Daily Brainstorms

(Day-15) 21-day Meditation / New Habit Creation Challenge.

“As long as we’re alive, our breath is with us.

Do you take time to focus on your breath, in and out of your meditation practice?

I’ve been learning more and more that our thoughts create our emotions that creates our actions, which manifests our realities.

A trick that meditation has reminded me of from what I learned in Dr. Mark Hyman’s docuseries “Broken Brain”, which is the base of meditation to me, is that focusing our attention to our breath actually calms down our vagus nerve. The vagus nerve extends from our brain stem to our guts, which actually releases a lot of chemicals that affects our physical being.

These chemicals can be addictive. So, along with nutrition and exercise, meditation and focus on the breath can calm down our vagus nerve and chemicals manufactured in our guts.

When we can calm everything down internally with the physical self, we can then allow space for new desirable thoughts that trigger a new positive emotional state, which leads to new actions to create a new result/ reality. 💚✌️

-Josh P.

(Day-14) 21-day Meditation / New Habit Creation Challenge.

“If we’re too caught up in thinking, then we’re not able to focus 100% on delivering the message the way we’d like.”

This quote makes so much sense to me for the fact I have noticed when I share from a place of love, gratitude, and free of judgment, and am in the moment rather than thinking about anything other than that moment, my message comes off 100% authentic.

When I get caught up in the worry of being judged, being clear in my message so it’s understood, messing up, or anything other than my WHY, or my purpose, my message wouldn’t come off the way I wanted it to and would not serve my efforts.

Todays marks 2 weeks of meditating, which has allowed a lot of internal resistance to come to the surface and allow me to be very self-aware. This is critical if you want to change or create a new outcome for your life, especially if you want to share what you believe with the world so you can see the change take place you desire.

I am not perfect by any means, but by adopting this regular daily (sometimes more than once/day) practice of slowing down to focus on the breath and the outcomes I desire in my life, I have been able to implement it in my every day life and become aware of when I am getting lost in the thoughts that do not serve me. 💚✌️

-Josh P.

Woke up to this sunrise on day 1 out here in Honolulu, Hawaii. 🙌🏼🔥

Truly grateful for my life and all the abundance within it. I’ve come across some amazing people and places in the last decade of my BMX career. The choices I’ve been making to change my life to align with my purpose has led to even more amazing places, people, and opportunities coming into my life.

I’ve been on a mission to bring as many people as much value as I possibly can while becoming as open to receiving as I can in an effort to keep the momentum flowing. I have learned that we can not have one with out the other. I felt ashamed for wanting things in my life and thought I just had to give give give, or that the best case scenario was “win-win”. It’s not about keeping score, it’s about giving as much as you can for what you believe in while being as open to receiving as possible. It’s just the flow of energy and law of cause and effect.

It’s my life mission and dream to share my beliefs that we all deserve a healthy and happy brain/life and are capable of challenging the status quo. In health, the status quo seems to be that suffering is the norm. I was on a pain at the young age of 21 thinking the rest of my life would entail suffering as the norm. It wasn’t until I chose to not accept that as my new truth that I was able to change it.

These last two years I have also focused on never turning down an opportunity to get myself into new circumstances in an effort to grow and learn as much as I can. Even if it was “scary” or uncomfortable, I pushed myself past it because I know in order to create a new outcome that I must do new things.

When this opportunity came about, I didn’t ask questions and I booked a flight. The person who invited me aligns with my core values and mission. t just felt right. I didn’t question things, I just took ACTION! 💚✌️

-JoshP.

(Day 13) 21-day Meditation / New Habit Creation Challenge.

“Building a sustainable sense of ease and calm takes time. It’s not a quick fix to make your anxiety disappear.”

We all deal with anxiety differently. Whether its panic attacks or fear and worry of the unknown, it’s all the same. It’s a negative thought that comes about for whatever reason it is for each individual that manifests into a physical response in the body.

Emotions need a lot of thought to be fueled. Once we stop thinking about whatever it is fueling that emotion, the emotion runs out of fuel. But what usually happens is a thought arises and we give it a lot of attention/fuel, which encourages the emotion and we get a physical sensation. The brain recognizes this sensation and then before we know it, we’re in a loop where the mind reflects the sensation in the body then the body increasingly reflects the sensation of thoughts in the mind.

My take away from this quote is that dedicating your efforts each day to set aside time to practice on creating ease and calm is key if you deal with anxiety or any unwanted emotion. Proper nutrition & exercise are also apart of the equation but becoming aware of your physical state helps jump out of the loop.

The goal is not to control your thoughts, but to see them as just thoughts that don’t have power over you, rather you have the power to make choices in your life to practice calming your mind and not jumping into these unwanted thoughts. 💚✌️

-Josh P.

Going all in on a dream, or vision, to create a business that I believe in 100% has been an amazing journey full of crazy emotions.

I get asked all the time how I push through the challenges and keep focused. Or, how do I not let fear get to me?

Truth is, fear comes up all the time but I’ve learned when it does come up, I go back to my vision and then make a decision. A decision to give up or a decision to push through for what I envision for my life.

My experiences of that “breaking point” where I consider giving up or pushing through always comes at a point where I’m right at the point of a break through.

So, how do I push through? Back to basics. Doing more of what I enjoy in life and taking action that aligns with my life vision and mission. 💚✌️

-Josh P.

(Day 12) 21-day Meditation / New Habit Creation Challenge.

“As soon as you get distracted, take a moment to acknowledge it and come back to the present”.

Today’s take away is a great reminder for all areas of life and it’s distractions. They’re never going to go away but we can develop awareness for when we do get distracted.

Then we are able to note that we have the ability to shift our focus back to whatever it is we’re doing in the present moment. Whether it be focusing on the breath or simply regaining focus on the task or activity at hand, it’s important to not make the thoughts “right” or “wrong”. Rather, note them as thoughts and move on.

I have learned we often make it more about control and being “right” or “wrong” when it’s just a normal part of life that we can shift. Just like energy flows and we can shift the direction of energy, our thoughts too can be shifted in new directions. This creates new emotional responses that come with new actions, which results in new outcomes. 💚✌️

-Josh P.

(Day 11) 21-day Meditation / New Habit Creation Challenge

“If you tend to be anxious in everyday life, try to simply note it and return to the moment.”

This next “pack” of the @headspace app is all about anxiety. From athletics to business to family, anxiety shy’s away from no one type of person.

We all tend to worry about if our choices are the right choices, if what we’re doing is correct, is how we’re doing it correct, what may happen if I take this action, etc. This just creates more worry and takes us out of the moment.

What I learned today is to simply note when we have these thoughts and feelings, know that we don’t have to give into them, and return to the moment however we can. Whether it be focusing on the breath, visualizing a desirable outcome, or some sort of movement, whatever works for you to get out of the worry and return to the moment is key.

For me, a lot of my past and current form of getting me to be in the moment has always been BMX, or any form of physical activity. I find that BMX requires so much focus and having to be in the now, but does require some planned actions but mostly being as present as possible.

Other forms of taking action seem to shift my focus into whatever I’m doing and is why I encourage my clients to find something they enjoy and can do regularly on top of developing a daily practice of meditation and journaling. 💚✌️

-Josh P.

(Day 11) 21-Day Meditation / New Habit Creation Challenge.

“These feelings, they’ll come and go. We don’t have to react to them. We don’t have to buy into them.”

I just finished a 10 day pack of the @headspace “patience” pack and I learned a lot. I’ll also be revisiting this pack again shortly.

The biggest take away for me is two-fold. 1- patience is a byproduct of expectation. 2- patience is really just another way of saying peace of mind.

That said, patience isn’t about controlling your emotions or thoughts. It’s about having the understanding that they’re just emotions and thoughts that only have power over us when we choose to allow that to be so.

I tend to find myself being impatient when I’m really focused on a goal, taking non stop action, and building expectations rather than having faith in my actions that align with my desires.

I attended a @toastmastersinternational (public speaking club) meet last night and a woman who presented talked about “cause & effect”. Basically, the energy you put out, whether it be physical or mental, is what you will receive in return. This is so because of the law of cause and effect states for every action, there is a reaction.

To conclude, patience is another perspective of having faith that the energy and work you put out, you’ll see return to you. We must let go of expectations, worry, and fear and embrace reciprocity-being able to receive.💚✌️

-Josh P.

“Your brain…

weighs 3 pounds and has one hundred thousand miles of blood vessels.

contains more connections that there are stars in the Milky Way.

Is the fattest organ in the human body.

could be suffering this very minute without your having a clue.” @davidperlmutter

Hi! My name is Josh Perry, and I live with 4 brain tumors.

Before an open cranial surgery that took 6 hours to remove a massive (almost half my brain) brain tumor, Gamma Knife Radiosurgery for 2 regrowths, and a third diagnosis in 2017, I was never very conscious to the health of my brain and how I could be affecting it one way or another.

This picture was taken right after my original brain surgery in 2010, containing 75 staples and 13 or so stitches. It was the beginning to a new way of life for me that I could never have fathomed taking place. But, who could?

Despite living with 4 brain tumors today, I still live a very “normal” (what’s normal?) life full of BMX, training, studying, speaking, coaching, adventuring, supporting others, and so much more.

Through all my experiences, I’ve learned many things but two of which are my favorite and stand out to me the most. They are: health is internal, not just numbers on a scale or sheet of paper & life is all about perspective and choices.

It took falling and hitting my head one day to finally receive an MRI that revealed a brain tumor was the cause of my suffering for a year prior of my diagnosis. This led me to learn about holistic health (a lot of what I learn comes from Dr Perlmutter’s work) and how choices we make can either help or hurt us.

The other lesson I learned regarding choices taught me we all face adversity but also have the choice to view life from the eyes of a victim or a survivor. It’s all a matter of perspective and choice.

I chose to take my experiences and become a survivor that is very diligent about being conscious to my choices in life in an effort to protect my brain and overall health, and share all I can with others to support them however I possibly can.

Are you making choices to either manifest health or to change you’re current reality in a more positive way? 💚✌️

– Josh P.