Once a man was dragging a cow by a rope through a busy market place, just as a teacher and his students arrived. The teacher seeing this asked his disciples, ‘Who’s the master there? Who is bound to who?’
The disciples all said that the man is clearly in charge. The cow’s head is bowed and simply following the orders of the rope. The man is the master and the cow his slave.
‘Watch…’ the teacher said before walking up behind the man and cutting the rope. Immediately the cow ran off, and the man ran after his cow.
The Curse of Coffee
We could ask the same thing in relation to coffee and caffeine… (Yes we’re going there.)
It’s become unnaturally natural to wake up in a fog — a hazy state of mind and body. Slow. Lethargic. Uninspired. As if a weighted blanket covers your every attempt at thinking, feeling, moving. A state too many of us live with on a daily basis; crawling to caffeine and the coffee machine first thing to dispel this blanket and simply feel ‘normal’. The gods and powers of coffee are clearly in charge of many of us; and if we don’t get our fix first thing in the morning, bow, and drink it up, the price is moving through a hazy, inebriated realm, for the rest of the day.
Of course we would turn to caffeine. It makes sense.
At first it seems amazing. Everything brighter. Uplifted. Cognition appears faster. We have access to some previously unseen well of productive thought. It’s incredible. But some things only appear as an angel of light, at first, then it turns on. And we need to feed it more. And it doesn’t have the same effect as it once did. And other problems arise as a consequence — The curse of the coffee addiction.
Let us put it this way. Waking in a haze is not normal; and relying on caffeine is also not natural. And the effects of overusing coffee, for a long period of time, aren’t natural either.
For example, you may find yourself pounding 3 large cups of coffee a day to get everything you need done. Then, one day, you find yourself overreacting to something you normally wouldn’t have. Something that could have just slid off your back, peacefully, and ease-fully. And you realize how revved up your nervous system is. How on edge and reactive it is. Ready at any moment to go off.
You realize you need to do something about it.
So you ween off the caffeine.
At first more tired without that usual hit of caffeine. You suffer through the symptoms. You walk through the scene of withdrawal; but you stick through it. And then you wake up one day suddenly feeling like your ‘old’ self again (but actually much younger in both your mental abilities and physical feeling).
The chronic dry skin has disappeared. Water retention is fading away. Vision and hearing start clearing up (which, from a Chinese medicine perspective, makes sense due to the relationship between the liver and eye sight and the affects of coffee on the liver). And your mind actually sharpens much more than with the coffee. Vocabulary is clear and arises smoothly. Comprehension is stronger, and longer lasting. You feel centred again. Able to perceive with ease; as if from a still point. And you realize that, to avoid the ‘uninspired’ lethargic wake up, and to get through the long list of tasks you gave yourself everyday (which the caffeine only secretly surmounted) you had gone to the opposite extreme of having a chronically firing activated and agitated system. Neither extreme being the ultimate answer.
In fact, this was the personal experience of PURICA founder Jason Watkin recently, which he shared with the PURICA team incase it inspired anyways; and now we share with you (as an extended part of the PURICA family!)
Of course, this is not everyone’s experience, and it’s a nuanced thing when it comes to coffee and caffeine intake. The quality of the beans matter. (Beyond simply a label like ‘organic’.) How much, when, and with what you drink your coffee matters. If you’ve had food first or not (not having food in the stomach first can have a negative effect on the colon for some). And many more factors like constitution, meditative practice, diet, hydration etc. etc.
But, in this example, you started drinking it in the first place because of a foggy wake up; as an antidote to something that felt un-natural to begin with. And it is.
So let’s go to the root? What supports and enlivens waking clear and vibrant vs. waking in a lethargic haze is a deep and wide subject.
Here, we’re just going to mention some of the basics. There’s no shortage of ways to disturb a potentially restful, peaceful and rejuvenative sleep, especially in a culture that gives little importance to the necessity of clarity and relaxation.
There are all the usual culprits —
- Consistently staying up too late
- Eating heavy food close to bedtime
- Bombarding our brain with screens, information and flashing lights until the moment we attempt to sleep with no wind down time between
- Having too much light and emfs by our bedside
- The room being too warm and stuffy
- Not getting enough exercise or movement to work the body throughout the day
- Playing extreme sports before bed (or activating those neural pathways through movies and video games) and then laying our heads down for rest when the system is now revved up to win the game or save the world
- The list goes on…
But what of the mind? What role does it play?
Cutting The Rope
A mind still holding to the stressors and struggles of the day, is one that can’t let go into the great rest to be born again, anew, like the sun rising after its journey through the night. If the sun was so worried about all that happened during the day, it would be like carrying weights and chains that would make it very hard to follow its course through the night and be born again.
The teacher in the story above, about the man and his cow, continued to speak after asking ‘Who’s the master?’
‘The cow doesn’t care about the man, it wants to be free and run off. Your mind works the same way.
If all the noise and nonsense and unnecessary cares, worries, and emotions we carry within are given a chance to run off, they will. If we lessen the grip we hold on them, unconsciously, or other, they will leave on their own accord. And we won’t go insane trying to hold it all together, nicely tied up, with a rope under our apparent control.
It is possible to allow all those unwanted burdens to disappear from our minds, like the cow running off from that man, and feel a natural ease, clarity and relaxation arise, if we give it a chance. If we practice. If we cut the rope.’
As many meditation teachers point to — thoughts are ephemeral. They come and they go like waves on the ocean; and emotions are seen as something like ‘coarse thoughts’ with a lot more energy and gravitas. But waves come and go nonetheless. And we are not our thoughts, or are ultimately ruled by them, if we could see clearly now.
It’s less about controlling our thoughts and feelings than creating the right conditions for them to run off on their own accord, so we can rest in the natural great peace waiting ‘beneath’. Attuning to resonances, and other patterns, greater than ones focused on the thoughts and feelings we’d like to escape can help. Which means dropping the thought addictions to media that is bound to trying to control ‘our cow’ so to speak. That enforces anxiety and worries daily. And connecting to things of a ‘higher’ resonance. Meditative traditions and practices. Guided mantra practice. Medicinal mushrooms that grow with roots throughout the depth of the forest floor and ecosystem. Listening to timeless music full of great wonder and hope. Reading stories with a restorative quality. Laughing with friends. All the different ways we can move through this world that honour a pattern of vibrancy, appreciation, and communitas.
So, will you cut that rope?
This Is A Chilled Vibrancy
Our days are full, our minds are full, and our sleep is full for it. Full of many factors that can lead to us waking up foggy and unclear, and grasping for caffeinated reprieve; even if it can turn on us later on in body and mind.
We don’t mean to attack coffee by the way. And still occasionally enjoy it ourselves.
For some, it is after all — a dark and magical substance that turns ‘leave me alone’ into ‘good morning world!’ Or the ‘oxygen mask people slip on before helping others’; and it’s delicious. (Though for some people it’s nothing more than a quick shot into a panic attack and trembling limbs.)
But everything in it right place; and if coffee has become the crutch, lifeline and chronic Band-Aid to keep you alert and functional — essentially a daily life support tool through the frenetic modern world — that’s a sign something is off; and overtime, can have much more negative impacts on the health of our minds and bodies.
It’s a sign to return to a natural state.
There are changes we can make immediately to restore a naturally clear and high wake up. Changing our physical situation in regards to the sleep stealing culprits named above can help. Taking supplements like our sleep support, and medicinal mushrooms to affect the mind through the body, and helping the mind and body settle for that sweet sleep to come, all goes a long ways; because we all need support these days to rebalance.
Reishi, for example, (also inside our sleep support) can be used for relaxation, a settling of the ‘heart’ in Chinese medicine, and general well being; ashwagandha for stress, anxiety, heart health and helping the mind chatter settle; magnesium for settling the muscles and nervous system. And to support the movement from excess caffeine into a natural state of vibrancy, try a good cup of cocoa. Our Zensations line comes full of those same medicinal mushrooms named above, giving the added bonus of nervous system and immune support; or drink good ol’ green tea (but still watch how much of it you drink. And treat it more like a focused, calm, ritual then a dash and grab, which will only perpetuate that frantic unease).
But this is a mind-body endeavour. We need to learn to cut the rope. All that gripping to the cows and coffee machines and all the thoughts and feelings that move through us and don’t let our systems hit that empty, fertile, ease (even if we do get some sleep) need to walk off from time to time! (Which does not mean we can’t enjoy some of these delights in their right time and place.)
So learn to cut the rope of all those attachments and addictions that keep you on your phone or distracted late into the night right up until the moment of going to bed. Learn to cut the rope of worries that perpetuate themselves through doomscrolling or media addictions in an unending cycle of anxious despair. Learn to cut the rope to all the thoughts of, ‘If I don’t do this, or aren’t informed about this, I won’t make it or achieve my best life’ if that thought come with even a tinge of anxiety.
Learn to cut the rope instead of trying to control the difficulties within, and the subtle currents that lead us to rely too heavily on external help just to make it through our days.
Learn to cut the rope and let go into that great rest. So you may rise clear and free like the sun. Even if your cow is still next to you from time to time, gently grazing, as you both enjoy the light of the day. Just you, the morning sun, the birds, the occasional cow coming and going, and a clear mind to take it all in.
Now that is relief.
That is exhilarating peace.
That is a chilled vibrancy.
PS.
We have both a full short course on Sleep Support and progressive Meditation Courses on our upcoming The Pulse training and meditation portals. Stay tuned!
