second brain – Observations and Misunderstandings

I’m having one of those ‘Own it!!‘ days. It began when I was feeling a little lazy earlier while ‘working’ and decided to put a podcast on in the background. I wasn’t in the mood to learn anything so dismissed the more intellectual ones I like to impress people with and listened to Joe Rogan instead. His guest was comedian Bert Kreischer who I discovered recently on another podcast and who seems like the kind of guy who would deeply offend certain people. In that case as far as I’m concerned he is doing the job a stand-up comedian should be doing; using humour to highlight our worst tendencies and hypocrisies. Joe Rogan’s podcast is generally a hit although he gets it wrong sometimes, but there are some like this one in which you feel as if you’re just hanging out with two mates smoking, drinking and talking shit. While some may dismiss that kind of behaviour I feel they miss the point that people need that. They need to talk shit and not care. Sometimes Joe Rogan can start talking about exercise and health and you know the man lives what he’s saying, there’s an intensity to it that dare I say is inspiring.

For anyone who has read any of these on a regular basis they will be aware of how a couple of months ago I had an own it!! moment after an energising salt water cleanse. It’s a powerful one and it makes you realise how much a healthy gut can have an effect upon your mood and your energy levels. I slowly slipped back into my old unhealthy ways and am now back relying on coffee for energy and pastries for a easy lunch. Needless to say I’m groggy and lethargic most of the time but importantly having not always been groggy and lethargic I am aware of there being other states of existence. Much of this is mental, the drive to achieve and the energy to make it happen comes from the mind in many ways but if the gut is a second brain then we can’t overlook it’s contribution too. I’ve just started reading the book Gut by Giulia Enders again and seeing as I’ve just got over my readers block I’m pretty confident I’ll make it beyond page twenty this time.

Nobody should go through life lethargic and groggy, and if one thing is clear as the world falls apart around us is that life is finite, why waste it killing time. I’m going to finish this bag of coffee I’ve got, transition back to green tea and cut out the bloody sugar which I’m surrounded by from working in a bakery and being weak. How long this will last is anyones guess but considering this daily blog has lasted about four months now I’m clearly capable of the previously impossible with a little effort. I’m probably going to do some yoga, some calisthenics and go for a run after this. I’ve got to do something with my time, might as well own what I say.

I’m keen to give an update on how I feel after the cleanse I wrote about on Saturday. I’m wary of going on about how great these things are and how simply magical I feel because the mind is powerful and can convince us of many things, but mainly because I’ll sound like a wanker. Yesterday I didn’t feel a great difference in mood but today I have felt energised and like a weight has been lifted. It is one of those things that were someone else to read it, it wouldn’t really mean anything to them, and I can accept this because I would probably be the same. Like I said I’m wary of getting carried away but there is a distinct difference between today and this time last week or last month. I am sure you’re questioning how I can possibly give credit to a salt water cleanse for this but the gut is such a complex organ, our second brain some describe it. When it is not functioning at it’s peak then holistically speaking, we as one entity cannot either.

I back this up by an experience I had in Thailand years ago, actually just before that time I went to Burma and got the super farts. It was off the back of my travelling India and she had been a hard mistress. At one point I had spent three weeks really ill, everything passing through me and losing weight rapidly. I was down to sixty-five kilograms, or about ten stone depending where you’re reading this, and I’m six foot three or about one metre ninety. This was not a healthy look, I could see the ribs in my back. That three weeks took it’s toll on me mentally, for months afterwards I felt a heaviness to life. When I got to Bangkok, on the recommendation of a friend I tried an abdominal stomach massage called Chi New Tsang. When she had had it she said she just cried through the whole thing, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. The premise of Chi New Tsang is that by massaging your internal organs in a particular way you release all the blocked negative emotions which have been stored within them. This idea of the body storing pain is one you can find in many eastern therapies and healing practises. I’m naturally a sceptic but I also want everything that could be good to be real. I will try most things and hopefully with an open mind, some therapies I’ve not got the same response others have from them, but this stomach massage was incredible. I never cried or anything like that but I walked out of there and especially the next day felt like a new person. I had spent the previous weeks hiding away in a dark corner but for the last week I was there I got involved with things and was happy again. I took a beating and I stored it all in my gut. This was the release.

For some bizarre reason the Chi New Tsang massage is not that easy to find in Thailand, everyone just wants beaten up by attractive young girls as they crack your body back into position. I found one practitioner in Edinburgh but she was on maternity leave when I tried to contact her, a few in London and none in Athens so finding anyone is not going to be straight forward. The point is this massage works on a similar principle to the cleanse, you’re not just purging the physical detritus from your guts but in actuality the mental waste too.

The next mission is to keep myself from storing this suffering. I’ll start by hopefully listening to what my second brain tells me about what I’m putting in it. Unfortunately I have noticed butter has been making me itch which is a shame because I love it, I haven’t touched milk or cream, and I have lost all desire for coffee and alcohol. Why must those that we love most be the ones to hurt us so. Again, all I do is give my experience and as I said I have got little from things others have had strong responses to so there is no guarantee either the cleanse or the massage would do anything for you. These things are out there though, sometimes it may just be worth giving them a shot, the ol’ fuck it moment.

Tag: second brain

Own It!!

Chi Nei Tsang Me Baby