jjer94

@tuckerwphotography @DocWatts @trenton @Preety_India Thank you all for such thoughtful, intelligent responses. I'm learning new things from all of y'all. I do plan to get some therapy for this, as this kind of event could definitely stick in my body for a while. Even today, my body/brain is imagining the scene again, with the gunshots behind me.

@Parththakkar12 Table Mesa.

welcome to Boulder, motherfucker. Well...that was a warm welcome.

My thoughts on all of this — 1. I think this supports Leo's perspective on the importance of governmental infrastructure, including emergency response teams. If it weren't for police intervention, a lot more people would have probably died. I mean, that's kind of a no-brainer, but it still needs to be said because we often take governmental infrastructure for granted. Or, due to negativity bias, we only focus on the flaws of government and build a case from there for reducing government altogether. Government sucks a lot of the time, but it's a technology that we can update and improve. I agree with Leo that it's not something to reduce or take away. 2. The question I ask in this situation is: How did the societal systems create this shooter? This guy was not created in a vacuum. He must have been so desperate to be seen and heard that shooting up a store was the only way he could unconsciously conceive of getting that need met. Probably heavily traumatized, poor home environment, poor socioeconomic status, stir crazy from the Covid lockdown, fucked over somehow. 3. I think a lot of us are reaching our breaking point, mental-health-wise, when it comes to the Covid lockdown. Our fundamental need for social connection has been so truncated that we're all starting to get a bit antsy and desperate. 4. I think gun control is more of a gateway to other issues. Of course, I think mental health screenings and the safe storage of guns are crucial measures when it comes to gun ownership. I just think that gun control is less of an issue here than mental health. Given all of the above, a lot of us are lacking physical exercise, social connection, and quite frankly, a sense of purpose. We all have trauma in our nervous systems that we don't know what to do with...which is why I think personal development, alternative therapies, spiritual practice, and personal responsibility are crucial for the general public to be exposed to.

journey complete. I made it. I made it to Somewhere.

?. Maybe it's just me, but I notice a lot of spiritual bypassing around these sorts of ideas in spiritual communities. "Selfish" has this negative connotation to it — that anything that's deemed selfish is therefore bad and must be either transcended or controlled. That if you desire sex, porn, or anything considered "shallow," you're unspiritual in some sort of way. The kernel of truth in that perspective is that desiring "shallow" things could be considered a sign of spiritual immaturity, and that yes, eventually they evolve into needs and desires that are more harmonious with the greater whole. The downside of that perspective is that it's a great excuse to shame yourself and shadow all of your "shallow" desires. Just because something is immature doesn't mean it's shame-worthy. It just means it's more out of alignment. The immature first grader can't skip grades, so best not to tell him to go for a PhD. And it's best for the first grader to not shame himself for not being able to do the coursework for a PhD. Like Leo has said in the past, sometimes it's better to backtrack, work on the basic human stuff, fulfill the "shallow" desires in as healthy ways as possible, and build a psychological foundation before pursuing self-transcendence stuff.

Been lurking this thread and laughing my nonexistent ass off As a recovering nice guy, I figure I ought to share my experience with all of this. Lots of insightful people on here. I think @Emerald's perspective is the most integrative one on the thread. Relationship dynamics are incredibly nuanced — they're a tricky interplay between psychology, spirituality, biology, culture, and other systems. Everyone's at a different place, with different beliefs, different wounding patterns, etc., so different sets of advice will land differently for different people. Like a hyper-masculine dude would take well to listen to Emerald's advice about getting in touch with his feminine side — learning how to feel feelings with self-compassion and self-acceptance, even the ones that hurt. Learning how to express those feelings safely. Learning how to hold space for a woman's feelings without needing to fix or control them. I, on the other hand, have spent most of my life feeling my feelings and holding space. I was the highly sensitive boy who cried every other day, who had friends-that-were-girls who friendzoned me, was constantly bullied by hyper-masculine men...so I learned to repress my masculine energy pretty early on. I am very familiar with holding space for all emotions, for myself and others. I do believe that intimacy (into-me-see) is about having the feminine safety to be able to healthily share any emotion ("I feel _____") and have it be accepted. But I am a stereotypical socially anxious beta male. I don't need to learn how to get in touch with my divine feminine — it's the divine masculine that I struggle to embody. It's the decisiveness, discipline, grit, leadership, reliability, drive, protectiveness, and focus that I crave to embody now more than ever. And I can't forget the biological element of this — that hormonally speaking, men are (generally) more wired to embody these qualities. I don't shun my inner nice guy anymore, though. I believe that nothing grows in shame — to try to "kill" the nice guy or be something other than what I am is counterproductive. It's the paradox of acceptance — accept the fact that you are what you are right now, and then you can change. You'll want to change naturally — to grow and express your genetic potential. While a lot of my fawning nice guy dynamics can be immature and manipulative, I can hold compassion for myself that I've had to be this way to survive the environment I've lived up to this point. I can also appreciate the niceness that is genuine, as well as my ability to be highly empathetic and considerate. The issue I find is that while there's a ton of role models of women who express their divine feminine, there are very few role models of men who express their divine masculine. Beyond Deida's Way of the Superior Man, Robert Bly's Iron John is a decent, poetic map for recovering nice guys. There's also Glover's No More Mr. Nice Guy and his men's circles around the country. I also recently discovered Sacred Sons, which seems like an awesome place to develop divine masculine. And who can forget Harville Hendrix and John Gray. Now, and especially in the pandemic, we men are more lone wolves than ever. I think that's another huge factor. We've been taught this neoliberal nonsense of the rugged individualistic man that has never been in the history of humanity how men have behaved. No man is an island. Some of the best healing, I've found, comes from group work with other men. One of the best ways to kill polarity is to treat a woman like one of your bro friends instead of as your partner. Best to meet those bro needs with other bros. Anyway, my two cents.

complex PTSD. After more than a decade in the dark, I finally found a term that describes the set of psychological symptoms I've had my whole life. Complex PTSD. I recently read Pete Walker's book with the same title. I wish I had known about this years ago, as it would have spared me from a lot of self-hatred. Or maybe not. Maybe I would have used the material to justify how broken I am — because we see the world as we are. We can't help it. Our nervous systems play a huge role in how safe we feel, and how safe we feel plays a huge role in what we think about ourselves and the world. Betrayal was the name of the game in my childhood. People who confusingly said they had my back would bully me and then give me a hard time if I protested. Friends ditched me on a whim. I was physically sheltered and emotionally starved. I didn't know what to do with myself other than leave human affairs, lock myself in my room, leave my body, and lock myself in my head. Unlocking the door to my body has been extremely painful. Pete Walker talks about how those with depressive or dissociative symptomologies are in a state of chronic freeze (a.k.a. a chronic state of dorsal vagal). It's basically a perpetual state of the body half-deciding to shut down and die. I feel it right now. You could call it depression, low energy, low motivation — but on a physiological level, it just feels like my body wants to die. Meditation in this state is fruitful, which is why I think I was drawn to transcendent spirituality in the first place. Also music. These activities are self-soothing a perpetual state of emotional abandonment. (Spirituality from this perspective = "If no human can love me, maybe God can love me.") Some days are better than others. But when the body runs the show in this regard, life feels a bit like a cage. But I know that these depressive waves come and go, and I can ride them lovingly. When I feel capable, I can chip away at my trauma bit by bit on the limbic level by using breathwork. And when I'm not, like right now, I can rest assured knowing that growth is inevitable — that my consciousness will naturally propel me to make more aligned choices. I think the the intense amount of letdowns and ghosting from this housing search is contributing majorly to this freeze state as well. Welp, too frozen to write anymore.

a puddle of UGHHHGHHHH... This past month — Imagine a kindergartner, overly excited about the coming school year, not sure exactly what's in store. Preparation falls into his lap — he chooses the first backpack at the store (a My Little Brony limited edition), a pack of traditional #2 pencils, and a glittery folder that he labels "Home Folder." On the first day, shoes tied and pant drawstring taut, he enthusiastically marches to the end of the driveway to be picked up by the bus. A few steps on the cracked part, and he trips and scrapes his knee. Battle scars, he thinks as he bravely picks himself up with nary a tear to shed. A few steps later, a bird poops on his left shoulder. Battle poop, he thinks as he bravely uses the leaf on a lawn plant to brush off as much of it as he can. He finally makes it to the end of the driveway, perhaps a little less enthusiastic but brimming with hope nonetheless. Five minutes pass. The bus is supposed to pick him up at 7:23. It's currently 7:20. Oh boi oh boi oh boi... He thinks as he does a little river dance. Another five minutes pass. He doesn't think too much of it, as he's learned that people are late sometimes. Another five minutes. He grows worried. Did he miss the bus, or has the bus missed him? Another five. Another. Another. With sulky demeanor and drooping shoulders, the kindergartner makes his way back inside and tells his parents. His parents call the school. The school says that the bus doesn't pass by their house anymore — that he had to be at a different place at a different time. The kindergartner collapses on the floor and melts into a puddle of UGHHHGHHHH.... — That's been my past month in a nutshell. The lease fell through under the strangest of circumstances, and now I'm trying to form another group. People ghosting me left and right, others desperately wanting me to join their house with a flooded basement. In one moment I'm encouraged, and then another moment, I melt into a puddle of UGHHHGHHHH because a house we're looking at gets rented by another group. All of this has taken a toll on my nervous system. I am an utterly exhausted, anxious, depressed mess. Who knew housing could be so complicated? And unpredictable?? And expensive???!!! Jeez Louise. A month ago, here I thought that the process was like green juice poop. But now it feels like one of those constipated deer-pellet poops where you eat too much low-fiber food and have adrenaline flooding your system and you haven't drunk any water all day. My intuitive compass is out of whack. I don't know what feels right anymore. This is not a great place to be — especially after a breakup in the middle of nowhere at the beginning of March, the most uneventful month of the year. I could use some literal and metaphorical green juice right now.

green juice poop. I did it. I. Did it. I'm taking the leap. I'm finally taking a Journey to Somewhere! It happened organically and effortlessly, like a poop after drinking green juice. Oddly enough, I wasn't that surprised. That's what happens after you drink green juice. That's what happens after you live in an emotional pressure cooker for two months straight with zero emotional support, few distractions, and grief as torrential as Niagra Falls. I felt like I had no choice but to follow my heart. My heart said — go to the place your heart has been calling you towards for years now. A place where the beer flows like wine...where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano... I'm talking about a not-so-little place called...Colorado. I found a communal living situation and a 1.5-year lease out there. I have a feeling this will either turn out to be totally amazing or totally horrible with not much in between. Worst comes to worst, I can always go somewhere else. But my intuition is saying "hell yes," so I trust that whatever happens out there will inspire me to grow further into my authentic self. The move is tentatively happening on February 3. Until then, I will say my goodbyes and prepare for the journey ahead.

sexploitation, part 3. —From Neil Strauss, The Truth

@Preety_India I know EXACTLY how that goes, Preety. Nearly every single night for the past month, I've sobbed in my closet. Rock bottoms suck so bad. Feels like you'll be trapped in the pain forever. You won't, but that doesn't disregard the agony of feeling trapped in it. Rock bottoms are forceful. No escape. The only way out is through. I know that little kid in you who's scared out of her mind, who wants to just leave because it's too painful. I have a little kid like that, too. She doesn't want you to act on her impulses. She just wants love, respect, and attention. She needs tending to. She needs to be heard. In the meantime, just know that we're all rooting for you. ?

sexploitation, part 2. —From Neil Strauss, The Truth

Shameless plug

sexploitation. —Neil Strauss, The Truth

2020: the empire strikes back year. Welp, here we are in 2021. Another year; another benchmark to shame ourselves into buying a gym membership for a month. So 2020 was a shitstorm. The pandemic really did a number on all of us, some more than others. And I don't want to sugarcoat by saying how great of a spiritual opportunity this was to let go of what doesn't serve us anymore and blahbity blahbity blah... Most of us aren't even at that point yet. I'd say most of us are at the point of saying "mercy." I'm there, to be honest. This has been a year of deep psychological excavation; of coming up against huge financial, relational, and emotional hurdles; of testing how well I can fare when I have almost zero emotional resources — when it feels like the darkness won. It's The Empire Strikes Back year. It's not just COVID for me. I have a couple acquaintances who are into astrology, and they say that these next few years of my life (27-31) are "Saturn's return," which signifies a major transition into adulthood. Friends will be lost, moves will be made, and generally speaking, a major transformation is under way. I resonate with that because based on the events of this past year, it's already happening. On the first day of 2020, I moved into the Artist's Den and tried living alone for a second time. The place had a back yard, a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, a foyer, furnace heating, and other amenities that were luxurious to me. I could play guitar at three in the morning with no noise complaints, walk around butt naked, and have access to the kitchen whenever I wanted. But when my girlfriend at the time wasn't there, I was lonely as fuck. I realized through direct experience that no amount of luxury can compensate for nourishing human connections with wholesome people. Speaking of wholesome people, the dance with my ex was chaotic. We both had our stuff, projected onto each other, triggered each other constantly — yet we kept coming back to each other to try to do "the work" in a break-up/reunion cycle. She quarantined with me and my family after I canceled the lease on the Artist's Den in March, which resulted in the most turbulent, exciting, miserable, and amazing months of the year. I give her a lot of credit for going through that with me. As tumultuous as it was sometimes, I learned so much about myself in that relationship. I also feel truly honored to have had a soul connection with such a lovely, wise, beautiful and kind human being. She touched my heart in ways I didn't anticipate. The restaurants in my area were still open, so I did a lot of gigging in the summer, improving my chops a ton. Fall and winter has been in the parents' basement, caretaking a sobbing inner child with my inner strength. After the (presumably) final break-up last month, I had one session with my therapist before she found out that her husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer and had to cancel our future sessions. I haven't seen her since. In the midst of all of this, I've lost touch with several people who I used to call "friends." So... a breakup, losing friends, a therapist leaving, being around a family that doesn't understand the grieving process, being shamed for being depressed and mopey... It's been rough. Outdated ways of relating to people have come to the surface to be released, with grief as unrelenting as a river current. Dreams about fame and success that I thought were my own were merely narcissistic childhood mirages. I've become so disillusioned with horse-whip self-help. I am so sick and tired of being picked on or called "selfish" for going after what genuinely feels safe and nourishing to me. And I'm starting to own and caretake my shadow — the lazy, passionate, exploratory, brash, horny asshole. So while it is rough, it's not all bad. Through this hardship, I've learned about surrender and real self-love. Not just the question I posed last year — "What would someone who loves themselves do?" But a better question in my opinion: "What do I need in this moment to feel safe?" Because we can only make more empowered choices when we feel safe enough to do so. We can only change once we — all the parts of ourselves, including our shadow — feel safe, accepted, seen, heard, validated. My new year's resolution is not to get bigger muscles, a better job, or one hour of daily meditation. It's to commit to inner safety.

Orphan with a family. I wander through the aimless streets looking for some sign that the human race is not some collective fear machine and all I find are methodically implanted cogs within a hyper-vigilant nervous system. I wander through relationships looking for the ephemeral sparks that point to an oasis and all I find are convincing mirages within a deserted soul. I wander through the land of self-help tropes looking for some elusive enlightenment that will ease the pain and all I find are angry talking heads that tell me I'm not enough. I wander through family outings looking into the vacant stares of same blood and all I find are reflections of the emptiness within. I am a husk without substance, an orphan with a family — speaking but not heard, visible but not seen. I have nobody, and nobody has me.

You're not alone in this, friend. I'm in the middle of figuring that out for myself, too — songwriting or writing about psychology and self-love and all of that stuff? I don't think you necessarily need to choose either/or right now. It sounds like you're at a stage of life where you're still experimenting with things. Oftentimes, we need to go through the process of doing the activities first before we can get a sense of whether we would be willing to spend most of our waking hours doing it. Also, keep in mind that you won't like everything about a particular activity. A good question to ask along with "what do I enjoy doing for the sake of doing?" is "what pain am I willing to sustain?" I've been doing music for the past 5+ years now. I self-recorded two albums in my parents' walk-in closet. I've been live gigging for the past two years in a small town and have had some fun doing it. Last year, I recorded an album in a professional studio. All of my song lyrics have to do with personal development. All of these things have been like "little bets" for me, gauging how well the music profession fits my arrogant, independent, deep, monologuing, autistic type of personality. So far, so good, but I have my worries about touring and whatnot. I can be pretty lazy physically, and I don't like to haul too much equipment. Nor do I like talking to crowds that have no understanding of psychological integration and would rather just hear "Freebird." Lately, I've been branching back into writing, and I find myself switching between the two. I'm wondering if writing will win out in the end, because I spend most of my waking hours reading and researching. I have little desire to get better at my instruments of choice (acoustic guitar and piano). I hope that by describing my situation, you can get a sense that this whole life purpose business is nuanced. Sometimes, our purpose can't be monetized right away or at all. And that's okay. You've got to tailor a life that fits your specific needs and personality.

The catch-22 from hell. I snapped this week. Three days of breathwork in a row, wailing like a fucking hyena, just me, somatic experiencing, and my music. It's been a party! Someone please bring the champagne. (Thank God for therapy.) That knife feeling in the solar plexus is oozing as I write this. Like a scar that's been re-opened, except I have no bandage to stop the bleeding. Looks like I'll have to use my white shirt. Don't worry; I'll turn it into a tie-dye later. I was about to say that I've never felt this hurt, this disrespected, this powerless in my life — but I have, based on the strength of the trigger. This runs deep. The year after year of being told what to do without a say, bullied at school, bullied at home, saying "no" but not having that "no" be respected, having my needs completely undermined, my reality unseen, my significance completely unacknowledged except in video games... I can feel it. In my body. Like I'm there again. There's a sense of rage and deep injustice. How could I take so much shit for so long, be gaslit, blamed, manipulated, guilt-tripped, steamrolled — and yet still give the benefit of the doubt? Still enable the energy vampires to suck my life energy? Still be the knight in shining armor? Still give so many chances? Still be so willing to apologize and take responsibility for my side of things in the hope that the perpetrators will finally own their shit? There's no doubt that I contribute to the dynamic as the enabler and that I've done some pretty heinous things to other people. Gosh, I do some really nasty shit to other people sometimes — and it kills me, every time, because it's in my nature to be conscientious. But the moment I stick up for myself and my needs, all of the sudden I'm the bad guy. Either I continue playing the nice guy role and be exhausted; or stop playing it, be willing to play the bad guy, and be steamrolled and shat on. The catch-22 from hell. It's a miracle that I'm not hermitting it up in a cave in Bangladesh or some shit. This year in general has been hellish with the pandemic and political craziness. I hope everyone here's doing all right.

group processing. Speaking of men's groups... I'm almost done with Convergence IV Online this weekend. While I'm guessing it's nowhere near as powerful as being in person, it's still exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. I'm realizing more and more that the kind of healing I seek is in the context of a group. I've been lone-wolfing my healing for the past five years or so, expecting that I can make the structural nervous system changes by myself. I've been doing psychedelics alone, meditation alone, contemplation alone, emotional processing alone, breathwork alone, everything alone. But I haven't been doing it alone. I've been doing it lonely. And I think that's ultimately disempowering in the long run. Solo work has gotten me this far, and I'm so grateful for this time of gathering all of the information, finding the techniques that work for me, and opening up to the work. But now, I think it's time to find group settings. There's a saying that goes — humans are wounded in relationship, and humans heal in relationship. I've had a glimpse of that in my recent romantic relationship. Other humans are mirrors, and they trigger the same childhood "stuff" that we've been avoiding all these years. To be with other people who do this kind of work is infinitely more empowering than to be alone, because we can work through the triggers with them in a container of 100% responsibility and tribe. It's wounded, ostracized, lone wolf folk like me who are more susceptible to cults, conspiracy theories with themes of disempowerment, rebellious behavior, and quite frankly, following people like Leo who espouse "magic pills" for enlightenment or have the mindset of trying to "get there" with healing. We are so desperate to run away from ourselves and our bodies and run towards any semblance of connection, whether it be a cult group or a disembodied form of "God" through psychedelics. This is not to discount Leo's amazing content. I just notice this pattern in me and a lot of the people on this forum. And while for most of us it's a phase, for some of us it can become dangerous. We can take the psychedelics too far and try to "get there" before our nervous systems are ready. This is where people can unintentionally become psychotic — because they can't ground or integrate the literally mind-blowing spiritual insights that come through altered states. That's why I'm slowing down now, focusing more on breathwork, stretching, and group processing. The gifts come to us through the journey, not in trying to get there. We can't embody the teachings of calculus if we only know algebra and not trigonometry. There's no shame in being where we're at, and there's no rush. Truly. The only rush is the one our traumatized nervous systems insist is real.

outdated nice guy. I've been in free-fall lately, trying to pick up the pieces from an explosive epoch in my life. I tried again with that relationship, this time giving it my 100 percent (more on that in another post, most likely). She was too special to me not to pursue her again. I changed my priorities, my outlook, the ways I showed up — all the things that were problematic for her. I even did it out of my own desire to change rather than hers. But other things I did not change. I invited her back into my place when the foundation was still shoddy and the roof still had mold. My quick paint job couldn't cover up the deeper issues. I have to do a complete renovation, which means the construction crew has to come in, do intensive work, and kick her out for a while. The house will be closed until then. What I realized is that I have a lot of wounding around masculinity. I grew up in an environment and culture that made me view most masculine qualities as "bad" or "wrong," so I became a passive nice guy to compensate. I have very little issue with divine feminine stuff like self-love, nurturing myself, expressing my feelings, gratitude, accepting my feelings, and being adventurous and open. My issues are with initiative; focus; accountability; reliability; detachment; strength; providing for oneself and others; service; fostering emotional safety; and other divine masculine qualities. I've spent most of my life avoiding other men. The guy friends I had in elementary and middle school ostracized me, so I spent my high school and college years being friend-zoned by woman friends who I tried to impress. I was perpetually blue-balled and perpetually frustrated. I wanted to be different from the other "asshole" men I encountered, but I ended up exhibiting the very qualities I was trying to avoid. (They came out especially in my arrogant spiritual ego stage.) I may be intrinsically more of a feminine man than masculine, but that doesn't mean that my masculine side is useless or can't be developed. This is not a shame thing for me anymore. This is just the future of my integration. I feel a pull more than ever to cultivate my masculine side — to find a better definition for myself about what it means to be a man and bring those shunned masculine aspects of myself into the light. So, to be a better partner in the future, to be a better man and to ultimately do better for myself in the name of self-love, I need to build that stronger foundation. For me right now, I think that means making guy friends, joining a men's group, and supporting myself financially. I can no longer be a messianic lone wolf who pretends that he doesn't need stuff. I need friendship with other men, money to survive, and an environment that fosters my healing.

hiding spot. Sometimes I want the world to fit inside my bubble to glisten in the sunlight in the comfort of enclosure as I merely slide on its reflective slopes like a kid in his back yard playing a game of pretend while the campfire crackles with fervor and the swing set creaks in the wind. But such is the nature of life to take me from my hiding spot and show me a place beyond pretend to rip the bandaid from my broken heart and pop the bubble that I so desperately thought was real.

chicken run, part 2. Chicken was on my mind because I planned to have it for dinner. So I just ate some chicken thigh with skin, stopping when my body said enough. Holy chicken shit! I'm having the opposite effect now. I feel like dead weight. Like a blob of moldy potatoes sitting in the cellar of some middle-aged gamer. Like all the life juice went out of my limbs and my brain, and into my stomach. All of my thinking and creative energy is sapped. It's like my life is in tunnel vision. Like all there is, is this computer screen in front of me. No imagination, no energy for a postprandial walk, nothing. I don't really like this. It felt like my body needed some chicken, so maybe I ate too much. Maybe I can get by with eating more legumes instead, because this is heavy, doc. Or maybe I can eat like the Blue Zoners, where they feast on animal foods once every week or so. This is so fascinating to me. A couple years ago, I ate a relatively healthy, balanced, meat-based paleo diet with no sense of this blobiness (cool, I just invented a new word) — or perhaps no awareness of it. Maybe I ate more of it because of how it dimmed my consciousness and stabilized my mood, because I was like a dam of repressed emotions. It gave me a sense of groundedness and control that I otherwise didn't have. It dimmed my sensitivity. But now I prefer my sensitivity! I prefer to feel things deeply. And that's one of the many reasons why I feel so good eating lighter. Because it brings me more in touch with my intuition, and I use my intuition now more than ever to guide my decision-making. I think I've made a permanent shift in my body over these past two years. Like I've cleansed physically and emotionally to the point where I notice that these heavier foods serve me less and less. I'm really excited about that, because that means I'll need to discipline myself less and less to eat healthier. I'll actually want to eat more plant-based foods because of the way they make me feel and perform in the moment, not because I have to eat them because of some ethical obligation. (Though the ethics of plant-based eating are definitely a plus.) We'll see how I feel after the chicken digests. Maybe I'll make another post about it.

chicken run. I haven't talked about diet for a long time because I had an eating disorder (i.e. toxic shame disorder) and didn't want to focus on it. But having now explored the diet world more from the realm of self-love, I have a few experiences to share. For the past two years or so, I've followed the Medical Medium approach. I knew about him for a while but was turned off because the guy kind of sounds like a used car salesman. After trying countless eating styles with no relief for my acne, digestive distress and other symptoms, I gravitated back to him and took his advice seriously. In case you guys are unfamiliar, it's basically a low-fat high-carb plant-based approach with an emphasis on fruits, vegetables, and tubers. In my experience, the guy is no joke. His suggestions relieved most of my symptoms within a year and a half of following his advice to a tee. Within the first month of his approach, I lost my craving for animal products completely. For several months I had really crazy cleansing reactions, like depersonalization spells, metallic tastes in the mouth, puffy face, and otherworldly sulfur farts. Symptoms got worse before they got better — a lot worse. But after around the six month mark, my body found a groove, and the major cleansing symptoms subsided. The moment my skin cleared up, I had persistent cravings for chicken thigh. I figured upping my plant fats, grains, and legumes would take care of it. It didn't. In the past, I would have fought the cravings using mental dogma. Whether veganism, spiritual enlightenment, raw foodism, Medical Medium-ism... I have a lot of tools under my belt to betray or second-guess my body's callings. Medical Medium says that animal product cravings are a sign of past adrenaline release, and the craving is a reflection of what we craved during the time of said traumatic event. Veganism says meat is murder. Spiritual enlightenment says meat is low vibration. Raw foodism says that we're not designed to eat meat, and it will just rot in our intestinal tract. But ever since my self-love shift, I've shifted my focus towards direct-experience learning rather than blindly believing a philosophy. The reason I followed Medical Medium was because at the time, my body was screaming for me to eat lighter fruits and veggies, and I've been incredibly satisfied with his approach. Now it seems my body is asking me to eat some heavier foods again. So I ate chicken the other day. It almost felt like I was possessed by the spirit of the animal. Like I had the energy of a chicken with my head cut off. It was so stimulating for me that I wanted to run a couple miles. The forward momentum was a bit uncomfortable. My libido increased. My sensitivity decreased. I felt the most grounded I've felt in a while. Here's my theory: Meat is a grounding stimulant, and in a not-ideal high-stress environment, it can most definitely be useful. I've been living in a stressful environment the past few weeks, so it's no wonder I'm craving it. Since I haven't been eating any exogenous cholesterol on a plant-based diet, all of my cholesterol production has been going towards cortisol and not testosterone, so I've been crazy-emotional and hyper-sensitive with low motivation and little libido. I think different chapters of life call for different foods. Diet must match our psycho-emotional state. If we cleanse too much too quickly for our bodies, we end up going mentally crazy like a lot of raw vegans. If we focus completely on enlightenment and don't cleanse the body in tandem, we end up with situations like Matt Kahn or Ramana Maharshi, where the vessel develops health issues because it can't anchor the light efficiently enough. I think in an ideal world, we'd all be raw foodists living a communal, low-stress life in the tropics. But we don't live in an ideal world. We live in a toxic cesspool, with chemicals that our bodies don't really know how to process. That's why I think taking the cleansing journey slowly and with compassion is my top priority now. No more trying to "get there." Just try to eat what feels good for me in this environment, at this time in my life, with love and awareness.