Tag: toxic

Well Blue Me

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I’ve found a new thing to class as possibly the worst job ever. I mentioned sanding the boat yesterday and discipline. Well I managed to discover a little more discipline today, not as much as I hoped but more than the day before. It’s a process so I’m not unhappy with that. I am unhappy about sanding a boat though. It is simply awful. The goggles steam up, the suit is hot in the sun and so on. What makes it worse is the blue sanded paint just gets everywhere and even when you cover yourself you still end up covered in it. Yesterday Smurf is back again. Throw in the fact you sweat and it opens pours but the stuff stings. It’s actually toxic too which is concerning but I doubt it’s so bad it’s going to do me a lot of long term damage. But it stings and I’m not happy. It’s such a shit job. Now I know why boat yards charge so much. Give me a door that needs sanding anytime. I will never complain about such a thing ever again. Thankfully it’s going to be raining tomorrow so I’ve no chance of feeling I should be doing any. I’m not even half way yet either. It’s certainly taking long enough. Fuck this. I need a drink.

Well tempting though it is I haven’t done my minimum four hundred bloody words yet. My face is still stinging and it’s now night time. This is nearly worse than toothache. I have one more hull to do and there will be no messing around next time. I’m not sure what the opposite of life affirming is but this feels like whatever I imagine it must be. I wonder if it’ll finally make me ‘do something with my life‘ if only so I don’t have to ever do this again. But I will, I know I will. I’ll get a boat myself one day and it will be in a condition that warrants this kind of work needing to be done on it. Fucking boats. This whole swanning around and drinking gin thing is such a fallacy. Maybe it’s time to buy some rum like a real pilot. It’s the pirates life for me then. I was thinking if I ever lost an eye and was still sailing would I be able to credibly wear an eye patch or would it just make me look like a twat. Probably both a twat and credible. Doubt that would stop me though.

A Toxic Storm

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I sit tonight with thunder and lightning as a backdrop of sorts. I say of sorts because I am in a taverna and despite attempting to position myself looking outside there are still too many lights and people around to feel the full affects of such weather. In fact all these people and children kill any mood I felt prior to entering. There is always something atmospheric and intense with thunderstorms, especially those in hotter countries not used to rains all year round. The intensity is understandable, I imagine if they could measure the energy build up inside a storm, they probably can, maybe that’s what weather balloons do, they would discover it to be powerful. I suppose it is that strength which creates the burst of electricity that is lighting. Is the lightning a release though, is there a decrease in energy once it has struck. Can we compare this to the human mind?

I can use Greeks as an example. It is probably a little ignorant and lazy. Greeks are known for let’s say having an argumentative character. It is a lazy stereotype but for the sake of this argument, let’s assume it is true. It has felt when I’ve been embracing elements of this culture in the past, that the loud arguments have been a form of release. That sometimes we wouldn’t even be arguing over something we were actually angry about but simply looking for this excuse to release a build up of energy. The stereotype about the Greeks then is lazy because this is clearly something done by all, this is a game played in Scotland too for sure. The point is though that this energy must still go somewhere. I don’t know what happens once lightning strikes. What happens to the power that fires towards the ground. The power in an argument is hardly visible but you feel it and you hold onto it, perhaps it’s the same with the lightning strike. This I clearly don’t know.

I do know arguments though and I do know that I am capable and therefore others too of holding on to that energy. We see the other person relaxed and happy after their release but we’re a quivering ball of someone else’s anger. Our own toxicity levels increasing in the moment. Perhaps this is why some people are described as toxic. Toxic substances poison just as toxic people do too. We can’t ignore the fact if others do it to us then certainly we do it to others too. We can’t just spend our lives avoiding those we deem toxic in the hope of not becoming part of some cycle though, this is no way to live life. We must learn to live and not absorb, don’t take in their bullshit. See it and brush it off. I’m not sure why I got into this. I just wanted to talk about thunderstorms. It’s amazing how the mind wanders and relates.

Habitual Emotions

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According to BJ Fogg habits are connected to our emotions and until we understand our emotive relationship to our habitual responses we will struggle to transform our behaviour into a series of positive actions. I may have added to and slightly paraphrased what he said but the link to our emotions is all his. He also says that we should make tiny changes to our habits and give ourselves a reward as and when we achieve our aims. He uses the example of his eighty year old father wanting to do twenty push-ups a day and believing he’ll achieve this because of his desire to do so. His father according to Fogg is displaying an outdated attitude to creating change, one of believing that if he has strength of mind and willpower to make these changes in his life; that that will be enough to make the positive difference he is after. Fogg believes instead that he should make tiny changes, perhaps two push-ups against the sink each time he’s washing his hands for example. This is an achievable goal and can be used as a base to work on. The emotive aspect comes from our need for a reward. The reward can simply be feeling happy when we achieve targets and make positive habitual changes in our lives or when we struggle feeling unhappy. These emotive responses become habit themselves.

This journey into the realms of discipline you’re going on with me is, and I’ve said this many times before, interlinked with our habits and responses. Our habitual responses to situations dictate how we behave when faced with a variety of situations big and small, and have become deeper and deeper ingrained the more we repeat them as we get older. Once we see behaviour as simply as series of habits it becomes easier to both empathetically understand other peoples actions and creates a deeper understanding of ourselves and our own behaviour. These ideas of BJ Fogg then are very interesting because what he is adding is a method to how we can make these changes. While it is still about observing your habitual responses to different situations, he suggests making these small changes you want to happen. It appears to be a more direct approach than simply observing and not repeating, or trying a new approach when you recognise the old toxic one. This is made possible by not trying to create huge and unattainable targets that will hinder your achieving the positive emotive response you unconsciously desire and require. This idea of tiny habits is a new one for me so I’m not entirely sure empirically what I think about it but it seems like common sense it a way. The danger is though that just like his father; I want it all now, I want those twenty push-ups a day. To really embrace tiny steps and tiny habits requires a deal of patience that in itself needs to be fostered habitually. Nobody ever said it was going to be easy no matter how much you desire it.

Salt Water Cleanse

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You were warned earlier in the week that this day would come, and just like we’re seeing what’s happening in Australia when warnings are ignored, I’m about to write an intimate piece on my bowels. You may remember that I said my first attempt at making my own beer had failed and how it had forced me to become well acquainted with any nearby toilet I could find, well this went on until arguably Thursday. Yesterday my guts still seemed to be arguing with each other and because it had been a while today seemed like a good day for a clean.

There are various articles online describing more or less the same approach to a salt water cleanse. I learnt how to do it at a Rainbow Gathering in the Tasmanian bush about eight years ago and then discovered it again when doing a yoga course in India. I had a few years before this tried colonic hydrotherapy so lets say I’ve always been a fan. When I arrived in Australia I came from Burma and at some point in my month there I had eaten something which only upset my stomach for a couple of days but gave me the most horrendous smelly farts. A friend described it as if I was just oozing rot and decay with each puff. When I heard of the shitting / salt water cleanse workshop I was all in. Let’s just say I saw things that day that’ll never leave me, scars imprinted in the recesses of memory. A boy became a man.

It’s quite a simple procedure actually. It is important to do this on an empty stomach, so a light meal the night before and perform the cleanse prior to breakfast. Boil two litres of water, dissolve 2-3 teaspoons of mineral salt per litre – very important here not to use ordinary table salt as minerals in proper salt are important – and let it cool so it is warm but comfortable to drink. You drink half a litre and then do a series of five different yoga asanas dynamically, in repetitions of eight per asana, to help the water move through the body. These asanas are; Tadasana, Tiryaka Tadasana, Kati Chakrasana, Tiryaka Bhujangasana and Udarakarshanasana, I haven’t put them as links because I’m lazy and you’re capable of pressing copy and paste into an internet search engine. You then drink another half litre and repeat until you feel it impossible to hold in. Usually for me that is a litre and a half, but first couple of times was two litres. Even once you have released the trap door that first time I would still recommend you continuing to work through the asanas to help flush anything else out. Whatever stays inside of you will just be urinated out and I’m sure it’ll do the urethra no harm getting a little cleanse too.

I’m not suggesting for a second I’m a doctor and there are all sorts of articles online making all kinds of claims regarding health and mental improvement. I make no comment on them either way as I only know what I have experienced which is that when required it does seem to have completely flushed out whatever was inside my gut doing all the damage. In the early days too I did notice that it was a good indicator of foods which maybe didn’t suit me, such as dairy products which I immediately felt a little sick from and interestingly alcohol which I lost all desire for. I have ignored both those messages from my body clearly but it was interesting to see and maybe one day I’ll do something about them. The only thing I would say which could be a potential negative is that if it is flushing out the bad bacteria does that mean it is also flushing out the good bacteria, and that must be a genuine concern which I unfortunately don’t know the answer to. I have just started to read a book called Gut by Giulia Enders which seems really interesting, I am going to email her and see if she has any insight that she may like to share with me. It is also important to stress that for the rest of the day eating a very plain diet is important as the stomach has just gone through quite the workout. I have just enjoyed the most delicious soaked oats.