3 MINUTE MONDAY

Hi friend,

I just finished a meditation retreat in Northern California.

7 days, mostly silently, with a lot of time on the cushion.

Also no screens at all so it acted like a pretty aggressive dopamine detox too.

Reintegrating is proving challenging, it’s kind of as if all my senses have had the resolution turned up incredibly high and being back into the normal world now has way too much information being transmitted for my system to be able to handle it all.

I’ll talk about this on the show properly once my brain settles back inside my skull, in the meantime, here are some of the insights I took away from reading, reflecting and lectures from the facilitators :)

For many of us, goals are contracts to self-criticise until we succeed.
​Like running away from a monster that never gets tired, this contract makes permanent success necessary to avoid being swallowed by misery.

Forgiveness is choosing to no longer suffer the things that you cannot change.
​It is simply to give up on the hope of changing the past.
It’s awfully useless to cling to the idea of altering history.
Forgive to lighten yourself.

Your best decision making does not come from your head.
​For most of the important decisions in life, your heart decides and head then makes it happen, not the other way round.

Almost all modalities for psychological healing basically consist of two elements:

1. Get the brain into a more malleable state by creating a container that makes it feel safe to experience challenging emotions.
2. Experience these emotions inside the container, over time updating the maladaptive mental habits to be more useful in future.

Suppression is not the same thing as strength.
​People who say “you should have gotten over your wounds by now” assume that development comes with age, not work.
(and that we don’t keep accumulating wounds)

Life is always going to feel distant if you’re detached.
​If you pray at the alter of “fuck your feelings just work harder”, how can you be surprised if you achieve but don’t feel?

Alignment is harder for humans than AIs.
​As you bring more awareness to yourself, it becomes harder to not be yourself.
You will become sensitive to not being in true integrity.
Every time you lie, every time you diverge from your values, every time you don’t say what you actually mean, it’s going to feel like nails on a chalkboard.

Your mind whispers most of the important insights.
​The louder the environment, the less sensitive the equipment can be.
If your life never has silence, you will really struggle to hear the voice in the back of your mind that usually guides you correctly.

Resentment serves a purpose.
​It guards against some pain from happening again.
It’s honestly trying to help you, it’s just unskilled at it.
Resentment is more likely to ease up if you say “thank you” than “fuck you”.

Why we get sad, not mad.
​Sadness at home gets sympathy.
Anger at home gets disciplined.
Is it any surprise we so often turn anger into sadness?

Everyone is just trying to do their best and be happy with imperfect information.
​They’re going to get it wrong, and so will you.
So being gentle with everyone, including yourself, is a good starting point.

MODERN WISDOM

I do a podcast where I pretend to have a British accent.
​

This week’s upcoming episodes:

Monday.
Steve Stewart-Williams - my favourite evolutionary psychology author on the highly controversial science of sex differences. So so fascinating. Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Thursday.
David Epstein - how to feel less overwhelmed and bring more creativity into your life by using the power of constraints.

Saturday.
Robert Wright - will AI kill us all or make a utopia? The least likely scenario is anything in-between.

THINGS I'VE LEARNED

1.
​Men and women are treated differently in court.

"Research consistently shows that men are treated more harshly than women in the criminal justice system: They receive longer sentences for the same crime, even taking into account factors such as criminal history, type of offence, seriousness of offence, marital status, and childcare responsibilities.

Interestingly, male judges are more likely than female ones to go easy on female defendants." — Steve Stewart-Williams via Rob Henderson

2.
​It’s always easier to criticise than compete.

“Moving from theory to practise will cost you status.” — Jack Butcher

3.
​Politics sucks.

Politics is such a cancer that people want things to go badly for everyone when their opponents are in power." — @mmay3r

LIFE HACK

Call your mum today.

There are very times when you’ll regret doing it.
​

Big love,
Chris x

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PS
Send good vibes pls. The transition is feeling very heavy after a week meditating in silence.