The Mind Games You Can’t Win

You’re a con artist, do you realize that? You really are. Most people are, it turns out. It’s just that most of us are also our own marks for the con.

It’s not usually an act of malice, so don’t be too hard on yourself. Most of us are too busy marshaling our minds to get through one day and then the next to notice what we’re doing to ourselves. That is, until the abuse we’ve been dishing out to the person in the mirror mounts, and a day (or days) of reckoning come.

This reckoning can come in many forms, too many to list here, but let’s just say the cleanup usually involves professionals–people like defense or divorce attorneys, police, doctors, psychologists, sometimes even massage or physical therapists. You can imagine, then, that these are the kinds of consequences you’d like to avoid.

There are so many ways we torment, lie to, and fool ourselves. But here, we’ll try to list some of the big ones and suggest some ways to get out of the traps your are setting for yourself.

Shortsightedness
Are you just reacting to everything? It can happen to the best of us as we bounce from one activity to another just responding to a stimulus, avoiding pain, or feeding appetites. You rise to avoid being late and getting in trouble at work. Someone cuts you off in traffic and you curse without even thinking. Someone says something snotty to you at work and before you know it, your voice is raised and you’re having violent fantasies. You fix yourself a drink after work to unwind. And then another, etc. Keep that up, and you’ll hurt someone–yourself or someone else.

You live in the body of an animal, true, but you’re also a self-conscious human being. So act like it! Be mindful. Be intentional. Take a moment, maybe first thing in the morning, to set just one important intention for the day.
Maybe some of these questions might help get you started.

• What do you want people to remember about their encounters with you today?
• What can you do today to move towards creating the future you want?
• What are your values, and what’s one thing you can do today to live one of those values?

Not only will you help to avoid some unnecessary anguish for a decision made in the heat of the moment, you’ll be much more likely to end your day not feeling merely sated or amused, but satisfied. Content.

Procrastination
Have you ever thought of procrastination as a lie you tell yourself? The lie is basically this: that if you don’t do it now, maybe–somehow, some way–you won’t ever have to do it at all.

This simple decision–a lie told in the mirror without a second thought–creates a terrible tension in your mind and heart. This tension creates a buzzing in the brain that’s so persistent that you might not even be aware of it, like an annoying sound you learn to tune out. But it’s also so obnoxious that it slowly erodes your sense of self-worth and confidence. And that’s where you pay the price for this one.

There’s a really wonderful children’s book about this called “There’s No Such Thing As A Dragon” by Jack Kent. In the story, a boy wakes up to find a kitten-sized dragon in his room. He tells his parents about it, and the more they deny the dragon exists, the larger it gets. Through each stage of the dragon’s growth, the boy tries to get his parents to believe and pay attention to the dragon to no avail. By the end of the book, it’s carrying away their house on its massive back. When the parents finally acknowledge the dragon is there and the boy pets it, the dragon quickly becomes kitten-sized again. What are your dragons? The more you ignore them, the larger, scarier, and more disruptive they’ll become. Ignore them completely, and you may get burned.

Rationalization
Logic is a frightening tool because it can work so well, but you can also fool yourself with it so easily because, by definition, it makes sense. But check your premises–the assumptions, ideas, and beliefs that inform that logic. Logic works, but it’s only helpful if the information is good. Garbage in, garbage out.

One thing that can be so beneficial about talking regularly to a friend or loved one. There can be great benefit in consulting with a mental health professional. They can help you identify some errors in your thinking, like the ones in this blog, especially when you can’t detect them yourself.
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Worry
Worry is a primary way you can wear your mind out to exhaustion, and for no good reason! It’s like riding the brakes of your mind. Worry serves a purpose: it’s a feeling generated by an awareness that something is amiss and needs our attention. The best strategy is to try to cope with whatever you’re worrying about by taking some kind of action–or— if that’s not possible, recognizing that what’s wrong can’t be fixed, not right now or not by you, and letting the worry go. True, this is much easier said than done, but it also may not as difficult as you might think.

Jagged pills
You may not consciously intend to play these mind games with yourself. If it’s any consolation, it’s very common. You’re far from alone. But being mindful, embracing your network of social support, and consulting with caring people around you can help you live with intention and balance. This requires some humility. It may be hard to swallow, but you don’t know yourself half as well as you think you do.

So meditate, exercise, learn. Do nice things for yourself like making new friends, getting regular massages, and filling your life with beauty. This isn’t just a nice option–it’s key to avoiding terrible consequences if you don’t act.

The only real way to win these mind games is not to play.

Choose the good life.

 

 

Tom Gunn is the blog editor and Marketing Director at The Good Life Massage. You can email him at tomgunn@gmail.com to comment or to get his help developing your brand with content marketing.

Play With A Purpose, Relax With Intention

Unwinding, A Master Class–Part 2

Sharpen your saw
When a saw blade becomes dull, you put way more work into it than necessary. So it is with you. We’ve talked on this space before about relaxation, and how important it is to practice it as a skill, but it’s high time to revive the topic with some reflections on how to improve your relaxation practice in every area of your life.

The most important work
Unstring your bow, sharpen your saw, whatever analogy you like to use, these metaphors are trying to teach us something about relaxation, and it’s this: relaxation is a form of work–the kind of work that helps you work better. It’s time we start treating it as such. Don’t believe me? Work means change! If you’re doing relaxation well, there should be some change from the beginning of it to the end.

Further, you put yourself to the task for a specific purpose. Unwinding helps you get perspective on your life in a holistic way. True, you need to relax to work most efficiently, but you’re not just a cog in some machine–you’re a multifaceted, complex creature. Sometimes just the right kind of relaxation can help you remember that.

You can pace yourself. Small and incremental change is still change, and it has a sort of compound interest effect as the days add up. The results may be small at first, but they can accumulate over time. Long vacations give you the advantage of being able to go deep in your self-care, but don’t dismiss the benefits of doing a little every day. Establishing habits of self care and relaxation can enrich your life in ways you can’t yet know.

Just as not all stress is the same, so not all relaxation is the same. You need to take that into account before you choose what kind of relaxation you pursue.

Rest the body

This is where regular massage comes in and can be of most benefit to you. The body is put through it’s own stresses, regardless of your activity level, and you need to care for it.

Relax by … moving?
Exercise can be immensely relaxing–not because of how you feel while doing it, necessarily, but how you feel afterwards. Yoga practitioners will talk your ear off about how soothing it is on the nerves, and how good it is for stabilizing both your body and your mood. What any kind of exercise does for you is that it puts your body through stress in small, tolerable portions. When your body goes through this regularly, it grows stronger in order to adapt to this regular, tolerable stress. When something big hits, like a major stressful event, your body is better able to cope with what’s happening, and recovers from the shock of it more quickly.

That aside, a there’s no body more relaxed than a body that’s been thoroughly worked out. If you don’t feel as weak as a kitten coming out of the gym, you might not be getting as much out of the experience as you could.

Regular massage can also play a key role in helping your body recover from exercise and help you get the most out of your workouts. Not to mention that it feels great.

Nom nom
Have you thought of eating as relaxation? It really can be! But it’s not about eating for entertainment–that’s a different thing. Sweets and comfort foods may feed the soul, but a good, nutritious meal can be truly relaxing to your body in the sense that it can prepare your body to do its work better.

A meal that’s truly relaxing to your system

• tastes good
• is well-balanced, both in terms of portions and nutrition
• is light enough to not stress your digestive system

Foodies all over the world are discovering that not only can this kind of eating be good for you, it can be an amazing sensory experience, and an adventure that’s well worth having. What’s more, they’re eager to share what they’ve tasted and how to make it.

Go ahead and add some novelty to the foods you choose when it’s time to party, keeping in mind that what your body really wants is a balance of flavors incorporating whole grains, green vegetables, and lean meat or proteins. Your body will thank you.

Breathing
Close your eyes and take a deep breath right now. Doesn’t that feel good? Taking care of your breath, and learning to breathe deeply is key to helping your body stay relaxed and help you cope with stress as it comes. Activities like aerobic exercise, massage, and meditation can all help you improve your breathing. Pursue improving your breath with intention, and every day will begin to feel like a gift.

The bottom line with relaxing the body is that your body is after balance. You can’t just live on wheat grass and water all the time, and you can’t expect to stay healthy if your body is under constant strain with no rest or variation. The opposite is also true. Always eating the same things and always doing the same things with your body creates stress and wear over time. Remember that your body is that of an animal–it needs a natural balance of rest and activity, feast and fasting to truly thrive.

Rest the mind

Exorcise
Expel the demons! It can be helpful to feed your mind with something other than the worries of the day. There’s something about humans that makes us crave stories. We want our heart strings pulled and our senses shocked. But make your catharsis meaningful. Whether it’s video games, movies, or a long-form television drama, use with moderation, and make sure the morals, meanings, and messages reflect your values. Entertainment can be a test drive for your emotions. What are you preparing your emotions to do? What kinds of reactions are you training your brain to have to different situations?

Reading, writing, learning
Similar to the exercise you put your body through, reading, writing and learning are necessary ways to exercise the powers of the mind. Is it stressful to the mind to learn something new, or to concentrate the powers of expression and reason? Absolutely. But it’s stressful in the mild, strengthening way exercise is helpful to the body.

Journaling or other creative writing has been shown to benefit health in surprising ways. University of Texas Austin psychologist and researcher contends that journaling actually strengthens the immune cells known as T-lymphocytes. It can also just help you cope with the challenges you’re facing, giving you insights about yourself you might not otherwise discover. It can also help you set aside unproductive worrying and focus your work time more effectively.

Relaxation is a skill you can spend your life improving on and enjoying. Pursue it with gusto and intention rather just going through the motions.

Choose the good life.

Tom Gunn is the blog editor and Marketing Director for The Good Life Massage. You can reach him to help you develop your brand with content marketing by reaching out to him at tomgunn@gmail.com

5 Ways Everyone Is Doing Relaxation Wrong

Unwinding–A Master Class, Part 1

“Relax!” verb, directive – a phrase you say that will almost guarantee the person being addressed will never, ever be able to relax.

We throw the words “relax and unwind” around too easily. We tell people to do it as though it was as easy as breathing (well, it kinda is, but more on that in part 2). This casual tossing around of these words has damaged the concept in our minds. We’re too quick to think we “don’t have time” to relax (lie), or more commonly that what we are doing is relaxing when it’s absolutely not.

Relaxation isn’t the same thing as “fun”. Relaxing things can be fun, but not all fun things are relaxing. We live in a busy, distracted world, and the best most of us feel we can do to “unwind” is to get some TV in before bed, maybe go out for dinner from time to time and take our annual vacation.

How is that working out for you?

Can we do better?

In this two-part post, we’ll explore what relaxation isn’t, what it is, and ask ourselves some tough questions about how to do it best.

Your body: temple or amusement park?
Be careful about using food as entertainment, especially if it’s cheap, fried, sugary, or some combination of these things. These kinds of foods hack the pleasure centers of the brain, overwhelming your sense of being satisfied with a need for the explosive dopamine hit to continue. This is why “you can’t eat just one”. It’s a food hijacking your brain and using the mechanisms designed to help you to survive to help you gorge.

Foods high in sugars kick up insulin production in your body, which in turn puts stress on your circulatory system and your heart. Over time, this can aggravate the negative effects of daily stress on the body. A diet high in saturated fats and trans fats can have a similar effect. Excess, with food or alcohol can also do a lot of damage, even when it’s done in the name of fun or relaxation.

There’s nothing wrong with a little indulgence now and then, but just know that you’re trading some mental and psychological pleasure for some bodily stress that can accumulate to a deadly result over a long period of time. We’re not saying “no dessert!” (God forbid!) Just use moderation and understand the trade-off you’re making. If bodily stress is a major concern, don’t neglect this aspect of how you treat your body.

Mind games
Real unwinding is not just about your physical well being–the tension in your muscles, etc. It has just as much to do with your mind.

It’s easy to confuse the mind with the self, and so we forget that the mind is a tool. It helps us make decisions, interprets our experiences, and produces our feelings. Since it’s a tool, we need to keep it working well. This means you need to regularly rest it and sharpen it. But too often we abuse it by overindulging it with sensational experiences, cheap thrills, and shallow, fleeting pleasures.

Screens
We can hardly get away from them. An outside observer might guess that we’re slaves to these flat, glowing surfaces. They’ve filled our living rooms, bedrooms, classrooms, workplaces, and even our pockets, purses, and cars. A lot has been said to question the wisdom of this cultural shift, but let’s focus for a moment on how it affects your stress and relaxation.

The light from screens can actually cause stress. Sleep studies have shown that the stimulation caused by the bright LCD and LED-style screens that fill our lives inhibit the production of melatonin, a hormone that signals to your body that it’s night and that it’s time to sleep. If you’re having trouble sleeping you might consider keeping the screens off for an hour or two before going to bed and see if that helps at all.

And what about social media? Studies have shown conclusively that the most social media you use, the less happy and healthy you are. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram, while fun and useful at times, can also breed envy and depression as we compare and contrast everyone’s best days with our worst and get drawn into unproductive political debating and ruminating. Even the “news” we find there turns out to be less than reliable.

Porn
Long gone are the days of a guilty pile of mags stashed in the woods or the furtive trips to the adult video store. The device you’re reading this on right now is a private, anonymous conduit to see more naked bodies than a Victorian libertine could’ve seen in a lifetime.

Cultural enthusiasm for this stuff has given way to a justified backlash as critics point out exploitative norms in the industry, and psychologists critically interrogate porn’s value in enhancing our sex lives. Porn use can cost you your job and cause public humiliation, not to mention the damage it can do to your libido, your relationships, and your ability to enjoy healthy sexuality.

Porn is like a mental junk food, hijacking your senses and your brain to keep you riding high on oxytocin and dopamine while it reroutes your sex drive to fleeting, superficial experiences. In most cases, these experiences, while they can be intensely pleasurable in the moment, only serve to isolate you rather than build a lasting bond with another person.

Bingeing
Let’s be honest: if it were healthy, we wouldn’t call watching hours of television on end “bingeing”. Letting yourself get swept up in a drama can be cathartic. There’s nothing wrong with some escapism now and then. But is there any drama that’s worth the loss of sleep and every negative consequence that flows from that?

Entertainment, but for zombies
Going out for drinks, watching TV, video games, movies–we all have a set list of the things we do because it’s the weekend, or it’s time to relax, or it just seems like the thing to do. But does that mean it’s relaxing? Does that mean it’s worth your time?

Examine your recreational choices and question them–really put them under the hot lights and interrogate them–for what they’re actually giving you. Are you really getting out of them what you think? Is it time to break the mold and try something new?

In part 2, we’ll talk about healthy ways to unwind that are truly relaxing and life-enhancing long term.

Choose the good life.

Tom Gunn is the blog editor and Marketing Director for The Good Life Massage. You can send you comments to him directly or ask him how he can help you build your brand through content marketing by contacting him at tomgunn@gmail.com

Know Yourself: 5 Body Myths

We talk a lot in this space about forging a strong mind-body connection. But an important part of that connection involves educating yourself about what your body really needs and how it really functions. Here’s a little uncommon sense about your body.

Sorry, but eating carrots doesn’t improve your eyesight
This is a bit of propaganda form World War II that worked a little too well. Great Britain had actually developed night vision, so the government spread the word among civilians that they could enhance their vision at night by eating more carrots. It’s not true, but the myth has persisted. Sure, eat your carrots, just don’t expect it to bestow super powers.

Stretching before a workout doesn’t prevent injury
Injury is may be less likely if you stretch before athletic activity (though even that’s still in dispute), but don’t let stretching make you think you’re invincible. Don’t get us wrong, stretching is good! It gives you optimal range of motion and ensures your muscles change and adapt with the most benefit and the least pain.

Fever? Cold? Feed both
The rationale behind the old saw “feed a cold, starve a fever” is that your metabolism is the source of a fever, which isn’t wrong. But when you’re sick, whether you’re suffering cold symptoms or a fever, feed you body with vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. Eat when you’re hungry, and drink plenty of fluids.

Nosebleed? Don’t tilt your head back
It’s almost instinctive to throw your head back during a nosebleed to keep the drips of blood from falling, but resist the urge, and recognize that your mom as human and fallible as the rest of us. Tilting your head back can actually cause you to swallow or even choke on your own blood! Instead, hold your head level while pinching your nose just below the bony part until the bleeding stops. If the bleeding persists for more than a half hour or gets worse, get immediate medical attention.

Laugh at Star Wars and Victorian novels all you want, but you really can die of a broken heart
According to the American Heart Association, the links between mental health and heart health couldn’t be stronger. Broken Heart Syndrome is real, so act accordingly. Sure, eat a good diet, stay active, get plenty of sleep, but also nurture you closest relationships. They might just mean the difference between life and death.

Question your assumptions! Interrogate “common sense” just to be sure, especially when it comes to your health.

Tom Gunn is the blog editor and marketing director of The Good Life Massage. You can hire him to build your brand with logo design and content marketing by contacting him at tomgunn@gmail.com

 

 

Is Your Phone Slowly Killing You?

Is your phone silently and insidiously abusing you?

Neil DeGrasse Tyson: No. It’s a phone, it doesn’t have free will.

Okay, how about this:

Are you silently and insidiously using your phone to undermine and sabotage yourself?

There’s a concept in psychology that’s found some traction in our modern discourse, especially among people having political slap fights on the Internet: cognitive dissonance.

The dictionary definition is the psychological discomfort you feel when you hold two or more contradictory/conflicting behaviors or values at the same time. An example of this can be found regularly on Rotten Tomatoes. This aggregator tool polls movie audiences to rate movies, and pairs that with an aggregate of professional critics. There’s often a sharp difference between the audience ratings and the critic’s aggregate score. Almost without exception, audiences rate movies higher than critics do. Why? There are several reasons, but one of these is cognitive dissonance.

Beliefs about ourselves that we find to be contradicted by our behavior give us the most discomfort. In this example, the audience members rating the movies believe they have good taste, and don’t spend money seeing bad movies (I mean, really, what kind of idiot would do that?). There’s a sense of embarrassment in our culture that tends to follow making a bad purchase of any kind, and movies are no exception.

The audience tends to rate the movie higher because they’ve paid to see it. Every consumer is wise in their own mind, so instead of admitting that they wasted their money, they’re more inclined to pretend to others and even themselves that they’ve made a great decision.

This is how we lie to ourselves. It may soothe our cognitive dissonance in the short term, but this kind of compromise can nickel and dime our morale and sense of integrity over time. It can slowly erode our identity and leave us feeling empty and depressed.

So here’s a more pernicious example: suppose you see yourself as a loving, attentive member of your family (spouse, mate, parent, sibling, friend, etc) and a hard worker. With those beliefs about yourself in mind, how is that reflected in your day-to-day life?

Let’s look at what you do with your time. You go to work. Okay! Not bad so far. You spend time with your loved ones on the weekends. Looking good, right? From a distance, this looks fine. But is it?

On closer inspection, we see this hypothetical you sleepwalking through the grind of your day, wasting more time on the Internet than you care to admit, doing everything you can to amuse yourself through the day. And the weekends? Seems it’s hard to leave that alone, too. Answer this honestly for yourself: when you spend time with your loved ones, is there actually a screen between you? Are you ever with them when there isn’t a screen within a few feet of you?

When you stop and look with intention at your own life, this kind of thing is impossible to un-see. And that’s good.

Why is this happening?
First, if this is you, know that you’re not a bad person. Psychology pioneer B.F. Skinner is known for illuminating how we pursue behaviors for specific rewards in his experiments with rats in cages. Skinner found that when you reward the rate with a treat after pushing a lever just once or twice reliably, you can get them to keep pushing the lever, even if a treat drops at random. We pursue a behavior even more avidly when the possible reward drops with some degree or unpredictability–like on a slot machine or when you get out your phone to check your notifications. When you get even a modest reward from those behaviors, your brain lights up with dopamine–a “feel good” neurotransmitter that shows up when you experience anything pleasurable.

Another interesting thing about dopamine, it doesn’t always show up when you’re grinding away at the job or listening to an exhuberant child’s meandering story about their stuffed animals. Do good workers grind away at the job? Yes. Do good people give children the attention they need and deserve? Of course.

And yet, in the name of the quick, seemingly inconsequential dopamine hit, these things are being neglected, or at least undermined for many of us. And yet, you’re a good person! A hard worker! You know there’s something amiss, though, and can’t put your finger on it (cognitive dissonance). So what do you do?

Some of us try to shrug it off. Some of us pursue even stonger hits of dopamine (in other words, more intense and hard-to-shake addictions and compulsions!). These are both just a race to rock-bottom, just at different speeds.

And then there are others, those who decide to live with intention.

Living with intention
You don’t have to throw your phone away. This isn’t a Lifetime original movie: your phone isn’t an abusive spouse you need to flee from, never looking back, or a stash of drugs you need to flush down the toilet. That thing you’re holding is a tool. Use it as such. Use it for what it’s good for. Use it with intention.

Are you a rat, tapping away at a lever hoping a treat will appear? Or are you a conscious, life-savoring human being putting a useful tool to its purpose? (And yes, that purpose can be enjoying cat videos. But are you doing it intentionally?)

Instead of going through the exhausting mental gymnastics of soothing your cognitive dissonance while your identity erodes like a cake left out in the rain, try bringing that cake inside and enjoying a slice.

STOP
There’s an acronym in the world of preparedness and safety-STOP, which stands for Stop, Think, Observe, and Plan. The idea is that your brain can sabotage you and cause accidents–like the rock climber who’s brain was tricked into thinking her safety line was tied because she tied her shoes. STOP is intended to prevent that.

But next time you get out your phone or click over to whatever non-productive Internet tab is your favorite, STOP.

Stop
Put your brain on pause just for a moment. Just observe yourself in the moment.

Think
Ask questions of yourself. What am I doing right now? Notice yourself noticing.

Observe
How are you feeling right now? Are you hungry, stressed, emotional, or tired? What are you about to do, and why are you about to do it?

Plan
Having observed yourself living in the real world and not in your own head, are you really on track with what you intend for your life right now?

This takes deliberate practice to develop before this becomes automatic, but it’s worth trying. Mindfulness meditation is a great way to get yourself used to thinking in this way. Be patient and kind with yourself.

It’s worth being more content, more productive, more loving, more awake.

Tom Gunn is the blog editor the marketing director for The Good Life Massage. You can hire him to assist with social media marketing, content marketing, or logo design by contacting him at tomgunn@gmail.com

 

The Power of Curiosity

See this box? What do you suppose is in it? It could be anything. It could contain a bar of gold big enough to set you up for life. Or it could be exactly what talk show host Geraldo Rivera found in Al Capone’s vault: nothing. You don’t know. Would you like to know what’s in there? I’ll tell you in a minute.

Maybe you’re crazy to find out (stop watching, that graphic isn’t really a live video). More likely, you don’t really care. But you’re curious, aren’t you, even if only slightly?

And that not-knowing, that feeling of wanting to know but that you could find out with a little effort, is called curiosity. And that feeling is powerful, more so than we usually give it credit for. Think about it.

Your curiosity has the power to drive you to

• Pursue new knowledge or skills
• Develop new habits or break old ones
• Lead you to new, creative solutions to perplexing problems

And that’s only the beginning. Curiosity is the driving force behind the greatest minds and innovators the human race has ever seen, including people like Elon Musk, Walt Disney, even Albert Einstein. In fact, Eisntein once attributed all of his success to it, declaring “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

It’s a good buzz
Curiosity can do all this because it feels good! We’re wired to love novelty and challenge. Novelty is how our fake “live video” graphic got you to read this–a small thing, to be sure, but it’s enough to start something. When we find that the pursuit of novelty leads us to a challenge, that can be so exciting as to become addictive. Why else do you think some people become addicted to video games? Or mountain climbing?

Some have compared curiosity to an itch in the brain–one we scratch by finding the answers to our questions. It’s the reason clickbait continues to exist, no matter how media saavy society becomes, because curiosity is just that compelling.

So what?
Our hope here, today, is to make you aware of your curiosity–to get curious about it, if you will. Pay attention to it. Notice how it feels to be curious. Investigate what it is that piques your curiosity and ask why.

Mindfulness is a skill, one that might require some practice to develop, but it’s well worth it. If you want to improve your life in ways the seem difficult or perplexing, mindfulness and curiosity are likely going to be the keys to your success.

Some places to start are exercise, meditation, and regular therapeutic massage. Taken together, these good habits are the killer apps of mindfulness, establishing a stronger mind-body connection and empowering you to make whatever change in your life you would like to make.

Armed with this awareness, you can begin to understand how powerful your curiosity really is and how it might be harnessed to help you improve your life.

You can even begin to see how you can use curiosity the curiosity of others in leadership, communication, and education. But that’s a discussion for another time.

So, what’s in the box? You’ve just discovered it.

Tom Gunn is the marketing director and blog editor for The Good Life Massage. You can contact him at tomgunn@gmail.com