Favorites from The Surfer's Journal, October/November 2016. I don't really know why I love these magazines, Transworld, all those guys, I just know that i do. Twenty years ago I moved to Los Angeles, from London and I wanted to think about something new and so I started looking at these publications and then I found The Search for Tom Curren in a surf shop and I just always have an eye for these things. I guess it reminds me of my childhood, and of being American, which that, and a car, I was ready for.
Well, I had written quite a lot about some things I have been pursuing today and lately and in life generally, but somehow I lost them. It happens to me sometimes here. Mainly, I was talking about my enthusiasm for yoga and meditation as way of treating mental illness, that it can be pursued on one's own, independently but with meds and other treatments. It's just usually these treatments don't investigate the underlying causes of what for me is schizophrenia. I mean, I believe it is a mental illness, possibly chemical in nature at some undeterminable breaking point, but that maybe it's root cause is in trauma and the unconscious eruption - the shadow self, and so on. I feel these issues should be considered and addressed, having been so many years without even talk therapy, and also given that my med of choice doesn't really work. To that end, I have been looking today at a yoga book I bought years ago in LA, called Yoga For Stress Relief, by Swami Shivapremananda. It is beautifully written and organised with a well considered discourse on stress and its medical and psychological effects. He says the word meditation comes from the Latin, mederi, to heal. It means to heal a mental affliction cause by psychological stress, firstly by achieving inner calm and then in a peaceful state of mind, contemplating the problem, it's cause, and how to resolve it. He states that we have three needs which are deep rooted. The need to love and be loved by a few people with whom we can identify, the need to be fulfilled by work or activities we find enjoyable and rewarding, and the need to strive toward achieving our goals. I really liked revisiting this book because of that. I feel very inspired by the recent events and choices in my life that I have made and that it sums up with those three points why I'm so happy these days. So I reread it today and started on the program because it includes some twists for the spine, which I need having taken on a weight training program at the gym recently. I stayed home today to do yoga and read, because I really tore up my muscles yesterday with an enthusiastic workout. It feels great. I also read an interview with Mallika Chopra, Deepak Chopra's daughter. She was talking about intention, which is an interest of mine. She says goals are created in the brain, and intentions in the soul. She says further that intentions help you live the life you really want to live, and that they are thus the expression of our heartfelt desires, who we really want to be. She emphasized love, connection, health, inspiration and meaning. I thought it was helpful to find thoughts on intention, which people kind of mention but don't really expound upon, such that you might know what intention is. It does focus the mind though, it guides and informs actions. I am happy that I found her thoughts on it. She was interviewed for the Dutch magazine, Happinez, which I mentioned in yesterday's post. There were other interviews and one I liked was of Lynn Zebeda, who runs a non-profit to do with global business and philosophies. She says, "I see dots being connected, between the movements that strive for ecological, economic and social change. This is about a shift from me to we, to sharing and uniting. To create a world with new rules to play by, where profits are meant to be shared and we learn to think from abundance and longterm solutions." I just thought it was nice, and encouraging, as someone who really wanted to vote for Bernie lol. I really like the projects she is involved with, she travels internationally and puts together programs as diverse as bringing water to the dispossessed and making awareness about breastfeeding and all that to real world economic solutions and proposals. I just thought it was nice that someone with some insight is seeing a real change. She says, "it's easy to work on a global scale. There is a wave of awesomeness totally coming our way." I mention all of this here today because as a schizophrenic, I would emphasize the importance of exercise (yoga) and an influx of ideas, as a road to well being, beyond the prescription of medicine. And emotion, especially since most meds dull that faculty to the point of catatonia nearly. I think that schizophrenia is a chemical imbalance which occurs at some undeterminable breaking point, but also that it's root cause is possibly trauma, and reactions to that, the eruption of the unconscious and the emergence of the shadow self. I know that if i had not spent some time looking for answers, I would still be completely unresolved about the meaning of life and any other importance to the business of living generally, as a mentally disabled person with no real direction in life beyond basic existence. My talk therapy is still fairly new on my horizon, and most of the real work I have to do on my own, and also, most recently, with the unbelievable dedication and help of a friend who knows. I had the idea to read, but I didn't know what to read or where to find it. My therapist doesn't test or educate generally, and there are things I really needed to know or be exposed to, and it's just occurring to me recently that healing is possible, maybe, these days, and that one has to find it. After so many days of acceptance, which lead to years and decades, one has to break the chain. I just really recommend that to any other sufferers and their therapists and doctors. I said years ago that schizophrenia was a spiritual crisis, and I am finding real help with that by investigating yoga and yogic philosophies and also exercise daily generally, I have joined a gym that I can afford on Disability, Planet Fitness it is called, and I also believe that one needs really, like I don't know, hope and stimulation and encouragement and all of that, too. I just mean that meds and even talk therapy if you are in a position to get it are, for me, not really enough and that doing more with my life, while I can credit meds for motivation and weight loss (Latuda) too, is crucial to survival. It's just that as any schizo knows years go on and on and living at the level of existence alone is like what, kind of deadly, actually. Even statistics show that schizophrenics die on average 25 years earlier than others who are healthy. So, look into all kinds of ideas and thoughts for activity and education for yourself or your potential patients, I know some of you are students. It is really really important and goes untreated usually. I just have the great fortune of a friend who cares, or I would be smoking and drinking coffee to my early grave. Look into it.
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