Become Happy in the Face of Physical Misery

Last week I came down with a bad case of poison oak rash. Now, that might not sound that bad, but this rash covers all over my body (including places best left undiscusssed) and also my face, eyes, mouth. It’s not pretty, and while I won’t go into details, it’s pretty disgusting and miserable.

I have to admit, it’s frustrating. I live a pretty healthy life, eating lots of vegetables and whole foods, very little sugar and refined carbs or processed foods, and get plenty of exercise, meditation, and more. My health is usually under my control, but for almost a week now, it hasn’t been.

This weekend, as I examined my body that is giving me so much physical discomfort and stress, I thought about what was making me unhappy. And if this were the case for the rest of my life, would I just be unhappy all the time?

I considered people who have physical ailments all the time. There are plenty of people whose bodies are out of their control, who cannot physically feel good most of the time, who have illnesses and miseries every day. I am very lucky compared to them.

So here’s the process I’ve been going through to help me be happier … with a note that I constantly fail at this process and have to try it again. I’m not perfect at it, but being perfect at it isn’t the point. Learning as I go through it is the point.

What am I holding onto? Two things mainly: the idea of myself as healthy and comfortable, and the expectation that life should be without physical discomfort. My idea of myself as healthy is something I have built up over the past 8 years, so when reality goes against this idea, I struggle. My expectation of life as something without pain, discomfort, itchiness, and some other gross things I won’t mention … it’s fairly strong. It’s hard to let go of these things.

Why let go of them? Because they are causing me more pain than the physical ailment itself. The real pain I’ve been going through is my inability to accept reality, and my desire for life to be a certain way. I want it my way. And when I can’t control that (which is pretty much all the time), I feel frustration, anger, depression, stress. Lots of stress. This applies to everything, not just physical ailments, but when anything doesn’t go the way I want it to.

So what’s the process for letting go? It’s first, realizing that I’m holding onto something, then second, realizing what it is I’m holding onto, and third, realizing it’s causing me pain. Then fourth, realizing that the thing I’m holding onto isn’t necessarily true. I’m not necessarily always a healthy person. I’m not always in comfort. This isn’t the way life should be, and in fact it’s not the way life always is.

This is a repeated process, because two minutes after letting go, I find myself desiring it again. I practice.

Once I let go of what I want things to be, I learn to accept reality. What is.

This isn’t always easy. Reality doesn’t match up with my fantasy/ideal of what life should be. I have to just see things for what they are, and accept them. Be grateful they are the way they are. Learn from what is.

This can be difficult because we tend to want to control things, not accept. Acceptance is seen as surrendering, passive, giving up. And yes, it’s a bit of each of these. But it’s not the end. Just because you accept, doesn’t mean you don’t act. It means you start with acceptance, then figure out the best way to act based on a place of peace and acceptance.

Acceptance isn’t a bad thing. It’s a good thing. It means you’re at peace with reality.

So I stop running away from the current moment, and just try to see with curiosity what actually is. And it’s not as bad as I’d feared. The fear, the resistance, the not wanting, is by far the worst part.

The next step in my process is to be grateful for what I have, and to act with compassion.

What does this mean?

When I’m miserable, it’s because I’m focusing on the things I see as “bad”. But I’m ignoring all the things I should be grateful for: being alive, being able to walk, being able to love, being loved, having friends, having a job I love … the list is endless.

I can find that gratitude, and focus on actions I can take that show that gratitude. If I’m constantly complaining (internally) about how miserable I am, that’s not a grateful action. If instead I seize the awesome life I have and do something good with it, that’s showing my gratitude for what I have.

Acting in compassion is what I try to do when I have accepted the moment. Just because you let go and then accept doesn’t mean you don’t act. It means you start from a place of acceptance of what actually is, and then decide how to act from there. Compassion is my guide for how to act from that place.

How do I act in compassion when my body is full of discomfort? Well, I can be compassionate with my body and take care of it. I can be compassionate with myself and give myself rest if I need it. Or I can be compassionate with others, and stop focusing on myself so much. I can find ways to alleviate the suffering of people around me, or find ways to take what I’m learning and share it with all of you, and hope that it helps someone.

Acting in compassion can take the focus off of yourself and put it somewhere that brings good in the world.

An update a few days after I wrote the post above: So yesterday I tried an industrial-strength scrub called Mean Green, and it worked so well I had to share it with you guys. I am not affiliated with it in any way and will make no money if you happen to buy it.

Basically I scrubbed myself raw with this stuff. It’s meant to remove grease, and so helps remove the oils you get from poison oak. Immediately I felt better, and within hours I could tell that my rash/wounds were healing instead of getting worse.

A day later, I’m much better. I’m going to scrub a couple areas again today, but basically, I’m out of the woods. I feel better today than I have in a week.

Thanks to my friend Ben Yu (co-founder of Sprayable Energy) for finding and ordering this stuff for me.

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How to Hack Relationships: 3 Ways Physical Touch Helps

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Tim Ferriss Getting His Ass Kicked + How to Survive a Physical Attack (Video Series)

This post might seem odd, as it starts with a random sequence from a random skill. There are three reasons for this:

1) I like to expose readers to things they’ve never explored.
2) The best long-term policy for keeping a blog fun to read (and write) is to cover things that subsets of your readers love, not things that everyone merely likes.
3) I think all of you should know how to respond to a real physical attack.

Keeping these in mind, I hope you enjoy a lil’ taste of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, often nicknamed “human chess.”

If it’s not your thing, I still suggest you skip to the end, where you can see the free (and short) video series I did with Dave Camarillo on defending against real-world attacks of various types. I had these videos up at one time in 2007, but the code became corrupted, so I’m updating them here.

One of the last videos is of me getting thrown on my head, or heels-over-head, repeatedly.

Since the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) came to prominence in 2005, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) has been the most sought-after skill-set in the marital arts world. There are many world-class athletes, but there are only a few world-class teachers. Dave Camarillo, who’s coached UFC fighters like Cain Velasquez, is one of them…

I’ve known Dave for nearly a decade and trained with him at AKA in San Jose, CA. I also had the chance to be a crash-test dummy for his new book, Submit Everyone, which is the book I always wanted him to write. It is (finally) a principle-based system for learning submissions and game strategy, as opposed to a hodge-podge of random techniques. Dave, though he’d never admit it, used to teach chess in addition to BJJ. It comes through and, as of this writing, his book has 100% 5-star reviews on Amazon.

For grappling fans, the below pass will give you a submission to try at your next practice. This scenario comes up a lot on the mats.

PHOTO 1: SUBJECT CAMARILLO is approaching the open guard of CONTACT FERRISS, TIMOTHY. As always, Camarillo does not delay in establishing control of Ferriss’s heels. At this point, Ferriss is focused solely on defending these grips and has been momentarily taken out of his previous mindset.

PHOTOS 2-4: Without delay, Camarillo pushes Ferriss’s legs overhead and waits for him to rock back in defense. As Ferriss falls into the first trap, Camarillo steps inside of his seated guard. Ferriss does not wait and grabs the single-leg to gain advantage and attack.

PHOTO 5: However, Camarillo realizes that the single-leg is the most common reaction and is already cross-stepping backward with his left leg before Ferriss can execute a sweep or takedown. Due to his perfect timing, Camarillo does not have to wait for Ferriss to establish a stronger defense of the backward cross-step.

PHOTO 6: Having reached Ferriss’s left side, Camarillo now focuses on the arm by securing a figure-four kimura lock on Ferriss’s exposed (from holding the single-leg) left arm. [TIM: See third pic here for hand position] Camarillo’s right leg is still technically inside of the guard, but Camarillo has little concern for it; he is completely focused on the finish.

PHOTO 7: To break Ferriss’s posture and initiate the final sequence, Camarillo jumps his left foot to Ferriss’s left hip and sits down onto Ferriss’s left shoulder. This collapses Ferriss toward the mat and sets him up for the submission.

PHOTO 8: As Camarillo falls to his back, he slides a belt line hook with his left leg and uses his right foot as a hook to steer Ferriss away from his trapped arm. This keeps Ferriss planted to his back where it is far more difficult to defend.

PHOTO 9: Ferriss locks the triangle on Camarillo’s right leg, but it does not matter. Camarillo’s right leg blocks Ferriss’s right arm from making a proper defense and his triangle makes it impossible to roll to either side to escape.

Camarillo stretches Ferriss’s arm for the finish.

First, before the instructionals, here is me getting thrown over and over again. I did this video to illustrate the importance knowing how to fall (ukemi) without getting injured. The music is a bit loud:

The instructionals follow. If you want to skip around, they cover, in order: punch defense, choke defense, bottom defense, and bottom defense/offense. Women should focus on the latter three, especially the last two.

Originally filmed in 2007, most take place at AKA in San Jose, where Dave coached at the time:

Posted on January 8th, 2012

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