allow myself to rest. Not only rest, but to enjoy things that stretch me as a person beyond normal rigors of endurance sport. My brain has been stretched and bowed by a new role at work, and by problem-solving with my hobby-car, among other self analysis and mental exercise including my propensity to snack like the binge-eating addict I am, and the culmination has truly been exhausting. Add some indecision of what physical activity to double-down on, and a later-than-it-should-be bed time resulting in an over-used snooze button… but again, I’ve been struggling to let myself off the hook as far as fitness goes.

I still track calories and macros, and I get out and run, and lift weights, and have developed a bit of an interest in Ashtanga – but not with my usual “nailed to the training program 6 days a week” fervor that I typically adopt. I’m trying to find a way to be okay with this… but there’s a part of me that feels I’m not doing enough.

I know there are seasons to life, and this season right now is the off-season for me. I’m entertaining the idea of signing up for a race in the fall, and I can’t decide if it’s pride or discipline that’s preventing me from doing any less than a half marathon. My challenge is more about whether or not I have enough training weeks between now and then, and less about willpower.

If I sign up, I’ll do it – and I will finish, pain or not.

It’s really easy to say things like “there are seasons to life” when you’re training regularly and killing it. It’s not so easy to say that when your focus is split between other passions. I know what I need, and it’s a regular (hard) training schedule that I can indenture myself to – but I also need this rest, and I need the mental challenges I’m facing.

The only thing I really know, is that I must remain present – in the moment.
That’s the true balance – being 100% present.

And if I’m being honest with myself… I am present.

And presently… it’s time to go for a run.

rolling with it

“I’m reminded that good changes are not any easier than the changes that are hard on us. They all require a bit of resilience and strength to keep pushing forward. “

It’s a widely acknowledged thought that change is hard. Life is hard, really… but when everything is hard, then nothing is.

You might not like that sentence. I don’t really like that sentence, but as I pick my own words apart, I’m reminded that good changes are not any easier than the changes that are hard on us. They all require a bit of resilience and strength to keep pushing forward.

As I write this, I’m plagued with examples – the most simplistic of which is that a few years back when I dropped over 160lbs, I had to furnish myself with a new wardrobe, which was a task I wasn’t really financially prepared to deal with in one fell swoop (as as many of us seldom are). The truth of the matter is that if I had gained weight, I’d be in the same situation – maybe a little sadder about it, but the way my pocketbook would be affected would be the same.

Covid-19 got us all trying to wrap our heads around what ‘the new normal’ was going to be and after 2 or 3 years when it was time to start reclaiming the lost pieces of our social lives, it was harder than going into whatever form of ‘lock-down’ your region was facing. I know live music fans who are still less-than-comfortable with being in large groups indoors AND outdoors, and those are just the ones willing to admit it.

I’ve been dealing with change in my life and in my home and although the net result is positive, it does take a toll. On the day-to-day, I’m actually great. I recognize my little victories and I try to help the people around me to do the same – not by writing about it on the internet – but by actually listening to them and trying to speak optimistic truth into their lives, perhaps an occasional good deed. It feels good to do those things, which I believe is an alignment of purpose with the self (I don’t do it to feel good, but it feels good to do it… if it was painful, no one would do it). But if you had intimate knowledge of all my challenges that I have to roll with, and stepped back for the broad-view of my life you’d probably conclude that I’ve got a lot on my plate.

I can’t dwell on the negative.
I mean… I can, but it doesn’t serve me anymore.
I lead a rich and full life, and I am constantly changing and evolving… sometimes it’s hard, but it’s always good.

do hard things

“There is an amazing series of events that happens when you identify something you can’t do, and then choose to take it on anyway. there are countless examples of this in all of our lives, because there’s a pretty good chance that if you are good at something, you probably spent some time sucking at it.”

There is an amazing series of events that happens when you identify something you can’t do, and then choose to take it on anyway. there are countless examples of this in all of our lives, because there’s a pretty good chance that if you are good at something, you probably spent some time sucking at it… and for some reason, likely either through the enjoyment of the activity or through identifying the merits of performing such a task.

The example I come to when I think of this is running.

Now, I used to weigh 340lbs and be asthmatic, and if you’ve known me for any real stretch of time then you know that I am by definition, a late bloomer. In other words, running isn’t JUST a thing I ever thought I’d be able to do recreationally – it’s something that I never even wanted to attempt.

Until I did. I literally started running because it’s hard.

I had taken a few small measures to eat cleaner and I dropped a couple pounds and had an infusion of energy – so I opted to put that energy to good use.

It took some serious TIME and MILEAGE to get where I am now, but at this point if I don’t run at least 3km, then I didn’t run at all, because that’s when I start sweating. A 8km – 10km run is a pretty energizing start to the day, and if I want to run the tank dry then I’ll keep going to 14km, maybe more.

That time and mileage is important – it’s where the discipline was adopted and strengthened, because I know just as well as anyone else does – if you want to climb the ziggurat, you must start with the first step. The first step for me was finding a ‘Couch-to-5km’ program on the internet. There are a million of them and they’re all roughly the same, but what programs like this give you is a guided process.

You don’t have to run. You can do something else, but you do have to start.
What you do is up to you, but to stretch yourself beyond what you’re currently capable of doing is always amazing.

When I was obese, asthmatic, depressed… existence was hard. Waking up in the morning was hard. Everything was hard… but I soon concluded (similar to a linchpin line in a cartoon I saw once, stating that ‘when everyone is a superhero, then no one is’) that when everything is hard, then nothing is.

peacekeepers

“After all, tossed in the salad with the other personal virtues such as love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control; it would seem that ‘not war-mongering’ is an easy one, so I’d place a hefty wager that ‘peace’ had more to do with the state of one’s internal battles since it was so carefully placed among other personal strengths, rather than political ones.”

After 41 years of walking around and interacting with people in general; many of which have navigated multiple global pandemics, several financially motivated wars, one or more housing crises, poorly managed adolescence, and a countless array of other traumas and triggers – I can say emphatically that the word ‘peace’ means something completely different than it did when I was a little kid in Sunday School.

What once brought about a ubiquitous definition; a thought of people I don’t know choosing not to end the lives of other people I don’t know in some war torn desert city – though, to be clear, I would like those people to stop killing each other – is not the image that comes to mind when I hear the word ‘peace‘ anymore.

Peace is a much more tangible and personal quest for me now.

I’m speculating, of course, but I’d like to imaging that the once-popular prophetic young Asiatic man who upheld the ‘fruit of the spirit’ and the ‘beatitudes’ may have had a more personalized definition when he spoke of peace. After all, tossed in the salad with the other personal virtues such as love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control; it would seem that ‘not war-mongering‘ is an easy one, so I’d place a hefty wager that ‘peace’ had more to do with the state of one’s internal battles since it was so carefully placed among other personal strengths, rather than political ones.

All that said, when it comes to the idea of ‘inner-peace’ which is really what I’m getting at, there are a number of other things that ‘peace’ doesn’t mean. In fact, when it comes to defining our terms, it’s likely easier to institute a process of elimination of the things I don’t mean… but I’ll try to stay pointed in a solitary direction.

Peaceful doesn’t mean complacent. You’re not dead, and you haven’t been neutralized. If anything, it’s the opposite. My own experience has brought me to realize that it’s a daily pursuit in balancing the self and the ego. Since the ego can’t survive without the self (and vice versa), the goal is not to embrace contentment anymore than it is to embrace chaos. We are always moving forward, always growing, and always renewing. Finding peace is finding the center. The balance point.

To become centered in meditation, we engage in a practice where we focus on a solitary notion – such as our own breath. When we are new or out of practice, our thoughts drift and our attention is stolen – but the purpose of meditation is to regain focus faster and faster to the point that we are not ignoring everything around us so much as we are centering ourselves in it. So to be in a meditative state is to be aware of everything that’s going on around us, though other people’s perceptions are the opposite. People with a strong meditative practice are actually more aware of their surroundings than those who are newer to their practice.

This meditative practice, much like the pursuit of inner-peace, takes a life-time. Maybe that’s the real reason why we say our deceased friends and family are ‘at peace’ but in the case of we who are still living, we can count on the fact that life will continue to throw thing at us, thereby knocking us off of our center – but we can choose how to handle it, either with frustration, or with calm demeanor.

There will always be a balance to find between the ego and the self.
There will always be peace.

As an aside, I feel compelled to mention that one of the things that brought the most peace into my life was the decision to stop eating animals or any products that come from animals. I literally felt the ‘animosity’ leave my body as I became a completely different, more well-rounded, methodical, and spiritual person. I’ve since reclaimed my health and my personal aspirations.

It’s been amazing, and one of the finer decisions I’ve ever made.

sabotage

I can’t stand it, I know ya’ planned it…

For someone who’s spent more than his fair share of time sabotaging himself, I certainly had a smug and mired view of the people around me doing the same. My lack of experience (something I can’t blame myself for) and lack of self awareness (something I can blame myself for) allowed me to hear people say things like “I just need a drink to calm my nerves” and think “that’s so cliche – they’re just doing that because they heard somewhere that they should” without ever realizing that I was; in fact wrong, and that really what they were doing was giving themselves an excuse to drink that had nothing to do with the calming of the nerves at all, and everything to do with justifying the remedy.

I’m not here to pick on drinkers so much as I am here to expose my lack of awareness.

I come from a community; a scene, if you will, that was largely populated with GenX’ers and although I am technically not one, I was certainly born during a strange time between the GenXer’s and Millennials that allowed me to plant one foot in each camp – both fairly nihilistic for different reasons. This scene was special in many ways, but it was not unique in it’s collective attitude towards commercial success. The idea of ‘selling out’ was ultimately tantamount to treason, and I believe that my need to belong prevented me from pursuing a level of success that I believe I always had the chops to achieve. Many of us did, but many of us talked ourselves out of it. Now, at 41 years old I am chasing my teenage dreams once again… but that’s probably a topic for another day.

A stronger version of myself might have told all of those people to kick rocks, but I wasn’t that. I was me, for better or worse. And honestly I’ve been sabotaging myself for decades – this is just the most friendly, and possibly pivotal example of it.

This all does lend itself to a fear I developed, or maybe always had. Hell, maybe all of us had it – the fear of success. We’re all aware of the concept of fear of failure and the workoholism that tends to follow suit, but fear of success is much, much stronger and far less often acknowledged.

What if I succeed and I have to keep doing this?
What if I become known for the wrong thing?
Imposter syndrome often follows, with “what if they find out I’m actually not remarkable?”

As a musician, the thought of both alienating my old-school, cool fans while simultaneously not being able to sell what I’m doing to a larger part of the populous meant living in “insincere loser purgatory” for what could be the rest of my life. My personal concerns included:

not being punk enough for punk rock fans
not being pop enough for the pop crowd
not being heavy enough for the rock/metal crowd
not being a good enough guitar player for the guitar geeks
not being interesting enough to be interviewed… or handsome
What if I never write another song?
What if I actually suck, and nobody is telling me?

It devolves into an embarrassing series of notions from there, I assure you. This line of resistant thought kept me starting and cratering bands every few years for a couple decades… except for the ‘what if I never write another song?’ which kept me pen-in-hand and riffing constantly for my whole life.

I’ve released over 125 songs in 8 different bands, have co-written singles, and have composed music for commissioned works, as well as writing my own parts for a couple hundred songs on other people’s recordings and/or performances… and wondered if I had what it takes to be a consistent, solid, good musician pretty much the whole time.

In the end, I tend to think that these types of failures of self; for lack of a better term, come down to manifestation. We speak hard things over ourselves, and we receive them. We also say enough contrarian shit about ourselves and we’ll inevitably start to believe it – and we do that because it’s EASIER to say “I could have accomplished ______” than it is to actually set our sights on something and go for it.

If I have anything to bestow on anyone who read all the way to the end of this, it’s that (a) it’s okay to daydream, and you should do it without remorse or embarrassment, and (b) be kind to yourself, even when you don’t want to.