Tag Archives: Emotions

Boost Your Happiness in 2 Minutes

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A fellow Conscious Growth Club member connected me with the simple practice of doing an easy pose for two minutes as an effective mood booster. I’ve noticed that when I do this pose now and then, it really does make me feel noticeably happier.

The pose is very simple. Stand up straight and tall, pull your shoulders back, and rotate your arms so that your palms face forward.

Here’s a short video from a chiropractor showing how to do it:

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This TED Talk video also shares more depth about the benefits of certain poses as well as which poses weaken you. I think it’s worth a watch.

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Try the power pose from the first video for two minutes, and see how it affects you. It’s an easy thing to forget though – I remembered to do it this morning because I added it to my Daily Reminders list.

It’s easy to lose sight of the body-mind connection, and it’s wise to remember that how you use one affects your range of expression with the other.

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Your Most Daunting Open Loops

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An open loop typically refers to an unfinished project, task, or assignment. Sometimes people will extend the definition to include their major goals as well.

I’ve been finding a lot of value in extending this concept to include anything that pops into my mind where I don’t feel that I’ve achieved sufficient closure. If my mind is dedicating some internal processing cycles to a thought pattern that isn’t aligned with what I’m doing in the moment, that’s a distraction. And many of those distractions come from unresolved open loops.

These open loops could be little things, like a past memory that pops up. Or they could be significant concerns, like trying to get clarity on the coronavirus situation.

So instead of just thinking of an open loop as an incomplete item on my to-do list, I think of it as any thought pattern that pulls my mind away from what I’m doing.

Resolving Open Loops

There are multiple ways to handle an open loop:

  • Fully complete it, so it’s 100% done.
  • Make a plan for how you’ll complete it.
  • Schedule on your calendar when you’ll plan it or complete it.
  • Push it down to a Someday / Maybe list to consider later, in which case you also need a routine for regularly reviewing that list, like once per calendar quarter.
  • Delegate or outsource it to someone else, in which case you still need to follow up to make sure they finish it, so it remains an open loop for you till they get it done.
  • Let it go if you can do that, which may include forgiveness, especially forgiving yourself.

When I extended my definition of open loops to include more than just action items, I found that these solutions generally applied as well. I just needed to be more creative in how I resolve different types of open loops.

Suppose I have a past memory that bugs or disturbs me. Maybe I have some trauma associated with it. That’s an unprocessed open loop. If I don’t resolve my feelings about the memory, it could continue disrupting me for years to come. Do I really want it to do that? Probably not. Is this a problem that can be solved? Yes. It’s a mental pattern, and mental patterns can be changed. Sometimes it takes a deep and serious effort to change an entrenched mental pattern, but as with many skills, the more you practice, the more you can lean on this skill when you need it. The Stature course in particular goes deep into these skills and practices.

One approach that almost universally fails with open loops is trying to resist them. If you try to resist a memory, that doesn’t work any better than trying to resist a project. The memory or the project will remain, patiently haunting you till you deal with it more proactively.

I’ve found that if I’m flexible and creative in my approach to processing just about any kind of open loop, I can bring it to resolution over time and feel that I’ve finally closed it. When the loop feels resolved and closed, my mind can relax a little more in that one area, and I’ve freed up some otherwise stuck mental energy.

Unresolved Open Loops

Here are some types of open loops that can be resolved if you invest enough in bringing them to closure:

  • Do you have an aligned morning routine that consistently gets you off to a strong start to each day? The lack of a good morning routine is an unresolved open loop. Same goes for a decent morning routine that’s inconsistently maintained.
  • Have you figured out how to consistently eat and exercise so that you feel good, have abundant energy, and don’t fight with your health habits? If not, that’s an open loop.
  • Do you have any chronic health conditions that are probably reversible? Do you know if they’re reversible or not? Have you done whatever it takes to fix them? This may require major lifestyle and habit changes. Is it possible though? If it’s possible to solve these problems and you haven’t solved them yet, that’s a significant open loop that could distract you. Imagine if you permanently solved these problems and could finally let them go for good. Alternatively, you could deeply welcome and accept them as-is. But if you still feel some resistance towards them, that’s an open loop.
  • Are you in a misaligned relationship? Or are you single and feeling misaligned with that? If you’re not feeling good about your relationship situation, that’s an open loop. It won’t go away on its own. It will just keep nagging you till you properly address it and finally solve it. Is this a solvable problem? Yes. You may need to do a ton of inner work, but many other people have done that, and they enjoy happy relationships as a result. Knowing that other people have already created situations that you desire could nag at you endlessly till you finally close this open loop for yourself.
  • How are you handling the current coronavirus situation? Are you able to handle the uncertainty regarding what will happen next? If not, then you haven’t processed the situation well enough yet. You may still need to do some reframing till you’ve come up with a flexible and adaptable strategy. If you’re feeling off balance, that’s an open loop. It’s possible to feel balanced and grounded amidst major changes and uncertainty.

Self-control

You may see a common pattern here. All of these require great self-control and self-discipline. There’s no getting around that.

Resisting the need for self-control is itself an open loop. If you try to fight the obviousness of this, the open loop will just keep staring at you. And you’ll keep spending more mental processing cycles thinking about it again and again. And again!

Another problem is that low self-control tends to create more open loops. If you don’t muster the resolve to close these open loops, they’ll eventually pile up, which can start to feel overwhelming. Then the temptation is to sink into constant self-distraction to avoid having to deal with them. A better solution is to recognize and admit the tremendous need to work on one’s self-control, and then train yourself to build that muscle.

Many open loops look smaller and less daunting when you build your self-control. The first step is just deciding that this matters to you and that you’ll need to invest in this for life.

Putting a good plan in place can help to quiet a pesky open loop, even if the plan isn’t very good and won’t actually work. But when you create a thorough plan that you truly believe can work, the effect is even stronger.

Our lives are filled with solvable problems that we haven’t actually solved, troublesome memories that we haven’t fully integrated, and relationship troubles that we haven’t fully forgiven or released. These are open loops.

A simple realization is that if you can develop better self-control, you can close more open loops because you’ll have more capacity to do so. But how do you build more self-control? You can build self-control by closing open loops.

Start by closing the easier open loops. Don’t just settle into busywork each day. Pick some open loops that you can fully close. Then close them. It’s like training with lighter weights before you move to heavier weights.

Closing Open Loops

This is how I like to flow through my workdays. I identify open loops that I’d like to close that day. Maybe I list a bunch of smaller open loops. Maybe I decide to tackle one big open loop. Or maybe I pick an open loop that’s a meaningful slice of a larger project. Then I prefer to work single-mindedly to close these loops one by one.

Having an article idea pop into my mind is an open loop. So to close that loop, I have to write and publish the article. I prefer to do that in one sitting when possible. I virtually never outline an article one day and then write and edit it the next day since that would leave an open loop overnight. If I’m going to give my attention to an open loop, I want to bring it to some form of closure before I move on to the next task or project.

It feels much more rewarding to me to close a few open loops during a day than it feels to chip away at a bunch of projects and not fully close anything. Driving tasks to full completion is often difficult and requires great tenacity sometimes, but nothing beats the feeling of getting to 100% done.

Processing the Coronavirus Open Loop

If you were reading my blog last month, you may have noticed that I focused intently on the coronavirus situation for a while, writing many articles about it. The virus introduced a major unresolved open loop to my life and to the lives of my readers, and I wanted to give it sufficient attention to fully process it until I could achieve some form of closure with it. Every day I tried to advance my understanding of the situation, make reasoned predictions, assess the risks, and make aligned decisions for how to proceed. I couldn’t just ignore that giant open loop and stick it on the back burner.

I found this extremely helpful. It allowed me to get up to speed quickly with the new reality. This helped me determine if I needed to make any course corrections or adaptations. For instance, I decided to drop the plan to do a new workshop in the Fall. There was too much uncertainty over the viability of that idea. So that was an open loop of uncertainty that I had to resolve and close. I can always add that project back when it becomes viable again, but I find it better to close that loop for now by taking it off my plate. That way I’m not dwelling on it in the back of my mind, and I can free up that mental energy for other projects.

Like many people, I also had to do some extra processing on Trump’s depths of lying, stupidity, incompetence, and utter ridiculousness in handling the virus situation. Pretty much every day, the news headlines is some form of, “Yup… Trump is still behaving like a toddler.” Sadly I’m not joking. I have to factor in how having a moron for a President could affect my life. That’s an open loop that takes some processing to resolve, so I don’t feel knocked off balance by his endless acts of idiocy. Interestingly, this actually lead me to feel more grateful and appreciative of sane, intelligent, and honest people.

Eventually I felt that I grasped the possibilities of the coronavirus situation well enough, and I’d done what I could to practice and promote the importance of social distancing early on (when it matters most). So this no longer felt like a major open loop in my life. While it’s still an ongoing and evolving situation, I’ve settled into a way of keeping up to date that feels balanced and doesn’t distract me while I’m working on other projects. Until the situation changes in some way I didn’t already factor in, I don’t feel that it needs as much direct personal attention anymore.

Growing Stronger

If you broaden your definition of open loops, what do you see? What still needs more processing to bring those open loops to full resolution? What thoughts and feelings still nag at you?

A good test is whether you feel chill about a situation. If you still feel some tension and your mind can’t relax, there’s more processing to be done to close the loop.

I find a lot of benefit in just asking: What would it really take to fully close this loop for the rest of my life?

Then I try to be deeply honest with myself. The answer may initially seem like it would take a Herculean effort, but it only seems so relative to my current strength. If I had Hercules’ strength, then a Herculean effort would seem pretty normal. Oh… it’s another Hydra… no problem! Then I see it as a character sculpting challenge to build the necessary strength, however long it takes.

This is my preferred way to frame persistent open loops that are extremely difficult to close. They’re character sculpting challenges, inviting me to grow into a smarter and more capable human being, so I can finally close them. If I don’t accept and commit to the growth challenge, I can never hope to close those open loops, and they’ll pester me for the rest of my life. Accepting the growth challenge is the wise choice then.

Even when it’s really difficult to do so, reaching the point of full closure of a persistent open loop can be so rewarding that it’s worth pursuing. The greatest reward is to experience the character you created in order to finally close those loops.

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Consistent Awakening Times

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One challenge that can make it difficult to create a consistent daily flow is getting up at inconsistent times throughout the week. If I get up at different times that could diverge by an hour or more, I find it difficult to have a consistent morning routine.

Initially I thought it shouldn’t make a big difference if I get up at 5am, 6am, or 7am. As long as I get enough sleep, I can run through my morning routine when I first awaken.

But for some reason, it does make a difference. I find it much harder to get my mind to follow the same morning routine if I try to run through it at different times of day. That could be because the cues are different, especially if I sometimes get up before dawn and sometimes after.

Another factor is how I feel about my awakening time emotionally. Getting up at 5am feels good to me. I feel more disciplined. I love being up before dawn and already gliding through the flow of my morning when the sun greets me.

If I don’t get up till after dawn, I start my day feeling slightly disappointed. The sunlight reminds me that I blew it. I feel that I’ve missed out on that serenely beautiful pre-dawn time that anchors me to my day. If the sun catches me in bed, it means I’ve missed the boat for that day. It corrupts how I feel about the day as a whole, even if I still have a pretty good day overall.

If I sleep in late, like till 6:30am or 7am, it throws off my rhythm. I feel out of sync with what I’m supposed to be doing. When I go downstairs and it’s already light in the kitchen, I feel a bit more confused about what to do. My internal and external cues aren’t the same. I can still generally flow through a decent routine, but it’s more effortful because I have to consciously think about each step. And some part of my mind is wasting energy processing thoughts like, “I should have gotten up at 5am,” or “If I’d gotten up at 5am, I’d already have a new article published by now, which would have been lovely, but now I’m stuck in the quantum universe where I slept in late.”

For these reasons I find that the ideal solution is to awaken at a fixed time each day. That one habit anchors my day. I’ve been doing that consistently lately, and I find that it adds such a beautiful flow to my days. Every day starts with a wondrous gift.

I absolutely love getting out of bed when it’s still dark. I like knowing that I got a few things done while the rest of the world is slumbering. When I write and publish a new article early in my day, it feels like I’m making a personal development breakfast for people to gift them with when they’re ready.

I find it best to do this seven days a week. Taking a day off here and there doesn’t feel like a reward or an easing of discipline. It feels like I’m denying myself the gift of the pre-dawn time that I love so much.

This simple daily discipline is a friend. It’s a trainer. I used to resist it and fight with it a lot, especially when I was younger. I’d rebel against the need for it. And I missed out on many of life’s gifts. Now I’m in tune with the flow of those gifts, and it’s a wonderful place to be.

I like to awaken with an alarm each day. It’s my gentle invitation to begin a fresh, new day. It’s not jarring or unpleasant. It’s the wrapping paper that contains the beautiful gift of that magical morning time. I never use the snooze feature; to do so would be like pushing the gift back in someone’s face.

What’s the first gift you could give yourself to begin each day? How do your best days typically begin? What would happen if you consistently gave yourself that gift every single day?

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Personal Desires

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As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on facing personal weaknesses, one step I took to deal with such weaknesses many years ago was to brainstorm a list of qualities I wanted to experience instead of those weaknesses.

Here’s what I came up with back then:

  1. Confidence – holding a strong belief in my own self worth and my abilities
  2. Courage – the willingness to face any fear and conquer it
  3. Passion – love and zest for my life and my work
  4. Gratitude – feeling grateful that I have so many gifts and blessings
  5. Worthiness – feeling that I am a worthy person and that I deserve all my success because I’ve earned it
  6. Generosity – feeling that I always want to give more than I expect to receive
  7. Victory – feeling that I am the best in my field, because I’m willing to give more than anyone else
  8. Intelligence – making smart decisions and benefiting tremendously from the results
  9. Enthusiasm – doing my work with vigor, energy, and passion
  10. Leadership – devoting my life to evolving the planet
  11. Persistence – sticking to a task until it is complete by holding the vision of the goal in mind
  12. Humility – knowing that I must continue to make myself worthy of my success
  13. Growth – becoming a more evolved person
  14. Contribution – changing the world for the better in a significant way
  15. Being the best – consistently outperforming my competition
  16. Patience – being willing to delay gratification for bigger future rewards
  17. Wealth – feeling totally rich, being a financial wizard
  18. Drive – pursuing my goals with energy no matter what
  19. Ambition – visualizing the future as I want it to be
  20. Achievement – achieving my goals one after the other in rapid succession
  21. Success – reaching my goals successfully
  22. Speed – working quickly to accomplish tasks faster than expected
  23. Integrity – being honest with myself, keeping every promise I make
  24. Vitality – experiencing abundant energy to achieve everything I want
  25. Honesty – simplifying my life by always telling the truth
  26. Sacrifice – being willing to do without something in the present in order to achieve a better future
  27. Honor – keeping my word to myself and others
  28. Communication – being able to communicate easily with others, especially on the phone
  29. Spirituality – maintaining a connection to my higher self
  30. Order – being well organized and efficient
  31. Creativity – finding creative solutions to problems
  32. Uniqueness – following a different path from others and expressing my individuality
  33. Management – being good at managing my life and the work of others
  34. Self Esteem – feeling good about myself
  35. Health – living in a state of physical well-being, vitality, and energy
  36. Action-orientation – jumping onto opportunity and acting quickly to take advantage of it
  37. Commitment – finishing tasks that I start
  38. Concentration – being able to work for long periods of time in a state of concentrated effort
  39. Focus – keeping all my attention on the task at hand
  40. Flow – enjoying a state of peace and serenity as I work
  41. Peace – a feeling of oneness with the world and my spiritual self
  42. Faith – belief that everything that happens will turn out for the best and that I am led by a higher source
  43. Abundance – having more than enough for the rest of my life, having quick access to anything I want
  44. Mental toughness – sticking to my goals no matter what obstacles there are
  45. Open-mindedness – a willingness to be open to new opportunities and solutions
  46. Flexibility – the ability to change my approach whenever my current actions aren’t delivering the results
  47. Resourcefulness – using all the resources at my disposal and stretching to accomplish my goals
  48. Power – feeling strong, vital, and in control of my life and my destiny
  49. Responsibility – taking charge of my lot in life, knowing that I am fully responsible for my own situation
  50. Happiness – enjoying my life and maintaining a positive mental outlook
  51. Adventure – living life to the fullest
  52. Mastery – feeling that I am a master of my own destiny
  53. Wonder – feeling a sense of awe
  54. Appreciation – feeling happy for what I have and taking time to stop and enjoy it
  55. Discipline – sticking to my current tasks and goals even when progress is difficult
  56. Curiosity – asking questions to increase my knowledge and identify areas where I want new distinctions
  57. Vision – knowing exactly what I want in life
  58. Clarity – keeping a crystal-clear vision of what I want
  59. Persuasiveness – being able to influence others and persuade them to take actions that will benefit us both
  60. Service – serving the planet by utilizing my greatest talents
  61. Wisdom – making decisions wisely with consideration of their consequences
  62. Strength – having a strong character that others can quickly recognize and relate to
  63. Aggression – a go-getter in active pursuit of my goals
  64. Expert – being a master in my field of interest
  65. Efficiency – working quickly on my highest payoff tasks
  66. Take immediate action – seize opportunity as soon as I find it
  67. Investing – spend less money than I earn, invest the difference, and reinvest the returns
  68. Money is a score – seeing money as my score and working to reach higher and higher scores
  69. Planning – focusing on what I can control and creating plans to make it a reality
  70. Leverage – being able to use things without needing to understand them completely
  71. Seeing success on the other side of frustration – knowing that when frustrated, success is coming soon
  72. Determination – strong commitment to follow through on a plan in order to achieve the goal
  73. Time management – using my time wisely on my highest payoff tasks
  74. Sleeping four hours a night – and awakening with my body fully restored
  75. Love – growing closer to my wife every day
  76. Compassion – caring for other people deeply
  77. Cleanliness – keeping a clean environment, cleaning up on a regular basis
  78. Purity – living a moral, goal-oriented life that is consistent with my highest values
  79. Listening – being able to relate to others effectively by really listening deeply to them
  80. Sensuality – taking time for slow, physical pleasure
  81. Intimacy – a feeling of closeness and knowledge of another’s true self
  82. Warmth – a feeling of connection with others and feeling love towards them
  83. Humor – laughing at the world
  84. Playfulness – maintaining a child-like quality and being able to enjoy the simple things
  85. Loyalty – feeling a strong connection to those who share my path
  86. Stimulating – able to stimulate an open emotional response in others by touching them deeply

I made this list when I was in my 20s. While many of these items still resonate with me today, I estimate that about a third of them don’t, especially the ones related to victory, aggression, competition, and entitlement.

In reviewing this list today, I recognize some strong desire for more control over life, stemming from neediness and frustration. There’s a need to prove myself and to feel worthy. This list shows me why I felt stuck so often in my 20s. These values actually slowed me down.

I often see similar values expressed by people today who are just as stuck and frustrated as I was in my 20s.

Creating such a list was a good place to start though. It helped me take a conscious look at the contents of my desires. Even though my list had some problems, it gave me hope that I could keep making improvements. In the years after I brainstormed this list, I made many changes to my life – new city, new business, new relationship, and new lifestyle.

This lengthy list showed me some genuine desires that I wanted to keep working on, and it also revealed some socially conditioned desires that were actually getting in my way and slowing me down.

Looking back, I feel that I made the fastest progress not so much by focusing on what I wanted but by releasing problematic desires that slowed me down. For instance, I advanced more easily – and faster – through cooperation than competition.

The list above looks overly yang to me now. It’s represents a version of me who believed that more power and aggression was the solution to scarcity in most areas of life, which was actually counter-productive. I made smoother progress when I learned to be kinder and more patient with myself.

Nevertheless, I can still see myself in most of the items on this list. It’s gratifying to recognize that the person I am today can still feel connected to values that I cared about in my 20s. It’s nice to reflect on how much progress I’ve made in aligning with and expressing these values. My 20-something self would likely be surprised by some of the experiences I’ve had.

What’s missing from this list is trust. Today I have a really deep trust in reality. It’s one of my most important values. Unearthing that importance of trust really changed the balance and flow of my life. I lean into this trust when I write, speak, connect with people, and do creative projects. I lacked this trust in my 20s, and I can see how much that lack of trust held me back. I think that’s why my values were so aggressive back then. Since I didn’t trust life, my approach was to control as many aspects of life as I could.

Back then, I thought that the solution to many of my problems was to push harder. But I got much better results when I learned to trust more deeply, especially trusting myself and trusting reality.

Perhaps the most important shift I made since then was to repair that relationship with reality. First I worked through the logic of trust, which helped me see that I couldn’t expect to have a good life without it. Then as that mindset took hold over a period of many years, I invested in building unshakable trust in reality.

Eventually I condensed those years of realizations and experiments into a 60-day deep dive to share with others, which became the Submersion course. It’s great to see how transformational that’s been for others as well. I don’t think we can really understand trust unless we actively test and experiment with it, which is why the course includes 60 days worth of simple experiments to do – and lots and lots of reframes to remove blocks and limiting beliefs.

I encourage you to make a similar list to see what comes out of you. What do you value? What do you care about? What qualities do you wish to develop? Even if you do nothing else with your list, you may appreciate reviewing it a decade or two later to see how much you’ve grown. And such a list will also contain seeds of your future. If you really care about certain values, you’ll probably find ways to express them.

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Facing Personal Weaknesses

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Years before I started blogging about personal development, I would often feel frustrated with my character. I struggled for many years trying to get myself to do what I felt I should be doing.

One thing I did back then (which I recently found in some old files), was to create a list of what I perceived to be my personal weaknesses.

This is what I came up with at the time:

  • lack of self-discipline
  • procrastination
  • avoiding difficult or tedious work
  • poor scheduling habits
  • excessive socializing
  • poor time management
  • poor task prioritization (working on the most important task to completion)
  • lack of single-handling (sticking with a task until it is 100% complete)
  • lack of integrity
  • lack of courage (avoiding actions that cause fear or unease)
  • lack of initiative (not taking advantage of new opportunities immediately)
  • lack of clarity
    • fuzzy or uncertain goals
    • lack of a plan for achieving goals
    • lack of a clear deadline for goals
    • lack of specialization (need to master a particular field)
    • lack of directed attention to a single most important goal
    • lack of exactitude in defining my desired outcome
    • unclear thinking (trying to find a short cut to success)
  • poor emotional context to work
    • feeling uninspired
    • lack of clear rewards for completing each task
    • lack of purpose
    • lack of passion for work
    • lack of certainty
    • lack of creative freedom in the work itself (feeling trapped)
    • not feeling that I am the best at anything important
    • lack of desire
    • not enjoying the process
  • poor conditioning
    • no improvement / continuous growth plan
    • no reinforcement of short-term and long-term goals
    • no directed meditation habits
    • poor mind-body connection
    • lack of habitude (conditioning positive new habits until they become automatic)
  • lack of orderly routine
    • poor fundamental work habits
    • unclear rules
    • irregular meals
    • no clear rewards (when to see movies, socialize, take time off, take vacations, etc)
    • not knowing when to pay attention to work, finances, household duties, etc.
    • starting work too late in the day
    • lack of clear routine for physical exercise
  • poor mental endurance
  • lack of focus and concentration
    • being easily distracted
    • mental tiredness
    • no immersion in the task
  • poor financial situation
  • lack of direct income-generating activities
  • lack of money
  • small circle of influence
    • lack of competitive spirit (no competitive goals)
    • lack of peer support
    • lack of mastermind group
    • lack of new friends
  • poor distinction
    • not properly expressing my own creativity and uniqueness through my work
    • not leveraging my greatest strengths

This wasn’t a pleasant task as I recall. I had a lot of grievances about myself, and facing them collectively was daunting. There were so many interwoven problems to unravel.

In reviewing this list today, it actually makes me smile a bit while also feeling some compassion for my past self. My life is way more focused, disciplined, happy, abundant, and fulfilling today than it was back then.

This makes me wonder about the key leverage points that created major shifts along the way. And while there may have been a few, the long path forward wasn’t really about major shifts doing the heavy lifting. Results came gradually from a long-term commitment to personal growth. So the most important factors would include persistence, tenacity, resilience, and determination.

This required a long time perspective. The benefit of making a big list of character flaws was that it compelled me to face and surrender to the obvious truth: I wasn’t going to fix them all in a year no matter how hard I worked. This was going to take a lot of work and a long time to unravel over many years and probably decades. And that turned out to be accurate.

When I made that list, I was already dedicated to personal growth. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to work on my character. I also felt that if I just kept investing year after year, I’d continue to see some gains, just as I had in years past.

About a decade before I made that list, my problems were even worse. So having to deal with the many issues on that list was actually an improvement from where I started.

If there was a single key leverage point, it was the commitment to keep investing in personal growth for life – to keep learning, exploring, experimenting, seeking improvement, and to never give up no matter what.

When there was a significant advancement in a relatively short period of time though, the cause was usually social. I typically made the biggest gains when I invested in a more growth-oriented social circle. That also helped me get out of my head by seeing that my problems weren’t unique. Lots of people struggle with similar issues, and struggling together was easier – and often more fun and rewarding – than struggling alone.

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Finding Cuddle Partners

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In Conscious Growth Club, there was a recent discussion about finding cuddle partners – i.e. someone to physically cuddle with when you want – so I thought I’d turn what I shared about this into a blog post with some tips on finding cuddle partners. Obviously this will be more useful when you’re not under a virus lockdown. 😉

Basically what I shared in CGC was a list of tips for increasing the chances of finding a cuddle partner. Here’s a refined version of that:

  • Hang out with cuddle-friendly and touch-friendly people more often. Spend more time around the hugger types. This helps a lot in picking up the vibe and getting more comfortable with people offering various forms of touch.
  • Spend less time with touch-avoidant people in person, so you can do more of the previous item. Don’t invest as much time and energy in the non-hugger types of people; if you do it will probably just hold you back. You need to move away from that mindset / vibe.
  • Ask for advice from the most huggy and touchy people you know, especially if you find someone who didn’t start out that way. I definitely didn’t start out that way, and it helped to just hang out and talk to people who had touch-abundant lives. At first it seemed they had skills and experiences that were far beyond my reality, but eventually I came to see that this was an invitation to a personal growth journey.
  • Be patient with yourself, but keep leaning into this if it’s what you want. You can get there. It will just take time. You probably have some misaligned behaviors and attitudes to overcome.
  • Tell the hugger types you know that you want the most truthful feedback they can give you, so you can raise your awareness of your problematic behaviors and attitudes that could repel what you want. They probably won’t tell you truths like “you have a put-offish attitude” or “you hug like a dead bird” or “you’re coming on too aggressively” unless you invite this level of honesty from them. Then take these hard truths as invitations to grow, not as personal attacks.
  • Invite people to cuddle when you feel they might be up for it. Do this in person ideally. Commence cuddling immediately if the answer is positive. I’ll share examples of cuddle invites after this list.
  • Publicly write, speak, and share about this pursuit, so people will know you’re into in it. Don’t hide if you want different results. If anyone gives you serious flak for it, I suggest dropping them from your social circle. Who needs that kind of friction? Purge the unsupportive social riff-raff. It’s challenging enough to have growth experiences with good social support from people who respect your goals and desires. Sharing human touch is beautiful. Own that desire fully.
  • If you think there’s something wrong with cuddling or with wanting a touch-abundant life, then journal the heck out of those false beliefs till you’re ready to replace them who a more empowering frame. Note the many benefits of cuddling, including better health and happiness, you’ll understand the point of offering cuddle invitations. There are lots of people who like and appreciate cuddling, and their mindsets are aligned with experiencing it. This isn’t just about meeting your needs. You’re helping someone else meet their needs too. Cuddling is to gift to yourself and to another person.
  • Be on the lookout for more cuddle opportunities like cuddle parties or cuddle meetup groups. Ask around to see if anyone knows of one happening soon. I think one-on-one invites are much better, but cuddle parties could be a good way to get started if you think that inviting a specific person takes too much courage. You may even find a cuddle meetup group in your area.
  • If you want a super cuddly long-term partner, don’t bother investing too much time in connections with people who aren’t into cuddling, at least not while you’re interested in finding a good match. Focus on what you want, and don’t settle for partial matches. There are lots of cuddle-friendly people out there, so there’s not need to try to convince someone to stretch themselves to be into it. If you meet someone who isn’t into it, move on quickly.
  • Visualize enjoying cuddles, and smile. You can cuddle a blanket, pillow, or teddy bear for practice. Feel what you think it would feel like to be enjoying this for real.
  • Realize that there are lots of people out there who’d love more touch, so the odds of finding matches are great if you just make enough invitations.
  • When you’re ready for it, push your cuddle skills higher by cuddling two people at once, one on each side. It’s super yummy but can get a bit hot in the middle if it’s overnight, so make sure the room is cool.
  • Remind yourself that as with many other personal growth pursuits, if you just keep investing in exploration and growth, some form of abundance is likely. It’s just a matter of time.
  • A key behavioral change to focus on is making cuddle invitations. The more you invite, the more you get to experience. You can make such invitations through any medium you like: in person, phone, text, email, social media direct messages, etc.
  • With enough practice you’ll get locked into the vibe of having these experiences, so making more cuddle invitations becomes pretty natural and easy. Experience builds confidence. There’s no need to fake confidence before you have experience. It’s totally fine to be a beginner. Just be a growth-oriented beginner, and keep nudging yourself to lean into action.
  • If you’re cuddling someone who’s inexperienced with cuddling, try to be extra kind and sensitive to their needs and concerns. Also help them discover what they like. Do your part to give others a good experience, so they can feel more confident in continuing their journeys as well.

Cuddle Invites

Cuddle invites are actually very simple and may go something like this:

Me: You look super cuddlable by the way.

Her: Oh how observant you are. I’m actually one of the best cuddlers in the world!

Me: Well I’d love to cuddle you right now.

Her: That sounds yummy, but the experience might spoil you, and then you’d feel sad cuddling anyone else.

Me: You’re that good, eh?

Or…

Me: If you feel like cuddling sometime, just know that I’d definitely be up for it.

Her: Hmmm… I think that would be nice.

Me: How about right now?

Her: Okay, why not? How should we do it?

And sometimes it’s the other way around, partly due to sharing about this openly…

Her: By the way… I’ve been reading your blog for many years, so I know you really like to cuddle. I like cuddling too.

Me: Would you like to cuddle right now?

Her: Yes, that sounds really nice.

In this last scenario, it’s also common for the woman to make some comment that lets me know she’s available too. For instance, she may note that she doesn’t have a current partner, that she just went through a recent breakup, or that she’s currently in an open relationship.

Usually we’d cuddle on the spot if the invite was done in person. Or if it was online, then it would happen later of course. I was surprised that my cuddle invites resulted in about 95% yeses. I didn’t think it would be so high. But I think that’s mainly because of what I’ll share in the next section.

Playfulness

Conversations don’t normally start out like the snippets above. There may be a lot more chatting before that, usually at least 15 minutes.

This little pieces of dialog assume that we were already having a bit of a playful banter beforehand, so we already created a nice connection with some laughter.

Sharing laughs, I would say, is one of the best precursors to a cuddle invitation. Laughing together builds trust and connection. I tend to think of cuddling as rather playful too, so when there are laughs and smiles, it tends to lead nicely into cuddling if there’s mutual interest.

I remember one time I got a gentle no for a cuddle invite, and there were no laughs in our conversation beforehand. It was too serious, which made the invitation not feel as natural. And I think the lack of laughter was a sign that the connection and rapport just wasn’t there.

If a conversation is very mental, such as talking about work or business ideas, I think it would be pretty awkward to turn that towards a cuddle invitation. The vibe just isn’t proximate enough.

If you can’t be playful, it’s likely because you’ve got a clogged and crusty heart-brain connection. A poor diet is one of the main culprits there. It takes emotional energy to be playful, and the body won’t generate much emotional energy if it’s overburdened with various other problems to deal with. Hence poor health habits can indeed be a barrier to feeling playful enough to invite cuddle experiences.

Cuddle Abundance

For some people it can be a long journey to cuddle abundance. It certainly was for me. What feels natural to me now was nothing of the sort many years ago.

I think the challenge of the journey just creates extra gratitude later on though. Thanks to a super cuddly wife who loves sharing touch, I rarely go more than a few hours without some kind of touch, cuddling, or affection in each day, which is especially nice to have while under virus lockdown. I think this is probably why we don’t mind it so much.

The key is simply not to give up. It may take years to create the experiences you desire, but the time will pass anyway, so you might as well invest in growing in this area. Lean into behavioral changes such that the passage of time shows you how much progress you’ve made.

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Finding Comfort in Predictions

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On March 11 I wrote the following notes in my personal journal:

The coronavirus is currently in outbreak mode around the world. There are 125,865 known infections worldwide, with almost 81K in China. In the USA there are already 1281 infections, 7 of them in Nevada. But that’s largely due to severe under-testing.

I think the USA is in for a big reckoning, especially with Donald Trump being a complete idiot in his response to this, clearly caring more about the economy and his own self-interests than about people’s lives.

The death rate of this virus seems to be about 3-4%, a lot deadlier than the flu. There’s a good chance I’ll get infected at some point, but I’ll probably be fine. Many people won’t be fine though.

Within a matter of weeks, hospitals will be overwhelmed with patients since about 15-20% of the infected require hospitalization – for about 2 weeks. When the virus kills, the average is about 17 days till death.

This is a big deal for the planet. It’s about to become a really big deal for the USA and for Las Vegas. I doubt that enough people see this yet though.

In that same entry, I also made the following predictions as a way of wrapping my head around what I thought could be coming up:

  • The virus will spread quickly because the government response is severely lacking.
  • It will hit Las Vegas hard, especially because the Mayor is behaving cluelessly, attacking the media and defending the economics of the city more than aligning with the truth.
  • Within about 3 months, if not addressed massively and intelligently, around 1M Americans could be infected… and 100M within 4 months. But if serious countermeasures are taken soon, those numbers could be curtailed a lot.
  • Hospitals will be overwhelmed with serious cases sometime within the next month or two.
  • Many more live events and conferences of all sizes will be canceled, including sporting events, music festivals, and really anything with a substantial audience.
  • Large parts of the country (and many other countries) will go on lockdown, prohibiting unnecessary travel or public gatherings.
  • We won’t be able to go to our new fitness center at some point.
  • Lots more people will wear face masks and gloves and practice social distancing.
  • More and more people will get a clue about this with each passing week, realizing that this is real and serious.
  • Many doctors and medical staff will become overworked, and many will get sick themselves. Some will die.
  • Some people that I know will pass away this year, killed by this virus or its complications.

I often use my journal for writing down my personal predictions. I do this for a number of reasons:

  • Predictions help me wrap my head around what’s happening. It’s a way to get aligned with truth.
  • Sometimes my predictions are accurate, and sometimes they aren’t. Most of the time they’re mixed. By recording what I’m predicting, I can go back and review my predictions later to see how accurate I was and to ponder why. When I’m wrong, this helps me identify biases or mistakes and to accept that sometimes the future is unpredictable.
  • Even when predictions seem disconcerting, they’re actually comforting. They help me relax into acceptance and surrender regarding some possible futures.
  • Predictions are often actionable. If I gain some clarity about what may be coming up, I can better prepare for it, and I can help other people prepare too.
  • Predictions help me separate truth from power. I like to take a step back and consider what’s unfolding, separating from this from concerns about what I might be able to do about it. This helps keep me away from the trap of denial. It’s so easy to fall into denial when we merge truth and power, refusing to even look at truths when we’re worried about whether or not we can handle them; that’s when we fudge the data to fool ourselves.
  • Predictions help me discover when my mental models are good enough, too complicated, or too simplistic to be reliable and useful.
  • Predictions give me a base for assigning meaning intelligently, so that I can preserve and even improve my relationship with reality without resisting reality.

I felt that my third prediction from the top list was inaccurate since it was too much of an off the cuff estimate. So four days ago I went over the actual growth rate of reported cases in the USA, and I made more a detailed prediction of how I thought these numbers would unfold.

I shared the following post in Conscious Growth Club’s forums on March 20:

The USA is currently reporting 16,796 coronavirus cases. Based on the growth curve I’m seeing, I predict we’ll pass 100,000 cases in about 1 week. And I predict that we’ll pass 1,000,000 cases in about 2 weeks (from today).

If we move to total countrywide lockdown immediately, we can slow this, and we must. Each day we wait is a huge mistake.

Note that 1 week ago we were at 2247 cases, and 2 weeks ago we were at 319 cases.

Where we are today is still early, early, early game for the virus. If we don’t lock down right away, we’re looking at tens of millions of infected within a month.

Here’s a shorter prediction: I predict that we’ll pass 50,000 reported cases for the USA in just 4 days, sometime on Tuesday, March 24. This could happen sooner though if there’s a significant increase in testing.

Here’s the formula I’m using:

Infected on Day N = (Infected today) x e^( 0.288 x N )

So if we use today as the baseline, then this becomes:

Infected on Day N = 16,796 x e ^ ( 0.288 x N )

Hence our infected for the days ahead:

16,796 (today)
22,402
29,879
39,851
53,151
70,891
94,551
126,108 (March 27)
…
946,850 (April 3)
1,262,868 (April 4)

You can also plug in negative numbers for N to go backwards in time, which will show you that this tracks the historical data with decent accuracy.

This formula will be more accurate when the numbers of infected are still low relative to the total population. And of course a total lockdown can slow it down significantly.

Also note that these numbers work only for the USA since the growth rate for other countries is different. I think the UK rate is really close to ours though, so if you want to try some projections there, you could potentially use the same formula.

It’s been noted that the death rate may be more reliable for predictions than the reported infections, and I agree that’s true. I did this mainly as an exercise to help wrap my mind around what could be coming up.

So far the first three predictions were right on target, and we’re set to reach today’s prediction of passing 53,151 cases as predicted. At the time of writing this, we’re at 50,860.

While there may be a certain morbidness to this practice under the circumstances, I still find it useful and even comforting. It helps me see what’s coming up, so I can mentally and emotionally prepare for it as best I can. This includes going into personal lockdown two weeks ago, mainly to reduce the risk of further spreading the infection.

Sometimes I do this sort of practice in business. I make predictions for the months or years ahead based on trends that I can see today. Many people are doing this now by looking for business opportunities within the current crisis. While I do think it’s possible to take this too far, such as by buying hand sanitizer or medical masks and then reselling them for more, others are looking to provide genuine value in ways that people would appreciate during this time.

For instance, we can predict that many people will be spending more time at home in the weeks ahead. So they’ll be doing more cooking than usual since they won’t be going out to eat. So there will likely be extra opportunities for people teaching online cooking classes. Moreover, since veganism has been trending upwards as well, the combo of veganism and cooking classes could be especially good. Many people are free of the social influences that could otherwise prevent them from making such a lifestyle shift, so I would expect that a lot more people will experiment with veganism and vegan meals during this time. The opportunity is there. The time is there. And the objections are significantly reduced for many people.

I’ll make some current predictions regarding the coronavirus situation:

  • Veganism will increase during lockdown at a faster rate than it was previously increasing. More people will have time to make this kind of lifestyle change. More people are growing concerned about their health and immunity. And more people will have time to research this online.
  • Within 30 days, India will have the most coronavirus deaths of any country in the world. They’re currently ranked 31 with only 10 deaths right now. Italy, China, and Spain are 1, 2, and 3 right now. Partly I’m basing this prediction on India’s population size and population density, partly on their healthcare system, partly on their culture, and partly on their government.
  • Some well-known celebrities will die from coronavirus in the next 30 days, and there will be news stories about each one.
  • Someone I know personally will pass away from coronavirus by the end of May, possibly by the end of April.
  • The Vegas Strip casinos will still be closed 30 days from now. (This is longer than the planned closure.)
  • The USA will have rolling waves of coronavirus infections and deaths surging in different cities and states at different times throughout the year. Some individual states’ lockdowns will suppress it locally for a while, and they’ll eventually get it under control, but not long after they ease up their restrictions, they’ll have to deal with other waves and fresh surges, especially as people travel from other states and countries and bring the infections right back in. The countrywide response will be inconsistent for a while, a patchwork of different states applying different strategies.
  • Among Democrats and Republicans, the virus will infect and kill more Democrats first because it’s spreading in the bigger cities faster and sooner, and those places tend to have more Democrats. But in the long run, it will kill a higher percentage of Republicans as the infection inevitably spreads to more rural areas. Those rural areas typically have worse healthcare than the bigger cities, especially with respect to ICU beds, ventilators, and transit time to hospitals with ICU beds. Republicans tend to be older, and the virus is more deadly for older people. Women lean more Democrat than men, and the virus is much deadlier for men. Polling has shown that a much higher percentage of Republicans still don’t take the virus seriously and aren’t practicing social distancing, so it’s more likely to decimate their communities when it arrives. When you add it all up, there are a lot of factors suggesting that COVID-19 will be more deadly for Republicans than Democrats. One advantage for Republicans is that many Republican bulwark states will see this virus surge later in their communities, but if they’re wasting time on denial, that’s going to whittle away their head start and could negate this advantage.
  • Some lawyers will see a booming business in coronavirus related lawsuits. I expect there will be lots of lawsuits against businesses like Amazon or Costco as some of their employees get infected and die due to work-related activities. I imagine that Fox News will likely get seriously sued over this as well.

Time will tell. Under the circumstances, I would truly love to be wrong about the above.

What are your predictions about what’s coming up? You don’t have to share them, but I encourage you to just make some predictions for yourself in your own private journal. It can help you come to terms with your own thinking.

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Feeling Grounded in the Midst of Spiraling Changes

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As much as you’ve seen unfold this month already, this is still the early game for the virus, so there will be even more changes coming up quickly. The last 10 days of the month could be even bigger than the first 21.

With so much uncertainty, how can you still feel grounded? Is that even possible? Or do you have to simply surrender to the feeling of being uprooted, knowing that it’s going to last for a while?

I think it’s entirely possible to continue feeling grounded in this situation, but in order to do that, you have to ground yourself to something permanent – something that remains constant in a sea of change.

If you’d previously been grounding yourself to something temporary or vulnerable to change, such as your job, lifestyle, social life, or the state of the economy, then it’s predictable that you may be feeling ungrounded, stressed, or scared. That isn’t so much due to the current circumstances though. It has more to do with where you chose to ground yourself.

Many years ago my life went through a lot of upheaval, especially while I was struggling financially. It was hard to make good plans because I often felt like my situation was unstable or vulnerable. Eventually I realized that I could never feel truly grounded if I rooted myself to the contents of reality because that’s always subject to change. If I ground myself to something impermanent, it’s just a matter of time before life eventually pulls the rug out from under me.

I learned that I could lose all my money and go bankrupt. I learned that I could go through a divorce. I learned from growing up in L.A. that even the ground could shake and break a bunch of stuff. I learned that whatever I assumed would endure might not endure. Anything inside this reality is subject to change.

Yet I still wanted to feel secure. I wanted to feel like I could trust some aspect of life to remain stable. I wanted to feel like I always had something to grasp even in turbulent times.

Eventually I came up with an approach that worked pretty well. I decided to ground myself to certain principles, namely truth, love, and power. Since these principles were abstract and universal, they could help me find my way in any situation. No matter what we have to deal with in life, there’s always a truth aspect, a love aspect, and a power aspect. We can always explore and consider what’s true. We can connect with and acknowledge our feelings. And we can consider our capabilities and consider actions to take.

This has been a helpful model, and to some extent I still lean on it today. You may notice that in a lot of my recent blog posts, I focus on these aspects, especially truth alignment. I ask questions like: What’s the truth about what’s happening? Where are we heading? What’s likely to happen next? Sometimes I make predictions about where things are heading. For instance, I mentioned the possibility of the Vegas Strip closing and Disneyland closing a while back, and now of course that’s a reality.

Even when it seems like the world is going crazy, I still feel pretty grounded. The world may be shifting rapidly, but the principles I use remain the same. I wrote about them in my book Personal Development for Smart People, which was published in 2008. Twelve years later I’m still using the same principles to guide me. They remain unchanged and constant. Only my understanding of them and my ability to apply them changes.

I’ve used these principles as my primary source of grounding for many years. They work well and have withstood the test of time. They can adapt to any situation that life throws at us.

But these days my top method for feeling grounded isn’t to lean on these principles. They’re still great for that purpose, but some years ago I found an approach I like even more.

Currently I like to ground myself to my relationship with reality. The nature of that relationship may shift around, but the existence of that relationship is a constant. No matter what’s happening in life, I have a relationship with reality. That’s always true, and so I can always trust that this relationship is here for me as a source of grounding.

I could be sick, and I’d still have a relationship with reality. I could be in prison, and I’d still have a relationship with reality. I could travel to Mars (maybe), and I’d still have a relationship with reality. I could die and continue on to some other phase of existence, and I’d still have a relationship with reality. As long as I exist, so does this relationship. This relationship is as permanent as my awareness is, which is long enough to be a reliable source of grounding.

The key is to ground this relationship in unwavering trust. This doesn’t mean trusting that reality will do what I want or expect. It means trusting that reality is always here for me and always on my side.

I imagine this probably sounds a bit abstract, so in tomorrow’s post I’ll share more details about applying this idea, including in life and death situations.

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The Stun Setting

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Lately I’ve been feeling like we’re living through a particular Star Trek: The Next Generation episode.

No, not “Contagion” – that’s about a computer virus.

Not “Thine Own Self” either, but that’s a good guess.

I’m thinking of “The Ensigns of Command.”

That’s the episode where Data, the android character, must convince a bunch of stubborn colonists that they need to immediately pack up and leave the colony they worked so hard to build. The human colonists must leave because thanks to a treaty, the planet where they’ve built their colony now belongs to an alien race called the Sheliak.

The Sheliak are all business and are coming to colonize the planet themselves. While they were willing to negotiate a lengthy and complex treaty with the humans to procure the planet, they otherwise regard humanity as a lesser species and would have no qualms about wiping out any human stragglers they discover upon arrival. The colonists are absolutely no match for the Sheliak.

The Enterprise must begin evacuating the colonists ASAP, and Data is beamed down to the planet to help them start packing immediately.

However, the colonists are very resistant to the idea of leaving, especially their leader, Gosheven. That isn’t surprising since Data did show up out of the blue to basically say, “Surprise! Now you must pack up and leave!” The colonists had been living on the planet for many years and sacrificed a lot to establish their thriving colony.

Gosheven tries to reassure everyone that there’s nothing to fear and that they’ll all be fine. He denies that the Sheliak are a threat (which sounds very much like the idiocy of saying “it’s just the flu” in our current situation). Others join him in their firm stance against fear. But are they being brave? Or just stubbornly irrational?

Here’s a scene from that episode where Data is speaking to the colonists, trying to get creative in convincing them to leave. Everyone in this scene other than Data is a colonist.

DATA: You know of the Sheliak threat. Starfleet wishes to evacuate you for your own protection. Yet Gosheven has decided otherwise. That is his right, and I will not waste time trying to reverse that decision. I admire your conviction in the face of certain defeat. Though doomed, your effort will be valiant. And when you die, you will die for land and honor. Your children will understand that they are dying for a worthy cause. Long after the battle is over, their courage will be remembered and extolled.

ARD’RIAN: Remembered by who?

DATA: Yes, that is true. There will be no one left alive to remember.

GOSHEVEN: (applauding) A valiant try, android, but what a low opinion you must have of us.

DATA: I was simply attempting to describe your inevitable destruction in a manner that would have an emotional effect.

HARITATH: And he describes it pretty damned well.

GOSHEVEN: Are you ready to follow this machine? Give up without a fight? He says we’re going to lose, but I think that’s just his cowardice talking!

KENTOR: What if he’s right and you’re wrong? Shouldn’t we consider that possibility?

GOSHEVEN: This colony exists because generations gave their lives for it. Many people died before we found a way to adapt to the radiation. And many more died bringing water to the desert. My grandfather –

ARD’RIAN: Is buried on that mountain. Well, who’ll be left to bury you?

GOSHEVEN: Have you considered what this evacuation means? Everything we have, we abandon. Everything that we have built turns into dust. Everything that we have accomplished means nothing. Well, I say no. You elected me your leader. Follow me now. I don’t think our chances are as hopeless as he says. And I’m willing to stake our lives on it. Any objections? Good, because here we stand.

ALL: Aye, We stand with you.

(The men slap Gosheven on the back, the women look worried)

DATA: Then here you die.

This episode reminds me of what we’ve seen in many people’s response to the coronavirus. We’ve seen it in Italy. We’ve seen it in Spain. We’ve seen it in France – throughout the week leading right up to the moment the French went into full lockdown yesterday morning.

And of course we’re still seeing it in the USA now.

How well does this approach work?

Let’s check a first-hand report from a doctor in Bergamo, a city in Northern Italy:

The results of the swabs now come one after the other: positive, positive, positive. Suddenly the emergency room is collapsing. Emergency provisions are issued: help is needed in the emergency room.

…

Exams, radiology always with the same sentence: bilateral interstitial pneumonia. All to be hospitalized. Someone already to intubate goes to intensive care. For others, however, it is late. Intensive care becomes saturated, and where intensive care ends, more are created.

…

And every reorganization of beds, wards, staff, work shifts and tasks is constantly reviewed day after day to try to give everything and even more. Those wards that previously looked like ghosts are now saturated, ready to try to give their best for the sick, but exhausted. The staff is exhausted. I saw fatigue on faces that didn’t know what it was despite the already grueling workloads they had. I have seen people still stop beyond the times they used to stop already, for overtime that was now habitual. I saw solidarity from all of us, who never failed to go to our internist colleagues to ask “what can I do for you now?” or “leave alone that shelter that I think of it.” Doctors who move beds and transfer patients, nurses with tears in their eyes because we are unable to save everyone and the vital signs of several patients at the same time reveal an already marked destiny. There are no more shifts, schedules.

…

Social life is suspended for us. I have been separated for a few months, and I assure you that I always have everything possible to constantly see my son even on disassembly days at night, without sleeping and postponing sleep until when I am without him, but for almost 2 weeks I have voluntarily seen neither my son nor my family members for fear of infecting them and in turn, infect an elderly grandmother or relatives with other health problems. I’m happy with some photos of my son that I regard between tears and a few video calls. So be patient too, you can’t go to the theater, museums or gym. Try to have mercy on that myriad of older people you could exterminate. It is not your fault, I know, but of those who put it in your head that you are exaggerating and even this testimony may seem like an exaggeration for those who are far from the epidemic, but please, listen to us, try to leave the house only for the essential things. Do not go en masse to stock up in supermarkets: it is the worst thing because you concentrate and the risk of contacts with infected people who do not know they are higher.

…

Oh yes, thanks to the shortage of certain devices, I and many other colleagues are certainly exposed despite all the means of protection we have. Some of us have already become infected despite the protocols. Some infected colleagues in turn have infected family members and some of their family members already struggle between life and death. We are where your fears could make you stay away. Try to make sure you stay away.

Source: Corriere della Sera (translated from Italian)

That was from March 7, when the death toll in Italy was 230. Fast forward just 11 days to today, and now there are about 3000 dead – 475 of them just in the past 24 hours. In that same time they went from about 5800 reported infections to about 36,000 now. And this is still speeding up.

Soon this will be the situation in Southern Italy too. France and Spain are quickly following suit. More countries are following just days behind.

Of the nearly 36,000 reported infections in Italy, more than 2600 are medical personnel. A number of doctors have already died from this virus while trying to save other people’s lives.

This is a glimpse of what we’re about to see in the USA shortly. Very likely by the end of the month, we can expect hundreds if not thousands of medical personnel to get infected as well, even as they work to exhaustion trying to treat people. And that will still just be the tip of the iceberg with so much more to follow. We are nowhere near the peak yet. In fact, we’re not at Base Camp yet. (Incidentally, Mount Everest is closed too.)

A full lockdown in the USA is inevitable – I’d say almost a certainty before month’s end at the rate things are going. The sooner we reach that point, the better. All 50 states have infected people now, with West Virginia being the last holdout to join.

Each day we’re seeing different cities and states making bigger and bigger sacrifices while the virus makes even bigger gains. We’re progressively locking down, and as fast as it seems, we should actually be moving even faster.

Yesterday night the Governor of Nevada announced the closing of all casinos, hotels, bars, and more statewide, joining schools which were shuttered on Monday. The Las Vegas Strip has gone dark. And yet as extreme as this seems, especially for a city that runs on 42 million tourists per year, it’s still just another intermediate step among more to be taken.

When a full lockdown does happen, and it will, it will likely endure for at least two months, and realistically we may be looking at well into the summer or beyond.

Some are projecting as long as 18 months of this kind of disruption (which may involve full and partial lockdowns), as there may be multiple waves of the virus.

When you see businesses announce they’re shutting down for 2-3 weeks, don’t believe that for a second. As I noted in Sunday’s post: This Will Not Be Over Quickly. When I wrote that post, the U.S. death total from the virus was 63 with 3300 reported infections. Three days later we’re at 8300+ infections and 133 deaths, so both numbers have more than doubled. And this is going to speed up significantly in the days and weeks ahead.

Meanwhile many people are still going out partying and gathering in large groups, such as was reported at the Clearwater Beach in Florida yesterday. Under the current circumstances and given what we see happening elsewhere, this behavior means more painful deaths for many more people, including the deaths of doctors and nurses trying to save lives. Not shutting down sizable human gatherings is ludicrous at this point. The sooner we take action, the more lives will be saved.

Let’s return to our Star Trek episode to see how Data eventually convinces the colonists to leave for their own good.

After his other attempts to convince the colonists to leave fail, Data goes to the colony’s pumping station for their aqueduct, which is the colony’s only source of water. He pulls out his phaser, first using the stun setting and then using a higher setting after he says his first line in this scene.

(The elders are on a raised platform to the side, and four security guards are in front of the pool. Data fires at them)

DATA: Stop. That was the stun setting. This is not.

(There’s a big bang, then energy is seen racing up the pipeline to the mountain)

DATA: I can reduce this pumping station to a pile of debris, but I trust my point is clear. I am one android with a single weapon. There are hundreds of Sheliak on the way and their weapons are far more powerful. They may not offer you a target. They can obliterate you from orbit. You will die never having seen the faces of your killers. The choice is yours.

KENTOR: There are other places, other challenges.

(The security guards recover from their stuns)

GOSHEVEN: I really was willing to stay here and die for this.

DATA: I know that. This is just a thing, and things can be replaced. Lives cannot.

That approach worked. The colonists, including Gosheven, finally agreed to evacuate. So they lived.

Data is an android programmed for politeness and manners. He’s one of the kindest and gentlest characters on the show. He’s willing to accept and befriend everyone as they are, like an android version of Mister Rogers.

And of course Data is very rational, so he starts by greeting the colonists warmly and offering them a rational explanation about what’s happening and why they need to evacuate – a sensible place to begin.

When that doesn’t work, he appeals to their emotions since he knows something about human psychology too.

And when that doesn’t work, he pulls out his weapon but still uses the stun setting initially. Now having good reason to conclude that this too will be insufficient, he quickly bumps it to a higher setting and demonstrates at that level as well. And then he immediately threatens to bump it higher still, to a setting which would effectively destroy something the colonists have been trying to protect. Fortunately he doesn’t seriously hurt anyone, but he does keep escalating until he finally succeeds. Moreover, he accelerates the pacing of his escalations to match the increasing urgency of the situation.

This is a rational approach, isn’t it? For a mission that’s important enough, keep escalating until you succeed, even if you must stretch your character to do so. Data had to stretch his character to succeed in his mission, yet he was able to do so while still honoring his rational core.

And we must continue to do the same. When the stun setting is ineffective, ratchet up your efforts more to help get people off the streets and to stay the fuck home.

Is it rational to continue using the stun setting if it isn’t working quickly enough?

Is it rational to avoid stretching our characters due to fear of criticism or social pushback, knowing by sticking to our comfort zones and refusing to go any higher, we sentence more people to death – including more medical personnel who will soon give their lives trying to save others?

Or is it rational to ratchet up our actions towards the stun setting and beyond until we achieve what’s needed?

If you’ve been trying to help people behave more rationally during this time, yet they’re still behaving irrationally, ratchet up your efforts and attitude, just as Data had to do to accomplish his mission.

This isn’t the time to get stuck at your personal stun setting. This is the time to do what it takes to save more lives and reduce suffering because the actions you take now can and will make a difference.

And lastly…

CLOSE THE BEACH, YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!!!

#closethebeachyoufuckingidiots

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Psychological Safety

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This evening Rachelle and I attended an orientation meeting for a local kink-related meetup group. It’s a very active group that does frequent educational workshops as well as social meetups. I’ve known about them for years and was curious, but I never went to one of their meetups, mainly because there was a (relatively minor) prerequisite that seemed just annoying enough to dissuade me from going and keep the idea perpetually on the back burner.

In order to attend any meetings from this group, they require that everyone has to attend a 90-minute orientation meeting in person before they can attend anything else. If you don’t attend the orientation, they won’t even give you the address for their events.

Sitting through a 90-minute orientation sounded pretty dry to me, and it was about a 40-minute round trip drive to the location, so I always put it off. I figured it would most likely go over some basic aspects of kink that I was already familiar with and that it would be boring to sit through it. My only motivation for enduring it would be to get access to the hopefully more interesting meetings of the group.

Sometimes these orientation meetings would be offered when I was traveling, or they’d be many weeks away when I checked, or I’d just forget about the group for several months. Sometimes I’d add the orientation meeting to my calendar just in case I felt like going when it came up, but then I always talked myself out of it.

I could at least see the topics and descriptions of their meetings without having to go through orientation. There’s a relatively small subset of kink that interests me, which I’ve blogged about in the past, but this group has way more variety than my narrow range of interests. I might be interested in maybe 5-10% of what they cover.

This year (and really starting this month), I decided to lean towards more expansion of my in-person social life, so last week I decided to check again when the next orientation meeting for this group was coming up. I saw that it was only a few days away, which turned out to be this evening. Finally the stars aligned, and this time I decided to actually go. Rachelle agreed to come along and check it out as well. I’d say we were both a bit skeptical about what it would be like, but we did our best to go in with as much open-mindedness as we could muster.

I was pleasantly surprised. The orientation wasn’t about orienting to basic etiquette related to a kink-based lifestyle that I’d heard many times before. It was actually about the specific standards of the group and their internal code of conduct.

This is a very active group with hundreds of members, and they’re very protective about the culture inside and creating psychological safety for those involved. So the orientation mainly focused on clarifying and setting expectations for what it’s like. It was largely a rundown of what’s considered acceptable versus unacceptable behavior inside the group. All of the standards made sense when viewed through the lens of psychological safety.

For example, we could share about the group itself, what topics it covers, and the personal aspects of our experiences because that isn’t going to threaten anyone’s psychological safety. But we absolutely cannot “out” anyone who’s involved because that could cause significant problems for people, such as a job loss or being harshly rejected by family.

What I found especially interesting is how the group has tiers of access. The group is free, so these aren’t financial tiers but rather trust tiers. The most basic level of access is granted after completing the orientation, so Rachelle and I have now progressed to that level. At the end of the orientation, we were given the address for the meetups and can freely attend whichever ones interest us. The next level is granted after attending three meetups.

I rather liked learning that the group has a code of conduct meant to prevent problems, create psychological safety, and minimize drama. It seems clear that they’re seeking members who will align with the group, and they want to catch misalignments early and then restrict or limit access based on the severity of the misalignment. They have rules in place to prevent, catch, and handle threats to the psychological safety of the members.

I’ve been public about this part of my life for at least a decade, so the social consequences and judgments aren’t an issue for me like they might be for some people. I don’t need as much protection or as many rules to feel psychologically safe. I’ve had time to get used to feeling safe and supported even when sharing rather personal aspects of my life publicly.

However, I still benefit when the people around me feel psychologically safe. If they feel safe, they’re more willing to open up, share, and connect, and that means less work for me socially. So even if I don’t think I need as much psychological safety for myself, I really like this standard when I see it because I benefit from easier social flow.

I’ve also seen how a lack of psychological safety can negatively impact groups if they don’t create enough of it.

In a mastermind group I was involved in a while back, there wasn’t a very high standard of psychological safety. Members teased each other a lot. New members weren’t onboarded particularly well. The social expectations of the group were fuzzy. During the meetings many members were on their phones, laptops, and tablets constantly, not even giving the current speaker their full attention. Various misalignments, some of which might have seemed minor on their own, added to a feeling that something was off with the group. The feeling of connection was weaker than it could have been. It felt like investing in this group would be a lot more work socially than in other groups with higher social standards.

With a different online group that I got involved in this year, the psychological safety is very high, and it shows. There was more clarification about the standards and expectations, and members were screened for alignment before they could join. I’ve been impressed with the level of intimacy and sharing in this group.

Psychological safety isn’t a crisp and clear standard. It’s subjective of course. We could say that it’s whatever people feel it is. It’s also a spectrum, not a binary switch between safe and unsafe. But there are still ways to create it more consistently, such as by identifying what people would perceive as a threat and then seeking to prevent or remove those threats.

It’s also possible to take this standard too far. This happens when people feel stunted in being able to express what they’d really like to say, out of concern that they may (even accidentally) make someone else feel unsafe or violate some rule they perceive as overly strict.

I think that a relatively healthy standard is to allow for some errors on both sides. This means that some of the more sensitive people will feel uncomfortable; they’ll feel that it’s a bit too much of a stretch to open up, share, and trust. For instance, some people may still not feel that they can trust the kink group even with the rules and expectations defined pretty well. They may be so concerned about the risk of accidentally being outed that they won’t join or show up.

And on the other extreme, some people won’t feel good about being in the group because they’ll find the rules too stifling. They’ll find the rules too oppressive, and they won’t like being burdened with following the rules, especially if they don’t require as much to feel safe.

I think it’s a healthy sign when people are opting out of a group or declining to participate at both of these extremes. This indicates that the group’s center of mass is probably being satisfied well enough.

Consider the alternative of trying to eliminate dissatisfaction with the standards on one side or the other. You’ll end up chasing after fewer and fewer people as you move further from the center, which can cause some dissatisfaction in the center as well. More people will start feeling the rules are either too tight or too loose for them.

This balancing act is one that I keep working on in Conscious Growth Club. We have a nice culture of sharing and trust that I want to preserve and improve on the inside. But to get this right and satisfy the majority of members, I expect to see some resistance at both extremes. Some people will leave because they feel the rules and culture are too tight and too protective. And some will leave because they feel the rules are too loose and not protective enough. That’s to be expected. What I aim to preserve is the core of the group who feel the rules are pretty well aligned to give them sufficient psychological safety to connect, share, trust, and to derive solid benefits from participating. If we chase the extremes to create more satisfaction at the edges, the bigger risk is losing the center of mass.

While I don’t know what the kink group is like on the inside – time will tell – I appreciate that they’ve put a lot of thought into creating psychological safety. Even if they don’t calibrate perfectly well for my tastes, just making the effort to address psychological safety tends to do a lot of good, creating stronger social flow inside. It’s not something that will ever be perfect, but an imperfect implementation is generally way better than none at all.

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