Moving on....

In case anyone is wondering where I am, or what I've been doing (and why I've stopped writing here), I'm working hard on a new project that is going to launch some time this summer called Set Yourself Freelance.

"Set Yourself Freelance," is a website I'm developing, as well as a book I'm writing, designed to teach full time graphic designers how to make the transition from working for someone else, to working for themselves...which is especially relevant now that the whole sense of security that so many people have placed for so long in working for someone else is beginning to fall apart at the seams...

Half of the book is designed to set graphic designers up for the mental shift that is a big part of going freelance. Then the other half is very practical methods and techniques that I have used successfully for many years to get clients, build relationships with those clients, do great work, and keep my clients coming back to me.

I'm very excited about this project, and as I said, planning for the launch to be this summer.

If you're a graphic designer, or any type of creative professional or otherwise who is thinking about going freelance, and you want to learn more, you can get on the mailing list at: http://www.setyourselffreelance.com/

My product is targeted at graphic designers, but I'm thinking that the information in this book is really relevant to anyone who wants to become self-employed.

And of course, I will have a blog on the site, where I will be much more active than I have been here lately!

On another note, I've been on a mental, emotional, metaphysical journey since starting this blog almost two years ago now, I feel I really have achieved a lot of the things I set out to achieve when starting this blog... I feel like this blog has served it's purpose for me...

Although in reality, we are never truly in control of anything (other than maybe our own thoughts), I do feel like on some level throughout the past couple of years I have really taken control of my life in a way I never have before. I'm psyched that this blog was a success for me in helping me achieve what I set out to achieve when starting it, and now I'm excited to be moving onto my next project (and maybe even the next phase of my life in some ways)

I think most of the writing I did here was more for me than anything, and I just chose to make it public (every once in a while, I tried to write a helpful tip :-)). But I'm glad others were able to read and connect with some of the things I wrote here anyway.

I shared a lot of things in the posts on these pages...things that I probably wouldn't have even shared with my closest friends just a few years ago so it feels good to have opened up, and shared some personal things, and also moved through some difficult things...

I feel like I should have something profound to say at this point... It will probably come to me after I hit publish.

Thanks for sharing these pages with me! And whoever you may be, I hope to see you around!

Elliott

Losing Weight With Interval Training

Well, it seems that one of the common side effects of anti-depressants is weight gain. I've put on about 15 pounds in the past couple months, which I can only attribute to the meds I'm taking since I haven't done anything else that would cause me to gain weight. So besides joining the gym, I've taken to a weight loss plan that I used very successfully a couple years ago when I last wanted to lose weight.

One of the biggest factors in weight loss is obviously what you eat. You can't grind away at the gym, and fill yourself with Double Doubles expecting to lose weight. I eat a diet low in saturated fats and high in protein. And I try to get a healthy dose of monounsaturated fats, that actually help convert fat to muscle. Almonds are a great source of mono-fats.

Many studies have shown that, contrary to popular belief, lifting weights is more effective than cardiovascular exercise in weight loss. While activities like running and cycling burn more calories while you are engaged in them than weight-lifting, people who grind it out at the gym continue to burn calories at a higher rate throughout the next 24 hours, while their muscles are in the repair process. That burn that you feel after a good workout...your body is burning calories at a higher than usual rate when you're feeling that.

But if you're like me and just enjoy cardio exercise (and/or are looking to lose weight), then you might as well run or cycle in a way that facilitates weight loss.

How to use interval training to effectively lose weight

I like to remind myself why I am paying exorbitant Santa Monica rent a few blocks from the beach, and get out on the beach at least a couple mornings a week to go running.

Contrary to popular belief, if you want to lose weight, it does not help to slug it out for 2 hours on the treadmill.

Not only is this an inefficient use of energy, it is also probably incredibly boring. After a certain period of time (somewhere around a half an hour), your body begins digging into your protein reserves as a source of energy, which means that instead of burning fat, your body begins burning muscle, and muscle is your friend if you want to lose weight. (Another reason why lifting is more supportive of weight loss than cardio.) Every pound of muscle you have on your body burns up to 50 calories a day just to sustain itself. The less muscle you have, the harder you will find it to lose weight. Conversely, the more muscle you have, the easier you will find it to shed fat.

To use cardio exercise effective as part of a weight-loss routine, I recommend interval training.

In interval training you alternate between short high intensity and low intensity periods of exercise. I used a simple interval program a few years ago to successfully lose weight by investing just over 20 minutes 3 times a week, and I am doing the same now.

The program I use is called a pyramid interval.

It works like this:

Begin with a short warmup of 3 to 5 minutes. Then the program looks like this:

0:30 (high-intensity)
1:00 (low-intensity)
0:45 (high-intensity)
1:00 (low-intensity)
1:00 (high-intensity)
1:00 (low-intensity)
1:15 (high-intensity)
1:00 (low-intensity)
1:30 (high-intensity)
1:00 (low-intensity)
1:15 (high-intensity)
1:00 (low-intensity)
1:00 (high-intensity)
1:00 (low-intensity)
0:45 (high-intensity)
1:00 (low-intensity)
0:30 (high-intensity)
1:00 (low-intensity)

The idea is to build up your high intensity bursts until you get to a climax of 1.5 minutes. Then you slowly work back down again. In between each high energy burst, you have a recovery period of 1 minute. Over time, you can reduce the one minute recovery period, but a minute is fine to start with. This is about a 20 minute running session, and in my experience has significant results when done regularly.

I recommend creating a playlist on your iPod for your interval run. Go into iTunes, and sort by track length. If you're like me, and have 8,000 songs on you iPod, you should have a good few that are the right lengths for most of your intervals. Try and use something slow and relaxing for the 1 minutes low-intensity periods, and something hard and pumping for the high energy bursts. You really want to push it in those periods, and it helps to have music that motivates you.

If you don't have tracks in your iTunes that are exactly the right length, you can use a simple audio editing app like Sound Studio to cut up your tracks into the right lengths for this workout. I use some hard funky jazz, and a Moby track that I've cut up as well as a few other things for my high energy periods. The lower energy periods I have things like Jack Johnson and even a comedy clip by Phil Hendrie.

Good luck with your interval training, and please do let me know if you find this helpful!

Elliott

Antidepressants and Lexapro Part 2

Someone asked me to post an update on the Lexapro situation, and I'm happy to do so. I'm no longer on Lexapro, but from what I can tell, I definitely recommend trying it. I had a really great experience with it. I basically had this experience of a whole different world opening up to me. My life felt drastically different. I felt far more comfortable with myself, far less anxiety around the woman I was seeing at the time....actually no anxiety, which is very rare for me. My life began to feel radically different in such a good way. However, I began to have side effects after being on it for about a month that didn't go away. The doc said it was called motor-restlessness. I experienced it as a really strong agitation in my body. But the doc also said it is a very rare side-effect. Other than that, the medication did wonders for my sense of well being, and since that side effect is apparently very rare, I would definitely recommend exploring it... I also have very successful, highly functioning friends who are on Lexapro, and have had great results from it, so it seems to me like it is a beneficial drug, just didn't work out for me unfortunately.

I've tried almost 5 other meds at this point, and none of them has yet given me the sense of balance that I got from Lexapro. So it's unfortunate about the side effects. BTW, my little sis has been on Lexapro for a few months now, and all of us have seen a very big positive change in her.

I've also started doing acupuncture, which can be used to stimulate the production of seratonin in the brain, and I have experienced significant boosts to my sense of well being after acupuncture sessions, which my acupuncturist tells me will become a much more consistent state for me in time.

Ultimately, I'd like to feel balanced, happy and healthy without taking prescription medications to get there, but for now I'm just open to experiment with whatever I can to achieve a consistently happy healthy outlook on life. And it looks like for now it may be prescription medications that are opening me up to that experience. To be honest, I don't even know that there is anything wrong with using prescription medications on an ongoing basis to enhance ones sense of well being. Maybe it's a crutch, but i suppose we all have crutches. Eye glasses are a crutch, but they help us see better.

One thing I am learning about meds is that sometimes it is a lot of work to get them right. A lot of people end up with a bad impression of anti-depressant medication because a doctor prescribes one and it doesn't work out right for them. But the truth is, there are so many different kinds of medications, and they all work differently with different people's body and brain chemistry. Sometimes it takes a lot of trial and error, and very tenacious doctor (which I'm lucky to have), to get to the point of being properly balanced through using prescription meds.

I've also just discovered there are a lot of natural meds that can be tried for depression, or just to enhance ones sense of well-being. I would definitely try some of these if I wasn't working with a doctor...or if I couldn't afford to work with a doctor. There are a lot of natural remedies you can buy online. I just discovered you can buy all kinds of things at GNC. There is a natural medication called Sam E, that my cousin has just started taking to successfully treat his bi-polar disorder...another thing that I believe can be bought at GNC.

And of course, exercise is a great natural booster to ones sense of well being. And of course therapy, and things like meditation. And reading Eckhart Tolle books never hurt anyone. I'm learning that the best path to a sense of well-being is living a balanced life of doing a little bit of everything that makes you feel good...and medication may be one of those things. And listening to Frank Sinatra may be another.

Peace!
E

Holosync

I had an interesting altered reality experience during my meditation this morning. I guess that by definition any altered reality experience is "interesting." But nonetheless, I know there's some meaning in this experience beyond what I first realized, so I'm gonna write about it and see what happens...

I've been doing Holosync meditation for a little while now (on and off for almost a year). It's a kind of meditation where you listen to specially prepared tracks that send different frequencies into each of your ears (you listen on headphones). Something about the process causes your brain to operate on certain frequencies. The Holosync I listen to is designed to slow your brain waves down to the state of someone who is in very deep meditation. A state that normally would take years of regular meditation practice to reach.

Something about being in this state can occasionally cause altered-reality experiences to occur. Something like the experience of being on drugs like LSD or mushrooms. It's almost like the logical part of your mind takes a break, and the part of your mind that experiences the world through feelings and sensation takes over, and you experience something that isn't altogether logical.

This is more or less what happened this morning.

When I meditate, I am mostly focused on my breathing...or at least I try to stay focused on my breathing. Sometimes superficial thoughts flood through my mind. But sometimes deeper thoughts, and even visions come into my mind. There's a lot of superficial "mind chatter" when I meditate. But there are also meaningful things that come through the clutter. And I try to pay attention to these things.

This morning, as I was meditating, this duality occurred to me...though I didn't think of it in terms of complicated words like "Duality" at the time. On some level, I know that we are all huge beings, and are lives are significant far beyond the levels most of us realize. We have energy that extends far beyond the limits of our physical bodies. Not to sound too esoteric, but on some level we are all bigger than the universe. For some reason, I just know this. Maybe I've read too many books by Wayne Dyer and Eckhart Tolle.

But in this meditation, it occurred to me that while what I just said above is true, we are also just simple creatures in physical bodies. We are just little people wondering this planet, moving through our lives. Basically exactly the opposite of what I just said above. I realized that both of these things are true. And that sometimes, maybe I place too much emphasis and importance on myself, and my own spiritual path.

Like, I'm just a dude sitting on his bed meditating who wants to get back on with reading the book he's reading or playing video games on his iPhone. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I'm trying desperately to put something into words, that isn't really easy to put into words. I hope I'm doing it justice.

Anyway, the moment that I accepted that "smallness" of my being, I felt a shift inside myself. It felt like I let something go.

But then I started to go into an unusual experience. I felt like an enormous oak tree. I felt huge. Like my arms were two gigantic heavy boulders resting in my lap. I just kept breathing, and enjoying the experience. The more I stayed with it, the bigger I felt. I felt completely present in my body...something I rarely feel. I also felt like my body wasn't used to being so inhabited. It felt so big, and in a way, so awkward.

Inner peace has been a little bit elusive lately. I think I'm in a process of transition, and on a weird place in my journey where I'm not really sure what comes next. But there was some kind of lesson in this experience, and I'm still not really sure what it is. Maybe it's just that we all live someplace in between. All of us are spiritual beings existing on some level far beyond our physical bodies. But at the same time we are just our physical bodies, and the creatures that inhabit them. But maybe the deeper truth is that we are somewhere in between...some kind of hybrid of the two. Maybe it's just a reminder of the fact that all of us are all things, big and small, and everything in between. And that we all experience the same things....

-e

The truth about Antidepressants

Hello cyberworld,

I got a comment on my last post asking about Lexapro, and it's inspired me to add a new post. Every once in a while, I get a comment or an email that makes me realize that people actually read what I write here. So those little things inspire me to keep it going. I think maybe this year, I'll start taking the blog more seriously and put more love into it...build it out a little more. Make it look like something other than this ugly default design. I really am a sorry excuse for a designer with a blog that looks like this (I probably shouldn't admit that I make my living as a graphic designer having a blog that looks like this).

Anyway, about Lexapro. I actually stopped taking Lexapro shortly after I started. Mainly due to side effects, and I started taking something else (which I'll get to in a minute). When I first got on the Lexapro I had this experience of holy crap, this is how normal people feel! I felt completely normal, for lack of a better word. I felt fully at ease around the woman I was seeing at the time. I also felt the ability to be completely present with her, and not stuck in my head as I often am. I felt like I was on the brink of an entirely new life experience....something I've been striving towards for a long time through a lot of the self-development work I've been doing the past year or so. I was a whole new Elliott. I felt it, and she felt it. Unfortunately, I started experiencing side effects from the Lexapro. The doctor called it motorrestlessness. I felt this constant uneasiness. Also, the sexual side effects were a bit of a problem (more for my girlfriend than me). Lexapro is know to create delayed ejaculation, but for me, I just couldn't ejaculate. I could have sex for over an hour without getting tired....it was pretty awesome actually, but I started wearing my poor girlfriend out :-)

So I went off the Lexapro.

But despite the side-effects, it opened my eyes to a whole new possibility for how I could be living and experiencing my life. Since I was a kid, I had been advised to take anti-depressants, but I always refused (yes, I have a bit of a stubborn side). I think that many of us have a bit of a stubborn side when it comes to anti-depressants. It takes a really big swallowing of ones pride to take them. But, before I go much further, I will say that I am SOOOOO glad I let go of any judgement I had about anti-depressants, and decided to give them a try. Because I really do feel I am on the brink of an entirely new life experience. I go in and out of it, and up and down a bit, and I believe this is just part of the process of getting the meds right. But when I feel good, I feel more connected, more spiritually aware, more conscious, happier, and more together and adjusted than I have ever felt in my life.

The truth is, I have a chemical imbalance in my brain, and no number of workshops, no amount of therapy, no number of self-help books was ever going to fix that. Trust me, I know...I did it all! So the idea of medication is to start correcting the imbalance. And while for some people, they get on a med and feel adjusted right away, for others (like me), it takes a bit of trial and error and some guess work to get the meds right. So naturally, I've been feeling a lot of up and down. But overall, I see a much more positive picture for what is possible in my life. One that I never saw before.

It's almost as if I've had bad eyesight my whole life, but I didn't know I had bad eyesight. I just thought the world was blurry. When I went on Lexapro, it was like I put on a pair of glasses for the first time and discovered that there was all this beauty and detail in the world and in my life that I didn't even know was there before....metaphorically speaking... Unfortunately due to the side effects, I had to go off of it. And now we're trying to get me balanced through other meds.

I went on Abilify for a little while, but the side effects were even worse than the Lexapro, so I discontinued that shortly.

Now I'm taking a new drug called Pristiq. I haven't had any side effects from this one, other than being able to last a little longer in the sack...which isn't such a bad deal. Overall, I feel a little more grounded, a little more relaxed. And I have these waves of feeling really connected, really one with everything. Like a couple weekends ago I was with this new woman that I've been seeing. We spent the night, and then the next day together. We were up all night talking, then the next day we were on the beach connecting so deeply and so intimately. I felt so completely connected to her, so one with everything. I was fully in her world, and she was fully in mine. There was no voice in my head, I was entirely with her.

Before going on meds, that type of experience with a woman wouldn't have been possible (or at least very unlikely). I almost always had some degree of anxiety, some degree of discomfort around women. Even women that I was in relationship with. I would never feel entirely with them when I was with them. On this day, I was COMPLETELY with this woman. And it felt amazing!

The other night I was meditating. I got into a space where I felt completely relaxed, completely in the present moment. I realized how much time we all spend running around rarely stopping to be completely in the present moment (especially here in LA). I had the experience through my meditation of being entirely present. And it wasn't even a big deal. It was just like, "Oh, this is what normal is like. This is what it is like the be realaxed and to feel at ease with myself."

Before the meds, that type of experience would be very elusive. Not impossible, but just very rare. Now it seems to be much more accessible.

I've also just gone on another med called Geodon. I've only been on it a week, which I think is too short to really tell its effect. I'm told it's really common to go on a combination of 2 different meds. While the Pristiq was opening stuff up for me, I still didn't feel entirely "there". I still found it hard to stop the thoughts spinning out of control through my head whenever I am with people. So the Geodon apparently is supposed to help with that. I'll keep you posted.

Overall, I think the objective of the meds is the same as the objective of all the self-development work I've been doing the past year or so. It's just another tool in the toolbox to living a happy, productive, and well-adjusted life. I let go of all the judgement I had about taking anti-depressants, and I'm so glad I did because of all the new things I'm starting to see open up in my life now. If nothing else, I'm glad that I went on meds because they're giving me more capacity to serve other people, and do good things for others. They say that the happiest people are also the most generous and kind people.

Sometimes it feels selfish to take time and find ones own happiness. But the truth is that the happier we are, the more we have to give to others. So, if nothing else, I'm glad I've gone on antipressants because they allow me to be an even kinder and more loving person to the other people around me in my world.

Much love!
Elliott

BTW, I'd love to start writing more posts like this. If anyone read this and finds it helpful, please let me know and I'll continue to update...heck maybe even make something out of this blog this year!

And, HAPPY 2009!!!!

Why online business is going to keep rocking

Over the past year, I've becoming about as much of a positive thinker as I've ever been in my life. My positive thinking has totally transformed my life, including my success in my career and how much money my business has been making lately (probably part of the reason my focus has been in places other than my blog).

However, I must admit that I am having some difficulty staying positive and secure about money where all I seem to hear around me is doom and gloom about the state of the economy.

The truth is, even in this time there is good news, there is hope, there is positivity...it is always there if you seek it out. However, I think people's tendency is to get pulled into negativity when it is around them. In some ways, I see this period as a challenge. If I can continue to stay positive in relation to money, and continue to have my business prosper through this period, I will be able to maintain my attitude and success throughout the rest of my life.

So as of now, I am committing to staying positive about money, and staying secure about my income and success. My attitude has always been that even in the worst economy there is always work, it is just a matter of who gets it. There is no reason why that attitude should change now. As bad as the economy gets, there is always going to be work. And people that are good at what they do, passionate, and forward thinking not only beat out 99.9 percent of the competition....but also seem to attract opportunity (and money). At least this has been my experience.

One thing I do know is that there is talk that online business is going to continue to thrive through this difficult economy. So I am going to start focusing my efforts on finding every article and blog post I can that supports my belief that my business is not only going continue to do great, but is going to do even better as the economy is in depression.

If you are in online business (and who isn't nowdays?), feel free to come back here regularly for articles to help you think positively about your business in this economy. And please feel free to add your own. I'm going to try and update whenever I come across a new article.

Here are a few to get started:

How is the Economy Crisis Affecting Online Advertising?

MySpace Revenue Up, New Ads Up Even More

Analysts Change Tune on Web Ad Economics

More to come...

-elliott

Antidepressants ... Lexapro, baby!

So, I started on antidepressants this week..... By the way, this is a really big thing for me to share (not that I know whether or not anyone actually reads this). It feels like I'm talking to someone :-) I was just thinking back to when I was in college...about 10 years ago now, I didn't talk about anything that was going on inside of me even with my close friends. I remember one or two conversations where I actually opened up, but it was really rare.

So, I've taken the plunge and gone on antidepressants after many years of contemplating trying them out, and many years of saying, "I don't need to take no pill to make me happy!" I want to use my blog to talk a little about the experience I have...how they impact my life, and of course why I am taking them, because I think it may be helpful to others who have also thought about taking them, and specifically, the wonder drug, "Lexapro."

First of all, I think there's a lot of stigma around anti-depressants. I know I myself have had a lot of misconceptions about what they are, what they do, and how they work. It's taken me a long time to understand what they do...and I still only just barely grasp it. But I know what they can do for me....and what it seems like they are already starting to do after only a couple of days.

In a lot of areas of my life, I experience a lot of fear, that really inhibits my ability to enjoy myself....I am only just starting to realize this. And it's weird because I do lots of crazy things. I've quite my job and taken off to Asia on a one-way ticket, I've jumped out of planes, I've climbed on glaciers in New Zealand... I've done lots of things in my life that seem to indicate that I have none of the fear that a lot of other people carry around.

But when it comes to my relationships with people, is when all my fear shows up. I can jump off a cliff with a hangliding sail on my back with no fear, but when I am alone with the amazing woman I am dating, it is a struggle like nothing else for me to open up to her about what I am feeling.

I spent 3 weeks trekking over the Himalayas in Nepal with zero fear of getting hurt (and I did get hurt, too...and it didn't stop me), but I can lie in bed in a loving embrace with Kelly, the most intimate place I could ever imagine, and the safest place I could ever imagine, so afraid of getting hurt. Even when it's totally irrational. Even when she tells me there's no reason to be afraid...even when she gives me all the reassurance in the world that I can say anything and she'll still accept me. I'm still afraid. And it's so hard for me to kick that fear.

I know part of this is only human. I know that fear of getting emotionally hurt can seem so much more powerful than fear of getting physically hurt. But I don't want to live anymore with so much fear of getting emotionally hurt.

And, I also know that a lot of my fear of getting emotionally hurt goes back to childhood. It goes back to the death of my father when I was a little kid....to loving someone deeply for the first time in my life....the first significant love of my life...my father, and then the pain of him leaving me when I thought he would always be there.

I remember my mom shutting down from the emotion of his death when I was a little kid, and therefore doing the same thing myself. But somewhere inside I've always felt that pain. And I've always carried the fear of someone I love leaving me. So I protect myself. I've rarely opened up. I've played it safe in my relationships. And I've carried my pain deep inside. And as I'm going to therapy now, it's starting to come out, and I'm starting to move through it. But over the years, it's created this sort of nervous anxiety in me. I am so afraid to open up. I am so afraid to really love.

But the thing is that I know now that logically there is no reason to be afraid anymore. Even if I get my heart broken, I know I will live. I'll cry and take some time to myself, but then I'll move on and my life will be great once again.

I know logically that there is no reason to be afraid. And therapy is helping me to slowly become less afraid. And it might take years to fully heal this wound and have no fear in relationships. But the point of the medication is to help speed up the process. The point of the medication is to take away some of my anxiety, some of my fear...since I know it doesn't really serve me anymore....so that I can open up again and be comfortable with myself.

The medication itself isn't supposed to make me feel things. The medication is supposed to help ease my anxiety and my fear so that I can actually access my emotions. It is supposed to ease my fear so that I can talk about my feelings, and feel connected to others around me. So that I can relax and be myself...so I can lighten up and enjoy my life as much as possible!

I only started taking Lexapro yesterday, and I don't know if I'm just imagining it but I already feel it working. I'm beginning to feel an inner stillness. I was walking around last night feeling relaxed, not feeling the usual concern that I feel about how people see me. I'm able to get more engaged in my meditation...I meditated for an hour this morning, and felt deeper waves of relaxation than I am normally able to feel. I also went jogging and went to the gym today, and even felt like I was able to get more into my workout, and more engaged in my running. And now I'm writing more open than I think I am normally able to write. I am usually really worried about getting my words right....worried about how I will look if I don't spell things out quite right (even if noone reads this :-P), but I'm just writing. I feel a little more ability to express myself. I don't really care as much if what I say comes out wrong.

The medication can take up to 4 weeks to fully take effect, so I am definitely interested in what happens over the next few weeks. And I am going to keep writing about what happens, because I think it's interesting. And because others that have thought about medication, or who just experience similar things may find it helpful too.

Peace and love!
Elliott