Thank You
Hey friends,
I am publishing the first 100 entries of my daily journals in a book called Being a Stoic during the Meta-Crisis. I’ll post more information when it is ready to purchase. Here is the sneak peek at the cover …
Tomorrow’s events:
Stoic Breath: Sunrise Edition w/ Steve Beattie.Every Monday @ 5:45 AM ET. RSVP here. 60 mins.
Flowing With Unknowingness w/ Tyson Wagner. Every Monday @ 8:30 PM ET. RSVP here. 60 mins.
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July 12, 2020
Vince Horn visited The Stoa yesterday where he introduced the concept of social meditation:
Social meditation brings the benefits of traditional silent meditation while simultaneously cultivating intimacy and strengthening bonds between humans. Social meditation is engaging in a way that only social activities can be. And social meditation provides a built-in feedback loop; when two or more people are taking turns reporting their experience in real time, there is little time for mind wandering. Meditators stay on task, thereby increasing the efficiency of training.
We were put in groups of four and did an exercise called “spontaneous thanks.” It is a very simple practice: whenever you feel a sense of gratitude you note “thank you” out loud. When I was doing this I welled up with gratitude, and I wanted to just say thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you …
I have tried various gratitude practices on and off for a long while now, this is probably the best one I’ve come across. Another good one was from the channelled self-help author Esther Hicks called rampage of appreciation. You start with something you are grateful for, then you say something else you are grateful for, then you keep going in a free-associative style.
To use Hicks’s language, it is meant to create an energetic shift, and it does create a shift when I do it. John likes to use Eric Fromm’s distinction of being mode and having mode. One mode is about sinking into the here and now, and the other mode is striving for what could be. I have been drowning in having mode for the last little while, dreaming up and acting on what could be.
I have been bombarding myself with “coulds” and the weight of them has been heavy. These gratitude practices help put me in being mode. Vince Horn and his social meditation practices might become a regular at The Stoa, and I am scouting out other innovative and beautiful practices that can put us into the being mode.
I am going to engage in a rampage of appreciation now, and I intend to do so throughout the day if I get stuck in having mode again. I am listening to Nina Simone’s Ain't Got No, I've Got Life right now, and she is modelling this rampage so beautifully ...
And what have I got?
Why am I alive anyway?
Yeah, what have I got
Nobody can take away?
Got my hair, got my head
Got my brains, got my ears
Got my eyes, got my nose
Got my mouth, I got my smile
I got my tongue, got my chin
Got my neck, got my boobs
Got my heart, got my soul
Got my back, I got my sex
I got my arms, got my hands
Got my fingers, got my legs
Got my feet, got my toes
Got my liver, got my blood
I've got life, I've got my freedom
I've got the life
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