You’re doing what?!

I’m adapting to a polyphasic sleep schedule. There’s a lot of great information at PureDoxyK’s website (http://www.puredoxyk.com/) and here (http://ohgodthechicken.com/start-up-guide/). Long story short, I’m reducing the amount of sleep I take, and spreading it out a bit over the day.

Why would you do such a thing?

Now THERE’s a question! I’ve been using monophasic (all in one big block) sleep for quite some time. Back when I was at school all day and working all night, I had a scenario where I never had a big block of sleep. For about two days, I was more-or-less stable just taking naps. I called it “grazing” sleep, instead of going for a big meal (monophasic sleep).

Much later, I read Steve Pavlina’s article series on polyphasic sleep. (Too lazy to hunt it down – just check out http://stevepavlina.com) He was using the Uberman schedule, which to me was impractical: 6 naps per day, with no real wiggle room. Not good for anybody with a job or other commitments. I was slightly bummed that I couldn’t try it out, but got on with life.

I’ve been in light levels of sleep deprivation for a while now. Recent events have put me further into sleep-dep. I’ve handled it before, but I was getting tired of it. Trying to sleep all at one go was clearly not working: I wasn’t getting the sleep I needed, nor was I doing all the things I intend to do.

At about this time, I got wind of alternate polyphasic sleep schedules. They don’t give as much time as the Uberman schedule, yet are more flexible and easier to integrate with the outside world. Since the hard part of adjusting to (any!) new sleep schedule is dealing with sleep deprivation during adaptation, I figured I was halfway there. So, I started over the weekend.

Sleep deprivation? That’s dangerous!

Yes, actually. Very. But two big points here: First, I was already experiencing enough sleep-dep that I was falling asleep during normal wakeful time, with Mountain Dew in my system. Over-amping the body isn’t especially good for you either. Secondly, the goal is to get beyond the sleep-dep adjustment phase and be rested and active while you’re awake.

So, you’re going to be tired all the time?

Just the reverse, actually. I’m still in the first week of adjustment, so I can’t stand up and point too much, but the dark circles under my eyes have actually been slowly fading. That doesn’t mean it’s been easy going; it’s a fight to get the body adjusted. Still, once the body figures out how to sleep more efficiently, you can get all the rest you need. This morning my wife and I enjoyed a bit of role reversal: I’ve never been a “morning person”, all the moreso for not getting enough sleep. Today, I was buzzing around the house doing this and that, while she was trying to get her eyes fully open. Still, she’s liking what she’s seeing thus far.

Ok, so what are you doing with the time?

Well, thus far it’s been “working like normal and doing whatever it takes to stay awake the rest of the time” This morning, I reinstalled my wife’s computer (Ok, we had Windows loaded, but nothing else. Taking a bare Windows install to fully updated, customized and comfortable takes a while if you’re not restoring from an image.

I’ve been able to stick to my twice-daily-meditations-plus-other-spiritual-exercises better than I have in a while; it’s easier to find time, and like I said, my sleep dep is actually going DOWN, so it’s easier to stay awake during lay-down guided meditation sessions.

I’ll also be using the time to work on my sites, read books that I’ve been putting off, and thus enjoy life a little more.

How do you have your sleep arranged?

Well, presently I’m using what’s called the “Everyman 2-nap” schedule. I wanted to opt for the 3-nap variant, but the numbers don’t work; couldn’t make it work and still be able to go to sleep the same time as my lovely wife. It may seem silly, but to me it’s psychologically important, so the 3-nap variant is out… at least until the scheduling changes.

So, I take my “core nap” (the longest sleep of the day) from 9PM to 1:30 AM. 4.5 hours. Then, I take my first 20-minute nap at 7:30 or 8:00. I really should be strict about it, but stuff happens. I don’t think a half-hour variance will make that much of a difference. I take my second nap at 2:00. This is handy, as I take my lunch at that time. I subsist on green smoothies (very nutritious!) during the day, so “lunch” itself doesn’t take long. So, I’m freshly rested before work and coming back from lunch. Work is getting a pretty good deal, I’d say.

So, I’m getting just shy of 5 hours of sleep per day, and 19 hours of wakefulness. That’s a little more awake time than I had previously, with the bonus of actually being properly awake during them. Were I not the eternally inquisitive sort, I might worry about getting bored, heh.

(In contrast, the aforementioned Uberman schedule uses six naps evenly spaced, yielding 20 hours of wakefulness. R. Buckminster Fuller (one of my heroes) used a similar plan, 4 naps at 30 min. each. Either way, a bit steep for the likes of me.)

All questions, comments, and other contact are of course welcome. I’m hardly the first or last person with an online presence to comment on switching to a polyphasic schedule

Oh, and a quick postscript: I’ve been off caffeine since starting on Friday, and don’t anticipate needing it. Once the body adapts, I should be all set. Nifty!

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• Stepping out into the world as a young man

• Self-hypnosis (in multiple styles)
• “transcendental” meditation
• Trance work
• Shamanism
• Various disciplines commonly referred to as “magick”
• Neuro-linguistic programming
• binaural tone technology
• breathwork
• Reiki
• EFT

…and many more.

Each has been a step in the direction of understanding myself, the world, and the interactions between them.

Presently, I am studying the Higher Balance curriculum, and I am developing more than I imagined. Before I proceed to some of my more current experiences, let me share a realization I had a couple of months ago:

A while back, I was inspired to make use of the Quantum Light Breath as a meditation practice. As I worked with it and allowed myself to open up more, I suddenly heard what (at first) I thought to be tinnitus. Initially, I panicked, as I’d never heard of this kind of reaction before.

Being the geek I am, I did some quick research via the web. There wasn’t a lot of documentation, some medical reports of tinnitus linked to breathwork. The reasoning given was that massive hyperventilation triggered a case of tinnitus. The problem was, I wasn’t hyperventilating. Granted, I was breathing deep and very consciously, but nothing like what was being described. It continued to happen when I was practicing the Quantum Light Breath, until I tapered down in pursuit of other techniques.

Fast forward a little under a year, and I find out. I’m not going to try to explain it here, as there’s a whole class on it taught by a better teacher than I. What I will share are some of my experiences with these tones.

The tones of sound are not a simple mechanical flaw in the ears, as they respond to mental action. It is an acquired skill, but I have learned to isolate a single tone (normally, there are countless tones overlapping), and then “play with it”. I can move the tone around so it seems to be coming from any direction, and so on. Presently I’m learning to isolate multiple tones and move them as well.

The thing that really surprised me was an episode from my childhood. My dad loved to listen to Simon and Garfunkel, and I heard “The Sound of Silence” more than a few times. I didn’t get the rest of the lyrics being so young (5-8 years old, we’re talking), but the concept of silence sounding like something intrigued me.

I started spending time just listening when there wasn’t any noise, trying to actively hear silence. At first, it seemed to be almost a roaring sound, but I kept listening. Eventually, the roaring gave way to the same tones I hear today. Of course, being a little kid, I didn’t know what to do with it. I got the impression that something was wrong, so I clumsily making pointless noise. Eventually, I distracted myself and didn’t hear it anymore. This episode lay forgotten until a few months ago.

I’ll be updating more as I figure out how to express my experiences without resorting to jargon.

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Lately, there’s been a lot of goings on in my life. Some would be considered “good” and some would be considered “bad”. One notable aspect has been that the amount of general stress in my life has gone up. While my meditative practice has helped with this, I was still losing ground, and didn’t know what to do.

For those of you who may remember, I’ve studied the Sedona Method. While this has been of great benefit to me, I made the (let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?) bonehead mistake of forgetting to apply it when it was needed. I was used to thinking of the technique as a “fix” for a “problem”, and not an ongoing process, much like I spoke about meditation the other day.

This has led to my stress levels getting higher and higher. This, in turn, has led to what I’m going to call “hardware glitches”: The beginning health problems I’ve been seeing recently. Today, throughout the course of the day, an event triggered me to use some of my techniques for handling tough emotions and situations. 90% of the stress, frustration, and all of that evaporated. Astonished at the result (and somewhat chagrined that I’d been doing things the hard way) I decided to have a look at the good and the bad.

The Good.

Being one to take the good news first, I focused on that first. What went right? Well, the technique I used worked the way it should (Sedona Method). The second thing that went right was that my mental trigger to use the technique fired when it was supposed to, and that saved me from mental/emotional overload. Much like Mr. Miyagi’s “Wax on, wax off”, I was primed to respond, and just needed the stimulus. Score one for the home team.

So, everything’s working. That’s good news. Yet, obviously there was a problem if I allowed myself to get pushed off balance as easily as that. So, let’s look at the bad news.

The Bad.

Ok, so everything is technically working. That is, it works when called upon. When it isn’t called upon, it doesn’t work. Makes me think of the first rules of electronics:

1. Make sure it’s plugged in.
2. Make sure it’s turned on.

So, obviously there’s something wrong in the “program” to not handle the situation. Upon closer inspection, I narrowed it down to the work environment (I was pretty sure, but had to check). Ultimately, it turned out to be that I was set to react to external events, whereas in my recently adjusted work environment, I needed to make sure to preemptively handle internal bumps and stresses. In other words, my internal monitoring was sub-par. This was partly due to the fact that with with more “hurry up and wait” going on, it was harder to steal a few seconds here and there to check my mental/emotional status.

The Game Plan.

Having figured this out, I decided to take immediate steps. First, I resolved to use the Sedona method or whatever appropriate technique at every open opportunity “whether I needed it or not”. This presented a huge relief, as I was much more able to handle what came my way. This weekend I’ll be going over what to look for to make sure I don’t get pushed this far off balance the same way again.

Practice is such an interesting word. It can mean an activity wherein you train yourself in a certain skill or ability. It can also mean a process of continual pursuit and improvement. My practice of these technologies to improve my life have given my perspective to see how to move forward, and some tools to help me do just that.

If you’d like to hear more about how to be at your best when things are at their worst, please subscribe to the RSS feed.

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I’d like to start off today with a quote I just recently discovered:

“Meditation is to religion what the laboratory is to science.”
–Paramahansa Yogananda

Myself, I would have phrased it differently, substituting the word “spirituality” for “religion” as I associate religion with dogmas and strict thought restrictions, but the principle holds just the same.

The more I meditate and the more regularly I do so, the more mental space it gives me to observe what’s going on in my life, both internally and externally. I ran a 30-day challenge back in November to meditate daily, and in January I fell off the wagon here and there. I never gave up, but I wasn’t as good about it as I wanted. In late January/early February I started meditating again. I being a man who likes to stack the deck in his favor given the proper environment, decided to try a new approach: a method whose strength was tied to it’s simplistic method. This helped, but regular meditation has helped even more, I think. I’ve been meditating twice a day (once a day in a busy/long day) ever since.

If you want to get in touch with your spirit, I cannot think of any technique, trick, or tip more effective and elegant then meditative practice. Like the quote above, it’s not something where you meditate for a while and then you’ve meditated all you need and can halt the practice. Instead view it as an ongoing process, like science. When a physicist makes a breakthrough, they don’t sit back and say “well, I’m good”. Instead, they’re interested in finding out what their breakthrough means to the Big Picture. Meditation is no different.

If you don’t know how to get started with your meditation practice, then just try a few out. There are a lot of good forms of meditation out there that can help you along. Ultimately it is about doing what works for you, and sticking to it so it gives you the results you’re seeking.

If you’d like to read more about how to make the most of your meditation, please subscribe to the RSS feed.

P.S. If you’re interested in the meditation technique I’m using, it’s called the Foundation by the Higher Balance Institute.

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Over the last few weeks, I’ve been noticing where things have gone well and where they haven’t. Discounting matters beyond my control, I find that the best of the situation is where I had a fail-safe set up.

A fail-safe is just what it sounds like: It is a setup in which any kind of failure results in a safe scenario. Simple enough of an idea, but the execution is a lot more interesting.

The Return of the Dreaded BSOD.

Having seen more than my share of them recently, the infamous Blue Screen Of Death in the Windows environment is a fail-safe. This may seem really strange, because most people associate the BSOD with the error. However, the BSOD is where the computer is halted after a system error before more extensive damage can be done. Inconvenient, yes. A herald of greater problems? Oh yeah. However, this is an excellent fail-safe as it minimizes the damage.

In another vein, I have a small confession to make: I am a big fan of the Mythbusters (really, can you say you’re surprised?). In a few scenarios, they have rigged up a full-size car with remote control devices, in effect turning a real car into a giant R/C toy. This is usually for cases where it would be too dangerous to put a human inside, but that’s beside the point: In every case, the car is rigged so that if anything goes wrong, it shuts off and stops itself (well, mostly….again, beside the point).

A few of my fail-safes:

As mentioned previously, I had started to future-post articles. This is exceptionally good since my computer up and died on me unexpectedly. I’d also been able to drastically reduce the amount of sugar in my diet and had (briefly) eliminated caffeine. The last few weeks have had all sorts of adventures, from damage to the house all the way up to the passing of a family member. The progress I’ve made itself is a veritable fail-safe, as I have a greater amount of resources upon which to draw; I was dog-tired and couldn’t keep going at one point. Chagrined that I’d come to the point, I cracked open a caffinated soda. I didn’t even finish the can, but my (relatively) clean system was able to use the infusion of sugar and caffeine to great advantage.

Back in the realm of computers, backups are the epitome of a fail-safe: Even if disaster strikes and you’re left with no way to operate, at least your data is intact. This was part of my plan and I had a few backups ready-to-go if needed. Thankfully, I was able to grab the data directly, but I knew that it was there if I needed it.

What fail-safes do you have?

I’m always interested in reading how people do things. What kind of fail-safe setup do you have in your life?

If you would like to read more about setting yourself up for success, please subscribe to the RSS feed.

(P.S. Sorry, no podcast today. I’m having a devil of a time trying to get my microphone to work with my new operating system. If push comes to shove, I’ll do this a different way. Either way, I plan to have a podcast up this upcoming Monday. Thanks for your patience.

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How often have you seen a maintenance program go unused? When I go to my grandmother’s house, I’m always having to update and run the anti-virus and antispyware software. I can tell by the timestamps that the last time this was done was….the last time I was there.

We deal with much the same thing when it comes to defragging our minds. We tend to collect all these tricks, tips, tools, and techniques . . . . and then not use them. This, ironically enough, is usually due to an aversion to the process or results of defragging. You’ll be thinking that you won’t like what you find, or “it’s a big hassle” or “I just don’t have the time” and so on. Like all such aversions, it’s lying to you. Time can be found, in any schedule. The Sedona Method can be used on-the fly. With a little practice, it can be used in real-time, so that’s not the real problem.

The real problem is that everyone I’ve ever met or read has come back to the same thing: They’re afraid of themselves in one way or another. A very powerful quote sums this up very well:

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,
but that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.

We ask ourselves,

Who am I to be brilliant,gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some, it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

-Marianne Williamson

You may be faced with some unexpected difficulty in your defragging process. It may seem like too much work or too much hassle to continue. My question becomes this: Do you truly want to stop the process, or are you allowing yourself to be manipulated into stopping. I cannot tell you where it is wise to proceed and where it is wise to stop. Once again, trust your instincts. If you truly wish to keep going, but are feeling fear, a crippling and unexplainable boredom, or some other form of resistance, take heart that you may be on to something big. At the end of your efforts, you may find newfound strength, joy, or clarity which will serve you for years and decades to come. Be good to yourself – do the work.

If you would like to read more about how to find a way to forge ahead when the resistance is against you, please subscribe to the RSS feed.

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Related Articles at Technology for Living:

• Defragging Revisited – Attachments and Aversions
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There are indirect tools to help you reach your goals while letting you use your own technique. One thing that I found a while back, and keep coming back to, is binaural tones, also known as binaural beats, hemisync, holosync, and many other names. They all basically do the same thing, as I outlined earlier in the series.

Using Binaural Beats.

There seems to be a right way and a wrong way to use them. It’s clear that the wrong way to use them would be to rely on them solely and not use any other technique. The main problem with this is that it will backfire, as you will find that you will become resistant to it as your regular, alert consciousness will learn to fight it off.

The right way would be to use it in conjunction with an existing technique that you already use, as a booster of some kind, or to use it as “training wheels”. Many guided meditations, (Like the Paraliminals and other such meditations I mentioned in the last post) use binaural beats to enhance their effectiveness. There aren’t many professionally made programs out there who actually use the binaural tones as training wheels (which I would prefer), but there are a couple that I have found: The aforementioned Higher Balance, and Mastering Astral Projection by Robert Bruce and Brian Mercer.

As I mentioned back in May of last year, there are a lot of free programs out there, but if I had to pick one tone generator program, it would be the Brainwave Generator. Not only does it have the ability to work with a light-strobe machine (I have no experience with that but it is supposed to enhance the effect), it also has an active community of users and fans who are constantly trying to find new and better uses and methods for using the program for maximum effect. Not all of them are great, but this is pioneering work in a relatively new field.

There is a saying that goes “I am the weaker for every ally that rallies to my banner.” This holds true here, in that if you get used to the binaural tones doing the work for you, you’ll find that you are faced with a steep learning curve trying to work without it. If you’re going to use binaural tones, my suggestion is to do so in moderation, as a temporary boost for an existing system, and not as a stand-alone.

If you have any experiences with binaural tones or other external aids to share, please do so in the comments

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• My Experiences with Binaural Beats
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As much as it may have seemed like I was coming down on external tools in Friday’s post, it was just a lead-in to these articles. I wanted to convey that while I like these tools for what they can do, I don’t like to rely on them.

Guided meditation is a powerful tool, in that your job is to be as relaxed as possible and to let the experience happen. This can be anything from a cleansing experience (good for defragging) to something else entirely. You can use guided meditation to face your fears, get a glance at your mental filters and sneak a peek at what’s beyond them, face parts of you that make you uncomfortable, resolve unwanted issues, work on integrating desired character traits and more.

Using Guided Meditation.

There are actually many different ways you can do this. Typically, one thinks of popping in a tape or CD, or perhaps grabbing your mp3 player. However, there are many different ways to go. One classic example, is to have someone guide you through it themselves. If you can trust the person, I would call this the ideal method, simply because you can hand the situation over to them and let them handle it. Their job is to monitor you and make sure everything goes according to plan. Your job is to relax and pay attention to the experience. In a safe environment with a trusted friend, you’ll be much better equipped to focus.

Another method would be to read them yourself. You could either record them and play them to yourself (I have gone into greater detail on that here), or read it to yourself aloud. The second one takes a bit of skill, but I’ve had some pretty good luck with it (I’ve gone into more detail on that one on my hubpage). This also maintains trust, and hearing your own voice seems to enhance it somehow, probably because you identify with the voice immediately.

Last but not least, we have the recordings. There are thousands of them out there and they run the range of excellent to atrocious. Only experience can tell you which is which. I’m not making any affiliate money with this, but if you are going to go for such recordings, I would suggest going with the Paraliminals. They’ve served me well, and have helped me get through a tight mental jam once or twice. They have a whole library of paraliminals on many topics. (Although if you’re looking for more esoteric development, you might want to check out Higher Balance, but I’ll come back to them at a later time.)

When you are looking to use recordings, remember to make sure that:

• You feel safe (i.e. you don’t feel mistrust)
• You are using a recording that actually pertains to what you’re going for, and
• The recording “feels right” to you.

Trust your gut on this one. If you start listening to something, and it feels wrong, drop it like a hot piece of metal. If on the other hand it feels like a stretch, then I would advise simply remaining open to seeing what develops, and watching yourself. If you don’t like where it’s taking you, you can still drop it. If, on the other hand, you find it empowering or a positive change, then you can take it out of your mental “sandbox” and accept it.

Above all, remember what I said on Friday: Guided meditation is great, but remember that it’s an external tool designed to create an internal change. It’s not doing anything that you can’t do yourself.

If you would like to read more about ways to sort the best from the rest for ways to expand your thinking, please subscribe to the RSS feed.

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Related Articles at Technology for Living:

• Defragging – Do the Work
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There are lots of tools out there designed to help you clear out the mental clutter. Tools designed to enhance your meditation, tools designed (in some cases) to basically meditate for you – All you have to do is listen. While they are all helpful so far as they go, there are reasons why they are side dishes for me instead of the main course.

The Advantages of External Tools.

Two such tools that I can think of right off the bat would be binaural beats/brainwave entrainment based tools and meditation recordings. There are many, many more, but these two can be used to represent the rest.

The first represents a big boost as far as getting to alpha state for meditation. By playing slightly different tones in each ear, it causes your brain to react by bridging the gap in frequency. This, in turn, puts you into alpha, or sometimes theta state, often with no real effort or practice involved. You just ride along. You can engage in a meditative practice on your own while listening, and get to states that you were unable to achieve, up until now.

The second is similar (and in many cases, includes the first in some way) but this one actually uses guided imagery and hypnotic cadence to guide you through what they wish you to experience. This can be ideal if you know what you’re doing, and have a quality recording that you can trust and use properly. I myself am rather partial to the Paraliminals put out by Learning Strategies, but as I said, they serve a secondary role, not a primary one.

The Problems With External Tools.

The problem I have with the first is that while it’s great for getting to Alpha and Theta and so on, it’s got a severe limitation in that in order for it to work, you have to use it. Except in certain circumstances (and there are a few), you aren’t trained to operate without it, meaning that you can’t operate independently. Furthermore, if you use it too much, it starts dropping in effectiveness very quickly. I’ve seen this happen time after time when I was first learning to use binaural beats.

As for the recordings, there are actually a couple of problems with this. First, there’s the trust issue. I remember I was listening to such a tape one time, and was pretty relaxed. Then, just at the edge of hearing, I caught a word fragment. Subliminal messages. That could have anything in it. I was immediately alarmed and was now inherently distrustful of that disc and the publishers.

The second problem that I have with the recordings is that like a train on a track, you’re pretty much limited to where they take you. They may give you some freedom of movement, but I’d rather learn to play an instrument, than have a collection of tuning forks.

The third problem I have with the recordings is the same one that I had with the “aid” tools: Dependence. If you want to get the benefit of the recordings, you have to listen to them. That’s not a huge problem for me, as I have them on my mp3 player. But the idea of relying on an outside source for doing internal work is one that I find rather frustrating.

Why I Prefer Internal Tools.

If I have mental/emotional techniques that I can access at will that will do the same job, I’ll use them even if it takes a while to learn. It may not be as quick or easy, and I may not be as dead-on as the external tools at first, but the payoff in the end is that I have all the tools I need inside and won’t need to depend on binaural tones, or meditation recordings to get the results that I can produce on command.

What do you think of using external tools for internal work? Do you have any experiences to share? If so, please leave them in the comments.

If you would like to read more about finding the right fit for you in terms of development, please subscribe to the RSS feed.

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I’ve been focusing a lot on newer developments, but haven’t spoken much on the classics. Why? The newer techniques have been refined and are (in theory) more sophisticated than the older techniques. They should (in an ideal world) be a concentrated or optimized version of the earlier technology, possibly with new enhancements. The problems with any new technology are the same, however: It tends to be buggy, and also will quite often suffer from compatibility issues.

In many cases, the two problems are expressed as one. Both the Sedona Method and EFT have provided great benefits to me, but each has had their fair share of detractors, claiming that it doesn’t do anything. Well, it’s entirely possible that for them, it really didn’t.

On the other hand, Almost all personal computers (and practically all servers) in the world are using processors that work basically the same way as the 8086 processor that was released in 1978. Unix, upon which Linux is based, is a powerful operating system. So much so that (from my perspective) Both Microsoft and Apple’s real improvements have been along the lines of imitating the functionality and security of Unix. The kicker? My Unix teacher liked to quip that we were studying cutting-edge 1970′s technology.

For that matter, how long have we been using knives? A good, long while. The reason? It works. Remember, the reason technology is kept or discarded is how well it works. Sending Internet packets via carrier pigeon is a novel idea, but it’s not used, simply because it would be of no practical benefit, other than a good April Fool’s joke or a stunt to pass an afternoon.

The Value of Old Technology.

What’s great about using old technology is that it has already been through many revisions. It’s solid. You don’t get unpleasant crashes or other such monkey business like you do with the newer stuff. True, it may not have as many bells and whistles. The interface may be more difficult, and it may be clunky. However, reliability is where it really shines.

Would I rather use a computer, a calculator, or a sliderule? I would prefer to use them in the order given, but I’ve used them all. Unless you’re a User Friendly character, you can’t necessarily use them interchangeably, but the principle holds. (By the way, if you check out that comic, keep reading the next few. It’s pretty good.)

Some might consider “meditation” an old technology. In a way it is. But that’s about as accurate as saying that “Windows” is an old operating system. Which variant, and what version? Vista is still pretty new (biting my tongue here), but you can trace it back 20 years or so. So to say that meditation is ancient is not necessarily false, but it is less than accurate.

I do meditate daily, oftentimes twice daily. This was kicked off by my 30-day challenge back in November, but it’s served me well. The variant isn’t as important (for our purposes) as the fact that while the version I am learning is fairly new, it’s still pretty stable, and doesn’t get too fancy. Like any older technology, it simply does what it is supposed to do. I find that I continue to reap the benefits of regular meditative practice, and it’s improving. Nowadays, I’m actually surprised when one of those mental land mines pops up. I’ve got a full arsenal for turning it into a very decorative crater planter, but the surprise of actually finding one has more of an impact than whatever it tries to accomplish.

When you’re assembling tools for your mental defragging toolbox, don’t overlook the basics, and don’t ignore old technology. It can really back you up when the latest-and-greatest jams up.

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Related Articles at Technology for Living:

• Defragging – Do the Work
• Defragging Revisited – Attachments and Aversions
• Defragging – Measure Your Results
• Defragging – Guided Meditation
• What’s he talking about now?