Seven Weeks, Part 7: You Can’t Outrun Yourself

In the words of Nisargadatta Maharaji, “Nothing compels me. I do what needs doing. But you do so many unnecessary things. It is your refusal to examine that creates ‘Karma.’ It is the indifference to your own suffering that perpetuates it. The urge to put an end to this indifference must come from within as a wave of detachment, or compassion.”

Americans do an amazing job of outrunning themselves in the pursuit of happiness. In the process, they work themselves to death making others rich, accumulate stuff their heirs do not want, and as we age, we find we have become irrelevant to a younger world that has passed us by, and all too often cast us aside. We are kept alive much longer than we prefer by others who are more uncomfortable about our passing than we are. Others are wondering how much money they will inherit and how they can spend it. Others seem inconvenienced by the inevitability that awaits a loved one.

We turn everything into an industry that makes the wealthy wealthier. Elaborate funeral expenses and inheritance taxes are the last shot others have at whatever money we want to leave behind for others who do not deserve it.

Too many do not allow themselves to grieve because we do not know how, and even if we do, we prefer avoiding it by burying ourselves in our work or countless distractions we rely on to avoid feeling anything.

The only answer to our pain is to embrace it, examine it, be honest about it, forgive it, and then we can let it go and move on. Take it from someone who took almost 67 years to figure this out. Save yourselves time and quiet yourself so you can think, feel, and move on. It does not mean we cast aside and pretend something never happened or someone never came into our lives. It means being kind enough to yourself and the people and events of your past to let things go so you can be who you truly are and not what advertisers, churches, politicians, bosses, kids, friends, colleagues, or salesmen want.

Once you reach a comfort level with yourself, you become comfortable with the rest of the world you live in. It does not mean you roll over and let the world crap on you. It means you find a level of inner peace and deeper understanding of yourself to know what you do and do not have control over.

You only control yourself. Now that may seem like very little, but think about all the decisions you have control over, big or small, and focus, embrace, and rejoice in that control and let everything else you do not control play out. Find your true voice and you find yourself. The dog that barks loudest and most often is the dog we tune out. I know because I have been that dog as I poured myself into countless distractions in my attempts to avoid my private pain until my emotions boiled over and made a mess of more than just my life.

There is so much truth in the saying, “Don’t cry over spilled milk.” You have two options: clean up the mess and move on or lose your shit over an accident. However, if you are not at peace with yourself, you are simply setting yourself up for an explosion that is bound to cause more harm than the spill.

There are two ways to master such a simple lesson: teach it early to the young and live it by example or learn it later in life after decades of personal struggles that become an immense weight that crushes your spirit.

Each of us gets to create our own universe simply by what and who we give voice to. The more we listen to those who create stress in our lives, the less we control. By following our true selves, the one we probably have no clue who he or she is, the more at peace we are. People who get caught up in what others think about them are never at peace. They continually part with themselves in what they think is acceptance by others when in fact it is allowing others to control who they are.

Accepting yourself, and all that comes with you, is the best way to rid your life of all of its dead weight. By finding peace from within, you will attract only that which enhances your inner peace. The rest will not matter. You will be content with all that you have because you will have your true self and that is the most important gift anyone can possess.

Pain comes in endless forms. Clearly, some of mine is physical. It is on mornings like today when I wake from ten hours of deep sleep and feel rested and without pain that I realize how much of a weight pain is. I am free to not think of my pain, or be reminded of it, which allows me to enjoy my day all the more. It’s no wonder that having the weight of pain lifted from me this morning allowed my chiropractor to get much deeper adjustments which brought me even more relief.

With physical tension gone, my muscles fell into place. Mentally, I was well relaxed before any adjustments from lying alone in a dark room while my spine was decompressed. It was a perfect chance to breathe deeply and turn off my brain.

One of the greatest gifts you can do for yourself is allowing yourself to be alone. Just sit or lie down and turn off all distractions. Don’t lean on that glass of wine or gummy to relax. Allow yourself to breathe deeply and focus on releasing one muscle group after another. It works wonders unless you are what the former disc jockey team of Mark and Brian called an “Overly Optimistic Time Estimator” who tries cramming in as much stuff in as little time as possible. Quality beats quantity in the long run.

But advice is far easier to give than follow. I see the real work that lies ahead for me is not what I am doing now, but the maintenance I put in when I finish with TMS. If I take the approach I lost all the mental weight I wanted to lose, TMS becomes nothing more than a diet. When it ends, I will fall back to my old habits and gain more mental and emotional stress before I crash and burn the next time.

I must hold myself to a strict plan moving forward, one that incorporates the lessons I have learned, the resources that are available, and most of all, the understanding that I will never be fixed, but I can change. The reason diets fail is they are centered around the word Die. Change this syllable to Live and you will find a “Liveit” is more enjoyable because it is centered around living and all that you get to choose, or control.

Chronic conditions are part of individuals, but they do not have to become individuals. When you take the approach of learning how to manage a condition and forget about being cured of it, you change your entire outlook toward it. I will always be depressed. will always have chronic pain. Every time I think I have one of these two beaten, I am humbled in the most miserable way. I fall deeper into a hole and the light above me decreases with each fall. But if I can let go of my pain and depression, I can move toward living day-to-day and embracing whatever it brings me rather than dwell on what it has robbed me of.

A man with nothing can never be robbed so I begin each day with nothing and when it ends, I finish with nothing. In between, I remain present and focused on every gift that comes my way. Some of those days, the gift may be in the form of pain relieving medication. Other days it may be the discovery of quotes that calm my mind. It might be a helping hand I receive or knowing today is my day to help others. Every moment of every day is its own lifetime. Each is temporary.

Just as a farmer must plan his life around the different seasons, a person with a chronic condition must do the same. I can choose to rejoice over how well TMS helps me and fall back into bad habits, or I can establish reminders to help me remain on track. Some might be daily, like moments of gratitude or taking my medication, others might be further down the road like a monthly ketamine boost or resumption of TMS every year. They become as normal a part of my life as walking my dog, working out, taking the trash to the street, or checking in with friends and loved ones.

It’s my choice whether I look at any of these tasks as burdens that are not fair to me or as opportunities to be reminded I am on a healthy path in life. It’s my choice what I decide to clutter my brain with or whether I set about regularly decluttering it. It only becomes work if I tell myself I don’t want to do it. Otherwise, it is an opportunity to grow, learn, and appreciate these gifts.

The only thing worse than taking others for granted is taking yourself for granted. None of us are promised a certain number of days on this planet. It’s hard to treat others the way you want to be treated if you are not willing to be good to yourself.

In this regard, my parents were wonderful examples because they provided me with opposite perspectives. I see now how much my father was in pain and struggled to like himself. He ate poorly, drank too much, and abused painkillers. He was riddled with anxiety which showed in his temper, inability to muster the energy to devote time to the kids, and a reliance on putting others down to feel better about himself.

His idea of exercise was playing golf once a week and using a golf cart to navigate the course. When things went his way, he was pleasant to be around, but unfortunately, he lacked the patience to handle the different personalities and stages of life each of us kids were at.

My mom lived for others. She was the one who modeled to me sucking up your pain because she had to do it constantly while doting on my dad and tending to the endless needs and wants of eight children. However, she never forgot to check in on others who were struggling or forget things like the milk man’s birthday. She knew all our schedules, who needed a ride, who was being picked up and when things happened. If the car I drove to school in high school had three empty seats, she made sure I stopped at certain kids’ homes and drove them to school so their mothers got a break.

When mom was diagnosed with cancer, she had surgery but just did not have the time for chemo or radiation because she mattered to too many people. Twenty-five years later, when dad had early prostate cancer, he made sure to tell me how unfair it was for him because he worked hard all his life providing for others and his reward was a very curable cancer early in retirement.

When they retired, my dad was already an old man in his mid 60’s, bitter, falling apart from his lifestyle, and pretty much glued to a chair. My mom, just a week younger than my dad, was still on the go. Dad might remain home all day, but mom was up before dawn helping others, part of social groups, and getting in her exercise.

While my dad could always make a person feel as if they were being a burden to him, he had no problem becoming the guy who needed round the clock tending to as he got older. On the other hand, it was mom who just wanted to return to Maui after having to move back to the Bay Area because she knew there were people there who needed her help.

Between them, you would think they would have provided me with a clear and easy choice. However, because of my own chronic internal struggles, too often I failed to follow my mom’s lead while struggling to break the model my old man set for me. You can’t escape someone’s shadow and thrive if you retreat into the shade or worse, darkness. You must step out into the light if you ever want to see your own shadow. Only then, can you find yourself.

It’s pouring rain today. It’s likely to be very wet for five or six days. I can allow this to break me simply by dwelling on all that this rain is keeping me from doing. Then again, I can choose to use this time to work more on self-improvement. That way, once the rain subsides, I can not only rejoice in the spring weather that is ushered in, but also be thankful for a series of storms helping cleanse my soul.

I might never be able to outrun myself, but I can enjoy the shadow that clings to me.

March 13th: Becoming Authentic

When I returned from my brief move to Tennessee in 2023, I was as broken as I thought possible. I leaned heavily on my oldest sister, Mindy. Her calm ear allowed me to share feelings I never could with others. There was never any judgement. She asked me questions that made me think on a deeper level and her constant assurance helped me to understand what I was going through would be temporary and I would come out of it a stronger and better person.

One time, after one of our long talks, she planted a seed that no one ever had before. She said I could go on and do whatever I wanted and be whoever I felt like being but that whatever I chose, just be my authentic self. A gigantic expectation was lifted for the first time in my life. However, it also would require an equally gigantic journey first to erase all my programming, and then with my past gone, set about finding my true self.

Our culture prefers programming us instead of encouraging us to be who we truly desire. It’s how this nation turned into the economic and political power it is. Keep pushing for more of everything. It is what drives the machinery and if that means forgetting our dreams or losing ourselves in the process, it was for a worthy cause.

Mindy encouraged me to make myself my worthy cause. In order for me to accomplish this, I needed to struggle more and hit lower levels. Three months after my return from Tennessee, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of skin cancer. Does life sink any lower?

On July 12th of 2023, two days before my 65th birthday, a tiny spec of a mole would result in a three inch scar after the removal of abdominal tissue. At the time, I told myself this was an inconvenience. Two weeks later, the stitches were removed and I told myself life was back to normal. However, the only thing normal about my life was I once again buried my feelings.

When I became slammed by horrific fatigue, the type that prevented me from getting on my bike or lacing up my running shoes, I was forced to begin thinking about the implications of dodging a bullet. Did I want to remain in a 450 square foot loft across from the Oxnard Harbor or did I want to move on in a different direction?

The one thing that bothered me the most about apartment life was watching an outside group come in and do the landscaping. I longed to take care of my own yard as well as not have to concern myself with what color my walls were painted or the holes I placed in them hanging my paintings. I wanted a place of my own, but in California homes are expensive.

If I moved back to Hemet, even if it is the armpit of America, I could afford a home. There were places I could buy in peaceful settings on the outskirts of town that would allow me enough space to work in the yard and enjoy being outdoors. However, after a visit to check out places there, I could feel my old anxieties arise, and I found myself only seeing the worst of the town.

Once I returned to Oxnard, I turned my search north to Chico, the only place where I felt like I belonged. I began scouring the housing ads, narrowed my search, and patiently followed a few homes as their prices dropped. I found an amazing realtor who had tons of experience with out of town buyers and ended up purchasing a home without ever checking it out in person. On December 29th, I moved into my home and thought life was smiling on me only to continue sinking lower.

For some reason, when I was in Oxnard, I did fine on my own. I did not drink the entire time there, I ate well, got out and walked the harbor area twice a day, and got to know a few of my neighbors. After my initial overdose which came on the heels of a major depressive episode, I kept clean and was progressing. But in Chico, it was suddenly different. I could not find myself and struggled to even want to go explore the area. I remained home and worked on projects and as long as I put in a good day of hard work, I told myself I deserved a few beers, and maybe a few more on top of my pain medication. I was working hard at trying to avoid myself and the harder I worked, the deeper I began sinking.

I was also tired of my antidepressant not helping me so I tapered off it and began experimenting with other options. Nothing did the trick. Ketamine, which used to provide me a boost, was no longer as effective. One product, 5-HTP, boosted my serotonin but made my anxiety worse. Psilocybin did nothing.

In October, I took on a roommate and she has worked out great. However, daylight became in short supply and despite using my UV light every morning, I kept sinking. Worse, I held it all inside and secretly began wondering if moving to Chico was a big mistake. I also began having regular suicidal ideations and told myself before going to bed it would not be the end of the world if I died in my sleep. I was frustrated over Chico’s lack of medical care, my body was falling apart, and now I was struggling to hide a deepening depression. Something had to give.

When I left a phone message one weekend at Therapeutic Solutions, I assumed it would go unanswered like so many other messages I had left at doctors’ offices. Instead, I received a call back and the following week was evaluated. They diagnosed me with Major Depressive Disorder, Seasonal Affect Disorder, Situational Depression, and Treatment Resistant Depression. They also tacked on severe anxiety and PTSD. After hearing all of this, I was relieved to be told I would be able to start back up with TMS and was not being sent to the cuckoo’s nest.

Besides the TMS, I also realized I needed a tool I could rely on for my day-to-day use, one that spoke to me and calmed me. This is where Buddhism and eastern philosophy began to come back into my life. I may have been raised by Christian parents, but Christianity never spoke to me. I needed to rely on something that spoke more to my soul and kept me present rather than thinking of the big picture of a God sitting in judgement of my life.

What was also clear was I was not being authentic with myself or honest with others who I could lean on. This led me to my talk with Mindy and, a few days later, with each of my children.

As each day passes and the TMS works better, I am also feeling better about myself. It doesn’t bother me to share my struggles with others because in my heart, I truly believe if they can be a tool to help others get through their challenges, then they become lessons to pass to others. I am beginning to let go of the things that held me back and finding myself rolling with the punches life throws at me much better. I am fortunate, but as I have said before, I will always be a work in progress and it falls on me to keep up with it and remain my authentic self.

When I moved to Hemet in 1990 so we could be closer to better medical care for our oldest daughter, one of the things I began doing was organizing an annual football game called The Turkey Bowl in which I recruited staff to take on the school’s flag football team. In 1997, when I moved to another school which was a stone’s throw from the old downtown Hemet Football Stadium, I moved the game there. Besides coaching the school’s team, I needed to find an entirely new group of staff to play them.

For two weeks, my school team was under the charge of the team captains. They ran their own practices, came up with new plays, and kept the plays they liked most from our playbook. I spent my time recruiting teachers and even fathers of my players, to form an opponent. I will always remember that first game mainly because the staff pulled out a last second victory thanks to a long bomb I tossed to my assistant coach.

After the game, several of the kids’ parents and staff thanked me for recruiting them and for allowing them to relive a part of their childhood they thought was long gone. However, the next few days after the game, when rigor mortis had set into our aging bodies, we were all reminded of time’s passage. We laughed about having a year to recover for the next game.

Happiness is that feeling of freedom that comes from following your heart. Kids get it without knowing just how much of a gift they have. Eventually, when they are held hostage by a career that eats away their time and forces them into what we call being responsible and contributing adults, we begin to wonder whose happiness are we contributing to and at whose expense? Sadly, by the time many are able to afford to retire, their bodies have morphed into poor health from a fast food diet or over consumption of comforting escapes. We find we are limited in what we can do.

My generation loves to flood pickleball courts, golf, fish, mountain bike and travel, but not everyone is healthy enough for those sorts of activities or have enough financial security to afford them. While I no longer long to see how fast a race I can run, I would love to incorporate running back into my life. The same goes for road cycling. However, I have enough physical reminders of what I enjoyed in my youth and the aches that have come from them to know I need to rein in a few things.

Now that I have completed three weeks of physical therapy and am no closer to walking normal, let alone running or biking, I am facing the possibility of another nerve issue in my low back. Having been down the path of injury to surgery to rehab several times, I know the next logical progression will be ordering an MRI for my low back to see if I have reinjured it. If so, there is a good possibility I will need another surgery and rehab to correct the issue.

If I was depressed, this thought would make my anxiety go bonkers. However, today I feel blessed knowing I am still able to enjoy a fit lifestyle while I have the time to pursue other interests like eastern philosophy, writing, and painting. I cannot undo what may have already happened to my back. All I know is what I have control over. If I have surgery on it, it will be because I made that decision. I live and die by the choices I make and the rest is out of my control.

March 14th: Filling in The Hole

According to Thich Nhat Hanh, “If we have too many worries, fears, and doubts, we have no room for living and loving. We need to practice letting go.

It is odd that in a culture seen as a gigantic throw away consumer society that we tend to hang onto our emotional garbage. We seek the latest consumer offerings thinking they will bring us happiness only to find out any happiness we receive is temporary. Our minds stay cluttered with baggage we refuse to let go or worse, refuse to make sense of.

Americans do not just prefer a quick fix, we demand it, which is a large reason why we lack patience with our government. We all become junkies in some form or other. Maybe we are not sticking needles in our arms, but think of the money we part with that goes toward the concept it will provide us with relief, happiness, or simply to escape our lives.

Chances are, if an American does not have too many worries, fears, or doubts, they have too big of a single worry, fear, or doubt. It all adds up in the form of mental, emotional, or physical baggage. How does a culture feel empathy when it is convinced to rush through a department store’s doors and trample other holiday shoppers for an XBox on Black Friday? If I received an extra paycheck every time a student said to me, “I didn’t think anything would happen,” or a parent tried talking me into giving her kid a better grade they did not earn, I would have retired before I turned forty.

How many of us, long after our kid faced a consequence for a poor choice, continually remind him with, “And whatever you do, don’t … again.” If adults are unable to let go of our children’s failures, imagine how long they remain inside the heads of our kids.

One of the things I loved about coaching was to succeed as a team, every individual has to remain present. You learn the importance of putting losses behind you and learning from your mistakes. If you look too far ahead, an opponent sneaks up and defeats you. If each individual focuses on his responsibility and trusts his teammates, you end up getting the most out of your team. As a coach, I had to also learn to trust my assistants to do their jobs so that I could remain focused on mine. “One play at a time” was a common motto I kept reinforcing to my teams.

When my life became overwhelming after my second marriage fell apart, I relied on taking one hour at a time. Eventually it expanded to one day at a time. But like a recovering alcoholic, I began falling off the wagon. I followed up these falls first by lying to myself that I had it all under control and then expanding my lies to those who still checked in on me. Each lie was adding a weight for me to carry and I can easily see now how I collapsed from it all.

Today marks the end of five weeks of TMS. While my three weeks of physical therapy have yielded little, my TMS has made a huge difference. I have met others who have gone through different forms of therapy for mental health and am always struck by how some get great results from something that has done nothing for me or the other way around. We are all wired differently which is precisely why different approaches need to be encouraged when it comes to matters like depression, anxiety, or PTSD.

As with everything in life, a quick fix of seven weeks does not add up to a cure. At best, I receive a reset and what happens moving forward becomes the real work for me. As a teacher and coach, I always found taking over a program in the dumps and building it into a winner was much easier and far more enjoyable than trying to maintain a winner. I know plenty of others who say the opposite. They much prefer maintaining a program someone built up than doing it from scratch. The reality is, both require work to achieve the desired end result.

My desired end result is not getting out of the hole I dug for myself. It is to fill it in with the extra dirt I have piled up over time. Once the hole is filled, what I do with it falls on me. If I walk away thinking my work is finished, that hole will become a breeding ground for weeds to fill my head. However, with continual work, the hole can become a garden of my choosing. I will have the control over deciding if it becomes a Zen rock garden, pretty flower patch, or a nice spot to plant a tree to sit under and relax. Whatever I decide will still need maintenance on my part if I want to enjoy it for years to come.

When a person begins TMS, you are like a baseball size snowball on top of a mountain. Once you begin rolling down you either fall apart and end up not getting any relief, or with each rotation downward, your mental health improves. By the time you reach the bottom of the mountain seven weeks later, you have grown into something much larger than you thought possible. You are filled with hope, confidence, and the desire to enjoy life once again.

My cravings have disappeared this week. I feel more optimistic about myself which in turn makes me feel more optimistic about the world in general. I am able to focus and give thanks for all I have and am letting go of much of what has held me back.

That said, I can’t help but have doubts about myself and whether I succeed moving forward. This morning, while driving to the dentist, I found myself suddenly singing these thoughts. Once I was in the waiting room, I asked the front desk for a pen and grabbed one of their pamphlets and wrote them down. When I arrived home, I handed them to my roommate who writes and performs songs.

Only time will tell how much I have learned, changed, or grown from these past two years. Knowing I have failed in the past with some attempts at change or growth is enough to insert doubt in my mind. However, by choosing to remain in the moment and remaining honest with myself, I know my chances of a life of continual growth increases. Feeling doubt, feeling negative, or feeling sad are as natural as feeling their opposites. However, running from those feelings or sticking them in a vault has never done me any good.

Negative feelings present the same challenge to me as a rich chocolate cake challenges someone on a diet or a sure thing in the 5th race at Santa Anita challenges someone with a gambling problem. Or as Lindsey Buckingham once sang, “We all have our demons, and sometimes they escape.”

Maybe it is best I make peace with my demons so that the next time they escape, I can just let them go.

After I returned home from TMS today, I came across the following Buddhist quote, “Pain changes people. Some become rude, some become silent, some become wise.”

It seems I have had to be the first two in order to become wise. Our minds and bodies process pain in a variety of ways. Rudeness can come off in many forms, but the fallout always results in others being hurt in some form. The Karma that follows has the potential of affecting not just the one hurting, but also a multitude of others as one’s rudeness sets off its own chain reaction to play out. The other day while I was at Winco, the lines were long, cashiers were swamped, and customers seemed frustrated. When I finally reached the front of the line, I received a robotic greeting, “Hi. How’s your day going?

When I replied with, “Good so far. How’s your day going,” the cashier perked up and replied, “It’s been busy but thank you for asking.” She was genuinely relieved not to have to apologize for the long lines or bite her tongue because I was another customer who chose to take his frustration out on someone who was really not the cause of it. I did not make her day, but I did provide her with a mild, and much needed, break.

I can’t even guess the number of times I have been asked how I am doing by people who genuinely cared about me and told them I was fine, all because I was not and just wanted to be left alone in silence. Most of my worst mistakes were the result of my silence and not from the endless outbursts, comedic remarks, or ramblings I relied on. They were all designed to keep people away from my pain by masking it through strength, laughter, or pseudo intelligence. It’s common in our society. It’s also damaging in many ways.

Each of those failings on my end were lessons slowly absorbed over the years and I’m better able to put to use. They are part of the wisdom I have gained, or like Thomas Edison who had to fail a thousand times before making the perfect light bulb. The lightbulb has finally lit up and now all I have to do is make sure it remains on.