What if the worst thing that has ever happened to you is actually the best?
What if your pain/suffering created roots so deep that no amount of wind can uplift the essence your spirit lives in?What if you let go of trying to think your way out of your trauma and trust in your body’s ability to heal itself? Turning the thing that turned you into the thing that transformed and informed you — that is the embodiment of Post-Traumatic Self Compassion.
The best way I can describe the BOOM experience is, for a brief moment in time, being slung out of the orbit of normal everyday waking consciousness, and being thrust into the outer layer of existence, floating, contemplating and feeling the actuality of the NOW, in all Her beauty, fragility and complexity. This act of leaving the rat race to pursue absurdity for a brief period of time is so rare.
“We may not be responsible for the world that created our minds, but we can take responsibility for the mind with which we create our world.” — Dr Gabor Mate. In August 2021 I visited the Earth Awareness Nature Temple in the heart of the Netherlands to attend a Magic Mushroom retreat.
Personal development programs are popular in today's 'fix me because I'm broken' culture. The promise for 10x growth sells. However, all self-improvement programs, mindfulness strategies and retreats forget one key element to healing: the animal.
"Moderation" is the great lie of the century. It was invented by senile men who are living in despair and have zero skin in the game of sustainable fat loss. When you eat the right foods –meat! – your body has a natural moderation-sparing valve that sends feedback to your energy-dense brain, letting it know you're good for the next 16-18 hours.
Don’t minimize your tab just yet. This is a post about nutrition. In his fantastic book, The Psychology of Money, Morgan Housel describes the ways in which human emotion inflicts a barrage of seemingly irrational decisions amongst even the most rational, logically-minded investors. He describes a situation where there are numerous investment strategies that look so good on paper — and yet, in the real world, when human emotion is factored in, fall down hard.
I’m going to save you a long rambling build up and just get straight to it: below is a list of the most ponderous/favourite books I read during the past year or so. Any of these would be great additions to your reading list for 2022.
