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Attacking Adversity

Bookish Weapon Number Forty-One

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“The Pleasure Prescription,” by Paul Pearsall, Ph.D. was written in 1996. It is still timely and I think a classic self-help book. So here we go.

Aloha vs Haole. Aloha besides meaning “Hi,” is the word for our seventh sense, the instinctive drive to do what is pleasurable and healthful. Haole means “without health.” The author says his book is about “rediscovering your sense of aloha.”

What I Liked and Didn’t Like

Pearsall says you can get enough exercise just by walking a few times a week. I disagree with this, but won’t belabor it. There are a lot of things in the book the make sense.

I liked this. “If you want to bring pleasure into your life, be a person who brings great pleasure into life – and into someone else’s life.” I agree! If you think you are adding to someone’s day even if it is just to make it a tiny bit more enjoyable then it will make your day too.

Relationships

One of the most impactful observations Pearsall makes is about relationships is drawn from the Polynesian culture. He quotes a Polynesian kahuna, “All bonds are forever. Divorce never annuls a relationship, and if you want to find joy, stay closely related to others and the world. The brain may think it has voided a commitment, but the heart does not think that way. Like a loving child, once it has loved, the heart loves forever, no matter what. You can never truly separate, even if you live a world away. It is a law of physics and a law of Polynesia. Once things join, they are transformed by their joining and are One forever.” That has stuck in my mind over the years and I think it is what really sets his book apart from the rest.

If you take the above statement to heart you will approach relationships with a far more serious and thoughtful mind. How many people are you One with that you thought were just a pause that refreshes? Think about that.

Urgency

Now here is something to consider. In the world of time management, they tell you to separate what is urgent from what is important and to know the difference. Pearsall discusses urgency in a different light. He calls it the “Urgency Response.” Some people are always under its spell. If you were raised in a violent home then you are constantly “ready.”

Pearsall says, “The urgency response is not just a psychological state, but also a physiological one. A state of prolonged urgency gradually kills us and threatens those around us by weakening our immune system, stressing our heart, and prematurely aging all of our bodies ’ systems.” Then he quotes Albert Camus who says, “If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.”

Balance is the key says, Pearsall. “Healthy balance and oscillation is the key to the pleasure prescription. Just as too much happiness too often and too long can cross over to psychotic delusion, chronic unhappiness and internal stress from perceived helplessness and lack of joy can cross over to serious clinical depression.” We need to keep the parasympathetic system balanced with the sympathetic. So go get the Nature Beat App and a chest strap so you can check yours every morning.

Pain and Loss

This book is a couple of hundred pages long and I have only taken a few ideas from it so please read it yourself. There is much more to learn between these pages.

However, there is one more quote from the kahuna on pain and suffering that I thought was excellent. “When you are dealing with pain, loss, and suffering, you must remember five things. Be patient, for this too shall pass. Stay connected, for relationships must be strong to make the passing possible. Be pleasant through your pain, for that will bring you the aloha you need to heal and give healing to others. Silence your self-pity and avoid self-blame, for you are only doing what we all must do. Most of all, keep giving your aloha. Don’t use your suffering, share it by opening up to others, teaching them what you are learning from your pain, and holding and comforting them to let them know that they too will be safe when it comes to their turn.”

Go Hiking But What If You Can’t?

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Loss is not a fun topic, but I lost my hiking. The government shut down the trails die to the current Pandemic and I am sure with good intent and probably a lack of knowledge. The fact remains I can’t go hiking.

So what does someone do when they lose something they depend on for sanity and life? Be flexible and adapt!

The facts

So no hiking trails are available. Oh, and the gym is closed too. Not good. It is temporary, but how long this will last is anybody’s guess.

There are places you can walk just outside your door. Maybe even some hills, even steep hills. You might even get to know your neighborhood. That is what I did.

Be Creative And Flexible

So I created an at-home workout that is actually harder than the gym workout I did. I filled my backpack full of one-liter water bottles and use it for shoulder presses, curls, and squats. I just put another water bottle in it every week. After doing three rounds of multi exercises including Burpees, Turkish Getups, and sprints I go for a walk. The whole workout not including the walk takes an hour.

On Sunday, normal hiking day I do four rounds each being twice as long as during the week and then add an hour walk.

Loss is Hard

Even though I was able to put together a hard Sunday workout it is not as hard as a hike. I still miss hiking. Nothing really replaces it.

Like Barbara Hansen says in her book, Picking Up The Pieces,” “Loss is usually unexpected and unwanted.” You have to be careful not to go into denial at least permanently, and make room for anger. All of the emotional turmoil has a place.

Of course, we aren’t talking about losing your ability to walk like Barbara. It is just not being able to go hiking. Poor me! But the process is the same.

Silver Linings

It is always important to look at silver linings in every loss. You can find them. I discovered that I don’t need the gym as much as I thought and that I will be changing my gym workout when I go back to make it tougher.

Not hiking saves wear and tear on my car and saves gas money. Not hiking saves me time to do other things I never seem to have time to do. Finally, not hiking makes me appreciate hiking, even more.

Bookish Weapon Number Forty

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Today we are going to revisit the author Barbara Hansen by looking at another one of her other books, “Picking Up The Pieces.” We looked at “The Strength Within,” in another Bookish Weapon post.

In this book, Barbara explains what happened to her when she was nineteen years old and how that changed her life. Then she discusses the things that allowed her to thrive in the future. She says her realizations can be life-changing for us. Here are a few.

Time Doesn’t Heal Us: We Heal Ourselves

We choose how we respond to loss. She says, “I am convinced that we’re destroyed not so much by forces outside ourselves as by forces within.” We choose how we respond to loss.

She dislikes the phrase “Time Heals” and says it implies “that id we just keep breathing long enough our sorrow and grief will vanish. Nonsense. I’ve watched too many people walk through loss to accept the idea that “time heals.” The more accurate statement is “time numbs.”

Develop Internal Resources

Barbara discusses five internal resources that we can develop. These are so helpful.

Believe in your own uniqueness – “…affirm that life indeed has a pattern and determine how we fit into that mosaic.
Discover Success is Intangible – “…It is what we are and not what we have that makes us successful.”
Listen With Love – Focus on others and listen to there problems
Live Life In Small Slices – Live in the moment and not for the moment diminishes our pain.
Invest In Solitude – Get acquainted with your internal self and discover new strengths.

Exploring Some of These Five

She has a personal theology where she believes God is Love and she is a channel of that Love. This gives her meaning. And she says no matter your religious beliefs: “each of us is a tiny piece of the mosaic of life. Before we can successfully walk through a loss, we need to affirm that life does indeed have a pattern and determine how we fit into the total picture.”

She goes on to say that she believes she is a valuable piece in life’s pattern. A loss does not erase a person’s uniqueness. “Believing in your own uniqueness gives you the strength to pick up the pieces.”

She measures her success by asking herself the following questions:

Am I a loving, kind, caring individual?
Am I filled with inner peace, serenity, and stability?
Am I positive, joyful and content?
Do I like the person I am becoming?
Do I welcome each day?
Do I laugh easily?
Do I enjoy my friends and family?
Do I have a good relationship with God?
Do I have something to hope for, a goal I’m working toward?
Do I have someone to love?

These are fantastic questions to ask yourself even if the answers might make you very uncomfortable.

This book is out of print, but there are used copies available from time to time. If you can find it get it. There is so much more in the book.

Go Hiking And Live the Charged Life

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Book Titles really lend themselves to discussing hiking. I mean that if you are hiking then you are living the charged life. No doubt about it. So now you want to know why that might be, right?

Here is the deal. There are four ways hiking contributes to living a charged life. So here they are for your consideration.

Nature

Just being in nature rejuvenates the body and mind, but appreciating it is even more important. You need to love that tree and the sky and the wind. There will come a time when you won’t be able to feel the wind on your face. Think about that every time you feel a breeze. You will appreciate nature and life.

Consistently exposing yourself to the elements makes you stronger. You could even take a lesson fro Wim How, the “Ice Man” and go hiking with in shorts and no shirt when it is 30 degrees or colder. No, that is appreciating nature.

Energy

Any kind of exercise will provide you with more energy, but there is something about climbing a mountain that takes it to another level. Maybe it is that you feel you have accomplished something significant and no matter what the rest of your day holds you will have that spark to face it.

It doesn’t matter if your muscles are sore and tired. The energy is still there. It will fuel you throughout the rest of your day.

Purpose

You hear a lot about having a purpose these days. Every self-help book discusses it. I don’t think people have only one purpose, they have multiple. One purpose might be to provide for your family. Another to become physically healthy and fit. All of these keep you charged.

My favorite purpose is to make it to the top of a mountain every week. There is nothing like to keep you charged and focused.

In his book “Charged,” Brendon Burchard quotes Tom Robbins on purpose. Tom says, “Our purpose is to consciously, deliberately evolve towards a wiser, more liberated and luminous state of being.” A great way to get to that state is to climb a mountain every week. You get wiser, more liberated and definitely more luminous!

Challenge

There is nothing like a weekly climb up a mountain to stoke your need for a challenge. Even if you have climbed the same mountain a hundred times (and I have done that), it is still a challenge every time.

Challenge in life is seriously important. Think about the people that enter Spartan races. My guess is most of these people are extremely successful and live a comfortable life. They need adversity and challenges in their life so they go looking for it. At my age, a weekly climb up a mountain is plenty of challenge and I don’t have to pay an entrance fee.

Bookish Weapon Number Thirty-Nine

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Brendon Burchard is a motivational speaker and ever-present online video encourager. He has written several books and one he wrote in 2012 had an impression on me. It is called, “The Charge.”

As with all of his books Brendon is passionate. I underlined the following right at the beginning of the book:

“The Charged Life, the truly lived life, is not routine existence in some quaint, picturesque village of safety and certainty. No, the life with living is out therein the wooded wilds of the unknown, on the craggy battlefields that test our wits and wills in the daily fights with our own demons.”

All The Lives

The author discusses other kinds of lives that may not be so “charged” such as the “caged life,” and the “comfortable life.”

The caged life is when you live in the past or in the expectations of others. You think you are stuck and can’t make the changes you need to make and have to be a certain way. You are asking “will I survive.” Brendon says unless life flips you upside down it is very hard to get out of this, but it can be done.

The comfortable life is “an everything is ok” kind of life. A ho-hum existence. It isn’t like a cage but more like a rut he says.

The Charged Life “calls to us after we have done what we were supposed to do, become who we thought we were supposed to be, lived as we thought we were supposed to live.”

The Motivation

Most motivational speakers use information from other motivational speakers. Tony Robbins borrows from Jim Rohn and others. Burchard borrows from Tony Robbins when he discusses human drives. He talks about how you control the meaning of everything or as Tony said it, “Nothing has any meaning except the meaning we give it.”

Burchard goes on to advise you to not spend your time on time wasters. In 2020 that would be on your phone. He mentioned TV and surfing the net. And then he says “For every bit of data that comes into your life, your brain attaches meaning and emotion to it.”

Competence

Burchard discusses the ten human drives. One of them is competence. It is important. When we are doing well and conquering our world we reinforce the feeling of competence. He calls this the “competence-confidence loop.” Then he says, “…the second our internal competence scale tips from self-assured to self-doubting is the moment we begin feeling defeat. We start questioning our ability, intelligence, strengths – or entire future.”

He says that if we can understand our world, perform in it and master it then we have competence. If not we don’t feel competent. If we know we can “figure it out” we are good. He says, “Personal agency is a term psychologists use to describe how confident you feel in your ability to control your actions and shape the outcomes in your life.” This is important.

There is so much more in this book but I thought the above was the best.

Bookish Weapon Number Thirty-Eight

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John Mark Comer’s book, “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry,” is a tough one for me. On the book cover the word “Hurry” is crossed out. Gone. This kind of goes against my philosophy. I am always saying, go fast up that mountain.

Actually I am always rushing through things to the point where they are incomplete or shoddy (maybe even this post). I am not sure if I am hurrying toward something or away from something. But never mind that, let’s take a closer look at this book.

Level Seven

In just the first few pages the book taught me something about myself that I didn’t know. I am a “Level Seven.” That must be from these video games that the young whippersnappers play twenty-four hours a day. Ok, I confess, we even had levels back in “Space Invader” days. Anyway, Comer sounds a bit alarmed that he just hit thirty and that meant he was a level three. I am halfway into my seventies so I guess that makes me a level seven and maybe even a seven and a half.

What could be better than being a level seven? The higher the level the more of a master at whatever game you are playing, right? Thanks, Mark!

Hurry Hurry Hurry

Comer or should I respectfully say Pastor Comer, alarmed himself when he realized he was rushing through life. His mentors (maybe level sevens, you think?) told him that he should do everything he could to eliminate hurry in his life. One of the mentors, Dallas Willard, is quoted: “There is nothing else. Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” Sounds good on the surface.

Being a Pastor he says Jesus was unhurried and therefore if you follow his “Way” you should strive for that as well. Sounds good to me. Even below the surface. Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life as Willard says above. Well, can you imagine the current Dali Lama running someplace?

The Evidence

He goes on to make a real case for how unnecessarily hurried our society has become. Smartphones, crammed schedules, rushing here and there.

Comer asks if you think you might suffer from any of a number of things like irritability, hypersensitivity, restlessness, workaholism, emotional numbness, out-of-order-priorities, lack of care for your body, escapist behaviors, slippage of spiritual disciplines, and isolation. Guilty?

The Answer

Comer provides you with a solution to all these problems. They are being silent and solitary once a week. It is called the Sabbath in religious terms. He makes a great case for it if you are Christian and I like to think I am one so of course, I feel guilty for not practicing it. We call that being “convicted.” Simplicity is the second. Have you heard of minimalism? Slowing is the third.

All these practices make sense for everyone, not just Christians. You all know about minimalism so I don’t think I have to belabor that. Sell or give away what you don’t need and don’t buy what you don’t need. Slowing is more interesting.

With “Slowing,” he suggests some practices. They include driving the speed limit, getting into the slow lane, get into the longest checkout line at the grocery store ( I tried, I really tried), get a flip phone or ditch your phone altogether, kill your TV (got that one right), walk slower (NO), and journaling (of course).

I left out a lot, but you get the idea. It may take me a while to implement more of these, but I think it will be worth the effort.