Tool of the Month - The 300,000 Year-old User’s Manual

Your cue to use this tool is when you are avoiding doing something you suspect might be good for you (exercise, creative expression, relationships, nutrition, education, finances, etc.). You either can’t decide what want to prioritize, or you get excuses like, Is this really what I want to be doing? or What’s the point? or I’ll do it when I feel more motivated.

If you’re stuck like this, imagine you’re an explorer excavating an ancient burial ground and you’ve just unearthed a scroll… it’s the original User’s Manual that was given to humans when they first emerged on the planet hundreds of thousands of years ago.

On the first page it reads:

YOU WERE MADE TO WALK.

YOU WERE MADE TO CHEW YOUR FOOD.

THE DAY YOU CEASE TO WALK AND CHEW WILL BE YOUR LAST DAY UPON THE EARTH.*

It goes on to describe hunting and gathering, which foods to eat, how to relate to others, and finally how to create. All kinds of creative actions are described. Procreation, how to fashion weapons, how to build tools, how to spin fantastic and colorful yarns (both literal and figurative), music, art, science, technology, medicine, and on and on all the way into how to create an entire universe.

At the end of the scroll it says:

A MANUAL LIKE THIS WAS WRITTEN ON THE HEARTS OF EVERY CREATURE, AND THEY SHALL NEVER FORGET THEIR INSTRUCTIONS. BUT AS SOON AS HUMANS WRITE THESE INSTRUCTIONS ON A SCROLL, THEIR HEARTS SHALL BE ERASED, AND WHEN THEY LOSE THEIR SCROLL, THEY SHALL SPEND THE REST OF THEIR DAYS JUST TRYING TO RE-MEMBER.

And then the scroll disappears like sand through your fingers. And you only remember the first line. You repeat it to yourself…

“I WAS MADE TO WALK”.

*Like many scrolls of its time, The User’s Manual exaggerates for the sake of maximum persuasion in the “truthy” direction. Even its lies and mistakes are truer than the truth.

 

Testify!

This edition of Testify! is contributed by a young mother who was pulled into the national headlines of an explosive scandal by a close family member.

Part X convinced me my life was over. I had retreated from the world, was obsessed with things out of my control, and I was truly convinced my situation was the worst thing to ever happen to anyone. I was the victim-of-all-victims ready to serve a life sentence. I am forever grateful that this fate led me to therapy and The Tools. I began to see everything I had to be grateful for. A fire was lit inside me. I started fighting back. I committed to using a tool anytime I caught my thoughts leaving the present moment and leading me into worrying about the future or reliving injuries from the past.

My favorite tool is The Tower. This tool suggests we embrace our injuries instead of fighting against them. Once I surrendered and allowed the pain to ‘kill me’, I was set free and a new me was born. I embraced my fate, accepted what is out of my control, and, most importantly, found joy in every day I get in this life. I have been using The Tools for two years now and re-read the books every few months. What I thought was the worst thing to happen to me I now view as one of the best. I’ve built back a stronger and happier version of myself. In my most recent readthrough, this quote caught my eye:

Beauty provides us with something we can’t get anywhere else: the inspiration to fight as hard as we can against Part X.
- Coming Alive

If you need more evidence this works, I can tell you that my daughter wouldn’t be here without The Tools. In my crisis, I convinced myself it would have been cruel to bring another innocent baby into this disaster of a life. And at the time I don’t think I physically could have handled it either. The Jeopardy tool helped me realize I only get one life and I should go after anything and everything. The Mother tool helped with the physical part. I imagined her not only taking the black sludge off of me but also taking all the black sludge I imagined was inside of me. I also used Reversal of Desire while giving birth. They said her heart rate was starting to fluctuate and, even though I was exhausted, I knew that meant I needed to hurry up and get her out. I started repeating ‘Bring it on/ Pain sets me free’ and then I literally smiled with the next contraction and there she was! 

…and Part X doesn’t stand a chance with that smile!

 

Parade of Shadows

Phil Stutz’ latest book is really helping me reframe so many of the practical tools I’ve already been practicing for the last decade into something quite divine, and maybe even a little insane. Certainly not rational. He’d call it magic.

For a long time I have been focused on asking myself and others, “What do you want?” It’s a powerful question, because if you can limit your conversation to this question, and it’s inevitable answers, you can avoid criticism and defensiveness and get to work on creating something. Especially when you upgrade the conversation to the question, “HOW?”

But there are some drawbacks to asking “What do I want?” Today many of us have the luxury of waking up without a single want in the world. The abundance of every possible comfort, convenience, and stimulation is so overwhelming, your only desire is for a hangover cure.

Another tricky thing about wanting, is that we aren’t just dealing with the wants of a single person. We have children and partners and housemates and neighbors. Moreover, inside ourselves we have shadows and protectors… each of these parts want things, many of them mutually exclusive.

So to simplify this question. I often turn to this question: “What was I made for?” And to cut through the noise even further. I provide this answer:

I was made to walk.

And eventually I arrive at many other things I was made for, and that every part of me can agree about uncontroversially, “Yes… we were made for this. Regardless of how we feel in the moment. Regardless of whether or not we even WANT to do this. If just one more action is taken today… let it be something I was made for.”

Here is a list of some things I believe I was made for. I encourage you to make a similar list and revisit it once a week. Add to it. Delete some. Repeat them outloud. Don’t stop.

I was made to walk... a lot. Miles and miles every day.

I was made to hunt. (focus mentally and bodily on something so intensely with all my will that it ceases to exist anywhere else but within me. It’s mine)

I was made to make tools. (probably to help me hunt)

I was made to eat whole food.

I was made to spend hours gathering food (preparing it?) and chewing on it (enjoying it?).

I was made to swim.

I was made to protect and defend myself and my loved ones from the tyranny of brutal men.

I was made to fight.

I was made to procreate.

I was made to tell stories that delight and inspire.

I was made to play games. I was also made to create games so good that other people will want to play them with me.

I was made to make something out of nothing.

I was made to make meaning.

I was made to make order out of chaos.

I was made to admire and emulate people more able than myself. And maybe even surpass them. Or die trying.

I was made to revere places that inspire awe.

I was made to experience awe.

I was made to serve that which inspires awe.

I was made to experience joy.

I was made to experience pain, loss, and grief.

I was made to speak my mind.

I was made to embrace fear, uncertainty, and ceaseless effort.

I was made to be unhappy if I don’t do what I was made for.

Go ahead and cross out any of the things in my personal manual that you don’t see any evidence for in your life or in the life of humans generally. But I think, if you looked hard enough at the fossil record, or the annals of anthropology, or even just under the couch… you might find evidence for everything I’ve listed.

May we all make something out of what we were made for.

Thank you for indulging me.


Cheers!


-Denis