Category: Self Mastery

It’s been a while folks, I dedicate this post to one of my customers I met the other day and he described my blog as ‘off the wall’. I’ve always thought my blog was rather tame, but to be honest it was still really great to get some positive feedback since most of the comments I get on the blog are spam posts about either Viagra or porn websites – I’ll share some one day, they’re so dumb.
The last few months have been a bit of a challenge- the cycle seems to be coming back to a gloomy introspective phase as we officially kick off into the beauty of spring. As far as I’m concerned – this is my New Year. This is the time a new cycle of work and opportunity takes form as I leave behind the stillness of winter. This is the time to begin enacting plans and preparing the soil for this year’s crop – new beginnings and the like –it’s a time to be excited.

Being honest, tonight I don’t find myself excited but that’s alright –it’s all swings and roundabouts –meaning everything has a rhythm. The gloomy introspection lends itself to writing earnestly about stuff instead of excitedly making funny videos – so let’s take advantage of it. That dear reader is the crux of this essay today – learn the cycles of the universe and take advantage of them. This includes day and night, the phases of the moon as well as the seasons.

Disclaimer, this post is a bit on the crazy hippie end of the spectrum, open your mind, line up your chakras and give a guy a bit of artistic lenience. What I’m about to share with you – like most of my posts is a combination of research in the scientific and spiritual fields as well as my own personal experiences: I read, I apply, I observe, I share.

So everything in the universe has a rhythm. Time itself maybe a human construct but we definitely experience a world made of peaks and troughs.

So the first obvious cycle we see in our world is the day and night cycle. At night everything but the owls are asleep.  Everything else is at rest.

Personally I have found the days I wake up early are the days I get the most done – usually after a solid night’s sleep. What I’m getting at, when I as a creature of the universe (the Taoists –refer to the internal human as ‘the small universe’ ) am in harmony with the cycles around me, I tend to get more done –things just flow better. I find a carpark in front of where I need to go and things just line perfectly in an almost scary way. When I sleep in and start the day on the back foot things tend to get in my way almost intentionally – as if to punish me for being slack and lazy – I have nothing to back this other than simply this is just how things seem to throw down.

Next I’m going to talk to you about the moon – still wearing that hippie hat? Cool, because some of you might think I’m right mad (if you didn’t think so already) –here goes…
Personally, I think the cycles of the moon affect us – oh shit, I said it.

To what degree I don’t know –studies on the subject seem to generally be inconclusive; though there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence around the topic. The way I look at it the moon’s gravitational pull is strong enough to create the tides– we’re made up of mostly water –ergo to suggest maybe the moon affects us isn’t a preposterous proposition – just something to think about. Medicine men from the present to antiquity from all over the world harvest medicinal plants in phase with the moon and some gardeners recommend planting at certain phases. Superstition or spiritual secret I don’t know – really your personal experience and experimentation is the only way to find out. Personally I have found undertaking a personal endeavour on a new moon it seems to flow easier and a lot of the spiritualists recommend cutting habits when the moon is waning (getting smaller).

Next, I’m going to discuss a concept inspired by Jim Rohn-a motivational speaker and a self improvement mastermind – I have mixed feelings about this guy but his talk on this matter is beautiful. It crystallized something an older mate of mine had once said to me –my mate isn’t exactly a pagan and definitely not a hippie– I’d call him a pragmatic spiritualist.

“Ayman, in spring we go white baiting, in summer we go fishing, in autumn we go duck shooting and in winter we rest, reflect and rebuild.”
-A Ford

You can’t go white baiting in winter, you can’t go duck shooting in summer etc. There’s a time and a place for everything.

“Life and business is like the season’s- You cannot change the season’s”
“You can however, change yourself”

– Jim Rohn

Learn how to sow in the spring time, how to protect your crop in the summer, to harvest without apology in autumn and how to live through the winter.

The important thing about winter is that it doesn’t last forever and it is inevitably followed by spring. Use winter to rest, to plan and to prepare for the sowing you’re going to do in spring.
Your life time also has seasons – sayings like ‘the autumn years’ etc. A day could be interpreted as a mini season – dawn, midday, evening and night. Everything small is a reflection of the bigger picture and vice versa.

There are also different types of winters- emotional winters – mine happened in late summer – through to the end of autumn but I certainly survived and came out stronger and the thing that got me through it was knowing what was going on and that it was going to get better – all while occasionally listening to “Spring to Come” by the John Butler Trio.

Lastly, every major religion or spiritual movement –love them or hate them- preach one thing in one way or another and that is the concept of Harmony.

Harmony is what this universe is built on: The harmonic vibration of atoms to make a coffee table, the harmonic rhythm of the moon to keep the tides flowing, the harmonic intervals that make music what it is -you get the idea. If you can truly understand and internalise the importance of harmony you will live a considerably happier life. If humanity could work in harmony with each other and the planet –the whole state of our existence could be rapidly improved.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony”
Mahatamamamama Gandhi

I’ll take that one step further – when you steer yourself towards living in harmony with everything around you, your life will change dramatically – your life will flow more effortlessly than Mac Lethal, Aesop Rock and Eminem combined. This includes your sleep/wake cycle, your diet and your relationships with other people. When two sound or light waves are out of sync with each other i.e they are disharmonious –they create DESTRUCTIVE interference- i.e they weaken or outright destroy each other – what do you think disharmony creates in your life?

Hopefully this has given you some interesting thoughts to mull over. Perhaps we’ll visit the concept of harmony again in future with slightly more pragmatic / practical elements.

Until next time my dear friends.

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Hello everyone, it’s been a while. To everyone who’s given me feedback, shared or otherwise shown their support I thank you from the bottom of my heart and beard.

So, what am I talking about today? Honestly, I have no idea. Inspiration has been a little hard to come by lately. When you’re in a bad space it’s very hard to be charged with positive vibes and write positive material to fire up and inspire your readers. That being said, it’s important to just do it. The muse might see your steadfast dedication to the cause and reveal her beautiful face.

A few minutes in and here she is.

The importance of staying the cause; the destination is fixed but the route will vary.

An important lesson I’ve learned over the years is as follows: there will always be setbacks, road blocks and challenges – it’s your job to navigate around them and stay to the course.

Challenges are going to be presented – this is not because the universe doesn’t want you to succeed – it’s testing you to see how much you want something – if it was easy would it be worth having?

Energy in = Energy out

You dig?

Sometimes you will have to go over a hurdle, go around a mountain or even dig through it.
The important thing is to keep a level head, grit your teeth and find your way around the hurdle. That is, if your dream is worth it.

You’d better have just said to yourself ‘yeah it is worth it’ – it’s your fucking dream man! Why aren’t you using every drop of your energy working towards it? Even if it’s a small step every day, you’ll be miles ahead of everyone who’s ‘waiting for that perfect moment’ or ‘will start on it tomorrow’.

There’s an old adage I quite like:

“Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.”
Source unknown – Spanish in origin.

So you know that you’ve got to keep persevering, but the most important part is to hold fast to where you’re going. Just like your dedication to the muse, you should be dedicated to your cause. The more dedication and devotion you show it, the more it will give you in return.

Here’s another nautical analogy because you’re all captains of your own ships: The sea changes every day, but your destination shouldn’t.  A lot of us lose sight or give up a lot earlier than we should-or changing our course to something that’s more fun or easier because what we were working on got too hard – Sirens or lagoons full of wenches and alcohol or whatever.
Things seem to get hard and we falter and give up or give in to temptation – this usually happens just as we’re on the edge of victory.  Napoleon Hill discusses this in one of his books – the story of the man who bought a disused gold mine to find whoever had given up on it previously was only 3 feet away from striking gold. This comes back to the old saying ‘it’s always darkest before the dawn’.

Anyway, I think I’ll leave this article short and sweet.

Remember that your life is a journey and it’s up to you to decide where it’s going. There’s no beauty or nobility toiling in a job you hate just to pay the bills, there’s no glory or fulfillment in being a drift in an endless sea with nothing but Netflix, video games and a nice house to pass the time. You’re here to experience life and make the most of your time here – don’t waste it.

“Life without endeavour is like entering a jewel mine and coming out with empty hands”
-Some Japanese guy.

I hope that some of you reading this have begun to find your destination and your ‘why’ so just remember to stay the course. I believe in you and I’d love to hear how you’re going. If you’re interested check the rest of my posts out here.

If you want a good book on ‘the journey’ that will certainly inspire you to your own I recommend ‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho.

If you would like to support my cause feel free to have a look at my online store,  follow me on the social medias or comment below -feedback is always appreciated!

Humans are self programming, self replicating, self healing machines that get better at whatever it is they spend their time doing.
There are however two detrimental downsides to this perfect creature:

1) Humans have to carry around their primal baggage in the form of the ego and the reptilian brain – the idiots who are only interested in instant gratification – I’ve always referred to this as my inner Labrador because it all it wants to do is play, fight, sleep, eat and fuck.

2) Humans have free will and with free will comes the freedom to chose what you do with your time and life.

Your soul is at the helm of a most perfect machine- it is capable of anything you set it to. Regrettably you have to share the helm with an ‘ego’tistical maniac and an ‘id’iot.

It is your job as your higher self (your ideal, your soul, your best self, your inner badass) to control your other two cabin mates in order to get the best out of your life for yourself and those around you –otherwise, you’re being ruled by either an idiot or a maniac.

Free will is your ultimate gift, it’s a blessing; it means you can do whatever the fuck you want to do –but with this blessing comes the shadow- the seed of its own destruction. The freedom to make good choices comes with the freedom to make bad choices and either way, YOU have to bear the consequences.

“You see, I believe in freedom, Mr. Lipwig. Not many people do, although they will, of course, protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be completely without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.”
Havelock Vetenari , Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

So things would be a lot easier if we weren’t stuck with our primal roommates –however without them we wouldn’t be here – they are the driving forces that kept us alive for millennia and keep us breathing, eating, shitting and fucking when we need to. However, the ego over thinks and usually destroys himself and the Labrador doesn’t give a shit what actually needs to be done and only cares about the sleeping, eating, fucking etc.  This means unless we learn to keep them in line they’ll rule our lives and we’ll end up nowhere.

Back to the topic at hand: the more you do something the easier it gets or looked at from another angle – the more you practice something the better you are at doing it – fun fact – this includes making good choices instead of bad -shall I do something for long term gain? or shall I do something for instant gratification?
Play guitar enough and your brain will start to think rhythmically and your fingers will actually be able to stretch further and you’ll also build calluses to stop the pain of pushing on strings.
Go for a run every day and your body will slowly get lighter and you’ll be able to run further and faster with every step.

Lift weights at the gym and your muscles will get stronger –enabling you to lift more.

Read more books and you’ll be able to read and comprehend faster –you’ll also likely increase your vocabulary if you read widely.

Write regularly and you’ll find the words come to you easier every time, writer’s block hinders you less and it gets easier to edit and create with every piece you write.

So those are just a few examples of the things your body and mind are capable of doing provided you actually start TRYING to do them.

You come home from work, sit in front of [Facebook / TV / Netflix/ preferred wank material / video game of choosing] and don’t get up until it’s time to [cook / eat / sleep]
-you get good at feeling tired and lethargic after work and not doing much of anything

You play any video game for extended periods of time and are very good at playing dark souls or league of legends or whatever.
-you get good at sitting on your arse and moving your fingers around very fast

You set a bunch of snooze alarms and wake up over the course of about 40 minutes instead of just getting up when your alarm goes off (snooze surfing as I like to call it)
– you get very good at not getting out of bed when you need to

You usually see the negative in things and expect the worst from people and situations, silver linings are things other people have to point out to you.
-you will likely end up having depression.

You see an ad for something delicious or smell something and immediately go and buy/ eat it without actually being hungry regardless of the shitty quality of the calories therein.
– you get good at failing to control your impulses and eating even if you’re not hungry

Your phone goes off while you’re [driving / working / reading/ doing anything important] and you have to stop whatever you were doing right away to look at your phone.
-you get really good at getting distracted by the magic box that lives in your pocket

These are just a few examples of things you train yourself to do every day without even thinking about it.

But Ayman I am tired after work and I like playing video games and delicious food is delicious.

I know, but are these things actually serving you? Or are they holding you back?  Are you happy with your life at the moment? Or do you use these things to keep you distracted and complacent because you’re unhappy about your job and your waistline?

The Buddha, Tony Robbins, Alan Watts and a bunch of other people have stated something along the following:

Anything we do, we do it to experience pleasure or to avoid pain.

This can include food, drugs, video games, porn, procrastination – the sky is the limit and funnily enough the things that usually give us instant pleasure or temporary escapism are what in the long run cause us the most pain.
So when you find yourself doing something that isn’t leading towards a better you or you’re unhappy with where your life is take a step back and ask yourself ‘why am I doing what I’m currently doing?’

If the answer isn’t good, then consider reprogramming yourself because it’s never too late to teach an old dog new tricks –it just takes willpower and effort – proportional to the amount of reprogramming you have to do. Your own worst enemy is yourself and the Labrador isn’t something to be hated or neglected –he’s just stupid and needs to be trained properly – with the correct attitude and action he can be a useful ally – but that is a post for another day.

Always remember, you only have the freedom to choose what to do RIGHT NOW. You have no way to control or change what you’ve done or what you’re going to do – so make sure you’re doing something beneficial.

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Now that I have your attention let’s do this!

Sleep is important: Fucking important. You almost certainly don’t get enough of it. It’s usually the first thing we neglect when we need to get more time out of our day. Be it video games, Netflix, going to the gym or staying up late with a special someone playing hide the sausage. Sleep is usually shelved in favour of getting more out of your day.

Every living thing in the universe goes through cycles of activity and rest. Not getting an adequate rest period upsets the natural harmony of your body and subsequently your natural harmony with the universe. Needless to say, this can have some seriously detrimental effects on your life and overall health. Whether you like it or not, you are not a single entity – you are part of a whole
network / ecosystem of poles –the whole system has a rhythm and you are part of that rhythm – you need to have a trough in order to have a peak – the weaker your trough the shittier your peak.

Here’s a totally bullshit, ultimately meaningless graph to demonstrate my point:

On a less metaphysical level getting a good amount of sleep is crucial for:

Weight loss
Metabolic waste disposal
Improved physical and cognitive performance
Muscle building
Proper hormone balance
Mood
And a bunch of other good shit.

While the above is definitely a good time and well worth getting a good sleep, to me the most important thing about sleep is its effect on your Will Power. Not enough sleep results in a shoddy prefrontal cortex. This means you have diminished will power and aren’t as self aware as you’re normally capable of being; resulting in poor performance, shitty decision making and awful impulse control.

Hence the title: More sleep = more fucks because you give more of a fuck about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it instead of just coasting on auto pilot.

You’ll be in better control of the shit you do, you’ll be more creative and you’ll be more efficient. Your interactions with other people will be better and you’ll generally have a better day. So get to it and get some rest.  It’s not directly going to get you more fucks – but it’ll help you give a fuck as well as perhaps increase your social skills well enough to get you fucked.

Also try and make sure you try to get as much sleep between 10pm and 2am because that’s allegedly where a lot of your hormone regulation happens – really good for weight loss, will power and overall health.

So to quote a popular kid’s book:

GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP.

This article was dedicated to the lovely young lady who came up with the article’s title spinning my own words back against me in a perfect moment of karmic retribution – you had to be there.

Here are some sweet, easy to digest links on the subject:
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/10/14/sleep-science/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTlJnyF3REs
The Sleep Revolution – Arianna Huffington

If you would like to support my cause feel free to have a look at my online store,  follow me on the social medias or comment below -feedback is always appreciated!

Every situation is potentially positive or potentially negative and everything contains the seed of its own destruction.
Today, we’re going abstract. I hope by the end of this I’ve broadened your horizons and you’re not freaking out that your favourite Arab is madder than you had previously thought.

The following essay is based on my interpretations of Hermeticism, mysticism, Tao and other natural philosophies. If you have questions or want to know more be in touch. If this is a subject you’d be interested in discussing with like minded fellows let me know and I’ll add you to the guest list for my next gentlemen’s philosophy evening.

The world we live in is made of opposites- light and dark, hot and cold, push and pull, soft and hard. This is referred to as ‘the law of polarity’ in Hermetics. The yin-yang is a perfect example of this: Darkness has a ‘seed’ of light and light a ‘seed’ of darkness and they’re both moving towards each other in perfect equilibrium– darkness forever into light, light forever into darkness.

“Hang on a second there Merlin what does this have to do with anything?”

“I’m glad you ask young grass hopper”

“Grasshopper? What kind of fucking wizard are you?”

“One with a hat, so shut up and eat your wisdom”

What I’m getting at is: EVERYTHING CAN BEAR GLORIOUS AND PERFECT CREATION OR CATACLYSMIC WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION. This depends on how you handle the situation and more importantly how you handle yourself. If you don’t understand what I’m saying I’ll throw down some real world examples that might shed some light on the subject:

Social media is a great way to connect to people, reach more customers and let loved ones who are far away see snippets of your life. Social media can also be an unfulfilling, highly addictive waste of time.

Cannabis is a great way to unwind, an all round pain killer and a potential cancer cure. It is also a potentially habit forming, expensive demotivator that can keep you from reaching your full ‘Pot’ential.

Losing a loved one can completely cripple you emotionally and mentally for an extended period of time. You can mope and be depressed or you can channel that pain into something constructive and come out a better, stronger person. The loss can also teach you a lot about people and about yourself.

Sex is a beautiful expression of passion, love and intimacy. It can strengthen the bonds of a relationship and make for an unbreakable union between a couple. Sex and lust can also break relationships, cause participating parties to simply pursue pleasure above anything else and result in emotionally immature people bouncing between beds, chasing meaningless empty hook ups in the hope of finding wholeness(not realising wholeness is something to be found within the self – not with someone else first). 

Water is the life blood of our planet, it facilitates life as we know it. Water can also whether mountains, level entire countries, drown people and germinate seeds.

This person I’m seeing is very sweet, fun and sexy. They motivate me to succeed and occasionally help me but when we’re together we eat junk food, stay up late and waste a lot of time.

Fire is a useful energy source that enables us to cook our food, power engines and  get things done. Fire can also burn, destroy and pollute.

Every one of the examples above has both a positive and a negative aspect for the same thing. What is the governing factor?

You are the governing factor. You control your own success and your own destruction. You are the master of your own destiny and if you know yourself and know your weaknesses and are aware when you’re slipping into decline you will be able to enjoy most things without being consumed by them. This is where discipline, self control and sticking to your goals come in, these are your map and compass on the path to becoming the best you imaginable. It is important to be honest with yourself and ask the question: Why am I doing what I’m currently doing? If answered honestly, you will know what your motivating factor is and whether or not it is the best course of action. If you lie to yourself just to get some carnal / basal thing you just want right now, then eventually karma will bite you in the arse and you will pay for it. You must stay the course – detours are ok but you must always be mindful of where you’re going and what you’re doing– otherwise you will eventually hit rocks.

Funny thing about rocks at sea – there are usually Sirens and you don’t realize they’re Sirens until you hit the rocks and those beautiful sea babes are feasting upon your flesh.

Stay vigilant, stay honest and stay the course.

Good luck fellow space travelers.

I hope this has given you something to think about.

If you would like to support my cause feel free to have a look at my online store,  follow me on the social medias or comment below -feedback is always appreciated!