Category: Health

Arborescent thinking and the exponential ideation effect

I recently discovered the concept of arborescent thinking.

For me, this was a revelation. Let me start with 2 things to try and explain what’s going on here, in my own opinion and experience.

Arborescent mind or thinking: When something is brought up or you think of something, you can see a wide variety of potential problems, solutions, ideas and even opinions related to the situation or topic. Think instant mind map that keeps on growing… and growing. It’s a bit more complex than that but that’s the gist of it.

Exponential functions: There is a legend around the game of chess that puts the exponential functions into a clear, simple image. The story goes that the inventor of the game showed it to the emperor of India. The emperor was very impressed with the invention and said they could ask for anything they wanted. They asked for a simple reward: 1 grain of rice on the first square of the chess board and then, 2 on the second square, 4 on the third square and keep doubling the grains of rice for each square until all 64 were filled.

If you don’t understand exponential functions well, you might have the same reaction as the emperor in the story: Well… that’s a pretty lame reward.

Reality is, it’s a pretty remarkable and impossible reward to fulfill. You see, the result would be: 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains of rice. You can get a more detailed explanations here: Wheat and chessboard problem

That’s a lot of rice. Not keto friendly for sure.

Where am I going with this? Well, this is what can happen when your mind operates like an instant mind map that keeps growing instead of a more linear thought process. You get an idea and from this idea, 2 more pop up and from these 2, 4 more pop up and so on. It can quickly spin out of control and explaining to someone what’s going on can prove to be very challenging. They might look at you and say: Hmmmm, I understand the individual words that are coming out of your mouth… I can see a few interesting concepts pop up here and there… but what… exactly… are you talking about?

Reality is? You probably don’t even know anymore because the original intent was lost in the exponentially growing list of thoughts and ideas.

You see, just writing this blog can be challenging because if you don’t make a conscious effort to stay on target with the original intent, you might get lost and start writing about something that came up in your mind along the way. The squirrel effect is real and it’s constantly with you.

The first step in using this “skill” better is to first recognize and understand it. Once you do and become aware of it, you will need to find your own methods to channel it.

For me, writing things down helps. But it’s far from enough. Being mindful and in the moment is key. 

That’s the real challenge, isn’t it? When your mind constantly has new thoughts and ideas like the energizer bunny, it WANTS more than anything to work on this new idea you just had and see what it has to offer… even though you haven’t even put the other one down on paper yet. It’s the shiny new thing! And they multiply quickly. And your mind just wants to explore and jump from one to the other. After all, it already figured out this one so why bother staying here?

Calming your mind, slowing it down has to be exercised just like you would with biceps in the gym. It takes patience, effort and consistency. Sounds easy, it’s not. But it’s fun.

Do not confuse calming and slowing with stopping. You shouldn’t try to stop this since it’s a beautiful thing once channeled properly.

If this speaks to you, I hope this blog helps a bit. And do your best not to worry about it… Anxiety will make it more challenging and it’ll become a vicious cycle. Learn to let go, enjoy the process, breath, calm yourself and have fun… great ideas and creations will come out of it.

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Elements

2020 has been an incredible year for personal growth. Online classes and events multiplied like wet Mogwais!

Teachers and guides from all around the world were made available to us. Great mentors are crucial to growth, to success. They help us identify and embrace our core values. Set goals, celebrate successes and learn from failures. They exponentially speed up our learning and growth process through their own experience, knowledge, wisdom and teachings.

Invest in yourself and learn, it’s the best investment you can make!

Pass on what you have learned. Learn to teach and teach to learn. It’s a beautiful cycle and helps us grow as a species. I think we can all agree that after the past few months, we can use a bit of growth around the world!

I had a bit of fun assigning an Element to the 4 mentors that had a big impact on me so far in 2020. This is my way of showing my gratitude for what they’ve done and are doing for me.

Mentors will change as you evolve and grow. Some will make a very short appearance, some will stick around. Great mentors will have a big impact on your life whether they are present for 10 minutes or 10 years.

Earth: Simon (AKA: Simon ;))

Simon provides solid grounds to stand on through his integrity, dedication, guidance and the great Callisthenics community he’s built. He is teaching me to embrace and defy Earth’s gravity through strength, patience and perseverance.

Water: Andréanne (AKA: Yogi Nomade)

In 2018 I was jump started physically. In 2020, Andréanne jump started me mentally and emotionally. Through compassion and empathy, she taught me how to find courage. To open up and learn how to let go. Water is the genesys for life and I think it’s pretty fitting since I might not have been writing this had I not opened up. It’s where and how this new journey all started! Words cannot express how grateful I am and forever will be that our paths have crossed.

Fire: Christina (AKA: Movement Queen)

Christina is pure fire and a ball of focused energy! One of the most beautiful human beings I have had the chance to interact with. She is free spirited and the embodiment of a Growth Mindset. This is why I truly enjoy learning from her.

Through Budokon and her fiery passion, she teaches us how to let go, be courageous and creative. How to develop character… strength, both physical and mental.

Thinking about my next class with her gets me fired up! When she teaches, she does it with clear intent, focus, intensity, passion and intelligence.

All of this makes learning from her a truly remarkable experience. I am sure Budokon is as grateful to have her as an ambassador as I am having her as a mentor.

Air: Stéphanie (AKA: Catalyseur de Potentiel)

Stéphanie is guiding me to better understand myself and my core values. She’s helping me define a clear vision and find focus.  She is the wind in my sails to keep me flowing and going in the right direction.

Void (Aether): True Self?

In Japanese Buddhism, there is a fifth element: Void 

It resonates with me and everything I’m learning about the true self.

“A warrior properly attuned to the Void can sense their surroundings and act without using the mind, and without using their “physical senses”.”

Sounds a bit like what I explained (or tried to ;)) in “Laser Focus”. 

As I mentioned in the above mentioned post, music is a catalyst for me… So, I will conclude this blog by sharing a music video by Lindsey Stirling. She also is a 2020 discovery for me and through her art and intelligence, Lindsey constantly inspires me… helps me find focus, creativity and put the pieces together. So in a way she is indirectly a great teacher.

This beautiful song called “Elements” seems to be quite fitting for this post.

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Levers

When you start a journey to become healthier, somewhere along the way you’ll discover the importance of balance. And when you do, if you’re like me, you’ll probably fight it at first.

For those of us who have a perfectionist personality also usually comes the all or nothing attitude.

The more you learn about yourself the more levers you have to play with. Learning various ways to become healthier, physically, mentally and emotionally. It can and probably will be daunting.

You’ll go in full force, pulling down one lever to progress as much as possible, as fast as possible. This will inevitably bring another lever all the way up and cause imbalance.

No matter how coaches and teachers repeat it, us perfectionists stubborn people have to pull on a lever all the way down and get out of balance in order to learn. What matters is what we do with this new information and how we get back up and adjust the lever.

In my blog “Laser Focus” I slowly started to understand the concept of balancing thoughts and emotions. Since then, I read a book by Dr Joe Dispenza called “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One”.

It’s an incredible book that made me realize quite a few things about why we react and act in certain ways and how to find balance.

With time, we learn to pull and adjust each lever slowly, one at a time. It requires a lot of trying, failing, patience, discipline and most of all, self love.

This image shared by Dr. Nicole LePera is the best I’ve seen to represent the various levers to play with and find balance.

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Deconstruction

A few days ago I wrote The Perfect Imperfection.

I wrote a blog a day since. This is out of character for me for multiple reasons.

I usually want to review over and over. Change… rearrange continuously… Have someone review and approve. Then review it myself again and again. This can take days or even weeks. And then after weeks, doubt and fear of judgement sets in and I end up not publishing it at all.

After I wrote The Perfect Imperfection, I unconsciously started working on something that came up during one of my classes with my incredible teacher, Christina De Freitas. Deconstruction. Deconstructing some of my thoughts, emotions or some of my traits.

Last few blogs I wrote, I wrote quickly with minimal review and didn’t look for outside approval before publishing.  Slowly deconstructing my quest for perfection and my fear of judgement.

  1. 42 – The answer to everything – I wrote this on my 42th birthday. As simple as what I wrote is, I wouldn’t have published this a few weeks ago out of fear.
  2. No place I’d rather be – This one deconstructed both perfectionism and the fear of judgement. I would normally have taken days to film the perfect scenes and then days or weeks to cut and move pieces. I decided to let go… just go out and start filming. My nephew and I edited it in under an hour. What was important wasn’t really how the video looked, it was the intent and the message behind it. Before publishing the video, I was afraid of what people would think of the message or the result. But I overcame that irrational fear and just did it.
  3. Laser Focus – Here I talk about something I don’t understand well. I feared I would be all wrong in how I understand or explain it. Then, I just didn’t care if it’s right or wrong. It just felt right at the time and I went ahead.

Letting go, not overthinking and deconstructing some of our deep rooted thoughts and emotions is quite liberating.

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Laser Focus

I have been fascinated by the mind and body connection lately. This is all new to me and it’s been very exciting.

During my morning walk I realized music is a catalyst for creativity in my case. If the right song is played at the right time, something happens.

It happened this morning with Lindsey Stirling’s song “The Arena” and that’s when I realized what was truly happening.

I was thinking about the mind and body connection and how mine have been out of tune for a very long time. Something that looks like this:

Lately, I’ve been learning more and more on the topic. I’ve learned to slowly align the two a little better. So I’ve been oscillating between what you see above and this:

This morning I realized that, from time to time, including at that particular moment, this happens:

When this happens, my thoughts and emotions are in tune and I become laser focused. Clarity and creativity set in and I have an infinite range of ideas, solutions, realizations to pick and choose from.

So far, this only happened with the right music and the right timing. When it does, it feels great. I am light as a feather, strong as an ox and laser focused. I feel like I could fly, move mountains and cut through metal.

I can’t wait to explore this more, it feels amazing.

What’s your catalyst?

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No place I’d rather be

We’ve all had to live in confinement over the past few months and we now know how it feels to live inside without much human interactions.

We each experienced it in our own way and it was difficult for most of us at varying degrees of difficulty.

We’re now slowly starting to deconfine, go out and see our friends again.

I was walking and enjoying the beautiful weather last week and started to think about all those that are confined like this year round. Some for weeks, some for months and some for years.

The song “Rather Be” by Clean Bandit and Jess Glynne started playing and I thought of a way to bring them with me on one of my next walk. I asked my nephew if I could borrow his camera and decided to film a hike in the woods and take everyone out with me. Thanks to my awesome nephew for his camera and editing the video! It was a fun little project :).

If you know someone who cannot enjoy the outside like we do, share this video with them. Or even better, go visit an area they want to visit or revisit, film your walk, bike ride, etc. and show it to them.

Bring a bit of sunshine in their day!

*****************************

We staked out on a mission to find our inner peace

Make it everlasting so nothing’s incomplete

It’s easy being with you, sacred simplicity

As long as we’re together, there’s no place I’d rather be

With every step we take, Kyoto to The Bay

Strolling so casually

…

When I am with you, there’s no place I’d rather be

*****************************

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42 – The answer to everything

Today I turned 42. Feels like 24.

According to Douglas Adams’s novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, 42 is the answer to the “ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything,”.

41 was already pretty intense so if this is true, watch out! Haha!

I feel younger, stronger and much wiser than ever.

You all can feel like this, it’s all about mindset…. 

Move your body, free your mind… Be happy!

“It might seem crazy what I’m ’bout to say
Sunshine she’s here, you can take a break
I’m a hot air balloon that could go to space
With the air, like I don’t care baby by the way
…
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do
Hey, go, uh
Bring me down, can’t nothin’
Bring me down
My level’s too high to bring me down
Can’t nothin’ bring me down”

Go get it!

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The Perfect Imperfection

Hi. I’m Matt and I’m a perfectionist.

I was thinking about mindset and its effects on how we see the world. If we change our mindset, we might just be able to see perfection in imperfection.

Once you realize this, you stop focusing, wasting time and effort on things that don’t matter and you move forward. You stay away from the “on & off switch”, the “all or nothing” mindset and see the 50 shades of grey instead.

Aiming for perfection is fine and we should all aim high! However, wanting to reach perfection in everything you do is a waste of time and effort in my opinion. Achieve the perfect imperfection and you’ll achieve more than most.

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”

Michelangelo

Keep working until you achieve perfection and you’ll stall, stagnate and miss out on a lot of other accomplishments along the way. And let’s be honest, you’ll never reach perfection in anything and that’s a beautiful thing.

Learn to let go. Don’t let perfectionism turn into an unhealthy obsession blinding you to what really matters. I say “unhealthy obsession” because being obsessed can be healthy in my opinion. It’s how and what you’re obsessed with that matters. But I digress, obsession is probably a topic for another blog.

All of this doesn’t mean to get lazy and accept mediocrity. Lex Fridman said it best.

“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, but also: don’t let society’s acceptance of mediocrity be the enemy of excellence.⁠”

Lex Fridman

Find balance. See the shades of grey. Achieve the perfect imperfection. And what is perfectly imperfect today most probably won’t be tomorrow, constantly evolving depending on your state of mind.

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The Domino Effect

For a long time, I was happy doing my little things in my own little world.

Last year, after a few months on medical leave, I slowly started to open up. I felt like seeing old friends, making new ones and exploring the world. I was still cautious… sticking to comfort like velcro.

Earlier this year, I met someone that, without knowing it, provided THE key.

The key was LOVE and the door was ME. It allowed me to slowly open up more and more… to see people… to see myself.

After this happened, everything quickly started to fall into place. 

Overwhelming? Yes! Scary? Oh hell yeah! Refreshing? Fuck yeah!

I’ve learned a lot about myself since and my ego still shows up from time to time to say: “Why didn’t I figure this out earlier? Why didn’t anybody teach me all of this sooner? I’ve wasted so many years during which I could’ve worked on all of this!”.

Then my true self remembers one of Gandalf’s quote:

“A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.”

Reality is, I was working on this all along. Working on me. I just didn’t realize it. Dominos were being placed in line behind that door. Once it opened, they just started falling one after the other and clarity started to set in, domino by domino.

Years of battle between me and my ego left markings on my back. Now, instead of fighting with my fears, I embrace them. I find courage, love, I move forward and finally show who I really am. It’s hard… but it’s fun.

I am out, sharing all of this with the world and the dominos will just keep falling forever. I have spent my life aligning them one behind the other without knowing it. Setting this path that is now laying in front of me.

“Not all those who wander are lost” – J.R.R. Tolkien

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us” – J.R.R. Tolkien

Two sentences that inspired the tattoos on my back and my chest. The tattoos represent a lot of who I am. Time, space, duality, fears, ego… The pieces I’ve discovered lately are balance, love, and awareness of the true self…

You are working on yourself every day. Whenever you face a challenging situation, embrace it. Learn from it. Grow from it. And then share what you’ve learned with others so they can benefit from your experiences.

Open up. Embrace your fears and find courage, find love. Courage to love yourself, courage to love someone and courage to live your life to the fullest. And believe me, you’re more ready than you think. Your ego and your fears are simply distracting you… blindsiding you. You have what it takes, you’ve got this! Get out of your comfort zone and charge!

“Don’t count the days. Make the days count.” Muhammad Ali

Writing and publishing this blog is scary as hell for me but let’s go! Embracing my fears, getting out of my comfort zone and finding the courage of pressing the publish button uuuuummmmmmmmm… Now!

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Valentine’s day – Part One

January 11th, 2018… 5 feet, 6 inches… 245-250 pounds. That’s a lot of pounds per square inch.

Just another day, waking up coughing and exhausted from coughing all night. It’s been like that for a while now, on and off for the last few years. So, I’ve lived with it (without any issues) and I assumed it’s nothing serious as my mom has been coughing on and off since I can remember. So I figured I’m just like mom, what are you gonna do?

As usual, I go to work after skipping breakfast. I do my daily hardcore workout… which consists of walking to my car from my apartment and then from my car to my office. Probably a whopping 2 minutes… Of course, I take the elevator. Taking the stairs doesn’t even cross my mind.

However, today is different… I walk out of the elevator and start to feel out of breath. I head straight towards my office which is a LONG 30-45 seconds walk. I continue breathing heavily, as well as feeling a slight discomfort below my right shoulder. After an hour or two of breathlessness and the discomfort intensifying, I decided I needed to make a dreaded trip to the hospital. I HATE HOSPITALS!

It was chock a block full of patients. I sat there watching two older ladies telling jokes and trying to cheer up a sick little girl. At the same time, a young boy was running around who tried and succeeded, to cheer her up. “Mathieu Drolet, please come to room number 6.” That’s me!

So there I was, sitting in room number 6. A few minutes later, Dr. Carrier shows up and auscultates me, asking me to take deep breaths and holding some of them in. It was still really distressing.

Shortly after, Dr. Carrier joins me in the room and shares my diagnosis…

Pneumonia in both lungs with a side of high blood pressure and diabetes type II. Happy new year Matt!

After that bombshell, she told me I needed to stay in the hospital, they were going to give me medication to lower my blood pressure and that I needed to lay down until I had stabilized. Stabilize? What the…?

The first nurse is back, and she’s the one who would check up on me every once in a while. At this point, my heart rate and blood pressure were the main concerns for them. They were trying their best to lower them.

A while later Dr. Carrier came back and while she remained very professional, I could see worry in her eyes. She sat down and looked at me with a very serious look. I could see a bit of disappointment and empathy in her eyes. She told me to go back home. Warned me that I needed to take it easy for a few days and take care of myself. She started explaining the game plan she came up with for me.

  1. Meds for hypertension: I believe it was hydrochlorothiazide.
  1. Meds for diabetes: Metformin
  2. An appointment with a cardiologist and a treadmill test to make sure everything is OK with my heart.

Unbelievable that she could find the time to come up with this plan in the middle of all these other patients I saw earlier in the emergency room.

Enough is enough… I arrive home and tell myself I am too young to be this unhealthy. I have to get back on a healthy path. I have to get rid of this pneumonia first though… Stupid pneumonia…

January 26th: At this point, I decided to see pretty much every specialist available. I started with a physiotherapist. That’s when I met Christine from CBI Excellence, who would help me over the course of the next few months in strengthening various parts of my body to avoid injuries on my new journey.

After my initial evaluation, she told me we would need to work on a few things together but nothing too major. She suggested to see a kinesiologist so I could get an exercise program.

January 31st: I followed Christine’s advice and got an appointment with a Kinesiologist. That’s when I met the energetic and passionate Julie. Who would later be assisted by her awesome intern, Ann Sophie. I would soon give them the title of “jumper cables.”

It was a little hard to get going as I didn’t have the energy to really get moving. My mind wanted to but my body was like: “Dude, the hell are you doing? Sit down! I ain’t used to this!”

Julie asked what I ate, how I slept, etc. I mentioned I started following a nutrition program from a website and that my sleep isn’t so great.

She said she can help with nutrition during our next visit but referred me to a nutritionist.

February 5th: I wasted no time and booked an appointment with Roxanne, the nutritionist. Pretty much like every health professional I met over a few week period, she was very patient and passionate about showing me the ropes. I told her my goals, to lose weight, get back in shape and get rid of the meds I am taking if at all possible.

With the help of Christine, Julie and Ann Sophie, I slowly but surely got back on the right road. I began walking, a little bit of weight training here and there and some slow, short runs.

February 13th, 2018: 213 pounds! That’s between 32 to 37 pounds lost… I know right?

I went back to the hospital for a checkup. Pneumonia is gone and everything looks perfect! Woohoo!

February 14th, 2018… Valentine’s day… how ironic :). I went for my treadmill test and met with Dr. Delage who would become my cardiologist for a few months. He wonders what the hell i’m doing there at first, me being so young. He looks at my x-rays from a month or so ago and says: Hell, that’s no pneumonia… this is “water on the lungs” (AKA: Pleural Effusion). I see a bit of worry in his facial expression so I said to myself: “Oh oh…”

Diagnosis: Heart failure! Well, that doesn’t sound scary at all doc, thanks! I won’t go into the technical details in this blog post but my ejection fraction was at 31%. Normal fraction should be around 55% to 60% according to him.

This is serious heart disease! However, I am a very positive guy by nature and while it did worry and scare the crap out of me, I stayed calm and immediately entered “solution and focus mode”.

He told me that I would require medication, possibly, for the rest of my life. With my overall efforts that I have started with since January, I was already on point. He wished all his patients were as easy to deal with as me. I have to keep it up though… and I will!! I will get rid of these meds if I can! Just watch me!

I kept my routine with Julie, Ann Sophie and Christine and made steady progress.

I decided I want to take this to the next level so I joined a gym and got a full blown program at the Nautilus plus in Ste-Foy. It included a kinesiologist and a nutritionist. I really loved working with Julie and Ann Sophie but I felt like access to a full gym would benefit me more with my progression and development.

A very special thank you to my awesome “jumper cables”, Christine, Julie and Ann Sophie. I can’t thank them enough for their help in getting me started.

Read part two here.

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