On Distilling Neurosis

No self-help works without the seeker forcing himself to improve. The suggestions given by those who would paint themselves as sages, such as setting it into one's subconscious to wake refreshed and ready to perform only goes so far. Those tips help attitude, but when it comes to the physical aspect holding the seeker down, the tips don't help. Some cannot distill rage through willing a false happy. Shit hurts to much.

Why have they nothing to say about the physical discomfort caused by strife? They seem to ignore that. It is swept under the rug like dust. The books say nothing about the spear that goes through some people's guts when they remember something they have to do. Not everyone is this way. Most people who benefit from a self-help book probably don't need a self-help book, they were fine to start with and only read to jump on the new age metaphysics bandwagon or to satisfy their fellow church parishoners. People who truly need self-help practices don't need that because of racing thoughts alone, they need it because those racing thoughts are causing them physical pain. Anxiety. Panic. Ill-temper. These things all physically hurt.

Have you ever noticed that? When you start getting pissed off, it hurts. Your belly gets over-giddy. Your body temperature rises. Your eyes dry up. So does your throat. Some people shake. Some cry a little. And all you can think of are garbage ass ways to keep your ego from feeling crushed and thin. Depression? That thick soup of hopelessness. Do something? Why? It won't work, and that hurts like fuck. It's all you can do to stay on your feet. You stand and walk to the window and try to dredge up some hope within yourself and it makes you nauseous.

Anxiety? Don't misstep! Don't talk out of turn or you'll have to DEAL with something. Don't go outside for the same reason. And stay away from people. They all hate you anyway. And that fucking hurts, doesn't it? You hate yourself for it, and that hurts even more. Your guts are fucked. You can't stop shitting. You twitch and snarl at anyone who steps too close. You tell everyone not to speak to you and you speak to no one. Why?

Because it physically hurts. I've taken less severe beat downs from multiple foes. What is there to do about it?

The same thing guys in prison do. Fucking work out ALL THE TIME. If you are not busy with a project or your job, get up and use your limbs. Fight through all the crybaby, the wanting to stop, telling yourself you can't, looking for tiny pains to give you an excuse. Do not covet being done. One hour of this and your brain CAN'T give you shit. That's why prisoners do it. They HAVE to shut their brains up. They CAN'T bemoan their station in life. All of that will get you fucked up in jail. The guys will target your ass and if you don't want to be somebody's bitch, I promise you are working all the fucking way out.

Make your brain think this: "I get up. I begin to move." Just that. And then do it. Get up and stretch. Get up and grab that weight and lift it. Get up and tense all your muscles and feel how they move. Raise your arms. Get a sense of the way the shoulders and back and chest all connect. Start sucking in your abs. When your brain says, "No I don't wanna!" Tell it to fuck off and keep moving. Fight like a motherfucker. Fight yourself. You are beating neurosis. Don't think about other people. Stay ALL the fuck away from concerns about what another person is thinking or doing. Fight. It.

After a week of this you will see that the brain is less given to production and propitiation of shit thought. And when you are done, lying on the bed in the lovely lactic burn, unable to do anything but laugh up at the ceiling fan like Butt-Head, you'll see the bliss of no more neurosis. You literally CAN'T think about bogus. Now how wonderful does that sound?

This can work for anyone. If it works for me, who was one of the most volatile,  neurotic, spiteful people you'd ever NOT want to meet, by ye fucking gods it can work for anyone. I promise, if you habituate this doing, if you inure yourself with the practice over a three month period--sign the contract with yourself and HOLD to it-- you will think better. You will love yourself more. You'll deal with people's ego shit better. Everything will improve.

The Hatha Yogis contract with themselves to practice for 2.5 years in this way. Sounds like forever, right? Well, to be a meme for a moment, what if I told you that after that 2.5 years, you'll be what folks think of as superhuman? Body and mind like a rock? Now think of who you'll be of you spend the next 2.5 years doing the same thing you're doing now. Which You sounds better? When you begin looking at things that way, they make sense. And if you have decades of bad behavior to distill, like I do, it's the only way to live.

The rest is Death. Choose life.