Day 1157 Record Keeping
Day 1129 Fixed Meditation (15 min)
Day 1003 Writing (DID NOT DO)
Day 543 Rowing (rowing, 30 min/4000 m)
Day 284 Mobility/Stretching (15 min, hip stretch & back smash)
—
Early to Rise
Day 312 Sleep Recording (12|12:15|9:30|11:50)
Day 283 Bedtime Curfew
Day 121 Wakeup Alarm
–
Good sleep. Depleted, but still felt much more energetic than the rest of the week - finally got some good sleep. Upped meditation and mobility.
Day 1029 Record Keeping
Day 1001 Fixed Meditation (20 min)
Day 875 Writing (3/20 min)
Day 415 Rowing (100 kb swings, form, 4x25)
Day 156 Mobility/Stretching (back stretches and back smash)
—–
Eating
Day 253 Pantry Check (DiD NOT DO)
Day 251 Food Recording (DID NOT DO)
—
Early to Rise
Day 184 Water (DID NOT DO)
Day 184 Sleep Recording (12:50|1:20|9:45|10)
Day 155 Bedtime Curfew
–
Good sleep, good wakeup. Just got back from a trip to Dallas. Got some mobilization tools - a big ball and a spine tool. Annnnd, I just got over 1,000 days of meditation!
Day 1018 Record Keeping
Day 990 Fixed Meditation (20 min - incredibly good)
Day 864 Writing (3/20 min - incredibly good rewrite and research)
Day 404 Rowing (8x10 kbell swings, finally nailed my form)
Day 145 Mobility/Stretching (back stretches)
—–
Eating
Day 242 Pantry Check
Day 240 Food Recording
—
Early to Rise
Day 173 Water (Totally forgot!)
Day 173 Sleep Recording (1|2:50|10:45|11:30)
Day 144 Bedtime Curfew 81 SUPERHABIT
–
Ok sleep, good wakeup.
Great Progress Over Multiple Skills
My meditation was incredible today. It was smooth, deep, and I’m getting what pragmatic meditation practitioners are talking about with respect to noting the self.
I finally nailed my kettlebell form - or at least the back issue that I’ve been dealing with. I tend to use my back to pull more than my hips. When I properly hip load it’s a totally different workout. While standing I naturally over extend my lower back, and this problem is exacerbated by swings. As I hip loaded I also concentrated on tilting my hips to neutral by engaging my abs, which prevented over extension. This is really the first time that I’ve ever felt kbell swings as an ab exercise, which I’ve always been puzzled by. Now I know why - Thanks Dr. Kelly Starett! I don’t think I’d even know where to begin to try to fix it if it wasn’t for this guy’s material. I’d be endlessly cycling with swings and back pain.
And writing also went really well, in large part because of James Patterson’s special Master Class. I was able to see the rewrite process as a series of edits, rather mandating perfection from one rewrite. It’s seriously unclenched my writing constipation. I’m recording all of this, not only to send as an example to a fellow writer and friend that I’ve been discussing this technique with, but in order to hone the process.
My bedtime curfew isn’t perfect at all, but I’m ready to call the TinyHabit a superhabit now. It’s a weird one, so I’ll have to see how best to advance it now that I’m used to forcing myself to a bed time.
Over the weekend I’ll have to really ponder what to do next - start a new habit (flossing? making the bed? finance tracking? A general reading habit? Social media marketing?) or advancing skills (waking up and going to bed earlier? Adding another dinner meal to my Sunday Meal Prep? A 14 day mobilization overhaul?).
In any case I’m pretty satisfied with today’s progress.
Day 647 Record Keeping (72)
Day 616 Fixed Meditation (84)
Day 493 Writing (69)
Day 33 Rowing (73)
Ok sleep, ok wakeup. One week of a perfect 84 score on SRHI for Meditation. Stopping recording that habit.
Day 631 Record Keeping (58)
Day 600 Fixed Meditation (78)
Day 477 Writing (66)
Day 17 Rowing (59)
Bad sleep, slow wakeup. First day it really was a pain to do rowing.
Day 630 Record Keeping (56)
Day 599 Fixed Meditation (78)
Day 476 Writing (62)
Day 16 Rowing (62)
Bad sleep, slow wakeup. Willpower low.
Day 629 Record Keeping (44)
Day 598 Fixed Meditation (77)
Day 475 Writing (49)
Day 15 Rowing (65)
Day 644 Eating ENDING EATING HABIT
Ok sleep, ok wakeup.
Ending Eating Habit
As I described in my last post I’ve had some serious thoughts when it comes to reformatting my eating habit, as it hasn’t concretely resulted in solid automaticity.
So I’m scratching it, a habit I’ve recorded for 644 days, and starting over from the beginning. It’s not all for naught - I think I’ve gotten a lot out of it. But I think at this point starting from the very beginning using all I’ve learned will get me to where I want faster.
However, I’m not yet going to start. I think there might be another habit I want to institute first. I’ll get into that in another post.
Day 542 Record Keeping (52)
Day 511 Fixed Meditation (80)
Day 457 Bodyweight Exercise (6 typewriter pushups - 65)
Day 384 Writing (53)
Day 557 Eating (65)
Good sleep, ok wakeup. Depressed.
How Mastery Can Adversely Affect Habit
I’ve lately been noticing how my once absolutely rock solid superhabits have become torn lose by pushing for mastery. But what’s even more interesting on closer inspection is how day-to-day the techniques I use to push mastery interfere with the solidity of habits.
Take for example my recent run. I’ve been meditating every morning after getting up from bed, and after my recent hiatus from recording, I’ve got this as my daily SRHI for fixed meditation:
Looks awesome at first. I continue with my normal course of meditating right after waking up. So I’m scoring perfectly. Mid-way through the week I decide to switch up my schedule. Why? Because I’m pushing writing, and after I do my meditation, I feel drained to really do my writing habit.
It makes sense, from a mastery perspective, to switch up my schedule to do writing first. But as you can plainly see, this has caused turbulence in my SRHI scores for meditation later on in the week.
If I look into the actual SRHI test, I notice that it’s the automaticity questions that are really getting me. I can’t honestly say it’s automatic, because the habit has been pegged to the mornings. When I do my writing, THEN meditate, there’s something off. It’s not automatic, I have to think about it.
This is all ok at this level - my meditation has only gone down a few points, and I”m sure it’ll level out. But for other less solid habits this can cause serious problems down the road.
My writing habit, which was incredibly strong, has fallen a part specifically because of hard knocks from another vector - just pushing the habit. Eating has always been unstable because it’s not pegged to anything, it’s a floating habit.
I have a feeling that skillfully dealing with these protuberances are at the heart of success in this entire project.
Day 540 Record Keeping (66)
Day 509 Fixed Meditation (83)
Day 455 Bodyweight Exercise (5 typewriter pushups - 70)
Day 382 Writing (56)
Day 555 Eating (63)
Ok sleep, ok wakeup. Depressed a lot of the day. My routine is still un-fluid - I’m still battling jet lag and moving time zones - sleep cycle is really off. Despite that I’m working with these habits. Changing my schedule so the hardest task - writing - was first is really a good thing. It just feels so much easier.
I’m thinking that I might have to change up schedules like this anytime I’m really pushing a skill towards mastery.
Day 539 Record Keeping (58)
Day 508 Fixed Meditation (84)
Day 454 Bodyweight Exercise (4 typewriter pushups - 73)
Day 381 Writing (47)
Day 554 Eating (65)
Ok sleep, ok wakeup. Switching up my schedule worked great for writing. Got stuck trying to figure out what I should do for my workout schedule - I want to do cardio interspersed with my bodyweight plan, but got stuck thinking about it and almost didn’t do it. I think I should come up with a bunch of maxims - one maxim in this case would be something to the effect of: “Thinking about things interferes with the doing.”
Meaning I should continue what I’ve already set out to do and have a planning session that doesn’t interfere with that in order to decide what future activities will be.
Day 538 Record Keeping (55)
Day 507 Fixed Meditation (84)
Day 453 Bodyweight Exercise (3 typewriter pushups - 74)
Day 380 Writing (59)
Day 553 Eating (66)
Bad sleep, bad wakeup.
Current Status (I’m Back!)
In the last several weeks I moved to Spain. Dealt with finding an apartment. A week later, just when I was acclimatizing to the time difference, I left for India. Adjusted to the time zone there and after 10 days returned to Spain. Dealt with paperwork for residency. It’s been a week and I’m finally back!
Needless to say, this has recked havoc on my habits. I had very spotty internet in India, and somehow regularly got into a quadphasic sleep pattern, sleeping for four hours twice a day, which was incredibly discombobulating.
My record keeping is shot. Bodyweight writing, shot (the next article on my list was one I needed to do some heavy internet research for). Eating, shot - there really wasn’t much choice as to what to eat there. But surprisingly my basic bodyweight exercises have been pretty stable, AND my fixed meditation has been incredible. Made some real progress there, and got a perfect score on the SRHI today.
Not too shabby despite extreme circumstances.
I took stock today, and decided that what is best for me is to just nail my habits this week. I’m back to my basic minimums:
-2 typewriter pushups for bodyweight training
-basic meditation. I can regularly get to 3rd jhana, but I’ll settle for quality timed durations (starting with 20 minutes) of first.
-basic writing - that is 50 words on an article for work or any amount of editing
I’ll start pushing next week. On that note, today a few points came up:
-I can feel vortex forces ripping at me - I want to do everything NOW. One possible solution would be to push one habit and change what I push the next day on an alternating schedule. Lydia has done something like this and it seems to work by preventing those psychological forces from ripping apart her habits.
So, instead of selecting on thing, say writing, to push for a few weeks, I would push write on day 1, bodyweight exercises day 2, and repeat.
-Writing is a real problem right now - it’s always been tenuous - I think I went too far too fast. The step up from writing x amount of words to writing x amount of a work-related paper was too much. I didn’t sufficiently form a “ledge” like I did transitioning from pushups to typewriter pushups.
One way around this would be to treat doing x amount of work-related words as “pushing mastery”.
Also I can switch up my habit order, doing writing as soon as I get out of bed.
I’ve recently been doing meditation, which is great, but today I pushed it hard and was utterly exhausted. Depressing and frustrating in the moment, utterly forseeable in hindsight.
I think it’s really really important to make sure I know where I’m at, and what the next ledge is at all times (and I feel this should be emphasized when improving upon Timothy Ferriss’ DiSSS protocol). Having adequate metrics and a pathway to the next ledge prevents stagnation, and I feel that I’m having severe problems with that nowadays, even despite the chaotic moving/travel situations.
There’s a lot of talk on Reddit, Quora, and random online articles about all this. But what I have to remember is though the advice being given is good, it’s all about one habit. I’m now entering that intermediate stage of this project of dealing with the dissonant harmonics of trying to level up multiple habits to mastery, and that’s no easy task.
Day 507 Record Keeping
Day 476 Fixed Meditation (83)
Day 422 Bodyweight Exercise (2 form picky typewriter pushups - 81)
Day 349 Writing (editing - 71)
Day 522 Eating (77)
Day 503 Record Keeping
Day 472 Fixed Meditation (79)
Day 418 Bodyweight Exercise (2 typewriter pushups - 74)
Day 345 Writing (editing - 72)
Day 518 Eating (76)
Got really down today. Unfocused in fixed meditation. Nevertheless managed to work to resubmit my writing and made excellent food choices. If I’m calm, I have to also give myself props for doing all this despite having to move sleeping quarters today. That’s after moving two additional times before in the last 4 weeks. And that was after going on two back to back trips with travel.
Day 500 Record Keeping
Day 469 Fixed Meditation (3nd jhana, beginings of 4th? -80)
Day 415 Bodyweight Exercise (2 typewriter pushups - 72)
Day 342 Writing (pitching - 66)
Day 515 Eating (75)
Day 500! A great day! Eating has rapidly gotten automatic - I had every opportunity to cheat and just didn’t. Fixed meditation has been going great, experienced what could possibly be:
Nimitta
The nimitta is a sign that some people take to be a self emergent property of a unifying mind. I was in what I think may be third jhana and thought, why not try for 4th?
I focused on my object of visualization but it wasn’t coming clearly. I kept trying and this broad round light came into my field of vision. As I “looked” at it it gradually got smaller and focused, and as soon as I focused on it it went back to being broad again. It wasn’t a mental image, it felt more tangible, like actual sight.
I thought that perhaps I had a slight opening in my eyelids. I checked and I didn’t and it continued to occur. I had a great deal of difficulty figuring out whether or not my eyes were in fact shut.
All of these things are talked about in the literature.
In several texts 3rd jhana is where people say to start the progress of insight. When I looked at the stream of thoughts I found them much more spread a part and broken up. I never knew what people were talking about when they were saying they could see the emergent and passing away process of mind objects. But I did see it more clearly - I believe this is what is referred to by the stream of dependent origination.
Day 499 Record Keeping
Day 468 Fixed Meditation (3nd jhana? -80)
Day 414 Bodyweight Exercise (2 typewriter pushups - 71)
Day 341 Writing (writing - 73)
Day 514 Eating (67)
Day 498 Record Keeping
Day 467 Fixed Meditation (3nd jhana? -81)
Day 413 Bodyweight Exercise (2 typewriter pushups - 74)
Day 340 Writing (writing - 65)
Day 513 Eating (65)
Missed a day, but very positive today. Got a lot of work done, especially with writing and eating, and meditation. I’m thinking this might be a good way to continue.
3rd Jhana?
I realize that right now jhana progression may not be a part of this project - or rather, it may be more on task for a meditation book than anything else. Nevertheless, I feel that talking about any progressions may help with this project, and may be helpful in the future.
The other day I felt like I might have gotten to 2nd jhana. I felt the same feelings today - 1st, then a leaving of 1st and arriving at second, then felt like I got somewhere else. It matched many of the descriptions of 3rd - the dropping away of one aspect of joy, but yet a remaining intensity that was more powerful than the other jhanas.
My mind seemed to focus more, bodily awareness dropped away sharply, though not completely, and my mind felt more sheltered.
I’ve recently read an excellent book focusing on the jhanas by Doug Kraft - The Buddha’s Map: His Original Teachings on Awakening, Ease, and Insight in the Heart of Meditation .
A lot of the readings mention that jhanas progress faster after 1st. A lot of the descriptions match, but not all. It is nevertheless very exciting to see progress not matter what it is.
I like the feeling of daily bending of skills, and seeing progress, and I’d like to get to a point where I feel this same excitement in all the skills I’m working on, especially writing and bodyweight training.
These recent powerful meditations have had the added benefit of sustaining me throughout the day, and this seems really beneficial in the hours afterwards. I’ve used that to strike while the iron is hot and work on writing, the task that engenders the most fear within me.
Day 496 Record Keeping
Day 465 Fixed Meditation (2nd jhana? -82)
Day 411 Bodyweight Exercise (2 typewriter pushups - 76)
Day 338 Writing (pitching - 73)
Day 511 Eating (63)
Horrible sleep, horrible wakeup. 13 days missing, willpower and endurance has been totally drained, emotions in the dumpster. BUT, yesterday and today I got a huge surge of strength. I thought that my project had collapsed again, but today I feel totally renewed. Tomorrow I’m going to really think about the focus of my project and if I’ll be continuing marketing and dynamic meditation - I think I might be tightening up my project to focus on mastery.
Had a powerful meditation today, possibly brushed 2nd jhana. Excellent bought of writing yesterday - I thought that my DiSSS protocol training was a failure, but yesterday it was clear that I had learned an immense amount.
I don’t really know where to put this, but I feel it’s important to record all things, so here goes.
A few months ago in Barcelona I found a book called Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel Ingram. In it Ingram outlines a series of maps and guides for advanced practitioners of meditation.
In the book - and in other books and I have read by similar “hardcore” practitioners- Buddhism is painted as a path by which you not only fight the day-to-day arisings of negativity, but how you can destroy the uprisings from the source. And this is all reachable and doable. HERE is a fantastic article about this in the New York Times about a practitioner who did a retreat with Ingram.
One of the waypoints of this meditation map are several states called jhanas - altered states of consciousness, in this case caused by single pointed meditation. Last week I believe I reached the first of these states. Without a formal teacher there’s no way to ascertain it - but I read everything I could get my hands on and it seems to match the descriptions exactly. I’ve since felt myself brushing it…today I definitely got there again. There was a sense of single pointedness, of altering of perception, numbness of the body, pleasure and bliss.
I have a lot more reading to do, but the point of all this is is something entirely different. IF this is a path that works, then is there really any point of doing dynamic meditation? I’ve felt like my dynamic meditation practices have recently become lackluster. I observe my thoughts, sure, but is it really doing anything? Or should I ratchet it up - should I practice specific exercises, or use it to facilitate regimentation - specifically not thinking about work when work is complete?
What confuses the issue is that since getting to this jhana - if indeed I did get to the state - is the amount of turmoil it has seemed to arose in me. I’m filled with rage followed by calmness. Maybe it’s me sleeping badly, but I don’t know. My calm has been perturbed, and I don’t know if it’s meditation that’s causing it or if it’s some point in my habit formation project that’s causing it.
EDIT: I wrote all this yesterday without actually posting it. Today I had an excellent dynamic meditation practice - but perhaps I should expand the practice.
Day 415 Record Keeping
Day 384 Fixed Meditation
Day 330 Bodyweight Exercise (1x7 typewriter pushups)
Day 257 Writing (333 words, writing)
Day 430 Eating
Day 65 Dynamic Meditation = 75 (1 hour 10 min)
Day 12 Marketing = 66 (action)
Great sleep, great wakeup. I seem to have stabilized.
Dynamic Med Notes (1 hour 10 min):
-Towards the end several arisings of shoulders/nerves
Notes; a lot of negative arisings skittering across the surface of a greater calmness. Some of the texts talk about how states of mind are like a seat, that it’s not just a practice of being calm, it’s being seated firmly in calmness. This is something I feel is an accurate descriptor, and today I feel I’m seated solidly in equanimity.
-Multiple arisings - worry and fear as I write, with shoulders rising as it translates to physicality. But today these are all really minor. I feel like I’m getting into a groove.
-Getting a better handle at seeing frustrating pesky and small problems as PART of progress rather than antithetical to it.
Fixed Meditation Progress/Ratcheting
I’ve been reading quite a bit on the relationship between single pointed meditation and Vipassana.
The Buddhists don’t see single pointed meditation as a static state - Instead there are various levels to it. Access concentration, first Jhana, second Jhana, etc.
Many books suggest getting to access concentration in order to properly stabilize Vipassana. And indeed when I did try to switch from single pointed meditation to Vipassana it had a purifying quality. Thoughts were far more clear and distinct. It was easier to get into a calm state and let intruding thoughts arise and pass.
I’ve now started to begin with a brief relaxation using Anchoring, then switch to single pointed meditation, THEN switch to Vipassana.
I first started by concentrating on my breath - specifically the coolness of the breath as it exhales and inhales at the nostrils. I find this incredibly hard to concentrate on because I can’t really feel anything unless I breath hard. So I’ve switched to just visualizing a candle.
I find using a timer distracting. So I’m following the old advice in texts by using number of breaths as a gauge. Focus on keeping concentration for 1 breath. Then work up to 10. Today I averaged 2 breaths.
These are brutal instructions, but it is surprising how fast I’ve progressed - something I’ve noticed whenever I’ve deliberately had any scale by which to measure sustaining single pointed concentration. When you aren’t just floating in the void of no goals and no scale progress occurs. Seems obvious, but in Hinduism there isn’t much guidance like a map for progress. And without a timer or breath for a scale, you start to feel like it’s pointeless? And this is a lesson to be applied to all habits and self improvement - what’s the next goal? How do you gauge progress?
I’m still unclear what “Access concentration” means or what first jhana feels like, but I’m still researching it all.
Day 336 Record Keeping
Day 305 Fixed Meditation
Day 251 Bodyweight Exercise (1 full wall walkdown and walkup bridge)
Day 178 Writing (159 words)
Day 351 Eating = 70
Day 108 Work = 52
Good sleep, good wakeup.
Pushing Protocols
Now that I have a few days between trips and am gradually getting over my sickness, I’ve noticed there are definitely some protocols I want to update.
For fixed meditation I want to start recording different types of meditation and then cycling through them - vipassana, tantric, anchoring, and single pointed meditation (I really should go into a detailed description of these). After recently reading Dan Harris’ book, 10 Percent Happier, which reaffirmed my belief in the power of meditation, I really want to push this habit to prevent myself from falling into laxity. Another fantastic book, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book by Daniel Ingram, really emphasizes how easy it is to fail to achieve mastery while still having a regular habit. Strong habits do not equal mastery - it’s a great first step, but you gotta keep pushing.
For my eating habit, I want to start transitioning into clean refeeds. What I’ve been doing so far is not caring at all when I’m sick. I do this because I worry about being carb depleted and I know that carbs are a key component to willpower.
But during this sickness I get this sensation that I don’t really need to do that. I should definitely be eating carbs like rice or potatoes, and that might be a better strategy. The real thing is that when I cheat, I feel horrible, and it has become more and more noticeable nowadays. So that mental component, of avoiding that bloat, really helps to stabilize my eating habit during breaking points like travel and sickness.
Lastly, I want to try an experiment regarding my work habit. I’ve talked about Pavlovian training for this, but I really want to crank it up - I try to do 2 hours of work, and my minimum is 20 minutes to keep up the habit. I’m curious what will happen if I link the action to a certain sound and do it 4 times a day.
My theory is that I will increase the speed of this habits formation - which would be nice because it has been floundering for a while now.