Hello comrades and welcome to the second improvement megathread of May! Today is Mother's day, don't forget to call your mom.
As usual, some discussion ideas:
- Do you want to share something you've done in the previous week? Everything counts, nothing is too small.
- Do you have any goals for next week?
- Do you have any streaks? For example, "sober for one day." Feel free to post your streak every day in this thread.
- If you don't have a continuous streak, did you manage to abstain from something for a day or more?
- Did you come across some useful information or resource that might help others?
Poster caption: Glory to the mother-heroine!
Good luck with your goals!
My library provides a free headspace subscription. I really like that app tbh although if it's not free it's highly overpriced.
AFAIK, you can count breaths in and out up to an arbitrary number (like 10) or meditate with a mantra that you repeat over and over.
The real secret sauce is noticing your thoughts, literally saying to yourself "oh, that's a thought I just had," then without strongly reacting, let the thought just float away and continue with whatever you were focusing on before.
What we say to ourselves is/becomes our reality unless you take the time to realize that it's not necessarily true just because your brain said it.
Also, meditation is a good time to notice sensations in your body that you may not have realized you're having, or emotions that you didn't know you were having. As benign as "oh my weight is pressing down on the floor/my chair" and as specific as "I've got kind of a weight in my chest" and later you can figure out whether it's because you're lonely or tired or whatever.