New domain

Way back in my second post on this site I said I was thinking about getting my own domain. I’ve now taken that step.

The new domain will be a big project and more directly useful for you. It will still be about me to an extent, but I will be more of a case study you can follow among other advice.

I’d like to thank everyone who is involved in wordpress.com as this is a fantastic service. It made me confident that wordpress was the right platform. For anyone thinking of getting their own domain, the wordpress platform (over at wordpress.org) is practically identical to the free hosting at wordpress.com

The new site is a bit basic at the moment. I’ve had to take a step backwards before I can take some leaps forward. That’s okay though. You should never be afraid of backtracking, especially if you find yourself at a dead end. In my case I saw the dead end a few months ahead, so I’m trying to save myself some work.

So, that said, take that step backwards with me now, and hop on over to improvehuman.com/blog

Meditation in the Car

For the first time since I began meditating, life got in the way enough that I couldn’t meditate properly. Around 5pm yesterday I was a passenger in the back seat of my cousin’s car, and the conversation had died down. Rather than wait for an hour or so before I got home, I decided to take this opportunity and meditate there and then.

Obviously meditating in a car is not ideal, but it is certainly possible. There are many more distractions, and I obviously cannot achieve a meditating posture, but it is still practice and most of all it made sure I continued to build meditating as a habit.

Although I’ve cut a couple of meditating sessions short, and I’ve run late for a few, I haven’t missed one session this whole month. And since there are less than 2 days remaining this month, I think I can safetly say I’ve installed it effectively as a habit.

Experience Life in the 3rd Person

Here is a thought experiment for you to try.

You may have heard some people talk about how they view life as a game. How each challenge is just another obstacle to overcome in the quest to get to the next level. I even once heard the concept of things like healthy food and sleep being like power-ups! And bad food being the opposite of power-ups (power-downs?). It is an interesting perspective and I often use it as a motivator.

I was recently inspired by Steve Pavlina to take the computer game analogy to a new level. Recently he has been exploring the belief of life being a subjective reality. In this subjective reality we are all one conscious and reality is controlled by our our thoughts.

To explains this, he draws an analogy to computer games:

Imagine a first-person video game with an on-screen avatar that you control. You can move it around and interact with other characters in the game world. In an objective reality, you perceive that character to be you. You identify with it. Everything else within the game world is therefore “not you.”

As soon as I read this, I tried imagining my body was just a character that I had inhabited “as a means of influencing the game world and helping to make changes within it”.

This perspective was very, very strange. I was able to briefly disconnect from my body and truely see it as separate from my identity.

Possibly this was an out of body experience, but I’m not sure. It’s not like I could see myself float out of my body; but that makes sense because my eyes are part of my body. But then I didn’t go blind either.

What’s the best way of explaining it?

Imagine life is normally viewed as if you are playing a character in a game. You associate yourself with that character so much that you don’t think about the fact that you are a separate person playing a game. Or if you are reading a book, you associate yourself with the main protagonist; you don’t constantly remain detached and think of yourself as being someone reading a book. But this awareness doesn’t mean you can sense any more of the game or story world. You still have to play by the rules. At least until you find find the cheat book!

If you are playing a real game, or reading a book, this awareness is often accompanied by new insights. You become aware of things outside the game such as your hunger, thirst or the fact that the phone is ringing. In this thought experiment, I also found myself becoming aware of more. Apart from feeling strange, it actually provided some benefit. First of all I was able to view myself more objectively. But more interestingly I felt my negative emotions drain away. They just weren’t possible from this perspective. Positive emotions were not possible either. I guess it was some kind of mild bliss-state, but it is difficult to explain.

I’ve only been able to hold it for a few seconds at a time so far, so I’ll give it some more practice and perhaps I’ll understand these side effects a bit more.

Give it a go yourself, and see if you can experience the same effect.

I’m now 13 Stone – 3 more pounds to go

A quick update on my fitness progression. I’m now at 13 stone (or 182 lbs). That’s a total gain of 34 lbs now, so 3 more lbs doesn’t look too difficult at all. When I reach 185 I’ll put pictures up.

At 6′3″ 185 lbs is actually still rather skinny, so don’t expect me to look amazing, yet.

But compare me with my original 148 lbs and I promise I look quite different.

Why most debates are pointless

I just watched a quick video on You Tube about evolution of the eye. I’m always drawn to the comments below these videos, possibly because I find it fascinating how pointless they usually are. Due to the lack of monitoring of the comments they usually quickly turn into an extremely heated debate.

Debates are wonderful things. They show the human mind at it’s best. Unfortunately debates also show us at our worst.

There are many ingredients required for a worthwhile debate, but I think I may have just spotted the number one reason most debates are pointless.

Seeking the truth (which should be the primary aim of a debate) takes time. In some cases a LOT of time.

Most debates I witness are constrained in someway by time, and so they never get resolved. If we are going to make maximum progress we need to keep debating with the same people over and over again, not have the same debates with many people.

Focus your debating time on a select few people and you will actually make some progress.

Pushing the Fear Barrier

My eyes were shut tight, my teeth clenched, my body stiff, my heart racing. I forced myself as far into the corner as possible, screwing myself into a trembling ball. I was hot and sweating with fear, and I had nowhere to hide. I was cornered, and I knew hiding under my desk would not save me.

I could do was hope. 9 out of 10 times that hope came through, but it didn’t feel like it was going to this time. I listened as the footsteps climbed the stairs towards my room. I tried to will them with my mind to turn right and not left. I knew this was useless but I tried anyway. What did I have to lose from trying?

My ears were stretching to hear even though I had covered them. Then I heard a distant knock. I heard my brother’s door open, and then my father’s words : “Phone call for you”

As soon as I realised it was not for me, a calmness flowed through me. I pulled myself from under the desk, took a deep breath and looked into the mirror.

I shook my head.

And I told myself this had to stop. My social paranoia was becoming extreme. I had to sort it out.

It was ridiculous. I knew it would just be one of my friends calling me to play computer games or something. Why was I so afraid of these situations; why did I have these panic attacks?

At that point, I didn’t really know the reasons; but I was aware of one thing. If I didn’t get it under control, if I didn’t fight through that fear, it would hold me back for the rest of my life.

I knew very well that I couldn’t trust myself to face my fear in the short term, so I committed to taking on challenges down the line. I decided to go to college and make new friends rather than stay at school, I took a job in a shop which would involve dealing with strangers, I decided to go to university where I knew I would be stretched socially, I decided to join a drama group and eventually took on the roll of running the group, and I decided to direct a film which would force me to become a leader. I made these decisions, and I forced myself to meet these challenges.

10 years have passed since I used to hide under the desk out of fear of the phone. I’ve come a long way. Without fear I’ve now stood in front of a crowd a hundred strong with enough confidence to make them laugh.

I’ve faced my fears, and step by step I’ve become stronger.

However, reading a post over at Creating Passionate Users I was reminded I still have some distance left to travel. Most of all I still fear going out on my own and starting conversations with strangers – the small talk thing I just cannot do.

Which is why I’m planning (when I have the funds together) to go on a journey around the world to challenge my remaining fears and build my confidence strong. It will be the final stage of a decade long fight with my social fear.

Thankfully I was not prepared to sit back and let my weaknesses control me.

Becoming a Good Samaritan

If you saw someone in desperate need of help, would you offer your assistance? Imagine that person was slowly killing themselves or ruining their life in such a drastic way that they may as well be dead. Someone who is becoming a criminal. Someone who can’t get off the drink or drugs. Or maybe someone on the streets. If you could help these people turn their lives around, would you do it?

I know I wouldn’t.

That’s a difficult thing to admit, but I can’t really deny it. As much as I would like to think I would change someone’s life, the evidence is that I just ignore these people. This has been bothering me for some time. It has been nagging at the back of my mind, that I would like to do more and give more, but I don’t. I definitely have strong plans to do so in the future, but it has bothered me that I can’t do anything now.

It is in fact true that I can’t do anything on this scale now. I’m still trying to establish my own independence, and if I tried to pull someone out of the gutter now, I’d probably get dragged towards there myself. When trying to be selfless, it’s important to remember to be selfish as well. The more we look after number one, the more power we develop to help others.

But if I’m really being honest with myself, my current situation isn’t really holding me back. There’s nothing really stopping me from doing a lot more than I do right now.

Nothing except me.

But rather than beat myself up about the fact that my personality is far from perfect, I can use that realisation to start making changes.

I’ll begin small, and build.

Freedom through Discipline

Have you ever had days where you wanted to do something on the spare of the moment, but you couldn’t because you were stuck at work?

This happens a lot during the summer. Your friends invite you to the beach, but you’re so far behind with work that you have to decline. Else, you accept and spend the whole time worrying about not working.

Many of us want to live spontaneously, but that kind of attitude normally leads to the complete opposite. When you abandon your responsibilites, you soon run out of important things such as money. If you enjoy life now and worry about it later, you will pay for it down the line. Short term rewards lead to long term punishments.

Being rigid is the opposite approach. But while this can lead to success in some aspects of life (usually lots of money), you loose so much freedom that money is hardly worth it. You may have a plasma screen, but who cares if you don’t ever have time to watch it?

The solution is found somewhere in the middle. You need to work hard now in order to reap the benefits later. This calls for lots of discipline because you have to know when you can afford to take time off and when you can’t. If you want to have guilt free spontanity, you must be rigid and disciplined most of the time.

One of the things I’m currently working on is getting ahead enough on my work so that I can decide, at a moment’s notice, to stop and take a week off. So while other people have to plan their holidays week’s in advance, I want to be able to take a break on a whim.

No Excuse Meditation

One of the biggest reasons a new habit fails to stick is all the excuses. These can actually be legitimate, but even legitimate excuses can be combated. The trick is to predict them and work out solutions in advance.

I’ve found that since creating my early rising challenge, other new challenges are a lot easier. So far I’ve carried out my meditation twice a day without fail. I’ve been a bit off with timing a couple of times, so I need to work on that, but I’m still doing pretty well.

However, it’s only been eight days, and after the first week habit forming tends to get more difficult. It’s easy to slack off at this point, so the next week will probably be the biggest challenge. Keeping the focus for a month is the key, and to do so we have to make sure we are ready for the excuses.

This is why I predicted the following likely excuses, and have prepared solutions to combat them:

Stress

Many take up meditation to help calm them during stressful times. Yet it is precisely during these times that we often lack time, and so let meditation slip. It is important to realise that meditation will help you see your stresses with a clearer head and allow you to deal with them more effectively. Trying to rush around when we have a lot to think about, can actually slow us down. Breaks are always important, and meditation is probably the best break there is. In stressful times you will actually cost yourself time by not meditating.

Appointments

Time also interferes when we have lots of appointments that we must meet. Ideally you would make appointments for times when you don’t meditate, but this may not always be possible. I take pride in being on time for appointments so I would not turn up late in order to meditate.

One possible solution would be to fit in a shortened meditation. Maybe just a minute or so. While this perhaps won’t be that beneficial it will make sure I keep the habit ingrained.

A better solution would be to look for places where you can get some kind of meditation in – even if it isn’t ideal. For example, if I have a dentist appointment I can meditate in the waiting room, if I’m on a flight I can meditate in the plane, if I’m on a long car journey I can pull over and take a few minutes to meditate in the car.

One I’m particularly looking forward to doing is if I’m with a friend, I may ask if they mind me finding an empty room and taking a few minutes to meditate. I’m sure some people will think this strange, but who cares? You will be revealing something about your personality that a lot of people will admire and start to identify you with.If you’re confident enough, you can even encourage others to join in.

Forgetting

The other major excuse is that I simply forget. This has actually happened and so I ended up meditating a bit late. I didn’t foresee this one, but I can stop it happening in the future. One step I’ve taken is to run through a guided visualisation of the moment where I should be meditating (right after I finish revising). This should be enough, but I’ve also added a safeguard and written a note inside my revision book. There’s no way I can forget now.

I’m bound to come up with more excuses, but I think I’ve got a handle on the major ones.

Article: Developing Visualization Skills

I have a new article posted on my main site. This one describes a method for improving your visualization skills. Although I cannot always achieve this, on occassion I can close my eyes and see images from my imagination that look totally real. The method I used to achieve this is outlined in the article. You can read it here