What's under your hood?

What's under the hood?

My car looks good. It seems to drive well and functions well for the most part. I took it to the mechanic for a simple routine "servicing". Well needless to say that 12 days later when I got it back, accompanied by a terrifically steep bill I was surprised to learn of all the things that had to be checked, changed, and replaced. To my naked eye looking at the engine under the hood everything seemed to look just fine. I was wrong.

I have plenty of patients who look like as if they are healthy on the outside without any medical issues. Unfortunately when I take them for an invasive cardiac procedure I discover all sorts of high grade obstructions in their blood vessels. One patient could usually ride close to  100 miles on his bike, and came to see me as he could now only do 75 miles. He looked very fit and healthy on the outer surface. I was thinking "hmm that's 74 miles more than I can do !!" Well a quick blood vessel mapping out revealed pretty much total occlusions of his coronary anatomy, and off to bypass surgery he went. 

On social media I see all the wonderful things that celebrities experience and   do. Ah yes the wealth, the fame, the glory and I get thinking "I am sure that their lives are all just perfect." That thought process would be severely flawed. 

I have no idea what another individual is experiencing so I have no right to judge. I do not know whether someone who just looks happy on the outside, may actually have all sorts of troubles at home, or work or with their families or finances.  What may look stable on the cover may not be the case under the hood. Until I have walked in another person's shoes I really cannot say whether that person has a better life than me or not. Moreover it is not even a case of a better or  worse life since everyone is just in a state of "experiencing." It is the experience itself that I am in fact craving and searching for. When that experience goes well, I believe I have had a "good experience" When it does not, I believe that it was a bad experience and I look outside of myself unto others' experiences for comparison. 

This is human nature. Limited, experiential. Compared and judged, I grow from these experiences.Unlimited, and  non-judgmental and accepting unconditionally is divine nature. There is a fine line that exists between the two natures. Seeing a person and rendering judgement about their lives is a kin to looking at a book and thinking you know its contents. There is so much more on each page and each chapter that is written from beginning to end and everything in between that bears witness to a person's life, yet in the end it is their life and not mine. I can never live in another persons shoes. Why? It is too much. I can barely muster enough time and effort to facilitate my own litany of experiences. I try not to judge others, yet that is where is the fine line gets crossed back and forth. 

What's under your hood? I don't care. I love you for exactly who you are. That's all. 

Listening to those old vinyls

Listening to the old Vinyls

Do you remember listening to your parents or grandparents records? Old musical tunes imprinted forever on circular pieces of polyvinyl that are inscribed with modulated grooves. I remember them fondly as a kid. Then years and decades later, during  a tumultuous war filled era of my life we lost the gramophone. I bought one for my dad a few years ago so that he could replay some of those old tunes on the records that he had so safely salvaged from that era. It was amazing to watch the needle touch the groove and play the desired track.  Track after track we listened to the music from forgotten times, reliving albeit  briefly our youthful days long gone and noting who we were when we first heard the song or melody. 

The grooves on the vinyls are very much like the grooves of old memories within our minds. The record keeps spinning as we recall events and experiences of the past over and over again. Some songs may not have hit a chord with me much like experiences I just as soon forget. Yet many trigger wonderful and warm feelings. So too is the nature of old memories. Some are sad and some are happy. My mind  is the gramophone that spins the record  of events and the memories are the grooved imprinted tracks of ambiguous memories. If my record is scratched then so too are the  memories. Fragmented, inaudible and lack of clarity.

 I find that the use of recall  of the past  helps tremendously  to clear out old hurts or unresolved feelings. Bringing them forth from places deep within the mind, buried within the past I confront the tune long hidden within the grooved track of my subconscious. Once revealed it is just like listening to those old songs with fresh ears. The melody of the tune is different as it now is out of place and out of time and no longer has a spell on me as it may have had when the song was first entertained. So too that experience in all its harshness and energetic passion has shifted and remains out of time, out of sequence, out of a power to hold on to me now in the present. Do you remember when you first heard that song, perhaps on the radio or in a live concert performance? Do you remember the spellbound magic it held over you? Well what happens to it when you hear that very old song in present day. You listen to it once, or twice and then let it go and move on. You find new songs, create new memories, new grooved tracks. When i have a memory of the past no matter how painful, it now has no power over me in the present moment.  

Released i am freer to create new grooves, new tracks, new experiences. Just because the grooved vinyl is relatively obsolete, does not mean that it is dead. Just changed form into more digital and faster creating memories. Unfortunately with this increased speed, it is harder to pin down and acknowledge. In a busy world all we can do is let go of the past. Let go of the old records and replace then with the new. That is the nature of change, it is certain and unrelenting. Those records were incapable of adding or subtracting tracks, much like our older selves.Yet in present day we are able to do just that. Add and subtract experiences and memories just as quickly as we change the tracks or channel. 

Ready for new grooves and new experiences? I am....

AMRAP

AMRAP

If you are wondering what is an AMRAP, well you are in good company. If you already know what it is, then you are already ahead of the curve and I congratulate you. My first thought was a misspelled "arm wrap". My second thought was this is not going to bode well for me. So let us dispel the mystery behind this word. When participating in an exercise program the term AMRAP refers to As Many Reps As Possible. The word is usually followed by a number like 20 or some interval of time, denoting that I would need to do a predetermined group of movements ( for example pushups, situps, pull ups, runs etc.) a certain number of times each movement and that completed sequence will count as one Rep. ( These are always outlined carefully on the gym's white board). Then do as many of these "Reps" as you can humanly do in the given amount of time, such as 20minutes. The one guarantee that my coach always gives me is that "this work out will end in 20minutes" for say an AMRAP 20. Well true, yet I am more concerned if I will survive the 20minutes and if by some divine miracle I do, then what condition I will i succumb to at the very end of the AMRAP. Most of the time if I can catch my breath I feebly remark " Thank you" to the coach as I exit the gym, hobbling, waddling or sometimes crawling out. 

My life is like an AMRAP. Sometimes I think about this concept when I am completing my "reps." I try to do as many things as I can each day, each week, each month and then each year. The object of the AMRAP is to push me into trying to do more and more reps each time. So that the next time the similar or same AMRAP comes along I am able to handle it better with more reps. I  Push myself and I challenge myself and I better myself. This applies to my life every day as I try to see new things, every week as I learn new tasks, every month as I engage in  newer hobbies, and every year as I master newer skills. I do not know when my AMRAP of life is going to end so I keep chipping away at my tasks, hobbies and skills. The more I do in the gym, the stronger I become. The more I do in my life, the more experienced I become. In the gym, my muscles are learning to become more efficient in the movement and more accustomed to the repetition. In life my muscles of "doing" become more experienced in "being." I try to daily condition mySelf to do more connection with others, embrace the moment more fully, and unconditionally love even more. I am hoping to recondition my Self to do these things more efficiently, more productively, and more with ease. All these count as one rep. Do As Many Reps As Possible. That's the name of the game. 

It is not about doing more and more chores and mundane things faster and trying to cram more rubbish into my life. In fact it is just the opposite. I could look at it from the perspective of trying to eliminate As Many Redundant chores As Possible. Even that would be a good work out for the day. Simple elimination of unnecessary and useless mind numbing and brain cell consuming repetitions will strengthen my force of will to do better. Eliminating the not so positive emotions faster and faster is a great exercise. Hate, anger, prejudice, judgements are all emotions that are within us all, and we strive to be better and remove As Many Ridiculous emotions As Possible. 

All AMRAPs end. They all have a designated time interval to complete the work out. In this case, my Work Out of the Soul. I am still somewhere in my own personal AMRAP of my life. I seem to have not looked at the ending number for this AMRAP. Just keeping doing it. Just keep sweating and enjoying the moment. I keep using this AMRAP concept to build on the "repetitions" of not just getting more done, but experiencing more of what life has to offer  as many times as possible. In the process eliminate more non fruitful states of being as many as possible in my day. 

How is your AMRAP # going? Sweating? Good you are making progress. 

Minimalize or minimize

Minimalize or minimize life

I was having a spirited discussion with a close friend the other day about life changes and out looks on life. How to keep life simple yet enjoy it fully? You know... the kind of discussion that go one for hours with out any resolution, or the kind of discussion that in a few minutes you realize the solution to the problem. Well it was one of those "Aha !!" moments for me. Thought I would share. He may have suggest that he wanted to minimize his life, I suggested minimalizing it. Splitting hairs? Perhaps yet the subtle difference bears opening the pandoras box. Various dictionaries will argue on one or the the other. Let's see what we come up with. 

Minimize means to reduce in size. In our context it was mentioned that he wanted to "minimize" his life. Minimalize means to simplify. That was the side of the coin that I had flipped on. Simplifying life is to minimalize it. Reduce the number of distractions and find the peace in daily interactions through a simpler outlook. By minimizing my life I am basically saying that my life is not that important and nothing that I do matters. Self deprecation is one thing yet wholly discounting my life to a significant reduction is quite another. 

Minimalize is a word that has crept into many dictionaries over the last 5-10 years. I find it a very good word to convey my desire to reduce my preoccupation with all that I do  not need, yet once wanted or sought after. Attempting to let go of the tangible physical items that have long earned me the name of "pack rat" aids in understanding what a minimalist life can be. It is work in progress. The goal should be to minimalize life not to minimize it . By minimizing, I am holding no value to what I do or care about. It goes back to self worth. If my life is to be minimized, then everything I do, I have done or will do holds little to no value, so why bother even doing it. My place in the world and the universe is therefore worthless and non valuable if I minimize or "illegitimize" all that I am.  By minimalizing my life I am peeling my onion of a life by shedding the unnecessary and revealing the core of the necessary, in other words a world of abundance sitting and waiting to be discovered at the core!

These two words are very similar yet by changing the the context the results are very different. Reduction to worth down to nothing, versus searching for the simplification that reveals everything. In my interpretation to minimize my life would be akin to the same concept to a star collapsing at the end of its life. To minimalize my life is the same concept to a star going supernova after shedding off all out layers and then radiates its core outwards with the brilliance of a millions of suns. Total freedom, total brightness, total light. 

Time to minimize or minimalize? your choice....perhaps the latter may help