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Mewing and Tongue Position

Byjack

I’ve always had trouble finding a relaxed position for my tongue at the roof of the mouth. I always felt that I was forcing it and in the past when I tried to “mew” I got terrible headaches.

However, I noticed I spend a lot of time breathing from my mouth and I wanted to fix things so I used a bit of connection theory to come up with an idea on how to hold my tongue and I came up with this simple technique:

  • Imagine your spine ending at your tailbone and reaching up all the way and ending at your tongue
  • Imagine keeping your spine open at extended

This imagery has a couple of benefits:

  • Most importantly for me, this allows me to move my body and my tongue without feeling like I cannot maintain tongue posture (mewing always felt static and forced to me)
  • Simple and seems quite relaxing to me
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Knee Challenge: Looking Ahead

Byjack

I completed my knee challenge in terms of going hiking in Zion national park. I felt like I succeeded in a big way but still have a long way to go in terms of getting where I need to go.

What is next for me? I know in the long term, I want to be very physically active. I want to be able to practice martial arts, do a little parkour and gymnastics. I know it will take a lot of effort and time to get there and it feels quite overwhelming for me.

I’m going to set a few large goals and then look at some of the very short term goals getting there.

2 year goal – the ability to practice martial arts, parkour gymnastics and skiing. My goal isn’t to go too hard in any of these areas, just to be able to do them safely.

1 year goal – to get back to preinjury levels

1 month goal – be able to sleep, walk, stand and light exercise with zero discomfort. I will call this goal little freedom.

I don’t really know what the next step in my process is. It feels too soon to set a schedule yet.

I just want to slowly rest and explore for now.

My feelings are that challenge videos make for really good productivity but I need to slow down sometimes and feel the feelings.

Maybe I will write a poem:

Creaky Knees

When I bend my knee

It feels like I’m grinding

Hinges made of old stone

Like the kind in movies

That open secret magical passages

And grate against themselves

I say that I want to be able to do martial arts again

But the truth is

I don’t know what I want

I am afraid to dream again

Of a world where I can be active

I’m so used to being scared

Of clutching my knee close

So as not to hurt it

I feel like I’m too old to have these dreams anymore

Of flying

Like I did when I wanted to learn parkour

Everything scares me

I feel that

I need to understand this part of myself first

Listen to what it wants to say

“Everything is a danger”

It tells me

The protector of my knee

Of my body

It feels safe to not move at all

Health Checkup 10/25/2021

Byjack

I feel worried about posting about this topic since it can be kind of gross.

However, I feel that physical health is one of the most important things to understand in life as it controls your energy levels, affects your mental strength, and dramatically affects your physical attractiveness or beauty.

Tracking and problem solving my health issues will not only help me but may provide inspiration for others.

Digestion

Symptoms: bloating, gas, diarrhea, distended belly, sensitivity to cold, stress, and exhaustion

Brainstorm:

  • Raw ginger – seems to add an overall boost to blood flow (yang qi) and stomach circulation
  • Farmhouse Culture Gut Shots – tastes absolutely disgusting, feels like it may actually help
  • Unlocking/moving/stretching hips – ever since my knee injury, my hips are tight and contribute to the blockage in my stomach
  • Stomach massage – helps smooth out the knots and blockage points
  • Increase overall circulation – qi gong, running and cardio all help increase overall circulation and remove blockages overall
  • Activate digestion while eating – eat slower and smell food more
  • Eat less – to 70% fullness

Current Focus:

I need to improve my baseline before going after a specific treatment plan. The baseline will focus on two basic areas: overall circulation, reducing strain. The goals need to be very small so they are easy to maintain.

  • Circulation – eat ginger every morning, run around the block once every morning (minimum 5 min)
  • Reducing strain – focus on eating as little as possible, meditate once in the morning and night (minimum 5 min)
Hair

Symptoms: thin hair (but seems to be thickening), itchy scalp, hair falling out, dandruff

Very strange that my hair is thickening but falling out at the same time. Pretty sure my massage is working but the new hair growing in is so thin it falls out easily.

Brainstorm:

  • Vigorous scalp massage – increase blood flow and already thicken hair a great deal
  • Wash hair – more often, with cold water and apple cider vinegar if possible to reduce inflammation and increase circulation
  • Oil/fatty acids – use huge amounts of conditioner and castor oil to thicken hair and prevent breaking and falling out

Current Focus:

I need to cleanse and increase circulation

  • Wash hair every day with cold water and apple cider vinegar, need to use lots of conditioner to counter the stripping effect of washing your hair too much
Knee (injury)

Symptoms: afraid to put pressure or impact, no feeling at surgery area, pain

Brainstorm:

  • More movement – motion is lotion to the joints
  • Increased muscle mass around the joint – muscle is needed to support the joint
  • Gua sha – need to tear up the scar tissue around the area and increase blood flow
  • Warmup/loosen hips – hips are too tight reducing range of motion

Current focus:

I need more circulation

  • Gua sha (or graston) for at least 5 min per day
Posture and Alignment

Symptoms: jutting forward head, misaligned hips, shoulders rounded forward

Brainstorm:

  • Cobra yoga pose – let the hips relax into better balance
  • Wall posture exercises – strengthen back muscles
  • Foam roller stretch – stretch chest muscles
  • Practice standing/walking – try to establish perfect alignment
  • Move joints more – joints are where everything attaches, moving the joints mean more relaxed and fluid movement

Current focus:

I need to see a chiropractor and also just slightly improve posture while doing things bad for posture (computer, phone):

  • Find a chiropractor within my health insurance
  • Focus on finding a comfortable way to look at the phone with head back (put your phone on your knees)
Vision

Symptoms: dry eyes, headaches (happens not very often), worsening vision

Brainstorm:

  • Relax into looking farther – stretches eye muscles
  • Move vision more – gets the eye muscles to work a little more
  • Do more active sports – forces your eyes to focus on things moving and far away
  • Blink more – resets the eyes

Current Focus:

I want to just relax my eyes more when looking at far away things, rather than trying to move closer.

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The Invitation From Life

Byjack

A few days ago, my coach asked me a powerful question. I don’t remember what it is but I came up with this poem.

the summer sun on the blue pool
smell of chlorine, flip flops on the concrete
the late nights in your city, lights on long streets
big dreams in a small classroom on a paper on the board
paint covering the canvases, dripping off the walls
life has always been waiting
for you to be recklessly, wildly, lovingly creative

This led to me deciding the most powerful question in this whole poem is “why has life always been waiting for you”?

I felt in many ways this is true. I live in a wonderfully creative city. I have a youtube channel, a coaching practice, a well-paying job with lots of free time. Life is waiting on me to make a move.

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Jack’s Emotional Processing Tool

Byjack

Here are the four steps:

  1. Acceptance, understanding, love
    • Vent, express all frustration and feeling with no filter
    • Notice all sensations in body
    • Hold yourself
  2. Self love
    • Self massage
    • Therapeutic dance
    • Humming
  3. Grounding
    • Immerse yourself in the present moment
    • Reframe situation in more real, grounded, present terms
  4. Creativity
    • Happy, loving memory
    • Reframe situation as positive using creativity

You will feel pain come up after step 1, if so go back to step 1.

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Bedtime Challenge 2: Wavering and Innovation

Byjack

I’ve done it, started to waver on my sleep challenge. The main issue is that I no longer take a hard stance on when I go to sleep, but the one thing that is holding over, is that I get to my bedroom by 11.

I want to recommit to getting into my bed by 11, even if I continue to stay up after.

However, despite wavering, and getting into bed at 11:30, I have started to innovate and think more carefully on how I spend the rest of the hours of my day:

  • I stop playing Valorant at 9 (or in the case of yesterday, don’t even play Valorant)
  • I started writing in my journal every night before bedtime to process any feelings that need to be processed
  • I started doing cupping before sleep to improve circulation
  • I also usually work on posture and my knee exercises

Now that I think about it, I actually succeeded pretty good at this challenge because I’m starting to feel like doing all sorts of things before bedtime such as drawing and reading books.

Another thing I like to do at night is listen to videos that are about AI and are interesting to me to keep up with the latest AI news.

I really like where all of this is going, and writing this at 5 AM in the morning makes me feel like it is nighttime and I’m feeling the vibes. I want to spend more time at night creating worlds. Either drawing, writing a novel or learning.