Practices for Resilience, Grounding and Immunity During the Coronavirus
These practices are incredibly helpful to ground yourself and regulate your nervous system during stressful times. They will also help release stress and boost your immunity.
Now can be a great opportunity with all the gyms and studios closed to develop your home practice.
This can be your time to cultivate your inner strength, bolster your immunity and step into your best self.
Please remember, you don't have to do this alone. I'm opening up my schedule to serve as many people as possible during this time.
Whether you want to work with me or not, you'll walk away with clarity on what you need to become the strongest version of yourself, in crisis or in everyday life.
Click here to book a free call with me now.
We're in this together,
Jonathan
Why You Haven't Made Regular Movement a Habit Yet (and how to fix it)
The start-stop cycle of getting on the horse and off the horse is exhausting. So, why not just make movement a fixture of your life, so you can get on with it and free up that mental energy for other things?If you've struggled at all to make fitness an embedded part of your life, I get it. But you don't have to live that way anymore.There are a few patterns I've noticed in myself and working with clients over the years when it comes to consistency. I'm going to share them with you in this short video, and hopefully, it helps you finally make regular movement a way of life.
Here are the top three reasons you probably haven't made fitness a habit yet, and how to fix them:
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How to Decolonize Your Mind: On Earning the Right to Live
I've been struggling the past few months with creating content here on this blog.
My impulse is to make everything epic, to fit into the mold of headline formulas and content marketing frameworks.I want all my content to be deeply valuable, to be unmissable, to shake things up in a big way.Part of this is just a pure desire to want to serve and do big things, but I've noticed that this drive often gets in the way of me creating for you.Trying to make everything incredible is a recipe for pressure, expectation and crippling resistance.Fuck that.From here on out, I'm going to try something different. I'm going to try to just create from my heart, share things that I'm passionate about, things that I believe will be useful to you.Which brings me to the point of this article. Why do I have this drive to fit my content into the mold of online marketing? Of course, I want it to be successful. There's nothing wrong with that. But probing deeper, there's this sense that I need to be successful, in order to feel secure.Why is that? Why do I need to earn my place in the world?I've always been a very inquisitive person, and for a long time I've tried to answer this question. I knew that our schooling system, our capitalist economic system, our religious system all drive us to become something to be happy, to be fulfilled.The gist of our world is this: work hard now, enjoy life later.They all have this in common, but why?For a long time, I didn't know the answer to this question. I just knew that it was bullshit. So, I tried to live another way, my own way. Living and working on my own terms has been my goal for the last few years, but without a deeper understanding of why the world is the way it is, and what another alternative might be, I found myself floating, trying to make up a new path without any map to go on.I needed to get to the root of it.Why we are taught to earn our right to live as humans? No other animal feels this way, what makes us different as humans? Is it just our big brains fucking us up?I realized that I needed a deeper understanding of human history. How did we evolve and get to the point where we're at now? How did we go from a place of harmony and contentment with our place the world, to a culture that basically breeds stress, trauma and deep core wounding?The answer, I've found is when we inadvertently domesticated ourselves as a species. That is to say, we started growing wheat. When I say "we," I don't mean all the cultures of humanity did this at once (which is a huge blundering, broad statement I see used too often in the anthropological world). One group in particular in the middle east started growing wheat.Not knowing it at the time (how could we?), we slowly shifted from a core belief that nature provides for us, to a core belief that it is up to us to provide for ourselves.Do you see how fundamentally different that perspective is?For the vast bulk of our history, we lived as hunter-gatherers. The land provided for us. We simply had to go out and gather plants, and hunt wild game that was "provided" for us.Yes, we had to "work" to live (ask a hunter-gatherer what work is and they'll probably scratch their heads and look at you funnily), but we trusted that life would provide.When we switched to an agricultural way of living, we became the ones responsible for feeding ourselves. That led to some positive things, otherwise we wouldn't have done it: the obvious being a surplus of food, and population expansion. But it also led to a lot of stress. What if the crop got diseased? What if there was a draught? What if locusts came and wiped out our hard work? We then had to work harder to try to mitigate these things from happening. We developed irrigation, pesticides, and fences to protect our investment in the land.This also led to a more divisive relationship with nature and the animal life around us. Of course as hunter-gatherers we weren't innocent. I'm not here to perpetuate a fantasy of the "noble savage" or a fantasy that hunter-gather life was all roses and sunshine. We hunted species to extinction, we disrupted the landscape in huge, irreversible ways. We acted out of self-interest as any species would. But we weren't at odds with the world in the way we are now. We didn't have the fundamental belief "if I'm to eat, it's up to me."The dawn of agriculture also led to distinct hierarchy and the desire to accumulate wealth. When there is a surplus of grain, someone has to protect it, someone has to lord over it and decide what to do with it. For the first time ever, we had a ruling class. This was the birth of stratification of people into castes and classes. It was also the birth of the desire to climb the ladder.It's crazy to think that something as simple as growing wheat could have such drastic consequences. Apparently humans aren't the best at deciding what is good for them. Of course, hindsight is 20/20.
I'm summarizing all of this and making very broad strokes, but here is my basic point:The reason you and I feel the chronic stress we do is because our core, fundamental belief is that if I'm to live, I have to earn my place.The hunter-gatherer way of life trusts that nature will provide.The agricultural way of life says that it's up to us to provide by the sweat of our brow.We our taught that if we work hard enough, rewards will come in the future. And if they don't come in this lifetime, perhaps they will come in the afterlife (ring a bell, anyone?).Man belongs to the world in the hunter-gatherer way. The world belongs to man in the agricultural way. Some even go so far as to say that it's man's duty to develop, conquer and rule over the world. Manifest destiny, right?We're getting into deep ideological territory here, but let's just ask ourselves a simple question to brings things down to earth...How is this core belief of earning our right to live working for us?In my view, it's leading to greater stress, more disease, more conflict, and less human happiness.If you've ever wondered why this system we're in feels wrong, backwards or doesn't make sense, perhaps it's because your intuition is telling you that this isn't the way we're meant to live.The challenge of course, is that we're here now. We're in the matrix, and it's hard to unplug ourselves from it.But if we're going to start anywhere, we need to begin by modifying our core, fundamental beliefs.Do you believe that the world belongs to man, or that man belongs to the world?Do you believe that nature will provide for you, or that it's all up to you?The tricky part to answering this question is as it stands, in our system, it is up to us. But that doesn't mean that we can't create a new system. A new way of living where we uncage ourselves from human domestication.This my friend, is a messy, difficult business. Learning how to live in harmony with nature in the world we're in requires that we be to some degree successful in the capitalist, imperialist world, while finding a way to extract ourselves from it.It means relearning how to provide for yourself in a way that is aligned with nature, while also paying your bills and doing your best to heal yourself from the trauma of having to earn your place in the world.Funny enough, we can use the technology that has enslaved as a tool for our own liberation. People everywhere are finding ways to create a living online that allows them to take back control of their schedule, and reclaim their time. Time and time autonomy is our greatest asset. Without it, we can't rewild ourselves. There is simply no space.With the internet we can band together, we can create a new culture of sovereignty outside of the empire churning itself toward collapse. We can become more resilient by relearning how to thrive as primal humans, even in this modern world.Right now I'm learning how to forage, how to fish, hunt and create as wild of a habitat as possible in the city. I'm learning how to rehabilitate my body from years of sitting, to move with more freedom. I'm going back to my roots, learning the ways my ancestors ate and provided that doesn't require me to earn my way to living. It's not easy, and I might never get to a place of total harmony, but I'd rather do my best than try to go back to ignorance (which never really works, does it?).Taking back control of your finances, living a minimalist lifestyle, learning foraging and hunting skills, these are things that can help you move in the direction of harmony with your habitat.There is also a peace in finding that the world doesn't belong just to you. At the end, nature will have the final say.The truth is nature has always provided, but only when we trust that it will take care of us. Learning that has been hard for me, there is a deep core wounding that I'm only beginning to fully understand and see clearly. I've been hurting for so many years, but not fully knowing why.The hard part about this is that really fully understanding these core beliefs opens a giant can of worms. It makes life even more messy, more complicated. It puts you face-to-face with your core wounding and that can be really uncomfortable.While self-awareness can be a major bitch, it is also an opportunity to heal. Doing this work now with ourselves, we can create a new path for ourselves and future generations.Being compassionate with yourself is immensely important. Realize that you didn't choose this. Go easy on yourself as you make this journey to becoming as feral of a human as you can be. It's definitely a process, and there are no easy answers.One thing is certain, the world will be changed and healed by those that are living fully awake, not by those who are sleepwalking through life.Note: If you want to educate yourself more about the history of our species, and how we got to where we are, I highly recommend reading Ishmael by Daniel Quinn and Sapiens by Yuval Harari. Both explain the crux of agriculture with more eloquence and in a more comprehensive way than I can do justice in a blog post.Art courtesy of Banksy
The Death of Staying Tame: How to Reclaim the Wild Man Within You
The world thus far has trained you to be tame.
Society has conditioned you as a man, to hold back, to seek security, to play it safe.We’re taught that this path will lead, someday, to great rewards. The success, the money, the things.Little do we know this path of domestication has led us to give away our power. The taboo against wildness, the fear of the animal within, has led us to buy into this game of sacrificing for future rewards.
- We’re afraid of wildness, yet wildness is our home.
- We try to control nature, yet we come from it.
- We wear masks and costumes to pretend that we aren't really animals.
Yet our quest for domination is rooted in fear. And ironically the more we seek comfort and security, the more uncomfortable we become.While technology and civilization has brought us many benefits, it has come with a price.Our temperature controlled environments make us more uncomfortable whenever we go outside. Our supermarkets make us more reliant than ever a food supply we can’t control. Our GPS systems make us feel like lost infants without them.Our desire for not being at the mercy of nature, has led us to actually being more fragile. And our fear of the animals that we are, has led us to feeling like we’re not at home on the planet that we live on.
At some point we have to ask, when is it time to break the taboo against wildness?
When the weirdo is the man actually moving on the playground and the normal one is the one sitting in a chair for 12 hours a day, isn’t this a sign that something has gotten totally out of balance?We’ve sacrificed our freedom, our bodies, our sense of brotherhood, and our connection to our own planet.All in the name of success, or whatever it is.But unfortunately these are just the obvious costs.
The true costs of being a domesticated man
As men, we often don’t realize just how much we’re constantly holding back. We walk around repressing our instincts to climb, to crawl, to express our sexuality, or to simply take a few moments to look up at the sky and marvel at our own existence.The wildness within us is tamed by not speaking our minds because we're afraid of what someone might think. We dumb our gifts down to quantifiable commodities in jobs without meaning, rather than embracing our unique, ineffable medicine we have to give to the world.We walk around like head transportation vehicles, cut off from the wisdom of our bodies, and the ability to listen to the guidance of our guts.When our vehicles (bodies) are just machines, we treat them as devices that need annoying maintenance. Even sleep is seen as an inconvenience.Monetized and compartmentalized. That is the cost of a culture that worships the head and sees the body as a sack of meat that must be lugged around.
It's time to reclaim ownership of our minds
I gu
ess what I’m trying to show you, is that many of the problems we’re facing in our culture are the result of a mindset.Beliefs shape our perspective, and thus our actions in the world.The domesticated mindset exalts the “respectable” and tame man, and sees the wild man as primitive, an interesting and novel spectacle to be put on display.Now, at this point in the story you might be expecting me to say “screw civilization, it’s time to return to the glorious caves and wilderness we’ve so foolishly forgotten”But that would just be another radical overcorrection.Whether we like it or not, we can’t go back. We must go forward.We must learn to reclaim, to integrate, and find a new way of operating in the world.I believe that way is by boldly owning, embodying and even, celebrating the wild man within you. Not in a naive, romantic sort of way.But really truly asking, how do we reclaim the wild and integrate it into where we are now?
Who is the modern wild man and what does he look like?
The modern wild man lives in the inbetween. He rides the edges of society and the undeveloped world. He’s at home surrounded by tall buildings and even taller trees.He hasn’t abandoned society to become a resolute monk, though he does take regular retreats to unplug completely from the hustle and grind.The new wild man is more like a hybrid human. He’s always looking for ways to learn from the way we thrived as hunter gatherers.He experiments with embedding those practices and lessons into the fabric of modern living.Because we’ve engineered movement, seasonality and crucial aspects of our biological blueprint out of our lives, he’s been forced to become an architect of routines, habits and habitat. The wild, hybrid man seeks to consciously shape his own environment, his own rituals, and his own lifestyle on his own terms.He knows that the wildness is always just underneath the surface. So most of his work isn't finding or creating wildness, but reclaiming it.[bctt tweet="You can take the man out of the wild, but you can never take the wildness out of the man."]
This might mean finding weird and interesting ways to move like a human animal throughout the day.He makes a practice of squatting, sitting without furniture (much to his wife’s dismay), and crawling down the hallway when no one is looking.You can often find him climbing trees, much to the shock of old ladies.Generally though, by moving like an animal, he’s always doing things that other people find strange.Though he doesn’t often express it, he finds the way they live even stranger.
The wild mind leads to a wild life
As much as possible he tries to eat with the seasons, buying locally grown, organic produce and grass fed meat when available.Secretly, he dreams of what it would be like to live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, or on a farm where he can just get away from everything and live a simpler life.However, connecting with and building a tribe of other men is a priority to him.He sees it as his duty to help other men uncage, knowing that the men around him are suffering, just like he was.He helps them by showing them that they can start small, and rewild themselves from wherever they are.So, the uncaged man makes the initiative to invite his friends on hikes, movement sessions and retreats. He challenges those around him to play a bigger game, and to step into their deeper purpose.
Wildness is his superpower
His wildness is a gift to all of those he meets, because little do they know, it’s the source of his true power.Nature nurtures him, and making a practice of being surrounded by nature recharges and energizes him. It gives him the fuel he needs to live in the service of others.Sometimes this means cutting through the bullshit of the domestication game of trading time for freedom.He's not afraid of calling out those he loves when he sees them playing small, or sacrificing their happiness for someday. This might not make him popular in the moment, but they often thank him later.
He celebrates his masculinity, and never hides it
The uncaged man sees his masculinity as something not to be feared or shunned, but as something to be celebrated.He understands that women have been suppressed by a male dominated culture for too long, but he also sees the fallacy in trying to act like one gender must be elevated above another.He knows that patriarchal society hasn’t just suppressed women, but also put men in a box, a place where they are expected to be like unemotional automatons.By reclaiming his wildness, he has reclaimed his ability to feel fully, to be in tune with and embrace the full spectrum of emotion.He knows that feelings aren’t an obstruction to his purpose, but are a gift — a valuable guidance system for his most aligned action. By feeling more he is more connected to the Why behind his purpose. This why is fuel that propels him to serve the world in a deeper, more meaningful way.This of course, is a messier, more chaotic way to live than acting like he doesn't feel anything.But there are other gifts to feeling completely. Feeling fully, he embraces both the light and the dark, and by owning his shadows his life is not run by them.The uncaged man knows that by courageously confronting and owning his darkness he will eventually find freedom, strength and power within the shadows.
We're not done yet... The Greatest Gift of Wildness
Reading all of this, you might think “I’m in, let’s do this.” But you haven’t even heard about the best part yet.When you reclaim the wild, uncaged man within you, you no longer view life completely from the realm of the mind.Not only will you no longer feel trapped in your own head, but you no longer see life merely as a series of problems to be solved.Life is so much more than a problem to be analyzed, dissected and figured out.Life is an adventure to be lived.[clickToTweet tweet="Life is an adventure to be lived, not a problem to be solved. Wildness is the vehicle for freedom." quote="Life is an adventure to be lived, not a problem to be solved. Wildness is the vehicle for freedom."]Wildness is the greatest vehicle for adventure there ever has been. When you break the taboo and awaken the beast sleeping with you, you realize, that all the freedom, adventure and purpose you’ve been looking for was......right here, all along.It wasn’t something you needed to earn, or sacrifice to uncover.Of course, the game of earning, building and becoming can be a fun game to play.But at any moment we can return the freedom and joy of the wildness that is us.We don’t need to find nature. We are nature.By reconnecting with the wild, we rediscover… ourselves.
A Roadmap for Uncaging as a Man
Though the wildness is always right underneath the surface, domestication has fucked us up to a pretty significant degree.We need to figure out how to rehabilitate ourselves from captivity. We need to learn how to band together as men again in a way that celebrates and honors both the masculine and feminine sides of the spectrum.And of course, there is the real, practical concern of:How do I live more like a primal being, even while I’m in this civilized world?In the next post I’ll be sharing with you some of the most potent ways you can start on this journey, from wherever you are.And of course, I’ll be unpacking all of these things even more in-depth over the next few months.Uncaged Man is my mission, and I plan on doing this for a long time. There is a lot of work to do. And I hope you'll help me spread the word to help more men uncage.I think there are some buttons somewhere around here for that. ;)
For now, I’d love to know: why do you want to uncage?
Why do you want to reclaim the wildness within you?Join the Uncaged Man group and let us know.
In wildness and strength,JonathanP.S. If you’re new here, don’t forget to subscribe to get the next post in the series.