How your poop says a lot about you.

INSIGHT

Know your "shit", it says a lot about you.

To counter the woo woo, it seems the self-help industry is embracing reality and sarcasm with more down-to-earth delivery of self-improvement. Not only in jest or marketing savvy, but also from the truism that we can't move on unless we embrace our shitty little selves in the process. For this week's submission, that pun's intended.

We're going to have a field day with metaphor, starting with that Freudian favorite "anal retentiveness” — a behavioral descriptor that extends beyond it’s metaphorical connotation and actually describes a mode of attention in early stage development: when an infant learns to control excretory functions under parental chastising or over-control, associating the conditioning to traits linked to effort; be it stubborn, orderly, compulsive or overly controlling (hence, anal retentive!). Later theories of obsessive-compulsive behavior stemmed from this earlier work and the terms are still used colloquially today. In fact, many colloquialisms rely on the link to these bodily functions as ways to describe a person’s behavior “He’s full of shit!” “My shit’s outta control!” “Stop holding onto that shit” “She really has his shit together.” We don’t all need to be psychologists to know that one’s personality traits are reflective of our desire to control our situations/life in certain ways; excretion is a universal part of the human experience and an excellent place to be mindful of our control tendencies.

Though veiled in taboo, it’s rich with surprising insights into our mind-body connection; from psychoanalysis to neuro-gastroenterology to social attitudes and ontological practices. Any parent will tell you that toilet training can tell you a lot about their child’s tendencies and somehow, this early stage learning has alluded us in adult years, even though many would contend it’s still highly relevant. We all experience the gratification of a perfect defecation (in fact, some like gastroenterologist Dr. Anish Sheth have coined the pleasurable sensation of a complete bowel movement as “poo-phoria” — not only from a psychological sense of completeness, but it’s bodily link to the BM stimulating one’s vagus nerve, the superhighway of our sensor-receptors in the body to our brains, to trigger feelings of exhilaration, intense relaxation, goose bumps and even mystical chills. These signals not only affect our present situation but over time (i.e constipation) can affect our personality (i.e. anal retentiveness). Wouldn’t you love to cultivate a perfect poo and obtain the philosophical emptiness that woke ones pursue?

INSPIRATION

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

A bit of a sideways inspiration this week with New York Times Best Seller Mark Manson’s not-so-subtle counterintuitive approach to a better life. We were inspired by this one because often times, change happens when we’re at the end of our rope, dropping profanities and ‘losing our shit’ — some times the only way to deal with it is to roll with the punches and embrace the metaphors to move forward in life, tongue and cheek.

He has a sequel about hope as well: Everything is F*cked

INNOVATION

BSOYL (Best Sh!t Of Your Life)

An online course and social media movement taking people into a process of understanding what your literal and proverbial shit actually says about you. Linking psychobiology to daily habits, we unravel the correlations of how the “everything you do is in the little thing you doo”. Pun intended.

• Comes with “the shittiest assessment ever” to know whether you’re shits outta control or just losing your shit; or if you’re just holding onto shit or in fact, full of it.

• Learn about your shit from the intersection of scatology, physiology, microbiology, psychology and somatic awareness to understand the links between our nervous system, our rest/digest response and our daily habits which make up our character.