The Official Guide To

Feeling Awesome

This post is about how to feel real fucking good, no Vicodin or receiving of oral sex required. You can always add in those amenities later if you like, probably best to avoid the Vicodin though.

Credit… http://chrismccombs.net/25-ways-to-feel-awesome/

We live in a society of bored, stressed-out, anxious, agitated, always-in-a-hurry furrow-browed beings. What you’re about to read is your ticket to the direct line out of the status quo of the masses and onto exactly what you can do to feel not only good, but totally awesome

We’ve traded our peace of mind, sense of wonder, serotonin, endorphins, optimism and good vibrations for resentment, regret, stress, worries, cortisol, too much concern for what others think and too much focus on shit that just simply does not matter.

It’s time to take back what is rightfully yours.

I once heard a well-known business guru when asked if he was happy in front a crowd of people, respond “I’m not happy, I’m miserable most of the time, aren’t you? It’s not about feeling good, it’s about business”

The message stuck.

I saw a room full of people who sacrificed how they felt most of the time, for how they thought more money, more success, more stuff, and a better presentation of who they are would make them feel. Funny thing is, most of them had already achieved what the world would call “success”

It became apparent to me, that even though they were successful, were leaders in their fields, appeared to have their shit together and could talk a good game with the best of em’… most of them simply weren’t happy, and neither was I. I was making good money, had cool things, and what I thought was a “dream life” … but most of the time, I felt like, well… Shit.

In fact, I’ve spent a great deal of my life feeling uneasy, tense and just plain lousy.

It’s like there was always a low-level hum of constant anxiety somewhere in the background of my being. Like a constant motor running… the off button was jammed.

Stress, worry, agitation and a feeling of something being “off”.

Diagnosed with OCD and ADHD… and not the pedestrian kind that your typical American has today… I’m talking about being 8 years old and the teacher’s trying to pry me from the ceiling fan, reports sent home with me that said “It’s as if Chris isn’t even in the classroom, he’s off in some other world”, and constant visits to the principle’s office as well as the child psychologist.

I’m not using any disorder as a scapegoat. Most people are screwed up. And some of the most amazing people to walk this planet, are the most screwed up… that screw being driven down into them, is what helped them become so amazing and driven to achieve great things, like art, music, millions of dollars and Olympic medals.

As far back as I can remember, I’ve felt like shit, even as a little kid. Later in life, not much later actually, I turned to food, sex and drugs to try and make me feel better. As anyone who’s taken the low roads know, the fix is temporary and the shitty feelings come back with the wrath of a scorned woman as the drug leaves your body.

If you’ve ever kicked massive amounts of opiods or benzos you know what I’m talking about… it’s where Hell and existence merge into one… life becomes an angry pitbull and you’re the rag doll in it’s mouth.

I just wanted to feel better, but the boomerang always comes back around.

Feeling like shit pertains not only to OCD’s, ADD’s, ADHD’s, addicts, alcoholic’s, the depressed, the anxious, the pregnant, women during that special time of the month, the grief stricken, the wronged, the busy, the bored, the tired, the hungry, the obese, the broke, the kings wearing their heavy crowns, the awkward and the angry … but just about everyone. I’ll bet ya a fistfull of Applebee’s coupons that there’s days even the Dali Lama feels like unenlightened monk dung.

Agitation. Boredom. Unease. Discontent.

The default settings for humans living in today’s world of stressful desk jobs, disconnected virtual relationships and fast food diets.

The fear-based media machine shovels shit down our throats to either buy or be scared of. We’re hypnotized into thinking if we just buy enough of the right stuff, hoard enough money and look sexy as fuck in our skinny jeans, that all will be well in Eutopia

But if you look at the ones with the to-die-for bods, factory installed perfect faces, pads on MTV Cribs and 14 cars in the driveway, it’s not hard to see that they’re just as miserable as the rest of us.

Sometimes it seems like we’re just plain screwed. Well, maybe not…

There Are Things We Can Do To Feel Totally Awesome On a Regular Basis

And none of it involves sex, money, prestige or heroin.

I mean, we all wanna feel good, right?

It’s why people stick needles in their arms, eat yummy little chocolate things, rub their naked body parts together, embezzle millions of dollars, drink iced frappucinos, buy clothes they don’t need, jump out of airplanes, listen to music, go to Vegas, ride motorcycles and do a whole bunch of other stuff that falls on the spectrum from downright bad, disgusting, greedy and sinister to amazing, beautiful, giving and loving.

But feeling good can be such an elusive little bugger. Fortunately we all catch him sometimes.

You’ve no doubt had moments where you felt downright euphoric and filled with bliss … as if life itself was one big damn orgasm.

And other moments where each second felt like a prison sentence. Where fire pumped through your veins and you cursed your very existence.

Most of the time we’re somewhere between those two extremes… and all too often somewhere south of Middling and just on the outskirts of Shit Town… at least that’s what the GPS says… in fact, I think we just missed our exit. The good, the bad, the ugly and the ahhh shit, would you look at that, bumper to bumper traffic, this is the last thing I fucking need right now.

I’ve spent enough time on both sides of the tracks of feeling bad in Shit Town and feeling good in Awesome Town, to set up legal residency in both.

My time spent running the streets of both these places has taught me there’s some simple things we can do to feel a lot better, a lot more often, and get rid of the constant state of agitation, unease and discontent many of us carry with us through our days.

Now there are some people who are so unconscious of what’s going on inside of them they don’t fully realize just how often they don’t feel good. Feeling like shit has become their standard operating system, and they don’t really know any other way to be. They unconsciously grab for things to make them feel better, not even knowing why they’re doing it.

For those of us who’ve been keeping an eye on what’s going on inside, it becomes pretty apparent, that we’re not feeling anywhere near as good as we’d like, A LOT OF THE TIME.

The 25 things listed below will help.

When Combined, These 25, Make Up a Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Approach to Living

Allowing us to rise above the lowlands that surround Shit Town and climb up to a mountain top of existence most people can’t even fathom.

Let this blog post be your Sherpa.

If you’re regular reader of my blog, there’s a good chance you already do a bunch of these. I urge you to fully live those and embrace the ones you’re leaving on the table. The more of these you can toss into the blender and into the fruity and tasty smoothie of life, the better you’ll feel.

In fact, make mine a double.

1. Feel Bad

To feel good, you must also feel bad. There is no such thing as always trotting down the yellow brick road with a joyous spring in your step and smile on your face.

A lot of self-help and new age gurus will tell you that you should ALWAYS be in a good mood, filled with harmonious joy, love towards all and walk around with a tingly feeling in your butt as butterflies fly out of it.

Well, good fucking luck with that one.

We’re told if we just feel good all the time and see the things we want with joyous bliss in our bellies, that grandpa will show up at our doorstep with a brand new bicycle, we’ll end up living in the exact house whose picture we cut out from a magazine and stuck on our wall, unexpected checks will magically start to appear in the mail and we’ll always find a big fat parking spot right in the front row.

All very cool stuff, and I’ve actually had great results with attracting some amazing in my life through the power of visualization and ( cough, cough ) action.

On the flip side of the “think it, feel it, get it” coin, we’re told that if we feel “negative” emotions, all kinds of negative stuff will happen to us.

So it makes sense that we want to avoid feeling like shit right? Unless of course, our goal is to manifest a steaming pile of it.

Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m not knocking visualization, positive self-talk and feeling good about our life and things we want, in fact I’m for that kinda stuff.

What I AM saying, is that it ain’t as easy as just always trying to keep yourself in a “joyous and blissful” state of being all the time.

In fact, the more you “try”, the harder it is… you can get so focused on trying to be in a good mood all the time, that every time you’re in a shitty mood, you beat up on yourself for it, making yourself feel even shittier.

Pretty soon, you start to realize, “Fuck! I’m in a shitty mood most of the time!”.

This a great place to start.

Because now you have awareness, and awareness is the first step in anything, and sometimes, it’s the ONLY step. So this awareness is good.

Humans have a full spectrum of emotions and some of them downright suck when you’re going through them.

A quick trip to Wikipedia reveals some of the many theories about how many emotions we have.

Among others, there’s Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions, which says the basic eight emotions are:

– Fear
– Anger
– Sadness
– Joy
– Disgust
– Trust
– Anticipation
– Surprise

And according to Book Two of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, we have

– Anger
– Friendship
– Fear
– Shame
– Kindness
– Pity
– Indignation
– Envy

Looking at these lists it kinda looks like we’re screwed. I mean, easily half of those emotions don’t feel all that great to experience. Ouch.

But if we wanna feel the good ones, we GOTTA be willing to feel the not-so-good ones.

First, to know what feels good we have to have something to compare it to, like not feeling good.

And secondly and more importantly, it’s not like we can just close the valve on the bad feeling emotions and and leave the valve for good feeling emotion open. You close one, you close both. And when you do this, you end up with a pretty serious back-up of emotions… and sooner or later something’s gonna burst

When you have an emotional surplus like this, pretty soon someone’s gonna feed the gremlins after midnight, and when that happens, the shit’s goin’ down.

Once you let these little hoodlums, like anger and sadness, lurk around in the back alleys of your psyche, by denying them when they come up, they’re gonna cause all sorts of shenanigans back there.

Resisting what comes up is definitely a dangerous game. When you push your emotions down into a dark and unseen place, they’ll enjoy a steady regimen of push-ups, squats and deadlifts… only to come back when you least expect it to ambush you with 50 pounds more muscle on their frame, and twice the speed and power. Sometimes the smallest of things can trigger one of these emotional ambushes.

The best plan is to just experience things as they come up, without any resistance.

Face your emotions head on, allow them to be, experience them fully, investigate them and see if you can get to the roots.

The light of awareness is what can transmute the lower-end feelings into higher end ones.

Don’t TRY to change what’s going on inside of you, simply allow it to be and experience it completely.

The more of your awareness you can bring to it, the sooner it will dissipate.

What you resist persists. Face. Embrace. Erase.

If you want to feel awesome, you also need to be willing to feel not so awesome.

2. Move

Our bodies are meant to move, our pores meant to sweat, our muscles meant to contract and stretch, and our blood meant to flow.

Plain and simply, we were meant to mother fucking train.

I don’t care if it’s power-walking with fun loving Mabel, Gertrude and Marge; sweating to the oldies with Richard Simmons, bodyweight workouts at the park, yoga with a bunch of sweaty vegetarians, mountain biking, Crossfit, Jazzercise or heavy powerlifting sessions surrounded by guys with shaved heads, goatees and giant stomachs in a warehouse-style dungeon gyms full of all things heavy and gnarly

If you enjoy it, do it. If you hate it all, find the one you hate the least.

Due to injuries and just bouts of laziness, in the last 20 years I’ve probably been training for 16 or 17 of it and spent a total of 3 or 4 of it not doing any sort of training at all. A year here, six months there, that sorta thing. For the rest of it, I have trained.

During times of no training, I absolutely, categorically felt like shit. Agitated, sluggish and moody.

I realize sometimes it’s hard to pick up anything heavier than the television remote, the big one, ya know, the one that works for your TV, DVD player, Blue Ray, Nintendo and garage door.

But if you just get up and get your ass to the gym, the workout WILL get done. You’ll feel a million times better, actually 1.38729 million times better, but I rounded down for the sake of simplicity.

If you wanna train, but have trouble actually getting out the door and doing it, Do what I do, lie to yourself. And not just any lie, tell yourself ‘Big Chris’s Favourite Lie’.

It goes like this: “I’ll just go do a few quick little light sets today, that’s all”.

It works awesome! In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever ended up actually just done a few quick little light sets. Typically after the first few sets I’m fired up and gunnin’ hard. Many of my best workouts have been on the days I’ve told myself that little fib.

And guess what? Almost everyone who trains has days they don’t wanna train, and many of them, just like me, rely on that little lie to get them into gear. And just like me, they have some of their best workouts on those days.

Do whatever you need to make it happen.

I don’t know how people go through their life without some sort of regular training. They’re a strange species, one which can easily be observed in any middle America town. Just go and have a seat at any mall or place where the Mid-West Beings gather and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Mounds of body fat concealing what can best be described as dead muscle tissue . Shoulders rounded forward, palms facing backward. They look like they’re headed off to a Star Trek convention.

Add in the look on their face of “If shit went down right now, I would not know how to defend myself from being eaten, so I better look as ugly and unhealthy to consume as possible” … filled with sloth meat, bitter depression and sour discontent.

That image right there keeps me training my ass off. That, and knowing how shitty it feels not to train.

Now I’m not always in great shape, in fact, I’m known to carry the extra pounds from time to time, like right now actually. But even when I’m drilling new holes near the end of my belt, I’m also training my ass off.

Because I KNOW where sitting on it gets me, and that ain’t no fun.

There’s something magical that happens at the end of a workout that can carry you through the entire day. Endorphins, serotonin, worked muscles, a clear mind and an unbreakable feeling of accomplishment.

“The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it’s impossible to turn back.”Henry Rollins

3. Be Still

My Uncle Chris, or the GUC ( Great Uncle Chris) as I’ve called him since I was kid… is by far, the most consistently happy person I know. Not Stepford Wife happy. And it’s not like he doesn’t experience the full spectrum of human emotions.

In fact, his life is far from perfect. But the dude is DEFINITELY perfect with his life. He’s passionate but chill. Calm and fully engaged in the moment.

I believe one the biggest reasons for his ability to live in a state a peace paralleled by only a few, is simply that he has meditated every day for over 40 years. He loves it so much, he actually does it for a few hours a day.

Meditation increases ability to handle stress, your ability to focus, it balances your emotions, can lower blood pressure, makes you feel happier and more calm, and that’s just for starters.

A few months back I started meditating myself… and holy shit! What a difference.

I started with 20 minutes a day and now do 30 to 40. I just sit focus on my breathing. Each time I run away with some good looking whore in the night, otherwise known as a thought, I come back to my breathe as soon as I notice it.

Combine A.D.H.D. with trying to sit still, eyes closed and just focusing on the breathe, makes for an awesome adventure in “Holy fuck I must be doing this wrong” … With practice, it’s gotten better.

I know it seems weird that sitting there doing nothing will actually make you happier, but anyone who meditates will tell you it does. As humans we don’t wanna do nothing, we wanna do… something… anything!

We want the 14 steps, 22 actions, 33 tasks and 25 ways, just like the title of this blog post.

But there’s something about doing nothing that trumps everything else we’ve diligently listed on our neatly organized, micro-managed holy to-do lists. Sub-lists included with stars by the real important shit.

Some might say, “I’m too busy to meditate man! Just sit there and do nothing? What are you trippin’ dude? I got shit to do McCombs!”

Time spent in meditation has a “saving time” effect that’s compounded with interest. Meditation allows you to bring yourself more fully into the rest of what you do, making you much more focused and productive as you venture into the chaotic land of “getting shit done”.

Meditation is one of those things like exercise, once you start doing it, you’ll wonder how you ever got along without it before.

“In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.”Deepak Chopra

4. Juice

A large glass of fresh raw juice made from good things that grow in the ground, like kale, spinach, cucumbers, bell peppers, celery, carrots and whatever else you wanna stick in there, will make you feel fucking awesome. I usually like about 6 to 8 different kinds of veggies in mine.

Do it everyday for a month and you’ll feel like a rock star, well, the way rock stars SHOULD feel, with all the awesome stuff they got going on and everything, not the way they actually feel, which a lot of the times is worse off than the rest of us. Why do you think they’re always trying to fill that gaping void with everything and anything they can get grubby their little paws on?

Ya know how shitty you feel after you’ve just eaten a bunch of fast food? Drinking raw fresh veggie juice is the opposite of that.

Not only will you feel better, but you’ll start to crave healthier stuff the rest of the time as well… giving your body what it needs to fire on all cylinders.

If you don’t have one, go pick up one of those juicers like you see on TV, get yourself a bunch of green stuff ( not weed ) and start juicing. Yes, they are pain in the ass to prepare and to keep the machines clean are an even a bigger pain in the ass, but find a way to make it happen, it’s more than worth it.

Get in the habit of it for one month… and just like mediation and training, you’ll wonder how you ever got along without it before.

5. Fuel

This one is another no-brainer… and if you’re into health and fitness, like a lot of my readers, then you probably have this one nailed.

If you don’t have your eating dialed in, and you’re interested in feeling good, do yourself a huge favor and drop the toxic waste, processed food, junk food, fast food, fake food, refined sugars, gluten and Flaming Hot Cheetohs, and get on some farm raised meats, wild caught fish, organic vegetables, good-clean natural carbohydrates and healthy fats and you will feel 100 times better.

If you’re vegetarian, please make sure and get enough protein.

A good rule of thumb for the rest of us is that if something comes in a box, or doesn’t grow in the ground or run, swim, walk or fly, it probably isn’t gonna help you feel good.

Everything you eat can either help you to feel good or help you to feel bad. It’s either one or the other.

Hey, I’m all for a good cheat meal, but if more than 10% of what you’re eating isn’t the good stuff, you’re jacking up your bodies ability to get on board with the whole feeling good thing.

Eat shit, feel like shit. Eat good, feel good. I’ve done both to the extreme and my life could be one big 42 year case study on the affects of food on mood.

When I was a teenager I lived on a steady diet of Pizza Rolls, 7-11 Nachos, Cool Ranch Doritos, Cookies and Cream Ice Cream and Mountain Dew. I never actually realized how shitty I felt until I started putting in the all natural good healthy stuff.

Sometimes I do cheat, cuz it tastes good, about once a week… lets call these ‘field tests’ where I’m just making sure the “Law of Eat Good Feel Good, Eat Like Shit Feel Like Shit” still holds true.

In fact I just ran one of these field tests for you last night, trading in my regular diet of lean natural proteins and organic vegetables, with a giant pizza and large chocolate ice cream, and guess what?

I felt like shit the rest of the night and woke up clogged, bloated, stuffed up and felt like I was a 6’6” 300lb walking talking fart.

The first thing I did the following morning ( after my meditation) was down a large fresh raw veggie juice, and in no time, I’m back on top of my game again.

Eating good is ‘Feel Awesome 101’, and if you don’t have this one dialed in, the rest of the stuff on this list will hardly even matter… you could meditate and train all day, but if you eat toxic, you’re gonna feel toxic.

6. Truth

It’s hard to feel good when you ain’t telling it like it is. Another topic my entire life could serve as an in-depth case study on. I’ve lived as much of a lie as one could live, and I’ve been a real straight shooter as well. The former is an absolute prison, and the ladder is total freedom.

With dishonesty your whole life ends up working against you as something deep inside screams for the truth.

Secrets and lies are like poison to not only every cell of your being, but that poison leaks out and affects everything you do.

The most important thing, is to be honest to your friends and family… honor the ones you love by telling them the truth.

Life will treat you better because YOU are treating life better.

People wonder why I admit such crazy stuff in my blog posts… why I just pour it out all over the place.

It’s because of the freedom I’ve found in doing so. The gorilla has left the building with Elvis and stays off my back.

If you’re honest, you’re never truly wrong. It may be the harder road to take sometimes, there’s a lot more climbing involved when you’re walking the high roads, but life will always turn out better in the end, even when it doesn’t seem like it at first.

Be open about your intentions in all you do and tell it like it is.

What this does for how you feel about life, as well as yourself, is far beyond what one can imagine when sitting at the crossroads of “White Lie” and “Do The Right Fucking Thing”.

Speak TRUTH.

Fight for TRUTH with every cell of your being.

And live the TRUTH of who you are.

NEVER be ashamed of what you stand for or who you are.

Whatever you are, be that fully.

Even if most people don’t like it, hell even if NO ONE likes it.

If you’re right in your gut, you’ll know it… go with that.

Go with TRUTH.

“Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.”Mahatma Gandhi

7. Community

Humans thrive best when part of a community. Not having a community or strong group of friends and loved ones is a direct line to misery. It’s the shortest distance between having a life and hating your life. Without each other, we simply wither and die a miserable death.

Now I’m an introvert. Always have been. Personally, I only like to be around people for about an hour or two a day, with the exception of my girl and my children, which I like to be around A LOT.

It’s always been like this, anyone who knows me well can vouch. The last to arrive at the party, and the first to go. It’s been in my blood since I was knee high.

That said, I make sure to get out and put myself around family, friends and people I like on a regular basis, even if the dose of others I like is smaller than most people’s.

Even introverts like myself need people. Without people our lives would be meaningless.

We need other people, people who we like, people we love, people who lift us up and people who we lift up.

We need mentors and proteges. Friends and family. Parents and children.

We need to like and be liked, love and be loved, listen and be heard.

The need for human touch and attention starts when we’re newborns and is carried through with us til the day we die.

According to LiveStrong…

“Babies who don’t receive human contact in their first days or weeks of life often suffer from health problems related to this deprivation. They can exhibit a failure to thrive, a condition seen in orphanages among children who did not receive enough human contact when they were babies. Newborns denied physical contact with other humans can actually die from this lack of contact, even when provided with proper nutrition and shelter.”

We are social creatures by nature, meet any hermit who never gets out and the only relationship he has with others is watching them on TV or arguing with them on internet forums, and you have one miserable son of a bitch.

Life is meant to be shared. Our best times are always with others.

The best way to build strong bonds and relationships is by seeing what you can add to others lives, like St Francis of Assisi said, “Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love”

Having a support group of friends, loved ones and acquaintances, old and new, is key to feeling awesome.

8. Mix It Up

Having a routine is good, but so is spontaneity. Doing the same thing, day in, day out… without switching it up, will make you a robot, a non-human, unhappy and unfulfilled. Life turns into your own personal Groundhog Day minus the happy ending

It can be simple little things like taking a new route to work, walking a different path, going to a new restaurant you’ve never been to before, attending a new church or social club, working out at a new gym, doing a new workout… anything to give your mind a new experience to chew on.

Your mind, body and spirit long for new adventures… even if it’s just grocery shopping at a new store. Do new stuff, feel fucking awesome.

9. Laugh

The average 4 year old laughs 300 times a day, the average 40 year old only 4.

What the fuck happened to us?

When did all the hilarity get replaced with furrowed brows?

Are we taking life so seriously, getting so caught up in the pursuit of success, so bogged down with our problems, so busy with our little plots and schemes, so absorbed in trying to photoshop our picture of who we think we are, so lost in the web of fiction spun by the mind, that we forget to look at life through the eyes of wonder and mystery and notice just how funny shit is?

If this is the case, which all signs seems to be pointing towards, we can no longer live in denial, we need some kind of intervention, where Joe Rogan, Louis CK and the the ghosts of Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks and George Carlin all surround us and do their best to mend our broken funny bones.

Life itself is pretty damn funny when you think about it… and we’re blessed with all kinds of tools and allies to help us chuckle, giggle, howl and roll around on the floor like wild animals having fits of funny.

We have funny movies, funny TV shows, funny books, funny people, funny websites, funny pictures on Facebook, funny YouTube videos, stand up comics and most of all, we have our own mistakes, stumbles, quirks, thoughts, behavior, patheticness, strangeness, and predicaments… giving us a million good reasons to laugh our asses off.

Better to die laughing than live life like a school teacher involuntarily assigned to keep an eye on the kids in detention… nothing but a resentful frowning buzzkill.

Life just ain’t to be taken all that seriously. Sure, give it your fucking all, but have some fun along the way.

“Laugh at yourself and at life. Not in the spirit of derision or whining self-pity, but as a remedy, a miracle drug, that will ease your pain, cure your depression, and help you to put in perspective that seemingly terrible defeat and worry with laughter at your predicaments, thus freeing your mind to think clearly toward the solution that is certain to come. Never take yourself too seriously.”Og Mandino quotes

10. Plant Good Seeds

Get your mind out of the gutter

These days we’re bombarded by the fear based media machine everywhere we look. The news tells us what to fear and what to buy. Most TV shows and movies, including many I enjoy, are filled with violence, vengeance, hatred, sarcasm, put-down humor, tragedy and a grab bag of other bad shit.

Most music, even music that seems upbeat and positive, is littered with lyrics that put unwanted fodder into our subconscious and help to turn us into a bunch of scared, sad, angry mother fuckers.

We’re surrounded by so much complaining it becomes white noise to us.

A wise few have made choices to turn off the TV, the movies, the music and the mass media. I am not one of them, in fact, I love a great Tarantino movie, my heart sings when I watch Walter White do some sinister shit on Breaking Bad and don’t know what it’s like to train without cranking some Pantera, Slipknot or Tool.

However, realizing the power of constant suggestion, I strive to let this stuff be but drops in the bucket, and not the entire damn thing.

If all we do is plant seeds of fear, envy, greed and hate into our minds, what do you think we’re gonna get?

But just as negative stuff can fuck you up, so can positive stuff lift you up.

Anything that we can put in that helps to better our course, the better our destination will be. Inspiring music, spiritual or personal development books, movies like Happy, positive audiobooks, and any kind of teachings that help move us along to the life we want to create, be it educational or other. Stuff like affirmations, visualizations and positive self-talk can help a ton too.

I was the dude who used to listen to stuff like Slayer and Ill Bill 24/7… well maybe not 24/7, but every chance I got… it was kind of like the soundtrack to my life. Not only was it a reflection of where I was emotionally at the time, but it also constantly planted seeds that kept me constantly nervous, angry and stressed.

Like I said, I still listen to some brutally heavy shit, but it’s usually kept for the few hours of training each week. If we wanna feel awesome, we need to balance out the negative with as much good stuff as often as we can.

“As a man thinketh in his heart so is he”James Allen

11. Empower

Those who lift others up are not only the baddest mother fuckers on the planet, but also the happiest.

When you take your focus off of your selfish and self-centered little ass and put it on lifting up others, you naturally feel better.

Whether it’s doing your best to raise your six kids the right way, and make sure they don’t have some of the stuff happen to them in childhood that happened to you.

Or becoming a personal trainer and helping people to become happier and healthier every single day you show up on the job

Or writing a book about your experiences and helping others to live a more joy-filled life because of all you went through, the good, the bad and the downright funky.

Or helping other addicts to kick the habit just like you did.

Or becoming a mentor, big brother, teachers aide or volunteer soccer coach.

Or maybe it’s as simple and profound as doing daily random acts of kindness. Like letting someone know just how awesome you think they are, encouraging someone to go for their dreams, pulling over to help someone out on the side of the road, giving out sincere compliments as you go about your day or just treating every single person you meet with genuine fucking kindness.

I don’t know what gifts you carry around in your Santa bag… but I do know that thing is jam packed with total fuckin’ awesomeness just waiting to make some people smile.

We’re all in this game together, and what I do to you, I do to myself, good or bad. When I empower you, I empower myself. When I make you smile, I smile.

Empowering those around you, and helping to lift up people you have yet to meet and those you never will, but who will be deeply changed by the ripples you set in motion and let loose upon the world… is the way to win big in this thing called life.

It’s an awesome feeling knowing that the waves you’re putting out into the world are helping people half way across the globe to ride the most killer swells of their lives.

“You can have anything you want in life if you will help enough other people get what they want!”Zig Ziglar

12. Do Your Thing

So many people spend their lives doing shit they hate, or at least stuff they don’t care about.

They do it for the reward, not for the love of the thing itself. Intrinsic motivation got dropped off at the pawn shop years ago and life itself has become about one big damn end result that never comes. Remember when you were a kid and you could play outside for hours, completely lost in what you were doing? You’d even pee yourself cuz you didn’t wanna stop for 2 minutes to tinkle.

What happened? Most people are so absorbed in chasing the gold at the end of the rainbow that they never even stop to trip on the awesome colors.

The soul literally cums when you do what you love. Invisible forces line up to be by your side to be on your team. You, and what you love to do, become one.

But if all you’re doing is cashing in on half of your waking hours, you’re giving too much of your awesomeness away.

The Zone becomes as elusive as trying to find a Sasqautch in New York City. Life becomes one big fucking transaction.

That said, I have the utmost respect for anyone doing what they do because they need to support the ones they love.

And hard work, no matter what kind of work it is, can be a very gratifying thing.

But when you do that thing that makes you wake up in the morning so excited to get to it you can hardly contain yourself, life starts to rock like a Ronnie James Dio song.

If you’re in a situation where you’re unable to do something you love for a living, like let’s say, you have 6 kids and you make decent money at the factory; it insures your family lives well. And what you really love to do is play soccer, but you’re just not good enough at it to make a living doing it. Then play soccer on weekends, coach your kid’s soccer teams after work, play soccer in the yard with your kids as often as you can… whatever you do, play fucking soccer.

Maybe you just really love spending your free time with your kids and could care less about soccer or some dream career or hobby, then spend time with your kids and be the best parent the world has ever seen.

The point is, do what you love, and if you can’t make a living doing what you love, then do it in your spare time… find something you burn to do and go fucking do it.

“Follow your bliss”Joseph Campbell

13. Appreciate

It’s hard to feel bad when you appreciate what you have. Every time you catch yourself bummin’ on what you don’t have, just think about the awesome stuff you DO have, even if it’s as simple as two legs, two arms, ears to hear and eyes to see… trust me, if you didn’t have those things, for a while at least, you’d probably spend a lot of time wishing you did. Bummin’ out cuz’ you don’t drive the $50,000 sex-on-wheels machine you wanna drive or cuz’ you don’t have the kind of person you want in your life, wouldn’t even be a fucking issue.

Appreciation carries with it an extremely high energy frequency, making you feel good, good, good.

When you’re in a state of appreciation, you’re in the opposite of regret, resentment, envy and longing, all of which bring Costco sized amounts of suffering into our lives and make it hard and downright hard to feel awesome.

Seriously, how awesome can you feel when you’re jealous of someone for having something you don’t? Or when you’re painfully longing for something you wish you had, creating a space between you and that thing, putting your right to be happy just on the other side of that space? Or when you regret some of the lousy choices you’ve made that’ve created some shitty circumstances in your life?

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that every second and every inch of my life had to happen exactly as they did for my baby daughter Zoe to be born exactly who she is. Same with my other 3 children. Had not every second and inch happened exactly as they did in my life, none of my 4 children would be here today exactly who they are, some other kids might be here, but not these ones. And I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

So to argue with any choice I’ve ever made, is to wish my children out of existence.

The quickest way out of regrets, feelings of loss, painful longing for what you don’t yet have and thinking destructive thoughts about your friends and neighbors for having those things you want… is to think about what you do have, and be grateful for it.

You know this… but are you living it?

We could all use more gratitude in our lives. There are people right now more grateful for what they have than either you or I, who are doing life in prison for a crime they didn’t commit, and others who are living with no limbs, and others who sleep on the sidewalk each night and get their dinner from a trash can.

We have no excuse.

Better to have nothing and be grateful for it, than to have the world, and still want more.

Appreciate = Awesome

“I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.”Jewish Proverb

14. Come Back To Now

The past is the land of regret, loss and somehow things should’ve been different.

The future is one of fear, anticipation and uncertainty.

Both are complete works of fiction, the good parts and the bad. Complete fiction that our minds project on the screen of our consciousness to trick us into missing the only real thing there is. This. Just This, Right Now, Right Now.

The stories keep us comfortably distracted from realizing just who and what we really are. There is only Here. There is only Now. And sometimes it’s the hardest place to find.

We spend most of our time working on some imaginary Time Machine that takes us off to the historic worlds of coulda, shoulda, woulda and the futuristic lands of ‘that’s gonna suck’, ‘I hope not’ and ‘I can’t wait for whatever the fuck’. All a more fake than an episode of CSI Miami, or wherever they film that damn thing.

All that’s real is Right Here. Right Now. You won’t find problems or anything to worry about here, you’ll need to jump into your Time Machine to find those.

The one true thing that never changes. It is always Here. It is always Now.

The more we wake up fully into the Now, the more awesome our lives will be.

“If not now, when?”Eckhart Tolle

15. Accept

What Is IS. When we argue with IS we get our asses kicked, but only 100% of the time.

Everyone’s life is crazy, chaotic and loaded with problems. EVERYONE’S LIFE.

The circumstances of our life are never gonna be perfectly harmonious and chaos-free, with every duck in a row, every dollar in the bank, full of perfect health, happy relationships, kids all acting like little angels in the backseat as we hit every green light on Eutopia Highway. That’s just not reality.

If we wait for things to be awesome for us to feel awesome, we are fucked. We are all guaranteed our daily recommended dosage of chaos. To resist the circumstances of our lives and internally argue against things, brings massive amounts of stress and suffering.

If we don’t like something about reality, the best thing we can do is accept it and either move on, or work towards creating circumstances more to our liking.

Nothing outside of ourselves can make us happy, even Reality.

The way to true joy is through acceptance of What Is. To feel awesome on the reg, it is highly recommend you become an avid fan of Reality, even when it sucks.

“Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.”

Henry Adams

16. Surrender

I’m not gonna tell you what to believe in or what religion to be or not be part of, you’ve had a lifetime to come to that conclusion I respect whatever it is you got going on in this area.

What I will say is that the simple act of surrendering to whatever created you, the galaxies, cosmos, oceans, mountains and cute little puppy dogs, has all kinds of great guidance for us if we just do our best to surrender our will to that of It’s Will. A simple heartfelt prayer like “Thy Will, Not Mine, Be Done”, when done in earnest, can do the trick.

The more you can live from that place of surrender to a Higher Will, whatever that is to you, the more you’re able to create a conscious communion with the Divine. The more your soul is able to be guided by that Intelligence, the better things get, at least on the inside. Which is where it really matters anyway.

When you surrender and let something bigger than yourself take the wheel through this wicked twisted highway of life, the more you are free of the need to “try” and control things. And that need to control, which is driven by the ego, creates massive amounts of stress in our lives. That “need” becomes our master, and not a kind one.

Surrender is the hand that opens the knob on our pressure valve, releasing bottled up stress, like toxic fumes that are eating us alive from the inside. Once released, they simply dissipate.

Surrender makes the journey, and the ability to enjoy the journey, so much better it’s beyond description.

 “Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.” Eckhart Tolle

17. Minimize

Being weighed down by too much clutter, too many possessions and too many damn things we “think” we need to do makes it hard to feel awesome.

We hoard stuff we’d be better off without. Some of it has great meaning for us, some of it’s sentimental, some of it that we take on as part of our identity, giving us a sense of who we are, treating our homes like one big trophy case. And some of it that means absolutely nothing to us, we just didn’t know what to do with it, so we put it somewhere. And there it is.

We go about life as if we’re Charles Foster Kane building Xanadu. Innocence lost as we strive to get back to the simplicity of Rosebud.

Ya know what feels better than getting stuff and keeping stuff? Getting rid of stuff. There’s something very liberating about releasing the shit you own. Whether we give it away, sell it, throw it out or it’s taken from us. Sometimes it can be painful, at least at first, but the freedom feeling we can feel after enough of it’s gone can be incredible.

Two times in my life I amassed a bunch of stuff and then lost it. Apparently I forgot the lesson the second time around when I went about amassing a bunch of shit again.

As my ode to the minimalist movement I have this little ritual of getting rid of at least one thing each day, and as stuff keeps disappearing, and I keep ending up with less and less stuff I have, the better I feel. Just don’t fuck with my book collection, cuz’ that’s sacred.

Today, with the help of some pretty awesome blogs like Zen Habits and Exile Lifestyle, and people realizing the shit they own isn’t making them happy, and in many instances it’s actually causing them a great deal of suffering, minimalism has become sort of a movement if you will.

The blog The Minimalists have a great step by step strategy for cutting the clutter out of your life and getting back to the basics. Very powerful stuff.

The things you own end up owning you– Tyler Durdin

18. Walk

There’s something just downright awesome about going for a walk.

Maybe it’s the exercise, the fresh air, the meditative quality to it, or maybe it’s because as humans, just like eating, fucking and sleeping, three other awesome things in their own right, we’ve been walking since as long as we’ve had legs. I’m guessing it’s all those reasons and then some.

Anytime I have a little stress buzzing around in my chest, or a little too much energy, probably from a little too much caffeine, or just plain feel a bit cagey, I’ll head out the front door like a guy making a jailbreak. Sometimes with no idea which way I’m headed, but by the time I return I have a new spring in my step and a smile on my face like a junkie just who just got a nice fat fix.

We were meant to walk the land, not to march like sweaty robots side by side each other in crowded gyms on the stairs that go nowhere.

On top of a regular training schedule, I highly recommend going for daily walks, short ones are great for non-training days, and longer ones for days you train.

To sit is human. To walk is Divine.

19. Sun

The fresh air, Vitamin D, light, and warm feeling on the skin. Ahhhhhh…

Not being around the sun is known to cause depression, higher suicide rates and that undesirable gothic vampire look. And being in the sun is known to cause intense bouts of extreme happiness. Well, at least it does for me.

If you’re fortunate enough to live where the sun shines on the reg, get out and under the bad boy every chance you get, like maybe while you take your daily walks!

If you don’t live anywhere near the sun, consider supplementing with Vitamin D and one of those artificial sunlight lamps… it’s not the same, but it it’s known to help.

Just like we need air and water, we also need the sun to thrive.

If you happen to work in a building with nothing but artificial light, then either quit and find something better, or bust a big ass hole in the wall and go “oooops”.

20. Sleep

Getting enough sleep is key for creativity, productivity, awareness and overall attitude. Just like many of the other feel-goodies on this list, most people know this, but many of us still don’t get enough.

Under 6 and a half hours and I just don’t feel right, under 5 I turn into a little bitch, and under 3 I turn into a little bitch who just wants to kick someones ass.

I’ve been to the extreme low lands of sleep deprivation. In the meth fueled days of my twenties I’d go close to a week without sleep, to the point the body would start dreaming while I was awake, talk about some freaky paranoid shit.

Some people do OK on 4 or 5 hours of sleep, but most of those same people would feel even better with more.

Get 8 or 9 hours a night. You’ll feel better, plus you’ll work smarter and make smarter choices. You’ll be on top of your game, and just like with meditation, the time spent on extra sleep will make you more productive when you’re awake and need to produce, and that productivity will actually save you time, allowing you to get those extra hours of yummy zzzz’s

“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”Mahatma Gandhi

21. Drink

Stay Hydrated – Again, this is Feel Good 101, and you’ve probably known this one since you were kid. However, 8 glasses aren’t enough, unless you weigh 45 pounds or those glasses are the size of 7-11 big Gulps.

Drinking water won’t necessarily make you feel great, but the lack of water and being dehydrated will make it near impossible to feel good. Your body just won’t function correctly and it’ll be very pissed at you and wanna make you pay. It’s not good to piss off the body, it has a vindictive side that would rival that of the Hatfields and McCoys.

Best just to drink your water. I drink 1-2 gallons a day, spread throughout the day, this is good target, especially if you train.

22. Don’t Know

The deepest knowing, is the knowing of “I don’t know”.

Ever noticed there’s no such thing as a happy Know-it-All?

Thinking we know everything, and trying to make other people realize just how much more we know than they do, is nothing but the miserable little ego trying to make itself all big and puffy. It’s a direct line to complete fucking misery.

True joy comes from living in the wonderment of it all, having the mind of a newborn, taking things in and staying away from labels, judgements and the dubious feeling of somehow being more of a person because of the shit you know.

To fully live and experience life in all it’s wonders is to slice open the filter of what we “think” we know, and come at life in each moment completely open to what the moment brings.

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” Socrates

23. Release Resentment

I know resentment well, it’s damn near eaten me alive before

Wanna cement your misery?

Walk around stewing in some shit about someone else and how they wronged you, or didn’t respect you, took what was yours or fill in the blank.

You’re putting the gun to your head, pulling the trigger and hoping the bullet hits them. Guess what? It never does.

I’m not saying let people walk all over you or to take a bunch of shit that you don’t deserve. I’m not saying don’t get angry or don’t stand up for what’s right.

Absolutely stand up for what you believe in. Take the actions you need to take to right the road for all, but don’t dwell on the person, or people, you’re up against.

You’ll be a miserable son of a bitch and as that bullet intended for them lodges itself in your brain, you’ll be an 18 hour flight from feeling awesome.

Typically when we resent someone, it comes from a place of defending our sense of self, our ego. We think that somehow the other person offended the image of ourself we hold in our mind, and now to make THEM suffer WE will sit here and stew alongside the carrots … but we’re the ones getting cooked, not them.

Drop resentment like you’d drop a piece of shit if someone handed it to you. Forgive others and go about making your own life as awesome as possible, knowing that as long as you’re dwelling on them, not only have they won, but you won’t have even the slimmest chance of feeling awesome.

“Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.” Joan Lunden

24. Feel Fear

Like the title of the Susan Jeffers book, Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway.

Feeling fear to feel awesome might seem a little counter-intuitive, since looking your fears in the eye can be downright intense, like a raw and open nerve in our chest just got plugged into an electrical socket.

The good news is that peace, strength, and freedom lay just on the other side of those fears.

The weird thing about fears is that it’s not the actual action that causes the fear. It’s the thinking about the action that causes us the fear. The closer in time and proximity we get to the action, the more intense the thoughts can get, and the more we feel the fear.

For example, if you’re scared to go approach people about a new business opportunity you have, Friday night you may feel it’ll be a cinch. But come Monday morning when it’s time to get off your ass and actually do it, the fear can seem almost paralyzing. And for many people, it is… or at least they allow it be.

The truth is that fear is really nothing but raw energy making it’s way to the surface, albeit a raw energy that can stop a man dead in his tracks. Don’t let this happen to you, the lacerations of regret run much deeper.

As we do that thing we’re scared of, we’re released from the fearful thoughts that were causing much of the energy we feel, and were delivered into the moment, just the experience, our awareness of it, and the raw energy in the body.

Once we have conquered it by fully experiencing it at ground zero of our being and acting in spite of it, we are able to transmute that fear into inner strength and serenity. And life, and the way we feel, gets much better.

I know people who live a life paralyzed by fear… scared to start a business, to look for a good job, to approach someone they’re attracted to… all they seem to do is wanna sit home and watch other people walk through their fears on the television set. They are as totally fucking miserable.

Most everyone who knows them, myself included, avoid them at all costs.

Those who live paralyzed by fears NEVER get to feel truly awesome.

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.”Ambrose Redmoon

25. Do Randomly Awesome Shit

I don’t care what it is… selfish or selfless… don’t really matter… a balanced life needs both.

It could be anything from…

Texting someone and telling them how awesome you think they are.

Getting in your car and taking a road trip with no concrete destination or itinerary

Go and save a dog from the shelter.

Decide to run a marathon, train for it and do it.

It’s too easy to get all wrapped up like a mummy in the tomb of our routines, problems and responsibilities.

Get in the habit of doing cool stuff, for your self or someone else, big or small, that is totally fucking awesome.

Guaranteed to put one of #26 on your face.

26. Smile

Ok, there’s actually 26 on the list, but 25 makes for a better title.

The “bonus” way to feel awesome, as any self-respecting marketer would call it, is to smile.

And seriously, you have a lot to smile about, so put a big ol’ ear-to-ear sexy grin on your face and just TRY to feel to bad. I dare you. I double dog dare you.

I bet you can’t, can you?

“If you ever start taking things too seriously, just remember that we are talking monkeys on an organic spaceship flying through the universe.”Joe Rogan