Discipline is freedom?

It’s kind of a strange concept. Discipline = freedom? The common notion is that these two ideas are opposites, as if discipline meant restriction, so how could restriction = freedom?

This could be one of those strange paradoxical truths that we find in life. It strikes me as a complementary yin and yang, as one supports the emergence of the other. Interesting stuff. I can notice many ways that discipline yields freedom in my life..

• As a musician, the more discipline I apply to practicing technique and theory, the more freedom I’ll have in playing whatever I feel through the instrument.

• With this blog, if incorporate the discipline of writing a post in the morning, then I have the freedom of not needing to get around to it at some point in the day.

• Journaling in the morning is a discipline that helps me to focus on the most important things first and early, so that the rest of the day is more free and less pressured.

• TimeBoxing helps me get more done in less time by staying focused and by setting up little ‘sprints’ of productivity, so that simple small tasks don’t eat up big chunks of time.

• The discipline of eating (mostly) healthy, moving my body daily, and getting into weekly exercise keeps my body light, responsive, energized, and operating without injury. This yields the freedom to hike 14’ers, go camping, bouldering, or whatever I’d like to do by knowing that my body can keep up with where my head and heart are taking me.

On and on it can go like this. The more I look, the more I that discipline yields freedom.

I’m thinking about this because I recently bought a little product called the Unstuck Box. It contains around 45 cards with little nuggets of wisdom and insight on it. What drew me in was that one side of each card features a graphic visual conception of the idea, while the other side offers a little explanation.

Today, I drew my first card from the deck, and it told me Discipline Equals Freedom. A good reminder with a helpful call to action: “to use this, start by identifying areas where you’d like more freedom. Then design a disciplined structure to reach that goal.”

One area I’d like more freedom is with this blog. As in, I want it to always be quick and easy, and in the morning. Like 20-minutes or less. If I’m designing a disciplined structure to make that happen, I’m thinking:
-Identify tomorrow’s topic today, so I can just dive right into it.
-If I don’t have a topic ready and one doesn’t come to mind immediately, I could just pull a fresh card from the Unstuck Box and just write about it.
-Wake up early enough before scheduled commitments so I can do my morning routine, do a blog post, and have breakfast for heading into coaching, grad classes, appointments, recreation, or whatever kicks off the day

Where do you want more freedom in your life? What is a disciplined structure and plan of action to make it happen? :)

Will MDMA and psilocybin be legalized within two years?

Have you heard the news about the Biden administration preparing for the legalization of MDMA (i.e. Stacy) and psilocybin (i.e.magic mushrooms)? They’re expecting it to happen and are preparing for it to move forward within two years. Sounds to me like it’ll be a thing before the next presidential election.

Very interesting stuff. Here’s the article I read about it.

If you haven’t been following the news about psychedelics, there’s been years of deepening study into psychedelics and those two substances in particular, with special emphasis on therapeutic application.

But Cody, I thought all drugs are bad? Aren’t they dangerous? Won’t people get hurt or die from using that stuff? Shouldn’t we only trust Big Pharma and their profit-over-people approach, and their desire to have us shelling out for pills to take on the daily indefinitely??? Shouldn't we only trust substances we see in pharmaceutical ads and tv commercials as pedelled by mega-weathly for-profit Pharma corporations owned by billionaires and the financial elite???

Sorry not sorry for the sarcasm. After seeing and being impacted first-hand by the pain-killer pills and oxycontin epidemic THAT WAS CREATED BY BIG PHARMA and allowed to happen by the FDA, I hope you can sympathize with my lack of faith and trust in these institutions and entities. It severely impacted my family and the aftermath continues to this day. In general and at-large, that shit just simply shouldn’t have been allowed to happen un-checked as it was and without accountability for so long. Corporations and already mega-wealthy individuals reaped incredible profits at a tremendous human cost, with a shamefully small degree of accountability and justice implicated even to this day. But anyways, this is a tangent.

If you want to understand what’s happening in the world of psychedelic research and the incredible results that are being found in the studies, looking around on maps.org/our-research is a good place to start. But just diving in via a google search on “psychedelic research” or “psychedelic therapy” would also be fruitful.

The best way to put it in a nutshell is that psychedelics may be difference between needing 3 months or 3 years of intensive healing work. According the studies, psychedelics are helping individuals get major beneficial therapeutic results within a few months when it might take years of weekly-monthly therapy to get the same results without the support of those substances.

MDMA is being used to treat PTSD, including PTSD in military veterans. And the emerging results are just fucking incredible… So much so that MDMA was given a ‘breakthrough therapy’ designation and status by the FDA, which means they’re trying to approve it for therapeutic use as quickly as possible so people can have access to this powerful therapeutic modality.

And this is just the tip of iceberg. There’s so much going on, and so much positive potential being evidenced that its reasonable to feel excited for what’s to come. What’s possible here is a revolution in the world of psychology, mental health, and therapy. And you see that’s not an exaggeration when looking at the accumulated results of the past 5-10 years of research.

Dr. Stan Grof—the acclaimed psychiatrist, teacher, researcher, and co-founder of transpersonal psychology with 50+ years of experience—has perhaps said it best:

“Psychedelics, used responsibly and with proper caution, would be for psychiatry what the microscope is for biology and medicine or the telescope is for astronomy.”*

*quoted from this great podcast episode released in 2018 between Tim Ferriss and Michael Pollan.

There is much good to come, friends.

Burnt out with the bloggy and feeling a little groggy

Today is the 19th day of blogging in a row. I knew committing to a daily blog for the whole month of August could get challenging, specially when I had never blogged before embarking on this commitment. Oh buddy.

After today, only 12 more to go though.

I’m committed to seeing this through and I want to blog about whatever feels most alive in the moment.

I had to push myself yesterday (late last night) to get the last post done. It was wonderfully messy and rushed, or at least that’s how it felt. Now—today—I’m feeling a lull. I just want to knock this post out with minimum effort and let it be a sort of ‘taking the day off’ while still following through on the commitment.

Reminds me of how I felt on certain days while doing a poem-a-day-for-a-year back in 2012-13. There were just some days that I wrote about my frustration, apathy, resistance, or disdain for having to write a poem for that day. On other days like that, I simply wrote a few words or some garbled nonsense.

Part of me would love to indulge in doing that as a blog post and letting it be done for the day. And maybe that’s what this is, though I hope not. I’ve aimed to offer a short and honest reflection on how I’m feeling about this project right now.

Today will be a rest and reboot day.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Saving Money on Gas

The TLDR is use the GasBuddy app for the best savings and use the Upside app for additional money back. My referral codes for each are at the very bottom. The codes give both us a little bonus.  Below, I share the back story, my system for max savings, and more info about each app.

The backstory:

Did you know I occasionally drive rideshare (Lyft and Uber) for extra income?

When I started working in rideshare last summer I immediately noticed that gas was my biggest overhead. It was by-far the biggest expense eating into that income stream. So for the first time ever I took a serious deep dive into ways to save money on gas. I dove into google, read a bunch of articles and blogs, and tried out the apps and options that seemed the best. I was as comprehensive as I could be, and if you know me you know I can be very meticulous and detail-oriented. There might be more complex and bigger-saving systems then what I’ve figured out, but I want simplicity.

The savings system:

1. Use Gasbuddy app to find the outright cheapest gas within a reasonable distance or along a route. It can be filtered to show the lowest price with or without deal alerts.

2. Use GasBuddy “Deal Alerts” for discounted gas.

3. [optional] Use Gasbuddy Plus (a paid membership) for an additional gas discount on top of the Deal Alert discount.

4. Before swiping your card and pumping gas, activate the GasBuddy Deal Alert AND check the Upside app to see if the gas station you’re at also has an Upside cashback offer. If so, activate it for an addition 1-20 cents back per gallon.

5. If necessary, upload a picture of your receipt into Upside. Sometimes they’ll apply the discount automatically, other times they require a receipt to be uploaded

6. Pump your gas and enjoy your savings, repeating this process every time. :)

It might sound like a lot of extra work, and maybe it is if you’re used to just swiping a card and pumping, but these extra steps on a smartphone become a pretty comfortable and quick routine after enough times going through it. If you don’t want to or need to save money then its not worth the effort, but I like knowing that I may be shaving up to a few dollars off every $25 I spend on gas. It adds up over time, and the long-game is the point. I’ve used this system for a little under a year and have saved approximately $200-$250 in gas for spending just an extra minute or two at the gas pump.

More details on the two apps and how they work:

GasBuddy—

There’s 3 versions of this app. Free, Plus, and Premium. I’ll tell you something I wish I knew a year ago. Don’t bother with the Premium version unless you want the added benefit of 24hour-roadside assistance via AllState. I already have AAA, so that benefit is pointless to me. The Plus version is essentially the same perks, minus the roadside assistance, but for less money.

Premium = $10/month

Plus = $89/year ($7.42/month

Free = free

Another important detail is that GasBuddy is utilized via a debit-style gas card they provide, which is linked to a debit/checking account of your choice. They only debit the discounted amount, not the amount shown at the pump.

Upside—

This app does cash back, meaning once you’ve accumulated enough  (typically $15 minimum to start) you can then transfer that amount directly into a linked checking account.

Referral codes—

GasBuddy: EGFM56M

GetUpside: CODY42373

I rushed through this blog because its late right now and I’m ready for bed. Let me know if you’d like clarity on anything, have any questions, and/or if you’d like a visual walk-through. I’d be happy to come back and spruce up this post if you’d find that helpful.

A vulnerability hangover?

Woke up this morning very in my head. Still feeling it now.
Lots of anger present, too.
It’s a weird complex stirring of my emotional body. Best way I can describe it is like the emotional equivalent of an upset stomach or tolerable but uncomfortable indigestion.

Been trying my best to just be with it without push it away or over-identifying with it. Just letting it be, but damn is it persistently uncomfortable

Is this a vulnerability hangover?

I’m not sure, but last night I experienced one of the most intense and emotionally activating sessions of Mens Group that I’ve ever had. So it would make sense if things are still being digested and processed by my system.

According to Dr. Brené Brown, who apparently coined the term, a vulnerability hangover is the gut-wrenching feeling of shame and fear that comes up after we undertake an emotional risk. It refers to the aftermath we experience in the form of an 'emotional cringe' upon deciding to put ourselves out there.

Doesn’t feel like a bullseye for my experience, but its not inaccurate either. I won’t rule it out yet.

I’ll say this though, I'm grateful for the timing of this persistent emotional discomfort. I have therapy later today, which will be super helpful in unpacking, understanding, and soothing what I’m feeling.

Ugh. Trusting the process. Letting it be. This too shall pass. And its bringing in something really good. It wouldn’t be this uncomfortable if there wasn’t something very important and helpful within it. At some point it’ll settle and yield some sort of deeper awareness and growth.

Today I’m meditating on and carrying one of my all-time favorite Alan Watts quotes:

"It has been said that the highest wisdom lies in detachment, or, in the words of Chuang-tzu: "The perfect man employs his mind like a mirror; it grasps nothing; it refuses nothing; it receives, but does not keep." Detachment means to have neither regret for the past nor fear for the future; to let life take course without attempting to interfere with its movement and change, neither trying to prolong the stay of things pleasant nor to hasten the departure of things unpleasant. To do this is to move in time with life, to be in perfect accord with its changing music, and this is called Enlightenment." (from his book: Become What You Are)

TimeBoxing Day One: A Great Start

Its 4pm right now and I’m feeling pretty great about my first day putting TimeBoxing/TimeBlocking into practice. I’ll reflect on it using a Rose-Bud-Thorn template; i.e. what’s going really well or blooming, what’s going good and is forthcoming or budding, and finally what’s been challenging or thorny to grasp.

Rose:

The front-loaded work of TimeBoxing only took about 5 minutes this morning and fit neatly at the end of my morning routine. I finished my morning journaling and capped it off with a few minutes of looking at my schedule for the day, looking at prioritized tasks for the day, estimating how long each task might take, and then strategizing on when it would best fit into my schedule for the day.

I found this first piece of practice to be immediately helpful. It yielded a more realist understanding that the list I’d made for the day would probably not be finished unless multiple things took less time than estimated.

This first payoff alone has been very valuable, because I haven’t felt anxious about “getting everything done” today. I prioritized my tasks and had a plan to do the most important stuff. The rest of the list would be bonus or lagniappe if I got to it.

Bud:

There seems to be two distinct ways to do my TimeBoxes throughout the day:
1) Doing a task while having a stopwatch or open-ended timer going. The point being to focus and get the task done as quickly as possible while still being effective.
2) Setting an alarm for a specific amount of allotted time for the task. Then stopping and dropping that task when the alarm goes off. The point of this one being to move on to other planned tasks so that they get the previously established amount of time.

I think number two is the more traditional and rigorous way to do it, if you’re sticking strictly to the TimeBoxing method. But today I’ve tried doing a hybrid of these two approaches. I’ve set an alarm to go off when the allotted time is done, but I’ve also been running a timer to see how long it takes.

I don’t know if that’s doing too much or defeating the point, but I guess I’m experimenting to see which approach I like more or get more benefits from doing. I’m focused on practicing TimeBoxing this week so I might try one day doing just one and another day doing just the other. We’ll see.

Regardless, I’m finding that I’ve been less distracted today AND I’ve been able to stay more singularly focused on a task. Before TimeBoxing I’d let myself toggle between different tasks on the fly, but since I’m tracking time for certain tasks I’ve been more rigorous with staying with one thing until it’s done. I’m writing other things on a sticky note if they come up and I don’t want to forget to come back to to them.

Thorn:

I did not expect vacuuming to take like twice as long as I’d estimated for today. But I didn’t expect to have to deep clean the vacuum and cut lots of hair off the roller. Twice. lol. Crazy shit. But that’s what the days do, they deliver the unexpected. I’m in good spirits about it, albeit irritated at the much bigger time cost. Feels good to get this task done though.. it had been on my mind for almost a week.

So far TimeBoxing is off to a great start in my world. There’s lots of room for improvement and honing, but this is just Day One. I wonder where I’ll be with by day seven or eight. :)

There’s much good to come.

TimeBoxing and TimeBlocking for Productivity

Given my experience of time scarcity yesterday and my upcoming year of grad school and internship that starts next week, I’ve been thinking lately about how I can level up my productivity.

This morning I discovered a productivity tool that I’d heard of but have never learned and applied:
Time Boxing.
Also known as, Time Blocking.

This morning I dove into some videos and articles on it to self-educate so I can start applying it immediately. Getting good at this productivity tool will be a top focus for me this week.

The basic method is to sit down with a list of prioritized tasks for the day and the time available in the day. Estimate how much time each task may take (pro tip: over-estimate by a smidge).
Then, in order of priority, schedule time for the tasks, adding a 5-10 minute break between blocks.
Do this in between appointments, meetings, meals, and anything else that’s a set commitment in the day.

Another good tip I found is to try not blocking more than 45 to 60 minutes per tasking session if its a task done sitting down at a desk or using a lot of brain power. The rationale there is our minds get fatigued after around 45-60minutes of being sedentary and in intense focus. A break is refreshing for the mind and body, and keeps productivity higher by making us more effective. Last tip is block out meals if they don’t have a set start and end time.

So that’s the method. There’s lots of articles and YouTube videos about it. If you want to learn more just google time boxing or time blocking.

I’m going to practice implementing it this week and will treat it like an experiment. I might blog about it around next Sunday to reflect on how it went.

Sometimes its better to let things go unfinished

I was in an uncharacteristically crabby mood this morning. I felt anxious, irritable, and restless, and I didn’t understand why.

I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, which only felt more frustrating.

I got into my morning routine, starting with meditation. It felt satisfying to go through the routine but the restlessness and anger was still present.

Eventually, time caught up with before I could finish. I was in the final part of my routine—journaling—and hadn’t gotten to blog for the day, but I had plans with my partner and her family. I felt split between doing what we planned, canceling, or pushing back the plans in order to finish my tasks.

I decided to leave this stuff unfinished and come back to it when I can.

A full day unfolded and now it’s 10pm...

I’m just now getting to the blogging.
I haven’t finished the journaling.
I’m not sure I’ll even have the energy to finish the journaling.
And, it’s been a really great day.

Honestly, the feelings from the morning came up a few times today. An eagerness and irritation about the unfinished tasks come thru strongly a few times too.

In hindsight, I want to do the meaningful things BUT I don’t want to be over-attached to those things at the detriment of a better quality of life.

I could’ve manically focused on getting the things done today, and I wouldn’t have had as great of a day.

Sometimes its better to let things go unfinished and trust the flow.

Conflict can be healthy and safe

Last night I went camping with a handful of guys. This is a subset of fellows I’ve met with regularly since October last year (2021). We meet most weeks as a Mens Group. If you’re unfamiliar the concept, by a Mens Group I mean a small group of male identified folks who gather for the purpose of growing as a person and becoming a better man. We do this by getting vulnerable while discussing our individual challenges, issues, emotions, and life experiences. Something special happens when a mens group is done well. The collective wisdom, perspectives, and energy of the group creates something I find difficult to describe.

I believe we all have an Inner Healing Intelligence that’s comparable to our biological healing intelligence. When our skin is cut the body goes to work healing it. In the same way, our psyches and emotional bodies have a self-healing propensity. This is less of something we “do” to ourselves and more-so something we allow to happen. It’s akin to how we can allow and support our bodies to heal.

There’s a tremendous power and importance in diversity of genders and identities, but don’t misunderstand nor underestimate the power of gathering together with others of a fundamentally similar life experience as oneself. I think spaces of homogeneity with a healing and growing intention provide a special kind of support for the Inner Healing Intelligence. Mens Work, Mens Groups, and the practice of embodied masculinity are fascinating and expansive topics to me personally and professionally. But I’ll dive more into it another time. For now, this is a context for something else: healthy conflict.

For most of my life I’ve wrestled with conflict avoidance and a powerful aversion to interpersonal tension. Its something I’ve been more aware of since circa 2015, and I’ve been actively working  with it since 2018. I’ve made progress, but the work continues. I’ve found that there’s a lot underpinning these patterns for me. Family system dynamics, parental influences, childhood wounding, and the list goes on. I can map it out and tell a nice story about where I think the patterns come from, why they’re there, and how they work. But all of that cerebral stuff is not the full extent of what it takes to heal and change such patterns. I can’t think my way out of it. Believe me, I’ve tried, a lot. The mind work and ‘thinky stuff’ is included in the healing process but I must also feel and experience my way through if I want to make real and lasting change to the pattern. Corrective Experiences is the technical term in therapy world. Simply put, I can KNOW cognitively that conflict can be healthy and safe, BUT that won’t make as big of an impact as directly experiencing conflict as healthy and safe.

Last night, I had a powerful experience of conflict as healthy and safe. An unexpected debate emerged between myself and one of the guys. The content was about the principle and practice Leave No Trace while being out in nature. But the content of what we said isn’t important here. What matters was the experience. We got into it. I mean REALLY got into it with each other. What started as a disagreement and debate evolved into a very intense emotionally-charged argument. We went at it back and forth with each other while the other three men watched and listened patiently and intently.

Let me drop another technical term from therapy: containment. To be brief, this is the idea of experiencing intensity without overwhelm. To use an electricity analogy, its like having a whole lot of charge flowing through without a mental-emotional-somatic ‘circuit breaker’ going off. Containment is about maintaining a capacity to hold an intense experience without freaking out, losing it, shutting down, checking out, blowing up, boiling over, et cetera.

My experience last night was very intense, and yet we maintained containment. I got so angry with this guy. We got elevated and loud, and we were basically shouting with each other at one point. We were sitting down during the first half of it and all of sudden I felt a tremendous energy, like electricity surging through my body. I was subtly shaking. It became so much that without thinking I stood up with fists clinched and spoke very intensely with my friend. He commented on me suddenly standing up and he questioned what it was about. I moved toward him, as if to stand very close and face to face in an aggressive standoff, but instead I moved to stand beside him as I said, “I love you man. I want get close to you and figure this out together.” We stood next to each other, still arguing with intensity as we faced the literal and symbolic fire. We had begun arguing in verbal circles. The other men chimed in to ask useful questions and make honest vulnerable observations in the moment. It was a wise and well-timed intervention. Eventually the situation diffused through group conversation and ended with my friend and I agreeing to disagree.

All said and done, there was no maliciousness nor resentment toward each other. He and I spoke about our experience a few times as the night went on, and another time or two in the morning. The friendship, the relationship, and the emotionality between us was calm, connected, and respectful. We felt all there was to feel and said what came through. There was nothing unsaid. Nothing to left to clear. He and I rode from the mountains back to Boulder together and it felt great to have some one on one time to catch up. A bunch of us then capped off the camping trip with a cold plunge in the Boulder Creek that runs through the city. With a refreshing dip, a few kind words, and some good hugs, we bid each other farewell and “see you at Mens Group next Tuesday night.”

Conflict can be healthy and safe.
Conflict can bring us closer to each other and to ourselves.

Containment is important and essential.

Context matters.

We didn’t just go camping to goof off, play, and get drunk. This was a Mens Group campout. We gathered to meaningfully connect with each other, to share some experiences within the beauty and nourishment of the mountains, to grow as people and as men, and have some fun together while we were at it. We didn’t conspire to argue and fight, BUT we did agree our intensity is welcome in the space. We didn’t designed what happened, but we did gather with intention, commitment, trust, and containment to invite whatever may come through. And something big came through.

Don’t underestimate the power of gathering together with others with the explicit purpose and intention of growing, healing, and becoming a better person. Who knows how it might support the individual and collective inner healing intelligence.

My journey to re-pattern and end the conflict aversion continues, but I’m grateful to walk out of the mountains today with a special experience that is more powerful and more visceral than thoughts and words.

Conflict can be healthy and safe.

Get uncomfortable every day

Hmm, feeling a lot of resistance to writing a blog post right now.

Also feeling resistance around camping this evening. Well, particularly to bringing stuff to cook food.

I love food while being outdoors and out in the mountains. Just haven’t liked the extra supplies, the mess, and the cleaning.

Its a silly dilemma. I want that food while outdoors, but I don’t want the extra work that goes into it.

I’d rather eat before going out and just snacking or fasting while camping. But if I do that I’ll never get better at and more comfortable with cooking outdoors.

Chances are I’d get more comfortable with bringing all the supplies and doing the cleaning if I just did that more. Ugh, but its uncomfortable and inconvenient.

Learning is messy. Learning is uncomfortable. Learning taking repetitions of doing something, and often times with failure and stumbles punctuating those repetitions.

So, alright.. okay.. fine.. I’m just going to suck it up, lean into the discomfort, and go for it. I’ll bring the stuff and cook while camping. It might suck at points. It’ll probably be great and worth it and go fine.

I’d rather push my edges than live within the boundaries of my ‘comfort.’
Embodying this value is a daily practice. And here in the camping is my opportunity for today.
I’ll choose to meet it and embrace it…
and so continues the simple practice of choosing to get every day.