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a pattern I’m noticing with smart, thoughtful people is that they usually know what their problems are, they know where those problems come from, they know the intellectual steps to solve them but they get stuck there, in analysis mode, churning through insight after insight

notice the environments where you become your favourite version of yourself

the best indicator that your body feels safe where you are is spontaneous silliness

a lot of my personal growth has just been being able to say “I like this” or “I don’t like this” with increasing honesty & conviction. owning what I want to experience, without fear of criticism or rejection

my appreciation for Christianity grew immensely once I was taught to see "hell" as a metaphorical inner state of total isolation, and therefore avoiding sin is about avoiding that which separates you from others

“I’m not doing enough” puts your body into a state of fear, eliciting a freeze response, making it a self fulfilling prophecy “I’m moving towards what I most want” creates relaxation, opening up your mind to perceive more options, increasing the odds of actualization

the goal of all deep serious inner work is to become a silly little goofball once more

some people just need that one person who says “I think you’d be great at that” when it comes to their big dream I want to be that person as often as possible

I’ve talked to dozens of people about their grandest ambition and why they want it and it all comes down to “I want to feel safe & I want to love”

if you want to deeply understand someone, it’s less about interrogating them with endless questions and more about holding a warm & welcoming space for them to open up as they feel ready it’s the same with understanding your deep emotions

there’s being nice to yourself and then there’s being so nice to yourself that you have an absolute abundance of enthusiasm for life that fuels your every step

when you choose a partner, you’re choosing the version of yourself that shows up when you’re around them

it’s a bit ridiculous to say “the time you spend scrolling could be spent building a business/writing a novel/reading the classics”. sometimes that’s true but usually scrolling happens as a result of cognitive fatigue, and the idea that you can just “swap in” another intellectually demanding task means you’re treating your body/mind as a machine a better approach would be “the time you spend scrolling could be spent taking a stroll/napping/staring out the window/having a meandering conversation with a friend”. that’s both more palatable and probably what we’re actually craving when we reach for our phone: a brief break from the demands of life, and a time to let our mind relax

you can interact with your difficult emotions just like this and instantly change your relationship to them

the real status signal is a laidback and whimsical temperament

whenever I speak with someone who describes their life in articulate intellectual concepts, I know they are in the grip of fear

The Huberman stuff is significant to me because I don’t want to take psychological advice from someone who treats people like shit Like what’s the point of sun exposure in the morning if you’re not using that energy to cultivate loving relationships?

a pattern I’m noticing with smart, thoughtful people is that they usually know what their problems are, they know where those problems come from, they know the intellectual steps to solve them but they get stuck there, in analysis mode, churning through insight after insight

my appreciation for Christianity grew immensely once I was taught to see "hell" as a metaphorical inner state of total isolation, and therefore avoiding sin is about avoiding that which separates you from others

a lot of suffering is rooted in the idea that your life should be something different than it is

I spent years thinking “manifestation is so clearly bullshit, how could anyone fall for this” and then I finally watched a manifestation video where the girl was like “yeah so I wrote down exactly what I wanted every single day and visualized every single detail of how it would look & feel” and I was like okay yeah that would probably work

the gap between who you are & who you want to be does it feel like a crisis, a threat, or a fun little project?

notice the environments where you become your favourite version of yourself

one of the universe's favourite little pranks is to give a Serious Thinking Person a problem they can't think their way out of

it’s a bit ridiculous to say “the time you spend scrolling could be spent building a business/writing a novel/reading the classics”. sometimes that’s true but usually scrolling happens as a result of cognitive fatigue, and the idea that you can just “swap in” another intellectually demanding task means you’re treating your body/mind as a machine a better approach would be “the time you spend scrolling could be spent taking a stroll/napping/staring out the window/having a meandering conversation with a friend”. that’s both more palatable and probably what we’re actually craving when we reach for our phone: a brief break from the demands of life, and a time to let our mind relax

whenever I speak with someone who describes their life in articulate intellectual concepts, I know they are in the grip of fear

an extremely high level strategy for getting unstuck is to commit to the stuckness try to be 10x more stuck. act out the persona of the perfectly stuck person. indulge the stuckness. savour it. enjoy every moment of it paradoxically, by leaning into stuckness, you create relaxation. you take all the energy that was going to shaming & beating yourself up and you free it. now that energy can go towards fun. when you’re having fun, things start moving I have given this strategy to a handful of clients and used it myself and it has never failed. the only way out is through

the best indicator that your body feels safe where you are is spontaneous silliness

this perspective is true to some degree (your life does get less stressful when you get more done!) but I haven’t found it to be that useful context: I spent a lot of time in my 20s investing in systems in my life to close open loops. I was quite successful at it. I still felt drained & anxious the real lever is how you feel about the open loops, and why they matter so much it’s impossible to close all your loops! open loops are part of being human! so what is making that intolerable, for you? why is your body tensing and clenching at leaving things undone? maybe it’s less about the loops themselves and more about your relationship to them… and maybe that’s the place we can focus on, to make it easier & more joyful to both close the loops and keep them open… to not live in fear of open loops, in an endless game of whack-a-mole, but to be free to act in ways you find beautiful, from moment to moment

men develop a mother complex when they are craving the warmth of the mother, but it’s missing - whether because it’s no longer present, or it never was past a certain age, it’s RIGHT that such warmth be absent - men should no longer be orienting towards the maternal warmth as their primary compass - but in our culture there’s a lack of a clear severance ritual. there’s no initiation to teach young men “you are now past the point where you need maternal warmth” so some men feel subconsciously entitled to that warmth and also confused by its absence - thus they desperately seek it elsewhere, often from romantic relationships. they experience their longing as a wound, but they do not know to grieve it a toddler has confidence insomuch as he feels close & comforted by the mother - he wanders off to explore the world and then returns to her. but if an adult’s confidence is contingent on female approval, then we have a problem lots of therapy modalities try to bridge the gap by providing “maternal warmth” in some form or another (either therapist as proxy or teaching men to access it within themselves) but that’s still enforcing the same dependency my thoughts on this are still unformed but I suspect what’s missing is instruction that these men can access confidence in the absence of warmth & approval - a confidence disconnected from external circumstances. part of that process must be grieving what’s lost and setting it aside: “but when I became a man, I put away childish things”

a lot of my personal growth has just been being able to say “I like this” or “I don’t like this” with increasing honesty & conviction. owning what I want to experience, without fear of criticism or rejection

the clever man, the Odysseus figure, tries to "figure out" life so as to avoid suffering he thinks with the right knowledge, the right epiphanies, he can avoid the mistakes that others make. he can "skip steps" and find a shorter path to success but in trying to avoid suffering…