Rik

I'm sure you'll be just fine! Show up and do a little, the rest will come with time.

Thanks, Kit! For now I think we'll go with the recordings that do not feature the opening and closing of the hand, but definitely something to keep in mind in the future.

Hi all, hope you are doing well! I've embarked on a lying relaxation habit with a buddy. They are enjoying the recordings posted in the stickied thread, but are having some issues with the exercises involving opening and closing of the hand. The sensations of the muscles, bones, and tendons working provoke in them an extreme feeling of disgust, to the point where they have to consciously distract themselves until the specific exercise is over. Is this something someone has encountered before? And how did you deal with it? For now we're trying to pick out recordings that don't have this specific exercise in it. Are there any alternative exercises that we could be doing? P.S. When I say "exercise", I of course mean experience

Hey matt, wanted to chime in and thought this progress is looking awesome! Keep it up

I think this is a thing that becomes clear as you develop a relaxation practice. The act of relaxing is letting go of tension. Easiest way to experience it is by taking deep breath in, and letting it all out with a big "aaaaaah" sound. Relaxation practice often involves a fully body scan so I suppose that's how you "know" that you are not "hiding" tension somewhere. Air quotes because that's not the point. The point is to develop deep relaxation, and be able to access that state also outside of your practice. Whether or not there is some more even deeper or "truer" relaxation is irrelevant.

Looks good! Get a bit more of your weight further forward, so your toes float off on their own accord rather than having to push off with the toes. Here's a vid of me from 7 years ago which might help to give you another data point link Have you tried the scissoring variation?

The Alexey Guzey article is really good, would definitely recommend it. Don't skip the appendices, as it contains responses from people in the field!

Yeah, for sure. He has a site at https://vividness.live/

Interesting thread I stumbled on while at Twitter. It's about the risks and benefits of meditation. Quite level headed and clear. https://twitter.com/Meaningness/status/1356635556952772608

Thank you for mentioning this. Even though I was a participant, I found much to look at with fresh eyes rereading the entirety of it now!

Nothing quite like solving a hard problem though, eh?

I don't know, I think cognitive behavioural therapy is based on precisely the concept of arguing against your own thoughts.

From reading this post, my understanding is that what you need is to accept that you are good enough as you are. Self-improvement is not about turning a 4/10 into a 6. It's about taking something that is already really good, an 8/10, and turn it into something even better, because you want to. But if you don't feel like it, that's also fine, because you're an 8/10 anyway and that's pretty damn fine.

@jaja can you elaborate on the connection you observe between Taleb's work and GEB? I am quite familiar with both but to me they're not very alike. P.S. I think GEB isn't so much a dense book (in the sense of high amount of information per word) as well as a viscous book (in the sense of being slow to get through).

You already are a fully capable human being. You are good enough. You're not broken and your actions, mindsets are not wrong. Think of it this way: you, as a person, are a 7/10 already. That's pretty good, and you could stop there. And that would be enough, it really, honestly would. But if you want, you can become an 8/10, or maybe even a 9/10. That's what self-improvement is about: it's not about fixing yourself or about your current state not sufficing. You are good enough. Self-improvement is just everything beyond that.