This E-mail Isn’t What I Promised

Today's newsletter is unusual.

And it's not what I promised you, and it's "late".

But I know someone needs to hear this today, and if that's you, I want you to know that you aren't alone.

This one will help you get to the heart of what matters in your life.

Yeeeeeah we'll open a can of worms, but these are actually beautiful composting worms that will nourish the soil of your being, and help you live a more aligned life.

And in case you get to the end thinking "...but what next??"
...there will be a 30 minute video at the end - to give you some helpful context + direction.

So, this story starts with a rough morning I was having last week.

I was ruminating a lot, and getting stuck in a feeling of deep dissatisfaction. And this was starting to make me question my life choices (which is always fun, right?)

In the past, and thankfully much less so now, the flow-on effects of moments like this have been gnarly.

I've made some big decisions while in a temporary freak-out space. Whoopsie.

Anyway, as much as I have an incredible toolset and the most supportive relationships in my life, I still sometimes withdraw from all that when I should lean in. It's not a conscious thing. It's just a habit from old wounds. It happens before I realise I've done it.

I'm still a messy human.

I just learn to love the mess way quicker these days, instead of spending years and years digging myself into a deeper hole.

The mess is now my superpower. I'm using it as creative juice and it's UNIQUE to me, so it creates UNIQUE outcomes.

What changed?

I just got so sick of my own self-imposed suffering. Honestly, this is the X factor nobody talks about.
You just have to be ready. Sometimes, you've just gotta get sick of your own shit, and if you aren't, there won't be an incentive to change...

Naturally, over time, your tolerance to shit gets smaller, because you realise you only have one life. You see people die, and you see their loved ones trying to scoop up the shit they didn't resolve, accidentally smearing it everywhere and getting it on their hands more often than not.

And with that, you also get kinder and more compassionate towards the shit, and the people with shit on their hands, because you know they can't really help it and neither can you. It's life's manure.

Excessive tidiness is usually a ticking shit-bomb. Hehe.

So anyway, I was diving into my feels and trying to figure my shit out (tip: feel more, figure less) and I eventually whittled it all down to some key fears, and one of those was the fear of death.

The funny thing about death is, it's "just" a reflection of what we fear living through.

For me, that's abandonment. Being unloved and left behind in a cold, dark room, for all of eternity. I'm also afraid of extreme physical pain.

These things can and sometimes do scare me to the point where I want to "jump ship", "escape" and "disappear".

So when I feel abandoned or in extreme pain, a part of me thinks that death is the way out.

And yet, death REPRESENTS these things to me.

So, there is no escape.

Cue: terror.

Now, I don't feel this terror often at all, but when I have, it is literal hell, to me. I've spoken about my experience traversing my personal hellish annihilation and remembering my way back home to love on my podcast here.

But we're all in this predicament, you see? Whenever we get exhausted enough, we default towards our favourite variant of elimination and escapism. Some people strive harder. Some people shut down. Both are problematic. Both represent a volatility in the nervous system; a loss of response flexibility and a loss of "presence".

So I either eliminate myself, eliminate the experience, or eliminate the person responsible... OR I eliminate my feelings about them by making myself loveable and helpless (a lot like Stockholm Syndrome).

But... what about when the person responsible is, largely, me?

What happens when I disconnect from myself?

Well, I obviously can't, because I am... me. And so, I break myself into pieces, within one body. I dis-member myself and build walls internally between the parts of me that can't seem to co-exist harmoniously.

And we do. We all do.

It's not a matter of IF we have escapist tendencies... but "to what extent do I avoid feeling, and under what conditions?"

To know ourselves and feel through this may be why we're all here.

For now, it's definitely why I'm here. To Attune.

Personally - and this may not work for you - it helps me to remember that no matter what choice I make, I cannot avoid loss and I cannot avoid pain. And maybe this is slightly easier for me to see, because I've experienced close deaths and a lot of physical pain.

When I accept this, my body immediately feels lighter.

It's like the stakes are lowered (because death is certain) and yet the moments are richer, because I'm no longer so busy wasting my precious heartbeats in futile resistance to what I can't control.

But the reflection on death. On pain. Is it necessary? A fantastic question. Dimitrio asked me this in my instagram stories, so I want to share the convo we had.

Below is the conversation we had:

D: While meditating on death is truly essential for life, isn’t the constant thinking of the finite time you have as you in this “young and growing” state counterproductive? If this is the opposite of finding the positives then is it negative, and/or obstructive for presence/mindfulness

J: So here are my thoughts… love the question/prompt!

Our positive (cultivated) traits are always a mirror reflection of negative (unmet needs).

So diving into the finiteness or darker (meaning unseen or judged) parts and loving those is one way to understand how I can better support myself

For me, the finiteness helps me act more truthfully which then gives me a sense of expanded time.

Because I’ve gone into my fear, seen how it wants to help me but isn’t, and then I can help that part of me find a more life-giving way to help me

I think this approach is like salt in a dish. A little bit is good. Mostly, focusing on what we love most / being playful helps more

Love that, never reflected on how our positive traits are reflections of unmet needs.
Will dive deeper into this

(a day later, I opened this message to reply, and Dimitri started typing just as I did... How cool.
​
​TIMING!

Remember as you dive and discover potentially painful things not to get lost in the pain, because fun/play/joy/connection will help you bring even more of your unique gifts to the surface.
​
Shadows become gifts

What would that be in regards to good health? At least in an aesthetic/ movement perspective

Exploring the fears that lead you to want good health or to be aesthetic / a good mover

Then realising how normal and human they are, and being kind to yourself by reflecting on whether there is a more satisfying and enjoyable way to address those fears

Sometimes the answer is no, sometimes yes. Either way, you couldn’t be anywhere but where you are. No mistakes have been made

I see the process now

Any teachings you recommend to dive deeper into shadow work and understanding, Ik these are internal things

But still interesting to learn more about

Most of what I’ve learned has come from teachers not books

The core of it is noticing your tendencies and viewing your actions / your life situation as a reflection of your unconscious drivers

Like when I kept burning through my money and having growth blocks, I realised that some part of me must have wanted that, even if that seems bizarre

So journaling about that is cool

The quickest way is to be ruthlessly honest and TOTALLY unfiltered in what you write, and to notice key words that come up repetitively, because it’s often really interesting

Same!

Interesting… will do

The Integral Vision by Ken Wilber is pretty cool but haven’t read all of it

And Integral Spirituality is the massive fat detailed version I was gifted but lacked the patience for

This will work until I am able to tap into that space for wordlessness effortlessly

End conversation.

I love Dimitrio's last line.

Read it again - it's beautiful.

Everything we do, and everything we think we are, is just something that we hope will work to help us find our way back to what already works, without any effort.

If I could bottle up that feeling and sell it, I'd be the richest man on earth.

But it can't be bottled up. It can't be sold.

It's just yours.

It's what you are when you remember that your life is a beautiful act; a drama in which you have played many roles and will play many more, still.

But beneath those characters...

When the masks crack...

When the upside-down-ness of normality is flipped on it's head by life's raw, loving apathy...

We occasionally glimpse an experience so beautiful and so humbling, I won't dare speak of it.

But I will say this:

It always seems to be a falling, as much as a climbing.

The climb is where we choose to lose ourselves.

The fall is where we become ourselves again.

And after enough climbing and falling, maybe you will settle.

And in settling, you will see who you are, and what all this is.

Let it be simple.

Jack

Ah, yes... the video I promised - "Getting out of the way of pain and grief"