Day (4), Th, 8/28, πππ
Therapy is hard!
I'm not even talking about the therapy part... but that's hard too! I mean the process of getting started. There are several different styles of therapy. Which one is right? There are so many different therapists. How do you find the right one? And there's the resource problem. Can you even afford it?
This next 108 has pivoted to being focused on building out Flowism and the 108 systems to being focused on me. Like... in a healthy therapy kind of way. :) I had that DBT workbook, but of course I had to talk to the hommie Gemini to figure out what's "best" (based on its vast knowledge of colonial capitalist wisdom... lol ;) ) I actually haven't DEEP DEEP dove yet. That will happen over the course of the 108 days, but I have landed on a system that feels like a good match for me. Internal Family Systems.
I think I actually ran into it once before but I was like "I don't have a family... this is confusing... NEXT!" The name is actually about your internal family of "parts". For "normal" people I think the therapist helps them role play different sides of themselves. For me I'm like "Oh! There's miltownkid, miltownkid ZEE, Flowing Panther, The Author, The Daoist Wizard, the Miltown Kid..." lol Anyhow, it looks like it could be a good fit so I'm going to play around with it.
Back to the therapist part, when I started looking at therapists on the West Coast, LA specifically (seems like that's where I'll have the best odds of finding someone weird enough for me lol) and saw the prices I was like "Oh well! Therapy was a cool idea. Time to program Gemini..." lol But then I made a document outlining the kind of therapist I want and I was like "Oh... I'd pay for that."
Anyhow... I want to be careful not to write too much. I'm on a real keyboard right now. Things could get deadly! lol
I don't expect anyone to go through the whole thing, but if you're curious here are the documents I drafted up for the big picture plan, short term plan, and some other stuff. Feels pretty good for version 1.0! Anyhow... Day 1 is quickly approaching! The weekend too!
docs.google.com/document/d/1wbC4075tJGvDrpNpWuohtZβ¦
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Day (5), W, 8/27, πππ
This time between 108s. What is it?
The 108... Reset? Reflection? Planning? Break? All of the above? Some of the above? None of the above?
I suppose that's a question for you to answer. :) It's not written in stone and it needs to be different things at different times.
I ruled out the idea of a "108 break", where I relax or stop tracking my habits, this time because the breaks seem like they can be momentum killers (after 20 cycles I'm still learning and experimenting! π)
I woke up this morning and was like... Fuck my routine and fuck fasting. I'm headed to the breakfast shop! π I still got my stuff done, just in a shifted order.
As I type this the breakfast shop is sounding really good for tomorrow too... Also these cookies I've heard rumors about for Sunday morning are sounding good too... π€€π
I guess the 108 break has arrived. π I might feel like it's been earned as I finished figuring out the main bits of my plan for the next cycle and I'm excited about that.
Here's some bonus content I'm excited about. That decolonization focused oracle deck I bought over the weekend gave me an interesting idea yesterday. It said schedule 3 hours (or a day if you can), drive somewhere, get out and wander with no place in mind to go and pay no attention to time.
Sounds fun! Friday morning I have an appointment with my PT in Neihu. When I'm done I'm going to step outside, turn off my phone, and wander until the wandering is done.
Maybe I'll make this a monthly or weekly exercise. Jump on a random bus, jump off somewhere random, and... Explore.
This exercise was instantly interesting to me because I've been looking for ways to practice decolonizing time and moving at your own pace. It's kind of funny that you have to schedule time to exercise unscheduled time... π But that's the world we're in!
Hope you're break/reset/reflection/etc. is going well and you're feeling good about stepping into the next 108! π
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Day (6), Tu, 8/26, πππ
Community!
I was honored to answer the call of a fellow 108er's request to engage in their community this morning.
The largest driving force for this 108 project isn't personal development for me, or for you, it's communal development. What's communal development? For now, just imagine personal development that becomes exponentially potent because you're doing it as a squad. Then sprinkle in all members being conscious about the health of the community and collectively taking action to make it stronger and more resilient.
...
I got stuck here. I've written and deleted things a few times. I wanted to talk about how to approach community in your life or how you could bring a friend with you on your 108 journey (maybe next time, no rush).
Instead I wanted to highlight something else. Communal/Community development should be something that's at the top of everyone's minds, but it's not. We're living in a totally opposite world. There is a literal global loneliness epidemic right now. We're more "connected" than ever and lonelier than ever.
What I wanted to highlight is how collectively uneducated we are when it comes to community development. I asked Gemini how many personal development and community development books come out each year. It was able to find clear statistics for personal development. More than 15,000 new books a year. Community development? It had to guess. It put the number at dozens to maybe a couple hundred. What should be widespread knowledge is niche knowledge.
This "personal development" system I've been hacking together is just level 1 of hacking together a communal development system.
I'm using personal development to build capacity to build a community that builds capacity to build communities.
And don't let the word community "scare" you. When two people come together to work on something positive, community is happening. You and a friend. You and a family member. Or you and a stranger.
These were shared with me today and I'm going to share them with you. They are core principles from adrienne maree brown's book Emergent Strategy. If they vibe with you, you may want to investigate further. :)
Small is good, small is all. (The large is a reflection of the small.)
Change is constant. (Be like water.)
There is always enough time for the right work.
There is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can have. Find it.
Never a failure, always a lesson.
Trust the People. (If you trust the people, they become trustworthy.)
Move at the speed of trust. Focus on critical connections more than critical mass β build the resilience by building the relationships.
Less prep, more presence.
What you pay attention to grows.
Half-moon for going to bed too late. π
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Day (7), M, 8/25, πππ
One more week!
It's late, so I'll keep things short.
In the world of start-ups they use the word "pivot" to shift the direction and focus on the company when they realize something isn't working or they identify a better opportunity.
One of the ideas behind breaking a year into smaller pieces was to give myself the opportunity to "pivot" if I ever caught myself focusing on something that I should have let go of or to give me a moment to see if there was something else I should focus on.
I bring that up because it's happening to me now. :) I thought I had the next 108 days all figured out and just mentioning the DBT workbook the other day got me moving in a different direction.
I don't have things all mapped out yet, but I like how they're coming together!
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Day (8), Su, 8/24, πππ
This is a meta-meta system that puts you into a position to build your systems.
This thought came from a chat with Gemini about bipolar disorder.
There are a lot of "pro tips" about how to manage bipolar disorder. I'm sure you've run into many pro tips about how to do many different things in life. Pretty much all pro tips lack the user manual for how to apply them. I think that's ultimately because they can't write that manual, you have to. Regular testing helps you find out what you like and don't like. What works and what doesn't.
The meta-meta part was that it mentioned bullet journals as a solid meta system for planning. Bullet journals are pretty cool, but I tried them and they're not for me (they might be for you!)
This system, and philosophy, isn't the system or philosophy. It's a meta system and philosophy to hack together your system and philosophy.
I honestly think it's what everyone is doing. They're just not doing it systematically. Nothing wrong with that but I like systems! π
Are there any systems or philosophies you'd like to explore over the next 108 days?
Funny. I was just adding that at the end for reflection and was immediately reminded of this book, "The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook" I have. Maybe I'll test this system!
Half-moon because I went to bed late.
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Day (9), Sa, 8/23, πππ
AI can be a powerful tool for personal development and I'm sure it'll get better and better (and perhaps in some ways worse and worse... π)
Gemini is my go to LLM. This year it helped me stop smoking cigars and drinking alcohol. It helped me switch to a one meal a day fasting protocol, start cooking, and it just helped me pick out a device to help me track my sleep (which I'm wearing now).
ChatGPT and Gemini together helped me totally rewrite my Story and Dream documents as well. That was a big project and it ended up being much better with their help.
Oh! Gemini got me to make that appointment with the physical therapist as well. Initially I was like "I can figure this out with Gemini," and Gemini was like "You can't figure this out with Gemini." π
These tools are far from perfect, but they can be very useful, especially when you combine them with information from other people and places.
Oh yeah! ChatGPT helped me find a WHOLE scientific method for managing bipolar one that no doctor ever told me about (IPSRT).
I think a big reason why it's been so helpful for me is that I'm not just getting an answer to a question. It's usually a long series of questions and answers that end with me making a plan.
Just using the cigars as an example, once it convinced me that it was a really bad idea, I started brainstorming with it about other ways I could hang out with my friend. As I type this out it sounds a little silly, but at the moment of making that decision it was very helpful.
Same with cooking. I had a hundred little stupid questions I was able to ask leading up to the plan and then a hundred questions to ask while doing the plan.
I can't speak on the utility of AI for therapy, but it's been great at helping me make better decisions and then making a plan to act on those decisions.
Half moon because I missed chores yesterday morning.
Bonus content for YouTube: My cat was stun locked yesterday. Was just like that the whole time I was watching him. Other cat must have hit him with a spell. π
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Day (10), F, 8/22, πππ
Over the years I've kind of let go of goals... Well, traditional "time" based ones. That's mostly because my primary goal has been mental stability and the primary path for that has been healthy and consistent routines. Now that I have those I'm thinking about goals again.
I haven't gotten to the goal setting part of this reflection period yet, but listening to the book "The ONE Thing" reminded me of an old exercise I used to do. I'm not actually recommending it, but there's some core principle at work between it and the focus of the book.
The exercise was writing down ten (or so) goals you'd like to accomplish in a year (or so). Once you had the list you'd figure out which goal, if done, would make all of the other goals easier to do or obsolete.
The ONE Thing has this focusing question that can be used working backwards from a 10+ year goal to today:
"Whatβs the ONE Thing I can do (this year/month/week/today) such that by doing it
everything else will be easier or unnecessary?"
I added the (). If you know me you know I've grown weary capitalism, colonialism, and the toxic self-help and productivity born from them... BUT it's the framework we and everyone around us operates in, so we need fluency in their language and systems AND sometimes there's useful insight to be drawn from them. I think there's useful insight in there. :)
Especially, when capitalism does everything in its power to pull you away from the things you'd like to focus your time and energy on.
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Day (11), Th, 8/21 πππ
My energy is low today so I went to Gemini for inspiration. I threw out everything it wrote except its reflection question:
What is the biggest internal obstacle you anticipate facing in the next cycle?
You don't have to share yours, but I'll share mine. Let me think for a moment... π€
I think I may have been drawn to that today because my biggest obstacle is going to be energy levels!
In the summer I have to worry about them being too high and spiralling me into chaos. In the winter they get low. Last winter I had an AMAZING start, but the momentum ran out near the end.
I actually had a period of low this summer when my meds got adjusted and I marched right through it with my routines and habits unfazed.
That's the point. You stay consistent when life is easy* so they're easier to do when life is hard.
* Your version of easy... which might be hard. π
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Day (12), W, 8/20 πππ
I finally made it to see a physical therapist last night. That's because rehabilitating my hip has finally risen to the position of priority.
It's something I had to do in preparation for Day 1. A part of my daily routine is hip exercises but... I needed to go get some!
I'm sharing this as a reminder for your new habit or routine. Do you need new shoes? A new device? A gym membership? A new app? Etc.
Now's the time to do the research, figure it out, and get it (doesn't necessarily need to be something you buy).
That's all I got for today!
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Day (13), Tu, 8/17 πππ
I'm responding to something another 108er (that's what I call us in my mind.. One Oh 8er π).
108 days is a LONG time. Whatever you set out to do at the start will likely get disrupted during your journey. Sometimes they're minor disruptions. Sometimes they're large enough where you "never" (during the 108) get back on course.
This has happened to me many, many, many , many, many times. I eventually realized I needed a system for mid-108 resetting.
There are many different ways you can do this, but I think they fall into two categories.
1. Cyclical resets. An example would be doing a mid-108 reflection ritual where you need it or not. Could be in the middle, once a month, once a week or even daily. Just a cyclical built-in maintenance check.
2. Triggered resets. With this style something happens that makes you focus up and try to reset yourself. Could be not doing X two days in a row. One automatic trigger is when you get back from traveling, that's always very disruptive. My automatic reset trigger right now is missing a day of pen and paper journaling.
I wish I knew this when I started! The power of the 108-day cycle reset is strong and I'm always excited to start a new one but, just like New Year Resolutions, that excitement wanes and you gotta do the work. When you fall off the work you want to already have a plan for picking yourself back up.
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Harmonizing Self and surrounding.
ππΎββοΈβ―οΈπ§πΎββοΈ