Self Mastery: Habits and Questions
As I look back over the last 100 days, over the 45 behaviours I tracked, there are several things that occur to me.
The first is that managing my own mind, keeping it where I want it to be is the real art. It is the centre of self mastery.
Eating well, staying dry, sleeping well, exercising, selecting the focus of my attention, managing the ebbs and flows of pain, pleasure and motivation are the habits of self mastery. I am not a master. But I am becoming one. I want to master myself.
And the tools I've used over the last 100 days are habits and questions.
Habits are the tool you use to carve the grooves in your mind so that you have a bias towards certain actions, and certain states of mind are more likely. Having a list of habits and a daily habit of checking them off (or not!), puts those habits and behaviours into my mind, and they are then more likely to be contemplated, and to be present in my awareness. I drink less, sleep more, exercise more, and have more time with my wife, kids and friends because I have habits to track. I've worked on my business, I've created art, I've responded to more emails, my heart takes less beats to keep me alive, my nervous system is better balanced. I've detected and treated a skin cancer. I've taken supplements and eaten veges and nuts more regularly.
I've been exerting my free will over my own life. Through the subtle reminders and reinforcement that comes from selecting and tracking habits.
This 100 days has had better consistency than the previous 100 days. That means I'm exerting my free will over my own life more often.
But its not only every 100 days that I make changes. To do the 45 habits, little adjustments and tweaks need to be made. And that is where the questions come in. Because when there are roadblocks to actions, there needs to be a way of clearing the obstructions to actions. Good questions seem to clarify actions and their obstructions.
What is the wisest thing to do? Wisdom being doing what it is you truly want to do.
How does this look from a long time away?
What does this mean to me? Me, being the remnant of the child with unmet needs?
Which Chris am I being? eg: Am I being hungry Chris? Or am I being shredded Chris? Am I being billionaire Chris? Or being poor Chris?
How can I make this easy?
Any tweaks?
These questions are in this order because they start from the biggest frame to the smallest. But in reality, I think I'm asking them in the reverse order. The commonest question is "Any tweaks?" Cos they are little changes to be made day by day.
Questions set the frame for my mind's analysis. Without a question, my mind has a certain habit of thinking, a well established road that it will go down. Questions seek to stop that automatic line of thinking, and force a different path. They seek to uncover the layers, the hidden, and to take my thinking down into the subconscious, the not conscious parts of my brain from which the images being shown on the screen of my brain are sourced. Remember, this is using the model of my mind with me as the watcher, viewing the screen of consciousness, onto which thoughts are presented by the sub and not conscious parts of my mind. Questions are like the controls on the movie of my mind. Fast forward, rewind, pause, step motion, chapter select, and even, different movie selection. Questions are a tool for selecting different thought patterns.
These are tools to mastering my mind.
Habits carve the grooves of free will. Questions help select the thoughts of your mind.
