Mindfulness

If I ever want to master one thing in life, mindfulness would be it.

I wrote briefly about how I think of learning and gaining new skills in life as climbing a tree. And how each skill or thing you learn has a tree of dependencies leading up to it. Well, I found that if you think about this, then mindfulness is really the culprit of all the optimizations you want to do in your life. You may have good intentions and perhaps have a pretty good plan, but if you don't follow through, all of that is lost. And mindfulness and being aware of what it is you are doing is needed to make that happen.

I wrote more of my thoughts on mindfulness here. I learned a lot about mindfulness and life from Alan Watts.

Notes

• Stanislav Grof, Ajahn Chah, Rupert Spira are interesting.
• It’s being mindful and living in the present moment. Not worried about the future or the past. Also, the goal of meditation is not to quit having thoughts, but to observe them, watch them without reacting and rationalizing them. This helps rewire the way your brain works similar to cognitive behavioral therapy. Typically, people who work towards this, have less anxiety and depression because they don’t react to every thought they have, which gives them a greater control of their emotions.
• I still can't think of a more important skill to learn than not immediately reacting to every stimulus. Everything worthwhile comes after this. Otherwise you are just like a pinball machine. Even if your particular pinball style is enjoyable, you are still not free or conscious
• The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.
• Anything outside of this moment is imagination.
• Get out for a regular walk in nature as part of your mental health routine. When we walk mindfully, we don’t walk to arrive anywhere, we’ve already arrived in the present moment. We don’t even do a walking meditation to make ourselves calm or happy - having goals for meditation tends to get in the way. We walk simply to enjoy each step; to be present with walking, giving ourselves permission to let go of worries about the future and regrets from the past.
• Go for a long walk (1 hour) and talk to yourself out loud. Ask yourself how you feel, why you feel the way you feel, explain to yourself what you truly think about your work, relationships etc. Be totally honest with yourself. Make sure you do this away from people so they don’t think you are crazy :-) The trick is to be two people. Yourself asking the questions and yourself answering them as honestly as possible.
• Who you are in your head—your thoughts, desires, motivations, emotions, biases—none of it means you’re a good or bad person. All that matters is your behavior. If you have to override your natural inclinations to be a good outward person, that makes you especially admirable.

Links

• Mindfulness in plain English - Started reading but did not finish it. There is a lot of interesting insights there. That once again flee from your life if you don't pay attention and practice them.
• The Book by Alan Watts - Or anything by Alan Watts.
• Mindfulness
• Sam Harris - enlightenment, real meditation, and consciousness explained (2019)
• Anxiety in product development (2020) (HN)
• Mental Wealth (2020) (HN)
• On Coding, Ego and Attention (2020) (HN)
• Being Alone (HN)
• Derek Sivers & The Art of Enough (2020) (HN)
• HN: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety (2020)
• Wellness Wisdom
• Wellness Wisdom Essay Club - Week 1
• Ask HN: What helps you improve your mood and keep your sanity? (2020)
• The Future of Breathing | James Nestor (2020)
• tree.fm - Tune Into Forests From Around The World.
• Notes on Achieving and Maintaining Mental Wellness as a Stanford PhD Candidate
• Looking Closely is Everything (2021)
• What 4 Years in Solitary Confinement Taught Me About Surviving Isolation (2020)
• Anxiety Is in Your Body, Not Your Mind (2021) (HN)
• Ask HN: Tips for handling chronic stress?
• The Path to Enlightenment (Non-Duality) (2021)
• Ask HN: How to Disconnect from Work (2021)
• How to stop overthinking (2021)
• Coa - Mental Health & Emotional Fitness.
• Слишком много переживаешь?
• Unwind - Deep Breathing Exercises.
• How to get in touch with your emotions
• Things I wish I had known when I started therapy (2021)
• Kierkegaard on Anxiety
• Guide for Healthy Minds - Curation of mental health resources to help get people access to mental health care.
• Project Healthy Minds - Confronting one of the defining issues of our generation: the mental health crisis. (Twitter)
• fit.dev - Your Physical and Mental Best. (Tweet)
• I did a Think Week on a remote Scottish island (2021) (Tweet)
• Expanding Awareness - Explores Alexander Technique and all the things it intersects with.
• What is the Alexander Technique? (2021)
• Ask HN: How do you tackle your own negativity? (2021)
• 9 Ways to ‘Rewild Your Attention’ (2021)
• Othership - Guided Breathwork App. (Tweet)
• Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice? (2021)
• Ask HN: Have you had any real benefits from apps like Headspace, Fabulous, etc? (2022)
• You can only respond to what you notice
• Ask HN: In these uncertain times, how do you handle anxiousness (2022)
• My awakening moment about how smartphones fragment our attention span (2022) (HN)
• Ask HN: What exactly is a mindfulness meditation? (2022)
• Ask HN: How to deal with overwhelming criticism and self-doubt? (2022)
• You have a sad feeling for a moment, then it passes (HN)