How I Killed My Fitness Goals to Become Stronger, Happier and More Pain Free

So, I guess I'll just admit it. I used to be one of those guys.

You know, the kind that create wild, outlandish goals and obsess about them. The kind that listen to Tony Robbins audiobooks and get inspired to take Massive Action at All Costs.Yeah, that used to be me.Not anymore though.Killing my fitness goals has made me healthier and happier. And by not having goals I'm even making progress faster in the direction I want to go.The last part wasn't a typo. I'm actually getting to where I want to go faster by not having goals.So, what am I doing instead?First I need to tell you about a quote that really pissed me off.

Either the dumbest, or wisest quote ever

I like to think I'm a man of principle, so when I first heard this quote, I was simultaneously intrigued and really angry.

"You have the right to your labor, but not the fruits of your labor."—The Bhagavad Gita

How can we not have a right to the fruits of our actions? How does this make any sense, whatsoever? It's enough to make any decent capitalist infuriated.Let me explain. :)We don't have a "right" to the fruits because we cannot control or dictate them. We can plant the seeds, water, tend and nurture, but we have no control over what happens next. A flood, tornado, or tsunami (okay that's a stretch), might come and ruin our crops.If the fruits come, then yes, we should enjoy them. But what this quote is trying to say is that we aren't entitled to results, because they are beyond our control.It's another way of saying the saying you've heard a thousand times: focus on what you can control, forget about the rest.In other words, there's zero point obsessing about the outcome or goal because you can't control it. It makes much more sense to focus your energy on the process.But there's another problem with goals, that goes far beyond you not being able to control them.

Why goals often make us miserable

The problem with goals is that they immediately make you feel like you are not where you want to be. Seeing where you're not, you feel the pain caused by that gap. The bigger the distance between you and your goal, the bigger the pain, and the more unfulfilled you are with where you are now.Creating goals can make us obsessed with the outcome, and the future we'd like to see ourselves in. If your goal is to do the full splits, but you're a year away from accomplishing it, your attention will likely be focused on how far you have to go to get there. Even while making progress along the way, it's easy to ignore your achievements and obsess with how much further you must journey. After all, you don't want to lose focus, become lazy and not reach your goal.So, what are you supposed to do? Become a lazy bum and give up any desire to do and be more?Nope.There is another way.

Focus on systems and showing up

The answer isn't necessarily to never have any goals and to never reach for anything greater. We're wired as humans to continually look to better our lives. If you're anything like me, it would be very painful for you to try to stifle your desire to grow, do and be more.The biggest breakthrough I've made is instead of focusing on goals, to focus on creating systems.My biggest "goal," if you even want to call it that, right now is to have healthy joints. I want to "make shit work nice" as Dr. Spina would put it. If all my joints work nice, I can move better and feel stronger with whatever I choose to do, whether it be climbing at the gym or doing parkour in the forest.Instead of obsessing about certain goals with my shoulders or hips, I'm focusing instead on daily habits, continually working on my mobility with FRC principles.My focus is on creating a practice that feeds and nourishes me, and is adaptable to days of fatigue, sickness, or whatever compression modern life might be bringing me.I don't want an approach so rigid that I have to force (gotta catch that goal!), even when it's not working for me. Back to the example of the splits, if my goal is to achieve them by a certain date, and I'm noticing some pain in abduction of my left hip, I'll probably push through the pain because not doing so will delay my realization of my goal. This will lead me to injury and more pain in the long term.But if my approach is to create a practice of expanding range of motion in my hips, and the goal is to simply show up and be present to the process, then there is no hurry. My practice has room for times when things feel off. This way I'm able to listen to my body and stay patient, because after all, I'm doing this practice for life. I reach the goal every time I show up and stay connected to my practice.

You can control the system, and you can control showing up

The best part about focusing on systems is that you can actually have control over the process. You can choose how you design the system, and how you show up to your practice. You might occasionally jot down a goal so your practice matches the horizon you're sailing toward, but that's about it. Then it's back into the beautiful work of doing your practice.One way says "I've gotta get this goal as soon as possible so I can feel whole"The other says "I'm whole right now, this practice will ensure I'm on the path to rewards both now and in the future"What are your working towards right now?How can you create a system or habit that helps you focus on what you can control?If you're looking for a starting point, one simple practice is a morning ritual for daily joint mobility. Here's the routine I use every day.Note: Big thanks to James Clear and this post for inspiring me to change the way I think about goal setting.

Why I Did a Three Day Bone Broth Fast and What Happened

I recently completed a three day bone broth fast to repair my gut.

I've been on a journey to heal my gut for at least the last five years, actively working to recover from a lifetime of processed foods and a poor diet.And as fast back as I can remember, it seems that I've always struggled with bloating, gas and poor digestion. At it's worst point it had me laying in bed with horrible knots in my stomach.The culprit of my gut breakdown, unfortunately reads like a very typical story.I grew up on the Standard American Diet (called SAD for short, how ironic and disturbing). Frozen burritos, fish sticks, hamburger helper, sloppy joes, those were the staples in my house. Regularly finish a 2 liter bottle of pepsi all by myself was not a rare occurrence as a kid. In fact, most nights we had soda with dinner. It practically flowed like water in my house. As you can see, I wasn't exactly set up for success.As an adult, my diet improved, but not much. My caffeine of choice switched from soda to coffee (not sure which is worse, to be honest). I became vegetarian and started eating lots of faux meat, beans, rice, and grains instead. I tried to make smoothies and green juices to make up for the processed crap I ate, but at the time, I had no idea just how much omega 6 I was eating. No wonder I had so much gut inflammation.Unfortunately, it wouldn't be until a full decade later that I woke up and found the ancestral (paleo) diet.And along the way, boy have I experimented with some weird shit. I've tried everything from guzzling wheatgrass to juice cleanse cults (master cleanse, anyone?). I tried probiotics, prebiotics, raw vegan diets, sugar-free, dairy-free, and everything in between.But the most powerful thing I found was broth.Around two years ago, like a lot of paleo geeks, I jumped feet first onto the bone broth bandwagon. I heard about the laundry list of benefits, from glowing skin, to healthy joints, to digestive healing. It made perfect sense to me. What was once a traditional diet staple (for thousands of years), had somehow become lost in the search for food convenience. The lack of collagen in our modern diet (the stuff gut lining, healthy skin, and connective tissue is made of), was showing up in the form of more gut issues than ever.I was hooked. I immediately started buying bones (and chicken feet to thicken up broth, which I kept in a container in the freezer, much to my wife's dismay) and making big batches of fatty broth in my crockpot. And lo and behold, steadily but surely, my gut has gotten better.That was until, I reached a plateau of just feeling "OK," but not great.Then I decided to make 2017 year the year I would reclaim my health, and heal my gut, fully. I got serious about eating clean once again (no little cheating here and there that quickly becomes a problem), and making bone broth a staple.But I still needed something to kickstart my gut to heal at a deeper level. Intuitively I felt that my digestive system needed a break, badly. If I could give it simple, liquid nutrition it could take energy away from digestion, and toward deep healing.I went to my butcher, picked up some knuckle bones and brewed up close to three gallons of broth. Here's what happened and how things went...

A necessary, but unfortunate disclaimer

Fasts are not for everyone, and everyone has different dietary needs. Before you start on a fast of any kind, you should absolute consult your health care provider. I'm not a doctor, nor do I claim to give medical advice of any kind. As always, consult your own body and decide what is best for you.

Preparations for the fast

The first step was to decide how long I would fast for. Most guides I looked at recommended between 48-72 hours. I decided I needed as much relief as I could get, so I went with 72.Because I've done fasts before (though never a broth fast), I knew I needed to prepare myself mentally. Not getting psychology prepared I think is the biggest mistake you can make before starting a fast. If you want to set yourself up for success, you need to be prepared to deal with cravings, be irritable, and have lots of space and time to set aside for self care. Starting a fast before a big trip or work project is not the right time. I suggest doing it on a weekend, or taking time off of work if possible.The first thing I did was made sure that my fast fell on the weekend, and that I didn't have any major events planned. I also spent time reading up on the benefits of fasting to get myself emotionally anchored to what I was about to do. I visualized myself feeling good, persevering through any challenges that came up, and resisting temptations to eat.

My bone broth recipe and daily regimen

Since talking about my fast on Facebook, a lot of you have been asking for my bone broth recipe. I actually did a whole post on my love for bone broth, including my recipe. You can find it here.Here's my exact daily routine, including everything I ingested:

• Hydration elixir. The first thing I drank every day was 12oz of spring water with 1tsp of sole (himalayan sea salt soaked in water), 1tbsp of bentonite clay, and lemon. It's a super hydrating exlixir, and the bentonite helps with detox.
• Morning herbal tea. In this I put chaga, lion's mane, astragulus, ginger and a bit of yerba mate'. Since I was going off coffee, I decided to give myself a smaller dose of caffeine to help with withdrawal, but in a more gut friendly way. The chaga and lion's mane were for immune boosting properties, astragalus for its gut optimization properties and ginger for it's gut healing properties.
• Bone broth. I let myself have as much as I wanted. In it I often added several tablespoons of collagen from Great Lakes.
• Fermented veggies. I ate a good amount of these for the beneficial probiotics they contain. I made about 4 quarts of kimchi that I devoured. Because they're predigested, they're super easy on the gut.
• Supplements. I kept with my normal supplement routine of Vitamin D, MSM, Glucosamine, Fish Oil, and Colostrum.

The good and the not so pleasant: my daily fast journal

Day 1: Determined and readyWoke up with a slight headache. A bit nervous, but I'm feeling determined and excited about the results that I'll be getting. Ready to follow through with this and see how much this can help me with my gut.Today I just started with skipping dinner and replacing with bone broth. It felt pretty easy and just like I was having soup for dinner (an empty soup, but still had that feeling).Went to bed feeling better than when I woke up.Day 2: Riding the struggle busWoke up with headache again, ugh. I didn't sleep the best and think I was in a weird position that created some neck tension. Feeling more groggy and tired than usual.Plan is to spend some time outside, take it easy and go sauna.Update: I went for a walk, did a little light climbing in the trees, and went to the sauna. Felt a lot better after being outside, even though it was cold and overcast. The sauna tired me out though, so I ended up taking a nap.Was pretty exhausted today, honestly. Lots of cravings for burgers, fries, comfort food. Hoping that tomorrow will be better.Day 3: The sun is shining againWoke up feeling a lot better today. The best way I can describe it is just feeling clear and clean.Got my broth and tea in, then hit the park for a walk. It was a beautiful sunny day, so I couldn't resist getting out.Climbed at the gym, but kept it pretty light and short, nothing too strenuous. Went to sauna after climbing with Ev'Yan and picked up a green juice from the store.Got a bit sleepy after the sauna (as to be expected), but overall feeling good.Day 4: Give me all of the food (and a surprise)!Woke up irritable, slightly groggy and hungry. I knew that it was time to eat today, and I absolutely could not wait.Then, after my morning water and bone broth, it hit me... I needed to go to the bathroom, now!I felt sick, bloated and gross, and I couldn't figure out why. I had just been on days of amazing bone broth, after all.And that's when I remembered... I haven't had a bowel movement in three days! Oh, maybe that's why. I also recalled that I might have put way too much salt in my water. On an empty stomach, salt water can act as a laxative. Oops!I'll spare you the details, but it definitely felt like I released some clogged up junk in my system.I broke my fast with some veggies, an egg, and a slice of bacon. My original plan was broth with some vegetables cooked in it, but my body was saying "GIVE ME FOOD. NOW." and I decided to listen. I trusted it knew what was up, and that it was time.

How I'm feeling now and what I think about how it went

Several days after the fast, I'm feeling great. This feels like exactly what my body needed in order to heal and reset. The level of gas/bloating and digestive discomfort I was experiencing has decreased dramatically and is now almost unnoticeable.I do think that there's likely still more healing to be done, so I plan on repeating the fast again in the future when it feels like the right time.

My plan moving forward

A lot of people say that the fast is the easy part, but it's after the fast that is the real test. I think that's true.It's pretty easy when you're on the fast after a while to stick with it and keep it going. After all, it's only 72 hours, and anyone can stick with something for at least that long. It's staying away from your trouble foods long term, and managing stress that is the real test.These are the big gut irritants for me, and what I plan to stay away from:

• Any glutenous grains
• Sugar
• Peanuts
• Beans and legumes
• Soy
• Industrial vegetable oils (canola, safflower, etc.)
• Too much coffee
• Too many nuts and seeds

I also have to be careful not to overdo it on dairy, nightshades, and overly complex meals with lots of ingredients. Yay, my life is fun, right? Yeah, yeah, I know it could be worse.Sticking to meat, veggies and healthy fats, while drinking lots of broth and fermented foods seems to be what works best for me.Another thing I plan on incorporating more is intermittent fasting, where I skip breakfast and allow my digestive system to rest from 7pm-12pm. Check out the benefits here.I also think once or twice a month having 24 hours of only broth would be a good addition to add my strategy.Going forward I'll be staying on a 90/10 diet of strict paleo, with some slight room for deviation. I've tried super strict diets before, and they always backfire with me binging on unhealthy foods. Staying disciplined, but having room to breathe and live a little is what works best for me.

So, would I do it again?

Having done fasts like the Master Cleanse in the past, I like how this approach focuses on giving your gut a break, but also fuels you with much needed gut-healing nutrients.Based on the results I got (despite the difficulties), I would absolutely do a bone broth fast again. Incorporating a fast like this every 3-6 months makes a lot of sense to me, along with more frequent, shorter digestive breaks.It's also a great way to kick start a healthier, cleaner diet.Know someone that could benefit from better gut health? Share this post with them and help revive this ancestral wisdom we've forgotten.

Stay Patient: Rewilding Yourself Can be a Long, Meandering Path

Immersing myself in the process of learning how to be a wild human again, I've found that it's a long, winding process.

I wanted to write about this, in the hopes that it might help you on your journey, whether it's to regain your primal strength, eat a more paleo diet, or just be comfortable taking care of yourself in the wild.But first, some backstory.In the beginning I was motivated by the desire to be strong. I've always been interested in athletics and this drive to be the best version of myself possible. But I was particularly interested in the realm of physical strength, endurance and being able to move really well.That desire eventually led me to realizing that fitness in our world is a place of specialization. Not needing to move to live, we express our physicality in sports, or movement disciplines like yoga or martial arts. In our fitness culture there often isn't a general desire to just want to move well. Divorced from a relationship with our habitat, we're no longer seeing fitness as being a competent, capable human that's well adapted to your environment. I think that's starting to change with things like MovNat, but it's still a process that's unfolding before us.Questing to reach the peak of my physical performance, I kept slamming myself up against a wall of injury and fatigue. At the time it was incredibly frustrating, because I thought the answer was just to work harder, and it seemed the harder I worked, the worse things got.In hindsight though, like it always does, it made total sense.Here's what I was trying to do:Sit for 10+ hours a day, then do 2+ hours of maximal strength training, focusing mostly on static holds.I was doing lots of gymnastic training at the time, holding positions, like a plank, hollow hold, lsit or handstand.I considered these movements to be the epitome of strength and body control.The problem was my work was largely on the computer. Add on top that our culture of sitting that adds even more time in a right angle, whether it's on the couch, driving, or sitting at a bar. We sit a lot, and I was definitely overdosing on it.So, basically you have sitting in a rigid, slouched position, then adding on hours of training on top of that being even more rigid.Static + static = not a happy body.My body was wrecked, naturally, and I felt it. I felt like an old man getting out of bed at the age of 26. It made zero sense.What it did though was motivate me to figure out was I was missing in my approach. That eventually led me down the path of asking what a natural movement approach would be for a human.The answer was definitely not sitting and static holds, I'll tell you that much.Anyway, I'm glossing over a lot of steps in this story, but the point is that it wasn't a straight path from pain to living a fully wild movement lifestyle. In fact, it's something I'm still working on today. It's improved by leaps and bounds in the last few years, but I have a ways to go. And I might not ever get to a utopian movement life.Right now I'm experiencing a similar process with diet. My long term vision for my life is to live with food sovereignty. I would like to grow, hunt, fish, and gather the great majority of my own food. This is what a real paleo diet means to me, not just eating lots of coconut oil from 2,000 miles away and domesticated cow meat (even if they're grass fed).I'm making progress here too, but I'm a lot less developed than in the movement and fitness area of things.And that's still with:- Volunteering and helping on my friend's micro farm nearly every week from spring to autumn- Starting a garden in our yard- Taking multiple wild food workshops- Reading tons of books about wild edibles in my region- Going out foraging at least once a week- Fishing, practicing archery, tracking and learning as much as I can about huntingI've done a lot, but I'm still probably years away from my goal.Why am I saying all of this and what is the point of this post?I want to remind you that it's a process. Learning to be wild again, if you really want to do it all the way, is going to take years.And because it's going to take years, maybe even decades, you need to be patient. Extremely patient.It's easy to get overwhelmed, it's easy for your job or problems or lack of experience to get in the way.It's easy to want to get frustrated and give up because you feel alone.It's easy to just say why even bother, because it's hard having all the demands that modern living puts on you, and to not let that stress keep you from devoting the time and discipline to make a wild life possible.It's easy to not go outside when it's cold and wet and netflix and games on your phone are way more pleasurable (in the short term).It's easy to give up, because, fuck, it's hard trying to figure this stuff out as an adult, when no one taught you anything, and you never had a tribe to help you learn how to be a wild human.I'm saying all of this because it's so, so important to let it be a process. To give everything you have to create as wild of a life and body that you truly want and know is possible, but to also have some grace with yourself. To also be patient and celebrate every step you take on the path.You can now hold a resting squat comfortably? That's amazing. Most people can't.You're eating a mostly local, seasonal paleo diet even if it's reliant on industrial farming? Badass, that's something most people can't claim.You can climb a tree, identify an edible plant, or move each of your toes individually? Those are all amazing things, each an important piece of the rewilding web.The more I dive into the process of rewilding, the more I find there is so much more to learn.Right now I'm learning how to live comfortably in the wilderness, without gear made by industry. I'm a total noob in this area, but it's so exciting to learn and grow so rapidly. It's amazing to learn how to make fire without matches and connect with that lineage of our ancestors. I suck at it right now, but I try not to get frustrated. It's all a part of the process, and I'm leveling up all the time.There's so much more to learn. And the truth is that I don't know if I'll ever live a totally wild life. I like the city (sometimes), and I enjoy things that technology has to offer, like typing things into a computer right now to remind you to be patient. But I do know that I want to be more wild, and integrate that into this modern life I have as much as possible.When you have such bold visions for your life, it's important to not let them overwhelm you. That's the recipe for wanting to give up.Stay in the process, focus on the next step, and enjoy the journey. That's what it's all about, anyway, right?

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

How We Survived a Sexless Marriage

For a long time I debated whether or not I would talk about sex, money, or some of the other taboo subjects on Uncaged Man.That's probably because it's easier to stick to primal movement, nutrition and other safe topics, like rewilding your lifestyle.But as I've been thinking more about what it means to be an uncaged man, I've decided that this is an important subject to speak about here. Perhaps it's even essential.Rewilding the domain of sex is just as important, if not more than any other area. Sex shouldn't be left unenlightened, it's an essential part of who we are, that often gets left in the dark.Today I want to bring sex into the light by sharing with you my journey to confidently embodying my wild sexuality, but I can't do that without first telling the story about how my wife, Ev'Yan, and I survived a sexless marriage.It seems strange for me to talk about this now, because my wife after all, is a sex coach.But it didn't start that way.For a long time, neither of us were sexually liberated. Much like the rest of our lives as domesticated humans, sex was just another domain that remained caged and neglected.We both received a lot of conflicting programming about sex, from religion and society. Raised Christian, I was taught that sex is a sin, and that desire is carnal and unholy, something married people must do for the sake of having children. Not to be enjoyed, but accepted as a necessary evil.Society, on the other hand, taught me that I was supposed to fuck lots of women, and that my worth as a man was based on how many women I conquered with my penis. The more women I fucked, the greater my prowess as a man grew.So it's no surprise that at the beginning of our relationship, I was completely identified with my performance sexually. My self worth was wrapped up in whether or not she wanted me.At the time, Ev'Yan was struggling to come to terms with the trauma she experienced in a previous relationship, while also battling feelings of shame and guilt. Again, thanks to good ol' Christianity.All of that contributed to us not having much sex.As you can imagine, my self-worth took a major hit. I was used to all the girls I had previously dated wanting sex whenever I wanted it. Little did I know, they probably felt like it was their "duty" to "serve their man," something Ev'Yan was taught that created a lot of guilty feelings on top of the shame.So, whatever was blocking wife's desire, I took personally. I thought that it was about me, that I wasn't good enough, or that I couldn't come on to her in "just the right way." After all, I never had a problem with this before.And to make things even more confusing, our relationship wasn't always this way.In the beginning we were both filled with lust, we could barely keep our hands off each other. Because we lived in separate cities, and because we both had jobs, we would see each other only on a weekly basis. This just added fuel to the fire. The distance between us, combined with the fiery energy of a blossoming relationship, erupted in passionate love-making every time we met.But once we moved in with each other, the fire was suddenly, and shockingly, extinguished.The void of intimacy left me feeling confused and hurt. There were so many nights I cried myself to sleep. I thought something must be wrong with me. I began to see her not wanting sex as a rejection of me, as me not being good enough.The shame she felt for not wanting to have sex just made me feel worse. Again, if only I could make her feel better, or more comfortable, I could magically heal her. Then she would open up to me. Then it would be all better.David Deida said once that the chronic loop in a man's mind is, "Am I succeeding, or am I failing?"I felt like I was constantly failing.At first, I made it my responsibility to "fix" her. I tried every technique I could think of. I would act nonchalant and aloof. I would try to touch her gently, or firmly. I would tell her jokes, tickle her, gaze deeply and lovingly into her eyes, or sweet talk her.I tried everything.But mostly, I tried to pretend that I didn't care if we had sex or not. Which of course, was a lie. I'd roll over, turning away from her at night and try not to let her hear me cry. It only made the shame she felt worse, and letting her know I was crying meant that I was showing her just how weak I was.So from then on I tried to act like I didn't want sex. That I was fine without it.She would ask if I wanted to take on another lover. "Really, it's okay if you do, I understand," she would say.To do that for me, though, signified that I accepted defeat. I still believed that it was up to me to make things better. Our love could heal everything. If only I could find a way to love her hard enough.Of course, that didn't work. Over time we had to realize that this wasn't about us, it was about shame. It was about healing the trauma and internalized guilt buried underneath the surface. Nothing could be transformed before it was looked at with compassion, and allowed to be let go.Even as we began to do our own work—for Ev'Yan it was on her shame and trauma, for me it was on my identifying with her wanting me—we still had a lot of tension to cut through.One of the hardest things that happens is that over time in a sexless relationship, so much tension and negative energy gets associated with even thinking about sex that you just stop wanting to even try. The idea of even considering it feels exhausting. It becomes easier to just avoid it altogether.We both dreaded bedtime as it loomed closer each night. Would tonight be the night we do it? Or would it just be another round of disappointment?Then we finally made a breakthrough.But it wasn't after processing our repressed emotions, and choosing new beliefs, though those things certainly helped. No, it was after agreeing to not have sex.At the time this seemed borderline ridiculous to me. I mean, we already weren't having sex, why did we need to make it official? But at the advice of our therapist, we took it off the table completely.I thought it was pointless, I believed that it would only amplify our despair. Then something unexpected happened. The pressure to have sex was lifted from both of us. We felt lighter. We felt like we could breathe and just be together without dreading whether it was going to happen tonight or not.And something even more interesting happened. Because sex had been forbidden, we suddenly wanted it even more. It was like the cookie jar that we weren't supposed to reach into. The naughtiness made it that much more exciting and interesting to us.One night, we finally said "Fuck it" and had sex anyway. We didn't care if we were breaking our therapist's commandment, because who the hell is she to tell us what to do anyway? We're grown-ass adults.So we did it.We had sex. For the first time in a long time. And it felt good.It felt like a weight had been lifted off of us.That was the beginning of finally being able to come to sex from a place of excitement and levity again.No, it didn't transform everything overnight. We didn't start fucking like rabbits every day. There was still work to do.She still had to remind herself that she wasn't broken. Releasing the pressure on herself to want sex all of the time helped. Not having to live up to the media's image that every woman should be a voracious "sex goddess" helped.And I had to stop trying to fix her, or fix what was happening between us. The more I really let go and relaxed, the more ease it brought into our bedroom. I learned that it wasn't all about whether or not it was going to happen at bedtime, that sex was more than just an event. Sex can happen all day, even if we're not fucking. It can happen through subtle touches, glances and flirtatious gestures. Like most dense men, I learned that putting more effort into foreplay throughout the day made it more likely that we would have sex later. But even if it didn't happen, that was okay.I'm sharing this with you because I've been realizing that this story is so much more common than we think. A lot of couples struggle trying to fit the image of a perfection relationship. Trying to do that only gets in the way. It adds pressure that makes everything unnecessarily harder.I want you to know this: If you're not having sex twice a day, or even twice a month, there is nothing wrong with you.One of the most powerful things Ev'Yan and I learned was that we get to decide what kind of sexual relationship we want to have with each other. For us, that means choosing depth over quantity. It means caring more about how intimate we are with each other than fulfilling some arbitrary quota someone else decided meets the criteria for a "successful" relationship.Now our sex is something we look forward to. It's no longer a chore or a dreaded expectation.So yes, it can change. It doesn't have to be this way forever.If you're in a sexless relationship, please know that you're not broken, and you're not the only one that's been through this.One of the most awesome things that's come out of this is that by Ev'Yan doing this work on herself, she's been able to help other women step out of shame and into their own erotic power. She's gone from feeling ashamed and broken, to helping women blossom into their sexual selves and find out that they aren't broken either.You can find out more about her work here.Finally, if you got some value out of this story, I please ask that you share it. The more sex can come into the light, the more we can all embrace our erotic nature, without shame.