Despite not being formally accepted into Colibri’s festival volunteer team, I journeyed to the island of Corfu anyways to offer my help. In exchange for 40 hours of manual labor, I was welcomed with open arms and a free ticket.
The back-breaking work in the blistering sun was no match for the power of one-pointed focus, unwavering optimism and fresh, juicy watermelon. In fact, I appreciated every second of it. Why? Because it was so…real. I could so clearly see the impact of my effort. The work I do online — what you see here — almost never provides such instant gratification. Clients require weeks of investment before improvements show. Newsletters are opened, but receive little-to-no feedback. Careful (and time-consuming) YouTube videos have devastatingly low retention rates.
I absolutely love what I do, even when only few are watching. But it’s also nice to see things manifest on a shorter time scale, and to be literally patted on the back for the intense care I put into my work.
That reminds me. If you care to support what I do here, consider becoming a subscriber. For $7/month you’ll unlock all the practices, meditations and journal prompts from these newsletters, along with my tutorials that are coming out soon.
Plus, you’ll get a coupon for 5% off my online yoga training starting July 13th.
I hope you enjoy this week’s {Body} • {Mind} • {Soul} Newsletter and have a beautiful Sunday, - Ethan ॐ
P.S. The yoga training now includes one extra ticket to Gabi and I’s online workshop on July 6th. More on that soon.
Ethan Hill Owner, Yoga with Ethan
Foot health
The way you stand — and consequently the way you walk, run, squat, reach, and bend — ultimately depends on the shape and strength of your feet and toes. This is basic biomechanics and physics: you derive your power and stability from where you make contact with the ground.
Yet feet are perhaps the most neglected area of the Western body. We overlook their critical importance in structuring our entire musculoskeletal system and rarely exercise or stretch them intentionally.
From this ignorance, we jam our feet into shoes that are too small, cushion them with inches of foam, and refuse to let them touch the Earth directly. We justify this with claims from podiatrists that padded shoes are not just beneficial but necessary for the body.
You don't need research papers to reject that claim outright (although studies now abound supporting barefoot movement). Our species — indeed, all species — have been shoeless since the dawn of time. Is it possible that millions of years of human evolution could be defeated by a relatively small team of engineers at Nike and New Balance? Highly unlikely.
Ancient tribes today still go barefoot, with some running dozens of miles daily without shoes, often maintaining this practice well into their 80s. Despite the many afflictions our ancestors endured—infections, broken bones, near-constant hunger—back pain appears to have been remarkably rare.*
Compare that reality with today's epidemic of plantar fasciitis, tight hamstrings, knee problems, and poor posture affecting hundreds of millions, and you'll reach an obvious conclusion: shoes aren't the wonder-cure we were led to believe.†
Of course, rejecting society's norms after decades of conditioning isn't easy, so don't feel insecure about letting your feet breathe. This discomfort fades with time, education, and good role models.‡
Next week, I'll dive deeper into the science of foot mechanics and natural movement.
*This is my strong belief, not an objective historical claim. 🙂
†I've been trying to convince my mom (who has two hip replacements) of this for five years now without much headway. I personally don’t get it, but apparently there are some deep attachments to these pieces of plastic on our feet.
‡Once in an Asheville grocery store, I saw a woman walking around barefoot. I approached her with excitement, confessing how I wished I had that same courage. Without a word, she made a brushing motion and blew imaginary pixie dust toward me with a little "psh" sound. "There ya go," she said.
Practice Step-by-step instructions to turn theory into healing.
Last week I described how words and images do not contain the meaning we see in them. They are the meaning.
If that’s the case, maybe the brain is like a vault wherein words and images are like keys that unlock pre-existing meanings stored in neural pathways?
Not quite.
It’s true that different brain structures mean we each have unique associations and responses to the same words (my conception of dog is slightly different from yours) but that doesn’t prove that the physical brain manufactures meaning. Rather, it simply demonstrates that meaning is immediate and present alongside thought-forms.
Put differently, meaning is not stored in your brain just as fire is not stored in wood. Fire IS what happens when wood burns. Meaning IS what happens when thoughts think. When you think "dog" and see a Golden Retriever while I see a German Shepherd, we're not accessing stored meanings — we're witnessing meaning expressing itself as a symbol or thought.
Thinking about the color purple means purpleness. Feeling sadness means sadness-ness. Reflecting on home means home-ness. Again, meaning is not thinking. Meaning is the essential knowing of what something is beyond the thought of what it is. I know that can sound confusing, but I promise it will soon make sense.
Let’s make it concrete by meditating together. Click below.
Meditate Bite-sized audios to help you become the master of your mind.
“There is no right or wrong. But right is right and wrong is wrong.” — Seung Sahn
Is escaping one’s problems by using drugs, having thoughtless sex, or making money off of the suffering of others right or wrong? Well…they're not "wrong" in that they make one irredeemable. Nor are they "right" simply because they felt good or made sense to do in the moment.
Even so, all actions — even those executed from perfect ignorance — have karmic consequences. Cold-blooded murder may not put you outside of God's ever-present love, but it will fracture your psyche and sever its innate connection to believing in that love.
Thus discerning between which actions preserve (or heal) the soul and which ones fragment it further is endlessly important. In determining what activities brings one closer to Rightness, ask yourself: Is this at all motivated by greed or hatred? Does doing so require me to betray something essential within myself? Would Jesus, Buddha or Krishna do it?
Journal Contemplative questions on the nature of inner freedom.