“Alchemize whatever wounds are stopping you, and give people food”
How do we give people food?
We teach them what we’ve learned that has helped us.
We create and share Dharma Artifacts.
I finished reading Robert Greene’s Mastery yesterday as part of Erick Godsey’s Mentally Fit Game Curriculum. The graduating standard for the module that I’m currently on is not as straightforward as the other modules; it is to conduct a “Focused45 experiment”—a 45 day challenge where you commit to the following:
2 Dharma Sprints per day.
A dharma sprint is a predetermined block of time (usually 90 minutes) where you commit to doing undistracted deep work on an important task/sequence of tasks you deliberately intend to do. During the timeframe you’ve chosen, you can either work on what you intended, or you can meditate—nothing else. You can do your sprints solo, or alongside others (either physically or digitally, both of which exponentially amplifies the ease of being able to focus through the magic of accountability and comraderie).
During the dharma sprints, in addition to doing relevant/important work tasks, you are encouraged to ‘eat death cookies’ — do the things you’re avoiding which are draining you of your life force. Have the hard conversation and confess what you’ve been lying to yourself (and others) about. File your damn taxes. Clean the stupid garage. Digest the years of unresolved trauma that you’re dumping onto the people that you love every time they try to get close to you. “Death crumbs” can be things like emptying out the hundreds (thousands) of unread emails and unsubscribing to all the junk. You know deep down what these death cookies are—you can feel them humming in the back of your mind like the background hum of an old refrigerator. The thing you keep saying “eventually”, or worse, lie to yourself that it’s not that big of a deal, while it’s slowly poison dripping you with shame and self hate. Eat the damn cookies.
At the end of a sprint, it’s good to have a moment of reflection and see how it went for you; how did you feel during it? Were you able to focus? What could you change about your environment or preparation to improve your followthrough next time?
I have been doing 2-3 sprints and eating hella death cookies since October. It’s been superb as a level of structure during one of the most challenging periods of my life.90 minutes of movement
In Ancient Greece, particularly during the classical period, emphasis was placed on excellence as virtue — a concept known as ‘arete’ — which applied to both physical and intellectual actualization. Then, the body and mind were more appreciated as a unified continuum; excellence of one was tied to the other. Plato’s named literally translates to “broad shoulders” — he was an accomplished wrestler, and someone who was mythologically (and perhaps satyrically) portrayed as getting up to flex his muscles mid philosophical debate. His mentor, Socrates, is credited with the quote "It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable."
Compare and contrast that with our modern myths and cultures. Academics are walking heads, artists are culturally known to be weak, frail, fragile-minded, hedonistic.
While working on your dharma, 90 minutes of movement is mandatory. Feed and train your body well, and the container grows to hold more of your soul. I have also been strength training nearly every day, or going for long, brisk walks to the tune of 10,000-20,000+ steps per day as my daily movement.Nightly Dharma Review
When you lay down to sleep every night, attempt to replay yourday with your imagination. Any point of the day you noticed you listened
to your soul, did something brave, acted in accordance with truth even when it was hard, followed through on intention, embodied your dharma, cherish it.
Whenever you lied, withheld, malnipulated, or otherwise acted out of integrity with your soul, own and acknowledge you did so. Then, instead of stewing in shame and blame, imagine replaying the moment and see yourself do the brave, good, and true thing instead.Cherish the new replay. Go to sleep.
I have not been doing this, and feel oddly resistant to it. It’s why I’m going to start doing it right away.A daily habit of your choice
For myself, that’s a 45 minute Joe Dispenza guided meditation where I’m practicing the emotions that I want to feel in my future, rebuilding my capacity for love, gratitude, and pleasure, restoring my ability to tell a different story about my destiny, and get comfortable being able to rest in the armchair of the present moment.
I truly believe that life and the circumstances we live are a reflection of the sum total of the energy/vibration that we emit. It’s woo-woo as shit, and yet I have witnessed too many auspicious “coincidences” and have enough confirming data points to be empirical about this in my own life.
I have experienced all manner of wild “impossible” manifestations, synchronicities, mystical states of consciousness, and quantum weirdness when I have been consistent with my meditations. Many of the manifestations and miracles have ended up imploding shortly after when my sub/unconscious mind and the psychic pain parasites of trauma reared their ugly heads. I have been able to manifest with perfect accuracy every desire that I have visualized to date, as well as an exact reflection of my deepest fears and insecurities that I believed would destroy me.
The work I’ve been doing in the Mentally Fit game, as well as shadow work and trauma release I’ve been doing on my own with coaches are the ultimate experiment in reality creation through managing my own personal energy. I would meditate twice per day if I didn’t feel like it was an overcommitment.Doing a big scary thing at the end: Produce a dharma artifact
This is the part that’s making me squirm. By the end of the Focused45 experiment, it culminates in doing a big scary thing, eating a big gnarly death cookie, producing what Erick calls a dharma artifact:
"A Dharma Artifact is a model of knowledge, proofed via your direct experience, that creates a desired transformation…If you were ever over-weight and then got back into health without an eating disorder you have a model of knowledge that could change people’s lives.
If you have ever taught yourself a useful skill that improved your health, wealth, or relationships you have a model of knowledge that could change people’s lives.
If you have healed any kind of physical or emotional injury, you have a model of knowledge that could change people’s lives.
Hint: If you’re reading this, you have dharma artifacts inside you. You wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t.”
Now, the thing is… I have a LOT of models of knowledge that could change peoples’ lives, and I’ve used many of them in the past to help people get incredible results. I have models of training, functional fitness, spiritual exploration, marketing and building/growing online businesses, holistic nutrition, healing disease through metabolic health, habit and behavior change, trauma release, creative growth, communication, social skills, men’s dating, to name a few of the “systems” that I’ve mapped out on my own journey (and coached others in).
My “big scary death cookie” is to start building out a vision I had for years — an online education platform that lays out all my maps. A comprehensive library of the most practicable systems and programs for healing, and self actualization, body, mind, heart, and soul. It scares the shit out me—it’s not just the hard work that I’m coming up against. It’s every gnawing voice questioning my worthiness that I’ve been sitting with for months, the wounds that have been calling me to alchemize them so I can give the people food. I have an abundance of nourishment for the souls of the world within me, and it is destroying me to not share it.
That’s why I must do it.
For the sake of clear definition: at the end of the 45 day experiment, I will have produced and launched a paid Skool community with at least one full video course
The Plan
Prior to this more deliberate Focused45 experiment, I was still tracking my habits and going dharma sprint style at the following behaviors to do the Mentally Fit Game:
60 minutes of reading/taking notes
90 minutes of writing/reflection — culminating in something being published (aiming for 80% or more of days hitting ‘post’, one of the requirements for the MF Game)
60 minutes of strength training and/or 10-20k steps walking/day
25-45 minutes of guided meditation
I’ve been tracking these in a tiny graph paper notebook:
The visual feedback and date tracking helped me identify the details of what kept me consistent, and what knocked me off course. Watching the progress week after week of the little black squares fill out more of the block is primally satisfying, but also provided valuable feedback for schedule iteration. I learned that I need to front-load most of the things I am to do before 9 am, partially because that’s when I work best, partially because if I didn’t, the chaos and demands of the day caring for my family would often inhibit the available time and privacy I had for followthrough.
For my own Focused45, I’ll be doing the following:
Morning Routine Sprint
20 minute morning pages a la The Artist’s Way (the recommended companion book for a Focused45).
45 minute meditation
30 minutes of reading
Work Sprint 1
Work Undistracted for 90 minutes on my death cookie
Work Sprint 2
Work Undistracted for another 90 minutes on my death cookie
Training Sprint
Strength train for 60 minutes
Run hard for 30 minutes (ideally outside, can be to/from gym)
Content Sprint
90 minutes of undistracted work on publishing something that is sharing my progress/learnings on the project. This can be on Instagram, Youtube, or Substack.
This is a total of 6.5 hours of commitment per day. I currently don’t have the luxury to spend this time, but I will as of January 8th, when I leave my father’s house, and land in Mexico, where I’ll be living alone by the beaches of Tulum for just over two months. There’s other work and familial obligations that I must tend to until then—and I’ll be keeping the routine I’ve been on until I leave and have my own space and more schedule freedom.
This project feels daunting yet doable, clear as day, yet still a bit vague. I don’t know what I’m stepping into exactly, but it feels like the right thing, my feet feel firm on the solid ground of the path ahead.
Tomorrow, I will talk more about my vision and how the Mentally Fit Game has helped me refine my dream.
Until then — what would you do as your big scary thing at the end of 45 days of dharma-driven focus?