Thought about it, snce it’s near New Year’s.
In my opinion, exercising/training/stretching atleast once a week would be a good thing for most people.
Emotional processing. Just sit or lay down for a moment and let that stuff come. Go straight into all of it. Awkward and painful moments. Frustrations… It’ll feel so much better afterward!
Something to avoid would be letting others set your standard. You set your own standard.
Read books.
Really anything, philosophy is great but some don’t have the patience for it.
If it’s graphic novels or “kids” books, it’s all good. Spend a bit of time every day reading.
Couldn’t agree more.
Secondly, never ask for book recommendations on Lemmy or Reddit. You’ll just get a list of pretentious, wanky suggestions that people pretend to like
The best fiction is sometimes just a trashy, edge-of-your-seat thriller
I wouldn’t go that far - oftentimes people actually do like those books that get name dropped for clout.
I would say if you take a recommendation and aren’t digging the book, drop it with absolutely no guilt. If something like (for example) Infinite Jest just feels like a slog with no payoff, and you just wanna kick back with something trashy, do it and fuck the haters.
But you may find you dig it - you won’t know without giving it a shot.
Never start nicotine
I’d also like to chip in that alcoholism is sneaky. Be careful with drinking
Yeah alcohol really sucks. It’s so embedded into society most people expect you to start drinking regularly as soon as you can. I think it’s getting better but still people are nowhere near as cautious about alcohol as they really should be it accounts for 10% of deaths worldwide, that is just mind boggling.
I had to avoid alcohol for a while because of a medication I was on and it drove me mad when people would press me after I said “I’m not drinking”. I think it makes people feel weird about their own alcohol use? But if they’re that self conscious, maybe they need to do some self reflection about whether their alcohol use is a problem.
A phrase I’ve been seeing more in recent years that’s a small thing that feels impactful is stuff that says “alcohol and other drugs”. It is a drug and needs to be treated with respect, and ideally caution
Does it really matter why you aren’t drinking? I tend to avoid asking questions like that especially immediately after I find out that is the case. No matter what reason someone has it won’t (or at least it shouldn’t) change there choice if I know.
That’s exactly my point, it’s a ridiculous question to ask. Like, there are so many bad outcomes to asking it.
Keep a journal. Every day just jot down how you’re feeling and what’s on your mind, what you plan to do/did. Its amazing how helpful this has been for me.
Don’t drink alcohol. It’s not good for you in any amount.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future…
sunscreen…
would be…
it.
The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists.
~ Baz
I wear a sunhat everywhere in the summer. People seem amused by it but I’m 50 and have lovely skin.
Biased take but you can’t remove meditation and mindfulness from its traditions specific goals. I get they have side benefits but therapy acting like they invested god through spreading it is just watering down what could help so many people
Do you care to elaborate?
I’ve tried getting into both a few times, to the point of noticing some benefits, but I fall off the wagon bc everything I read about it quickly goes into religious territory.
Since it appears you dislike all religion I’m not sure my main point fits your tastes but I could say many of the various goals of Buddhist meditation such as realization emptiness of self or of phenomena, realization of impermanence, especially dhyana are all absent from whitewashed or medical meditation. I would say these can all be labeled as helpful but not necessarily religious goals but ontological.
To me this does two things, one it presents a false narrative of meditation by displacing it from its thousands of years of tradition. Two, it robs the practitioners of multiple goals and benefits, instead presenting it as simply calming. Which was never its goal, except maybe samatha meditation.
Essentially, I feel western mainstream and medical meditation denies meditations long history, makes up some goals and benefits that are not within the proven one’s, all while acting like they did it themselves.
Reminds me of the Duke University Koru counseling group which gave a talk on how their program came up with walking meditation…
I hope that’s helpful or at least clear. I do prefer traditional what you would call religious Buddhist mediation but even traditional does not have to contain things you dislike. For instance traditional Chan/Zen and vipasana teachers have been quite open to all students while teaching the full meditation
Thank you for taking the time to reply and thoroughly so.
I think the best differentiation you made between ontology and religion is key. My issue with religious texts is that they (usually but not always) demand a full commitment with other practices and beliefs that I don’t find fitting for me personally, and it seems like an all or nothing approach, so I end up quitting.
Let alone as you mention how these ancient practices have been stripped of their original intentions to be made more palatable to western audiences. Not only that, but now some people have even tried to co-opt them by sticking a western religious approach, further (imo) disrespecting and confounding.
I’m being kinda contradictory, and this is why I haven’t sorted out my internal conflict between the search for inner peace -I wouldn’tbe so pretentious as to call it enlightment-, and my unwillingness to submit to religious dogma (I’ve had enough bad experiences, and not only with one religion).
Absolutely lifting weights has been my all time favorite self improvement thing, would highly recommend it
I second this as a non-sporty person. I bought a couple of barbells (15kg apiece) for use at home and 20-30 minutes of just messing around with them daily has solved so many joint aches, it’s almost ridiculous…
Just to note, the form has an impact and can cause more negatives than it solves if not done properly.
Duly noted and you are very right! I looked up a couple of simple exercises beforehand as I’m really not keen on getting a herniated disk or something.
From what I’ve seen, as long as it’s nothing fancy like advanced calisthenics and power training, the exercises are straightforward and easy to grasp.
That’s why you start off light until you get your form down then work your way up.
