A few weeks ago, I got the ol’ Boxer serviced:
The mechanic did his thing for an hour while I gallivanted around Urabamba to get the groceries.
I came back, paid the dude and then off I went.
Everything was fine at first.
The bike started with no issues.
Plenty of power on the open highway.
And the fuel gauge may have even started to work again.
Then I tapped the horn button and…
NOTHING!
No sound. No response. No horny parade of beautiful women 😭
This was not a good sign.
The roads in Peru are chaotic at the best of times and a working horn is absolutely essential.
So what did I do?
First I grabbed my $49 Moleskin journal and wrote about it for a while. I wrote about the mechanic and how he’d forgotten to fix the horn. I wrote about the drive home. I also wrote about the lack of horny women when I honked the horn.
Then I went to check the bike and LO AND BEHOLD – the horn still didn’t work.
So I decided to meditate. Hey, I was frustrated… but maybe if I cleared my mind, THAT’LL fix the horn. Right?
20 minutes of meditation later, the horn still didn’t work 🤷♂️
So I grabbed a notepad and made a list of what I was grateful for…
…but that didn’t fix the horn either.
Neither did a round of Wim Hof breath work…
…or the 17 cups of coffee I pounded…
…or the 2.73 Stoicism books I read.
Weird, right?
I mean, I’m doing all the things people say to do… and the horn on my bike still didn’t work.
Then it dawned on me:
Maybe the horn was unplugged or damaged… in which case, I needed to take it back to the mechanic to get it fixed.
In other words…
I needed to deal with the ROOT problem instead of writing about it (journaling), breathing through it (breath work), changing my thoughts about it (gratitude) or even trying to get rid of my thoughts about it (meditation).
Now, in case it’s not obvious…
…this email is a JOKE.
When the horn on my motorbike wasn’t working, I knew that the only solution was to take it back to the mechanic to get it fixed.
This kind of “root problem” thinking is obvious with situations like this… but for some reason, when it comes to our mental and emotional health, we don’t think this way at all.
Instead of dealing with the root problem (nervous system dysregulation), we spend our time trying to change our thoughts (gratitude), analyse our thoughts (journaling) or get rid of our thoughts (meditation).
For some reason, we never stop to consider…
WHAT IS THE ACTUAL PROBLEM?
Are thoughts the problem?
Or are thoughts simply a symptom of the problem?
That’s where Rageheart comes in.
You ditch the usual self-help bandaids for something that attacks the root problem (nervous system dysregulation) instead of symptoms like most everything else.
That’s how you unleash the beast inside you (along with all the vitality, energy and full-blooded healthy aggression that comes with it).
If you’d like to stop fiddling with symptoms and start fixing the REAL problem, sign up to Rageheart when it opens on Dec 15.
Already a member and feeling the impulse (Rage 9)? Hit the Sign In link on the page below and do another rage…
https://www.rageheart.co/app/
John Wood