TEMPLE_ARCHIVE

STATUS: INACTIVE // READ-ONLY

Category: Personal Development

  • When you lose someone important to you

    When you lose someone important to you, the fact that you can’t talk about it without freaking out everyone else is almost worse than the loss itself.

    I’ve been reading Amazon reviews for books on grief, trying to figure out why people buy them.

    My mom died a few years ago, and I never bought any books on grief. But, I certainly noticed how awkward people got. Or, maybe it was just me. Same difference.

    I think that’s why they buy the books…trying to deal with the awkwardness.

    All the tiny decisions you now have to make:

    • Do I have this conversation with this person?
    • Do I put myself in this situation which might lead to a conversation with this person?
    • Do I throw this thing out or keep it?
    • Do I act this way or that way?

    The stress of these decisions accumulates until finally you say “I can’t deal with this grief anymore.”

    Losing people isn’t a problem. It’s just sadness which comes and goes like any other feeling.

    But the stuckness caused by these cultural forces…it grows and grows if you don’t deal with it.

  • How to Build Habits

    (You might be interested in my podcast episode #25 – Something About Habits.)

    There’s Only One Way To Develop Consistent Habits

    We’ve all tried to develop habits that we know are good for us. And we’ve failed at most of them. At least I have.

    But, persistence pays off here. If you keep trying new approaches, you will eventually find something that clicks. People get stuck when they stop trying new things.

    Radical acceptance will make it easier for you to try new things. This is your best chance of success.

    I know, I know: this isn’t the story you were taught as a kid.

    You were taught that the way to develop habits is to TRY REALLY HARD. To say, “Yeah, I know, I should…”, or “I just need to…”, or whatever you say.

    Those strategies don’t work (do you even think of them as “strategies”? You should).

    Meditation will never be a consistent habit until you find a way to enjoy meditation. I don’t mean enjoy the idea of meditation. I mean enjoy meditation itself.

    The only way to do that is radical acceptance of whatever shows up.

    Go ahead, argue with me. I’m not budging on this one.

    Why You Suck At Changing Habits

    If you want to change habits, stop trying to change your behavior over large stretches of time. Instead, pick one isolated moment and work on that.

    Over this past year, I’ve been spending way too much time on my phone. Whenever I’m not on the computer, my phone is in my hands. Even while walking outside for hours.

    So, I said to myself that I’d like to stop using the phone while walking.

    But (and here’s the part that’s different from what you would do), I didn’t do that by trying to “break the habit” of using my phone while walking.

    Instead, I said “after I put my shoes on, I’m going to turn off my phone.”

    That’s the entire thing.

    It’s just one moment in time.

    It’s easy to do.

    It’s easy to keep score (if I wanted to, which I don’t).

    If there’s any problem doing it, I can zero in quickly on where the issue is.

    Get it? “Breaking the habit using my phone while walking” is now the end result of my actions. And, if I don’t get that result, I have only my ingenuity to blame (and not my willpower or lack thereof).

    You’re just a rat in a maze. Stop taking yourself so seriously.

    If you want to get better at this, you need to become aware of more isolated moments throughout your day. Each one is a hook you can use to reprogram yourself however you want.

    That awareness comes from KorMeditation. No Problem will get you started.

    You Can’t Force Yourself to Build Habits…

    …but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

    Every time you try to force yourself to do a thing, you’re weakening the obstacles that are preventing you from doing that thing automatically (this assumes you aren’t building new obstacles in the process).

    For example, let’s suppose you want the habit of walking every morning.

    You can’t just will this to happen. But, if you force yourself to walk tomorrow morning, you might discover that you don’t like your walking shoes, and you might buy better ones.

    The next day, if you force yourself again, you might discover you’re bored walking in silence, and you might listen to a podcast.

    After 30 days of this, you might find that your walking routine has become so pleasant that it just happens on its own. But, it’s not because YOU made it happen. It’s because of what you learned along the way.

    You’ll learn a lot in 30 days of this. But, there’s no guarantee you’ll build the habit. The habit may take years of trial and error. Still, you’ll learn a lot in 30 days.

    Habits don’t happen because of repetition! But, repetition can help you discover what does make the habit happen.

    A single repetition can be enough to cement a habit, if the rewards are great enough. (I hear this happens with heroin, for example.)

    When you try to form habits (I call this “practice”), it’s essential that you don’t just grit your teeth and bear it. You must let yourself be open to incoming data. This is the only way you’ll learn from your practice.

    Don’t try to figure it out. Just let yourself practice. Your mind will learn from its mistakes.

    (If you want to give yourself something to do, after each session, write down everything you found unpleasant. Again, no need to figure anything out. Just notice.)

  • When deep practice makes you feel like a failure

    I gotta get something off my chest. It’s about deep practice.

    Deep practice is the kind that involves real introspection.

    • Paying close attention to your physical movements.
    • Noticing your thoughts.
    • Being aware of your habits.

    Deep practice is required if you want to change things.

    • Exercises that involve reconditioning basic movement patterns.
    • Adjusting what you eat to have better health.
    • Changing habits that aren’t working as well as you want them to.

    Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?

    However, deep practice is off-limits to many people, and that’s not fair.

    When you look closely at yourself, you will see problems. Furthermore, since you’re a smart person, you’ll know there’s a problem.

    Yet, you’re powerless to change it. That’s because you recognize that deep practice is hard work.

    But here’s the thing…

    “Hard work” doesn’t come easily to everyone.

    Some people are diligent and conscientious and can change routines merely through an act of willpower (or so they think). Others can’t.

    Yet, the diligent-conscientious people have a monopoly on deep practice.

    They’ve somehow convinced the rest of us that there’s something deeply wrong with us if we can’t maintain deep focus on our deep selves for extended periods of time at will.

    As a result, when we look deeply, we freak out. We’ve been taught that when we notice a deep problem, we’re responsible for fixing it (after all, that’s what a diligent-conscientious person would do).

    So, we avoid practicing deeply.

    This is horribly unfair.

    You should have the right to look deeply at your own habits, even for a moment.

    Even if you never change anything, you should still have the right to look.

    (who knows what you’ll find?)

     

    —Michael

  • Read this if you’re a perfectionist

    If you’re a perfectionist, you must meditate. You won’t get rid of perfectionism otherwise.

    Perfectionism is an anxiety disorder. You’re afraid of making mistakes.

    The only cure for an anxiety disorder is exposure therapy. That’s when you deliberately expose yourself to the thing you’re afraid of.

    However, this is hard to do. When you expose yourself to something you’re afraid of, you’ll want to run and hide. Then, you’ll go your whole life saying, “yeah, yeah, I know I should just suck it up and deal with it.”

    So, how do you get to the point where exposure therapy is possible?

    You must learn to see the thing you’re afraid of as being only sensory experience.

    For example, if you’re afraid to publish a blog post because you’re afraid of criticism, you can learn to see the fear of criticism as merely images and sounds in your head and sensations in your body. Once you see it this way, it’s much easier to be willing to expose yourself to it.

    Rejection is hard to deal with. A “story about rejection” is easier to deal with. “Still frames from a movie about rejection” are even easier to deal with.

    This is where meditation comes in.

    Meditation teaches you how to view your experiences as sensory phenomena. Without meditation, you’ll be too attached to your stories and the exposure therapy won’t work and you’ll be stuck with perfectionism forever.

    —Michael

  • Is motivation necessary to do things?

    I got a question the other day. Actually, it was last night. No, wait. It was this morning.

    The question was: “Is motivation necessary to do things?”

    Answer: Yes.

    You can’t do things without motivation. After all, what would motivate you to do the thing, if not for motivation?

    This is not a philosophical issue. This is real.

    What hinges on the answer to this question?

    If you’re going to say “do I have to feel motivated to do things?”, then I would say no, you don’t.

    Try it right now. Think of something you don’t feel motivated to do, and do it anyway.

    For example, I don’t feel motivated to end this email right now. I kinda want to keep typing

    —Michael

    P.S. I’ve gotta put a link in here: here you go.

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