December of Digital Declutter

  I end my year with a digital de-clutter. 

This is largely about un-hooking from streaming. I'm tired of all that video content pinballing around in my head. I'm tired of my head. What would it feel like to be happy? More and more I see it as the ability to just rest in wellbeing.  Stop the constant search for drama. 

Once I unhook, I will have to be with my aversion. That tight cable of tension that runs through my heart, my forehead, down to my belly. What would it be like to let go?

I sit here on day 1.  The only news of the day, the tightness that holds me to the past. 

Three months

It's been three months since I posted on this blog.

What happened?

Well I started an essay on my Vipassana retreat that I hoped to finish in a weekend, and that I'm still writing.   Bliss is The New Black, frames my experience in the choice I made to binge watch the last season of Orange is The New Black, which had me taking it in on my phone up to the last minute.

I discovered on day 1 that I'd forgotten to hand in my moleskin notebook, and though I didn't write in it, I thought about writing, and I thought about narrative the whole retreat. Suffering is of course, a side effect of narrative, so there was a loopy satisfaction in considering all this.

But three months later I have a scrappy draft, but feel very far from finishing this essay, which feels more like a weight around my neck than a gift to myself or anyone else.

Begin again, in this journal, and at whatever I need to learn and let go of from this experience and this particular block.


I did, however, take this as an opportunity to re-read my blog from January:

Here's a quick list of greatest hits.

Both of my posts on one day Vipassana course

What I learned about high intensity low intensity emotions through How Emotions Are Made

My Habit House dream

In insight I had about serotonin and the right balance of hormone cocktails after reading The Obesity Code

That my struggle keeping my house clean is part of an Aversion Loop, as compared to my struggle with weight being part of a Craving Loop

The bough of healthy eating

Aversion and craving.  This is what wipes out the sprouts that never quite make it to bough in my growth.  Last week I wrote about how being in a state of high arousal can trigger some of the old habit patterns that I hold from living in ongoing trauma.  But of course, being in low arousal can trigger these too.  Being calm, the memories, the pain, the patterns, the sensations float up.  Being bored, which is the most challenging kind of low arousal state, is what triggers the craving for drama to shake things up.

I experienced this yesterday in my one day Vipassana retreat.  Of course I went into this hoping for peak meditative experiences.  I had one early in Anapana, my breath became so short and shallow it became like a small circular pump at my nostrils, and breathing became more like a quiet, beating pulse than a whole body process.  I became anxious, but with equanimity, I was able to see how this quick breathing could really help me in reacting to the inevitable stresses that arise when the past aversions and cravings arise.

Aware, equanimous. Goenka's sonorous voice became a one two anti-punch, as I sat with the subtle waves of pleasure and displeasure.  Be aware of the sensation, respond with equanimty.  Break the cycle of proliferation of aversion and craving. Old habit patterns rise up.  New habit patterns take their place, and with diligence, ardent diligence, they take root.

I ate my lunch slowly, very slowly.  So slowly, I couldn't imagine even finishing a small and simple lunch I had brought, in the time that I had.  Not if I wanted to have time to go for a walk. If I could implant this new habit, the cravings and aversions that derail healthy, wholesome eating might have the chance of making it into a bough.  But I need to be patient. Boughs don't grow overnight.  I have the advantage of looking at almost seven years of data on my weight loss and gain.  I've gained a little over a pound a year to where I now hover at the cusp of overweight and obese.   I don't want to find myself a decade from now normalizing obesity.

But more important than that, I don't want to be driven by the hungry ghost that makes that happen.  I want to be driven by the awareness and equanimity that will reverse this trend. I want to look at this graph a year from now and see a cliff, then steady ground, maybe even a valley.  That can only happen if the cravings have dried up.  The ghost has finally been allowed to find peace.

But I want to look at this graph seven years from now and see the evidence that this bough of healthy eating finally got the support it needed to flourish and mature.

Decomposing

So my innovative theory last week was that I might get somewhere by finding the pleasure in my hatred. But at a certain point I lost my willingness. I think that exploring the pleasure in hatred should be something brief, not a day long project.  It’s not the magical art of being tidy.

This morning my intentions shifted from “finding” towards “accepting. In decomposing my emotions, I’m resting more in what is, allowing the pleasure to emerge when it is ready.  Allowing the flow between calm, pleasure, arousal, displeasure to develop the force of the ocean.

I’m also becoming more aware of touch. It is the pleasure and pain sense, the one we take the most for granted, the one that can have the most impact if recovered.

That said, the biggest challenge this week is decomposing my exhaustion.  I’m not sleeping well or long enough and the exhaustion is draining my joy and wellbeing.  The pain of exhaustion is in my forehead and my face, my shoulders, my upper body.  Less T.V. more body scanning.