Working with Harvey and the MindStrong crew has been an amazing experience so far. Learning about breath work, heat and cold exposure, and various movements has given me a whole new outlook on how I train and think. Through this process I’ve been able to learn so much about health and wellness and how important it is as an athlete to understand your true nature and physiology. Joining the MindStrong team is a must for anyone looking to enhance their everyday life and performance!
Training the breath with Harvey Martin and The MindStrong Project has been a major component to my growth the last couple years. Understanding more of what the breath does to our biology has opened many doors and helped me to continue tapping into my humanistic potential. The most exciting part is that I feel I am just getting started.
After deciding that the effects of breath work was something I wanted to pursue, I’ve been able to incorporate it into my routine and have seen great improvements physically and mentally because of this “tool”. Working with Harvey has built a foundation of confidence within my performance, recovery and mindset. I’ve been able to use different protocols in and out of season that have given me an even greater understanding of the benefit of “the breath”. From working on controlling my breath in the sauna, cold tubs or in the weight room I’ve been able to carry all these experiences onto the ice.
Countless players talked about how much he [Harvey] had helped them in their careers. I was curious of anyone in human performance coaching and making that big of an impact. “What is this guy saying to the athletes?” I would often wonder. After nearly a year of hearing about him I decided to see for myself first hand what he was doing. The two weeks I spent with Harvey opened my eyes to a huge aspect of what I had been reluctant to use in my own practice…we have to be aware of our own human nature first before we can access our mental and physical abilities at the highest level. His art works for people because it taps into the most primal sense of ourselves. It’s about who we/athletes are at our core and what we know we need to become.
The MindStrong Monthly Membership
Elevate Your Performance
When you become a MindStrong Member you gain unlimited access to a variety of tools to use pre and post performance including…
- Breath Work & Guided Meditations
- Movement Programing
- Mindset Training
- Heat & Cold Practices
- Research & Continued Education
- 6 LIVE COACHING WEBINARS EACH WEEK
- LIVE & RECORDED WEEKLY CLASSES
We’ve established and used these systems with the highest performers on the planet and we will do what ever it takes to help you on your athletic journey towards your life long goals.
HUMAN PERFORMANCE
The human mind and body as an organism is meant to be stressed. It is our great gift to learn how to adapt and evolve ourselves. Since the beginning of time we have adapted and used stress to do that. We are the only species on the planet that voluntarily place stress in front of us to become stronger. Whether that’s reading, learning or studying to improve our minds or lifting, running and swimming to improve our body we have the ability to better ourselves. With this comes great freedom. However, we have to take the responsibility to invite positive stress into our lives. As the stoic philosophy strongly suggest, we should live in accordance with nature.
Breathwork:
Breath is the bottom floor to performance. From a meditative perspective to a mechanical foundation. Using the breath to manage reactions and control your state is the highest competitive edge with your training. Breathing is an autonomic function of the body meaning it is always happening. However, it can be placed under our control. Taking the unconscious and making it conscious opens up numerous advantages that will take us to the next level in any field we perform at.
How To Get Started:
Understand the difference between nasal and mouth breathing. The mouth is used for talking and eating. Outside of that learning how to be constantly aware of your ability to maintain calm nasal breathing will optimize the way you think and feel.
Nose Breathing Benefits:
- Promotes a more mechanical breath (Horizontal vs Vertical)
- Filters Air
- First line of defense against viruses and bacteria
- Warms and humidifies air
- Produces Nitric Oxide
- Activates the Vagus Nerve (Parasympathetic/Calming)
Mouth Breathing:
- Moves O2 and Co2 in and out quicker.
Breathing:
Frequently asked questions:
How do I start?
Simply by acknowledging your breath. The key to creating focus and mindfulness is by following the pace of your breath. Spend a few minutes (2-5) following your breath. Each time your mind wonders off your breath the goal is to bring it back to the present. This becomes a bicep curl for your brain and wires the circuits in your brain to become stronger. With more practice comes better focus.
What are appropriate mechanics?
Break it down and think of breathing horizontally vs vertically. A horizontal breath would be a low deep breath that once mastered would have minimal movement of the body. The rib cage should be expanding wide in a 360 degree range. We typically suggest sitting up against a wall and being able to feel your back pushing into the wall. You should also find yourself eliminating any rise of the body above the nipples. Avoid chest breathing, which is typically a byproduct of mouth breathing or poor vertical breathing. Vertical breathing you can see in the shoulders and neck muscles. We want to eliminate this. Try breathing in front of a mirror and notice the expansion of your rib cage moving horizontally. By practicing this a few times a day after a few weeks you will start to have these movements hardwired in your brain and breathe properly throughout the day.
Is there a specific protocol to follow?
Just like everything else, the same holds true for breathing. Everyone is different. You’re a different physiological being than others and you’re also constantly changing. So a breathing protocol that seems easy today may be difficult later on. Understanding that concept alone sets you up to make better conscious decisions based off your intuition and awareness of yourself. To start to understand this create some fundamental practices and take note of the difficulty or ease of protocols throughout the week.
Box Breathing:
Same sequence for the box
Inhale-Hold-Exhale-Hold (x6)
(All Nasal)
4 Second inhale
4 Second Hold
4 Second Exhale
4 Second Hold
Cadence Breathing:
Timing the inhale with the exhale
Inhale-Exhale (x6)
(All Nasal)
3 Second Inhale
3 Second Exhale
or
5 Second Inhale
5 Second Exhale
Cadence Breathing w/ Hold:
Same time for all
Inhale-Hold-Exhale (x6)
(All Nasal)
5 Second Inhale
5 Second Hold
5 Second Exhale
Focus Breath/Calm Breath:
Shorter Inhale. Longer Exhale
(Inhale Nose-Exhale Mouth)
or
(Inhale Nose-Exhale Nose)
4 Second Inhale
-Slight Pause
7 Second Exhale
Calm Diaphragm Breathing:
Inhale shorter than Exhale. Hold following Exhale
(All Nasal)
4 Second Inhale
6 Second Exhale
4 Second Hold
***Add Sound***
The mind listens and pays attention to sound. Play around with adding calming sounds to your exhale and watch how the system shifts to calm. Enjoy!
Mindset:
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” – Napoleon Hill
Everything that we can see and touch outside of nature has first been created through thought. The human brain has created visions and action plans such as skyscrapers, iPhones, computers and incredible world solving inventions initially through the mind. The human brain alone separated us from the rest of the animals on the planet and placed us at the top of the food chain. The power of imagination and courage of acting upon it becomes a beautiful gift all of us humans have ownership over. For the most part creating a vision and placing goals with action steps to move forward typically works out pretty well for anyone trying to promote growth in their lives. What is it that makes you curious? What experiences seem worth pursuing in life? How is it that you become more aware of your intuition?
***These questions are deep, powerful and reflective. Take your time with them. We’ve interviewed some of the most brilliant minds on earth and asked similar soul searching questions. So how do you improve the mind? Simply by doing that…***
Ask Questions!
The mind is a subjective source of advancement with our performance. This means we’re at the mercy of our questions to not only those around us but even ourselves. Are you able to look at things with an open mind and peel into them deeper. This is progress of what we call “Growth Mindset”. You must collect data, track experiences and create great intentions through your questions in life. This is how we learn. Through this process you establish growth which to the human mind creates happiness and creativity. It is up to our perception to see things as good or bad. The ability to enhance our self awareness puts us in a place of better understanding, practical wisdom and good judgement. We break things down into a few categories but for this particular subject we need to see to it that we are seeking good, deep and insightful knowledge. From there our platform of learning needs to grow and with that comes an enhancement in your wisdom. The wise mind is a calm mind and with that comes better choices. The power of the mind and the key to performance is being a better problem solver. To achieve this, you must make good choices.
How to improve the mind you ask?
Improve your recognition of triggers. To make better choices we must first understand what is happening inside the mind. The mind has a negativity bias inside of it. This is what keeps us in comfort zones and fixed mindsets. Negative experiences get rooted into our memory bank and create future avoidances. We need to recognize when these feelings or thoughts come up and move through them. This becomes known as self-awareness. The more we avoid experience and adversity we strengthen the bonding connection between our thinking with freeze/flight states.
Due to this negativity bias our mind looks at the past through a lens of regret and guilt. Then it projects out to the future at fear and worry. All these thoughts and feelings are trying to keep us in comfort zones. Think of negative stimuli compared to positive stimuli. The negativity tends to stick harder and longer than positive experiences.
What are some of the ways we can recognize these triggers?
You can track your day or days by using a journal and documenting and collecting of data. This will help improve your future reasoning. Next you need to create and establish high standards or value systems for yourself and build a high internal locus of control. This allows you to believe that things are inside your control and you can control your behaviors. This confidence tends to improve your ability to find strength in faith and positive growth.
What to look for…
The mind wants to avoid these triggers:
1.) Uncertainty 2.) Change 3.) Attention 4.) Struggle
When you find yourself in a state of avoidance. Ask yourself if you are avoiding or excited by the challenge in which these triggers bring about. Much opportunity comes through these stressors and most certainly results in adaptation.
Standards and Values
Goal Setting
Mastery Approach – Generally appreciate everything about the process of striving for personal excellence regardless of the end result.
Nutrition:
What you eat… Is what you think.
The enteric nervous system (ENS) can also be known as the “Second Brain.” This system correlates with the gut and runs up the system into how we think. This becomes the “feel” of our body and the process of digestion. A process that requires energy and messaging to the body on how we think and feel. From breaking down food, absorbing nutrients and expelling waste requires chemical processing. More so than our actual thoughts you could look at the gut as an emotional response. Communicating with the vagus nerve to run its course and place our system into a safe or survival mood. Through the process of thinking the main brain as we know it holds our thoughts. The second brain, being the gut becomes our emotions. Both of these create a physiological response. All of this equals quality or poor behavior. As we know performance falls to the layer of understanding and control of making good choices if our gut is off our behavior is too. Think of the formula: Thoughts + Emotions + Physiology = Quality Behavior.
Any leak in the chain and you will start to see diminished returns. Keeping nutrition very simple we need to first and foremost start with the way we view hydration. Being able to make this the forefront of our habitual actions we start to optimize our cell system. In return we feel more energy and create better breathing patterns. This serves as powerful feedback loops to our awareness. Past hydration we can start to look at nature and learn how natural unprocessed foods create a peaceful relationship with our mind and body. Keep it simple, if what you eat makes you feel good then you can probably start there. Track what those food items are and follow the energy during and post digestion. Track how you’re sleeping and how sustainable energy is throughout the day. As for the times you do go down those roads of processed food, if you need instant feedback of how you’re feeling tune in with your breath. Processed food means mouth breathing and you will start to burn fuel sources in your mind and body at an accelerated rate. Still having trouble understanding what to eat?
Hydration
- Aim for a minimum of 1/2 your bodyweight in ounces of water each day, preferably filtered.
Food
- Prioritize protein. Aim for 1-2 palm sizes of protein at each meal. Some good sources include beef, chicken, pork, wild game, fish, tofu, etc.
- When consuming animal protein, avoid added nitrates, nitrites and antibiotics. Organic, grass-fed and grass finished is best. You are what your animals eat.
- Eat the rainbow. Aim for 2-4 fist fulls of non-starchy vegetables at each meal. The key is variety – green broccoli and brussels sprouts, red peppers, orange carrots, yellow zucchini, white garlic and onions, etc. – an array of colors will provide your body with essential nutrients and minerals.
- Carbs. Based on your goals, aim for 1-2 cupped handfuls of carbohydrates at each meal. This includes foods like whole grains, quinoa, rice, beans, etc.
- Flavor with fats. Aim for 1-2 thumb size portions at each meal. Some good sources include avocados, grass-fed butter, ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, nut butters, chia seeds, nuts, etc.
- Read labels. If purchasing processed, aim for 5 ingredients or less on the label. If you can’t pronounce an ingredient, avoid it.
- Be on the lookout for unnecessary, added ingredients. Sugars, salts and oils are common culprits.
- Supplement where needed with a high-quality multivitamin, fish oil and protein powder to fill in the gaps.
Movement:
There are many ways to view movement. Purely sport specific or training modules that specialize in unique skill development. We could look at movement as rehab or injury prevention. Movement could be losing or gaining weight depending on individuals needs. Either way we see it movement is life. The body is your brain. The gut, heart, blood flow all becomes one. The system lives under the same roof and it needs to be moved. Movement alone plays massive roles in how we see the world and the relationships we have in it. This ability to move and strengthen our body deals tremendously with learning, memory and improvement of overall resiliency. The MindStrong Project looks at movement in a few categories: Strength & Conditioning, Speed/Agility and Recovery. The organism needs to be placed under stress to adapt. As the body evolves to be stronger, the mind follows. As our background forms from specific sport training and power lifting environments we have implemented performance breathing, yoga, heat/cold contrast, nature and meditation into our systems to build a healthier more durable machine. To be healthy, is to be useful!
Remember the body is meant to move. Inside sport specific movements we can all learn from the basic movements of human life. Think feet first and move up from there
A look into MindStrong’s Week:
- Monday: Quick Cold activation – Full Body lift “Light” – (Sauna/Ice x1)
- Tuesday: Breath/Yoga/Flow + Aerobic Endurance (Develop Oxygen Supply) – Nasal Only
- Wednesday: Heavy Upper Body Lift – Finisher (Sauna x1)
- Thursday: Breath/Yoga/Flow + Footwork/Speed – Finisher (Cold x1)
- Friday: Heavy Lower Body Lift – Finisher (Sauna x1)
- Saturday: Full Body light movement (Sauna/Ice x2) – Nasal Only
- Sunday: Active Recovery (Nature Walk) + Optional (Sauna x1)
Pre Workout: Breath Protocol depending on day (Meditation/Health/Mechanical)
Post Workout: Downshift Protocol x5 days a week (Meditation)
Grounding: x5 days a week
Sauna: x4 days a week
Cold: Every morning exposure + x3 days in training
Yoga/Flow: x2 days a week
Focus on the primal movements and add them into your daily life:
1.) Squat
2.) Lunge
3.) Bend and Lift from the floor (Deadlift)
4.) Pull
5.) Push
6.) Rotate
Outside of these strength movements we must RUN, SWIM and Have Fun!
Humans are meant to walk, jog, sprint and swim. Get yourself moving. Create obstacles and uneven surfaces to create playful environments to generate natural movements. Think monkey bars, balance beams, open range hiking, mountain hiking etc… Start here. Add Stress (Weight) to these body movements for adaptation along the way!
Three Energy Systems:
Phosphate – (Immediate Energy System)
Glycogen – (Short Term System/Lactic Acid)
Aerobic Respiration – (Long Term Energy System)
Tracking Progress:
How well do you know you? What is the intent behind this workout?
The art of mastery inside movement is making the conscious decisions under pressure. The body is a constant balancing act of stressing and recovering. From a mental, emotional and physical level everything cost energy.
Sleep:
The energy source in the sky… The sun. Follow that!
The sun creates vibrancy and relaxation all in the same day for our well-being. The morning sunrise tremendously effects the way we go about our day. Having the sunlight touching the skin in the morning and activating the colors of the sky with our vision already starts the preparation for sleep later that day. The Circadian Rhythm controls the timing of our sleep. Aligning this with the homeostasis of the body (biological mechanisms) we become in sync with being awake and being asleep
As stated with the morning sunlight notice the brightness of the day. That typically tells you the sort of light you want to be exposed to throughout the day. Look at the colors of a sunset and notice how things tend to become red and then dark. This is how we need to arrange our house and environment as well. There is nothing in the sky that promotes looking at blue light during the evening darkness. You can flip your phone to red through the settings or rock blue blocker glasses and we suggest dimming your exposure to light once the sun goes down. The MindStrong team focuses on sleep cycle of 8-10 hours of sleep. Creation is built in these stages of the mind. Our mind isn’t turned off while we’re sleeping, so again think of survival vs safe. If you go to bed giving your system the perspective of safety you tend to sleep peacefully throughout the evening. If you have a stressed system then your body stays in protection mode throughout the duration of sleep. What does this tell you?
- Avoid deep thinking before bed
- Avoid arguments or problem solving before bed
- Avoid high arousal activity
- Avoid artificial and blue light
- Try to limit foods/liquids before bed (Use energy recovering not digesting) or having to get up throughout the night having to use the bathroom
Things to pay attention to when you wake up:
- Do you have a dry mouth or saliva?
- Are your bed sheets all over the bed or neat?
- What is the temperature of the room?
Things to take note of:
1.)
- If you have a dry mouth this is seen as a sympathetic state (Fight/Flight)
- Are you snoring or breathing through your mouth?
- If so, consult with a doctor/physician (We suggest taping your mouth for sleep)
- This promotes nasal breathing and produces filtration of the air as well as parasympathetic (Calm/Regeneration)
2.)
- Make your bed
- First of all it triggers your brain to recognize progress/accomplishment right away
- Secondly it promotes cleanliness and peace (Nervous System feels safe)
- If you notice your sheets are not all over the place when you wake up you can trust that you slept soundly throughout the night
3.)
- Keep air temperature cool and dark in room
- Think of a cave for our ancestors (cool and dark)
- Hot/stuffy rooms correlate in our brains as not safe
- A hot shower before bed promotes body temp to cool down afterwards finish quickly on a cold shower to spark arousal and getting focused with slow nasal breathing to shift into relaxation. If you do a contrast route with showers time them up to be an hour or so before bed
Pay attention to your fatigue meter. Don’t lie in bed awake, if you’re having trouble sleeping then do something else. Read a fictional book or something light that avoids thought provoking activity. Try listening to music until you feel tired.
| Tracker | Hours Of Sleep | Bed Time | WakeTime | Sunrise Exposure | Movement | Heart Rate | Liter of Water | Breath Protocol | Cold Shower |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | |||||||||
| Tuesday | |||||||||
| Wednesday | |||||||||
| Thursday | |||||||||
| Friday | |||||||||
| Saturday | |||||||||
| Sunday |
Cold Exposure:
This is a sympathetic nerve stimulation. Meaning you will see a heightened arousal state from cold activation. Finding ways to use the cold to strengthen your mind and create a sense of calm is a tremendous tool. Being able to control your emotional response to this stimulus develops into a stronger mental resiliency in everyday life. Along with improving mood and confidence it also improves blood circulation. The cold is an incredible source of energy and alertness, especially when starting off your day.
The modern lifestyle for humans rarely demands environmental discomfort. This is rather new to the human mind and body. We tend to think negative about the cold. Deep rooted in our brain cold meant energy expenditure. As you hear often through our coaching at MindStrong Project your brain is constantly trying to find ways to keep you safe. This is because through most of our existence we only wanted to use energy when we absolutely had too. After we would use energy hunting/gathering or finding/building shelter we would conserve as much energy as we could. With the ease of modern society we have lost the “need” to move or use energy. This lack of movement creates an excess of “white fat”. Which means we’re storing up an excess amount of energy and reserving nutrients. So under your skin this will become an insulator for your body. Brown fat, warms up your body by burning fatty acid and glucose (The heater).
Brown fat can be activated by cold. It starts to be stimulated by colder temperatures outside or cold water exposure. The lower the temperature the more brown fat tissue activated. This starts to turn the white fat into brown fat creating heat (Thermogenesis).
Week 1:
Finish with a 20 second cold shower.
Week 2:
40 second cold shower.
Week 3:
60 second cold shower.
When you feel prepared try using a cold tub or finding a lake to swim in. This full body exposure serves a meditative sense with the pressure of the water and acknowledgment of diaphragmatically breathing. Take your time and use appropriately. Focus on breathing calm and slowly. If you’re remaining still and not moving in open water practice nasal breathing.
Heat Exposure:
Using the sauna as a heat stressor you can break this down into three levels. Strength, Recovery and mental resiliency. We like to use the sauna at a temperature around 170-200 degrees. Typically using anywhere from 1 to 3 rounds. Adding cold or mobility in between rounds as a rest period. Desired time will be left up to the individual, however we suggest anywhere from 10-30 minutes a round. This will also depend on the temperature you’re using with your sauna. The sweet spot seems to be 20-30 minutes in that 170-180 range.
As far as the benefits of a sauna you increasingly feel a strengthening process happening with your immune system. Beyond that you create a tolerance to heat stress. This pays big dividends in endurance and ability to maintain energy in your performance. Post workout using a sauna to increase blood flow and flush toxins relaxes and recovers muscles. With correct timing and dosage you can increase changes in the body and increase growth hormones. REGULAR SAUNA USAGE MAKES YOU STRONGER!!!
From a mental standpoint the heat activates the brain. Neurogenesis is increased. This is the creation of new brain cells. Leading to an improvement in learning and memory. It also serves as the ability to retain information. Your focus becomes improved and an increase in sustainability/concentration during mental tasks.
Above all these amazing things that the heat brings to your performance. It is an amazing environment for social interaction. Creating space for connection and beautiful conversations.
Heat/Ice (Fire & Ice)
Training or Recovering?
Understanding that energy becomes the mark of a performer. We need to learn these systems and constantly evaluate the difference between training and recovering. Many times in our training we find that things we once thought as recovery act just as much of a stressor as a lift day. The value of understanding the systems both at a technological level and intuitive comprehension is key. Remember, everything cost energy and we can’t particularly speed up recovery.
Here are a few readings from Sauna/Ice sessions. You can see the stress of the body and also get an idea of the taxation on the mind/body. The key in understanding this concept means that we are not beyond our nature. We can’t speed up recovery. Timing and dosage become crucial when making choices with your energy.
Earthing:
Throughout human history we have slept, stood, sat and felt the ground beneath us. Earthing (also known as grounding) refers to contact with the earths surface electrons by walking barefoot outside. Get those feet to the ground. Wet grass, dirt, sand or water and you will see some amazing benefits. Very simply the human body becomes a sponge when we activate with the earth. We start soaking up negatively charged ions and soaking up health benefits as well as combat the lack of connection we have with the planet due to our current lifestyle. Earthing neutralizes free radicals, improves sleep and helps with pain management. It also plays a massive role in decreasing stress.
Think of the last time you buried your feet into the sand while sitting at the beach. Not only was it playful and fun but it probably made you relax and feel a sense of calm. This alignment with the earth is highly crucial for our performance and mental alertness. It also strengthens muscles and helps with our balance to move freely without shoes and on uneven surfaces in outside environments. So kick those shoes off and gain the health benefits of being one with the planet.
Nature:
If you want to increase cognitive function and physical health. Nature is an absolute must to be in your training program.The process of using nature to improve your performance benefits need to be in the guidelines of feeling safe. As fun as it is to get lost in nature, if you’re solely looking for performance benefits the mind needs to perceive the nature exposure as safe. Modern lifestyle has produced a constant stimulus that the brain has never been exposed to. That has led to over breathing, frustration and a lack of problem solving. It also makes it extremely difficult for us to shift our nervous system. Breathing in forest air has a massive spark in the immune system and improves the natural killer cells. Forest/Nature environments compared to urban environments show a less sympathetic nerve activation and enhance parasympathetic activation. Nature lowers blood pressure, improves pulse rate as well as heart rate variability. These things are massively important if you’re looking to be a high level performer and sustain performance.
Try to spend at least two hours a week in nature where you can use the silence to recovery, adapt and create.
Bodies of Water:
Ever notice the ease and calmness that rushes over you when you’re around a body of water? Have you noticed the ideas and creation that comes up as you stare out into the vast blue of an ocean or lake? There is a reason Albert Einstein claimed to have his most important realizations while sailing.
Bodies of water pays off both at a physical and mental level. Being in contact with water is extremely meditative for our overstimulated brains. It serves us well to add this into our arsenal of performance. Specifically our auditory system gets triggered through the sound of water in motion as relaxing and regenerative. As you extend to massive bodies of water, being an ocean or lake your vision gets exposed peripherally. This opens up your vision which is a physiological trigger of safety for your autonomic nervous system. These sounds and visual cues immediately slow down your breathing which relaxes the neocortex. This opens up space to cognitively think better and decrease emotional reactivity. Tempers decrease, ego is eliminated and generosity is increased. If you don’t live close to the water, no worries. A shower serves similar benefits where it eliminates visual stimulation and calms the auditory reflex similarly to the “blue noise” nature provides.
Find Your Bonfire:
The serenity of sounds place a massive role in how we shift our state. Our auditory system is a feedback loop to our self-awareness. It is well documented that city noise can stress the system tremendously. Think of the sounds and environments you expose yourself too that invite calm and present awareness. A fire not only activates a lowering in blood pressure by simply seeing it with your eyes it also pays massive health benefits with the sounds of cracking and feeling of heat produced through the fire. Think of how we associate with fire. It is one of the main sources of safety and protection our ancestors had. This scene of colors, heat and sounds promote creativity and down shifting of the nervous system to relax and breathe easy. Much like the sauna, a fire is a human connection promoting social cohesion. Also a staple in the human mind as togetherness. As a performer to use this tool as a recovery system becomes advantageous to help shift state and reach levels of innovation and regeneration.
Social Connection:
Have you ever noticed that your inner circle has inside jokes that maybe only your crew finds funny? This is because we are social beings. We want to feel apart of tribes and in each tribe there becomes a set of values/standards that are created. Your social circle decided those jokes are funny. It’s how you end up using the same language and verbal tone as those around you. We become osmosis to the environment around us. There may not be a more important choice in your life than choosing who you spend your time with. Before we could speak we worked solely of energy. Could you trust the other person purely off their energy? At the time these decisions came down to life and death. Then we created symbols, language and ways to understand each other to a deeper level once communication, speaking and writing became involved. However, the human innate observations of each other has not left. We still make choices on other peoples energy. If we can comprehend that the human mind is built for survival then we can comprehend that the human mind is primarily negative. That means that we have limited options out there of advancing and open minded individuals to be around. Find the tribe that teaches and challenges you to higher levels of optimal human performance. Take pride in your personal growth and share that value with those around you. Very simply, add value to the tribe. One Love.
The “Art of Being Alone”
Maybe something rather new to dive into but practicing being along is a powerful skill. For most if not all devices on the planet need to be plugged in or charged to properly work to full capacity. As a human we also need a charger. This charge is called solitude, become chargeable by uncharging. This is the raw ability to be alone.
First and foremost this seems easy to some people and incredibly difficult for others. The power of perception wins in this specific skill. Having to actually accept yourself, acknowledge your own thinking and act as your own charger does not meet us all at the same level of understanding. Take your time at this layer of the journey. Take your time diving into peaceful alone time. When we talk about alone time we are talking about truly being alone. No stimulations, no one around you nothing to capture your mind that is outside of nature. This skill becomes daunting if not practiced, yet most of our worlds greatest inventions have come through solitude. Being able to intentionally isolate ourselves opens us up to explore our mind. The genius that lives in us all.
There are a few ways to handle this process and improve it. Just like all things you must enter the space with intention.
Have a Journal:
Date:
Step 1: Why are you here? How is your head space entering the isolation?
Step 2: Track your emotions.
Emotional triggers:
*Feelings of urgency.
*Feelings of missing something.
*Feelings of need/approval from others.
*Feelings you have missed a deadline of some sort. Stress levels rising.
*Feeling that you need to respond to something.
*Feelings of boredom.
*Feelings of frustration or lack of creativity.
*Feelings of fear or lack of stimulation.
Over time this improves and you start befriending yourself. In these moments discovery comes to mind. This is known as our sixth sense “Creative Intelligence”. But first you must slowly practice the ability to detach. You must realize that the world continues on and accept yourself not being apart of it. Stripping everything down to the basic skill itself. On the other side of these emotional triggers comes massive growth. You start creating from a place of excitement and peace. This is your inner brilliance. The difficulty lives in recognizing the triggers which can only be accomplished by eliminating stimulation.
