Bearded Gang

I spent the last week solo as my family went to Florida for spring break. Most of my home alone time was spent reading and writing with my feet propped up. Morning walks and convos with my pets. I’m in a mental shakeup mode I’ve changed a few everyday routines to make my brain reset on some of my regular patterns. Nothing extreme I’ll brush my teeth with my right hand (I’m left-handed), shower immediately when I get out of bed, prepare my coffee the night before, zero phone activity until after I write. I want to see if my tone changes when I write without any outside observations or impressions.

My reading I’ve challenged myself to read more outside my box. I’m inside three books at the moment. Red Book by Jung, The Gulag Archipelago and I downloaded a book of poetry by Rumi. Finished a book that discusses the hermetic philosophies (The Kyballion) last week over a bowl of eggs.

I have a book on etymology arriving today. I’ve been fascinated with the origin of words lately.

Quite a change from Stephen King novels and recipe books.

I implement these books while try different audio levels and themes. I’ve been adding Solfeggio frequencies to my playlists and Spatial Audio. If you haven’t tried spatial with noise cancelling headphones I highly recommend. If you don’t own a pair of noise cancelling headphones I’d also

Highly recommend

If I were a billionaire every household would have a pair. I’m currently listening to some light drum beat that’s literally moving around in circles in my ears. Like I have a DJ slowly orbiting around my brain.

I’m not a therapist. I’m barely a college drop out but I will say music and sound therapy will do amazing things to your mental health. I don’t necessarily mean listening to your favorite bands while you vibe I’m referring to listening to healing frequencies.

Sound heals.

Period

I’m not anti medicine. I’m not anti doctor nor will I ever try to rise above the educated in their position. I will heed a professional’s advice for the most part.

But

I also believe the body has an amazing way of healing itself. Even your mental health.

Holistic? I’m don’t think I’m there but I’m all around it. I’m not that paranoid but it doesn’t take much to see we are treated to be and remain sick. I’m not on this platform to spout conspiracy theories this is my own personal perspective.

Anyway so most of my arthritis in my hands are gone.

Sciatica? Who’s that?

I went hiking up the pinnacle side of table rock with zero knee pain.

I had an operation on my left Achilles 15 years ago. Was told it couldn’t be repaired without surgery. I had a deformity building up behind my Achilles. The operation left terrible nerve damage on the back of my ankle. I walked/ran in constant pain for over a decade. If you thumped it I’d fall down in pain. I couldn’t even put my foot on an ottoman without wincing. My right Achilles began doing the same thing 5 years ago.

Both are healed. The right foot it helped by changing my shoes and socks. The left foot, my scar tissue no longer causes me pain. In fact it’s pretty much gone. My left foot always looked like they sowed up a small coin purse in it. That one is the one that really impresses me. I fixed my chronic pain. I dont take meds. I rarely take an aspirin. I’m speechless.

Joint pain as long as I drink water like a good boy stays away.

Audio also helps my focus. Focus helps my mental health.

My depression has been somewhere else. I made a mental door in my head to lock it out and I threw away the f-ing key. I use visualization as a tool for me. If something seems to difficult for me to understand I use visual aids to comprehend. Think of it as a mental pop up book. It works.

I’m not selling courses

I see many of you suffering from depression and mental health issues. Once again I’m not a therapist.

But

Don’t sell yourself short. Also no one is knocking on your door with the Publisher’s Clearing House winning letter. I’ve applied three years of self awareness, therapy and hours upon hours of meditation.

Why?

Because I’m worth the effort. Your intuition is the real you trying to talk to you. You aren’t a person/body with a soul. It’s the other way around.

*everyone stops reading

I know – here we go with some new age mystical bull shit.

Honestly what I’m studying is much, much older. I’m not here to start a cult either.

Also when you break everything down we are all chasing the same thing. They just keep changing the characters.

I’m walking around pain free other than the signs of some wear and tear from being alive for 53 years. I used to flex my ankles every morning when I woke up so I wouldnt fall on my face when I got out of bed. Next rehab will be my shoulder tear from 30 years ago. I needed to walk pain free first.

My mind is clear and much more perceptive than it used to be.

All I’ll say is this and then I’ll move on-

If you don’t believe you can do it then you don’t stand a chance.

You have to change the way you think about yourself and everything around you. It’s harder than training for a marathon but much MUCH more rewarding.

Ok bye on that one.

Work was painfully slow this week. Spring break broke us for a bit but I didn’t want to jump off a mountain this time. Life ebbs and flows like the tides. I went home yesterday with a smile on my face. When I arrived I received a group hug from my family as we were reunited after a week of separation.

Life’s good man

That hug is worth more than a thousand new campers.

Start a journal. Write down how you feel you don’t have to share it for the world to see like I do.

Words are spiritual. You can express the word spiritual without it being based on a certain book. You are the book.

Write down how you feel. Write down the things that make you feel.

Don’t leave your words in your head. The more you write them down the more you will release the ones that control you. If you don’t understand what that means come talk to me.

I said I’d stop but I lied.

Today is beautiful. I’m about to go for an amazing 4 mile walk through my neighborhood. The sun will shining on my face in about 20 minutes. I may camp next to a lake today on Dreher Island (if it’s open).

Gotta run. Or walk I mean.

Toodles 🫶🏼

I’ve been logging out of social media the last couple of weeks to shake my patterns up in my mind. Some days it’ll be one or two apps, others it’ll be no videos or reels and a couple of mornings I got up, checked my work messages and put my phone away for the day. I’ve deliberately deleted my Facebook app twice through the week. I’ve come back a couple of times to post for work and answer some inquiries. I haven’t engaged other than responding to a few humorous posts I was tagged in. If that was all Facebook represented (like it used to be) it wouldn’t be a problem for me. No one is happy on here. Sure a lot of us make it a satire but it doesn’t exactly radiate warmth. Even when we jockingly insert our POV into the social media world we are deliberately pointing our fingers at something or someone.

Bathroom walls have better etiquette.

Im not pointing my fingers at anyone I’m one of the biggest enablers. I’ve built a following on it. We are numb to its affects until it becomes our personality. What does that even mean? How many times do you find yourself walking around observing the general public as if they were in a Facebook forum or group page? You no longer see humanity in people all you’re doing is stereotyping because of what their type represents on social media. I’m avoiding painting a picture for you here. It’s subjective but I’m sure you can grasp what I’m saying and none of us are above it. I’m not referring to racism not even by a mile but it can be referred to on this subject as well. This is assumed stereotyping, there’s a hundred ways it could go.

This wasn’t meant to start off as a lecture. Whoops.

I read somewhere recently that the average number of times that we open our phone daily is over 300 plus.

Listen, we aren’t suppose to have all this knowledge or view points of the millions of people that surround our lives. It’s not important for me to acknowledge that Phyllis from Marietta hates cyclists or Steve in Indiana thinks Bud light is for men named Blair. Why should I get my energy shaken from Timothy in Astoria, Oregon who thinks dogs should have their own bathroom at Starbucks? Tabitha from Tulsa thinks Swift is the Antichrist because she wears triangle earrings.

Of course this is hyperbole but not by much. I’m just making an illustration. You find yourself going from “who the heck are these asshats?” to spending the next two hours with a stranger’s pointless rebuke inside your head. It may not have even been thrown your way just reading it in your mind got in your craw.

Let’s bring it in closer to your own community. You post something about a band that also refers to not so well liked billionaire and people start to insult you because they misread your post. Legit I didn’t even make the connection until I asked myself why people where laughing until someone finally made a reference. We are all salting our newfound psychosis’s on here.

Kicking our own bee hive

Anyway

The two days I put my phone away I made it a point to write down a few things that shook up my daily routine. I went a little more extreme than some. I purposely didn’t look at my phone screen to see the time when I woke up. I usually keep it on DND but my family was out of town so I keep it on for emergencies. I washed my teeth and brushed my body (my mom used to say this) and made my coffee for the morning.

And then I sat on my sofa with one hand holding my coffee and my other hand looking up at me asking me “now what?” I stared around my living room noticing how cluttered it had become. Not anything out of the ordinary. My surroundings can sometimes get jumbled. I’m that person that if I’m carrying around something I can hold in one hand there’s a good chance I’ll set it down somewhere it doesn’t belong. I may have a can opener in a potted plant somewhere or a loose house key in the dishwasher. I’m aloof at home. I rarely wear my glasses at home because I have my eyes in my phone.

I didn’t jump up and start cleaning either it was 5:04 am. I’m not a maniac. I had prearranged some tasks to take care of the day before. I knew I’d have some time gaps to deal with. I’m probably on my phone for at least an hour first thing in the morning. I’m an early riser usually my day begins at 5 even though my work usually doesn’t begin until 8:45. I often write at this time as I’m currently doing and then some yoga and or walk. My workouts are only three days a week once I stopped drinking fat loss fights became a thing of the past. I read most of a book I had started 2 months ago and pushed my yoga for additional 15 minutes. Added another mile to my walk and had an extra 15 to unwind and eat my breakfast in silence. No scrolling, no senseless videos. I felt extremely isolated with my family out of town. I was hyper aware of the normal noises in my home. Driving to work I our my phone in my pocket the whole way. When I arrived at work I put my phone in my office and went about my day. The only time I used my phone was to check for work messages on IG. No scrolling, I’d open the messenger screen and go about my day. When I got home from work my phone was still at 65% battery. I use my phone to play music at work and respond to friends and family texts. Once I settled in I made dinner and finished that book that I’ve been resting my coffee on for the last two months and then I started another one. I’m not a tv person. I’ll watch some shows with Jess I’m not an extremist they just don’t hold my attention anymore. They’re all regurgitated stories with younger actors rereading the same old scripts. I suppose this is what happens as you get older. All the stories I want to hear have been told I can no longer relate to the new ones. I turned in and set my phone to my happy tones and went to bed with a 40% battery life. I normally have my phone next to a charger for half the day as if it were on life support. My addiction may be a little more extreme than yours. I’m on about 8-9 hours screen time daily average. Ask some people what their average phone screen time is and it’s like asking them their favorite sexual pose. They look at you strange and then some of their faces turn red. We all know we are on here far too much.

*insert Wall-E movie here

I did it for two days. Probably 40 hours or so actually. When I got home from work yesterday I downloaded my fb app I’m particularly attached to marketplace I find some good deals and I’m looking for a few specific items I want for my trip next month.

Is there a marketplace only app?

Of course I was curious as to the goings on of Facebook so I switched over to my feed and immediately put my phone down after about 60 seconds.

It just keeps getting worse.

Regardless of your political beliefs the world was a better place before social media.

Period

I deleted it again.

I know I’m not acting extreme. I takes 30 seconds to download the app again. Unfortunately I have to use it for work. I have an obligation to respond to some messages I have a handful of people who are fighting the good fight of sobriety that check in on messenger and I keep them close to my heart.

It has it’s uses, its advantages we just don’t operate it that way.

I’m not selling tickets here nor jumping on a pedestal. I have a social media problem, a phone problem. It’s part of my reckoning to put these away. If I post these blogs it’ll become a post and ghost for me. I enjoy writing. I may write some stories one day for entries so I encourage myself to write at least a thousand words daily. It’s apart of my meditative routine. I may even write more if I can keep my nose out of my phone. Obviously to post these I’ll have to download the app again and then I’ll delete it or at least from my screen which is useless I’ll still find it in .2 seconds, it’s just one more frictional rub of my thumb.

I’ll keep expanding my time off until it becomes a habit and then hopefully I’m done.

*key hallelujah chorus

Again I’m not elevating myself above the masses. Social media affects my mental health, it has for awhile. If it doesn’t do that to you then good for you! I think you haven’t realized it yet but good for you anyway. TikTok is a little different for me. I’m starting to see why they tried to delete it but I’ll keep it to myself some of you would probably think I’ve lost my mind. I’m sure I have but that’s been my intention for the last four years.

I did enjoy the numerous tags on a Cheesecake Factory post last night. Keep fighting the patriarchy!

Peace.

I usually insert a title before I begin writing to get me into my frequency for writing. This time I’ll have to label it after I write it out. This one may not make the presses. I won’t know until I process it here. I struck a vein in my nightly meditating. A golden one I think.

Explaining this will be difficult without going into detail about my whole time here on earth.

But I’m going to give it a try. There won’t be any focus on story telling or engagement at least not purposely it’ll be an analysis I’m still downloading but I need to process some of this to hold onto it.

This will be extremely emotional for me.

I’ve been very transparent about my relationship with my father. I’ve sung his praises on here and expressed my feelings about how he has been my hero since day one of my remembrance. You all got to see my joy when he was featured in Masters of Air. I was on cloud nine for months. It was exactly what I needed to experience. I always thought my dad should’ve been exalted for the amazing person he was. Me sharing stories about him wasn’t enough for me. I wanted the world to see him the way I saw him. And the whole world got a good glimpse. It felt like a big release for me. I was finally able to put my dad’s heroism to rest.

My dad was 50 when I was born. In fact he was exactly 50 years and one day older than me. I was practically his 50th birthday gift. If you’ve read any of my blogs you will know the significance of that number. As I approached my 50 years of life that’s when my reckoning was born.

When I turned 50.

My dad, from my own point of view and memory didn’t exist until he turned 50. I have no idea how to visualize my father in real life other than the years I shared the air with him from his ages of 50- 64. Around the time he began his slow decline in life.

I’ve expressed my pain from how I felt my father got dealt a bad hand in life. From war hero, multiple medal achievements. He sacrificed his young adulthood to fight nazis and other wars unselfishly. He killed for his country. He spent over a year in pow camps. He was assumed to be dead for god sakes.

He was a widower left to raise 2 daughters on his own. And he did without a peep. He met my mother and took in her other three children and once again did it without a single word of discouragement.

He owned a very successful bar in the 70s that took a turn for the worse from bikers ruining his bar’s reputation that my father had built up. You could say they became a cancer to my father’s business.

Or even a virus..

When the bar closed my dad worked some amazingly shitty jobs to make ends meet. He worked for major steakhouse buffet chain, Weiner King where he had to wear a ridiculous paper hat and name tag. Bankruptcies, divorced when I was 8 (I got front row seats to that argument). When my parents split my father moved into a garage that was turned into an in-law suite from my oldest sister’s talented husband. After that my father worked part time at a local bar in Mauldin cooking for happy hour. His weekends revolved around me coming to see him. I know this because I could feel my dad’s love for me worlds away. I’ve inherited my father’s love of his child. My daughter melts my heart every second of my life.

I look like my dad about as close as you can for someone that was split down the middle from two people.

I may go all over the place to try to piece this together and I may fail but this has to come out while it’s still hot.

Chicken or egg here.

I am a reflection of my father’s failures.

My father is a reflection of my failures.

My actions good and bad have been a reflection of my relationship with my father.

My own perspectives I have created and have subconsciously manipulated over time.

I’ve been down a deep corridor of self reflection. Literally

I’m training my mind to see how the people in my life are also a reflection of my subconscious. Or at least how I read them. My perception of them.

I’m mirroring some habits, happenstance’s, trauma, god I can’t even come up with the words at the moment.

I’ve never viewed my father as a loser or a failure. Absolutely never and even though I’m pushing violence away from my mind if anyone referred to my dad as a loser or a failure you’ll find out real fast what my feelings will be.

My father was an amazing man filled with love for his family. A war hero.

But at the end of his days, in my mind, I felt like he lost. He failed.

Man that freaking hurt to say outloud. and I apologized to him last night when I said it to myself.

I’ve absorbed my father’s failures into mine.

It’s what I’ve done. What I’ve been doing. I’ve recognized it now. It’s been right in front of me the whole time. The whole

Fucking

Time

Self sabotage

I’ve been doing it my whole life in different stages since early adulthood.

My father was here for 64 years. I got him for 14. Let’s chip off a few years because my first few years here like everyone else, I was absorbing life. I can recall some amazing memories at an early age. My dad was the big strong dad in my kid days. He carried me around like I was nothing. He was beating the crap out of unruly bar fighters and kicking out a biker gangs. Shot a man in the gut off the back dock of his bar. We was the definition of true grit.

In my early adolescence as I got older, he began to appear frail to me. My dad smoked (as did I), he drank (hello). His limp from the war (millions of people got to see that happen on tv) got progressively worse. He aged terribly. Who can blame him for all the hell that man experienced before he even turned 25. He didn’t take good care of himself as he got older.

And life chewed him up and spit him out.

And he never said a discouraging word. He picked me up every weekend with the biggest smile on his face. As his son I was his world. Just like my daughter is to mine.

I absorbed every single fiber of this. I absorbed his pain, suffering and love.

I’ve spent a large chunk of my life trying to replicate all of it.

All

Of

It

Without even knowing it.

Well until now.

I’ve made random comments to others and thoughts to myself about how at 53 my dad had Greenville by it’s social toes with his bar. He was the talk of the town. The mayor of the bar business. Exactly what I was trying to recalibrate for myself. There weren’t bars and restaurants on every street corner in the 70s. It was much more intimate and organic back then. In my memories his bar the Cock and Bull, came and went briefly in my timeline. I can remember it being open, I can recall being inside and running around playing inside like it was my own home.

And then it closed.

We sold our house

We moved and downsized into an small apartment

My parents would divorce a year or two later. Sorry my memories get a little mixed on that timeline.

But

I split with my business

We sold our house

We downsized to a small rental

And we came close to the next part a year later.

And that’s when my reckoning began.

When I turned 50

The same age as my father when I was born. Missed the exact moment by one day.

I’ve been down a long road of self reflection. Of why I do certain things. Why I find it easier to sabotage than to celebrate. Why when something good comes within my grasp I do my best to push it away.

Subconsciously

I’m mirroring my father’s past.

Without even realizing it.

When I look inside of myself after realizing this several things began to click.

In my mind I was constantly telling myself and I’m paraphrasing because my mind can be jumbled at times -“what’s the point? My dad was amazing, he had a successful business and he still failed”

“No matter what I accomplish I’ll most likely lose it all like my dad”

My father lived with my oldest sister until he passed.

His father who I never met, also lived with his eldest daughter until he passed.

I have a one child. A daughter.

It’s been said and written millions of times to always pay attention to history because it repeats itself. Too many of us think of that in global and regional terms involving conflicts, laws and wars. How often do we look inside of ourselves of how it affects us on a personal level?

I love my dad man. It’s apparent. And I’m mimicking him in every way consciously and subconsciously. I was only following his footsteps out of love. I just wasn’t watching where.

My failure paradox

Failure brought me down

Failure broke my spirit

Failure released my confidence. Holy shit did it ever.

I got tired of “pulling myself up by the bootstraps” because in my head I keep thinking it’s going to be on perpetual repeat. “All good things come to an end”

When I opened Graze in my head I was already saying to myself “what are we going to do in three years when the lease is up?”

This is why I’m constantly changing things. Always moving things around. I already think I have failed, things aren’t working so I keep it fluid.

Inconsistent

Constant change equals imbalance

Ouch

Ouch

Ouch

On the other side of that spectrum this is why I do things in rituals and habits. The things that work for me. Because going out of my comfort zone brings the possibility of

Failure.

Holy shit one more time.

We base our reality on our past, present and future.

Our perceptions.

And our reflections.

Memories can be a tribulation that attaches to your subconscious for your entire life.

Or they can be badges of recognition. A reminder for reflection and reconciliation.

I’ve been riding on the tribulations most of my adult life.

With no hands on the wheel

I have/had a war raging inside my subconsciousness.

My reckoning trying to get me to break the chain of repetitions of my past all the while my trained subconscious was trying to keep me in safe mode. Safe mode can be a oxymoron. It keeps you contained. Man have I freaking contained myself the last 5 years. This is why I camp in the same spots, hike the same trails. Do the same things over and over every week.

To protect myself.

From what?

Growth.

Real

Growth.

Real uncomfortable growing pain growth.

My anxieties have been on high octane because I’ve been working on myself but at the same time I’ve wrapped myself in bubble wrap because I’m afraid of falling off.

Off of what? The things I’ve done to fix parts of my broken self. It’s like getting all the dents fixed on your vehicle and then parking it in the garage so it can never have the possibility of getting wrecked again.

50

I always asked myself why 50?

I thought it was just a solid number. Half century.

Missed it by a mile

It’s hard to relay what my head is trying to explain.

A light started to form in my subconscious as I approached 50. I knew a reckoning was coming months before it came.

Just like knowing a new child is on the way.

When I hit 50 my mind told me a change was coming, happening. When my dad turned 50 here I came.

When I turned 50 I went through a rebirth of life.

Here I come again.

And every year since then I’ve been growing into a different person. Slowly shedding the skin of who I used to be.

It’s taken me up until March 14th 2025 to recognize this.

This wasn’t a trail marker. My head walked right into the tree.

Recognition

I can’t accurately describe what this feels like. It’s still resonating. It may never stop.

We have memories that stick with us. Define us. We replicate what we experience in life. It’s literally how we learn things. Most of us don’t even realize it. It’s what makes us who we are.

Environment

When you can change this environment you aren’t only healing yourself at that moment, you’re releasing decades of trauma, negative energy, bad habits.

Don’t look at it as I fixed something yesterday.

Instead you tell yourself I just released 40 years of pain.

You no longer carry it. Once you recognize that it’s not a part of you then you can tell yourself it no longer exists. When you can train your mind to think this way you won’t perceive yourself as that bad person that you’ve always portrayed yourself in your head. You were only repeating what you’ve been shown.

I’m not a therapist or even close. I can only explain this to you through my own perspective which is the only one that matters. That’s probably not what you think it means. It’s a healthy one.

My father was a high school drop out. My grades dropped dramatically when he passed and never went back up. I graduated with the lowest gpa it takes to graduate.

I had one job that required a name tag. I was written up several times for my refusal to wear one (see above about my anger at my father wearing a paper hat and name tag). I never made the connection I just perceived them as indignant. My dad went from being his own boss to working for crappy places where he was no longer in control.

My mind screamed when I worked for corporations. My disassociation with my old steakhouse began when they became more corporate. My defiance to authority. All because of my dad’s paper hat and his look of defeat when he wore it.

This is why it’s impossible for me to work with anyone. It’s why I fought you head on if you didn’t go with my work flow. To SOME of my partners, I get it now.

50

Past

Present

Future

It’s all right here. It’s not tomorrow it’s not yesterday

It’s now

Just like my father, I had another child. It was me

Again

And I’ve been trying to protect him as one. I’ve got to let this one grow without the attachments of my old self

Without the attachments of my father and his father.

I feel like I just broke something

A mold

That’s all I’ve got right now. That’s a big ol lie but this is all I can say about it at this point.

My trail markers just changed to a new frequency.

Time to label this subject.

Time to walk this new path.

Ill be spending the next several weeks processing this. I could continue writing about this for the next several hours.

But

Ive got my hands full downloading all of this. This is may take a while.

Peace ☮️

I opened myself up to 10 strangers a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t bring a notebook filled with bullet points or a speech letter. I had no idea how I was to engage the group or even the subject I would touch base on to engage. I wasn’t sure what to expect honestly so I walked into the building raw as raw could be. What you kids call raw dogging these days.

I talked briefly about my professional background, my reckoning with sobriety and dipped just a tad into some philosophy. It was therapeutic for me and I managed to shake off some social jitters that I had created for myself for the last 5 years. Stifled a small cry but worked my way through it.

It was good for me. It was needed.

One small topic I had touched base on during my chat with the group was even when you conquer some of your worst demons you can still come out the other side a complete asshole. Everyone had a good laugh I was engaging but wanted to make a point from my perspective of where I’ve been and where I wanted to head next.

Sobriety is perhaps the best thing I could’ve done to turn my mind and life around to the lighter side of things. The chemical imbalance of years of toxicity changed the person I once was or at least tried to be. It changed my behavioral patterns, my scruples, morals, point of views. Add the typical childhood traumas we all experience, life’s hiccups, years of feeling like life only takes craps on you and no one else. It makes for a long lasting cocktail that takes much more than just time and sobriety to shake off the effects.

Things you have to reckon with each separately.

If you have a old car that you just replaced the old engine with a brand new one it doesnt mean the car will now run without any chance of breaking down. Transmission has the same wear and tear. Tires are worn, seats are ripped, paint is faded, alignment is twisted and your shocks have been shook. All of your electronics are outdated and they don’t make those parts anymore.

That has been me for about three years. I’m not diminishing the value of sobriety. I won’t say I’m conquering sobriety but I’ve made my life possible without alcohol. I still had/have some other personal property to reckon with.

Pettiness

Complaining

Empathy -lack of

Stereotyping

Impatience

Negativity

Then the big ones

Hatred

Bitterness

Anger

All of these poxes contain underlying annexes, attachments, subject matter etc but this was my new reckoning for 2025.

I was sober but my subconscious was still a raging maniac. It would bother me when people approached me to tell me how proud of me they were about my lifestyle changes and my transparency. In my head my mind would say “I’m only about 10% transparent.” I can’t say some of the things that still sit in my mind.”

Anger produces some dark thoughts

Bitterness will cause you to think some not so good things about others. Which brings on hatred.

I’m sober, I’m a much better person for it. Easier to be around for most part unless I’m in one of my manic episodes. I’m much more focused and analytical about my being. A lot of bad habits went into the trash with the bottle but most of my personality trash traits I picked up along the way stuck to me like burrs on my hiking socks. Jagged and perturbing.

In my eyes I was just a sober jerk. A few other eyes too.

This wasn’t a surprise to me. I know me better than anyone but I needed to put sobriety into it’s proper place. I replaced my car engine. I already knew other parts needed to be replaced but I had to get that car back on the road first.

My new reckoning has been slowly turning a different corner. I’m faced with rewiring my car right now.

I’m making peace with things I’ve held onto for far too long.

The first and easiest to be honest was to backspace my words on social media. I stopped engaging. Or I’ve been in that practice. I’ve found myself making snarky remarks in form of humor but it’s just a disguise. Social media is a megaphone of negativity. I’m standing by that. What it could’ve been used for once upon a time has been lost.

I’m making peace with people who have controlled my energy over the years long term and short. There’s too many to count. Some I haven’t spoken too in years and others I have to reckon with everyday. Do you have those people on social media that you don’t really like but you still keep them around? Do you get infuriated reading a total stranger’s opinion? Do you get upset when someone you haven’t seen in person in 20 years disagrees with your online opinion? I’ve cut out about 75% of my social media engagement. My feet feel lighter already.

I made peace with my old partners after my one of them passed. It wasn’t the passing that made me do it but it did trigger my one sided pov. I felt compelled to when I experienced a fraction of the pain his family must’ve been going through during the whole process. The thought of my pettiness bouncing around in their minds while one of their family members was slowly dying made me sick to my stomach. I lost touch with empathy because of my pettiness.

It was sobering. They deserved better. There’s business and then there’s just being a good human being. Bitterness takes away from my energy.

It was therapeutic to put those bad thoughts to rest. The impact also caused my to pause and reflect on “what are we doing here Gangwer?”

“Why are you so dead set on getting enraged from your self proclaimed victimization?”

And why do I feel the need to air it out for all to see?

It’s not therapeutic it’s grandstanding.

Social media has turned that into a trophy

☮️

^^

This has been my focus this year. I’ve been talking about a new reckoning all last year but I needed to find it. Hold that thought. No ma’am it found me this time.

Trail markers are amazing tools once you know how to harness them. I’m on quite the spiritual journey at the moment. It took something way out of left field for this reckoning to arrive but it’s one I couldn’t ignore.

I’m just following the steps shown to me

Sobriety to clear the mind. Erasing my hard drive to allow new uploads.

Alcohol truly destroyed my intuition processing. As did the system I indulged in for decades that comes with it.

The service industry.

It destroyed me because I allowed it to.

Writing has been my most utilized trail marker.

Anytime I put it one “paper” I’m able to release some trauma and or inner conflict. Writing has helped me make peace with my father’s passing decades ago, my mother, and my brother’s too. My mental rucking gets lighter each time and man was I carrying around a lot of weight.

Sometimes I’ll write something negative on a pad of paper, ball it up and throw it in the trash.

It’s symbolic and it works for me.

I’ve created a mental web in my mind.

For the last month when I negative thought pops in I have this web to catch it in my subconscious and I reckon with it.

“Why is this thought sitting here? What prompted it? What do you intend to do with it? Is it worthy of processing or do we need to wrap it up and get rid of it?”

It’s taken me three years to weave this fragile web. It only works if I’m hyper focused on it during my nighttime routine of self hypnosis. Things slip through all the time but at least now I’m aware. I’m catching negative thoughts before they can get through and each time my web gets stronger.

I’m exhausted from carrying around so much hate and bitterness. It’s breaking my back and heart.

But

I’m improving and that’s all I can hope for.

It’s astounding how it changes your energy almost overnight when you make peace with subject matter that shouldn’t matter.

I carried my despises for the mandates for Covid like a scar on my forehead. The shutdowns, masks, restaurants were the scapegoats and it made me feel helpless. It locked me up and shut me down. It caused the rift between my partners and I. It made me double my drinking pars.

Two or three weekends ago I purposely walked into the new restaurant inside of the old SC and ate on a Sunday. I hadn’t stepped foot in those doors since April 2021. I had to get it done. I needed to make peace with my emotions over my first and favorite restaurant.

And I did.

Last week as I prepared to loosen some bitter strings my thoughts were

“This shakeup literally saved your life and everything attached to it.”

“You would still be the old person that you had become to despise.”

“You didn’t lose anything. You gained everything.”

As I said those words to myself while driving to work I did something that I’ve done quite a few times the past couple of years.

I cried

And then I shut the door on it.

I’ve got a few more big ones I have to reckon with and I’m struggling only because I have to retrain how I think.

Negativity has been infested in my soul for decades. This one I have to take some time on. Every time I think I’m moving in the right direction I find myself mumbling some old words that want to stay around.

It’s going to take a bit.

But

I’m more than hopeful. I’m confident. Something else I had to reckon with too.

Each time I’m able to close the book on one of these the better I feel inside. Spirituality is my focus. It’s my new mountain to climb.

It’s not what you think it is but it’s all relatable. I’m just now finding some meaning after 53 years of perpetual motion.

Just a better awareness of myself. For myself.

“Oh you have to let go

So the soul may fall” – Sturg

4:40am

This is part of my morning routine, I have a grazing table to deliver this afternoon, some big boxes and my buddy is coming to take some long overdue pics of my deli and food. I’m excited and anxious at the same time. These type of days usually get in my head and I’d sweat it out for a few days before it happens but I’ve been pretty smooth this week.

Deliberately smooth

I’ve been on a spiritual reckoning for about 6 weeks or so. Different than what may be popping in your head when you read this.

I’m not passing around pamphlets

I’m not standing on a street corner giving sermons

I’m not joining a cult or starting one

I’m also not knocking anyone that involves themselves in any of the activities above.

To each their own

When I say I’m all over the place I truly am because I want to be. I’ve been knee deep in my mental analytics for around a year or so. By this time last year I already knew my deli was coming all I was waiting for was agreement on the lease. My days were about to get very difficult in a few months.

I’m going to scan over several things, I’m going to skip a lot of things. For now I’m just catching up. I’ll go in out on this for some time. You can’t ask “how was your trip?” when it’s just begun.

And I feel like mine has only started.

You always hear about how some people only find themselves when they’ve been stripped of everything. A complete purification of your body and soul.

Man

The last 5 years have been a ride.

Covid

Disassociated with my company I built

Alcoholism

Sold our house just to get out from under it and downsized out of necessity

I almost split my family

My mother passed

Moving from place to place to find a kitchen to work out of (more stressful than you think).

Then I opened my deli

Built it myself while I drove across town to make boxes in between. I’d stand in my deli some days with tears in my eyes overwhelmed. I’d never built anything by myself before. Not like this.

Caught Covid right when we opened for over three weeks

Back injury that put me down for a week

Main purveyor gets quite the PR explosion

Heated exchanges with one of my neighbors

Helene shuts me down for 10 days right after I opened and also geographically erased all of my decompression spots. Literally.

For about three months I’d walk into that deli and cringe. I felt like I had built my own cage of imprisonment. If you read some of my old blogs you’ll see it with your own two eyes.

Prior to all of that when I worked in the brewery and meadery I worked alone. Those of you that run your own business might get this. The brewery kitchen I worked out of for two years was the size of a medium bathroom, no ventilation other than a screen door around the corner, no windows. I had two one door coolers, 3 comp sink, prep table, 3 foot sandwich cooler and a 4 foot prep table. These facilities were handed to me with open arms. I’m not in anyway disrespecting my friends that owned the brewery. It’s quite the opposite. I’m very grateful. They have a big hand in how I manifested my deli. I had no intention of being chadcuterie after my initial holiday season.

I would push over $40k of meat and cheese out of that kitchen in 6 weeks during the holidays.

You work alone it gives you a lot of opportunities to chat with yourself. Some convos good. Some not so much, I used to get in my head until I hated myself. Especially when I was still drinking. Working solo got hard on me when I had busy days and I’d feel my sanity slowly slipping away if I got behind on work or if I ran out of an ingredient and had to leave my kitchen to grab it. My closest grocer was Swamp Rabbit. Have you ever shopped there in a hurry?

Exactly

Especially on a sunny Saturday which was always the day I ran out of things.

Somedays I felt like I was drowning and no one could hear my splashes. There was no “hey grab that pan out of dish for me” or “can you give me a hand with this please?” I’d look at the clock the wall “I have 20 minutes left to finish this and an hour of work to produce it. Summers when it got too hot I’d move most of my kitchen to my 1000 square ft home and work from there. I’d haul ass to the brewery to meet customers in the parking lot for each appointment. Sometimes I’d drive up to the brewery 8 times a day.

Meadery was much more room for me. They didn’t have a walk in so I cut my big boards down to fit in the reach in coolers. I’d rotate boards in and out of the cooler to keep them cool because they didn’t all fit. I was still in solitude there the walls were just further away. I already knew it was a temp spot when I moved in so I never got comfortable there. Just like the brewery Adam was extremely easy to work with and I’m grateful for his extended hospitality. I spent a lot of time reckoning in my head when I was there too. My mind needs distractions from itself sometimes. It wasn’t getting any.

It’s been a rough five years. I only gave you the bullet points but it’s the reckoning with yourself in the in betweens that really kick your ass. I came real close to losing it. Even after I went sober I still had a lot to fix and reckon with.

2024 was the hardest. I hid behind a face of fake confidence and made up tranquility.

In my head I was becoming that old lunatic again. Just a sober one this time. My anger issues were off the charts. My anxieties were telling me the deli would crash and burn. I was becoming that Chad that’s difficult to be around again.

Sobriety gives you a clear mind to address things . It doesn’t create the action. That’s still on you. I’m not going to beat a dead horse. I’ll end up sounding whiny to myself.

I’ll just say 2024 was hard as hell and it wasn’t suppose to be. I thought my days of struggles were behind me because of my life choices I made. My reality decided I needed more suffering.

And it put me through the ringer.

Lort bless my wife for her strength because I needed all of it and she gave it to me. She was my lean-to in a year long blizzard.

January I put myself to rest for a bit. Business was slow that month as expected and I took it slow too. I went out to find some new resets and went to heal. I was tired. I use that word in past tense now. The words you write about yourself can control your energy

Another subject for another day.

I’ve talked briefly about my little awakening in my rooftop tent on the island outside of Beaufort. I wrote it all out and then deleted it. Not ready to write about that at this time and I may never. What I experienced is difficult to describe without sounding loony or like I was drugged. I’m still processing this a month later. It felt like a self induced exorcism. Although I definitely wasn’t alone in that tent.

I’ll say this for now. I’m not the same person I was when I left for the island. I didn’t come back a competely different person but I left some parts of me behind and picked up some mental accessories along the way. Now that I’m back I feel like I’m transitioning into someone else.

My world and its perceived reality is changing. All that means is my perceptions are changing. Take that anyway you want. Trail markers that I used to see every once in a while are now blazing everywhere. I’ll just say I’m in my own little world for now.

You always hear about these stories of people who just get put through the ringer and come out ok. Not all but some seem to come out like an old cocoon and they change. I’m not going to allow my ego to come out here and say “me too!” I’m still dealing with this literal mind flip.

Divine intervention or maybe I unlocked a spec of brain matter from all of these meditation sessions.

If you really want to know if someone has changed or is transitioning ask the people that love them. They have front row seats to the show. They see it. I’m still grappling with what’s ahead.

That 2 minutes up in my tent man

Wow

You’ve never hit euphoria until you have and then the crash is exhausting. Terrifying and beautiful at the same time. I felt like I died.

I’m ankle deep right now. When I get up to my knees I’ll go further unless I get completely submerged and then who knows what I’ll have to say.

Or it just stays with me. I haven’t seen where my trail markers take me yet. Only “time” will tell.

Cheers and namaste I guess..

I got up at 5:15 this morning to begin my daily rituals. I make my coffee, let the old lady (dog) out to do her thing, pet my cat, rinse my face with cold water and sit on my sofa. I reckon with a few messages I may have received after 6 I rarely answer messages once I’m in family mode some work responses may mean I’m going back and forth all night so I wait until the morning to respond.

My responses are more calculated.

Email convos are handled post first cup of coffee

I open my medias and look at the notifications, messages or tags. If it’s a good week of sports I’ll open up ESPN for about 2 minutes and absorb all I need for sports for the day. I’ve released a lot of that lifestyle because of people act on social media. I used to be one of those people and still find myself engaging when I feel personally victimized.

9 times out of 10 I wake up in a positive mood. There will be some mornings when I have quite the load to deal with for work that might make me a little anxious but in the back of my mind I know I can handle it. It’s just messing with my routine. I’m making strides on that one currently.

I’m attached at the hip with some of my medias Facebook especially it’s paramount for my branding unfortunately and great advertisement for local businesses although my personal one sparks much more engagement online. I manifested this over the years. After Dive crashed and burned I felt the need to put myself out there publicly more to engage and get new faces into concept #3 -LTO.

I began to grow my media into a larger audience and created a “voice” online.

A somewhat engaging but volatile one. I am a very transparent person I speak my mind sometimes faster than my mind can keep up. It keeps my friend’s list high online but my real social life a tad smaller. I was much more of a fraught person when I was a drunk. I carried that over to my social media.

I am what I am but under a much more bloated megaphone online.

I’ve begun to dislike this person. Maybe dislike is the wrong word. I no longer find this persona necessary for me. When I was trying to take over the hospitality world it seemed fitting. I only wanted to be in your face to remind you my restaurants needed support. Sometimes I went over the top. I have that tendency when I get carried away

I have a tendency of getting carried away quite a bit. It makes for a nice carousel.

I used to enjoy it. All the buzzing of the bees online. I’d wake up to over 100 notifications sometimes from running my mouth online. I engaged in all the engagements it used to get my old partners upset. All I was trying to do was make our company relevent. Or maybe just me..

My old partner and I used to have arguments over it. It created a fence between us at times. For some reason while I was out and about Monday I had the vibe to look at some of our last texts together before he passed. All are at least 4 years old. The last of our text although a little strained there was no malice he was only trying to help. That’s all he was trying to do the whole time.

“Stop focusing on all the people.” “Hope you’re enjoying the beautiful mountains in Colorado.”

I haven’t read these texts in over 4 years. I’m sitting in a parking lot on woodruff next to REI with them open on my phone. I thought to myself “why did you just do this?” Maybe because I drove past his old office and Habitap on my way.

Trail markers

I got up this morning and after about 3 minutes on Facebook my brain did that little highlighter I’ve trained it to do and I opened his texts again.

“Stop focusing on all the people”

I was in a good mood this morning until about 30 seconds into scrolling on FB.

I’m not going to write about what I saw it’s unnecessary and redundant. I’m seeing the same thing we are all seeing. Unless you’re blind or your IQ doesn’t quite reach the spectrum to operate heavy machinery. I got immediately tense, defensive and angry.

This is not how I used to enjoy my coffee. It’s ironic because I was introduced to Facebook when I opened my coffee shop back in 2008. Life sure seemed a lot happier worldwide back then. If it wasn’t I was blissfully ignorant. At that time it was a tool for socializing and networking.

Now it’s a tool for negativity and gloom. Filled with political psychosis, one sided agendas and thousands of pages specifically created to feed the horrid hoopla. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to recognize it. It’s in your face. Over the years I’ve been an advocate for it without even realizing it. A literal tool.

I get on here and start fires, stir the pot and insult people that I perceive as idiots. In my eyes I’m rarely wrong about things on here. I speak for about 150,000,000 others when I say that too.

We are 8 plus billion bees in one hive. Social media is a big stick poking us. It incites us into an angry buzz. We can’t fight the stick so we take it out on each other. We used to share posts with lost cats and dogs to get some harmonic energy as a community to find them. Now we post outrage from places we’ve never been about people we’ve never met. The only thing we know about them is what we’ve been told and shown by 5 different entities that all have their own biases and beliefs. Some of you have family in these areas. I absolutely feel for you.

We no longer have natural anything. If a fire starts it’s an attack, hurricanes are steered and earthquakes are caused by energy machines. Planes are being attacked by ufos under the sea.

20 years ago these things happened we cleaned up and went about our life because it’s always been a part of our lives.

Personally I don’t think we are meant to absorb things globally. We were sectored out for a reason. Small communities build firm relationships. I’m “friends” with people I’ve never met hundreds and thousands of miles away. Some I’d love to meet in person others I’m good with you staying way over there. Without social media neither one of you would ever cease to exist in my mind and I’d still be Chad. Now I have to contend with saying something you might find offensive or doesn’t sit right with your perspective. I’m getting energy from people I don’t know, I’m engaging with a complete stranger who’s going to “kick my ass” for making an off handed comment over a sports article. 20 years ago this conversation would’ve never happened. Maybe at a bar somewhere but at least it would’ve been resolved immediately.

I lost myself on this app. These apps. A lot of us have. I can’t speak for you but if I was representing you as a lawyer I’ve got some good evidence to support it.

I always see references about how things have gravitated to junk the last four or five years but I think it’s just further down the road. We used to get the news once in the AM and then one more time in the PM when we got off work. If a big thing happened our stories got put on hold while the news man popped up on tv with big news. It seemed to only happen about four times a year. Now it’s daily.

Bad shit has always happened around us. It just reaches us faster now. I used to read it in USA Today. I had time to prepare myself.

I have some friends online literally losing their minds over agendas they can’t control, news they can’t change. I’m currently watching a divorce in the making over politics and people are engaging and laughing.

Perspectives are punched online, opinions are mocked. It really bothers me when I see real friends that I care about shifting into another persona because this great app of negativity has finally sunk its claws into them. Not just them, me, you, us.

Everyday I ask myself can my company survive without it? Because I’m about to jump off of it. It’s not social it’s a giant restroom stall covered in sharpie insults.

Also stop with the “you don’t have to announce when you’re getting on the plane”. It’s so much fun when we take a viral negative statement and reuse it to mock each other. I’m no better than anyone else with this. I get it. But I’m trying to fix that for myself.

This bee hive is about to explode. I’m choosing a much, much smaller one. At least that’s my good intentions. I’ve tried before. Alcohol was easier to quit.

I can’t tell you the last time I got on Facebook and enjoyed myself. On occasion I see a friend’s post that makes me smile. Some of you are the subject of absolute positivity. I enjoy you. Others have gotten caught up fighting the stick that stokes the hive. I’ve let a few of you go.

My opinion no longer needs to be shared constantly. Yes I see the irony in this post before you even say it. I’m trying to maintain neutrality. My outrage doesn’t always have to be seen in the great big media marquee. These are things I’m currently telling myself as I slowly strangle ego into non existence.

Do I want to be blissfully unaware or blissfully ignorant would be the social media argument.

I just want bliss. I don’t need a hundred opinions or arguments about it. 90% of you have no idea what I’m like in person but have no qualms in letting me know how I should live my life. I’m the same way towards you. I do not absolve myself from this behavior I’m on of the worst on here. I’m quite the example.

I wish I never were.

I’m jealous of those of you who pop on here annually to thank people for the birthday wishes. You’ve figured it out.

I’m getting on that boat. Alcohol took me sometime to manifest but it did. It taught me how to manifest. This is my next reckoning.

“I’m getting on the plane” yall. One step at a time.

It’s the reason I run away to the mountains. The only net I have is the WiFi in my truck and it has to be running to work. I check in with my fam and check out. Waking up to a sunrise and coffee makes me smile much more than waking up to someone unfriending another over an egg.

Unfriending wasn’t even a word not so long ago.

I’m not writing this to exclaim I’m more awake than you. I’m pursuing what makes me and mine happy and at ease. I can’t speak for anyone else. I assisted with creating this monstrosity and I don’t like it.

I used to.

My daughter has it and she’s not fond of it and that gives me a little hope.

If you really want to black out something that would really shake the world up this would be it. You’re taking the stick away from them.

I’m not getting on that plane yet but I’ve bought my tickets. Work will still have to go online and I like posting these for the 6 people that read them. I enjoy the feedback it keeps me going. Social media still has some positives At least.

Cheers.

I make myself write most mornings as part of my routine. Routines are important to me for the sake of keeping myself in control of my operations. It allows me to pace my day as I see fit. There are outside circumstances that may temporarily change my rituals and routines such as a high volume shifts that may cause me to go in early or the weatherman may decide if my brisk morning walk may not be an option. I create alternate routines on these days. Regardless I plug in 30 minutes of morning decompression. If I have to leave for work at 4am at 3:30am I’m on my sofa drinking a a cup of coffee with my feet rested on the floor. I’m not autistic my day goes better when I perceive I’m in control of it.

This is a healthy practice for me.

As I was driving my daughter to school the other day she remarked about an observation she made.

“You don’t get as angry at the traffic as you used to”

I said “thank you”

Last week as I was driving to work my mind told me I can get angry about the traffic all around me. I can stomp my feet and scream at the top of my lungs, I’m still going to arrive work at the same time.

I flipped a switch in my head. For some probable coincidence I’ve been arriving to work about 5 minutes earlier than average ever since. No I haven’t broken the traffic matrix. Sometimes slow and steady does win the race.

Perspective

I go into work clear headed and focused. Yes I still deal with people with “broken” turn signals and others who stare down at their crotch instead of watching traffic but I no longer allow it to affect my day. It’s not in my control so I release its control over me. I’m controlling the energy around me. This isn’t mystical it’s literal science.

It’s fixing me ever so slightly. Like a harmonic flow soft music while you’re receiving a massage.

A message massage.

For me to understand energy and frequency I focus it into how music helps me. I turn energy into music. This didn’t happen overnight and it’s a work in progress.

I haven’t driven more than 5 miles over the speed limit in two weeks. This isn’t deliberate my foot feels lighter on the pedal.

I think I posted something about creating your own life algorithms. I can’t remember which one I posted. I have a few thousand words floating around waiting to roost on being published. Some never will. Sometimes I go all over the place. I’m meant to. I’m absorbing so many things I need a cloud backup soon.

My reckoning is slowly evolving into a pursuit of harmony. I call this phase two of my rehabilitation. Three years plus of putting aside the things that hinder my mind to heal and push forward.

Even when you push away some bad habits it doesn’t fix you like airplane model glue. You have to reckon with yourself as an individual.

And I have

And I am

I’m slowly changing my life algorithms.

Balancing

I turned part of my deli upside down during this phase. There was no provocation it just seemed to fit what I was looking for. I was angry at the deli for about 4 months. This little property made gosh dang sure I was mentally toughened for it. I wish it had given me a warning..

You could feel my tired and frustrated energy when you walked in. Add to the fact that I hadn’t been in the public eye for three years.

I started going through all of my old notes of things I had planned. I had forgotten so many ideas or disregarded due to stress and a few opening hiccups. Some ideas didn’t reveal themselves so well once I tried them. That happens frequently but it’s the only way to find out. I built the deli to harness positive energy way before I got on this vibration kick.

Manifestation

It’s taken me a while to harness the positivity I put into it. It’s finally coming back. I spent my afternoon yesterday putting a little of my hard earned money back into it. Not because I had to. It felt good to do it. I still have some work to finish but she’s getting there. Again.

8 months later.

This deli is literally an extension of me. If I’m happy the deli looks happy. If I’m tired my deli looks empty. The displays are transparent and almost empty. If I’m rearranging it means my mind is in a hundred different places. It will always be evolving because I’m evolving. I told someone the other day this deli is a social experiment to myself. I’m doing what feels right. Period. If I change just a tad so will the deli. If you’re a regular then enjoy the ride.

Also plants are expensive

My thumb needs to turn green sooner than later.

It’s a part of my harmonic phase. Why? Don’t ask me I’m just doing what my intuition tells me.

This write up started with the heading “and go”. It’s symbolic of what I’m writing today. This is one of those open up and start writing day. I enjoy these as they are a little more challenging. I’ve always heard never post your first draft but I do it all the time. Most I don’t even go back and edit y’all can figure out the mistakes.

It’s honest and sometimes broken. That’s not so bad.

Cheers

I would say this is for the guys but I don’t try to separate mental awareness and anxiety from sexes. If what I write pings on your radar then it’s beneficial to anyone to read. I don’t pretend to know how anyone else’s mind comprehends their own mental awareness but I feel like we all link up one way or another.

Anyway

I cry.

A lot

Daily? Maybe not, sometimes I have things I need to get done and I don’t have time for it. No that doesn’t mean I schedule a crying session but also, why not? Growing up I was taught I wasn’t suppose to cry. “Big boys don’t cry” Hell they sing songs about it.

“Be quiet, big boys don’t cry” repeats in- I’m not in love, in a cold whisper – 10cc which happens to be one of my nighttime playlist favorites.

I got beat up for crying on my school bus. My brother would belittle me if I cried. My mother would tell me to stop. Father figures would tell me to stop too and also add “be a man!”

None of this scarred me, well maybe the ass beatings but they left a lasting impression.

When I hit adulthood crying was set aside only for death and breakups. I pushed stress cries aside, happy cries, quick car drive cries. As a grown ass man I’m not suppose to cry especially in public. I haven’t cried at one single funeral. Some of the most important people in my life have passed and I kept my tears restrained at their funerals.

A dry eyed eulogy for one of my ex employees who succumbed to alcoholism.

My daughter has never seen my cry but I’m sure she’s heard me. My life is no rainbow by any means.

I was prescribed anti- depressants at one time. I quit taking them because they didn’t allow me to cry. I wanted better control of my emotions. I didn’t want them smothered.

Have you ever had a good cry? The ones that require a roll of toilet paper by your side? Swollen eyes, snot running out of both nostrils

A good solid sobbing

It’s a healthy heave

A wet wringing of acceptance

An unleashing of pent up energy

An oil change

Flushing out the of built up toxicity you’ve kept in your mental oil pan.

I experience these frequently when I write about certain topics. My family and how close I came to losing them, some old childhood memory I’ve kept repressed for years, unleashing my stress from a difficult week of work, sobriety

I let it all out

And my open mental sores begin to close. Not all but they all get bandaged up. Writing is my morning crying routine. I’ve rarely had a morning lately where I haven’t cried at least a little. Yesterday I was in my usual work zone, focused on getting $1k worth of charcuterie to a house in Simpsonville at 7am. I was just going through the motions of ensuring I didn’t let a bunch of meats, cheeses and fruit origami slide around. I dropped off the goods and head back to work. As I crested the frontage road to the highway, the sun was cresting over the horizon and it hit my eyes just as the light turned red enough to make me sit and enjoy it.

I’ve never wished for a traffic light to remain red longer until yesterday. I drove over to the side of the bridge and watched it rise up between the power lines.

And I cried. I had a big smile on my face. I knew that yesterday would be a good day. It told me it would be and it didn’t let me down.

Random but I don’t think I’ve gone more than 5 miles over the speed limit this entire week. I haven’t been in my “everything is f}%^ed if you don’t hurry up!” phase this week.

This is a big deal for me. A really big one. I’m enjoying the break.

I didn’t start these crying episodes until I started writing. It’s quite the therapy session and it’s free. I get them at night too when I’m meditating. Sometimes I’ll get hit with some amazing discoveries in my head

And I’ll cry. My pillow has witnessed some quiet transactions of peace and tranquility.

Gratuitous gratitude

My oil changes

I’m working on my own little diagram of balance. I’m trying to mentally align myself in between these little tiny energy vortexes of

Harmony

Gratitude

Love

Perspective

Peace

Awareness

Empathy

Respect

I want all of these spinning around me like a well tailored suit. Not a force field of protection but an aura of understanding. I want to be the sun to these feelings

My own little orbit of growth.

I pinged on some good things the last few weeks. My trail markers have been so clear I can smell the highlighter fluid. Harnessing it has been a full time job. I’m a cultivator.

Letting off some emotional steam first thing in the morning and during your night time routine is key. At least to me. Give it a try. I’m not selling courses yall this is all for free.

Man I can cry at the drop of a hat now. Big boys do cry and should.

If you feel like you need one pull your car over and let it out. Scream if you want to.

Maybe not post it on social media but hey if it makes you happy then by all means.

Do it in the present. Don’t fog it up. Y’all know exactly what I’m talking about.

Today is a day of rest and repair. No camping adventures, no menu thinking or tweaking. I’ll have a little dusting of yoga and morning walk with heart full of gratitude. I’ll be absorbing the energy and love of my family and pushing the medias aside for the day.

You won’t find me today immersed in the negs I’m hanging with the pos.

I’ve already had my good cry for the day.

Cheers

I was writing a fairly long blog touching base on vibration and frequencies but I put it down for a little while simply because my mind told me to. When I come across new things and ideas they are like toys to me. When I get them I can’t put them down. I’m slightly obsessive until I become too obsessed and then I burn it out of existence. Some will stick to me forever like an appendage is supposed to, others slowly fade away like my hairline did. My mind is in a mad dash and flurry of wide open happenstances and trail markers.

When I semi retired from restauranteur paradise (heavy HEAVY sarcasm) I made a deal with this guy currently typing that he needed to go find himself. I had no map, no navigation, no education hell I hadn’t read a book without pictures or wasn’t made into an action movie in a decade.

I had no clue. Late 2020 I was a broke man, broke spirit, broke ass ideology.

I spent the first year of my journey in a downward spiral of self destruction and vodka. Little did I know that my journey required me to walk back down the hill that I had climbed for 30 years, take off my shoes and start all over again.

I did not want to

I wanted to walk back to my car in the parking lot and swig from my favorite brand of vodka.

Change can happen at the drop of a hat. Acceptance and gratitude can be a like a line at the DMV. It took a bit for me to understand the trail markers lighting my path. I missed quite a few along the way. A few? I almost fell off the freaking moutain.

All it took was a random text from one of the two most important people in my life. I kept that text to myself for almost 4 years. I kept it close to my heart because it was a talisman. I didn’t want to share it. It wasn’t time. Some sort of distant divinity said let it go it’s time. When I shared that info with this particular person just recently it felt like a big stone wall fell down in front of me and light breeze hit my soul.

The last bit of that crunchy, stale ass Chad blew away.

Love truly conquers all.

Feels like my ship is coming in. My mind did a little reset. It’s a had a few but this one seemed like the heaviest. I’ve been waiting for my real life to begin *cue Colin Hay’s beautiful melody.

That first year was a rough one. I wanted to heal immediately but my journey had other things in mind. I had to be stripped down. I didn’t do any of this deliberately y’all. Self destruction comes naturally here.

After the summer of 2021 things started to ping. Turning 50 seemed to be a valid process in my soul. It changed my thinking. I stopped thinking forward and started looking behind me. They always say never look behind you but that’s just silly. Sometimes you need to look behind you to see how far you’ve come along the way.

Pick up the litter you left behind.

Perspective is paramount.

When I turned 50 and I looked behind me and saw the 49.99999999999 year old me standing directly behind. I winked at him and started my 4mph uphill cadence I used to climb table rock in one hour. I left him in the dirt. The old Chad was a hard head. He kept pace with me for awhile. I knew the day I turned 50 a reckoning was coming. On 9/5/21 I made the decision to stop drinking. It took three months to comply. Old Chad was indeed a hard head.

I’ve talked many of your ears off about my bout with the bottle. This journey of mine would’ve abruptly stopped had I not put it down. Absolutely no doubt in my mind. I’ve said it 1000 times you’re the only person on this planet that can make yourself stop drinking.

You are your own divinity

I manifested my place in line. I’m not going back.

Life is beautiful without the bottle.

I went full scale Walden for about three years. I immersed myself in nature. I hugged trees (still do. Once you start you can’t stop), cried at sunrises, meditated by fiery pits and dangled my feet over ridges. I consumed as much free oxygen from those trees that are no longer there. I spent so much time in those mountains that I can tell you with absolute certainty they are still weeping from the hurricane. It made me so sad I went back home for a bit.

Also am I the only one that thinks the sky had never looked the same since?

I’m currently obsessed with frequencies and vibrations which also is why music is hitting me different now.

5 years ago on this day i was assembling 900 pork belly sliders for an Euphoria event downtown. I had already checked out of SCHPG (my restaurant group) in my mind. I’d be physically pushed out in another 5 months.

3 years ago I was on the road to Sedona hell bent on finding my own vortex.

And I did. This was real euphoria I didn’t find it on a plate of food.

Today I’m blogging about frequencies, planet alignment and spirituality. Building my own manifestation guide.

Trail markers are wild

Life is wild. I found myself apologizing to a hawk yesterday for cutting its home down in my yard.

I had something mentally shake me while camping on the island. I’m keeping it to myself right now, my intuition is telling me to keep a lot including finding a random note in a book that said “be silent” amongst other things I took to heart. The episode I encountered was enough to make me question if I almost died.

“I don’t think I’m ready for this. I’m not the right person for what you’re trying to show me”

Whatever the vibe was it was indifferent to my worries

Random

I came across the Schumann resonance upon chance the other day. I’m not smart enough to explain what it is a lot of it seems to be subjected to what you may believe in. Some triggering key words such as resets and timeline compressions can make you flinch. I enjoy reading on theories of resets, blips in our timeline and multi dimensional mind f#%*s. (I had a small reckoning with how language and tone can affect vibrations)

It’s a fun 🐛 🐇 holes to fall into. I’m throwing a lot new ideas into my mental notebooks. I’ve had my nose up my rear end for a long time. I’m searching for something that I can’t describe at the moment. Every day I feel like I’m progressing forward. I do take breaks in between to allow my brain to filter out the BS dust that gets in there too. You can get too caught up in theories and get completely absorbed. I’ve had to ground myself quite a few times so I don’t cover my dome with foil.

But

There’s

So

Much

Out

There

To explore

I’m in my 50’s yall. I’m allowed to chase dreams now I’ve freaking earned it. If I deserve any entitlement it’s just that and only that.

During this Schumann resonance that’s going off the charts at the moment, I went to my meditation chamber 🛌 put my nightly playlist on it’s the same playlist I go to every single night the only variations are I shuffle the music I don’t listen to it in order of display. I only listen to these songs at this time should they come on any other time of the day I skip over them. I know these songs maybe better than the artists who wrote and sang them. 6 plus months of this nightly playlist. At the moment it’s 17 songs I occasionally add another one when I find the right one. The music has nothing to do with memories or people associated with the songs. I add them for the harmony, the melody. My brain only says “this works”.

Some I vibe too much better than others. Some will come on and I’ll smile even though I hear them every night even in my sleep.

My playlist was different last night. Same songs

Same playlist

But

Each song had changed in it’s own way.

What do you mean Chad?

I backspace a lot when I talk about these things because I’m not a fan of straight jackets. My rotator cuffs are ruined.

In no particular order I’ll share what I heard last night, briefly

One song I vibe too the lyrics changed. Every. Single. One. The name of the song remained the same although it wasn’t mentioned until towards the end.

It was Natural Beauty by Neil Young. Don’t ask me what the lyrics were I can’t tell you one single lyric now but this song is one of my favorites. Harvest Moon could actually be my favorite album and I’m not that big of a Young fan. But this album has slapped me for 30 years. The song I heard last night was that same exact song but different.

Why?

Another song played like a remix. It was extended.

Another had a woman singing in it. There’s no woman 100 miles within this song.

Others weren’t quite as obvious, one the singer’s twang seemed exaggerated and almost like the song had slowed down. Another didn’t enunciate each word that was supposed to rhyme with the next.

One sounded like it was being recorded live as I listened to it.

I had a steak with fries for dinner last night. Maybe the garlic butter was laced with something..

In my mind I can’t help but think it was something else.

The best thing about beliefs and perspectives are you can have and enjoy your own without it bothering someone else.

It just that easy

I’ve put my butt in a sling the last three or four weeks. My experience at Hunting Island changed me. Don’t ask me to explain I’m incapable at the moment and my hands are starting to get tired of typing. I’ve been rewiring my brain to recognize positivity and embrace it. Ever try to rewire your brain? It’s exhausting. I’ve almost walked into walls, I’m losing stuff all the time my mental status is consumed with note talking and reading trail markers. Trail markers are just my subconscious helping a brother out. I realized just last night that I have long conversations with my subconscious while I meditate. The music is my doorway.

My meditation takes me elsewhere I have no doubt. Music starts my journey.

Music lyrics highlight in your mind when you’re here. Anyone use Apple play? It could be the only reason why I still embrace my phone. Ever watch the lyrics as the song plays? It rolls slowly and the words highlight as it plays along with the song.

That’s what my mind does with certain songs. When I’m walking in the morning I sort of go into a meditative mode. Music is just background melodies until a particular lyric comes along and my brain captures it and highlights it. It’s not the song itself necessarily but just the one message in the song, or chorus or maybe it’s just the intro vibrating into my soul.

Music is an entirely different vice to me now. If you were to take any of my senses away leave my hearing. I’ve seen enough. I can still feel a sunrise on my face.

I’ll go further on my rewiring when I’m ready. It’s already affecting my family and that’s why I do it.

Random but relevant. My charcuterie sales are poop this week. I answered one phone call and just like that I hit my quota. I refer to these people as my guardian angels. Last week I was struggling with positivity I had a lapse. This week I kept saying it’ll come Gangwer don’t slide and it did.

I’m not selling courses yall I’m following trail markers

Last night after I ended my mediation and removed all of my buffers and blinders and commited to sleep. Sleep had been difficult this week I normally sleep like a baby. A thought shot through my head like an arrow, randomly. In no words it told me I was already rich.

“Stop seeking your prize. You won’t win the lottery

Stop chasing what’s not yours to have

Your daughter is your is your prize you have all you need”

I cried myself to sleep. It was an amazing cry

I’m on a heck of a ride y’all.

I had posted something on fb the other day lightly expressing that I felt a shift in myself and my surroundings. Amazingly only a few pushed it a little but it remained somewhat positive or at least mildly acknowledged as opposed to crass comments that seem to be the norm nowadays.

I’ve been absorbing a few things in my downtime in my noggin. Nothing too alternative or unusual I introduced myself into frequencies and vibrations a while back for meditation. Can’t say I introduced myself it’s more like we ran into each other. Sort of like those old Reese’s commercials “you got your chocolate in my peanut butter! You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!” When I started implementing music and frequency levels into my nightly routine I could slowly feel my body wanting to levitate from it’s resting place. Not in the literal sense but let’s check back on that one. Jk.

Sorta

I’m in no way promoting levitation or any sort of mystical arts. I’m not speaking in tongues or going off the deep end. I’m cognisant to the point of hyper awareness of my own self. I’m only relaxed to the point of feeling weightlessness. Also if you are close-minded person I’ll add that I was too. Was being the key word.

You can call me lazy or maybe my approach may go against how some want to experience new ideas but I sort of reverse things I study. Whatever that’s suppose to me is I indulge myself into so new experiences for a bit and then I’ll analyze myself during and after. I’m not much of researching ideas at first I prefer to jump into the water to see how cold and deep it is. You can write about how cold and deep it is or even write a dissertation about it my lazy butt is going to go out and check it myself. If it were my first time ever hearing about a body of water and it’s varying degrees I wouldn’t be able to grasp exactly what you’re writing about without experiencing it. My reading comprehension is terrible. I’m a don’t read instructions guy. Not because I’m handy, it’s because I miss manage words I read. I’ve always been this way my high school GPA will reflect it. I don’t bake because the recipes are too exact. It’ll take me a few tried because I miss words.

A lot

Same goes for any woodworking projects. I’ll just build what I need out of my head. No blueprint no nothin. The end result is very predictable. I usually pay someone to fix it. But hey at least I gave it a shot. Not all of my projects fail but if someone asks me to build one for them it’s like the technology they used to land on the moon.

I can’t make it again.

Joking aside I’ve applied this to my three year reckoning with alcohol and mental health. All this means is I want to experience everything organically without some sort of periodical or outside study to influence my feelings or reactions. I’ve never looked up the benefits of cutting alcohol out or how your body repairs itself during this process. I jumped into the water to find out for myself and only then do I focus on how it’s affected my physical and mental health. This is in no way to dissuade anyone from researching the benefits of sobriety I’d encourage it for all of you. Especially if you suffer from withdrawals. It can be dangerous. For the first two weeks all I was concerned about was my chemical make up putting me into cardiac arrest. I’m still here so we good.

I like to write about how sobriety has changed my body, mind, mental health, family and ego without outside influence. That’s all. I don’t want to look up an article and think “that’s what I must be experiencing” I want to absorb it in my own way. It’s like the reverse of going on WebMD and looking up symptoms. That’s literally all it means.

I like surprises

You can easily go back and look at some of my posts about my recovery and compare it to a medical essay and it would probably run parallel to it’s results. I’m not in anyway discounting medical journals or research. I’m not trying to surgically repair a torn ankle ligament or diagnose a mole turning blue on my neck. I’m living my experiences and rewards from negating the bad things and journaling it. As stated previously it would run parallel to others experiencing the same thing I have no doubt. This is my own personal journal of recovery. Undisturbed by outside medical affiliation.

I’m slowly implementing the same process and experience with vibrations and frequencies. I’m all in my feels with instincts and intuitions at the moment. I’m traveling into some uncharted territory that I’ve never experienced or even tried up until I became attached to these headphones and how they’ve benefited my focus at times.

I involve certain frequencies with my meditations and walks. I have playlist of songs that harmonize with my night time routines when I “pre close” my evening. My normal routine now that I have some control over my work schedule is I lay down for bed between 8:30-9pm, I have my headphones on and a light blocker for my eyes and I set my playlist for whatever mood I’m trying to extinguish my day with. I allocate up to 30 minutes a night for this routine. I have no game plan as to what I want to think about I allow my mind to wander in its own backyard. No fence lines, no boundaries or neighbors. I close my eyes and say to myself “let’s go”

This practice enables me to go back in time (in my head) and address some childhood things I didn’t understand and or make peace with some memories that been unlocked. I can conjure up some amazing locked up memories implementing this routine. It’s not why I started doing this. It started out as enjoying some music as I decompressed for the evening. Over weeks and months I’ve been able to manipulate my subconscious just a tiny fraction. That tiny fraction helps me rewire my thinking process and release a lot of negative energy that I carry around. If you aren’t a student or believer of harnessing energy I get it, I used to think that was too progressive and or a hippie ish way of not dealing with reality.

Imagine making peace with a memory or memories that you’ve carried around for decades. It allows you to rewrite your history in your mind. It’s not like you’re erasing time. You can’t change what happened but you can focus on it’s effect. It’s truly remarkable. I’ve sought out a lot of old experiences out of my mental attic, took them out of the boxes, dusted them off, relabeled them and sent them to goodwill.

Dust them off? I take each one and study them through a different perspective, I have more gratitude in my heart now and it changes how you perceive things. Gratitude is the crème de la creme y’all. I’ve made peace with things that have stuck in my mental craw for decades. It’s nothing more than a little self hypnosis but it found me.

A peaceful, personal proclamation

I may have been carrying around some heavy luggage for years. May have? I know I have and each time I take some time to wrangle with it in a controlled setting I create a manageable file that I can later send to the recycle bin to allow more storage for better thoughts and vibes. I’ve put a lot of old files in the trash.

When you do this the weight of a thousand backpacks are lifted off your shoulders.

Imagine a childhood or adult trauma that just wrecked your day/week/month/ year and stuck to your brain like a barnacle. It’s like a 3D scar on your forehead that only you can see. It’s been there the whole time. We all have them. Some of us can shake it off I’m not one of those. So I’ve been taking them on one by one. I don’t go to bed and say to myself “let’s go unfuck Christmas Eve ‘84”. There’s no itinerary they come when they come. Often times I’m just sitting on a ridge watching the sun like a YouTube video.

In my head

Those are good vibes too. I get so deep I can smell the pines, I can smell/feel the dirt under my feet. Sometimes I wonder if I’m actually there.

To each their own. I’m enjoying this ride.

Nighttime is specifically for this. My mind is winding down. My thinking is fragile and exhausted from the day so there are no walls or barriers. Also no distractions I’m in complete darkness surrounded by music I’ve handpicked through it’s melodies and lyrics. If you were to listen to my playlist you wouldn’t hear any high pitches or loud beats. It’s methodical, it’s even.

Morning time meds I’m usually sitting cross legged on my sofa or I lie flat on the floor. I cover my eyes and use a system of hertz to absorb for 10-30 minutes depending on my work schedule. I don’t force it. I take it in when I can. Forcing it seems like it would negate it. For me it’s doing my morning routine and then my body says “let’s do it today.”

I’ll get myself cozy, cover my eyes and start the show. I use Solfeggio frequencies. The ranges are 174 hz to 963 hz. 432 hz being the mean for me. If you take some time to look them up (at this time I’m not gojng to play out each one and break down each benefit, you have the internet for that) there are easy to read charts all over to give you an introduction and instruction. One day I hope to be able to expound but right now I’m booted on the ground taking it in.

Like my other experiences I went in eyes closed (literally) and waited to see if there would be any results other than some morning rest. I don’t “time travel” back in this practice. I feel out my body in my mind. I talk to my brain a little too.

“How’s the body?”

“Are we tired?”

“Where does it hurt?”

“Let’s loosen up those mental joints and stretch”

I purposely set a smile on my face and I try to slowly dim the lights in my head.

I don’t fall asleep and I won’t I have caffeine surging through my bloodstream but I can feel my body trying it’s damndest to level out on the floor. No floating just floor clouding y’all. I relax my mind. Sometimes I’ll focus on manifestion. I’ll write more about that soon. It’s been a wild ride.

What has this done for me? Well first and foremost it allows me rest even though I’ve been asleep all night it’s good for my brain to prepare for the day slowly. Mornings should not be hectic as soon as you wake up. How many of us wake up and immediately get ready for work?

Quit that right now. I get an hour of me time. I’d set an alarm if I had to. When I have to work at 5am during the holidays I’ll get up at 3 some mornings. That one hour for me is paramount.

Morning med benefits

Charcuterie kills the joints in my hands. By Christmas Day I’m up in the morning rubbing my wrists and fingers just so I can finish wrapping presents. No one talks about the beat down your hands take cutting soft cheeses with a knife and folding little circles of meat into angles. I feel like I’ve been playing piano with weighted gloves on during a 12 hour concert. It was getting so bad that I was considering yet another vocation change. Wringing my hands all the way home and into the evening time.

My fingers and wrists no longer hurt.

It doesn’t sound like a big deal but constant pain is no fun. I was dropping utensils and other things because my hands ached so much. It would make me angry. I wasn’t doing these morning meds to combat it. I was following my intuition. And then my mind said “hey try this!”

I call these trail markers *see last blog

Real quick cutting out alcohol also cuts down on your body’s inflammation. My carpel never went away. My hand and joint pain along with my knees suffered greatly. Oh and my Achilles too. Some of this is just plain old man arthritis. I was on my sofa in mid December rubbing my hands with a weird look on my face. I looked up at Jess and said

“My hands..”

She said “what?”

I said “My hands.. they aren’t hurting me right now. I shouldn’t even be able to close my fists. There’s no pain.”

I went over all of my work toiling in my head to see if I had changed anything. Nothing had changed except for the volume of orders had risen. I did more charcuterie this season than any other. I was stumped. The next morning while lying on my floor in my meds my eyes went wide open and I said “well I’ll be damned”

It may be just coincidence. I’m open minded. I’m currently sitting on my sofa pain free. Wanna talk about my sciatica that cripples me at times? Haven’t heard from it since I opened the deli. I started the hertz treatments after I recovered from Covid in early August. Once that sat on me for almost a month I made some lifestyle changes. I get sick when I get physically and mentally overwhelmed it’s common. I wanted to work on my mind some more.

Intuition wins again.

My knees don’t pop like they used to. I can Bulgarian squat 80lbs no sweat. That would’ve been unheard of 5 years ago with my knees.

Neck tension is waaaaay down.

Mental health is better just ask my family they are the ultimate gauge.

Writing gets a little easier too. My mind vibes better when I’m consistent with these practices.

Your energy changes. Sure I know this is where some of you get the eye rolls. I’m not selling crystals or oils here yall. This is my experience without any outside influences. I may just be healing some more. For some reason I’m rather attached to the hertz idea. Gonna ride it for a bit.

Doubt that you’ll see me floating on a rug but it does give some perspective as to why those visions may have been introduced. The only drug in my veins are coffee beans.

My newest adventure is controlling negative energy and harnessing positive energy. I feel like these are intuitive steps. I’m taking them in stride. Pun very much intended

Peace and love 🫶🏼