A New Challenge (17)

Falling Down 1000 Times, Getting Up 1001 Times

“Each time that I find myself flat on my face,
I pick myself up and get back in the race.”      
That’s Life

Reading time: 11 minutes

Real freedom can only be obtained by a willingness to fall down and getting back up again. Image: Erik Stout

A well-known delusion says that as soon as we become aware of thought and behavioural patterns that do not serve us anymore, they can be abandoned immediately. Therefore, every time they happen again after we became aware of them, while we don’t want them to happen, self-blame and self-frustration are lurking around the corner. Yet, these traits tend to keep those patterns firmly in place.

Since I was allowed to experience that delusion again for the utmost time in the last months, this article reveals what happens when my body says ‘no’, and what was done (and not done) to return back to my path.

When The Body Says No

A pathogenic conviction that still has deep roots in my psyche, finds its origin in the calvinistic proverb: Idle hands are the devil’s playground. In other words, if I am not productive in one sense or another during every waking moment of my existence, I’m a lazy bastard who deserves nothing but scorn, blame, and punishment.

That translates into a rigid belief that while being here in Chiang Mai, I ought to relentlessly follow my work and desired publication schedule each and every day of the week, with breaks few and far in between – and never longer than half a day. And despite the obvious love for all the things I’m doing and the projects I’m engaged in, doesn’t mean that I can’t wear myself out.

So, halfway last December, there had been a small tweaking of my back, which coincided with launching the Jolly Equilibrium YouTube channel. Obviously there was a lot of apprehension for, and attachment to, that launch, resulting in this familiar stress injury.

Too much attachment to the launch of my YouTube channel resulted in a mild tweaking of my back - a well known stress injury. Image: jonnyqueirozcl

That small tweaking kept on lingering until the end of the month, when a big tweaking happened during my daily tai chi practice. That one kept me in foetal position in bed for a day and a half, and it had become quite obvious that I had been crossing my boundaries.

Then, in the second week of the new year I caught a mild cold, which manifested itself mainly in a sore throat, fatigue, and general malaise. There was frustration about that, since the pain of the tweaked back was just beginning to subside enough to be able to resume my normal daily schedule. Yet I thought it was better to take it easy (or I deluded myself into taking it easy) by working an hour less a day and skip my swim training while there was still a sore throat.  

January 14th marked the first full moon in 2025, and I desired to have a drink on a terrace and watch the moon that evening. However, that day there was still a sore throat and my body basically told me to go to bed early. Yet, the desire for ‘doing something fun’ was stronger than the sense to take it easy and give the body a chance to recover, so off I went.

Naturally, the drink didn’t taste all that nice with the sore throat and all, so after having drunk it (and feeling bad and guilty about my decision to give in to my senseless and egotistical desire), I was about to head home when a young man asked if he could join my table.

Feeling acknowledged and thereby having my ego stroked and soothed, we soon engaged in a deep conversation that took about one hour and a half, or maybe even two hours. All the while I sat crossed legged with my right leg over my left, and began to feel somewhat of a discomfort on the outside of my right leg (just below the knee), but paid no conscious attention to it.

The conviction that acknowledgement needs to be obtained outside of myself, caused me to sit for too long in the same position while being totally immersed in a conversation. That resulted in an acute drop foot. Image: StockSnap

After we parted, and I walked on home, all of a sudden I noticed something weird, because I heard a small ‘slap’ in the rhythm of my walking. Upon inspection, I had developed an acute drop foot on my right side. No matter what I did, I was completely unable to lift my toes or foot, and could impossibly walk on my right heel. Moreover, the only way to walk without making any sound, was to walk on the outer edge of my right foot.

That was a bit of a scare, since the absence of any pain or other sensory disturbance indicated some kind of nerve damage. Thankfully, my physiotherapy training came in handy, for immediately I was aware that I had most likely pinched the peroneal nerve on my right leg, right below the knee, for the total duration of the conversation. This was confirmed by ruling out nerve damage on the level of the brain or spine with a few easy diagnostic tests.

Nevertheless, what had simultaneously become apparent, was the fact that even though nociceptors in the pinched nerve area were sending signals up to the brain saying that there was something going on which was not healthy for the nerve, my brain (or: mind/ego) ignored it because the acknowledgement from my interlocutor was much more important (Cf. Lorimer Moseley on Pain).

In other words: my full awareness was directed at my external world, and literally none of it was directed at my internal world, i.e. myself, because of the belief that soothing for my ‘stupidity’ had to come from ‘outside’.

It took four days to fully get the muscular function back to the point where walking on both heels was again possible. Yet it had become clear that I had been crossing my physical and mental boundaries pretty severely, because, again, my senseless (or: unreasonable) desires had become more important than the reality of needing a break.

Cultivation of Loving Oneself: Taking a Break And Getting To Know Myself Deeper

The universe always provides in the darkest hour before the dawn, so two days after I gave myself the drop foot, the Wat Pa Tam Wua Buddhist Forest Monastery emerged from an article. It offers up to ten day retreats to practice and learn about meditation, and make it into a Vipassana silent retreat for those who want to dive into themselves.

Positioned in beautiful nature and not far from Chiang Mai (and close to the hippie enclave Pai, which was also still on my bucket list), I decided on a five day visit, of which three were spent in silent-mode. That meant: no talking, reading, writing, listening to music or lectures on my phone; just following the daily monastic program and being with myself. That revealed a couple of valuable insights, which were preceded by funny stories, of which I’ll share a few below.

Story #1: Acknowledge me!

On my first silent day at the end of the afternoon meditation class, students could ask questions to the Thai teacher monk. At some point, a young lady asked a question that the teacher did not understand. Immediately ways to formulate the question so that he would understand entered my mind, and a big urge to ‘help the lady out’ emerged, which caused excitement in my body, most likely caused by expected acknowledgement as a result of my ‘knowledge and altruism’. Keeping silent actually felt hard at that moment, and laid bare my conditioned desire to be heard and acknowledged.

A second example where this desire manifested itself happened during walking meditation. Right before me was a gentleman in a wheeled chair, and a small, brown leaf, was stuck on his left wheel. Immediately the urge to ‘help’ arose by wanting to remove the leaf, not least because my semi-autistic brain made the argument up that the gentleman would also be happy with the ‘restored’ symmetry. I had to laugh when the urge came up, but even more so when, some minutes later, the leaf fell off by itself. Immediately a quote from the book The Heart of Buddhist Meditation (Nyanaponika Thera) flowed into my mind:

“How many entanglements will not be avoided, and how many problems will not solve themselves without our contribution?!”

Story #2: The Snoremitory

In the monastery, I was placed in a dormitory with eight beds. I had anticipated some snoring, for which I had brought earplugs. What I had not anticipated, though, was that of the five people sleeping in that dorm the first evening, at least two of them would enact complete war battles with their snoring. This is not an exaggeration; because in between the long roars, sometimes one of them, a Chinese gentleman, would additionally produce noises that I can only describe as gunfire or exploding dynamite. I am still in complete confusion as to how he produced those sounds.

Sleeping became even more difficult because these gentleman would tag-team through the night, so when one would be silent, the other one took over effortlessly. Not surprisingly, the earplugs were no match against so much noise.

With hardly any sleep, at the end of the second day I was very tired and went straight to bed after the evening practice. That became a lucky move, because I was in bed before the snorers, and fell asleep almost immediately. Therefore, even though there were brief moments of half waking up during the night, the snoring remained far in the background of consciousness and sleeping went fine. But it came at a price, because now this event had created a precedent, with accompanying expectations.

So, at the end of the third day, again I went immediately to bed after the chanting lesson. But now I was much less tired than the evening before, and, moreover, the Chinese gentleman decided to also head in early. Needless to say that he fell asleep almost instantly and began snoring only a few minutes later. When he was later accompanied by his snoring mates, my mind attached itself so firmly to the sounds they produced, that frustration, anger, and ill-will towards them came up, and I hardly slept that night.

However, during one of the meditation classes the next day, all of a sudden a big illumination happened with the realisation that what had been keeping me awake these past nights was not the snoring itself, but my clinging to it!

This illumination arose when the mindfulness teacher monk explained an exercise to stay in the here and now: directing awareness first to the current body posture,[1] and then to the breath – particularly becoming aware of making long or short breathing movements. During this exercise, the following mantra was mentally repeated:

“This sitting body, breathing in long (or short); this sitting body, breathing out long (or short); etc.,” by means of which my awareness, or conscious attention, was literally directed at actual happenings of the present moment without labeling them as pleasant or unpleasant.

After about ten minutes, I noticed a striking change happening; my body went from tense to relaxed, and my mind went from cloudy to clear. It was quite a remarkable experience.

Finding out what it literally means to be completely in the here and now, proved to be an illuminating experience. Image: Erik Stout

Then, all of a sudden, it became clear how hard I had been trying to resist the snoring of my roommates in the previous nights. For example, by wearing earplugs, I tried to resist having to listen to the snoring. Earplugs = resistance of soundwaves reaching my eardrums. Moreover, I had labeled the streaming water of the mountain creek right behind our dorm as pleasant, and the snoring as unpleasant; but where the earplugs dimmed the sound of the creek completely, they didn’t do much for the snoring, which caused even more frustration.

When that realisation emerged, I came up with an experiment for the last remaining night in the dormitory, for what would happen if I’d completely accept ANY soundwave entering my eardrums when I lay down in the evening? If I do not wear earplugs, but lay down and guide the mind to the present body posture and breathing movements? I.e.: Place my full awareness on myself instead of letting it attach itself to the snoring, and thereby removing any labels saying pleasant or unpleasant?

The result was nothing short of spectacular, because despite the heavy snoring (and in between hearing the sounds of the creek), within ten minutes I fell peacefully asleep. Very consciously I had experienced that resistance to what is, causes suffering, while acceptance of my conditioning (e.g. that the sound of snoring is unpleasant) creates space to effectively deploy the mindfulness exercise from the teacher monk.

So, how do these insights translate into the cultivation of loving oneself? Well, for one, it helps me sleep.

For instance, right next to my room in Chiang Mai there is a coffeeshop (not the Amsterdam type, but real coffee) which recently had an alarm system installed. Every time it goes off, a mechanic women’s voice says:

“Caution, you are under surveillance! Caution, you are under surveillance!” Four times in row. Moreover, it seems to be set so sharply that a mere gush of wind can activate it.

This occurrence definitely carried the potential of attracting my awareness and keeping me out of sleep. But with the snoremitory-experiment fresh in memory, the label ‘unpleasant’ could easily be removed which put the sound on the same level as any other sound, or silence, or both. By keeping my mind firmly rooted in the present moment and removing the label, love for myself was translated into a good night’s sleep.

Furthermore, understanding that problems only arise in our minds, that they are ideas that in reality do not exist, liberates us from the never ending cycle of identifying a problem, then convincing ourselves to have solved it, only to find out later that the solution caused even more problems. This relentless cycle of busy-bodying, combined with our Western cultural belief that problems are bad and need to be solved asap, tends to keep many of us in a perpetual stress response, which, to me at least, is the diametrical opposite of loving oneself.

The Journey

Returning briefly to the opening paragraph of this article; the moment that we become aware of certain thought and behavioural patterns that do not serve us anymore, marks not the end of them, but the beginning of our work with them. Because from that moment on, as soon as such a pattern emerges in our thoughts, actions, feelings, or dreams, we will begin to become aware of them quicker and quicker.

That might at first feel irritating, frustrating, or even frightening. Yet, the more we become aware of them, which effectively means that we deliberately direct our awareness towards them, the less power they can wield over us. Consequently, every time our buttons are pushed, our ability to choose how we react increases proportional to the power that the automatic thought and behavioural patterns lose over us.

The journey is always an amalgamation of dark and light, falling down and getting back up. Image: fietzfotos

If there is one thing I have been allowed to learn while living in Chiang Mai for half a year, though, it has been that real freedom can only be found by falling down and getting up, again and again. By removing the labels ‘bad’ from falling down (i.e. making mistakes) and ‘good’ from getting up, like a toddler who just learns to walk has no opinion on every time it falls down and gets up again, we free ourselves from the burden of reputation, and clear the way to find out what we are actually all about.

Each and every one of us is born with a unique skillset and talents intended for walking our unique and individual path. That path is called ‘life’, and consists of nothing but falling down and getting back up again. As soon as that can be fully accepted, there is no mountain that cannot be moved.

For the last time from the beautiful city of Chiang Mai,
Jolly Greetings,
Erik Stout

[1] Viz. Laying, sitting, standing, going (usually: walking).