The Viable Alternative
type: channel
description: Choosing the Path of Transformation
date: 2025-08-16T19:26:48Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
generator agent: https://wordpress.org/
items: 4 Signs That You’re Being Bullied By Your Mind
items: What ACTUALLY Is Masculine Presence and Grounding?
items: The REAL Reason Why Things in Your Life Get Worse Before They Get Better
items: How Cooking Can Transform Your Sense of Masculinity
items: Do You Deal with Morning Anxiety?
items: Why You’re Inhibited and Stifled (Part 3)
items: Why You’re Inhibited and Stifled (Part 2)
items: Why You’re Inhibited and Stifled (Part 1)
items: What to Do When You Feel Trapped by Your Circumstances (pt. 2)
items: What to Do When You Feel Trapped by Your Circumstances (pt. 1)

4 Signs That You’re Being Bullied By Your Mind
type: item
creator: ikelove
date: 2025-08-16T19:26:47Z
subject: Uncategorized
subject: bully
subject: bullying
subject: Faith
subject: God
subject: healing
subject: mind
subject: mindset
subject: trauma
description: Have you ever had experience with bullying, whether you were the bully, or the one being bullied, or you’ve witnessed someone being bullied or bully someone else? If so, you know that the aim of the bully is to make the life of his or her victim miserable. This includes taunting you, insulting you, intimidating […] The post 4 Signs That You’re Being Bullied By Your Mind first appeared on The Viable Alternative.
encoded: Have you ever had experience with bullying, whether you were the bully, or the one being bullied, or you’ve witnessed someone being bullied or bully someone else? If so, you know that the aim of the bully is to make the life of his or her victim miserable. This includes taunting you, insulting you, intimidating you and abusing you emotionally and/or physically. Well, have you ever stopped to consider that you may be being bullied by your mind? If you’re looking at me funny, wondering what the hell I’m talking about, consider these 4 signs: 1) You believe all the awful thoughts that your mind throws at you. Basically, whatever awful thought that comes up in your head, you don’t even question it, you simply just believe it and react accordingly. 2) When you get hit by a barrage of negative thoughts, you simply just get carried away by them. In essence, when you’re mind gets caught up in one of its negative thought storms, you’re completely helpless to them. You have no idea what to do but to simply put up with them and let them do what they want with you until the storm ends on its own. This storm can last hours, days or even weeks. 3) You think according to how you feel. To explain, you allow your feelings to determine how you think. So when you’re feeling crappy, you start to, in a knee jerk way, think crappy thoughts which in turn leads you to behave crappy. 4) Your circumstances determine how you think Simply put, just like in point #3, when your circumstances look less than favourable, it negatively affects the way you think which in turn affects your outlook on life. ——————- Now, although we can say that these 4 points apply to 99% of people on this planet, meaning that it’s quite a normal thing, it shouldn’t be this way. The problem is that most of us think that this is just the way things are. However, there’s a Bible verse that says, “Do not be conformed by the conditions of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Another verse says, “Go…

What ACTUALLY Is Masculine Presence and Grounding?
type: item
creator: ikelove
date: 2025-08-10T19:22:17Z
subject: Uncategorized
subject: grounding
subject: masculine man
subject: masculinity
subject: Presence
subject: The Viable Alternative
description: For years, when I would hear coaches, teachers and influencers talk about “masculine grounding” or “masculine presence”, although I had an intellectual understanding of what it was and would’ve been able to explain it to you from that understanding, on a deeper, more experiential level, I will admit that I was still clueless. Up until […] The post What ACTUALLY Is Masculine Presence and Grounding? first appeared on The Viable Alternative.
encoded: For years, when I would hear coaches, teachers and influencers talk about “masculine grounding” or “masculine presence”, although I had an intellectual understanding of what it was and would’ve been able to explain it to you from that understanding, on a deeper, more experiential level, I will admit that I was still clueless. Up until recently, if you asked me what masculine grounding was, I would’ve told you that it is the state of being calm, centered, nonreactive, present and rooted in your body in the face of various situations. I think that most people who are interested in this subject would’ve agreed with me if I shared this with them. However, on a deeper level, what does that actually look like? It was during the trials and tribulations I had faced this past spring along with going deeper into my daily Dr. Joe Dispenza meditations that I started to experience what that actually looked like. At the root of masculine grounding and presence is being able to deal proactively with your thoughts and emotions. It’s the understanding that you are an intangible, indefinable essence beyond your thoughts and emotions so you don’t need to identify with them. When you’re not identified with your emotions, there’s no need to judge them as “good” or “bad.”. Because you’re no longer judging the emotions that come up in your body as good or bad, there’s no longer an attachment or aversion to them and thus you’re no longer freaking out when the so called bad ones come up, nor are you chasing the so called good ones like a hit from a drug or clinging to them. Freaking out over the “bad ones” includes going up into your head to create dramatic stories about them which in turn intensify the emotions in your body which in turn leads you to behave in ways that’s not beneficial for you, the situation you’re in and the people around you. Freaking out over them also includes finding them so overwhelming, your nervous system shuts down and you go into freeze mode in order for your bo…

The REAL Reason Why Things in Your Life Get Worse Before They Get Better
type: item
creator: ikelove
date: 2025-01-26T23:37:12Z
subject: Uncategorized
subject: God
subject: insecurity
subject: prayer
subject: self confidence
subject: self improvement
subject: transformation
description: Have you ever had that experience when you make a firm resolution and sincere resolution to finally deal with and improve a dysfunctional area in your life and everything just falls apart??? You expect that because of this resolution, things will start to fall into place but it does the exact opposite, almost in a […] The post The REAL Reason Why Things in Your Life Get Worse Before They Get Better first appeared on The Viable Alternative.
encoded: Have you ever had that experience when you make a firm resolution and sincere resolution to finally deal with and improve a dysfunctional area in your life and everything just falls apart??? You expect that because of this resolution, things will start to fall into place but it does the exact opposite, almost in a cruel, mocking way. I mean what the hell?? I remember back in the mid 2000s, when I was in the middle of a mental hell that lasted from 2001-2009 and was trying every and anything to get out of it, I decided in the beginning of 2005 that I wasn’t going to hang out with certain friends of mine that I was used to hanging out with for an entire year as a an “offering” or fast to God for Him to fix my life. It wasn’t anything personal towards my friends, they’re all great people and I love them dearly. Rather, I figured that by not hanging out with people I spent a lot of my time with, there was a possibility that hidden parts of me would start to emerge due to the removal of external distractions that I would lean on because I didn’t feel comfortable being by myself. As I think back, I’m astounded by how insightful that was because I was a bit of a mess. Anyway, after the year ended, I was brimming with excitement at the beginning of 2006 anticipating all the wonderful things God was now going to do in my life and all the amazing breakthroughs that I was going to receive that I had been praying for. The first occurrence I took as a sign that things were going to change was when I was changing in the locker room at the gym and my watch fell on the ground. When I picked it up, I saw that it was no longer working and decided to discard it, thinking to myself, ” Wow, this is a sign that new things are coming!” Then, little by little, the rest of the jewelry I used to wear – my rings, bracelet, chain and earing – would either get lost or broken so I couldn’t wear them anymore. No big deal right? After all it’s only jewelry. I didn’t think of it as a big deal, but …

How Cooking Can Transform Your Sense of Masculinity
type: item
creator: ikelove
date: 2024-07-18T04:42:05Z
subject: Uncategorized
subject: emasculated
subject: masculinity
subject: personal ressponsibility
subject: self care
subject: self confidence
subject: self empowerment
subject: The Viable Alternative
description: Summer has officially arrived in my part of the world and I couldn’t be more thrilled and happy because this is my favourite season! Woohoo!! Anyhoo, some time back, I wrote a blog titled, “9 Ways You Can Find Your Strength As a Sheltered, Emasculated Man,” and one of the things I suggested in this […] The post How Cooking Can Transform Your Sense of Masculinity first appeared on The Viable Alternative.
encoded: Summer has officially arrived in my part of the world and I couldn’t be more thrilled and happy because this is my favourite season! Woohoo!! Anyhoo, some time back, I wrote a blog titled, “9 Ways You Can Find Your Strength As a Sheltered, Emasculated Man,” and one of the things I suggested in this blog was to learn how to cook for yourself. As first glance, it seems like an odd suggestion because cooking can be considered feminine. Many men, when it comes to looking for “wifey material,” have a requirement that the girl knows how to cook. Also, when men want to compliment a meal that they had, we often say, “It’s just like Mom’s cooking.” Along with clothing and shelter, food is considered as one of our basic needs, but not only because we need it to survive, but also because on an emotional level, it makes us feel loved, nurtured and cared for. To highlight this, consider the phrase, “A way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” Food not only involves the emotions of being loved, nurtured and cared for, it also engages our other senses of taste, smell, touch and sight and when you’re truly connected to your body, you’re able to really appreciate and enjoy food on a visceral level. In my honest opinion, food is feminine because it involves the sensual. The problem however is that in this day and age in this society, we’ve grown to have a dysfunctional relationship with food because there’s so much unhealthy food out there that’s promoted and consumed that’s causing a huge health crisis. Then, because many men don’t know how to cook for themselves, if they’re single and living alone, they’re forced to go to outside places to get their food where they have little to no control over the ingredients that go into this food. Food is the building block of health, and many of these holistic, integrated or functional medicine doctors who help cure a lot of these “incurable” chronic ailments often tout that “food is medicine.” Overcoming emasculation involves taking respo…

Do You Deal with Morning Anxiety?
type: item
creator: ikelove
date: 2024-06-23T19:35:28Z
subject: Uncategorized
subject: anxiety
subject: emotion
subject: healing
subject: self awareness
subject: The Viable Alternative
subject: trauma
description: I thought I was the only one who dealt with morning anxiety where as soon as you wake up, you get a flood of negative thoughts and anxious feelings about life which get your day off to a bad start. However, after encountering a number of other people with similar experiences, I’m finding that it’s […] The post Do You Deal with Morning Anxiety? first appeared on The Viable Alternative.
encoded: I thought I was the only one who dealt with morning anxiety where as soon as you wake up, you get a flood of negative thoughts and anxious feelings about life which get your day off to a bad start. However, after encountering a number of other people with similar experiences, I’m finding that it’s quite a common occurrence. The problem is that most people feel completely helpless to it. My educated guess is it occurs because since the conscious mind is inactive when we’re sleeping and still less active when we’re waking up, it leaves room for the subconscious mind to bring up memories, thoughts and feelings from our past that are usually buried in our subconscious mind. Then the other part is the fact that we think anxiously because of habit. As I’ve been on this journey of breaking the habit of being my old self, the morning anxiety I’ve encountered has become a lot easier to deal with. This is because I’m learning to become more aware of my habitual thought patterns and not reacting to them, feeling the sensations of the emotions in my body without reacting negatively to them, and listening to my body as to what it feels like doing. For instance, this morning when I first opened my eyes after my alarm went off, I could feel my mind literally looking for thoughts that would cause me to feel fearful, gloomy, discouraged and anxious. I could also feel my body trying to assume the physiology of an anxious person and behave anxiously. It’s literally like a program that was running me. In the past, I would normally get swept away by this program where I would go off into a loop of thinking negative thoughts that would trigger anxious feelings which would cause me to think more negative thoughts and on and on, but because I’ve been a lot more self aware in the past several months and have more tools at my disposal, this wasn’t the case this morning. When I noticed that my brain was throbbing to think negative thoughts, I just simply felt the throbbing without letting mys…

Why You’re Inhibited and Stifled (Part 3)
type: item
creator: ikelove
date: 2023-12-16T20:17:28Z
subject: Uncategorized
subject: emotional healing
subject: emotional pain
subject: healing
subject: self expression
description: Hey, I’m back again with this being inhibited and stifled stuff. Dealing with that is a bitch ain’t it? In my last two blogs, I shared how you may be inhibited and stifled due to the fact that you’re disconnected from your body, or due to past instances where you chose to suppress certain parts […] The post Why You’re Inhibited and Stifled (Part 3) first appeared on The Viable Alternative.
encoded: Hey, I’m back again with this being inhibited and stifled stuff. Dealing with that is a bitch ain’t it? In my last two blogs, I shared how you may be inhibited and stifled due to the fact that you’re disconnected from your body, or due to past instances where you chose to suppress certain parts of you to survive in the environment you were in (I don’t only mean physical survival, but also emotional survival). But I’m writing this because there’s more. Look at your life and ask yourself, was there ever a time where you went through something so emotionally painful that you decided that you never wanted to experience such an emotion again so you decided to suppress your ability to feel or numb your feelings altogether? You may have also decided to avoid situations that you see as a potential to trigger those feelings. One particular area where such things are common is love and relationships. Maybe you were once head over heels in love with a girl and she dumped you or betrayed you by getting knocked down by a group of dudes who you thought were your friends and as icing on the cake, left you with an STD. Or you were at one time one of those clueless guys who dealt with a ton of rejection with women whose love and affection you tried to buy with gifts and favours, only to find out there was a snowball’s chance in hell of them ever being with you. When you finally found that one girl who you thought was “it” and made up this whole relationship fantasy with her in your head, after chasing her for months she winds up shutting you down HARD. It could also be that you lost several people close to you in a short span of time or ONE person really close to you and the grief was just unbearable. Whatever the case may be, the situation was so painful that with little emotional intelligence you had at your disposal, you decided that in order to protect yourself, you were going to suppress your emotions. The problem is, when you decide to suppress your ability to feel one type of…

Why You’re Inhibited and Stifled (Part 2)
type: item
creator: ikelove
date: 2023-10-21T15:39:47Z
subject: Uncategorized
subject: bullying
subject: emotional healing
subject: emotional trauma
subject: healing
subject: inhibited
subject: reparenting
description: In my previous message, I shared with you that a reason why you may be inhibited and stifled is because you’re disconnected from your body which is what you feel with, and if you can’t feel, you can’t flow. Well, I will share with you another reason by illustrating a story. A friend of mine […] The post Why You’re Inhibited and Stifled (Part 2) first appeared on The Viable Alternative.
encoded: In my previous message, I shared with you that a reason why you may be inhibited and stifled is because you’re disconnected from your body which is what you feel with, and if you can’t feel, you can’t flow. Well, I will share with you another reason by illustrating a story. A friend of mine has a daughter who liked to sing, but one day he noticed that she hadn’t sung in awhile so he asked her why. She explained to him that a girl in her class told her to stop singing because she couldn’t sing, so, out of likely shame, embarrassment, and fear of not being accepted, she stopped singing. Fortunately, her father intervened, told her that the girl who told her that didn’t know what she was talking about because she had a great voice, and encouraged her to sing as much as she liked. Had her father not intervened, she would’ve grown up with a deep desire to sing that was suppressed and concealed due to shame and fear. Although she may have forgotten about the incident which caused her to stop singing and though she may not be aware of the emotions associated with the event, her behaviour of holding herself back would’ve persisted. The result would be every time she had that natural urge to express herself, “something” would be holding her back and she would acquiesce to it every time. This would undoubtedly result in her feeling inhibited and stifled but clueless as to why. Imagine a similar experience happening MULTIPLE times to you over the course of your life and especially during your childhood when you were more vulnerable and impressionable WITHOUT the edifying intervention of an adult or someone you respected and you will see that it is a foregone conclusion as to why you feel so inhibited and stifled. Think about your life and mindset as a child. Your mind was undeveloped and immature, so you were bound to misinterpret things that happened to or around you based on your limited understanding about life. Your parents or primary caretakers had the power of life and d…

Why You’re Inhibited and Stifled (Part 1)
type: item
creator: ikelove
date: 2023-10-15T17:41:27Z
subject: Uncategorized
subject: embodiment
subject: emotional trauma
subject: gut
subject: heart brain
subject: heart intelligence
subject: somatic therapy
subject: stifled
description: Do you ever feel stuck, stifled, or inhibited where you feel that there is charismatic, charming, confident person locked away inside of you and you can’t seem to access him? You participate in a conversation, or you approach that woman you like, but when you want to fully express who you are, it feels like […] The post Why You’re Inhibited and Stifled (Part 1) first appeared on The Viable Alternative.
encoded: Do you ever feel stuck, stifled, or inhibited where you feel that there is charismatic, charming, confident person locked away inside of you and you can’t seem to access him? You participate in a conversation, or you approach that woman you like, but when you want to fully express who you are, it feels like something is holding you back and instead, all you’re able to do is muster is some robotic, stifled, self conscious response. It feels like you’re trapped in a mental prison and locked in some haze. I know what it’s like because I lived it for a number of years, namely from 2001-2009. At times, it was so bad that I wanted to end my life. As such, at times I can see and feel when others are going through the same thing. There are quite a few reasons why this happens, but one of them is that you’re trapped in your head. Now I know you may be thinking, “No sh*t Sherlock, I know that’s the issue.” Well here’s the thing. In terms of understanding human beings, modern society, namely Western society is very segmented. It separates the mind and the body. This is why when you have an issue with your stomach, you go to the gastroenterologist. If you have a problem with your heart, you go to the cardiologist. If you have a hormonal issue, you go to the endocrinologist, and so on and so forth. Furthermore, it teaches that the mind is in your brain and all thinking and being comes from your brain whereas your body is a bunch of bones, flesh and tissue that holds up your head and supports the brain. But let me ask you something: When you see athletes play sports, or dancers dance, or musicians play instruments, do you really think they’re thinking logically with their brains? No, far from it. They’re just being, and by them just being, they’re flowing. Thinking in the way we think of thinking would just get in the way of what they’re doing. There’s a cute little story a friend of mine once told me at the gym. A grasshopper once approached a centipede and asked it how it was a…

What to Do When You Feel Trapped by Your Circumstances (pt. 2)
type: item
creator: ikelove
date: 2023-09-20T22:19:12Z
subject: Uncategorized
subject: body awareness
subject: depression
subject: emotional baggage
subject: emotional healing
description: In my last message, I shared with you what to do when you feel trapped by your circumstances. The moral or the “takeaway” of that message was that if you want to see change in your life, you can’t wait for your circumstances to change in order for you to feel you have the permission […] The post What to Do When You Feel Trapped by Your Circumstances (pt. 2) first appeared on The Viable Alternative.
encoded: In my last message, I shared with you what to do when you feel trapped by your circumstances. The moral or the “takeaway” of that message was that if you want to see change in your life, you can’t wait for your circumstances to change in order for you to feel you have the permission to change. Instead, YOU have to change first for change to occur on the outside. You do this by adopting the feelings ahead of time that associated with the life that you want to have. But wait just a cotton picking minute…. There are other instances in your life where you feel trapped not because you’re waiting things to change around you to give you the permission to feel a certain way and they’re not changing, but instead because you actually FEEL trapped. Yes, sometimes in life, you feel trapped, because you’re feeling trapped. This may be due to the fact that you’re caught in a miserable marriage or relationship that you feel you can’t leave for various reasons (kids, finances, fear of being alone, separation too expensive, etc.), or you’re at a job that you despise but you feel you can’t quit because you need the money, or it may be an unsatisfactory living situation. In a situation like this, you have to realize that your body is communicating to you that something is wrong and just because you feel you can’t or won’t leave your current situation, doesn’t mean you ignore your body and its needs. This is a time when you feel and connect with yourself and find out what you really need on a emotional level and find ways to meet those needs. If you ignore your body, that “alarm” will start to get louder and louder and may soon take the form of depression, anxiety or some type of chronic illness or condition. Also, no matter your excuse for staying in your undesirable situation, there is some type of attachment you have to the situation in the form of an emotion. In other words, there is a feeling you’re harbouring that is keeping you in the situation. It could be fear, pride, anger, a…

What to Do When You Feel Trapped by Your Circumstances (pt. 1)
type: item
creator: ikelove
date: 2023-09-10T18:15:50Z
subject: Uncategorized
subject: emasculating
subject: law of attraction
subject: Law of Vibration
subject: self appointment
subject: self confidence
subject: self improvement
subject: The Viable Alternative
description: 2013 was truly a crappy, difficult year that I was truly happy about when it ended. First off, a woman who was a close family friend (she was friends with my parents and I was friends with her kids) and gave me my first summer job after my Freshman year in college was killed in […] The post What to Do When You Feel Trapped by Your Circumstances (pt. 1) first appeared on The Viable Alternative.
encoded: 2013 was truly a crappy, difficult year that I was truly happy about when it ended. First off, a woman who was a close family friend (she was friends with my parents and I was friends with her kids) and gave me my first summer job after my Freshman year in college was killed in a gruesome accident. Three months later, I lost a childhood friend and then 6 weeks later, his father died, and then three weeks after that, another childhood friend of mine within the same crew got diagnosed with testicular cancer, which he thankfully beat. Fun times. While these instances certainly sucked, the persistent pain the entire year was the frustration I dealt with regarding my finances. I had decided to go back into real estate as an agent and from the beginning of the year, I couldn’t close a deal to save my life. It took me 6 months to close my first deal and I think I only did two or three after that. Day in and day out, I would come early to my office, grind it out by viewing apartments, posting ads, responding to inquiries from clients and taking them out only to leave the office late in the evening with no results. As a job that was full commission, no results meant no money. In the meantime, it seemed that everybody was closing deals around me and receiving these nice commission checks. “If only I could close a deal,” I thought to myself, “I could make some money and not feel like I was merely taking up space in the office.” This sense of embarrassment and feeling like a failure made me more attached to the outcome of closing a deal which made me push harder which gave me an air of desperation which, in turn, if you know anything about being too desperate for something, guarantees that you push that thing further away from you. There were so many things that I planned to do with the money I earned to live the life I had envisioned for myself but with me not being able to have the success I wanted at this gig, I had to put my plans on hold which gave me this feeling that my …