The Sweat Sanctuary

I try to keep my mind out of spinning yarns about works still in-the-making. It’s a guilty, dirty habit of mine. Right now, however, my legs are so chafed that I’m laying belly first on my bed. I may or may not have cried out for divine mercy per application of aloe vera...

I really love Marcus Aurelius. If you haven’t read him, do.

I think he should be given to all boys around the age of 8, and held to throughout life. I’m a believer in his works, and in hard work. Meditations is based around a single, simple precept: “You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

Over the past several months, I have been studying hypnosis. I have been learning the craft. It is halfway between science and magic. Exactly how I see the world. Dualistic, and begging to be transcended. If you want power over the mind, I haughtily recommend investigating it.

I have also been seeing a hypnotherapist.

I have never subscribed to the logic that it is ‘feminine’ to talk, or to write about — our problems. I define ‘masculinity’ as ‘the force tenacious enough to impose will’ — this has a myriad of incarnations. For me, it is much more masculine to find what makes you afraid, to travel into that cave — and to kill it with your bare hands. I do that when I need to, and I can do it in ways that many more physically imposing men tremble at the thought of.

At the same time, I do not criticise those who take the (usually inherited) “stiff upper lip” mentality. Sometimes you just need to ‘get through’. People do what they can with what they have. I have compassion for that, but that’s not for me.

Your thoughts color your world, if you want to brighten the color of your world, change your thoughts. (This is easiest done through affirmations.) If I want something to change, I use my brain to find a solution. This is even true when it is the brain that I wish to change.

Oh, and change it has! I have been programming myself through affirmation/hypnosis to get towards a better self. It is working in a way that I could have never hoped, and the key is simple. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. In both mind and body.

I do not advocate lofty goals that must be reached in Herculean fashion. No. Simple, concentrated efforts that create systems — these are the way to go.

I find that as we develop those systems, we must marry our intent and our action. Give it a little soul, baby... Give it some vision. (I heard myself state that in Quincy Jones’ voice, which a-ok by me.) You’re a hero on a journey, and you’ve got the gargantuan balls to face the first, last, and biggest enemy of all...

You.

‘The World’ is a concept. It is small potatoes compared to that which stares you back from the mirror.

Inhabit the mind. Inhabit the body.

We do not recognise how distant from our forms that we can become. How foolish. Even if only for the time being, this form is home — and they are each of them, a wonder.

Neuroplasticity is the science of miracles. It is the idea that we can change our brains by repeated beneficial action. This is ultimately what I am talking about. Mindfulness is a powerful force within it. Exercise, too. The mind and the body are one, but they can forge an artificial schism if you let them. The mind and body are one, and as you more fully inhabit both, the more they are reconciled.

If you’re more right-brained/spiritual like me, ‘the gym’ isn’t really an inspirational enough name. I like to give things a bit more colour. ‘The Sweat Sanctuary’ works, and like a sweat lodge. I believe in the spiritual, I believe in the magical, I respect the religious. In each of these, ritual is key. Develop yours, but follow this model:

Affirmation.

Visualisation.

Actualization.

Your time spent in the gym can be a microcosm of the life you want to live. It can be a poem towards a developing outcome. One born of hope and will. As you re-marry mind and body, so too can you re-marry conscious and subconscious. So too can you re-marry form and spirit. These steps are the keys to life illuminated by the stoicism of presence, and by the joi-de-vivre of vitality.

You might just end up enlightened, and shit.