Category: Health & Well Being

Meditation offers a wide variety of benefits that the average person doesn’t know about or understand.  In fact, I’ve used meditation in a variety of ways, including but not limited to blocking out pain, maintaining composure and helping with sleep.  There’s nothing mystical or mysterious about it; meditation simply allows one to control certain aspects of their outward emotions and reactions.  Despite the fact that it can take years to achieve that level of skill, it’s quite possible.

For example, I’ve dealt with a significant number of situations in my field of work that would easily elicit fear or extreme levels of stress in a person. But some outward reactions would not only be inappropriate in those situations, they could potentially cost me my life.  This is why maintaining one’s composure and controlling one’s emotions can play an important role in everyday life.

As a friend of mine so eloquently asked, “Am I cold or emotionally disciplined?”

Let’s examine that question in depth, shall we?  For the most part, someone who is referred to as “cold” is someone who is potentially shut down, repressed and/or out of touch with their inner feelings.

According to a post by Psychology Today, this is what’s referred to as an avoidant attachment pattern.  And some of the actual symptoms of a person with this pattern include being aloof, standoffish, impersonal, disengaged and uninvolved.  There are many more, and the article can be read here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/201105/cold-people-what-makes-them-way-part-1

There are causes and reasons behind this sort of behavior, but we won’t delve too deeply into those aspects, as they aren’t the point of this post.  Let’s examine the practice of being emotionally disciplined…

Listen, every person is different.  And because of this, we all deal with specific situations in different ways. Let’s take death as an example. When we lose a loved one, there is an expectation as to how we will react to it.  But the reality is that some people deal with it and “bounce back” far easier than others.

Self-discipline and training can allow one to develop this ability and react with a level of control that often seems “cold” or “stand-offish” to others.  So, when some people seem like they don’t care, they may simply be coping in their own way.

I use the example of death because it is such a common one.  It’s something that EVERYBODY will have to deal with, at some given point and time in his or her lives.  But realistically, as long as one IS coping, the mechanism through which they do so really doesn’t matter (unless they turn to alcoholism or drugs, of course).

I can easily attest to the fact that in my youth, I was often accused of being cold or emotionless, which is often a stark contrast to the temper I occasionally carry today.  Even when the death of my brother occurred, I dealt with it with a stoic front, barely ever letting my emotions show.  It caused enough of a concern that my parents thought I should be speaking to someone about it.  But the reality is that my coping mechanisms simply didn’t involve bawling my eyes out as some are inclined to do.  And even at such a young age, my personal self-discipline was already developing.

The point is, even if the person you’re speaking to may seem detached or impersonal, if someone is dealing with a traumatic event or grief in a quiet and reserved way, or if someone has injured themselves but isn’t clutching the limb and crying bloody murder, it may simply be that their mental discipline is developed enough to allow them to control their emotions and outward reactions. And these are all things that can be developed through meditation.  Although not physically a muscle, there is the potential to develop it and strengthen it as you would with muscle tissue.  It’s simply done in a different way.  As I’ve often said, when one isn’t exercising the body, one should be exercising the mind.

There should be no judgement against those who have their own level of emotional discipline. It doesn’t mean they’re cold, it may simply mean they have their own way of coping. A personal shout out, to the friend who gave me the idea for this post.  It was a great question and great topic for discussion. ☯

Well, here we are; the final day of my strange odyssey.  What started out as a five-day stint turned into over a week and a half.  I have big surprises waiting for me at home and they couldn’t possibly be making this flight any longer!

I’d like to say my week was productive, but I unfortunately had a large amount of down time.  Luckily, I was able to visit with family and friends and revisit some of my old haunts while I was home.  Hopefully in the next week or two, I’ll be able to share some of the outcome related to this trip and why I travelled back east.  For the moment, suffice it to say that it’s high time I get myself home.

Last night was good times; I had drinks and pizza with an old friend and we watched some martial arts shows on Netflix.  It was basically like going back to my twenties (I never drank in my teens).  The following morning I travelled back to Fredericton, where I was able to enjoy a quick breakfast with an old co-worker before turning in my rental car and sitting at the Fredericton airport to start the trip home.

As I write this, I’m currently sitting at 32,000 feet and jetting towards Calgary. Once there, I’ll have a brief layover before getting on a short flight that will bring me back to Regina.  Its been a long day.  I’m exhausted, hungry and itching to get home.  My trip was important, and will hopefully yield some promising results, but I actually sacrificed something very important in order to travel.  Perhaps I’ll explain what that sacrifice was, once I get home. ☯

Alright, let’s get back to it… I’ve had a few days of down time since it didn’t directly relate to my trip. But today, I got back on the road.

This morning I woke up at 7:00 am to continue next leg of the odyssey I’ve been on since a week and a half ago. I had a customary blast of caffeine, since I barely got any sleep as usual. I was on the road by 9:10 am, since my family insisted behind reason that it would take me two and half hours to reach my destination. Since I had an appointment at 1:00 pm, that would give me an hour to locate the building I needed.

Once I found the building in question, I grabbed a light bite to eat then attended my appointment. Everything went well, and now I’m sitting in a local coffee shop trying once again to remember how I got here.

Tonight, I have the extreme pleasure of spending the evening with an old friend that I haven’t seen in quite some time. Tomorrow I will make the last leg of the New Brunswick portion of my journey to an airport that will bring me back to Saskatchewan. It’s been a weird week and a half and I can’t wait to get home. ☯

Today, I chose to exercise a personal demon… I visited my old high school. Although I generally don’t talk about it a great deal, I was badly bullied during my school years. I mean the kind of bullying that goes beyond the current, modern-day snowflake definition that everyone wears slogans on their shirts and take to social media about.

I often lived in a lonely shadow, hurriedly sneaking out of school at the end of the day to avoid contact with anyone who may try to hurt me. One of the worst incidents I ever had, involved three guys taking their turns beating on me. The VERY worst incident involved a case where I had another student stab me in the forearm with a pocket knife…

High school and school in general, never held any affection for me. Although I’ve always been a student of all knowledge, there was no love lost when I finally received my diploma and walked away. In fact, I very nearly declined to attend my own graduation and I certainly didn’t attend my prom. The painful memories and dislike I felt went as far as having me refuse to attend my 20-year high school reunion.

I think the subject of bullying has been covered often enough in recent years that I don’t need to climb up onto my soapbox, and I certainly don’t need to explain the reasons why bullying is bad. Suffice it to say that once my martial arts skills progressed significantly, the bullying magically stopped. Imagine that.

All jokes aside, I took a step towards personal healing today as I stepped into that long-hated institution and walked the very halls that were the place of my subjugation. I walked straight to the administration office and introduced myself to the secretary. A very kind woman, she invited me to walk through the main area and look at the graduation mosaics, which would certainly yield a photo of me from twenty three years ago!

I would have loved taking a few photographs, but I thought I would avoid the complications of a random adult male snapping photos inside a high school’s hallways! It did spark an idea, though. I asked the secretary if she knew who I could contact in regards to obtaining a copy of my graduation yearbook. I never got one; in fact, I’ve never even seen it.

The good news is that she believed that there would be spares in the school library and that any extras could certainly be sold. She took my name and contact number and promised to look into it and get back to me. I left the school property with a renewed sense of healing as though I had found a way to bridge a gap that has existed in my personal timeline for the past two decades.

I’ve always said that it’s an important thing to remember where you came from. This helps guide you to where you may be going and your development as the person you’re meant to become. I have a lot of bad memories from my school years; some medically-related, some bullying-related. And some of this has made it difficult for me to recall the good times I actually had through school.

And although I hadn’t planned on being home in northern New Brunswick, the unexpected change in travel plans may have yielded something positive. Even if life doesn’t care about your plan, it doesn’t mean it intends something bad. Sometimes it’s just a matter of perspective. ☯

They say you can’t go home again, but there’s definitely something to be said for doing that exact thing. I woke up this morning and checked out of my hotel. With the sudden changes in my plan and an additional stop added to my week, I decided there was nothing to be gained by staying at a hotel. I decided to hit the open road and go visit my parents on the north shore of New Brunswick.

My morning was an uneventful few hours of coffee and reading, followed by my last appointment in Fredericton. The appointment went well (I caused a few laughs, as usual) and I hit the open road as soon as it was done. After three days of having a rental vehicle, I finally figured out how to sync my cell phone with it so that I could listen to music, place phone calls through the car’s speaker system and use the talk-to-text function.

I stopped at a gas station in a city called Miramichi and got some caffeine. then I carried on to Bathurst, where I was able to stop in and have a brief chat with one of my oldest friends. My karate instructor’s son, actually.

I got back on the road and made it to Dalhousie just shortly after 6:00 pm local time and met up with my parents. My father, ever the charmer, took one look at me and bellowed “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?” Now, just to be clear, despite being confined to a wheelchair, my father is a very large, very intimidating man.

His second major complaint was that I didn’t bring his grandson with me! What can i say? You can’t please everyone. My mother and I stepped out and enjoyed supper out coupled with conversation. Now, as I sit in a local coffee shop (because they have internet) I’m taking it all in and wondering how I got here.

Last week i was planing and prepping for a five-day stint in Fredericton before flying back to Saskatchewan. Now, I’m sitting in my home town having coffee and letting the childhood memories flood in. It’s a nice and unexpected turn of events to be able to see my parents. but I still can’t wait to get home to my family.

I’ll be home for a few days until my next appointment. Following that, I’ll be making my way back to Fredericton for the last leg of my journey and the return home to my family. I’ll keep you all posted on the shenanigans I get into while here. ☯