Paul Garrigan's Blog, page 41

Christmas in Ireland

I’m starting to feel excited about this forthcoming trip to Dublin. It will be so great to watch my son enjoy his first Irish Christmas – he was there as a baby at this time of year, but I don’t think that counts. I’m going to enjoy taking him to see Santa, and he is sure to have a great time with his cousins, granny, and aunts.

Going Home for Christmas

I wrote on here a few months back about how I can still get homesick for Ireland (I can also sometimes feel a bit homesick for England because I spent so much of my adult life there). I left Dublin almost a quarter of a century ago, but this stretch of two and a half years has been the longest I’ve ever gone without a visit home. I will always think about it as home no matter how long I live in Thailand.

One of the scary things about reaching middle age is that it becomes harder to take things for granted. I might always consider Ireland to be my home, but that does not mean that I’ll always have a home to go to in Ireland. Who knows how many more times I’ll be able to return there to the house where I grew up? That thought sort of scares me and it can make me feel sad. For me getting older is a process of watching all those things I took for granted being taken away from me.

Twenty-four years is a long time to live away from your home country. In many important ways the place I left no longer exists – Dublin has moved on, but I can only relate to it as it was in the eighties. I don’t regret my decision to leave, but it has certainly had consequences both good and bad. The downside is that in a very meaningful way I no longer have a home. I will always feel like a bit of an outsider in Thailand, and I can also feel like a bit of a stranger back in Ireland. I never knew when I was eighteen that this was the decision I was making by leaving.

This Christmas in Ireland is Going to Be Special

This might be the only chance that my son Timmy has to experience an Irish Christmas as a child. It is the middle of the school term here, and so he will be missing out on some of his education. I feel that it is justified to do this now at his age. It will be harder to justify such a break from school as he gets older. So who knows when/if I’ll get to enjoy another Irish Christmas – it might even be the last one that my family has together. This is why it needs to be special. Maybe that is the benefit of no longer taking my home for granted – it means I appreciate it more.

I Feel More Comfortable With Criticism than Compliments

I feel uncomfortable when people pay me compliments. I don’t even particularly like it when people wish me “happy birthday” – or anything like that. I find this all a bit strange given that I engage in a fair bit of self promotion. Compliments are a wasted on me. I either ignore them completely or I quickly change the subject. When people criticize me though, I can be like a dog with bone.

Discomfort with Compliments as Low Self Esteem

If I was playing the amateur psychologist I would suggest that my aversion to compliments is due to low self esteem. I wouldn’t be able to agree with my own diagnosis though. I don’t believe that I suffer from low self esteem – I used to. It is also not that I usually think the compliment is wrong. It is more that I just don’t like to be the certain of attention like that. I don’t remember compliments but a criticism will bang around in my head for days.

I’m sure that my discomfort with compliments says something important about me, but I don’t know what that is. I suspect like other areas in my life the answer will become clearer to me in the future.

Blowout on Day 10 of My Juice Fast

I had hoped to make to complete a 15 day juice fast, but I decided to end it yesterday on day 10. I don’t regret that decision. The last three days were tough, but by yesterday afternoon I was starting to feel physically ill. I was driving to pick up my son from school, and I felt weak and unable to concentrate. It would have been reckless for me to continue because my body was sending plenty of signals that it had enough by that stage.

I can’t even remember why I picked 15 days for this juice fast – it just seemed like a reasonable amount of time. My goal here was not weight loss – although I did lose 2.6 kg (nearly 6 pounds). I just wanted to give my body a bit of a detox, and I could have probably achieved that in 5 days. I’ve heard of other people who’ve managed 100 day juice fasts, so I didn’t view my 15 day goal as particularly ambitious.

Lessons from this Juice Fast

I had planned to do another 15 day juice fast in January, but I’m no longer so eager to do this. I don’t want a repeat performance of the last few days. I’m convinced that the reason for why things proved so hard at the end was the ingredients in my juices. I wanted to keep costs to a minimum so I was buying the cheapest vegetables available rather than figuring out what I actually needed nutritionally. I can be quite pig headed, and the fact that I felt good for the first week made me overconfident.

As I say, I don’t regret ending the fast early, but I do feel like it’s been a bit of an anti climax. I had this vision of ending the fast with a real sense of achievement. Instead I ended up having to stuff food in my mouth so that I wouldn’t crash the car while taking my son home from school. I do feel physically better as a result of the juice fast, and it is great to be back eating again.

Almost One Week of Juice Fasting

By the end of today I will have been juice fasting for one week. That means that I’m almost half way to my goal of 15 days. It has certainly been an interesting experience so far. I never really understood how much what I ate played a part in my mood. I’ve had plenty of ups and downs during this first week, but it has mostly been a positive experience. I haven’t once felt hungry, but I do get moments when I miss proper food – especially when I smell my wife cooking something.

Juicing and Tiredness

During the first few days of the fast I did feel more tired than usual. I ended up going to bed before seven o’clock in the evening a couple of times. I usually go to bed early but that’s just ridiculous. I’ve notice the last few days that I feel much less tired than usual. I no longer experience that afternoon crash in energy after eating my main meal of the day. I always look forward to eating my dinner in the afternoon, but I usually feel good for nothing afterwards. It is getting worse as I get older, and I tend to feel tried for about three hours after I’ve eaten. The fact that I’m juicing means that all that energy that would normally be devoted to digesting large meals is free to be put to other uses.

Noticeable Improvements as a Result of Juicing

There have been some noticeable improvements already as a result of this fast including:

• I haven’t been weighing myself but it is obvious that I’m losing weight. My tummy is definitely flatter than it was this time last week, and my clothes feel looser. I expect to put at least some of this weight back on in the weeks after the fast, but it is nice to slim down again.

• My thinking was a bit fuzzy for the first few days, but I notice a definite increase in clarity today. My concentration levels are improved and this is particularly noticeable when I mediate.

• My skin feels softer and just healthier looking. I did have a bit of a pale complexion (anaemic looking) on the weekend, but this is the same as having a tan when you live in Thailand.

• I do feel physically fitter and there is an added bounce in my step. Maybe this is just psychological because I feel good about doing something healthy.

• I’m a fairly good sleeper normally, but there have been improvements here as well. I’ve also noticed that my dreams have become a bit more intense but no lucid dreams this week or out of body experiences.

I’m confident about completing the 15 days juice fast but a lot can go wrong between now and then. I suspect that the most enjoyable moment of this whole trip will be when I get to put solid food in my mouth again.

Channelling Your Own Bible

I enjoy reading spiritual books. One thing I’ve noticed is that most of the information that is transforming tends to be similar to things I already knew – or at least strongly suspected. It is like the wisdom was there inside my head, but I just needed a trigger to remind me of it. If this is true, it means that I don’t really need these spiritual books at all. I just need a way to tap the wisdom that is already there. By getting in touch with this inner wisdom I will be able to channel the perfect guidebook for my life – my very own bible. In this video I discuss how it is possible to do this.

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Day 3 of My Juice Fast

I mentioned in my last post that I was attempting a 15 day juice fast. I am now on day 3 and so far so good. I haven’t felt hungry at all, but I do miss solid food. I smell something cooking, or see something in the fridge, and I feel like I’m missing out. Overall I’m enjoying the experience, and I just feel better for doing it. I’m not going to bother weighing myself until the fast is complete. It would be nice to lose a few kilograms, but this is not my motive this time.

Feeling Moody on Day 2 of My Juice Fast

I did feel a bit moody yesterday evening. I was expecting this, so it wasn’t such a big deal. I just went to bed a bit early. It is much easier for me to deal with a bad mood when I know that it is just my body adjusting to the diet. The fact that I was able to observe the emotion objectively is further evidence (not that I need it), that I do not have to be a slave to my emotions. During the last juice fast my mood took a nosedive on the fifth day, so I’ll have to wait to see if this repeats. I’ll be prepared for it if it does.

15 Days of Juice Fasting and the Gateway Experience

I’m going back to Ireland on holiday next month, and I’d be only kidding myself if I resolved to eat sensibly. I experimented with my first juice fast last month. That time I only managed to last four days, but this time the plan is to go for fifteen days. I just want to give my body a good clean out, so I can feel a bit less guilty about any Christmas food overindulgence in Dublin. I also plan to do another 15 day fast when we return to Thailand in January. This will help to get 2013 off to a good start.

Excited About 15 Days of Juice Fasting

So far November has been a complete washout in regards to healthy eating. I stopped my 5:2 intermittent fasting diet, and I didn’t replace it with anything. Surprisingly, my weight hasn’t gone up that much, but I just feel yucky because of all the junk I’ve been eating. I enjoyed my last juice fast, so I’ve high hopes for the next 15 days. I did hit a bit of a wall last time at day 5, so it will be interesting to see what happens this time.

Back to the Gateway Experience

One of the benefits of fasting is that it allows me to go deeper into meditative states, and it increases my dream lucidity. Earlier this year, I devoted three months to the Monroe Institute Gateway Experience, and I feel that this was time well spent. I managed to trigger a couple of out of body experiences, but I must admit that the second half of the course was a bit of an anticlimax. I’m going to try to do 3 – 4 sessions a day of the Gateway Experience so that I can repeat the course during my juice fast. I’m not expecting too much to happen (which is a better approach), but I just enjoyed this journey so much last time that I want to repeat it.

I’ll add some updates on here as the juice fast progresses.

Will My Lack of Business Savvy mean a Mediocre Freelance Writing Career?

I get frustrated with my inability to think like a business person. I have developed some skill in self promotion, but I don’t have much to promote. My lack of business acumen is holding me back, and it means that I’m destined to a future of just getting by in life. I’m a repeat offender of the cardinal sin of the modern writing profession; I write about things that interest me and not necessarily what other people want to read.

My Lack of Business Savvy

I’m envious of those writers who are able to make a good living from their own projects. These are often entrepreneur writers who have found a place in the market, and they now cater for this. They provide what their readers want, and they get to reap the rewards – and so they should. I suspect that some of these go-getters might be sick to death of their niche, if they even had that much interest to begin with, but they know what works and they can keep on replicating this. I’m jealous. These guys can even pay somebody like me to take on the writing duties for them, and I’m usually delighted to offer my services. I’ve learnt a great deal from these successful writers, but there is something holding me back from trying to emulate them. I can write about practically any topic for a client, but when it comes to my own writing it has to be something that interests me.

If I was still a teenager I could probably make my lack of business savvy sound cool. I could talk about staying true to my vision. I might even make a big deal about how I refuse to sell my soul for profit. This type of talk might sound acceptable from the mouth of a teenager, but at my stage of life it smells a bit too much like a bullshit excuse. I worry that my lack of a killer instinct has more to do with not having the balls for it (metaphorically speaking) than anything else. My hope is that this lack of a ‘go get’em champ’ attitude is just part of my path, but on my darker days it is hard not to worry if this is just an excuse for my ineffectiveness.

I Am What I Am

I remember what it was like to struggle as a writer. I would strain so hard to produce even one paragraph of readable text. It was obvious to me that I had no talent for writing, but there was this inner voice that would not allow me to give up. I kept at it, and I eventually found out where I had been going wrong. I stopped trying to write for other people. I began to write only for myself, and the irony was that I ended up with material that I felt happy to show to other people.

The reality is that I’m lacking in the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ department. I just don’t have the same motivation as those writers who are able to keep pumping out the stuff that is profitable. I respect them, and I even know how to do it, but every time I attempt to follow that path my energy levels plummet and I start to dislike myself. For me, it is like trying to swim upstream. Maybe I just have to accept that this is not a path for me, and that my instincts will take me somewhere that is going to suit me better. It seems pointless to beat myself up for being who I am.

How to be Positive in the Middle of a Shit Storm

In this video I reveal my tips for staying positive in the middle of a shit storm. I found out the hard way that in this situation there is a right way and wrong way to use the tool of positivity. If we use it as a form of denial, it will only add to our suffering. There is no point in trying to pretend that life is fab when the world around us is falling apart. To come out of a shit storm smelling of roses we need to acknowledge what is happening and have faith that it is all going to work out for the best. It means understanding that our life turns to crap for a reason, and that it isn’t just some random slap in the face from an uncaring universe.

The reality is that humans stagnate when things are going well – the easy life makes us slow and lazy. It takes a bit of suffering to get our juices going, and it is only the threat of loss that allows us to appreciate what we already have. If we didn’t take things so much for granted we wouldn’t be impacted as much by the ups and downs of life. When we understand this, it is easier to appreciate that shit storms are there to save us from ourselves.

If we react to a downturn in our fortunes by resisting it, or trying to hide from it, then this will only worsen our misery. Once we understand that this shit storm could be the best thing to happen to us, we can then get the most out of the experience.

I know this for a fact:

The quality of my life is not determined by the shit that happens to me but how I react to the shit that happens to me.

Here is the video:

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Goodbye Shitty Life – Reasons to be Cheerful

Some of the funniest song lyrics ever written came from the 80’s band, Half Man Half Biscuit. My favorite song from this group would be Reasons to be Miserable (Part 10), which includes this chorus:

Reasons to be miserable,

Another good excuse to be dead,

It’s one more thing to gripe about,

As I while away my days in bed.

The sad thing is that for many years these lyrics summed up my life fairly well. I took to negatively like a pig to shit. When it came to remembering all the miserable things that happened to me, my memory was razor sharp and always ready for more action. If holding a grudge was a talent I would have been famous the world over. The sky could have opened up and showered gold pieces on the path in front of me, and I still would have found things to complain about. It must have looked to other people like I enjoyed feeling miserable, but like most maladaptive behaviors it originated in fear.

In my role as a full-time miserable person I not only believed that, ‘shit just happens’, but that shittyness existed everywhere (the real dark energy), and it was just waiting to mess me around. I didn’t trust it when my life appeared to be going well because I knew that this meant that big trouble was ahead. I refused to be happy because this was tempting faith. In those days I thought of myself as an atheist, yet I still felt sure that a malevolent force existed that would smite me if I dared to be happy. I truly believed that by focusing on my own misery it would mean that life would leave me alone – now that is funny.

Reasons to be Cheerful

I changed my perspective on life, and the world became a completely different place. I discovered that the only person getting in the way of my happiness was me. I also found out the amazing truth that we humans have the power to completely change the world with our thoughts. It is this simple, if we focus our attention on the shitty aspects of life we get to live in a shitty world. Our brain will obey our command by filtering out all the good stuff so that we can focus on the negative parts of life we are most interested in. You see, it is not possible for our human brains to manage all the data surrounding us at any given second. If we were aware of everything it would put us into mental overload, and we would soon be as mad as a box of frogs. Some filtering has to occur, and this is what the brain does for us (in fact some convincing theories see filtering as the only real function of the brain).

When I became focused on the positive aspects of my life the sky didn’t open and drop rocks on me. I was wrong, there was no force out there waiting to punish me for daring to be happy. I found the opposite to be true. The more I tried to concentrate on the positive, the more the world responded with positive things to focus on. I’ve trained my filters to seek out the good things in life, and this means that there is always something to feel cheerful about. I’m like a god who gets to create a universe to suit his whims – the good news is that we all get to play god in this way.