❓ PLP Inquires❓

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07.28.19

Summer Music

What song just feels like summer to you? What's your summer jam? What genre of music do you prefer in the summer?

Bonus points for links.

My first thought was "In the Summertime" by Mungo Jerry, but I see someone already put that one out there.

For a lazy summer day - "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" - Otis Redding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTVjnBo96Ug

For a summer road trip - "Jessica" - Allman Brothers Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRDivUb5EeA

For everything else - anything by The Beach Boys (too obvious?)
 
Totally but I'm so ready for fall I almost don't mind.

I'm all about enjoying the four distinct seasons of the year and am generally ready for fall to begin by the end of July. But I've gotten so much accomplished this Summer that I'd really enjoy seeing the Fall weather being a bit slower on its arrival. :)
 
Most music is seaaonless for me, but the summer songs in my car are largely Taylor and Lizzo.

It turns out I AM 100% that bitch
 
Most music is seaaonless for me, but the summer songs in my car are largely Taylor and Lizzo.

It turns out I AM 100% that bitch

^^^ Me, too. "Truth Hurts" is in heavy rotation in my car.

Summertime turns me into a pop princess. My music tastes turn more melancholy in the fall.
 
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08.01.19

Are they any habits you've trained yourself in or out of your routine or thought process? How?
 
08.01.19

Are they any habits you've trained yourself in or out of your routine or thought process? How?

Going to the gym early, before I get ready for work.


I trained myself not to scratch insect bites, of course the urge is still there, but mind over matter. I don't mind, so it doesn't matter LMAO
 
08.01.19

Are they any habits you've trained yourself in or out of your routine or thought process? How?

I manipulate my habits fairly regularly as they become useful or useless (I'm very much a utilitarian). I use the CCRR method.

Cue (Make it obvious to yourself)
Craving (Make it attractive to yourself)
Response (Make it simple and easy to do)
Result (Make it satisfying to you)

Using that as an understanding of the habit, you can then invert it to break the habit.

Inverted it looks like this:

Cue (Make it invisible or impossible)
Craving (Make it unattractive to you)
Response (Make it difficult)
Result (Make it unsatisfying)

Most recently I've used this approach to change my daily workout to make it fit better into both my age and my lifestyle (I've switched to higher frequency workouts focused on flexibility and agility.)
 
I'm on a neverending journey to train my mind to be stronger than my emotions. It's often hard not to react immediately when my heart strings are pulled (or broken). That doesn't always lead to the best choices, so I often have to purposefully take a step back and give my mind a chance to figure things out. Part of doing this has left me a little skeptical and jaded, but I know it's for the greater good. I would rather take the time to think things through clearly so that I don't later have any regrets.

*Life experiences and learning when to back away or say hell no is generally the result of harsh experience. Then one day things begin to click and you get to be the one people trust for wise advice.

Your doing alright Indie, good for you!!!

As for me???

Making "to do" lists and keeping them posted where I won't misplace them. Since I began doing that again and checking the daily things off my productivity has increased and I've had fewer hindrances.
 
I'm on a neverending journey to train my mind to be stronger than my emotions. It's often hard not to react immediately when my heart strings are pulled (or broken). That doesn't always lead to the best choices, so I often have to purposefully take a step back and give my mind a chance to figure things out. Part of doing this has left me a little skeptical and jaded, but I know it's for the greater good. I would rather take the time to think things through clearly so that I don't later have any regrets.

I think that "stepping back, breathing" thing is so important. Often in modern live we develop bad habits because we feel pressured to "do something now", either internal or external pressures. A surprising amount of them are only pressures because we let them be pressures and once we learn to step by, the pressures drive up. I once had a much older person (and wiser than me) tell me that all the mistakes they made in their life were because they thought they had to make a decision right away.

I'll share two Chinese proverbs that I have found useful:

"In the course of a long journey a wise man is prepared to abandon his luggage several times."

"If you sit by the river long enough you will see the bodies of your enemies float by."
 
08.01.19

Are they any habits you've trained yourself in or out of your routine or thought process? How?

I used to smoke in high school, trained myself out of that. Though now I’m all sorts of anti smoking and cannot be around it long or I get sick.
I’ve trained myself to work out almost every morning. If I have to wake up at 4:30am, so be it even when I can’t work our, I still wake up naturally now. I love getting it out of the way and love my community of Roosters I see almost every day. They’ve become friends.

I’ve never trained myself of out being skeptical about myself and how I look. People’s motivations around me are something I always suspect and the number of people I truly trust is very, very limited. I’ve tried to fake it til I make it. Only thing that has helped me with the disliking my own body is to stop worrying about whether I’m body positive (which I think is bullshit) and feminist enough and look at it in a body neutral way. Positivity implies there’s also body negativity. Connecting to how strong I am has also helped me. But that voice is there, the one that tells me how easy distorted eating is or how easy it is to completely let myself go in the name of body positivity. There’s a balance I try to listen to more, but it isn’t a habit yet. I don’t know if it ever will be
 
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08.01.19

Are they any habits you've trained yourself in or out of your routine or thought process? How?

I’m not very good at healthy habits for their own sake and I tend to self sabotage, especially when my mental health takes a dive...

It helps to either find my motivation or to make it a bit more interesting...

I’ve known for a long time I needed to cut down on the booze. I spend a lot of time travelling and stay in hotels that reward my loyalty with free booze. And we Brits know how to drink. It was creeping up and up but I didn’t hit a rock bottom. Unlike a lot of people I know, I’ve never blacked out when drunk, I’ve never ended up in A&E, I never ended up in a strangers bed... I just knew it was too much and I couldn’t shake the feeling my life was half lived as a result.

I tried and failed to cut down time and time again. I am currently at day 119 booze free because I found my motivation. I dug deep and tried to examine what booze was really doing for me and I didn’t like the answer. Faced with the stark reality that I was using alcohol to bury my emotions, and also to cope with my sometimes crippling social anxiety I found my ‘Why’. It was hard at first but now it already feels like second nature - just a couple of nights ago I found myself at a big wig event, the sort of thing that would have terrified me sober but it didn’t even occur to me to grab one of the many glasses of wine stacked up and I happily networked with strangers with nothing stronger than an elderflower cordial...

Also I can’t be arsed exercising for exercising’s sake. I find it boring to be in a gym when there are more interesting things to do. And it seems trying to shift my wine belly is not a big enough motivation for me, so when I first started working out last year, I decided to challenge myself to cycle London to Turin virtually. I love Turin, it’s one of my favourite bits of Italy. Others may prefer prettier bits but Turin is where I can almost see the ghosts of the women of Italian resistance as I turn the grey brick corners... women like the fabulous Ada Gobetti who risked her life to run a network of safe houses for anti-fascists and smuggled weapons to resistance fighters... and thinking about Turin and women like Ada motivated me to get my lazy arse out of bed for five-fucking-thirty gym club and every day I’d take a note of how many miles I’d covered and add it to my spreadsheet as I got closer to Turin... I have also virtually cycled the route the real Allia’s memorial stone will have made from Perugia to Rome.

Now I don’t need to gamify my workout because the habit is there but I have been thinking about the fact I’ve plateaued somewhat and maybe need to find a way to interest my brain in upping my game a little... so my thinking cap is on about how to do that...

The latest thing I’m working on is apologising less... I am at a stage in my career where I am being put on a pedestal a little for young women coming through and I want them to see someone kickass, not this timid, apologetic wreak of a thing that is still unsure how she’s ended up where she is... I will get there because that’s as good a motivator as anything...
 
08.01.19

Are they any habits you've trained yourself in or out of your routine or thought process? How?

yes, many times, in, out, around, and sometimes back in again as decided. I do so by thinking of my brain like a computer program, one that has been a long running application and worked by many hands. It is full of things that aren't that important, maybe not even used anymore, but you don't actually pull it out because it has been around so long, you aren't even sure what all the subsections do, and it is a big giant maze. My brain is very much the same, it has a ton of information flying around, much not needed, conscious functions and procedural memory functions, and I can't just purge crap, but I can use conscious functions to write around and alter procedural functions, like a goto line.

A thought process for example: Ok, someone with anxiety generally has a prerecorded series of intrusive thoughts that play by a whole host of triggers. The triggers are many, but the thoughts cascade to the same subroutine. Identify the earliest part that is easily identified and only belongs to that subroutine and add a goto step to a different subroutine. Anxiety may lead to a string of "what if" thoughts, for example. Find the first "what if" in the string, and add a line after the first telling it to go to an mp3 thus the second line never runs and just the mp3 instead. At first, I would have to consciously watch to see that "what if" statement and play the song. Eventually, it will move to procedural memory and the song will play as soon as the first part of the triggered routine plays without any thought whatsoever. Similar to a craving, turn a craving for one thing into a craving for another. It is easy to rationalize in and out of a conscious thoughts, but procedural is much more ingrained. It is how we drive home, meaning to go to the grocery store, but pass it anyway. How sometimes we are miles ahead of our last memory. Why we say ouch or sorry when we collide with something, but it neither hurt nor are we sorry. The brain and body are following the procedure they have been taught. Deleting a procedure is very difficult, but altering it is not as difficult. Most habits are procedural memory, thus just saying don't do it rarely works. Instead add a new procedure and a goto line in the old procedure to point to the new.

That is my method, a minor simply alteration early in the process that effectively largely changes the process by shifting to another process.

Things get hard if like my goal is to add a workout routine to my day. Something that large, I will rationally decide to omit. But real life replacements, work, when I leave my desk to head down a certain hallway. the hallway leads to an exit, a bathroom, and a kitchen. Whether I get up to go to the bathroom or kitchen or anything, I automatically walk out the exit and walk a lap around the parking lot. it is probably only a third mile. Then I come in a different door, the door I always enter at, and then walk by the kitchen and restrooms. over the day, I might be walking 2 miles. Any time I hit the start button on my microwave at home, I turn to the sink and deal with whatever is in the sink while I wait on the microwave. It may be only two minutes, but I get something accomplished. Dancing when I vacuum. Little adds and changes that alter the routine I was performing then it becomes the routine I perform.
 
08.01.19

Are they any habits you've trained yourself in or out of your routine or thought process? How?

Oh boy, so many... when I was a teen I got pretty chunky, so I trained myself to eat differently. Then I got waaay too thin, so I trained myself again to eat differently (this was a lot harder, but also left me at a better midway point). I trained myself to concentrate for long hours at a time for my work, and to believe that some far-away goals (by no means all, I have my feet on the ground) could be reached with consistent steps in that direction. I trained myself out of feeling that my brain or what I produced as part of my job were the sum total of my worth as a person (and wow, did that one fuck me up for a while). I trained myself to try to listen more when people have something to say (at least, more than I used to...) and understand that we're all works in progress, and that being able to change my mind and adapt to changing circumstances is better than remaining rigid - eventually you hit something that breaks you. I've trained myself to be fine with people doing things differently - I used to be quite argumentative in a controlling way, but not so much now.

I'm currently retraining my notion that I cannot learn languages. It's early days, but now I have to learn :)

This would be a fun question to revisit in 5-odd years!
 
I think, in general, breaking old habits is easier than forming new habits. Don't is easy. Do is work.
 
08.06.19

Alright let's get into it, guys...

Team Cake or Team Pie? And what's the best of your team?
 
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