Day 1697 & Horror and Vipassana

Day 1697 Record Keeping
Day 1669 Fixed Meditation (3 hours Vipassana while watching horror show)
Day 1543 Writing (6, 20 min Pomodoros)
Day 1082 Exercise (DID NOT DO)
Day 823 Mobility/Stretching (15 min, back, back erector, and shoulder smash, hip stretch)
Day 133 Flossing (All teeth)
Day 121 Monday Groceries
–
Good sleep. Really depleted and tired today for some reason. Maybe it’s the cold weather…and my lack of warm clothes.

Horror and Vipassana
Over the course of my meditations I’ve tried to practice it in real world situations. But what i’ve found is a good half step is to practice during movies - especially ones designed to draw out tension and awkwardness.

Over the weekend I got sucked into watching The Haunting of Hill House, a Netflix horror series praised for being really good.

I hate horror. I get scared really easily, I get spooked, and usually can’t really sleep well afterwards.

But while using Vipassana to keep a firm hold over my emotions, I was able to not be scared, but more importantly, actually enjoy the series.

In addition to navigating the intensity (I’m not claiming this series was intense, just that movies are designed to cause emotional ups and downs), it was a great challenge with regards to duration. I practice for three episodes today - an hour, then a break, then 2 hours at length. That’s pretty good, and definitely something I think I would have struggled with before.

The fact that I was able to enjoy it is also a great example of finding things that I tend to shirk away from, and using it as an object of meditation. The only way is through, as some meditators say!

Day 1157

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 1045 & 200 Days of Sleep Recording!!!

Day 1045 Record Keeping
Day 1017 Fixed Meditation (18 min)
Day 891 Writing (3/20 min)
Day 431 Rowing (125 15 lb kb swings, 5x25, Russian style)
Day 172 Mobility/Stretching (couch stretch)
—–
Eating
Day 269 Pantry Check (DiD NOT DO)
Day 267 Food Recording
—
Early to Rise
Day 200 Water
Day 200 Sleep Recording  (11:50|1|8|8:40)
Day 171 Bedtime Curfew
Day 9 Wakeup Alarm 65
–
Great sleep, good wakeup. Fixed meditation definitely needs to be extended - I feel like I’m just getting started when the alarm goes off for 10 minutes. That’s a good thing, especially in light of my extra time from waking up earlier. Writing went incredibly well today - managed to actually enact many of the strategies I wrote about in 12 Methods to Combat Procrastination in Habits. I did this despite wanting to procrastinate and immense amount. 

I’m also at 200 days of recording my sleep patterns! It’s funny that 200 days doesn’t seem like anything now, hahahah.

Day 1029 & 1000 Days of Meditation!!!

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 959

Day 959 Record Keeping
Day 931 Fixed Meditation (10 minutes, really good)
Day 805 Writing (5/30 min, HARD)
Day 345 Rowing (HIIT, 17 min, 30s:60s, 3200 m)
Day 86 Mobility/Stretching (couch stretch)
—–
Eating
Day 183 Pantry Check
Day 181 Food Recording
—
Early to Rise
Day 114 Water
Day 114 Sleep Recording (12:40|2:20|9|12)
Day 85 Bedtime Curfew 67
–
Great sleep. Still hitting writing hard. I’m really weirded out at how good the quality of my meditation is since dropping down from 30 minutes to 10. I’m very curious if this is something I can mix in as a general strategy for skill pushes.

Day 848

Day 848 Record Keeping
Day 820 Fixed Meditation (30 min)
Day 694 Writing (3 rounds of 30 min)
Day 234 Rowing (30 min, 5700 m) PR!!!
—–
Eating
Day 72 Pantry Check
Day 70 Recording
—
Early to Rise
Day 3 Bacon & Water 17
Day 3 Sleep Recording 18 (1:20|1:40|10:00|11:15)
—
Great sleep, great wakeup. PR in rowing! Meditation was better in quality today, but is starting to feel like it’s plateauing. 

Day 651 & The Little Details Make all the Difference - Metrics and Implementation Intention

Day 651 Record Keeping (78)
Day 620 Fixed Meditation
Day 497 Writing (74)
Day 37 Rowing (77)
Great sleep, great wakeup.  

The Little Details Make all the Difference - Metrics and Implementation Intention

I finally got around to measuring my body for a solid metric on weight loss. I have been procrastinating on this for probably a year now. It really reminded me of a talk I recently had with my mother on meditation. I was advising her on how to make it a habit, and told her that the one thing that made all the difference for me was a basic measurement tool - a stop watch. 

One of the first stories I ever read on meditation was a book called Henry Sugar and Six More, a couple of short stories by Roald Dahl. Henry Sugar is a British gentleman who becomes very very good at meditation. His tools were a candle and flame and a stop watch. Ever since reading that story, which must’ve been when I was 10, I thought about doing exactly what he did.

I laughingly told my mom that I had been procrastinating getting a stop watch for well over 2 decades. I told her that since she has a stop watch now (she only procrastinated for a week or two) she was probably going to make faster improvements than I had. But it really is true - we always seem to overlook this key ingredient.

What your skill level is now is an important piece of data - a talisman that shows us that we are indeed improving despite feeling like we are endlessly churning our legs in the mud. It’s what the quantified self movement is all about. It keeps us focused through the danger zones and keeps us moving forward, because we have evidence that we have moved forward. This is particularly key in a habit-centric formulation of self improvement, when you’re doing a task automatically, with no feeling, at least initially, of pushing a skill. 

Another, similarly overlooked talisman is implementation intention, and forming a particularly crisp if-then parameter. I formed one for my writing habit, which has been lagging since I’ve been pushing it lately. Even the most mundane of solid actions can be used to create a fold in the mind that promotes automaticity.

For me, I tend to rest and drink a glass of water after rowing. So my implementation intention now is “after I finish my glass of water after rowing I sit down and start my writing habit.” Pretty easy, but like metrics, I bowl right over it, and later on I wonder why my SRHI scores aren’t improving. And now, I can already see the improvement occurring.

I’ve been writing down little maxims in a book I carry on self improvement. From all of this I’ve extracted two:

Tools and data pertaining to metrics are invaluable to self improvement, but are almost always forgotten

The more precise the implementation intention, the stronger and quicker automaticity ensues.

Day 618

Day 618 Record Keeping (25)
Day 587 Fixed Meditation (60)
Day 460 Writing (58)
Day 4 Rowing (35)
Day 633 Eating (50)
Bad sleep, great wakeup. Rowing is going really well. Talking to my mom about how to properly do her habits got me underscoring how to do my own - the secret that I need to work on is BJ Fogg’s notion of “Crispiness.”

If if there’s a crisp if-then, then it works. For me that’s best with rowing - I do it as soon as I get out of bed. It’s not working with recording which I do “at some point before going to bed.”

I’m starting to record my eating for the day before. It’s been all over the place. I’m glad to know that some things are well in place in comparison to before. Drinking isn’t something I do. I rarely drink cokes or other soft drinks. If I drink coffee it’s black. When I make stuff at home it’s always clean. But when I need a snack or the option isn’t there or I don’t want to cook, I’ll cheat. The whole process of getting used to cooking and shopping - that’s not down, but I’m sure I’ll get there quickly again. Just underscores just how difficult eating clean is, whatever your choice or definition of what “clean” is.

Meditation isn chugging along quite well - the “shelf” I’m at is self sustaining. Really underscores shelving as a useful manner in which to rest habits and move other habits towards mastery.

I’m doing NaNoWriMo which is that habit’s push towards mastery. As such I really need to have a new way of doing the SRHI. Because I answer some questions as though it’s for writing in general - of course I will answer frequency questions really high if I’m answering them for writing in general. But for this push, it really should be treated as a separate habit. Or should it? It’s something I need to think about more.

I’ve also started taking daily shirtless pics of myself to record progress in weight loss and muscle definition in regards to rowing, since I see that habit as being really solid and practical. It can also be easily “shelved” in a way I haven’t been able to do with habits like eating.

Day 555

Day 555 Record Keeping (77)
Day 524 Fixed Meditation
Day 470 Bodyweight Exercise (3x8 inverted bent knee rows - 69)
Day 397 Writing (82)
Day 570 Eating (80)
Great sleep, groggy wakeup. Last night was totally depleted - I don’t know if it was because of my updated workout regiment or because I had a particularly intense session of meditation. Excellent progress in my meditation. Last night I was able to get into first jhana and maintain it for two sessions of 45 minutes while watching tv. I tried it as an experiment on trying to relax. I’ll talk about this separately. Writing continuing to improve in a process oriented way as I jump the rapidly decreasing chasm of fear. Eating, also excellent. Nervous about inverted rows on the chinup bar - it slipped today, thinking about an alternative.

Day 510  & Writing Crispiness

Day 510 Record Keeping
Day 479 Fixed Meditation (83)
Day 425 Bodyweight Exercise (2 form picky typewriter pushups - 83)
Day 352 Writing (editing - 74)
Day 525 Eating (78)
Great sleep, good wakeup. 

Writing Crispiness
Noticed today that my writing “crispiness” isn’t solid. What exactly consists of a “win” for my writing habit has blurred - is it editing, is it writing, how much? Should I be doing my DiSSS protocol? It’s all vague and because my daily minimums are vague I don’t have a clear trajectory of improvement. 

This stems with my indecisiveness as to how to progress towards mastery. I want to lose weight, I enjoy progressing in everything, but as far as I can tell I can’t do this with everything.

I basically just need to choose and go for it. If it’s writing, it’s working up to mastery - mastery for me is being able to output a lot - pitches, following up on pitches, and completed, fully edited work, regularly. That’s hard, but a solid protocol will get me there - I know I have the capacity for it.

The protocol will also have to deal with my crazy travel schedule in the next few months. My schedule really is insane, so I should take this time to figure out ways around it.

I leave for Spain tomorrow, so I’m hoping to outline a good strategy once I’m there.

Day 498 and 3rd Jhana?

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.

The Dark Night Part II

I looked into a number of sources regarding this. In Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha Daniel Ingram describes this HERE. For Ingram it is an identity crisis where depression, swings in emotion and attention is out of phase with phenomenon. Shinzen Young describes it HERE as a difficulty in integrating the experience of no self, caused by the paper thin-ness of what you thought of as reality. “Everything that has ever given them meaning has now vanished and they flail….”

Is what I experienced a Dark Night? I think the answer is YES. Why? Because the symptoms are the same - I feel a gaping maw unlike anything I have ever experienced before - and I AM prone to depression. It’s like the death of a friend but worse. I’ve felt a dissonance - a syncopation disconnect - like the world and I are half a beat a part. And I didn’t know where to turn, because my identity is wrapped up with the future projected self. It’s definitely a Dark Night, but I got to it in a different way - the meditators usually get to it by deeper Vipassana practice, I got there through self help.

So what do I do now? Ingram and Shinzen both talk focusing on the fluctuations of awareness. Use the weirdness of focus as an object of meditation and realize that in coming to terms with this identity crisis “no self” allows the freedom to create anything you want in its place.

The Atlantic even wrote about this in 2014, and it’s been documented such that The Dark Night Project in Rhode Island exists as a sort of part research project part refuge/halfway house for people going through it, since many people have nowhere else to turn.

And though it does match some of the steps I’ve taken on the insight maps, I came at it from a different way, and I have another way through it potentially. The initial thing that started the Dark Night was contemplating how to “fall in love” with the present.

As my mom said, “You should really work on that”

The Dark Night

Yesterday I had a serious of realizations that lead to an immense depression.

I started describing the art of focusing on the present, and realized that a huge contribution to the hangups I have about my self day-to-day comes specifically from holding a future projected ideal. And this high standard results in an inability to focus on the present and fall in love with the process of self improvement and change. I’m too focused on the future, and I see the present as getting in the way.

As I described this I realized that giving up that future idealized self in order to regrip the now would, ironically, best give me the chance to have that future. I grew immensely depressed at my potential to give up that future self. So much, if not all of who I am, is put in that basket. 

Mind you, it wasn’t a wonder of whether or not I *could* do it. Oddly enough, the ability to do so seemed all too easy. The problem today became regripping the world as someone who is able to be in love with the process in the present. I vacillated between calm questioning and immense fear and sadness.

It was as though my mind was caught in between - with no clear alternative, my mind wavered shifting back and forth. 

In Buddhist circles this type of mental anguish is sometimes referred to as the Dark Night. Is this what has been happening to me?

Day 345 & Habit Depression

Day 345 Record Keeping
Day 314 Fixed Meditation
Day 260 Bodyweight Exercise (wall walk down walk up bridges)
Day 187 Writing (97 words)
Day 360 Eating = 69
Day 117 Work = 50
Great sleep, great wakeup. Incredibly ego depleted. Battling massive amounts of depression and emotional exhaustion. I feel as though no matter how much I try to do an overwhelming mountain of weight is poised above to crush me screaming “You’re a failure!” and the worst part is I start to believe it. 

Habit Depression

I’ve practiced my meditation multiple times today, and I’m trying to disassociate myself from the power of the emotion. A part of it is how difficult it is to do my work habit - it’s like pulling teeth, and I think it’s because I’m holding myself to 2 hours per day. If it were any other habit I would start with 20 minutes - a ludicrously easy habit. But somehow making it ok to do 20 minutes isn’t enough - I feel the weight AND how much work I have to do on top of that - pitching, writing, discharging PR debts.

When I feel this it combines with my anxiety over this project. Am I making any progress here at all? Am I doing anything unique. I’m reading a book about a similar topic that skims the bare minimum of interactive journalism - she did something for a year and wrote about it. Books like this are all over the place now - what’s sad is that I genuinely love this style of writing. Unfortunately this lady, and many like her, are just pumping out crap - they’re doing the bare minimum to get published, and moving on without a care in the world.

One year is nothing for this project. As I approach it I feel torn a part - should I be marketing this blog? Should I make it more click-able? I probably should if I want any of this work to see the light of day. But I can’t… I need to do it my way…but oh god today it’s just so depressing. I have this stone in my stomach - a feeling like no matter how far I get with this, I won’t be able to sell it, and I’ll have to watch while others like this lady sail past me with crap and a New York Times Bestseller.

I have to remember that I’ve had these breaking points before, where my endurance was stretched, where I fell into that feeling of churning in the mud, exerting everything and feeling like I’m getting absolutely nowhere. I’m going to do a few more meditative techniques, take a break, look over old similar times in my blog, and try my best to get through this. 

When I have moments of distance, I can see that these feelings are the battle. And I have to believe that afterwards I’ll get to habit flow, where worry-free steady improvement stretches out in front of me as far as the eyes can see.

The Holiday Effect

I just got a text message from my mom:

Can u get back by 6? I think dad wants to go to Los cucos

I was just talking about lapses in willpower caused by friends. But really it’s not just friends - it’s family as well. And this is so natural during the holiday season. I’ll call it the Holiday Effect.

It’s almost like the universe just provided me with a perfect opportunity to practice a protocol to handle this.

There’s nothing wrong with Mexican - it can be great as a high carb day. But Mexican is my kryptonite. I want nachos and flour tortillas. I have so little discipline right now.

But I know how to deal with it in theory. Using my meditations I take several steps back from the problem, and I’m also using blogging to step back. Implementation intention and mental contrasting are techniques that work. I can do this. So….

Implementation Intention:
When I go to Los Cucos tonight I will drink water instead of reaching for chips.

When I go to Los Cucos tonight I will order fajitas or something meat and veggie intensive and tell the waiter I don’t want any tortillas.

Mental Contrasting:
Positives: In nailing my eating I get to lose weight. I can lose fat. I can gain the body I need in order to do other things - like breakdancing and martial arts and more advanced bodyweight exercises like pullups and enjoying travel and take advantage of new experiences that come with that - surfing, hiking, climbing. I will look and feel great, which will increase my confidence so that I can take that energy and invest it in everything else.

I can move on from the eating habit instead of floundering. I can nail it, I can move on, and master all the other skills I need to have the life of my dreams, including writing a book on all this - techniques that will actually help other people improve in their life when it comes to fitness, but also in habit formation in general. And I will be the one who has broken through this skill that humans have yet to master.

Things stopping me: I’m hungry. When I’m hungry my discipline plummets. I love Mexican food. I will think to myself - well, I messed up the last two days, so why not forget this for today and pick it up another day?But I must know that in that path lies the destruction of this entire project. I fear this - I fear falling back into failure, and it’s hilarious because this isn’t as hard as my depression. I know that I can summon up willpower through my meditative techniques. I fear that I will just flounder on in fixing my body, and somehow that fear of moving on makes my flounder on, because I can be secure in knowing that the world is out to get me. Because if it’s out to get me than I have an excuse to not be my best.

Floundering is what everyone does in this - how many people do I know who have learned how to eat right and keep doing it for years at a time, such that it becomes a part of who they are? This is the power of real transformation, and not just floating in these concepts without any real lasting self change. And I’m afraid of being that non-changing person.

These tests always come when you’re at your weakest. But it’s a fantastic opportunity and challenge to show excellence - it’s like jumping ahead of the curve instead of just incrementally advancing. It’s a chance to gain major points if this were a game.

I’ll use this as an experiment, and we’ll see how it goes afterwards.

Day 285 & Breakdown of Discipline with Friends

Day 285 Record Keeping
Day 254 Fixed Meditation 
Day 200 Bodyweight Exercise  (stretching)
Day 127 Writing = 82 (editing meditation book)
Day 300 Eating = 57
Day 57 Work = 52
Good sleep, slow wakeup. 

Breakdown of Discipline with Friends
The last few days I had the great opportunity to visit friends I haven’t seen in a while. Discipline, of course, went down hill.

I drank more than my maximum - though to be fair, it wasn’t that much more. The first day, my food control was great, but the next two days it went completely out the window.

And on top of this, 2 days of recording went out the window - though surprisingly, I did almost everything else.

Looking back, my self discipline has improved - BUT my question is - what can I do to make it even better?

I believe that implementation intention is a fantastic way to deal with this - I need to get into the habit of writing down an implementation whenever I’m in a situation where I might feel compromised.

I am all about experiencing life and friendship to the fullest - in fact, a huge part of this project is to do just that - to master skills and habits so that I can go back into the world stronger that I was before.

But eating right isn’t an impediment to that. I could have easily gotten something at these restaurants that was a solid option. Occasionally sharing some drinks with friends, great. But does one less drink really make a difference in the bonding process? No - in fact, though it’s harder, it actually helps it because I can ask the right questions with greater control.

Before this year, I would be so down on myself for these mistakes - I’d be berating myself and feel bad for the next few days. What my meditation has taught me is that this is a waste of energy, and I will bring all my skills to bear to not waste a moment to negative emotion.

I know what I did right. I know what I did wrong. And I know how to improve. Nothing else is important, this will help me get better without dragging me down.