Hey friend,
A couple quick housekeeping items:
First, IÂ released a new podcast episode with Brian "Tosh" Chontosh. We talk about mental skills for getting through grueling physical challenges. He tells the story of how he got through a 24 hour treadmill run inside a shipping container and more. Super fun episode.
Next, I've got a couple more spots available for the March 21-27 Soul Searching Adventure in Escalante, UT. Apply here if you're interested.
Ok on to the Exhale...
The Buried Study
There was a study done back in the 50s and 60s that pharmaceutical companies buried because it would have destroyed their sales. It was a longitudinal study that included thousands of participants.
The results in the experimental group:
Drastically reduced anxiety and depression by up to 76%
Improved experience of gratitude by over 200%
Increased energy levels (exact levels unknown)
Confidence up 125%
Libido up 60% đ
Participants stated a feeling of contentment that they hadn't felt since they were children
They left the study feeling tougher and more capable of dealing with life's challenges
No, they didn't take mushrooms. They spent 3 days in nature, ate simply, and hiked all day.
(Hopefully) obviously I'm full of shit. This study never happened. But maybe it's not so far-fetched.
Nature is a silver bullet
The first time I realized this was the case I was 17 in my first rehab - a wilderness therapy program. I lived in the desert in southern Utah for 9 weeks. We hiked every day. We carried everything we needed to survive.
When I was out there I was the happiest I had been since I was a kid.Â
Especially around week 3 when I realized I could jerk off out there. The fact that it took me that long is baffling.Â
Maybe it was the idea of "roughing up the suspect" in 0 degree weather while withdrawing from opiates.Â
Or maybe I didn't want to sleep next to a semencicle (noun. a tapering piece of ice formed by the freezing of semen dripping along the ground or other surface).Â
Living out there was the first time in my life that I felt "grounded."
The Oldest Living Therapist
In Walking with Bears, an indigenous elder named Bear Heart tells the author and psychologist Will Taegal that in his culture there is no such thing as a therapist, and they have much less mental illness than western culture. Bear Heart said,
âFrom what I hear many of these folk here in Willâs group got themselves labeled with mental disorders before they closed the gap between themselves and these trees and that crow over there. What you see here is a group of people who are getting more and more healthy by digging their toes in dirt.â
If someone in the community was troubled or had some mental illness, an older member of the tribe would simply take him on a walk and help him work on his relationship with the land.Â
In the 9 weeks I lived in the desert I spent 1 hour per week with an actual therapist. Outside of that I was hiking, carving spoons out of wood, starting fires with a bow drill, eating beans and rice, writing, and having deep conversations with the other guys in the group. "Digging my toes into the dirt."Â
Living in nature was healing me.
Sunbathing your balls
We are constantly flooded with inputs and stimulation.Â
Reels of people making cakes, checking how many likes that post got, people trying to cancel Joe Rogan, people trying to cancel the people canceling Joe Rogan, the entire series of Squid game in a day, funny memes, and the Procrastination Loop (noun. the process of checking text messages, then email, then one's social media platform of choice, then repeating until one feels like they have just fed their brain the equivalent of an entire bottomless bucket of movie popcorn and sour patch kids).
This constant flood of information and distraction disconnects us from ourselves and what matters to us.
Clarity, our true values, and peace are all available to us all the time, but they are clouded out by all of this other stuff. When we remove the inputs we can see more clearly how to handle life's challenges. We are more in touch with what we really want. And we're typically just calmer.
In SoulCraft, Bill Plotkin says that âThe most effective paths to soul are nature-based. Nature â the outer nature we call âthe wildâ â has always been the essential element and the primary setting of the journey to soul. The soul, after all, is our inner wilderness, the intrapsychic terrain we know the least and that holds our individual mysteries.â
Soul being that which makes us unique. Our essential nature.Â
This is why cultures all over the world send their young away from the tribe out on rites of passage into the wild to "find themselves."
We evolved to thrive in the wilderness. But today we are born in hospitals and spend 95%+ of our lives indoors. We're so disconnected from nature that we have to put time on our calendars to "go to the park," or "walk with a friend," or "go on a hike."Â
There are biohacking tools labeled "Earthing," and "sunbathing." As if these are new inventions. I especially love the one where you sunbathe your balls. I haven't done it, but I'm told it gives you powers.
"Lemme whisper in your ear"
For years since that wilderness program I've heard "whispers" from myself to myself that go something like "You're so much happier and at peace out there. Do more of that."
It doesn't make any logical sense to me why I feel so drawn to spending so much time outdoors, but it's a strong feeling. Another quote from Walking with Bears is illuminating. It's an anecdote of psychologist Carl Jung talking with another indigenous man:
Jung asked Och-wi-ay why he thought all whites were mad. â...they think with their heads,â Och-wi-ay replied. âWhy of course. What do you think with?â Jung asked him in surprise. âWe think here,â the shaman said, placing his palm on his heart. This was a Rubicon moment for one of the great scientists of the 20th Century, one he would return to time and again throughout his life. Historians have puzzled over the power of such a brief moment.â
Following my heart the past 10+ years has led to me going out into nature any time I have a big challenge in life. Any time I'm going through a transition of some sort - to get clarity. It has led to my wife and I buying some land in Texas. It led to the creation of Soul Searching Adventures. To more trail runs and walks in the woods.
The impact this has had on my life is unquantifiable, but it's significant. And I don't know where it's going, or if there is even a final destination, but I intend to keep following my heart deeper and deeper into nature.
A couple more things I want to share with you
"Donât do things that you know are morally wrong. Not because someone is watching, but because you are. Self-esteem is just the reputation that you have with yourself. Youâll always know." ~ @navalÂ
An incredible article on why Elon Musk is able to do what he does called The Cook and the Chef
Thatâs it for today.Â
Peace,Â
Michael