Love yourself

This post has nothing to do with self-love, I just hoped that I could lure you in. Actually it does have a little to do with being kind to yourself and accepting that shit happens. 

I’ve been useless again lately having built up a load of great tools for my mental health. I’ve let my mind get “busy” and that routine has slipped. But the benefit of improving my mental stability is that I no longer beat myself up when I don’t do something I planned. Yes routine is great, but shit happens and I am no saint. The great thing about where I am now is that I am balancing areas of my life that are different to before and feeling much calmer about it all.

Over the last few months I have been pretty consistent with podcasting, but I let it slip a week or two ago. This was mainly due to focusing on work and preparing for interviews. But also because getting guests to commit to a time that fits into my schedule is difficult. Like I said before though, sometimes you have to just be cool with things changing and roll with it. This week I was able to interview two guests and have another lined up to record tomorrow. Perhaps the best thing I could do was miss a couple of weeks in order to show me what I really needed to do, get a bloody wall planner!

This week’s interviews had me talking to two more great friends, David and Hana. They both had some great insight into mental health and produced some brilliant tools that anyone can use. Hana inspired me to get a wall planner to track my habits and make it obvious what I need to do. David has a brilliant mind (as dark as mine) and is always a pleasure to talk to. The more I do these interviews the more I learn and develop my questioning of my guests. The one thing I am learning is to shut the hell up and let people just talk, when I do that they produce some right gems of wisdom.

The only thing I wanted to share before I sign off is that I have been using the Five Minute Journal to help improve my mood and focus. If you haven’t heard of it then you should Google it. Tim Ferris loves it and has used it consistently for a long time now and I find it the easiest tool to improve my mental state. You don't need to buy the journals, I certainly haven’t, but use it for a week and see how you get on. I am certain you’ll find it useful.

The latest podcast episode is up and this the first time a woman has joined me to talk about mental health. The only reason I have focused on male guests is because most men are useless at talking about it. However anyone that has experienced mental health problems can contribute to the conversation and inspire others with their habits and passions. So going forwards you’ll get to meet all sorts of wonderful guests as I explore mental health and what we can do to manage it successfully.

Here’s to healthy, calm mind.

Tom :)

Broken record

I must sound like a broken record each time I post a blog entry nowadays. Talking of how long it has been since my last confession at the church of the latter day grumpy man. But as has always been the case I have always come back to writing when I needed it, or felt I had something worthwhile to share. Perhaps today it is a little of both.

Over recent months I’ve been “busy” with work and the podcast amongst other things. But without a daily structure I’ve let my healthy habits wane and have noticed the old feelings of anxiety and dark thoughts return. Fortunately like a wisened old baboon I have enough self-awareness nowadays to return to the old ways of meditation, writing and exercise in order to rein in this mischievous mind.

One particularly troublesome day this past weekend I was fortunate enough to have a friend to talk to, that understood the feelings of anxiety. He highlighted the need for me to focus on my weak points, to work at structuring my day and completing tasks, not leaving things unfinished, no matter how small they may be. Much like I have done with other areas recently it is about concentrating on those little things and performing them consistently. Small tasks like loading the dishwasher, making the bed or completing a long overdue job are the starting point. 

So I began Sunday evening with the simple things by tidying my tool room a.k.a the spare room. Then I planned my day off with diary entries for the tasks I needed to complete. This was as much to hold myself accountable as it was to avoid the anxiety of free time that I have felt lately. The immediate satisfaction of clearing out and organising my things left me feeling much more relaxed for the evening and reminded me how simple it is to change this fickle mind. The next day I got a ton of tasks done, whilst still enjoying my day off and without feeling anxious at all.

The last couple of days has demonstrated how easy it can be to control my anxiety. By controlling the small tasks and planning my days I have seen immediate relief. When it comes to my depression it is also straightforward; I just need to read, write, eat a balanced diet, exercise regularly, talk openly, meditate, learn and grow and play. Straightforward really. 

As I was off last week I have only produced a short podcast episode which you can listen to via Soundcloud or via the Podcast app on your iPhone (The Two Faced Man). This Friday I’ll have a new episode up and I’ll fill you in on my progress then.

Until then keep up your own action and have a fine week,

Tom :)

Introducing... Vi Saez

I wouldn't normally post twice a week, but I have been working on a few different ideas lately that go hand in hand with my podcast and the upcoming book. My hope with both the podcast and this blog was always to get other people's insights into mental health, mental strength and tools to help with the mind. One of these new ideas is to let other people do the talking, or rather writing. 

So I am signing off here until next week, but I want to introduce you to my friend Vi. She is a talented, beautiful person that I knew was on the same wavelength as me from the moment we had a proper conversation. To coin a phrase I use it was "real talk" and in that five minute chat over lunch I knew I needed to find out more. 

Stay tuned to hear from more inspirational people in the coming weeks.

"Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them" - Eckhart Tolle

For the past 10 years spirituality has been an imperative part of my personal growth. I understand that life can be tough, confusing, mysterious, amazing, unique, crazy and it can even suck! Of course it can! BUT it is all in our choices every moment and every single day we wake up we have choices, it is also in how we choose to react to every situation that has or will occur in our lives. This is how I see it, life is about experiences, good, bad and ambiguous, sometimes you get to choose these experiences and most times they just happen, you have no choice or say at all in them, you have to flow with it, but as any human being would, we resist or we just don't accept certain situations. These particular moments allow us to learn a lot about ourselves, to know who we really are,… nobody ever told our great grandparents, grandparents or our parents... or anyone that we needed to live through experiences in order to grow spiritually and learn from them to find our true selves.

Today, all we think about is the future, many families, parents or family friends ask their children or grandchildren all the time: "What would you like to be when u grow up?" "Have you thought about what you want to study in university?" ...And when we get married "when are you having children?" ...if we have partners they ask "when is the engagement/wedding?" "When are you moving in together?" "When are you buying a home together?" So on and so on. 

We are constantly living in the future or the past, our parents, our environment, our culture programs us to be this way, society programs us to be this way, and this is the beauty of it all… well, sort of... well not really, BUT imagine if we knew everything and we didn't need to go through these experiences? It would be boring, right?. 

Let me share with you part of my journey. A few months ago, I felt as if there was a deep deep sense of emptiness in my heart, I had never felt this way before, it felt like I had no purpose in my life,... this was very unlike me, I felt lost for the very first time in my 39 years, this went on for months, I had feelings of depression and anxiety, all I wanted to do was retrieve myself from everything in my life, yet, I forced myself to be present everyday, I had to be aware of what I was feeling at that moment and work with what I had... I had to do my best to understand where all these feelings were coming from, I had to face past experiences that I thought I had left very deep deep down in my heart and I thought I was over them. I thought... wait a minute, if I don't face these now, then I could possibly keep falling even further into this deep sadness surrounded by very unloving feelings towards myself and my past would keep creeping out very slowly, It would have been worse, so, I didn't give myself a choice to give up to these feelings, and of course I couldn't do this to my son... I had to show him that if I was capable of getting out of this, that life is what it is, good and bad, that if he ever went through this he would be like me, find out where these feelings are coming from, understand them, work daily to overcome the difficult journey and come out the other end having learnt something about himself and that experience.

During this journey, my mind wondered around non stop everyday, day and night, it travelled to the future and back to my past, I spent a lot of my time wondering about how I could or would have changed certain situations and how I could avoid certain things in the future. It was all very confusing and hurtful. At this point, I would live every single day surrounded by assumptions and my imagination (both ego driven of course, because anything that is unlike love is ego driven). I now know that I had to let go of the past, and the worst part is… that we all somehow allow the past (mistake or choices) define who we are today, which is completely crazy to do! This robs us of having a great life now! There is no use holding on to that past... or the future in that matter, these don't change a thing, if you think about it, these only waste your time, are you willing to spend your time (or life) today thinking about tomorrow or even yesterday? Are these beneficial in anyway? Can you change your past? Do you know what the future holds for you?... I bet your answer will be no, of course not. 

I ended up finding a way to improve my life,... let me tell you, it is a very slow process but it works, you have to be consistent and disciplined, respect what you feel and acknowledge it. I was able to work with the feelings of being lost, the sadness, emptiness, anxiety and depression by turning the attention towards the essence of who I am today (right now, NOT yesterday or years ago or tomorrow or a couple of years in the future,...right now),... so for me, meditation and working towards living a life with daily intentions has helped me very much. Everyday I work towards being a better version of myself for me, for my family and people around me, it is all about self love, compassion and acceptance of who we truly are.

Now let's do a little exercise, you can do this everyday anywhere you want, it only takes a couple of minutes, give yourself 10-15 minutes of you whole day:

Close your eyes, take a nice deep healing breath and feel how the hot air comes out of your nose slowly, repeated this 3 times, feel the place you are in, listen to your surroundings, observe how your heart beats in your chest, observe how you physical body feels, listen, just be the observer of your feelings and thoughts at that moment and let them pass, if you feel like your mind drifts off bring it back to your breath, observe from the inside out, now ask yourself who is the observer?

Open your eyes observe how you feel, are you feeling stillness? Peaceful?

That... that is you, you are the present moment, you are that stillness, you are the peaceful feeling, you are not what happens outside you. Always remember that.

A huge thank you to my fellow spiritual friend Tom for allowing me to pour my heart out about life experiences and spirituality.

With infinite love and gratitude,

Vi 

Tools

As I am having a writing block at the moment I thought I would tap out a short blog post to update you on what's been going on lately.

After speaking with my mate Justin on the last Grumpy Man podcast episode I took a leaf out of his book and got organised. If you haven't listened to the episode I'm speaking of then I'll explain it to you briefly here. In each episode I ask what daily habits my friend has that help them to keep a calm mind day to day. Justin told me that he writes down one daily, weekly and monthly goal. When he completes his daily goal he ticks it off, giving a sense of accomplishment to his day. If he doesn't do it he doesn't stress about it, but just rolls it over to the next day. His weekly tasks might be a little larger and range from the necessary chores to more personal aims. Naturally his monthly goals might be to do with personal projects or to further career or life goals. The importance of writing down what your goals are and organising the small details can't be stressed enough.

Another habit that Justin spoke of is also one of my personal favourites. Each morning he makes his bed. That's it! It's that bloody simple. It is a habit that I had years ago and let wane as I let my depression get the better of every facet of my life, even the simplest tasks. But I found it again and it is one of the small things I do each day in order to set myself up for success with my day. After all if you cannot take care of the small, simple things in your life then what hope is there for the big stuff?

On a different note Catherine and I recently found out that we have permanent residency in Australia, so at least we can't get kicked out of the country for outstaying our welcome!

I''l leave you with the words that inspired me to take care of the little things in life. I'd encourage you to read or listen to Admiral McCraven's book: Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World

Tom :)

"If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.

And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made — that you made — and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.

If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed." - Naval Adm. William H. McRaven

Distractions

I am nothing if consistent. Consistently bad at posting consistently that is. So here I am at 10pm at night tapping out a post because I have been inspired by what a friend told me this evening. I may have had many distractions over the weeks, but for now I have given up the temptation of bed in order to spill a little ink on the page. For some reason this always seems the best time for me to write, the moment when I am too tired to think and what comes to mind is guided straight onto the page without editing. Naturally this doesn't mean that any of what you will read is any good, but it feels good to type it nonetheless. I believe that we could all benefit from creating something just for the process of it, without care or thought for the outcome, nor what others may think. It's taken me a damn long time to come to that conclusion in my mind and boy does it feel good.

So other than distractions what do I have to share on this occasion? Well in brief but exciting news I have a new role at work, Catherine and I got permanent residency and my mind continues to behave itself. The latter being because it has been kept busy with the former and with the help of my work friends who are a constant source of inspiration. In short this means that I can stay in Australia indefinitely in order to continue my work on myself and hopefully for other people with mental health improvement.

Over the last few weeks I have begun on a new fitness journey with DK Fitness, doing two sessions a week of functional training. Aside from not walking properly in the days after I have noticed the fitness improvement. My test? The Coogee stairs. Having completed it last week with a much lower average heart rate and less tired legs I am glad to see the fruits of my labours already. The aim is to do it once per week along with functional training and a little commuter cycling in order to get fitter than I was ten years ago. Bloody hell let's hope I can survive!

My writing has taken a decided downturn of late as I have focused on work and my new podcast The Grumpy Man in which I talk to friends about their passions and their daily habits. The aim is to see how they keep a calm and stable mind day to day and identify tools and patterns that we could all benefit from using ourselves. It has been a great exercise as I have learnt so much about my friends and also engaged in open and honest discussion with other men around mental health. Something I don't think we do enough of in today's society. My long term goal is to speak to 100 different men and not only learn from them, but share their experiences with mental health in order to help other men talk about theirs.

As I said above my writing has been on the back burner, but I have still managed to make some edits to the Grumpy Man book. I am going to set a final release date here and now in order to make myself accountable to you. Yes you, the internet, the blank face that I talk to. By doing this I can at least release something at long last, stop my pathetic procrastination and ADD tendencies and publish this bloody book! Alright here goes. I will release the Grumpy Man book on...hang on what month is it now? May? Ok. Damn it's May already? Ok. Well I kind of had this thing on in May, so maybe... no dammit I will publish this book on June 1st. Yes let's do this! Oh shit...

One of the things I have discovered with my writing, the podcast and my recent fitness escapades is that the less I include my brain on the deal the better. If I could leave my head at home and trudge around headless I would invariably screw up more often, I mean I'd bump into a lot of stuff to start with, but I'd also just get shit done. That's what I have found with the podcast. I had no idea how to make a podcast a month ago (some might say I still don't), but after some brief research I discovered it isn't that difficult. You set yourself up with a mike and just talk. It helps if you have somebody to talk to admittedly and it's better still if they are interesting or funny. But ultimately the basics are a piece of cake, the rest is icing and sprinkles. 

So without thought I have produced something in very little time. It may not change the world, but it may well change mine. Consistently showing my brain that it isn't needed and that I can produce content without it raining negativity is a huge step in my mental health. Perhaps the next step is to keep doing it consistently and improve. Hmm there's a decent thought.

This week I will be speaking to a couple of guests and as usual I will have a new episode out on Friday morning. If you'd like to contribute to the podcast or blog or just want to speak with a grumpy man then drop me a line at tjalfry@icloud.com

Tom :)


"You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks." - Winston Churchill

Podcasting bidness

It's been a little busy since I last wrote, but I thought I would sit down and type something out as I have had a busy evening of being creative. Well I've been editing the next episode of the podcast, but I feel that is still creation of a form.

This week I got to sit down for beers with Mr James O'Brien to talk to him about his passions, his pet peeves and how he would create a society that could benefit us all. Needless to say that beer played it's part in lubricating our thoughts and throats, so if you have a boring bus journey and need something for your friday then check it out right here.
Or read through the post and you can listen to it at the end of this post.
For all those podcast keenos I'll have it on iTunes as soon as the lovely people over there authorise it.

I will keep this short as it's late and I have to get some brain sleep (I've given up on the beauty), I've noticed one important thing this week. Time flies. I know I've probably bashed you over the head with it before by telling you about how we need to take action, live for the moment, blaa-dee-blaa-blaa-blaa. But it's true and I'll tell you why. We are lucky to have a comfortable existence. Even if you don't have a lot of money, you are still well off and comfort breeds idleness. I don't mean that you sit on your arse all day watching daytime reruns of Dallas. No I mean that we don't push ourselves to go after what we really want. We may appear to be moving toward a life of our choosing, but we do it very slowly. 

If you were told you had 12 months to live, what action could you take today to move you closer towards your life goals. Barriers would be overcome, mental blockages removed, all because we have no time left. I admit it might be difficult to imagine that you are dying and that you only have a year, but if you take even a moment to think about it I bet you'll gain clarity on at least one problem in your mind. 

For me this began with this blog, then the book I'm writing and now the podcast. All were challenges that I wanted to overcome. They may seem small and inconsequential to you, but in my mind they were barriers to progress. 
In all honesty you probably won't die in a year and you'll live a perfectly happy existence without trying overly hard. You'll probably be reasonably successful and enjoy the fruits of our consumerist society within a pretty safe and stable developed nation. As much as the media wants you to believe we are under threat by terrorists and that the world will end in nuclear war, it probably won't. The world is a dangerous place, granted, but not as dangerous as we have it made out to be. Let's face it, if it was we'd probably all be pursuing our passions, giving two fingers to the government and not working in retail.

Tom :)

“As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.” 

― Seneca

Being creative

Since returning to work at Apple at the Sydney store I have been reminded how many talented people work there. We are blessed with a cacophony of characters, from musicians to photographers and artists to comedians. Often we don't get to see what their passions are whilst working, so I thought it would be great to talk about. My subsequent podcast aims to highlight what my friends' passions are and see if we can learn from them in order to help our mental health.

Although my aim with The Grumpy Man Podcast it is to get people talking about mental health (in a roundabout way) it is enabling me to get to know the friends I work with. As much as we may enjoy what we do, we have a life away from work, a personal side we don't show to just anyone. That is what I am interested in learning about, to understand what fulfils people, what satiates their appetite for life. It has taken me a bloody long time to realise that what I love to do can help other people and the latter has always been my raison d'être. 

I realised when I was editing the first episode of my podcast how much I was enjoying it. I had an excitement about something that I haven't felt in a long time. It's sad to say but I don't get excited about anything in the way I used to. I feel like those rabbits in the Duracell adverts, the ones that have the "other" brand in them. So when something lifts my spirits I take notice. With that in mind I would love to hear from anyone that would like to contribute to the podcast. I just want people to be themselves and talk about their passions, what makes them say "hell yes!"

I'll leave it there for now as I'm making progress on my book and am determined to get it published before I die. 

Tom :)

"Time is precious, momento mori." - Me.

P.S Episode two of the podcast will be out this friday. Stay tuned to hear Michael continue his talk about what he loves.