Mindfulness Cheatsheet

Different sorts of mindfulness

• Meditation
  • https://www.headspace.com/meditation/techniques
• Breath work
• Philosophy (to an extent) and self discovery
• Prayer
• Reappraisal of emotions (creating new emotions like threat detection and established certainty?)
• Establishing authenticity and awareness. Reducing suggestibility
  • https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Suggestibility
• Substance use (not recommended for those with an unstable disposition). Rebooting the brain, pain systems, and consciousness
  • Carbogen
  • Oxygen therapy
  • Nitrogen
  • Ayahuasca
  • LSD
  • 5-MeO-DMT
  • Psilocybin
• As a side note: I assume that the DMT “blast-off” is due to a full sensory explosion/activation without the external input, then followed by the production of images that represent unresolved trauma or thoughts that have claimed the mind.
  • These issues often go untended to as we build defensive mechanisms to cover them up while we are still too vulnerable to do resolve them. The expectation is that the individual will eventually come back from their traumatic experience and be able to recover with the help of their tribe members.
  • However, without the same sort of peer system that we evolved to rely on, we end up building defense mechanisms to carry on without learning and growing from the experience. Telling the brain that there is a constant threat that we must stay hypervigilant for.
  • By using these psychedelic drugs under trained supervision, we are able to rewire our brains to deal with trauma and potentially recover after the experience is over. However, it is important for the individual to have a recovery plan to reconsolidate their new response to that experience. Otherwise, the individual may place too much importance on the psychedelic experience, depend on the “magic” of the drug (addiction), and resort to previously learned behaviors once they are reintroduced into their normal environment.  

Your Brain at Work (Jeremy Nixon notes)

Uncertainty:

• Watch for uncertainty creating a feeling of threat and practice identifying it.
• Watch for a feeling of reduced autonomy creating a sense of threat
• Find ways of creating choice and a perception of autonomy
• Practice reappraisal early when you feel a strong emotion coming on
• Reappraise by reinterpreting an event, reordering values, or normalizing an event, or repositioning your perspective

Expectations:

• Practice noticing what your expectations are in any given situation
• Practice setting them lower
• Find ways of coming out ahead over and over again (without reframing the truth)
• If expectations are not met, practice reappraising by remembering it’s your brain releasing dopamine in expectation and that it is not a loss on your part.