publicnym

[publicnym]

gotta say, I feel like the big five is a big hock of crock.

at the very least, the self-evaluation measure throws the whole thing into question. the most conscientious person may rate themselves low in conscientiousness because they’re too neurotic. I think you have to be in a good place in your life to be able to honestly admit your strengths (or, possible that you’re just that kind of person who can do that).

sure, the vectors describe traits people have... wow! are they the only five, and are they all that cleanly detached from each other? idk.

[publicnym]

Preliminary: goals

“Explore goal-setting or your goals.”

This seems easy enough... I’ve been doing this at least once a week for a while, anyway.

All right. “Goal-setting or your goals.” So, should I first explore the meta around goal-setting for me? Maybe I’ll do that, sure.

I made a lot of goal categories at the start of using the To Do list app that I use (Toodledo - I’ve been pondering whether I should upgrade it or nah). I’m starting to see that, as broad as I tried to make the categories, some of the things I really want to do still aren’t completely fitting those categories.

The broad categories as I defined them initially:

- feel connected/belonging - feel healthy/comfortable/pretty - feel meaningful/helpful - have fun

So, why do I want to go back and review high school/college mathematics concepts that fell through the cracks? I am genuinely enjoying it in a way I wasn’t really sure I’d ever be able to. I hated math... it used to feel like such a chore. You had to practice at it! And arithmetic is still tedious, but it’s pretty built into most practice problems you hit early on (or even in intermediate levels).

But am I really just doing it for fun? Kind of, but I could be having fun in a better or different way. I don’t expect to have to use it for anything concrete anytime soon, so I don’t feel more meaningful/helpful. And I don’t hang around people that require these skills of me or care about them, so it’s not to feel connected or belonging either, really. Or is it?

Perhaps I’m doing it to reclaim the fun with it I wish I could have had. I had limited exposure to the internet in high school and I used it as unwisely as I possibly could when I could get my hands on it. In college, I was miserable. I was stuck at home with my parents to save money (on the plus side, zero debt now), but, yeah, I was frequently suicidal and pretty much constantly depressed. I’d try to get myself out of it with various distractions, which sometimes worked. Getting a job and leaving that house and getting married completely kickstarted my sense of confidence, and it only grew with more time in the workplace.

So, in a way, I think I’m using math review as a strange path toward personal growth. It’s also satisfyingly rational, just like what I appreciate about programming.

But is it strictly only to “have fun”?

I think I may need another broad goal category, but I really don’t know how to name it. Maybe I can call it “become an adult.” Personal growwwwth. But then. Why do I even care about personal growth? I’m actively pursuing it and desiring it, but why? What does it do for me?

(Side note: quotations are confusing to me. In programming, I’m used to containing exactly what I want to emphasize/render in a string, but in English, you’re supposed to contain your ending period *inside* the quotation marks...? I hope that English convention dies.)

Okay, back to reflecting on the value of personal growth. Why am I doing this? I feel that I have to. I feel that I can’t take the force of Life stuff without buffing up to handle what it throws at me. I want to understand myself and others. I want them to derive happiness and value from their interactions with me while I’m alive. I want to face myself honestly. I think I will be unable to accomplish anything else with any efficiency unless I take some steps toward growth.

---

Well, I think there’s some meaty meta, lol.

As for goals themselves...

1. Get my body in a state where I’m more comfortable in it (has several more specific subtasks I won’t list here). Some of these I feel actively ashamed of, but I’m still going to (attempt to) reach these goals, stay there, and see if they were worth having. I really think it’s worthwhile to do this and soberly check whether achieving these improved my life the way I wanted. I’ve made a lot of progress toward this.

2. Wake up earlier. I haven’t made much progress on this (I can make a few excuses about my husband being a late sleeper, but it’s not his fault). It gives me a nice window of time to evaluate my goals and thoughts after a refreshing (lol, maybe) sleep.

3. Engage in this meditative practice. Well, I’ve made a baby’s step worth of progress, but I need to do it and figure out how to do it.

4. Make a friend. 0 progress. I don’t know where to start on this. I guess I’ve hung around (x social media site/forum thing) a bit and had some fleeting positive interactions with strangers, but it hasn’t gone much deeper than that. I have gone on calls with my family, and that’s gone positively, actually. I still have major hangups about even trying to do this, though. I mean... I have to be there for them and not let them down. I don’t have a great track record with that and would rather be left alone.

5. Have a pet.

6. Study/read (x thing). I have a number of these, really, various levels of progress.

But what’s missing? I think improving my environment has been left out and is pretty critically important. I need to figure out how to live with less stuff and organize the stuff I really do want around more effectively.

[publicnym]

What am I doing?

I feel like I have a really squishy sense of what I’m supposed to be doing, even with such a long document as what I’m following. It should be quite concretely spelled out, right? But the document itself points to “don’t interpret me too literally - try to figure out the meaning that the text is pointing to.”

Blurgh.

And there’s a REALLY long list of preliminaries. Do I... check them off one by one? Surely not, right?

What the heck is p2 even trying to say? Am I following p1 right, even, when I try to follow its steps?

I get the sense that I’m imagining that there’s a firmer structure here than there really is, but at the same time too squishy = not actionable.

[publicnym]

Adulting

I’m thinking lately about what it means to be an adult and how I can be a better one. A lot of what I dislike about myself relates to my own emotional immaturity. I’m just going to read through some articles about what it means to be an adult and think about how I can improve in a lot of those areas.

What is adulthood?

From an anonymous contributor on the Atlantic article:

“I think the answer to "when do you become an adult" has to do with when you finally have acceptance of yourself.  My patients who are trying to stop time through menopause don't seem like adults even though they are in their mid-40s, mid-50s.  My patients who seem secure through any of life struggles, those are the women who seem like adults.”

Which brings to mind the serenity prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Other things from these articles that seem to ring true:

-  people who’ve committed to an identity (and/or have identified a “purpose”) are more likely to see themselves as adults -  “taking care of people, taking care of things, and taking care of yourself”

So: courage, endurance, self-acceptance seem to stick out.

How do you effectively self-actualize? (Big dump of things)

1. Uphold social responsibility:

a. if you do something, do it well b. 3 sieves of Socrates: only say things that are confirmed true, good, or necessary (and only care about those things) c. always think “how would I feel if this happened to me?” - don’t be a jerk d. “be the house people want to visit” - be the person you need  e. be on time/keep your promises f. confront others instead of complaining about them, generally don’t whine uselessly without thinking of a solution g.  don’t manipulate others to get sympathy

2. Move forward and grow: a. differentiate between “can’t” and “won’t” b. growth mindset: failure is not an identity, it’s step 1. let go of shame from your past (ability to do so is a sign that you’ve grown) c. take care of yourself  d. take responsibility for your life instead of falling back on a victim mindset: “I’m here now, this is what I have, this is what I can do” e. don’t compare yourself to others. respect others without needing their approval f. don’t take shit from people and respect yourself (and consider what makes you worth respecting)  g. ask questions at work, think critically about the right way to do things, come at things from a fresh perspective. don’t be afraid to ask questions h. choose “interesting” when choosing between interesting and predictable (you’ll grow more and have better stories) i. “live” things in your mind before actually doing them (as a carrot) (I don’t see how this one helps, honestly - more likely to make me not do things I don’t want to do. maybe this is for rehearsing the “after” part of what you really don’t want to do?) j. let go of continually seeking direction from others k. don’t be embarrassed or blame others - face up to yourself, enjoy what you enjoy and own your failures

Integration

So, what do I think a good adult is? They have a balance between focus on self and focus on others (I’m quite self-focused - obviously). Yes, I care about others, but always from a perspective where I’m somehow involved.

Practices I can rip from this:

1. While talking or considering what to say, think: “Is this confirmed true? Is this good/kind or necessary?” If it passes, then say the thing, otherwise stay silent. 2. Meditate on what kind of person you need around or would want to be around. What do they like, care about? What do they say, how do they act? 3. When thinking something is too hard or undesirable, consider what life would be like after that thing happened. If things have improved, probably do the thing. 4. When experiencing embarrassment or shame, think, from an outsider’s perspective: what should have happened? 20 years from now, the person who did this was another person. Say in your head something like, “Failure is not an identity - it is always step 1.” 5. When considering another person’s failure, simulate their shame and follow the steps in 4 to coax yourself out of it exactly as though you had failed. 6. When feeling tempted to complain about someone being irritating, short-sighted, or ignorant, consider carefully how you could express their shortcomings to them. Read over what you wrote and imagine you had received that feedback, and edit it to be more helpful. (Then maybe never send the feedback.)

Sources: articles ripped out of top 10 results from Google.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-angry-therapist/201702/8-ways-be-adult

https://www.wikihow.com/Become-an-Adult

https://www.parent.com/20-things-i-want-my-children-to-know-as-they-enter-adulthood/

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/01/when-are-you-really-an-adult/422487/

https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-become-an-adult

https://www.blinkist.com/magazine/posts/how-to-navigate-the-real-world-your-guide-to-being-an-excellent-adult

[publicnym]

Preliminary: freewrite

Sticking to “safe” preliminary practices as listed in this post: https://publicnym.tumblr.com/post/622844745367076864/preliminaries

This one is just freewriting. I’ll just continuously type for about 5-10 minutes (or more if I really vibe with it).

---

hearing voices outside the apartment window, wonder how many people there are together out there. guess they couldn’t leave things closed down forever - shared lounge is open again, dunno what’s up with that. sounds like summer outside. it’s nice and cool inside. I wonder if husband is jealous of them. I’m not good at this meditation thing at all, not really getting anything out of this right now. should I be worried about that? I don’t know, I don’t care, I think I should be squelching any conscious thought that springs to mind now looking at the backlight of my keyboard I never thought to set it to anything but the default, why am I ashamed of this why am I being so introspective I’m no fun well that’s why I’m not out there having a party with someone, I don’t really... I am excited but uncomfortable about the idea of talking to my family this weekend. how am I already mentally exhausted from this.

maybe if I just... free-associate? well, why not

gym banana ring thing you into inn you yiu rui ergot yinh poe right rite write yore qwerty wordy dirty tire try ire fire gear door tore ghoul ghost folk jokes dork doornail ruined ruinous dungeon torch freefall gentle wave blosson shadow verily verify captcha nothing in the dark this doesn’t make any sense why am I anything I could just be nothing

some people don’t question why they’re alive, right? yeah, obviously. perhaps that’s a nicer way to be.

...well, that didn’t take very long. husband is asking me to go walk so I’ll wrap this up.

[publicnym]

Reflection: July 8, 2020

Not really feeling up to the preliminaries I’m seeing. I started on the “questioning inner things” preliminary, but I felt like I couldn’t pick out any “inner things” well enough without it feeling like a game of pretend. “What would I say if I were this imaginary thing in me?” And it just didn’t feel like a conversation with myself like it should have. Or maybe it shouldn’t have?

Anyway, I think I should dig into the results of the last 3 meditation sessions and bite into them a little more critically.

---

The first practice I tried was p1 from the main protocol. (Even though maybe I should have gone for a preliminary.) It felt... like a lot. It felt like I was plugging into playing an elaborate word game and it took quite a lot to even start feeling like something beyond that. I realize that the goal was “go beyond the words to the patterns of how you’re really thinking about things” (or at least that seems like the goal). Maybe it’s more useful for a person who’s more hyperverbal than I am? I don’t know. I can’t really claim to know much about my own inner life. It just kind of lives me, I think. It could also be that I’m still picking up the ropes of how I should be doing it (and there are sooooo many words there describing how to do it ._.;;).

The second practice with the preliminary where I tried to pick out my inner voices I feel like was the coolest session. I kind of want to try to do it again (should I?). Like free-association but less effort than even that. The itchiness sucked, though. Reading back through it, it’s pretty clear that I wasn’t having a lot of fun, but... it had some kind of lasting effect for sure.

The most recent practice I did was basically just “what are you avoiding?” and the answer is hurting people, which I mostly knew, but I guess I figured I was avoiding many more things than really just that. It could be that I’m actually avoiding more than just that and am afraid of naming it somehow. Anyway, how do I become less afraid of hurting people without becoming a worse person? Maybe a little moderation is key? But,,,,

Urgh.

Maybe... I can try asking myself what it would take to be less afraid? This whole thing is about tapping into the answers you have hidden in there after all. Well, me? What would help you over this avoidance of people that you have?

I think I just don’t have a lot of experience around people, and I’m scared of being hurt more than just of hurting people. Hurting people hurts me a lot. It really shoots a hole through me when I think I’ve harmed someone.

I feel like a lesser person when I think I’ve hurt someone or not been enough for someone. I feel like I don’t deserve to exist at all. And I thought I’d processed those suicidal feelings, but I think I’m just avoiding triggering them again.

I feel safe around [husband’s name], but that’s only after years and years of asking him if he’s disappointed in me, generally training myself up to feeling safe with him.

So... I’m really fragile around that, ooooh. Welllll, I don’t want to trip those suicidal urges up... I guess I should think about how to tiptoe around that and carefully expose myself to slightly more risk without the results being potentially devastating?

I tried being a pen pal once, and I met this really flippin’ cool person from across the world. But when I started feeling like I could talk more intimately with them, I just. Cold turkey dropped talking to them. And I still regret it and think about how they’re doing, but I think this might have been why I did that. I kept thinking about just picking back up and talking to them, but I was *very much frozen* when I tried to. It was just self-defense, the whole time...

But I still need an outside network. I just need safe people, I think.

This was an acceptable coping mechanism pretty early, I think. It might be worth exploring exactly where this came from... my parents really weren’t fans of my making friends back in elementary school. They’d say that a particular girl I was friends with was a “bad influence.” I wasn’t allowed to come over to her house and she of course couldn’t come over to mine (there were always excuses, my room/the house wasn’t presentable enough mainly), so over time I was replaced with a different friend in the class who could be those things for her.

It’s kind of lame to blame my parents for this, but they really did treat anyone else I wanted to associate with as sort of an alien, unwelcome presence that was sure to be temporary. I just gave up on closeness with friends, pretty much.

In high school, I was called out on that by a boy who really wanted to take me to homecoming. We started talking more and more, and over the summer he asked if I could go on a date with him. I got up the courage to ask my dad and he screamed about it. God, I don’t even remember what he said. I know he asked what religion he was, and I said he was Catholic... we were converting to [religion that’s not Catholic] from [another religion that’s not Catholic] at the time, and I think he was upset that I didn’t pick someone deeply spiritual? I was about 15 or had just turned 16 at the time and thought maybe I’d be allowed to date by that time, but I was really shouted down and told not to “email that boy” anymore. Any time from that point when I would spend time on the computer, I was policed away from it. I could probably have snuck some words to him, but I felt really guilty about it. So I didn’t talk to him.

I did have a friend in middle school that I went on a sleepover with - well, I went to the party and had to be picked up by my parents before night fell. Everyone was sad to see me go... fuck, now I’m feeling sad about it.

I dunno. I’m mostly not angry at my parents about this, and part of this was on me for not fighting them on it. They were trying to protect me.

I definitely rejected that hard once I turned 18, though. I didn’t think I would ever have a boyfriend, but I had one that year (and he’s now my husband). They pretty much couldn’t tell me what to do anymore, and I went a little crazy on it. [Husband’s name] would pick me up as often as I’d let him. There were a lot of times where I wouldn’t even tell my parents that I was leaving and I’d come home as late as I could. I remember my dad trying to tell me he “wouldn’t let me see that boy anymore” and I no longer had any fear of what he could do to me. Heck... I had a car at that point, paid for with the scholarship money I had earned. He’d urged me to get that car, in fact, so he wouldn’t have to drive me around. I think he saw in my eyes that I didn’t care. Where he usually would have gotten loud and terrifying, his voice started to soften.

I planned... oh, heck, this has become my whole autobiography suddenly.

Well... anyway, that’s probably fed my idea of “I can just run away” - I did just run away from friends and think of them as disposable. I was *supposed* to think that way.

[publicnym]

Preliminary: examine avoidance

Going through random preliminary practices that appeal to me as outlined in this post: https://publicnym.tumblr.com/post/622844745367076864/preliminaries

Today’s is “examine avoidance”: thinking about what I’m running away from.  Would it be good to not do so? Can I not do so? is it safe to not do so?

---

So, yes, there are a lot of things I’m running away from, all the time. It’s the reason I don’t really talk to very many people. I pretty much only socialize with my husband and people from work - I see those as “safe” interactions and feel that I can let go and be my most true self. I don’t really talk much with my family or old friends from the city in which I grew up.

1. I’m running away from having honest, hard conversations over ideological disagreements I have with people. I come from a place where most people slant conservative and am working in a place where most people are quite liberal, maybe sometimes a bit more liberal than I am (I lean left for sure, but I’m not for cancelling people saying things that seem wrong - I would never have escaped where I was if not for questioning my beliefs, and I would never have felt comfortable continuing to believe the things I believe without questioning them. I think challenging ideas makes for better, cleaner ideas). So I’m in a very middle ground and I don’t feel comfortable voicing my thoughts from where I am. I don’t want to be misconstrued as hating others, and I don’t want to do unnecessary harm with my words.

2. I’m running away from expressing the discomfort I have in my body. I’m really embarrassed about this one. I’m pretty thin, just naturally, but... I’m most comfortable when I’m thinner than one might consider normal-range. I don’t know. That’s pretty gross to admit. I’d only be safe expressing that in certain disordered corners of the internet, which tells me some pretty terrible things about this. I’m running away from this being exposed to the people I care about, like my husband.

3. I’m running away from my nebulous, terrifying concept of “womanhood.” Superficiality, fragility, softness, subtlety, yet expressiveness, quick-changing moods, “specialness.” #2 feeds this one, too. I look up to my nebulous concept of “manhood” as being superior in a lot of gross ways (straightforward communication, lack of tone modulation, harsh rationality). Why does this have an effect on my life? It seems to be pretty mythical, yet I sense myself trying/rejecting/failing the “feminine” mold, and in the ways I succeed with fitting it, I’m not even happy. These are generalizations... I should probably try to get more specific with this.

4. I’m running away from interacting with uncertain outcomes where I might seem foolish. I love domains where I come off like I know what I’m doing and avoid LIKE THE PLAGUE anything else. This includes interacting with customer support to ask for help or ask for refunds, calling people I don’t know, games with multiplayer. I’ve gotten a little bit better about this over the years, but it’s still a problem.

5. I’m running away from having to be there for people, because I know I will let them down and not be enough for them.

6. I’m running away from working long hours at work, because I am tired of work, to be honest.

7. I’m running away from getting too close with my female coworkers because I think they put me to shame, They’re, like... real women, and I don’t feel like I am. I’m a mess. I stink, I curse, I write crappy code and push it straight to production like a dang cowboy. I don’t even try to wear makeup these days.

I just want to be a damn person, you guys. I don’t want to be a woman. I don’t want to be a man. And I don’t want to be a curiosity. I just want to be a cog in a wheel. I want to be an uninteresting old person, loved by one person in the entire world, near death. I don’t want to hurt people.

Ugh... I thought about erasing that, but I’m keeping it, and I will 100% regret it.

What else am I running away from? I mentioned my parents, right?

8. I’m running away from my parents. I love them, but if I’m anywhere near them, I will disappoint them even more than I disappoint them now and they will try to control me again. I think this is a rational fear (mostly).

9. I’m running away from knowing what other people think of me. Which is why the public nature of this blog seems like a really important dimension to me, even though I’m pretty sure just about no one will read it.

10. I’m running away from... responsibility. I have the mistaken idea that it’s better to reject responsibility than to take ownership of something and do it wrong. I think this is occasionally true. I need to sort out in my brain where it is not true.

---

That mostly enumerates what I’m running from, I think? I can probably squish this into fewer bullet points.

a. failing others/judgement/failed responsibility (you can see this in lit’rally every fear I enumerated above) b. figuring out who I am (2, 3)

Well, okay, it’s pretty clear what I have to figure out here. “I don’t want to hurt people” is my big takeaway here. Next session, I really need to explore some worst-case scenarios in which I really hurt people, put myself in their shoes, and maybe... work on that fear so I can be a more open, happy, productive person.

[publicnym]

Preliminary: notice yourself talking to yourself

Going through a not-so-random pick from the preliminaries listed in this post: https://publicnym.tumblr.com/post/622844745367076864/preliminaries

I tried earlier today to chew through p1 from the main protocol, but, after all, there are “preliminaries” listed above the primary protocol for a reason. So I’ll do some of them as a preliminary step.

This one I’ll start off by trying to transcribe what I hear in my head. I guess I’ll qualify that sometimes I hear things in my head that I don’t really believe - mean things, sometimes targeted at myself, other people, loved ones.

---

I’m kinda hurting in my chest, not sure what that’s about. This screen is too bright. My leg itches. I’m making so many typos, what’s wrong with me? It’s this laptop keyboard. I spent so much on it, spend a lot of time calling it “so nice” but is it really? I’m trash, not the laptop. I have a headache. I deserve the headache. Wow, that’s stupid. I hear a lot of voices talking about physical discomfort. Pretty far cry from a Buddha sitting under a tree absorbed in meditation for 40 days. Well, whatever. It’s supposed to take some 2000 hours minimum to even approach something like stream entry, right? Heck, I don’t even care about stream entry, what’s that? I’m just an animal, why should I try to elevate myself. And that’s a stupid thought. Why is it stupid? If you’re content, stay content. But I’m not content. Obviously I’m not content. I’m taking action to do something else while I’ve been stuck at home, apparently quite happy with the state of not having to talk to people. Oh, fuck, I have to work tomorrow. I really don’t want to. I feel guilty about that. I have a great job. I should care more. Like a little wage slave? (Just sighed and scratched my head.) What’s the use of trying to transcribe these voices? They’re coming and going faster than I/you can correct my/your typos. (Scratching again) I ate too much. What is wrong with me? Someone else do the job of being me. You can be a wife and just stumble into a lucky life where you can pretend to be good enough to work where you work and no one seems to notice that you’re nowhere near what they really need.

This is hard. (Why am I so itchy constantly? It’s like I don’t notice this until I start trying to think about what I’m thinking.)

My husband likes to say that he knows I’m deep in thought if I’m really picking at my scalp or messing with my hair. Am I just itchy too? Maybe this is why my skin is so bad. I can’t leave it alone.

Now my voices are starting to go a little more quiet. That’s weird. I think they’re still mostly there, but it’s now only this voice doing the typing that I can pick out readily now.

(Dioooooo!) - some part of my brain that’s referencing Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.

Yeah, there’s not much happening now. It was like a party just a couple of minutes ago. Sorry, that’s super boring. (Super Bowl!)

Maybe I should be doing free-association instead. (Maybe I should be doing anything instead. Maybe I’m wasting my life.)

Itch. Itch. Scratch! Scab. Scabby. Scabulent. That’s not a word. Hearing things outside. I live in the city, so lots of traffic hums. I don’t miss feeling like I have to go outside and be part of people.

I’ve got a tiny red patch on my arm from the sudden bout of itchiness I’ve had while writing this. It’s like I have an allergic reaction to really listening to my inner dialogue/monologue/party chatter.

Alexander candor the great! He itched the Gordian knot away like a cat, meow. (More scratching.)

---

Okay. Calling it a night.

---

Actually, no, of course I’m not just going to “call it a night” after I post this. I’m of course going to read over this and go meta about it.

Yeah, lots of physical discomfort. It was super weird how that seemed to suddenly wash over me as I became more aware of what I was thinking. Usually it sort of happens above my awareness, but this time I was fully focused on it.

I can probably start to pick out some of these “voices” a little bit - the “wow, that’s stupid” voice seems to chime in to regain control over dumb thoughts, which I’m sure was because I was quite aware that I was transcribing my thoughts. Eugh... actually, just thinking that is giving me a really creepy sensation like I called myself out. Ew... like there’s another person inside me trying to influence me. Well, that’s a gross feeling. I’m just going to... temporarily pretend that I’m not sensing that as I try to settle down to sleep tonight. Yuck.

“Obviously I’m not content. I’m taking action to do something else while I’ve been stuck at home, apparently quite happy with the state of not having to talk to people.“ I’m going to microscope on this a little bit. “apparently quite happy” is referring to my husband talking about how I seem the most normal of anyone he’s met dealing with the effects of isolation during the pandemic. To which I would add, well, I’m not actually alone like most people, I have him, so I *can* be relatively comfortable and normal. But he’s including people in his social circle that also have people that they live with. Well... I’m likely one of the most introverted people my husband knows, too.

Anyway. I’m obviously not content, or I wouldn’t be trying to change something inside of myself. There are a few things I think I could get from meditation, one of which is just not burning energy on turning my wheels over my emotions as much. Just process, move on. I’m also QUITE sure that I have some creative energy that I’m not using as a result of what’s gotten rather twisted on my inside.

It’s like I really didn’t enjoy that he said that... hm. Why? I was definitely also a little bit “proud” that he said that. How strange :/

Heh... seeing some parallels here to another pervasive problem I have, but maybe I’ll leave that until later (I’m still pretty deep in denial about it, maybe because it’s not real :)))) ).

[publicnym]

Meditation Main Protocol: p1, trial 1

Going through the main protocol as described in this document: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meditationstuff/protocol_1/master/protocol.txt (way at the bottom...), and this is a trial of all the steps of “p1.”

There’s a huge list of things to “incline toward producing” in p1. I’m just going to try it out to see how it works before moving on to the preliminaries. Glossing over this list - I’m just going to write about a memory/insight I had when I was younger.

--- Steps 1 + 2 ---

I’ve been thinking recently how important it is to examine your unconscious beliefs. When I was 12 years old, my dad gave me a book of Christian apologetics to read, and one of the first chapters was about the “absurdity of life without God,” how purposeless we humans would be without a guiding force in the universe. Haven’t we always imagined there to be a beneficent background presence, or at least something there? A reason for our suffering and doings? How could all of this apparent meaning, beauty, exist? And I took it for granted when I was younger that that definitely did exist, exactly as I was told it did.

However, when I read that chapter, I was invited to imagine a universe without a God there. It felt heretical even to let myself imagine such a thing, so I cried and asked for forgiveness before I let myself even try that thought experiment, promising that I would come back and everything would be the same as it used to be. So I let my mind go to a place where everything was unbound to God. There was no God infused in every physical object anymore. My mind stretched out to ask what I should be doing, what I should be thinking, and there was no response. There was flatness. Was I suppressing a God that was there all along?

I panicked in the middle of the experiment and timidly asked if God was still there, and at first I heard nothing. I grew more uncomfortable. Was God angry that I had done this to him? But this was an apologetics book by a Christian author. Could it be so ungodly to imagine what that author invited me to? Perhaps it was... perhaps God had been asking me not to do that and I hadn’t heard him, too excited to cast him aside. I called out again... and I thought perhaps I heard something. But it didn’t feel as clear this time as before the experiment whether God’s voice was actually my own voice or not.

From that point onward, my entire Christian inner life began to fracture.

--- Steps 3 + 4 ---

The prompt says to choose some portion of the writing I produced - a word, phrase, sentence, boundary line. It doesn’t really specify how I should choose this - I suppose I should pick some portion of it that “speaks” to me? Perhaps I’ll backtrack from here and do this to a few different portions of this excerpt. We’ll go with:

“infused in every physical” =

--- Step 5 ---

Now, on the righthand side of the equals sign, say the same thing using more words than on the left side of the equals sign. It’s ok if you produce something partial, imperfect, or nothing.

Okay.

“infused in every physical” = “baked into every temporal” maybe?

“infused in every physical” = “steeped in all earthly” ?

Not sure what I should be getting out of this.

--- Steps 6 + 7 + 8 ---

Excerpt from the protocol:

6. Now, you might return to the original material for more content to repeat the exercise, or take something from the zoom/expansion/analysis you just did and zoom/expand/analyze  further. 7. Feel free to refactor, revise, expand, reboot the original material as much or as little as you’d like. 8. For anything you produce, be willing to throw it all away, plan to throw it away, be willing to forget for something better in the future. Don’t push, don’t force, don’t strain. Let the whole thing go. Let the whole thing move and flow.

Definitely returning to the original material for other phrases, words, and pieces... Is this training me to be an editor or is this a meditation practice? Maybe I’m not doing something correctly.

What is “better” when I take pieces of my writing out? Should I have been doing it in a more free-write-y way from the beginning? It invited me to do so, but I did do it somewhat more carefully than maybe it wanted me to. The prompt also wants you to write more words on the right side than there are on the left side, but how can that possibly produce something better?

“ to him? But” = “against him? However,”

“ There was flatness.” = “There was less texture to everything my mind wandered to.”

“ my entire Christian inner life began to fracture.” = “the way I related with what I conceived as God no longer held the stability I had presumed it had all along.”

Okay... I’m starting to see the value of “more words” here. The idea is, clarify what you were actually thinking here. You used these words, but dig deeper beyond those words you used. Think a little more about what you really meant here.

I’ll do this a couple more times and move on.

“ at first I heard nothing.” = “I perceived no response from anything external to myself.”

“ too excited to cast him aside” = “abandoning him for the sake of my own selfish desire to conceive of God rationally rather than emotionally”

Okay, I think that’s enough for now.

--- Step 9 ---

Okay, step 9 seems like a chunker. From the protocol:

9. You can also, and this is recommended, create new wholes. For example, if X = M + R + T,  and, Y = Q + G + V, then take, say, R and G. And, do this: “Z = ? = R + G.” Now, what is “Z”, what is that “?” between Z and R+ G? In other words, instead of putting things on the left hand side of the equal sign and then putting more things on the right hand side of the equals sign—instead, first put things on the right hand side of the equals sign and then put fewer things on the left hand side of the equals sign. Find new wholes and larger contexts. You might find wholes contained in larger wholes contained in larger wholes… 9b. You might play with this template:[this/these] whole(s) Y is/are/contain(s)/= [this/these] parts M[, F…] + “just exactly/precisely [this/these aforementioned]/and nothing else”That is, M and F are known; you have some words for them. Now, what is Y? What are some words for Y? 9c. Another kind of inverse is adding a subscript to the word on the left hand side of the equals sign and then looking for definitions for the other subscript. For example, you might have “suffering =“ and maybe before you even try to fill in the right hand side, you might do:suffering_1 =

suffering_2 = suffering_3 = and so on.

You might ask, what is everything I could possibly mean by this word (or phrase) “suffering”/X?In this way, the word “suffering” can become more detached and flexible from the underlying language, while at the same time making each use of the word more precise. The subscripts do not have to be numbers; they can be anything that helps to differentiate which meaning/usage/sense of the word that you mean. That might be times or durations or conditions and so forth. [See also General Semantics for more on the idea of “indexing.”]

Okay, digesting this... this step is asking me to “create new wholes.” So I can:

1. take things that I’ve produced on the right sides and chunk them into smaller ideas.

“too excited to cast him aside” =  “abandoning him for the sake of my own selfish desire to conceive of God rationally rather than emotionally” =  “(abandoning [him]) + (for the sake of my own selfish desire) + (to conceive of God) + (rationally rather than emotionally)” = A + S + Cg + Re

“my entire Christian inner life began to fracture.” = “the way I related with what I conceived as God no longer held the stability I had presumed it had all along.” =  “(the way I related with) + (what I conceived as God) + (no longer held the stability) + (I had presumed it had all along).” = Rm + Cg1 + B + P

A = “abandoning” S = “the sake of my own selfish desire” / “my own selfish desire” Cg = “conceiving of God” Cg1 = “my concept of God” (product of Cg) Re = “rational, rather than emotional” Rm = “my method of relating with things” B = “no longer being stable” P = “my presumption of the state of something”

2. Put some of these pieces on the right side of the equals sign and put something new and smaller on the left side of the equals sign.

“deconversion” = A + Re + Cg1 ~= A + Cg1 ~= “abandoning rational (over emotional) concept of God that I had held” “questioning” = Rm + B = A + P = “my method of relating with things was no longer stable” = “abandoning my presumption on the state of something” “selflessness” = A + S = “abandoning my own selfish desire”

Re + Cg ~= Cg1

Rm + S = “my method of relating with things for the sake of my own selfish desire” = “self-exploration” (exactly what I’m doing now...)

Commentary: Was all of this happening to me or did I cause it? It seems like I’m equating things happening and my causing things to happen, and that doesn’t seem quite right to me. Why am I doing that? Is that how things really are - puppet on a string? Do I have a clear concept or dividing line of what I do vs. what happens? Should I?

3. Play with some templates.

[this/these] whole(s) Y is/are/contain(s)/= [this/these] parts M[, F…] + “just exactly/precisely [this/these aforementioned]/and nothing else”That is, M and F are known; you have some words for them. Now, what is Y? What are some words for Y?

What... is this section trying to say? I guess Y is one of the new wholes I’ve created? Or... oh, yeah, it’s just another way of arriving at what I just did. :) Never mind, we’re ditching 3. For now.

4. Take one of the new whole concepts and think, “what are all of the possible things I could have meant by this word/phrase?” Label them all as different concepts. This way, you can detach from the language and be more precise about your meaning.

Oof, this seems like a lot of work. Let’s dig into one or two of them.

selflessness_d = abandoning selfish desire selflessness_0 = general concept of abandoning some form of selfishness selflessness_a = abandoning selfish action selflessness_t = abandoning selfish conscious thought selflessness_r = making a show of abandoning something selfish for another form of selfish gain (all selflessness?) selflessness_av = actively valuing something external more than something internal to the point of sacrifice (actionable, not reflective, definition)

This isn’t comprehensive, though. _av is a subtype of _a, but implies it was willing from the start, not a struggle. 

Context around selflessness_d is what I created from pieces here - selfish desire to discover something when it’s not necessarily beneficial to those around me for me to explore in that way. Is it possible to “abandon” selfish desire as such? Or does one shift their values and the desire falls away, or flows into some other form of desire?

I think that’s enough of step 9 for me for now.

--- Step 10 ---

Protocol talks about “multischematism” where one word is used for multiple different concepts. Yup.

Here’s more copy-pasted from under it:

Places likely worth investigating:

1. Where something seemingly X somehow leads to (or somehow depends on) something seemingly Y, or vice versa. (e.g. when doing something bad is good or when doing something good is bad) 2. Where something is seemingly somehow X and Y at the same time. 3. Where something is seemingly somehow X and Y at different times. 4. Where something is seemingly somehow either X or Y conditionally. X, Y = a) true, false b) good, bad c) existent/present, nonexistent/absent d) necessary/unconditional/noncontingent, conditional/contingent e) possible/conceivable, impossible/inconceivable f) simple/nonpartful, complex/composite g) unified/whole/connected, separate/plural/multiple h) before or after, synchronous i) veridical, nonveridical j) beautiful, ugly k) that is something that has some attribute or property, that doesn’t have that same attribute or property

Further notes: (*) You might also write/think/say things (assertions) and then incline towards generating relevant (apparent, seeming, believed, thought, felt, wondered, imagined, suspected, endorsed, something…) counterexamples or contradictions to those things. And then use the things and the counterexamples or contradictions to improve on the original thing or to write a better thing not subject to the original counterexamples or contradictions. (*) Some additional good concepts, semi-separately, are “error correction,” “counterfactual,” “counterexample…” (*) Try also: not X = [pick things and see if they’re in or out, let this change anything] (*) Consider swapping out the =/equals sign above with things like: is, means, signifies, is equivalent to, ~/sort of equals; maybe equals; could equal; is; is essentially; could be conceived as; could be construed as; could be stipulated as; could be schematized as; could be conveniently stipulated as; boils down to; could have a good enough for now/here definition of; is/can be defined as; most people think of this like/as; is like… (*) In addition to =/equals and so forth, you can of course try using the particular word or phrase in a sentence or sentences. (*) If you write down assertions anywhere, e.g. as premises or points in an argument, you might ad hoc or systematically look for counterexamples. You might also, ad hoc or systematically, explore objections that others might raise to the/those assertion(s).

I’m done with this practice for right now. I’ll have to pick this up tomorrow or later tonight.

[publicnym]

Planned approach

Okay! There are some ways I can approach this monumental task.

- Digest-the-doc days: For my own edification (potentially for others’ edification, someday), I’ll work on porting the language in the document to more clear language, maybe with pictures, but always with the qualification that I don’t know if I’m doing this right. I will not do this extensively until I’ve played with the practice a bit.

- Main practice days: steep in the steps of the main practice, p1 to p10, in order, then backtracing as needed.

- Meta-protocol reading: read and refine meta-protocol. Write and think carefully about the experience of meditating and find points to iterate on.

- Preliminary/auxiliary practice: choose a minor practice, do it, write about it. This will probably what I do the most of in the early days.

- Reading about meditation in general: find other sources and reflect on the merits of this practice. Read other people who are writing about following a meditation practice, this one and others.

- Journalling: simple public self-reflection, may not follow a meditation form.

[publicnym]

Main Meditation Protocol: p1

This is pretty much copypasta from the original github source, to be digested more thoroughly later.

---

p1: [old names: Elemental Analysis, Comprehensive Elemental Analysis]

1. Incline towards producing one of:

(1a) a logical argument/deduction/derivation (standalone or possibly including a narrativized explanation), [What implies/entails this/X? What does X/this imply/entail? Why X? What is the reason for X? What follows from X? X=?] (1b) a description of a causal mechanism, [What caused this/X? What does this/X cause? X=?] [How does that work?] [(1/2) What’s going on? What’s going on, there? What’s going on, here? What’s going on, out there? What’s going on, in here?] (1c) a description of some spatiotemporal sensations/experience, [What is before this/X? What is after this/X? What’s next? What is adjacent to this/X?  What qualities does this/X have? X=?] [(2/2) What’s going on? What’s going on, there? What’s going on, here? What’s going on, out there? What’s going on, in here?]

(1d) an explanation of a phenomenon and possibly alternate credible explanations of that phenomenon (1e) an evaluation or appraisal of something (1f) instructions for achieving something (1g) description of an ideal, endorsement (1h) description of a goal state (1i) a description of a dynamical first-person perspective/experience (your present experience, experiential memory, inferred of another, or imagined), including mental, sensory, and somatic experience (1j.1) a question and possibly and answer, or (1j.2) a topic/subject and possibly content subsumed by that topic/subject (1k) a problem and possibly a solution (1l) some (or as exhaustively as you can) of your “actual/deepest/truest” (a) beliefs and (b) expectations—good, bad, and ugly, beautiful, endorsed, disendorsement,and relevant into words, in your “heart of hearts,” “throat of throats,” “gut of guts,” “genitals of genitals,” “sacrum of sacrums,” “perineum of perineums,” etc.: the beliefs and expectations and representations of the mind and body. (1m) some (or as exhaustively as you can) of your plans, intentions, willing, goals (1n) a meaningful story (1o) a meaningful autobiographical detailed excerpt or lifelong summary (1p) a plan for achieving something (1q) a list of that which you desire/thirst/crave, hope for, wish for, long for, etc. (1r) a list of that which you fear (1s) a list of that which you love (1t) a list of that which you hate (1u) a story/fantasy/narrative/scenario that is (a) exciting (and/or otherwise good e.g. uplifting or psychological) and/or (b) sexually arousing and/or (c) evocative if connection/intimacy/safety (1v) counterfactuals: for something that went one way or could have gone a way or might go a way or will go a way, how it could that have, did, or will go/gone a different way, elaborate on that, and what changed for that to be the case (1w) positive examples of something (things that are examples of X) as different from each other as possible, negative examples of that something (things that are examples of not-X) as different from each other as can be and as minimally different from positive examples of X in as many different ways as can be (1x) actions, doings; things you’re doing right now, volitionally or nonvolitionally, as broadly conceived as possible (1y) an personal inability/can’t/powerlessness and possibly a believable way to acquire that ability (1z) a “further purpose” a “for what you are doing something”; “I am doing/striving for X for/because”; “X is good because…” (1z1) a memory (1z2) any type of writing you want for any purpose. (1z3) your motivations or reasons, beliefs, knowings, understandings, or expectations for or underlying the actions, doings; things you’re doing right now, volitionally or nonvolitionally, as broadly conceived as possible, as exhaustively or usefully as possible 2. Get down (think or write down) as little or as much material as comes easily, even just a single relevant word or phrase. (And you can also patiently compose and/or revise as you go, or set up an outline structure to fill in, or do lots of messy freewriting, or a combination…) 3. Choose, from the material you produced, (3a) a word, (3b) a phrase, (3c) a sentence, or (3d) a boundary (e.g. between two sentences; this can be stylized as the last word and punctation of a sentence and the first word of a subsequent sentence) from the material you produced. 4. Lift it out, while remembering its context, and you might put an equals sign to the right of it. 5. Now, on the righthand side of the equals sign, say the same thing using more words than on the left side of the equals sign. It’s ok if you produce something partial, imperfect, or nothing. 6. Now, you might return to the original material for more content to repeat the exercise, or take something from the zoom/expansion/analysis you just did and zoom/expand/analyze  further. 7. Feel free to refactor, revise, expand, reboot the original material as much or as little as you’d like. 8. For anything you produce, be willing to throw it all away, plan to throw it away, be willing to forget for something better in the future. Don’t push, don’t force, don’t strain. Let the whole thing go. Let the whole thing move and flow. 9. You can also, and this is recommended, create new wholes. For example, if X = M + R + T,  and, Y = Q + G + V, then take, say, R and G. And, do this: “Z = ? = R + G.” Now, what is “Z”, what is that “?” between Z and R+ G? In other words, instead of putting things on the left hand side of the equal sign and then putting more things on the right hand side of the equals sign—instead, first put things on the right hand side of the equals sign and then put fewer things on the left hand side of the equals sign. Find new wholes and larger contexts. You might find wholes contained in larger wholes contained in larger wholes… 9b. You might play with this template:

[this/these] whole(s) Y is/are/contain(s)/= [this/these] parts M[, F…] + “just exactly/precisely [this/these aforementioned]/and nothing else”

That is, M and F are known; you have some words for them. Now, what is Y? What are some words for Y?

9c. Another kind of inverse is adding a subscript to the word on the left hand side of the equals sign and then looking for definitions for the other subscript. For example, you might have “suffering =“ and maybe before you even try to fill in the right hand side, you might do:

suffering_1 = suffering_2 = suffering_3 = and so on.

You might ask, what is everything I could possibly mean by this word (or phrase) “suffering”/X?

In this way, the word “suffering” can become more detached and flexible from the underlying language, while at the same time making each use of the word more precise. The subscripts do not have to be numbers; they can be anything that helps to differentiate which meaning/usage/sense of the word that you mean. That might be times or durations or conditions and so forth. [See also General Semantics for more on the idea of “indexing.”]

10. Also, consider intensional multischematism. For example, you might say that the same M can be referred to by single word R and single word H. That is R and H have different meanings/intensions but they refer or point to the same thing or set of things. Further, R = G + H + T and X = V + W + Q.  That is, (G + H + T) and (V + W + Y) each have different meanings, but correspond to R and X, respectively. Further, you might notice that, say, T and W, while using different words and meaning different things, in fact refer to the same thing(s), have the same extension. Another way of saying things like this is that the concept M, or that which directly represents M, or <M>, refers or applies to M using the word “M”. Or, you might say that both <M> and <K> refer or apply to the same extension; “M” and “K” refer to M and K which are actually the same. In our syntax and semantics, here, M = K. Example a: This M and this K are the same (thing). [not just the same type of thing. <this M> and <this K> corefer to M (which is K) and K (which is M).] Example b: All Gs are also Hs.

[note that the above is ambiguous as to whether X, Y, Z, etc. are “bound” or “unbound” for any given X in the language/wrting above]

Examples:

Example 1a: X = The cat sat on the mat. Example 1b: Y = cat in X = furry animal + … Example 1c: Z = furry in Y = experientially noncontiguous nonhomogenous light nonpunctate/distributed pressure when touched gently Example 1d: Q = noncontiguous in Z = mediacy and absence = missing immediate relations = a proper subset of immediate relations from a particular designated/delimited closed/finite set Example 2a: T = rippling water = directionality backflows dappled light dark traveling shimmers twinkle flecks arc chase over under undulate Example 3a: R = The last thing was cheese. We find that in these cases… Example 3b: M = [cheese.] [We] in R = …summary signpost implication… Example 4: B = ? = cat + dog; B = ?; B = a partial set of quadrupedal mammals, those things that [for my purposes…]…

Places likely worth investigating:

1. Where something seemingly X somehow leads to (or somehow depends on) something seemingly Y, or vice versa. (e.g. when doing something bad is good or when doing something good is bad) 2. Where something is seemingly somehow X and Y at the same time. 3. Where something is seemingly somehow X and Y at different times. 4. Where something is seemingly somehow either X or Y conditionally. X, Y = a) true, false b) good, bad c) existent/present, nonexistent/absent d) necessary/unconditional/noncontingent, conditional/contingent e) possible/conceivable, impossible/inconceivable f) simple/nonpartful, complex/composite g) unified/whole/connected, separate/plural/multiple h) before or after, synchronous i) veridical, nonveridical j) beautiful, ugly k) that is something that has some attribute or property, that doesn’t have that same attribute or property

Further notes: (*) You might also write/think/say things (assertions) and then incline towards generating relevant (apparent, seeming, believed, thought, felt, wondered, imagined, suspected, endorsed, something…) counterexamples or contradictions to those things. And then use the things and the counterexamples or contradictions to improve on the original thing or to write a better thing not subject to the original counterexamples or contradictions. (*) Some additional good concepts, semi-separately, are “error correction,” “counterfactual,” “counterexample…” (*) Try also: not X = [pick things and see if they’re in or out, let this change anything] (*) Consider swapping out the =/equals sign above with things like: is, means, signifies, is equivalent to, ~/sort of equals; maybe equals; could equal; is; is essentially; could be conceived as; could be construed as; could be stipulated as; could be schematized as; could be conveniently stipulated as; boils down to; could have a good enough for now/here definition of; is/can be defined as; most people think of this like/as; is like… (*) In addition to =/equals and so forth, you can of course try using the particular word or phrase in a sentence or sentences. (*) If you write down assertions anywhere, e.g. as premises or points in an argument, you might ad hoc or systematically look for counterexamples. You might also, ad hoc or systematically, explore objections that others might raise to the/those assertion(s).

[publicnym]

Preliminaries

I’m coming into this practice as a complete noob. I discovered this protocol randomly on the internet and have 0 experience with meditation teachers, as well as very spotty experience with trying to meditate. I find meditation in general to be really difficult. Finding all this text on it, though, I thought, “finally, maybe this can be a thorough self-guide for me!”

I read through a lot of the main protocol last night before deciding to make this blog. The work is really expansive - I was reading it for hours before even getting to the parts that seem to define the actual practice. There are also tons and tons of warnings, like “this could ruin your life! Don’t have children, don’t have a medical problem,” etc. It seemed pretty ludicrous to me, just starting in. Obviously there’s a reason for all of these warnings to be included, not bashing it yet. The “worst possible outcomes” seemed to include ruining relationships and having bad muscle aches, which... could be devastating, sure. I’ll probably re-read a lot of the main body of text a few times.

The text seems to assume an awful lot of knowledge of me, too. Several times I had to do some googling of basic concepts - what’s this “stream entry” thing? What’s turiya, shamatha? Maybe this isn’t actually intended for me, although the text claims to depend on someone starting “bottom up” and upending their assumptions. There’s some musing in the middle about hoping that someone can get started on it just from organic discovery of the text on the internet. I do think there could be some accessibility work done on this without completely destroying the essence of the teachings. For one thing, hyperlinks in the README from the table of contents would be a serious blessing... I’m sure that’s a common criticism. I may attempt a PR as part of my practice in reading through this, but I won’t do that until several days into this... I don’t want to be seen as nosing into something I don’t have any business in.

All that said... I can’t believe all of this is open-source. This is cool as heck.

So. There’s a long list of “preliminaries” - practices that can help you get started or get unstuck. They’re meant to be jargon-free, not meant to be committed to. All right... I’ll basically copy-paste them from the protocol to be digested and sorted through later.

------ The Preliminaries List ------

do less: If you happen to find yourself doing something, and you can stop doing it, and it’s okay or good to stop doing it, then allow this stopping to happen or participate in that stopping happening. [This prelim/aux practice, and many of the others, are intended to be done while sitting quietly, but they can be adapted to other contexts.]

sense now: Deliberately, in ways that are ok or good and safe, attend to and be aware of, consciously experience, sensations as such and know that that’s what you’re doing while you’re doing it.

sense meta:

* If you happen to remember to try to do so, effortlessly rest in already effortlessly being aware of being aware [sic] of sensation(s) as such as it’s/they’re vividly and veridically happening right now.

* Said more pithily, be aware of being aware.

* Or, perhaps more accurately and evocatively, without having to fully parse the first bullet, be aware of being aware of what you’re being aware of. [sic]

blend: For a feared possibly true thing, if it’s safe enough and good enough to do so, be like what if that really/actually *is* true? Really play it up, get behind it, prime the pump, try to convince yourself it is indeed true, reach for your best feel of that really being true, allow yourself to fall into the world where it is true, take that leap and ride the wave wherever it takes you.

unblend: Be, like, huh, that’s funny, huh that seems weird, huh why do/did I think that?

be moved: To the degree you can allow yourself, to the degree you feel it’s safe or safe enough to be moved, to just find yourself doing/moving/vocalizing/twitching/acting/dramatizing/being/expressing/enacting/reenacting/feeling/dreaming/wanting/desiring/indulging, and to allow it to continue, to go with it, to go with the flow of it, do so.

have experience: As it is ok to be lost in movement, thought, or reverie. It’s also ok to be lost in sensation as it happens, e.g. in music or visual beauty or conversation or sex or other sensuality, etc. And it’s also ok if you can’t do this or it never (yet) happens.

feel your body.

feel your feelings.

relax muscles. [can experiment with progressive relaxation]

feel more: Explore ways to change your posture, relax your muscles, let your chest and torso and stomach soften, etc., in a way that facilitates feeling your feelings and body sensations more easily or possibly more intensely and to possibly have more sensations become present.

feel what feels good and bad and neutral: Deliberately seek out positively valenced feelings and/or other sensations. Deliberately seek out negatively valenced feelings and/or other sensations. Deliberately seek out neutrally valenced or unvalenced sensations.

explore what you (seem to) know, understand, expect, and remember: Explore what you know. Explore your understanding of things. Explore your memories. 

put things into words, slowly, and maybe revise: And consider writing by hand when you’re doing this.

say or think truth: Verbalize a seemingly relevant seeming truth. [sic] Repeat.

explore *how* you’re thinking.

explore *how* you’re believing.

explore *how* you’re expecting.

attend to things and sensations.

imagine: Imagine or simulate something, involving the use of visual imagery, if possible.

move grossly the “attention/thinking” muscles: Deliberately move your eyes, jaw, tongue, head/neck, glottis, lips, palate.

notice and light move/influence the subtle “attention/thinking” muscles: Notice, and possibly lightly influence subtle muscle activity and subtle sensation of the eyes, jaw, tongue, back of the neck, back of the head, glottis, lips, palate.

interrupt thought: Interrupt or suppress thought or other mental activity, or catch it/them before it/they start(s) via (smooth/abrupt switching to) attending to things/objects or sensations or awareness of now or the present moment as such/being in the moment. Interleave or switch between thinking/imagining/reverie, interrupting thought, attending to locations on or in the body, and feeling your feelings.

be breathed: Release the voluntary component of your breathing as much as possible and let involuntary breathing take over.

interrupt anything: Interrupt, suppress, distract from, switch from an emotion, a response, a reaction, a feeling, an urge, an impulse, a craving/thirst, a thought, inner verbalizing, reverie, automaticity, movement, an intention, a train of thought, pursuit of a particular goal, a local plan, attention to a sensation…

concentrate perfectly on something: Pick a sensory object, e.g. a visual patch, and reflectively attend to it. Don’t just look; see. Don’t just touch; feel. Don’t just listen; hear, etc. Notice subtle or gross wavering or interjection.

be here, now: Notice subtle or gross wavering or interjection.

just this: Incline towards in the seeing, just the seen; in the hearing, just the heard, etc.

do deliberately: Do something deliberately.

meaning-making: Consider or say something, anything new. Or experience what comes prior to that, liminally verbally or completely nonverbally.

meaning-dissolving: Find something that was true, meaningful, or coherent, that becomes untrue or nonsensical when you consider it anew or when reflectively considered for this first time.

fill-in-the-blank: Create or find a sentence, assertion, or statement with a blank. Incline towards filling in the blank.

wonder about something.

pose a question: Pose a complete, well-formed question. You might right write it down and refine it.

incline towards answering a question: Pick a well-formed question. Incline towards answering it.

find a disendorsed belief: Find and be aware of a batshit crazy, schizophrenic, ugly, mean, fantastical, from childhood belief or “seeming-ness” that you’d rather not have/believe/experience. For now, just allow it to be or see if it naturally changes.

notice yourself talking to yourself: Notice yourself talking to yourself, the reminding, convincing, suggesting, denying, etc. For now, just allow it to be or see if it naturally changes.

notice the experience of other-ness: Notice other/alien/foreign/friend/enemy/parental/sibling/group/communal/cultural/global voices and impulses in you.

notice “feared truth”: Notice a “feared truth” (or the “shadow” of one), something that would be terribly bad or would have terribly bad implications or ramifications if it were (definitely/decisively/actually) true.

reason with yourself: Agnostically, impartially, gently, infinitely patiently, non-coercively reason or dialogue with yourself.

jump: Attend to a “random” spot on or in the body.

sequence: Attend to a “random” sequence of spots on and/or in the body, the sensory surround, or knowing or meaning or anything.

bodymind talks: Allow words to come, ideally without presupposition or preconception. Let the bodymind talk to you.

explain something: Explain how something works to yourself, to a rubber duck, to another person.

the beginning of explanation: About something, ask, what explains this? How did this come to be, and, what’s going on, here?

purposefulness: About something you’re doing/feeling/experiencing or you intend to do, ask, for what purpose am I doing this? For what purpose is this happening (to me)?

articulation: Try to put something inchoate into words. When you have some words, see if they fit, and see if there are parts which don’t have words for which you need to find more words.

single word: See if you can find the right, single word for something.

subtle and fast: See if you can find a place in you, on you, or outside of you where your sensations are subtle and fast-changing.

hard to attend to: Notice where it’s hard to pay attention. Don’t force yourself to pay attention there, right now.

problem and solution: Pick a problem you have and try to come up with a solution in any way that comes to you to try.

be there for yourself: Whatever you need, try to give it to yourself, directly, right now, in the right way.

be there for yourself, age-appropriately: Whatever you need, try to give it to yourself, directly, right now, in the right way. And, try to take into account any felt age, how old the relevant parts of you feel, any feeling-of-being-there sense or memory.

be a mother, father, big brother, big sister, mentor, teacher, most-trusted-friend-to-yourself, age-appropriately: Whatever you need, be the person that can give you the right thing, directly, right now, in the right way, and do so as best you can. And, try to take into account any felt age, how old the relevant parts of you feel, any feeling-of-being-there sense or memory. If safe, perhaps they know exactly what you’re thinking and feeling, and can respond exactly appropriately with exactly what you need.

counterfactual resourcing: Alongside what actually happened, imagine a better version of a memory. How could it have gone in some other world (that ultimately, downstream, might provide you with exactly what you need right now)? Let it be complementary to the original memory or experience in sense and fidelity. Explore what, in some other world, could have been the best possible age-appropriate you, immersively there, then.

counterfactual avoidance: Alongside something bad that actually happened, as best you understand it, how could you have avoided that? Or, how would that not have happened, had you only know… what?

imaginary conversation: Imagine a conversation between two people, complete with possibly hazy setting and dialogue.

imaginary self-insert conversation: Imagine you’re dialoguing/conversing with someone, about whatever topics you’re drawn to.

planning: Explore planning or your plans.

goals: Explore goal setting or your goals.

todo lists: Explore your physical or mental todo list(s) or explore what might go on one.

ideal day: Concretely imagine how you’d spend a “normal ideal day.”

positive and negative motivation and evaluation: Explore the objects and experiences of current and remembered

(a) thirst, craving, impulse, urge, appetite, motivation, “intrinsic motivation,” self-nudge, love, limerance, meaningfulness, hope, desire, longing, liking, loving, wishing, dreaming, lusting, wanting, desiring, needing, and

(b) that which is beautiful, wonderful, extraordinary, awe-inspiring, delicious, delectable, awesome, staggering, disarming, heavenly, divine, glorious, completing, be-all-end-all, the-whole-point, only-thing-that-matters, true-reason(s)-to-do-anything, elegant, sublime, hot, sexy, devastating-in-a-good-way, perfect, destined/fated/inevitable-in-a-good-way, satisfying, warming, fulfilling, relieving, engaging, likable, and

(c) that which is disgusting, evil, bad, hateful, gross, undesirable, horrible, terrible, unwanted, noxious, aversive, desperation-related, out-of-control-ness-related, dislikable.

inner conflict: Explore current inner conflict, the goodness, the badness, the endorsement, the disendorsement, the good but feels bad, the bad that feels good, the bad that should feel good, the good that should feel bad, what hurts so good, what hurts so bad, what you want to want, what you want to not want…

inner confusion: Explore current inner confusion.

self-soothe: (jd) Reassure yourself. Hold yourself. Be gentle on/to yourself. Talk to or treat yourself like you might a young child.

relax: (jd) Take deep breaths. Take it easy. Loosen up. Untense. Relaxxxxxxxx. 

think with your body: (jd) Explore what it’s like to “think” while attending to or moving attention through your body.

live lightly: (jd) Make yourself a cup of tea. Go for a walk in the neighborhood. Read a book on a porch on a sunny day

trust your body, trust your mind: (jd) Trust that the thing that's currently/presently/ongoingly happening is the right thing. Trust that your body and mind know the best path forward. Follow its lead. Listen to its clues.

don’t run away from the present / explore the present / return to the present: (jd) What is good or bad, right here, right now? What is going on, right here right now? What could be improved or better, right here right now? What could be tweaked or different, right here right now?

feel your feelings: (jd) Let them move, shift, expand, spread. Let it flow. Let it flow through you. Allow it (all). Surrender to it. Fully fall into it (if it's safe to do so)

label: (jd) Label (put words to) your experience. What’s happening? What's going on?

find good, find bad: (jd) What is (presently, ongoingly) happening that is good or bad? What are you (presently, ongoingly) doing that is good or bad?

embrace nebulosity: (jd) If it’s good to do so, lean-in-to/embrace the churn/uncertainty/not-knowing/intensity/confusion/ambiguity/unknowing/chaos/(meaninglessness?) of the ever changing flow of experience, whatever that might be or where it might go. Notice the aversion to doing so, and the impulse to retreat to the safe/reified/conceptual.

welcome experience: (jd) Welcome, allow, accept, receive, let in, make space for, give breathing room to … whatever is happening in experience. 

examine avoidance: (jd) Notice: is there anything you are currently/presently/ongoingly avoiding or running away from? If so: would it be good to not do so? are you able to not do so? is it safe to not do so?

do what feels good.

patiently wait with what feels bad.

patiently wait with “something’s bad but don’t know what or where”:

uncrush crushed desires.

physically dramatize, physically act out.

explore the experience of masculine gendered power.

explore the experience of feminine gendered power.

explore the experience of feminine gendered intimacy/connection/compassion/warmth/love.

explore the experience of masculine gendered intimacy/connection/compassion/warmth/love.

explore childlike power.

explore childlike playfulness.

explore childlike connection, love, etc.

explore masculine gendered sensuality.

explore feminine gendered sensuality.

explore masculine gendered desire.

explore feminine gendered desire.

go crazy; dance, flail, yell, jump, fuck.

explore not orgasming; explore magnifying sexual desire/arousal/motivation.

do something all wrong; do something incorrectly.

explore joy in another’s success or happiness.

explore reluctance to forgive; explore grudgingness.

hang out with “chakras” and extremities: Steadily attend, for a prolonged period of time (but not too long), to your hands, your feet, or (particularly your lower) “chakras”, near the surface or in the depths of your body: root/perineum, (sacrum), genitals, tan tien/dan tien, navel/hara, solar plexus, heart…

attend to nonsymbolic cognition: What were you just thinking about, even if that thinking wasn’t in words? It was probably about something, real or imaginary.

attend in, on, or outside the body: Decide whether you’ll attend to sensations inside, on, or outside the body. Then do just that for a bit.

just sit or stand, deliberately, reflectively, actively, with perfect posture.

facilitate drive, motivation, grit; psych yourself up to *do*.

plan with your whole body, not just your head.

feel your plans/intentions/goals change (or not) in your body.

change an intention, plan, or goal: Change what you’re going to do, if you can (at this time). You might see if, unforced, you can have the change be effortlessly, unreflectively stable, until you you fulfill it or it makes sense to modify it. (The change might be an addition, removal, or modification of an existing intention, plan, or goal.)

figure or don’t: Work on figuring something out. Or, do something besides, do you anything besides, figuring something out

do something without asking permission.

be actually good to someone without their consent.

solve or dissolve: Explore whether you’re (a) altering your plans and intentions for changing the world or (b) altering your beliefs and desires to shape yourself to the world or (c) both, in this moment. (Note that (a), technically, is shaping yourself to the world as well.)

directness or indirectness: Explore whether you can just directly go after something and have it, do it, be it, or achieve it. Or, are you planning, learning, preparing, etc. If you are doing the latter, why not the former?

explore a conflicted desire: Explore how bad if feels (for whatever reasons); explore how good it feels (for whatever reasons).

concretely imagine: Imagine something in full, concrete detail, perhaps including first-person experience from a first-person perspective.

reminisce.

desire backwards: Follow the evolution of a desire backwards in time. “Float back” using a gradient of the feeling of that desire, the feeling of those times…

counterfactual desire: Imagine what you would have wanted then had it been ok to elaboratively want it.

notice interjection: Notice when thoughts or feelings come up that are against your “main forward direction.” Explore good and bad ways to interact with those interjections, e.g. ignore, befriend, tolerate, etc.

retrospective self-giving: Imagine you’re giving your younger self exactly what they wanted and needed then; experience the “immersive feel” of this.

honor or respect all of your desires: Across all times, places, ages, parts of you.

notice distantly related yet contradictory desires.

notice unreflective automaticity: As if you are waking (to/)from a (lucid) dream.

pose questions to yourself.

explore having two different things in mind simultaneously.

what you want, you want.

body agreement: Before taking a physical or mental action, see first if the body agrees, and abide by any disagreement.

play games with symbols( e.g. words).

question problem basis: As a provisional alternative to trying to directly make something okay, through mind (thought) or action, try exploring the presuppositions and premises that make X not okay in the first place.

give up; let go; fail completely: (if/when it’s safe and actually good to do so)

scan in, on, or outside the body (body scan; environmental scan): Decide whether you’ll explore sensations inside, on, or outside the body. Then systematically/comprehensively do just that for a bit.

take a break: Do something completely different for at least three days, ideally without cheating/without exceptions.

watch for beginnings (of awareness of sensing and knowing).

watch for endings (of awareness of sensations).

watch for changes (in knowing/seeming/expecting).

watch for “was there all along” experiences.

watch for “real reasons (for doing/being/feeling)” (that were “previously just out of view”).

quiet, stable, fine-grain examination: As best you can, have a quiet and stable mind. Examine the changing of sensations (perhaps investigating momentary in a single place or “place”) at the finest grain of detail.

freewrite: Without forcing, write or type whatever comes to mind, keep going. Make the word count as high as you can. Free-draw, free-anything.

parts: Ask what a part of you or a thing in you is. Ask what it’s doing. Ask what it wants, what its purpose is, what it’s for. Ask yourself what’s good for you about that part or thing being there doing its thing. Ask it what it has that you yourself want or need? Ask yourself what good thing is it doing for you? You might temporarily release/drain your own will from that part or thing, let it do or be exactly what it wants, pretending or making it so you can’t directly affect or control it; and, then, as above/previously, only ask questions and make and follow suggestions, requests, and counteroffers.

goodness of badness: Explore what’s good (or useful or necessary), if anything, about bad things, including feeling bad or being bad, in general and for particular badness.

soften: Explore if you can become soft where you are currently hard.

chain questions: That is, ask a question and use the answer to that question (or parts of that answer) in a new question, and repeat with that answer in a new question, and so forth.

beginnings and endings: Look for beginnings and endings of presence (of experience) and absence (of experience). (ideally “minimally; without adding anything or taking anything away”)

stability and change: Look for stability and change

explore symbolic mediation, lack thereof, and how you might take a break: Look for how verbalizing, categorizing, symbolizing, organizing, listing, structuring, narrativizing, referencing might be getting in the way. See if you can temporarily set all that aside.

choose enjoyment: When in doubt, choose the enjoyable option (and fully enjoy).

choose nonverbal: When in doubt, choose the nonverbal/wordless option.

flesh out worlds: Imagine how things might or actually be, even if you are uncertain as to whether those things are actually the case. Imagine more parts of the worlds you might be in.

solutioning worlds: Imagine fantastic, near-realistic, and realistic worlds where all your problems are solved.

getting and gearing: Notice when you’re “getting yourself” to do something versus it just happening. Notice when you’re “gearing yourself up” to do something versus just knowing you’re going to do it.

dwell in safety: Find and dwell in safety, if only temporarily.

be insane: Be insane; be crazy; be batshit insane.

be bad: Be bad; be evil; be malevolent

be good: Be gentle; be kind be; compassionate.

be out of control: Find a way to be safe enough, and then be dangerously out of control

ask about goodness and badness: Ask, “What’s good about that?” Ask, “What’s bad about that?”

be as human as you happen to be, right now: Be human; be imperfect; be flawed. (You can/could truly aspire to true perfection, but allow yourself to be what you are right now, say, which is inclusive of that aspiration.)

counterexample: Find counterexamples to thoughts, beliefs, assertions, written content, things that other people say…

perspective-taking: Take person A’s perspective. Take person A’s perspective on person B’s perspective, and so on. Take person A’s perspective on your perspective. Take person A’s perspective on your perspective of person A’s perspective.

encourage it; egg it on.

leave your comfort zone or explore leaving your comfort zone.

explore doing what feels wrong to do.

try temporarily letting go of your sacred objects, your sacred touchstones.

temporarily and briefly block resist refuse some impulse/urge/inclination/reflex/action/doing.

study your sensations as such for the purpose of understanding.

be liminally verbal; on the edge of almost not quite words/language.

identity: Ask yourself, “Who you are being right now?” Ask yourself, “Which one are you right now?”

noninterference: Enter into something allowing it to be exactly as it is.

be a self-friend: Would you treat a dear friend that way with respect to X? Treat yourself as you would a dear friend with respect to X.

take a long, slow, dreamy walk in a safe place.

study: Study particular sensations or knowing so as to figure them out.

seeping into; keeping company: Seep into yourself or into some sensations or keep some knowing company. Don’t try to change any of it.

describe: describe what’s happening, describe what seems to be the case, describe what’s salient, describe what’s relevant

explicate/articulate: Put knowing into words; what is relevantly coming up that you know right now, that you might not have known that you know?

bare sensations as such: Regard/construe all real time experience as bare sensations as such.

mind-only: Explore how everything (or not) is just an expression of your mind (or not).

acquiesce: Give X exactly what it wants.

become: (Temporarily or not) become X.

relevance: List what’s relevant and maybe try to determine why those things are relevant.

state awareness: Decide in what ways you’re in a temporary state right now.

safe fear: Make it safe to feel fear and to know what you’re afraid of.

explore intuition: Explore taking intuitions seriously, including those for which you don’t have any obvious rational evidence (or whatever). Be psychic. Be clairvoyant. You can hold intuitions provisionally while you explore them.

question inner things: Ask questions of distinct things in/of you: What are you? Who are you? Where did you come from? How did you come to be? How did you get here? What do you want? What would be good for you?

minimality: Back off, utter lightweight-ness: do the lightest most minimal possible version of whatever you’re doing or want to do or want to try.

have fun.

be openminded: Be radically open to what might be true. Be unfiltered in your consideration of what might be true.

ok to hate: Hate until/if you don’t.

shackles: Ask, is X “shackles on” or “shackles off? [via Martha Beck’s Finding Your Own North Star and Steering by Starlight]

feel all towardsness: Feel or allow yourself to feel your desire, wanting, longing, preferring, taste, hoping, wishing, needing, craving, thirsting, hungering, lusting…

your heart sing: Remember/imagine (concretely) something that did/does/would make your heart sing (at least the first time or every time).

exhaustivity/comprehensiveness/systematicity: Ask, is that it? Is there more? Anything else? What is the next thing? And the next? How do I know that I’m done? How will I know I’m done? How do I know there’s more?

go down a prefab list: Run through all these practices to find ones that feel/seem good, currently. Run through all main practices to find ones that feel/seem good, currently. Try the meta protocol if you haven’t for a while. Try other collections besides ones in this document.

locate a deep felt sense: (h) How do you _really_ feel right now? What deeper feelings are beginning to surface? What nebulous thing is going on at the edges of your awareness? The vaguer the better. Try to put it into words, or not.

compare/align sensory streams: (h) Hold two or more different sensory streams in awareness at the same time, notice how they complement/corroborate/contradict each other. For example, while walking, pay close attention to what you see alongside sensations coming from the feet. Or while tapping a tabletop, pay attention to what you hear alongside sensations in the hands.

iteratively examine motivation: (h) To what end am I doing what I am currently doing? And why that? And why that? &c. Can be meta-applied as well: in the course of inquiring what one is doing & why, one may inquire as to what one is doing in inquiring as such, and why.

refactor agency: (h) À la V. Rao (https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2012/11/27/patterns-of-refactored-agency/). Notice a thought or framing of some occurrence, and split/clump/invert/rotate/refactor the agency/will of whatever is involved. Some examples: “Those flowers are alluring” → “Those flowers want to be admired”; “I want to eat the doritos” → “The doritos want to feed me”; “I hate this traffic” → “This traffic jam is angry with itself”; etc.

invent a concept: (h) Name the heretofore unnamed. Slice reality along a new axis.

mindful hygiene: (h) Practice hygiene slowly, attentively. Brush your teeth; floss; brush your hair; shave; wash your hands/face; bathe; trim nails; apply ointments/lotions.

mindful eating: (h) Eat slowly, attentively. Do you want another bite? Which bite do you want? How does it feel when you put it in your mouth, as you chew? Temperature, texture, flavor? What happens when you swallow? Can you feel your stomach receiving the food?

examine time: (h) Examine the passage of time (perhaps while attending to a particular sensation, such as an ongoing noise, or perhaps not).

do it more slowly: (h) If it’s okay to do so, slow down in whatever you’re doing. Slow down more. And more. And juuuust a bit more.

hug yourself: (h) Hug yourself. Touch yourself lovingly. Caress, rub, massage, hold. Which parts want attention? Let your body be an instrument of care for itself.

want everything: (h) To whatever degree(s) it’s good & safe to do so, allow yourself to fully and totally desire everything desirable, large & small, good & bad, immediate & far-reaching. Want it all.

want nothing: (h) To whatever degree(s) it’s good & safe to do so, allow yourself to fully and totally release/forgo any and all desires. Accept this & now as sufficient and complete.

disclaim (and reclaim) volitionality: Interact with yourself, or parts of yourself, or what’s in you, only through a respectful interface; disclaim volitionality for what’s behind the interface. Drain your will from it. Temporarily treat it as not you. How can you affect it, now? What’s the right way to interact with it under these conditions? Also: Do the opposite. Reclaim as makes sense, which might be an equal amount.

take a break: Take a break from everything. Take a complete break. Totally rest, temporarily.

listen: Listen for something faint and distant.

imagine/hallucinate: Try to hallucinate life-sized, three-dimensional people, appearing/existing around you in your present physical space, as a problem-solving tool, a general exploratory tool, for fun, for sexual fantasy.

desire factoring: Imaginatively remove (and maybe put back) things from something you desire until you figure out the essence of what you desire in the thing.

explore dimensions of phenomenology: In what you’re experiencing right now, explore meaning-laden, phenomenology; explore meaningful phenomenology; explore valenced/unvalenced  phenomenology (pleasant/unpleasant); explore the absolute, mediate, and immediate causes and conditions of phenomenology, explore the and immediate and mediate effects of phenomenology.

pain of lack: Feel the pain of lacking, the pain of not having.

wanting versus liking: Explore the relationship between what you want (to do/have/experience) and what you, at least historically, *know* you *like* to experience. Explore the relationship between what you want to avoid and what you know you don’t like to experience.

resource testing: Imagine yourself with various extra resources, only one or two at a time (money, very nice clothing, healthy solid relationship)—what changes? How would things be different?

only this moment: Temporarily pretend only this moment exists.

exactly what it needs: Imaginatively/bodily/experientially give something exactly what it needs, exactly the relationship it needs, with the person/entity it needs (friend, parent), in the language and concepts it needs, with the emotions it needs, that that something can feel, experience, and understand.

as a friend: Ask, what advice would you give a friend about this?

querying ability: Ask, could you do that? How would you do that? How would you solve that?

its job, its goal: Ask something in you, that might not be you, what its job is, its goal, its purpose. Ask what it needs. Ask what’s good about it being there? Explore its felt goodness and badness.

bad counterfactual actuality: Ask, would it be bad if this/that/X weren’t true? Ask, would it be bad if this/that/X were true?

state/find the X: State the inner conflict, state the contradiction, state the physical impossibility (such as “those two things can’t coexist in the same space or be done with these resources or go faster than the speed of light or teleport). Or just find it; you don’t have to state it.

seek implicit understanding.

seek explicit understanding.

find the sparkle: Find the childhood and/or teenage parts of you that sparkle with wonder and joy and appreciate and enjoy them and embody them 

intention: What are you intending, planning, willing, right now? What is your intention [with respect to X]?

counterfactual closure: Ask, what you could have done differently, along with some minimal other changes to a situation, so that X bad thing wouldn’t have happened? Or that would have made the bad thing ok?

stretch: (h) Like a cat that just woke up from a long nap. Try while standing, lying down, or in some other position. Shoulders back, chest out, get on your tippy-toes & arch that spine, yawn, vocalize, release!

connect deeply with purpose/value/meaning/goodness: (h) Notice your current situation/trajectory, and connect as deeply as you can with how this situation/trajectory is (now & ongoingly) meaningful & valuable, what purpose it serves, what broader good(ness) it relates to, etc. In what ways is today good/meaningful/valuable? How does the goodness/meaningfulness/value of today connect to the goodness/meaningfulness/value of your entire life?

notice the past: (h) Notice momentary or ongoing conceptions of the past.

notice the future: (h) Notice momentary or ongoing conceptions of the future.

notice discomfort: (h) Are you (greatly or subtly) uncomfortable right now? Which sensations tell you that you are uncomfortable? Why doesn’t everything about right now feel great/fine/perfect?

attention pulled: Let your attention be drawn places and maybe actively stay there for a bit once you get there.

volitional attention: Attend somewhere two-dimensional or three-dimension or n-dimensional or non-dimensional, specifically, for at least a brief time.

liminal/nonverbal: (inspired by h) Do what you’re already doing but deliberately move towards going it liminally verbally or nonverbally.

curiosity for disagreement: Have respectful curiosity and inquisitiveness for what happens to be in you or is a part of you, that you disagree with.

resist attentional capture (1): Some of the time, temporarily, concentrate (on something). Facilitate attentional capture.

resist attention capture (2): Some of the time, temporarily, have a wide, open, fuzzy focus. Concentrate on everything or no-thing. Relax, do this minimally, minimally reactively, as minimally involved as you can.

balance foreground and background: (cf Lippmann and Culadasa) Become aware of everything you can become aware of, in the “background,” while also attending to a “foreground” object. The background is in your peripheral awareness (cf. peripheral vision). Look both at and “through” the foreground object. Balance the salience of foreground and background so that they are potentially seamless in brief moments or stably.

look past (interpretive) overlays: Look at something; look past that at “what’s really going on.”

the really truly possibly really good in the bad: With the expectation that there’s something good and important, there, a wisdom of some kind: Ask would it be good to keep doing this bad thing? How would it be good to keep doing this good thing? Would it be bad to stop doing this bad thing? How/why would it be bad to stop doing this (at least partially) bad thing?

the chakras: Attend for some time to each chakra, bottom to top, including genitals. Hara. Hands. Feet.

microcosmic orbit: Move attention slowly through microcosmic orbit (loop around front and back of body from crown of head to perineum and back) in the direction [down the front, up the back; up the front, down the back] that feels most smooth.

bad to know/understand/see/be-able-to-tell: Ask, is it bad to know [about] X, bad to understand [something about] X, bad to be able to see [something about X], bad to be able to tell something about X? If so, how did that come to be? Why? How do you know? How did you come to know?

homomorphic ostension or reference: Come up with a metaphor, simile, allusion, allegory, analogy, or story for a relevant thing that might be otherwise hard to put into words. In that, what’s the problem, in that language/structure/ontology? What could be added inside that language/structure/ontology/logic? What’s obviously missing when seen from inside that?  How would manipulate that to solve the thing, strictly inside or that language/structure/ontology?

being/from: Ask, is this from me? Is this from you? Is this me? Is this you? Is this him/her/per/them?

somatic refactoring: Feel and relax your way into beneficial “somatic refactoring.” Let the body naturally and intricately change.

explore the body: Exhaustively, but loosely, sensitively, being willing to back off or let go, explore the entire value of the body  with your attention, little by little. If you can’t attend somewhere, don’t force attention into the area. Explore what feels good and bad about this and what seems good and bad about doing it in different places and a different times.

fix/solve/solve: Ask, can you do X/that? Can you fix X/that? Can you solve X/that? Can you handle X/that?

provenance and historical explanation: Ask, how did that/X come to be?

looking/checking with what you already have: Ask can you look to see whether that’s true or not? Can you find that out with what you already have? (If not, can you get more information if you need it? How? Can you do that? Will you do that?)

personal evaluative comparison: Ask, for me, why do I want/choose/like/desire/pick/etc this/X versus that/Y. Which is better or worse? More good or less good versus each or the other?

meaning: Ask what does it/X/that mean?

ghost/energy hands: Touch your body or feel into your body with ghost/energy hands.

fractured reality: Feel the fractures of reality. Feel how reality is broken.

look down through the body: Look down through your neck into your body from the inside

look at the back of you head: (after Headless Way?) Look at the back of your head from the outside without the aid of a mirror, phone, anything.

be (pop?) zen: No goal, nowhere to go, nothing to do, no escape, start or where you are, gateless gate, stateless state.

stop trying to escape the now: Temporarily stop trying to escape from exactly what’s happening, exactly how it’s happening, and exactly what it is that’s happening.

collect simultaneous attentional objects: “Collect” things in your awareness to pay attention to, and attend them sequentially or simultaneously.

ghost/energy body: Be physically relatively still, but walk and move with your “ghost” body or “energy body.”

acceptance: Accept that this is your life now or in fact always was.

instantaneous immortality: Noticed that in this moment you literally cannot just directly and successfully choose to die.

expand: Expand into the available space, “outer” or “inner.” Accept/become the available space, “outer” or “inner.”

broken phenomenology: Feel your “‘broken’ phenomenology”; rest in it, all of yourself with it, as it is.

inability/can’t/ability/can: If you find you can’t do something, explore how to phrase it conditionally: (You might ask, why can’t I do this? How can I come to be able to do this? How did I come to not be able to do this? How do I know I can’t do this?)

can’t X while Y can’t X when Y can’t X until Y can’t X since Y can’t X where Y can’t X because Y can’t X without Y etc.

Then, if it might be good to able to do X even while the conditions obtains, you might ask something like: How might I be able to do X even while Y? What are some worlds where I might be able to do X even while Y?  even when Y? even if it’s not Y yet? even if Y has since obtained? even if Y holds? even if Y? even without Y?

Or, if it might be good to not have the condition obtain so you can do X, you might ask something like: If Y prevents: How might I not have Y obtain? Are there good worlds where Y doesn’t obtain? What might such a world look like? How might I know I were in such a world? Might I be in such a world already or how might I arrive in such a world?

If Y enables: How might I have Y obtain? Are there good worlds where Y does obtain? What might such a world look like? How might I know I were in such a world? Might I be in such a world already or how might I arrive in such a world?

stimulate all your senses. (a)

minimize sensory input. (a)

shackles: Ask, is X “shackles on” or “shackles off? [via Martha Beck's Finding Your Own North Star and Steering by Starlight]

exertion: (ae) Exert yourself past a few layers of muscular and cardiovascular exhaustion, but not so many that you have to stop, to achieve a difficult goal.

comment: This one needs refinement of scope and clarity, and also careful consideration of safety in the most literal ways. For me comes from climbing, hiking, alpinism: "Exert yourself past a few layers of muscular and cardiovascular exhaustion, but not so many that you have to stop, to achieve a difficult goal." I'm pointing at something that feels qualitatively different to me than HIIT-type pushing to failure. It seems important that there is a summit or whatever to get to (and come back from!) and what you are doing is ultimately unsustainable but will last you just the next hour/day/relevant medium term, and somehow you are doing a bunch of inference to figure out just how hard that means pushing yourself right now.

don’t despair.

dwell in unknowing/uncertainty/confusion: (j) (Allow/let yourself to) dwell in unknowing/uncertainty/confusion: cf Keats’ idea of negative capability (edited) 

play a character: A character whose traits are very different from the ones you typically embody; can happen either in private or in public; can be an existing character (e.g. Gandalf) or an archetype (e.g. motherly woman) or something else entirely; how does your character move, think, speak, carry him-/her-/itself? what is different, when you’re this character, than when you’re not this character?

stream-of-consciousness writing: (h*) Allow yourself to transcribe your stream-of-consciousness as best you can. Can be centered on a topic/feeling/thought/idea, or unconstrained; find a pace that works & capture on paper as much as you can that enters your awareness — don’t worry about structure or coherency; then reflect on what you wrote, or not.

explore gratitude: (h*) Ask, what are you grateful for, right now? How do you know you’re grateful? What does it feel like? What don’t you feel grateful for? What is it like not to feel grateful? What causes gratitude or non-gratitude? What is different about your relationship with [thing you’re grateful for] compared to your relationship with [thing you’re not grateful for]?

explore courage: (h*) Ask, what would the courageous thing to do be, with respect to X? How does it feel to [imagine] carry[ing] out courageous action? How does courage relate to fear? Without forming intentions to actually execute them, explore scenarios of enacting courage.

mindful pooping: (h*) Poop mindfully.

do something uncomfortable or difficult: (h) Non-coercively do something you find uncomfortable or difficult (but which you will retrospectively endorse). E.g. take a cold shower; chat up a stranger; fast for a day; etc.

notice your voice: (h) Carefully listen to & feel your own voice as you speak in daily life.

consider death: (h) Consider [the idea of] death, as much as it is safe & good to do so. For instance, what is death? What memories, concepts, thoughts, and feelings arise in connection with the idea of death? Are you afraid of death? What would it mean not to be afraid of death? Can you imagine facing death right now? What specifically would be bad about dying right now? What about the deaths of others? Do non-living things die?

be broken: (h) Be broken, crushed, shattered, utterly defeated, crippled, collapsed, damaged, riven.

affirm everything: (h) To anything expressed by yourself or another, respond: “totally.“/”definitely.“/”100%.“/”right on.“/”yeah!”

catch flinching: (h) Notice when you flinch, turn away, shut down, distract yourself, change the subject, compulsively open reddit in a new tab, etc. Don’t try to do anything about the flinching, yet.  See also: affirm nothing, flinch volitionally, explore cowardliness ...Do you really want these things? Or are you in fact too afraid to be a coward, now?

temporarily stop planning: Temporarily stop planning and just see what happens next, see what you do next, as much as that feels safe.

talk to yourself as if: (j) Talk to yourself as if you were an elder or older, wiser version of yourself  (edited) 

reinterpret: (h) Search for new interpretations of X. X can be an interaction, an event, an image, a place, a concept, a memory, an intention, a feeling, etc etc. Can also be done by taking new assumptions along with X. For example, “how can i reinterpret that argument i got into, if i take the new assumption that the other person wasn’t trying to hurt me?” (edited) 

notice what, notice how: (h) 1. For whatever you’re doing/saying, notice what exactly you’re doing/saying. [the ends/purpose/goal/intent/function] 2. For whatever you’re doing/saying, notice how exactly you’re doing/saying it. [the means/style/method/manner/form] (edited) 

back to the drawing board: (h) Go back to the drawing board, regarding X.

do something symbolically meaningful.

devise new/better/relevant auxiliary practices: (h ht j)

explore/refactor the concept of meditation itself: (h) What does it mean to meditate? What does it mean to meditate well/correctly or poorly/incorrectly? What activities/states/situations are incompatible with meditation? In what ways is your method of meditating self-defeating? What would improve the experience of meditating by 5%? by 500%? Would it be ok to never meditate again? why or why not? etc etc

forgive: (h) Forgive that which it’s good to forgive. Forgive others; forgive yourself.

repent.

pray.

fart around.

tingles and non-tingles: Gently and softly and dreamily track down tingles and non-tingles. (edited) 

hold contradictions: (h) Hold/be/embody both/all aspects of seeming contradictions within yourself. Dwell in contradiction/paradox.

check out: Completely check out. Play. Total nonvigilance, total vacation, deep-dive into hobbies, interests for minutes, hours or days. Notice if you can’t.

get absorbed in something: Get lost in something. Lose yourself in something. Become absorbed in something. Forget about the world. Notice if you can’t.

constrain yourself: (j) Arbitrarily (or not) make decisions, add constraints, give yourself less degrees of freedom, give yourself less breathing room, put stakes in the ground.

sleep on it.

surround yourself with beauty/goodness: (h)

pray to be and/or have and/or have happen.

embrace the [almost completely intolerable] “cringy inner chaotic hellscape.”

“enjoy” the [normal] almost perfectly intolerable infinite[ly and critically] bad electrically agonizing awful cringe.

try enjoying it. (a sort of in-joke. whenever someone’s having a bad time, [...] asks “have you tried enjoying it?”)

just [actively] sit, bravely and skillfully.

let whatever happens happen.

let your attention dance.

be shameless.

time off: (j*) Give yourself the day off. Give yourself the day/night/hour/unit-of-time off.

respond with “maybe”: (j*) Respond to your questions, certainties, concerns, etc, with “maybe” “Oh my god I can’t believe X is happening. This will be terrible.” “Maybe” “Will it be good if I Y?” “Maybe” Inspired by the Taoist farmer story 

notice the ways in which you are safe.

allow yourself to be doubtful.

endure: Simply endure, allowing awareness and feeling as best you can, as best you can without shutting down, white-knuckling, teeth-gritting, but only if that’s safe. 

recurring dreams: Notice your recurring dreams.

permission: List who or what you currently need permission from, even if you disendorse needing it.

not allowed: List what you’re not allowed to do, even if you disendorse even the entire frame of “not being allowed.”

posture continuum: Pretend posture lies on a continuum from (A) comfortable fetal position to (B) standing tall and loose (or even walking slowly or ad hoc tai chi or qigong). See if it might be currently good to move more towards (A) or more towards (B), and do so if so.

physically exhaust yourself.

examine a flower or a leaf or a stone.

chat with/talk to your X-year-old self.

be someone else.

locate the tragedy/mystery/joy/etc in X.

notice what’s forbidden.

trace the origin of X [in oneself].

make a list of everything.

list possibilities.

do whatever is necessary to X.

locate the sacredness of X.

notice feeling connected to or disconnected from others & self & nature/world/environment.

adopt a rigid moral code.

dissect language.

pay attention to the X content of communication: Pay attention to the emotional/intention/timing/sensitivity/feeling content of communication.

pay attention to the Y content of communication: (h) Pay attention to the words/phrasing/conceptual/structural/thought content of communication.

play with “X happened to me” vs. “I chose X”.

what pattern is X part of?.

notice that you’re already enlightened/perfect/fine/good/good enough.

write a song/poem/rock opera.

study the cringe as if you were a scientist.

notice what happens when you notice: For me & probably others, there is residue from the way I was taught to meditate, namely from instructions like “if you notice you’re thinking, return to the breath” or similar. There are some very tight hooks in my mind such that when I notice certain things, I immediately have some internal reaction. There are lots of them, but one which is probably pretty common for people who’ve tried pop meditation is: notice thought -> interrupt it & pay attention to something else.

cultivate/dwell in solitude.

take solace in the journey: (j*) Taking solace in the exhaustiveness of the journey. Or, like, in non bypassing ways the thing you’re working towards is such a big exhaustive total something thing that a lot of things that stress you out currently are rounding errors ultimately or something or ok or something.

connect with proximal ideal future concretes: (aj*) Connect with the concrete details + felt sense of your ideal experience 3 years from now.

improvise, or see/frame your life as improv.

ask for what you want/need: Or ask yourself, ‘can you ask for the thing you want/need?’ are you safe and/or able to do so?

make small, little bets.

shake, shiver, quake: (aj*) If shakes come, let them.

release all technique: release all conceptions about how the mind works or should work.

mind doing and state release: Experiment with avoiding “doing things with your mind” and avoiding “trying to have your mind be a particular way”

no mind: Provisionally try on the idea that there is no such thing as minds and you don’t have one, but everything else is the same. What now?

no self: Provisionally try on the idea that there is no such thing as selves and you don’t have a self and aren’t a self, but everything else is otherwise exactly same as it is right now. what now?

flat mind: (j*) Provisionally try on the idea that the mind is “flat” or “just-in-time” or that the contents of awareness in some sense don’t exist until they’re constructed for that moment (making no metaphysical commitments about anything else).

no containment: Provisionally try on the idea that there is no such as inside and outside nor things inside other things, nor anything inside or outside anything else, but everything else is the same. What now?

no boundaries: Provisionally try on the idea that there is no such as boundary or separation, but everything else is the same. What now?

no thought: Provisionally try on the idea that you never ever have to think another thought, but everything else is the same. What now?

no people: Gently, gently, temporarily, provisionally try on the idea that there are no people and there never was a person, but everything else is the same. What now?

no things: Provisionally try on the the idea that there are no things, no objects, not even any stuff :scream: , but everything else is exactly the same. What now?

no time: Provisionally try on the idea that there is no time, that it doesn’t pass, that it doesn’t exist, that it never did. but, everything else is exactly the same. What now?

no space: Provisionally try on the idea that there is no space, no spatial relations, no adjacency, no empty space, no things occupying space, no delimited volume, that these don’t exist and that they never did. but, everything else is exactly the same. What now?

embrace identity: Explore if/that/whether you are one, in particular that you are this one. and not that one or any of these or those other ones.

already dead: Consider the idea that you’re already dead but everything else is exactly the same. What now?

right before you start: Notice what happens or what you do in the split seconds before you “start meditating.”

forget how to think: Pretend you’ve forgotten how to think. What now?

psychic how to think: Pretend someone doesn’t know how to think and you can show them how to think psychically, mind-to-mind--they can watch your mind do things, directly. what do you do with your mind to demonstrate thinking to them?

psychic how to meditate: Pretend someone doesn’t know how to meditate and you can show them how to meditate psychically, mind-to-mind--they can watch your mind do things, directly. what do you do with your mind to demonstrate meditating to them?

simultaneity: Have two or more things happen in your mind simultaneously. also for gross motor movement.

sequentiality: have two or more things happen in your mind sequentially. also for gross motor movement.

play with vibe: Try on different vibes, different global (outward-experienciable) feels.

inner safety: Pretend other people can’t infer your inner state or know it in any way. Explore if you have any new or different affordances or insights while pretending this.

no nos: Pretend no/not/negation (even nothingness) don’t exist. what now? [seriously] (edited) 

trust your perceptions: Trust what you observe, plain as day. Rest in what is obvious and veridical to you right now.

honor mediate wrongness: If something feels wrong, even if you can’t put your finger on it or you can’t speak it, know that something must be wrong, somewhere.

call bullshit.

remember relevant assertions: Remember all the ways people/books/websites/etc have asserted or implied what people are, what minds are, how minds should be used, what’s good and what’s bad, what’s true and what’s false, how truth works and how it must be found, how minds work and how thinking works, how thinking should be done, what’s good to do, what’s bad to do. Do you agree, disagree, or are you uncertain? What must you believe or disbelieve? What do you endorse or disendorse about this? This stuff gets in, it gets reified, some portion of it’s good, some portion of it makes us rigid, blocks our truth-seeking, our creativity, our joy, our seeking. (edited) 

notice judging/blaming: (h) Develop a method to inquire/analyze/understand/orient around it (or not).

notice pressure: (h) Notice the ways that everyone is subtly or overtly pressuring each other all the time.

notice support: (h) Notice the ways that everyone is subtly or overtly supporting/encouraging/loving each other all the time.

have patience: Have perfect, sensitive, intricate, painstaking, long-game patience. Pocketwatch watch-building and watch-repairing, where the gears are normal tiny size but the watch is as big as a moon, and different tiny parts on different sides of the moon might need to precisely co-vary, so you might need to go back and forth between them. Sprinkling colored sand, not geoengineering or even shoveling dirt. 

not too much/too large: Remember the mind is big but you can practically get through it “all,” in a first pass, in a fraction of a lifetime.

immaculate provenance: Provisionally assume X isn’t your fault even if it is now your responsibility

total responsibility: Provisionally assume you will have to solve X completely deeply and fully.

strategic deferral: if you can unforcily and endorsedly put something off until later do so.

don’t overthink things.

unsurprising-surprising dissolve: Explore that so many things you might never ever have to solve because they’ll truly turn out to either not be a problem or that they never were actually a problem.

comfort yourself: (h*) Thus, or: offer compassion to yourself] thus, as genuinely as you can [but no more genuinely than that] I have gotten a lot of mileage out of saying “it’s okay [...], you’re doing a great job” to myself, either spoken or written. but it seems to be important to actually express it in one way or another; i.e. simply thinking the thought doesn’t do nearly as much as writing or speaking to self does.

separate (don’t) want/might (to) be true: (h) Separate things that you really really do/don’t want to be true from what is/might actually be true. Might be a cleaner way to say this. like “earnestly, fearlessly sensemake”.

sort out good & bad: (h) Make a list of all the things that are good, and all the things that are bad. Be as nuanced or not as you like. Notice contradictions, omissions, & anything that doesn’t fit in either list.

get comfortable: (j) Make yourself comfortable. Prioritize comfort. Take actions one after the other until you feel totally and utterly comfortable, even and perhaps especially if it "doesn't feel worth it". 

spotting: (aj*) Pay attention to how your level of activation changes as you move your eyes to different positions in xyz space. Moving my eyes seems to cue different attention patterns to my body and near-body space.  Something like linear search across x then y, then z seems to zero in on activating coordinates well.  Fascinating. [See maybe: Kenny Dennis; Brainspotting]] 

basis: Ask, what is the basis of this? What does this depend on?

privilege effortlessness, costlessness, and intuition.

ask who/with/what/good/bad: (h)

Ask, “who or what is calling X bad[/good]?“, or “X is bad[/good] according to whom/what?” Ask, “with what is X’s badness[/goodness] in contradiction with?” Ask, “what if X were good[/bad]? what about X is good[/bad]?” Ask, “is it possible to have/do/be X in a way that is good[/bad]?” (edited)

no good, no bad: (h) No good, no bad: provisionally assume that there is no such thing as good or bad.

embrace imperfection.

embrace “analog”: Embrace analog/aconceptual/preconceptual/transconceptual/nondigital experiencing. 

meditate poorly; meditate incorrectly.

tinker: Tinker, experiment, see what happens, iteratively.

feel broken: Feel into experiential/phenomenological and visceral brokenness and uselessness. 

ask for whom: Ask, for who(m) and why? Ask, along what dimensions and according to what schema?

forgive yourself: (j).

trust: (j) Trust that this experience/moment you’re currently having/experiencing is in some sense, the right one. That there isn’t something wrong (in some sense) with the experience. Trust it’s rightness. Cf: relax, ease, acceptance, non-resistance,

let yourself be supported: (j) Feel the ground underneath you. Notice how little you have to do to be held, and how much support the earth can provide. Relax/ease into this support.

abandon reason: (j) Act/say/do/want/request/believe/assert/head-in-the-direction-of... just because you feel like it, even if you don’t have reasons, even if it doesn’t make sense, even if you don’t understand. Don’t feel a need to justify or provide reason (to yourself or others). That which doesn’t make sense. That which you don’t understand.

walk it off: (j).

experience the elements: (j) Purify yourself in water. Cleanse yourself in the wind. Feel the grounding of the earth. Warm yourself by/in the fire.

follow the signs.

breadth-first: (h) Do/go/explore/play/incline/work breadth-first, broad and shallow.

depth-first: (h) Do/go/explore/play/incline/work depth-first, narrow and deep.

think nonverbally: (h) Incline toward thinking nonverbally — spatially, visually, conceptually, tactilely, kinesthetically, mathematically, musically, etc.

notice unconscious patterns: (h) Notice unconscious habits, body language, attitudes, thought patterns, behavioral patterns, vocal tone, speech style, posture, positioning, mood shifts, inclinations, desires, etc. Don't do anything about them, yet.

play: (h) In whatever domain you happen to be in, see if you can play. Notice if you can’t.“Explore childlike playfulness” already exists in the prot. The two feel different to me.

keep going: (j) So, you just discovered/encountered/realized the truest truth [sic], or the most perfect plan? Before you rush off and buy those plane tickets, consider holding your discovery lightly, and keep going, keep turning the (relevant) crank(s). cf error checking, letting it flow/shift/change

where and when: Realize that you are here, now, not there, then.

concreteness/abstractness: Realize it’s concretely this, not abstractly that.

be impulsive: (j)

from fear or love: (j*) Consider whether you are acting/deciding/doing/etc out of fear or love

ignoring and listening: Explore how and when to safely and temporarily ignore; Explore how and when to safely and temporarily listen, with part or every fiber of your being, or not.

how do you know: Tired, sad, hungry, anxious, etc. – – ask how do you know [you are] (that) [right now]? How do you know, of things like that, what you are right now?

commit (for the purpose of potentially dissolving): Really commit to the taboo, illegal, immoral, frivolous, dangerous thing you want to do, to do/be/have/get/experience the thing. Start to plan, start to pre-enjoy. Start to figure out how to make it happen.

love, compassion, sympathetic joy: Reach for your felt experience of these, with or without object.

error perspective: Remember, it’s ok to find that you’ve “been doing it wrong.” That means it’s working. That means you’ve been doing it right. And you are doing it right. Perhaps feel into this.

find your can’ts: Find your “can’t beliefs”: can’t do X, can’t learn Y, could never Z, could never in a million years do Q… These can be both “inability beliefs,” where you straightforwardly can’t do the thing (or so you belief, or right now but maybe not later) or “won’t beliefs,” like, you could but you won’t because of something else--too risky, too emotionally intense, too emotionally risky, etc. For all of this, it can get more subtle--can’t do X with my mind, can’t learn to program, can’t learn to factor these numbers. So, things from your past, too, say, maybe early in school or before school. It can all the way to “deep sensory processing” type things--“my mind won’t/can’t do that” or “no minds can do that.”

deathbed: Imagine good, bad, best-case, worst-case deathbed scenarios. What’s happening, who’s there, how do you feel about it?

other people: Explore the ways, whats, whens in which it does and doesn’t matter what other people think of you.

revisit things of the past: (h) When the time is right, revisit memory-laden objects, songs, movies, photographs, places, etc 

picture your child, having your childhood: (aj) Call to mind your child (or future child, or friend’s child) having the exact same childhood you did.  Every sorrow and hope.  Fly on the wall for every challenge small and large.

assume you have no idea what "play" is: (aj) What changes?  What would you do to figure it out from scratch?

safe to look: Ask, for a there a way to come for it to be safe to look?

better than this: Ask, is there a way to come to something more good/better/nourishing/correct/I/me/myself than this?

more or less real: Ask, is this more real or less real?

younger or older: Ask, is this younger or older?

good/bad forwards/backwards: Ask, is this good-forwards, good-backwards, bad-forwards, bad-backwards?

really real: Explore whether there’s something that seems more real, more causally upstream, more important than physical reality.

let itself: Let it do/undo itself. Help it do/undo itself.

models: (h) What are your implicit and explicit world/self models? How are or aren’t they serving you?

deeper: Ask, is there something deeper?

underneath: Ask, is there something more underneath?

unknown unintended consequences of omission and commission: (m) Consider the unintended consequences of the things you do and don't do. Consider how you don't know what almost any of them are..

safe anger: Explore how to make it safe to feel (extreme, white hot, perseverative, repetitive) anger, rage, hate/hatred, outrage, disgust, fury (fear, envy, jealousy, horror) at specific/particular/concrete people in general or for specific/particular/concrete behaviors/actions/inactions/commissions/omissions, for seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks. Deem them as horrible and bad as they are, to you or in the absolute. Explore how to make it safe to not suppress this, to not talk yourself out of this, to not try to (prematurely or otherwise) forgive them, to not try to (prematurely or otherwise) understand them or walk in their shoes so as to humanize, empathize, etc. (You can surely do all those things, but also explore the former things, too. People do things completely outside our expectations, sometimes outside our expectations of anyone, anywhere doing such a thing or being such a way. A natural response is potentially the emotions above. They might be more extreme or last longer and more repetatively than you thought possible or good. But allowing those emotions, when there’s enough wisdom/slack/space in the system, when it’s safe to allow those emotions, facilitates processing, model building, wisdom. On the other side of those emotions is wisdom--sometimes it’s forgiveness, sometimes it’s forbearance, sometimes it’s surgical competence, sometimes it’s love, and many other things. Can’t predict the specific shape of wisdom (I think; though it can be healthy/smart/good to try). (edited) 

stay in (the) flow.

reactions: Explore how to make it safe to be allowed to have your (patiently extended) reactions. [sic]

self-censoring: Explore how to make it safe to not self-censor. Try not self-censoring (or as best you can).

feedback loops: (b) Pause all your feedback loops.

plan evaluation: (j) Consider: how do you know everything isn’t going exactly according to “plan”? How do you know anything truly has gone wrong or is bad? (edited) 

listening and ignoring: (1) Try/explore broadband (fullband) listening/opening/entertaining, to the farthest reaches, at the finest grain (while still differentiating self and other). (2) Try/explore broadband facilitating/helping... (3) Try/explore broadband ignoring/keeping-out/relevancing/prioritizing/concluding, to the farthest reaches, at the finest grain.

no language: (h) Temporarily provisionally assume/act as though language doesn't exist 

open mind: Explore having an open mind about particular things that come up (beliefs, assertions, certainties…), as they come up,  one-by-one or otherwise: Might it actually be different than that? What might it be instead?

already-ness: Turn towards what you are and have been already effortlessly ongoing-ly aware of. (edited) 

reaction owning and backlog: Own your reactions, let yourself have your reactions to the degree it’s currently safe. If you have a backlog of reactions, let them start to come up, one by one, to the degree that it’s currently safe.

cry: Let yourself cry.

experiential envelope: Find and rest in the entirety of the “experiential envelope.”

ongoing teleportation/slide attempting: Explore whether you’re ongoing-ly trying to, right here, right now, instantly, instantaneously do/have/be something, someone, somewhere else, to have self or world be different in this exact particular moment or the one immediately next, and next.

entirety of the thing: Let yourself always already be the entirety of the “experiential envelope.”

infrequently attended: Ask, where on or in your body or anywhere or anywhen have you not paid attention recently or since time long forgotten? Is there a way to safely, non-force-ily, safely incline there (or then)?

standing tall: Stand tall and balanced. What feels weird in your body?

say a thing is something: (m) Say a thing is something. Perceive that it is not. "whatever you say a thing is, it is not." (—Korzybski)

body on mind: Ask, what does your body think about what your mind is thinking?

according to whom: See what you believe about something. Ask, according to who/whom?

lightly experimentally intensify: Lightly experimentally intensify the (at least seemingly partially) bad thing e.g. sadness, muscle tension, etc.

something wildly different:  Stop what you’re doing and do anything wildly different than what you we’re doing on one or as many dimensions as you can.

won’t: Ask why you won’t do X? I won’t do this because...

overall: Ask yourself, what is the overall thing you’re doing?

how: Ask yourself, how are you doing what you’re doing?

pairwise cross-correlate long-range disparate body discomfort points.

completely check out; play: Total non vigilance, total vacation, deep-dive into hobbies or interests for minutes, hours, or days. Notice if you can’t.

forget: Get lost In something, forget about the world. Notice if you can’t. 

try on X: Try X on and accept it as if it were you, were deeply a part of you temporarily. How would that be ok if that were actually the case, in the world where that was actually the case?

strange believing and seeming: Explore how to have it be safe to believe the strangest truths--maybe they’re true or it’ll change to get more true over time, maybe the belief will be transient and something even better will come in time.. Explore how to have it be safe for the world to seem the strangest of ways, through-and-through. Maybe that seeming is correct or good, or it’ll sculpt to something better over time. Maybe it’ll be transient and something even better will come in time.

radical intuition: Explore how to have it be safe to trust, to act on, or to merely openly entertain “radical intuition,” knowing without there being any seemingly reasonable or correct or even possible mechanism, basis in experience and/or method for a particular (or any) knowing, believing, seeming, expecting, acting, etc.

terrible truths: Let yourself believe terrible truths or let yourself disbelieve terrible truths, in the service of reaching better, healthier, saner, more correct, more humane, more good truths. Believe, enter, embody, when safe, for the possibility of change and/or letting go.

seek beauty.

seek your aesthetic.

sensory landscape: Ask, what do you want to see, hear, feel, touch, taste, smell, contemplate?

ability lack identification: Ask, what ability or play or way of doing this, if I had it, would solve this?

ability building: Ask, how might I do this or come to be able to do this? What would I do here that would make this and/or everything around it doable or easier?

appreciate X: See the good in/of X.

enjoy X.

directness: Sometimes can be helpful (and sometimes counterproductive) to ask, is there are more direct or immediate thing? Why can't I just straightforwardly (do/be/have/go after) X, right now?

learn from your mistakes: (j).

love: Love. Or consider whether love, some form or type of love, or just love, is the answer to X.

current limitations: embrace precisely current but not necessarily future limitations, inabilities

in-this-moment inabilities: Enjoy your in-this-moment inabilties.

explore temporal continuity: Explore perfect temporal continuity/continuousness/nonfragmentation/smoothness/non-gap-py-ness of attention

slow it way down.

do it without skips or jumps or gaps:

break it into syllables: Break it into syllables. Say it syllable by syllable.

do subtle: Do subtle, barely perceptible things with body or mind.

gravity, bone, and muscle: Explore the relationship between gravity, bone, and muscle.

posture differential: (h) Incline toward "perfect posture". Incline toward your body's natural posture. What changes? Not perfectly formulated, and for some reason I'm not totally thrilled with the concept behind this one. Maybe at least needs comment about how problems can be on either side — one's posture can be imperfect due to eg muscle tension; or one's idea of "perfect posture" can itself be imperfect. Maybe I'm not thrilled because reifying the idea of "perfect posture" could be harmful

don’t overthink things.

make your body available: (h) to the degree(s) to which it’s good to do so & in the way(s) in which it’s good to do so, make your body available for feelings, felt senses, urges, impulses, instincts, reflexes, whims, ideas, postural changes, movements, shifts, twitches, shivers, spasms, pleasure, pain, (dis)comfort, expansions, contractions, forces, energy, vibrations, waves, etc to come through & manifest.

stop holding: (d) Stop holding your current posture. Stop holding.

check in with yourself.

underthink.

think ahead: (d) Blend all your actions into one continuous smooth motion.

don’t overthink things.

surrender.

allow.

be patient: (jd) Be/cultivate/surrender-to patient/patience.

commune with the plants.

commune with nature.

align yourself with the natural flow of nature / the natural world.

enter your heart space: (jd).

don't do: (d; “metaaux”) For a practice "do x", don't do x.

do not: (d; “metaaux”) For a practice "do x", do not-x

passively have happen; already the case: (d; “metaaux”) For a practice "do x", have x happen to you, or have it so you become such that x without acting in order to do so. For a practice "do x", imagine that x is already the case

I'm thinking things like "imagine a string attached to the top of your spine and hanging down from it" or "imagine your shoulders moving away from each other". I'm not sure off the top of my head how those AT directions are phrased, I'll have to look back on them

wait and see.

slow down.

listen to nature: (jd)

meditate with crystals: (jd)

prioritize being over doing: (jd)

prioritize feeling over thinking: (jd) Incline towards / prioritize feeling over thinking.

let things get messy: (jd).

take the dive: (h).

use your strength: (h).

rest in restlessness: (h)

get underneath the level of story: (jd) Story, narrative, etc. What’s underneath? What’s ‘deeper’? What’s below? 

notice directness or indirectness: Explore whether you can just directly go after something and have it, do it, be it, or achieve it. Or, are you planning, learning, preparing, etc. If you are doing the latter, why not the former? An alternative name/stance for this practice is, “notice complex versus simple.”

thing behind the thing or bask directly: Ask not just what’s good about something, but also, what’s useful about it, compelling, attractive, persuasive, glorious, beautiful, perfect along some dimension, etc. Compare with the practice of simply asking what’s good about something.

bask in the goodness of badness: Bask in the felt e.g. compelling nature of some bad thing. Compare with the practice of simply asking what’s good about something.

everything against everything: Try checking each (and every) possible change [you make] against everything. check everything against everything. Or how does absolutely everything [that’s [in/of] you] incrementally feel about what you’re doing? down to smallest part/pixel/voxel/intention/stake/impulse/doing/will/whatever. Check in, touch base, with all of you.

total self-consensus: try moving forward only when 100% of you is ok with the forward thing. if 100% of you is not ok then try a slightly or very different thing, which might be exploring the not ok-ness(es) or something else.

pattern attending: explore attending to places in different repeating patterns, switching up the order in which you attend. cf microcosmic orbit, forward and backwards, as well as anything else.

total ordering: Play with attending to “everything in order” and then repeating, so everything in order, over and over again, while playing with what “everything” (what’s the whole? what are the parts?) and “the order” should be.

top down unilateral vs top down listen vs bottom up: Ask, in the next moment, should I unilaterally do something, should I listen to everything and then do something, or should I let everything move me?

collect past self-resolutions: collect past resolutions, declarations, promises you made to yourself about behavior and the future

selectively embrace the dark side and feel/enjoy/appreciate its power.

problem behind the problem: Ask what’s the problem behind the problem? the need behind the need? 

let go and rest in self-earned self-trust.

mechanism: Ask, how does that work? What's going on, here? What's this?

voice: Ask, what does it say? What is it saying? What would it say? (To whom, if anyone?) is there a one-sentence essence or distillation of that?

rub your face: Rub your face in a way that feels good until you get bored. (Maybe wash your hands first.)

verbally distill: Write down distilled/concise/summarized insights as they come to you, as sketches, first drafts. On a new line write a new version, or an addition, or anything. And so on. Maybe keep them all in a single document.

imagine the worst: Imagine the worst case, the worst outcome. Is it as bad as you thought? Ask, what might someone be feeling in a case or situation like this? Might you be feeling that somewhere? Where? How?

explore an aftermath: Ask, what would you do if x stopped, went away?

identify the/an ideal: Explore for and imagine the lived ideal version of the wanted thing in a/its context.

causal chain: Ask, what’s the causal chain that led up to this?

map or territory: Ask, is that a property of the map or a property of the territory?

encodings: Ask, are you encodings in words or memory or being or…?

look for how to non-manage: Incline towards it being safe for it to take care of itself, no need for propping up. Ask is there path where this doesn’t have to be propped up or managed, where anything in this space in some form can just take care of itself?

look for “if could only just X”: Look for places where “if (could) only (just) X”.

jiggle: (h) Jiggle jiggle.

have fun with the practice.

mind, body, world: (h) What's happening in your mind? What are you doing in your mind? What's happening in your body? What are you doing in your body? What's happening in the world? What are you doing in the world? I noticed that this is sort of a way i slice things when i query what's happening

outside: Explore how/whether/if you don’t know anything for sure outside this moment.

surety: Explore how/whether/if you don’t know anything for sure about the future.

cradle: Make a whole-bodymind “self-interpersonal trauma cradle” where things can arise for which you can comfort and protect yourself.

non-second-order believing and wanting: Explore how to not try to make yourself belief things. Explore how to not try to make yourself want things. (Or not believe or not want)

wretchedness: To the degree that it’s safe, let yourself be wretched.

late-stage freakout or triggering: To the degree that it’s safe, have a late-stage freakout and even later ones. Sometimes the worst is saved for last, or second to last, or… It doesn’t mean you haven’t made all that progress.

systematic suffering: Intentionally suffer (gently) in various ways, dredge up suffering, (gently, aligned-ly, patiently) find, call up latent suffering, turn towards, catch, go into, facilitate suffering that is present or arises (non-physically, physically completely safely, with minimal drama and extraneous emotion). One might add “inhabit,” or “dwell in,” but those seem to connote or imply or presuppose or “pre-conceive” (“too much”?) permanence.

notice grasping/accumulating versus suffering.

suffering party: Have a solo or small-group suffering party.

24-7 suffering party: Have an intentional 24-7 suffering party (temporarily)

suffering permission: If it’s safe, (try) give(ing) yourself permission to suffer (maybe implicitly/just so or for a (semi-)explicit block of now-to-future time.

drama and non-drama: Be dramatic. Do the same thing but be non-dramatic while you’re doing it.

explore intertemporal self-consistency:Incline towards your present talking collaboratively to the present. (present-present) Incline towards your past talking collaboratively to your past. (past-past) Incline towards your future talking collaboratively to your future. (future-future) Incline towards your present talking collaboratively to your past. (present-past) Incline towards your present talking collaboratively to your future. (present-future) Incline towards your future talking collaboratively to your past. (future-past)

fantasy ideal maybe with realistic swapping: Imagine a fantasy ideal that would make everything ok. Try swapping in more realistic elements piecewise/partwise, to get closer to something you could really actualize.

solutioning dependency checking: Ask, if X was done/complete/good/fixed would Y be done/complete/good/fixed?

contingency: Ask, why might this/it/X not work/succeed?

otherwiseness: Ask, might it/X/this be otherwise?

need/bad/motivated to (not) believe: Ask, would it be bad to not believe this/X? Ask, would it be bad to believe this/X? Ask, do I have to believe this/X? Ask, do I have to not believe this?x? Ask, would it be good to believe this/X? Ask, would it be good to not believe this/X? Ask, would it be bad to not have to believe this/X? Ask…

postural pull: (m*) Does your body want to move into a particular posture, position, leaning-ness, curled-up-ness? If yes, see if you can help yourself get into that posture. Check periodically to see if there’s a new posture to move into, next.

gestural expansiveness: (m*) Explore large body movements of the extremities.

impartial part helping: Assume a friendly openness. Ask a part of you, or something in you, how can I help? What do you need? (You might also ask yourself, what does this need?) What would be good for you? What’s good on your terms (in all of that), and how can I help you get that?

Before moving on to something else, you might ask, what would make it ok for me/us/you/this to pause/end/stop exploring this (for now)?

assume even worse/worst: Assume an even worse version of the (seemingly?) bad thing that’s (seemingly?) true. Fill in all the cracks of the worse-/worst-ness. What would you do, how would you respond if this worse/worst case were true?

be a baby, be prenatal: Let yourself be a baby. Let yourself be prenatal. The reality of that, imagined or immersive flashback. Suspend disbelief. What was that experience concretely like, good and bad?

the opposite: Ask if there’s a part of you that believes the opposite (of this/X). Is there a part of you that believes that opposite belief, ongoingly, parallel, to the first part of you?

counterfactual replacement: Ask, might X be ok, instead of Y? What good things would happen if X? What bad things would happen if X?

truths, etc.: Try resting in how things seem vs how things feel vs how things appear vs what might be true or false vs what you know vs what you believe vs what you understand vs what you think vs what god would say is true vs what’s real vs what feels right vs what things look like vs what’s going on, here vs how you’d describe things vs…

forward vs backward: Ask, is this/X forward(s) or backward(s)?

desire, etc.: Ask, what do you long for, hope for, desire, want, care about, value, lust for/after, love—to do, be have, associate with, pursue, acquire, achieve…

philosophical meta: Let your be pulled into thinking about metaphysics, philosophy, epistemology, phenomenology, agathology, cosmology, eschatology, mereology, linguistics… Sometimes, often, extreme, abstract meta can be a real, nondeferrable bottleneck. You might see if you can go concrete first, if you can defer that extreme, abstract meta. You might bring in the meta protocol. But, often you relatively can’t!

alternatives explanations: Ask, what are alternative explanations, stories for this/X apparent thing?

concrete memories: Gently incline towards experiencing fully concrete, episodic, experiential memories.

options, pros and cons: List some options. Consider the pros and cons of choosing each option and not choosing each option. (So every option will have its own collection of pros and cons. And then you might juxtapose the pros and cons of pairs of options, and so on.)

trigger yourself: Expose yourself (carefully) to things that provoke extreme reactions. If you are accidentally or incidentally triggered, take advantage of it.

intuition: Temporarily let yourself [come to] know (or understand) without dictating the why of how you know or the how of how you know. (cf. radically unstructured coming to know/understand.)

counterfactual past additions: What would it have been good to experience, at any point when you were younger, in the recent or distant past? How might that have gone? What was the experience, maybe sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, feel, meaning…

memory/imagination triggering: Through memory, imagination, or imaginative riffs, trigger yourself, distress yourself.

urges and impulses: Feel ongoing and the bleeding-edge arising edges of impulses, urges, impellment, compellment, compulsion

three-dimensional, unforced scanning: Slowly explore the surface and physical interiority of the body with attention. Don’t force attention to where attention doesn’t easily go or where it slides away. Let it go; it will surely open up later, and you will surely come back to it later, possibly effortlessly and costlessly folded into something else.