Hi dude,
Good to meet you.
Long mail; get comfortable  :  )

People deciding to set themselves free is what makes this all worthwhile. Once we get out of the shit and start to really grow, I think it matters little how we got here.  :  ) 

All our experiences are different, yet all have their metaphor in the opening chapters of the 'Hero's Journey'; the path towards optimal intelligence. Realizing there is a problem in the first place, deciding to do something about it (often because we're sick of feeling sick and tired of being tired), actually trying out methods; these are the first steps we all must take -and the cool part; the 'leap of awareness' comes with finding out that we really DO have the power to change stuff. We all have to discover that for ourselves through personal experience (not merely be told it's possible), before we really understand NH and start thinking about our real potential.

The leap in awareness this sort of experience enables is inspiring, but (as you've no doubt now discovered) the next chapter of the story -the next requirement- is tenacity; 'staying power'; our ability to keep new habits permanent rather than temporary; and that's where a lot of us can get snapback. Once the initial motivation wears off, it does take determination and mindfulness to keep it together.

Well, you've obviously done it; so well done you!  :  ) 

It's a great feeling of relief, not to feel crappy anymore. It's our relaxation time; our reward for successful learning; so enjoy... yet bear in mind  the next stage will be to stretch once more; by moving forward into ever-greater improvements (rather than just being contented not to feel so anxious anymore). If we don't move forward, thoughts such as 'why didn't I do this years ago' start to throw us off balance by shoving our awareness back into memories of the past (and reemploying the dysfunctional mind states that went with them), instead of staying in the here and now to consolidate the new healthy mind state and form new connections. A good NH keyphrase to snap out of it if you catch yourself doing this is, “No Time Traveling After Eleven!” because it's funny and nonsensical yet reminds us to stop dwelling on the past, and past anxieties. Telling our unconscious this (and I sometimes say it aloud) returns it abruptly to mindfulness of the here and now. “Back to Reality!” is another similar keyphrase.

Knowing about this sort of thing in advance helps prevent delays & snapback, which is why I'm saying it  :  )  and once we have experienced it, it gives us a deep insight about how sneakily anxiety can creep back in undetected. It IS of course good to understand why past mistakes were made, but once we have seen clearly how anxiety is the main culprit in ALL mistakes (because it stops us thinking), it's not good to dwell on their details unnecessarily. ...Much like the contents of a toilet, we must recognize shit, flush it away, wash our hands, and move on to where all the interesting  stuff is happening.  LOL  :  ) 

Obviously, you've already started to reap the benefits of better input, and that's very cool; your mind will thank you for it as well as your body. So this would be a great time to do a functional analysis and get the 'big picture' which you can then use as a map for the next part of your journey.
I'm very glad you found ICMM inspiring, although we must remember that it is now fairly out of date and the Tutorials are a more accurate source of info; taking an approach of Model-Dependent Realism based on the latest research. I hope to commence book #2 during this year which will be based on and expanding this material.

We are all following the path that other dudes laid out for us years ago; culture is like that, but never before have we had so much opportunity in the here and now to (openly) study so much about intelligence and take control of our own minds and lives.

Understanding our own limitations and boundaries is all part of “Know Thyself”, but remember we must also understand our potential for improvement and the fact that it is possible to break those limitations and remove those boundaries in many instances. 'Wrong-wired nets' can and will become 'Healthy networks'; but only if we behave as though they ARE healthy networks and give them healthy input (it is our using healthy input that rewires those nets).

Taking control of our own time and using it as a tool for augmenting intelligence is now possible, so as well as maintaining current good input, we constantly need to be seeking new healthy input. (This means we have no time for any old unhealthy input, so that potential problem sorta solves itself)  :  )
You may be interested to follow up research on your biome (gut flora), psychobiotics, and info about 'GAPS' (Gut & Psychology Syndrome). There are some useful papers below.

Welcome aboard  :  )
Best,
AR

"Research uncovers the "gut-brain axis"." November 27th, 2013. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-11-u … -axis.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic … nce-of-gut

http://www.nature.com/news/bacteria-fro … rs-1.13693

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic … _mice_lean

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic … &WT.mc

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/09/gut-feeling.aspx

http://www.nature.com/news/gut-microbe- … es-1.12975

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111026/ … 1.614.html

Hi dudes,
Robert wrote: Re:  I will instead just start writing and see what comes out.

DeGrasse Tyson calls the result of this process his 'brain droppings'  :  )

Re: discovering through experience, is what's required to convince this incongruent mind on the unconscious level.

This is the case for  everyone; we are biologically geared to merge top-down declarative info & facts with bottom-up experiential info & experience. It's putting the two together that brings congruity and puts the facts into their coherent context with what we already know.

Re: This is a hard thing to accept, to know that as sure as I am about something at the moment, that I cannot know for certain if I am making the assessment using faulty algorithms as it were.

This is a part of everyday science  :  )  We always know that around 20% of what we think are facts now will prove to be incomplete or wrong. ...But we never know WHICH 20%  LOL  :  )

Re: It's only when I am in a functional state that I can easily look back and see how nonsensically I was perceiving things.

I'm sure we have all experienced this; the state known as 'Captain Hindsight'  :  )  Personally I found the step between realizing dysfunctional thinking is happening and actually sitting down and doing some relaxation to get clarity back was the hardest gap to leap. The conscious mind seems to believe that brain chemistry 'should' just be automatically altered by realizing something is amiss -without realizing that other practical steps need to be taken once that realization is made. It's a bit like believing that noticing your leg is broken should automatically fix the leg  :  )  Then it remembers -oh yeh! We have to actually fix the leg before using it again! And off I go to do meditation or whatever. Practice will obviously tie these two together at some point as the response becomes automatic and you get “IF anxiety is detected THEN take practical steps right now to change the mood.”

Re: I do spend a lot of time in the past, mostly trying to analyse potential past causes to present effects in a belief that understanding will benefit my progress now.

Considering past responses in stuff such as interactional analysis or discourse analysis can be beneficial, but remember all the time we spend contemplating the past, we are missing what is going on right here and now. Mindfulness of that is more important, so time can be deliberately set aside for such exercises without allowing them to intrude on current experience. That sort of puts them in perspective as something we are considering as an exercise, not as a habit.

Re: It is amazing, the effect that diet can have on the mind.

This and uninterrupted natural sleep have made the most profound changes for me, and it's a sad thing that most folks don't seem to notice they're malnourished and sleep deprived, because they're malnourished and sleep-deprived. This is exactly like not noticing we're drunk due to being drunk and not noticing we're anxious due to being anxious. The damage report machine is damaged!  :  )


Re: Somehow I feel that by racing ahead too quickly I will slow myself down....

If all NHers could grasp this, our progress would be much accelerated  :  ) The associated proverb used to be “More haste = less speed”. There is no harm, however, in reading through intermediate tutorials, as long as we don't jump ahead with the practical work. We'll notice that the first time we read them, many things may not be comprehensible, but the next time we come back to the material after a bit more practice, some of those things will make more sense. Sort of like 'priming' the mind to look for associations ahead of time, which it appreciates.
Mistakes, however, are to be appreciated as part of our fine-tuning process; we can't develop without them.
Best,
AR

Long mail!

Robert Wrote:
80% believe what they believe because everyone else is believing it. Not because it makes sense.

I was unclear here -This is certainly true among general public/mainstream press/society, but theirs is not the pov I'm coming from. I think as scientists in the context of human culture we have fairly sensible reasons to believe 80% of what we now consider true to actually be true; having done experiments and built tech and all, based on the principles we believe to be true (such as gravity, geometry & aerodynamics). If science were that wrong, nobody would have got off planet yet.
For clarity: I never speak of 'us' or 'we' here on NHA as comparable with 'ordinary people'. I perceive us as quite extraordinary people, in that we want to learn and develop and improve ourselves and we want to hunt the truth out wherever it may be. Our beliefs are so far distant from those of 'most people' the two cannot reliably be compared, but the '20-80 rule' often applies in such areas (80% of what most people believe is nonsense; 80% of what scientists believe is probably verifiable).

RE: how can you be functional enough to notice "while" dysfunctional?

The same way we can protect against hypothermia, heatstroke or (in the case of astronauts & divers,) CO2 excess. -Conscious awareness of the symptoms & behaviors associated with the problem, and the procedures to avoid it must become habitual. Practice, not just in the imagination but in real life, is necessary to form good habits.

Someone recently told me when confusion strikes, he imagines he is in a submarine, where anxiety tries to close all hatches and dive below (cutting off the conscious networks) -so whenever he finds himself feeling a bit 'down below' where all is dark and confusing and murky, he imagines giving the commands to rise to the surface and open the hatches and coming out into the air -that's his meditaton. Physically he gets up and goes outside, saying aloud, 'Opening hatches!' Consciously he knows that he's re-opening access to the networks he needs for thinking clearly, unconsciously he's calming down, tuning in to natural surroundings and starting to relax.

RE: I have issues with completing projects that I start, as once the thing is 'complete' in my head, i lose interest in physically completing it

This may well be the most usual experience for those who are developing network 4. Tenacity can't happen until we've built the connections and habits to sustain it. The good news is it does pass with time -I too had this exact problem and have hacked it nicely. I'm still slow finishing thngs, but they DO eventually get finished. One thing that helped is some forward planning -I was working on 23 different things and decided to put 10 of them on hold until another 10 were done. Things got finished much faster.

RE: uninterrupted natural sleep this is a big one for me to work on.

This is a pretty universal experience for ALL students  :  )  We don't realize how big a difference it makes until after having the experience of uninterrupted sleep for a while. The freedom to sleep when we're tired and wake up naturally is a basic freedom -like eating when we're hungry. Consequently having it boosts self-esteem and confidence a lot and lightens our attitude to life to one of greater optimism. As time goes by without alarm messages waking us, unconscious anxiety falls all by itself.

RE:when things are incomprehensible, It makes me anxious, so I'll be going slow for a while.

Sorry, this too was unclear; I didn't mean we ought to read incomprehensible things. The 'priming' technique is to flick through the unknown stuff and look at the pictures, diagrams, any headlines that catch our eye, and just skip over most of the text to see what sort of names future subjects have, with an attitude of curiosity about what subjects might come up. We're aware we are not supposed to be learning this stuff yet, just playing with it; having a brief look at what sort of thing it might contain, simply because humans are nosey  :  )  The way we might flick through an article about a movie before we've seen it, to see what it's basically about.
Doing this primes memory in a very simple way; when it comes to comprehending those same things in future we feel more comfortable and 'at home' with the subject simply because our mind  has seen some of the words and pictures before. Familiarity hacks anxiety about the unknown, and it's a good technique for any subject; not just NH. We sometimes prematurely introduce some subject in a tutorial that is too complex for the level and then tell you, 'we'll talk about this later on', for this exact reason.
Best,
AR

Greetings fellow planet dwellers.
I've spent the last year walking the walk as much as I've been capable. *
I've not been around here interacting, as one thing I wanted to improve was spending less time online. I was also feeling anxious when posting here, and was therefore unable to maintain the core conditions for effective interaction.

For clarity: I never speak of 'us' or 'we' here on NHA as comparable with 'ordinary people'.........
  this is why I am back posting here today.  I have become substantially clearer over the past year, and crave interaction with functional allies. More and more I feel alone surrounded by 'ordinary people' and hope one day others are as we are, so we can all be ordinary, as we are meant to be.

] ... 'Opening hatches!' Consciously he knows that he's re-opening access to the networks he needs for thinking clearly, unconsciously he's calming down, tuning in to natural surroundings and starting to relax.
  thanks for this! This imagery has been a great tool that automatically presents itself at the required time.  I've actually laughed and said it aloud in difficult situations. When asked, I explain the intent, and it engenders discussion that often turns a Floyd whine, or Margaret confrontation into a Rush interaction. Or, they look at me funny and walk away.  Either way, it's beneficial.


RE: I have issues with completing projects that I start, as once the thing is 'complete' in my head, i lose interest in physically completing it


I don't believe I was clear here, as tenacity is not an issue for me when it is something I am interested in, but as my interests change I feel no desire to 'complete' what I started, as they are complete. If not complete in form, they are in function, as they have completed their purpose. 
  For example "I want to build a laser"  Why?  my conscious self thinks they are cool! and fun!  but really, what I am interested in is "how does that work? what kinds of forces are involved? I could make this better/ differently"
so I start off learning about lasers, then to build it about electronics, glass blowing, brewster windows, high vacuum pumps, diffusion plating, properties of organic dyes, etc. etc.  Every one of these interests opens up new areas I never was exposed to before that end up being FAR more interesting than the original laser project. I never finished the laser, but built a lot of other cool stuff.

RE: uninterrupted natural sleep this is a big one for me to work on.
.....As time goes by without alarm messages waking us, unconscious anxiety falls all by itself.

"walking the walk": I've not set an alarm clock for the past 6 months. While not as profound a difference as diet, there has been substantial improvement.  I think it could have been better and will be better going forward, as there has been a lot of relationship stress involved in modifying things to accomplish this.

RE:when things are incomprehensible, It makes me anxious, so I'll be going slow for a while.

Sorry, this too was unclear;


You were not unclear to me. My response was self deprecating humour, output control needed.
  This is normally how I approach learning everything new. "all at once" then "deeper and detailed".  I am uncertain why I treated these tutorials differently.

Robert

* a lot of time spent crawling, wondering if flight, teleportation, or beyond is possible!

Alex wrote:

but at about that point you realize that you're not alone

yes I think I get this allusion. 
  I'm reminded of being in church as a child, with everyone around me, heads bowed in reverent prayer. I'd open an eye and sneak a look around, believeing everyone else must be playing pretend as well.  Once in a while I would catch someone elses eye doing the same thing and both of us would quickly look away and go back to pretending.

  now that my eyes are open most of the time, (and I really don't care if the "minister" catches me) it's easier to spot potential allies... the ones who are also looking around and just playing pretend, trying to get along with the least amount of hassle.

I am finding most things are really quite simple and straightforward, and not much of anything bothers me even if things go "wrong"
but, I'm also finding that many people don't appreciate/understand/accept this and will go out of their way in an attempt to make things complicated & confusing!?
These are the new nutters that I never noticed before... and they are everywhere.

Alex wrote:

The good news is, they are not, in fact, 'everywhere'.

Ha, when I wrote that, I was picturing the woman in the red dress turing into an agent.  I now find some people when confronted with a simple "why?" become convoluted and stagger in indecision as their programming is questioned. So, they turn into an agent and attempt to restore "order". 

Thems the nutters I mean. I just never noticed these particular ones. At least not conciously, because I never bothered to ask them "why?" before. I must have known unconciously, avoiding certain people knowing the likely response.

What do you do if you see an agent? Don't let it see you, and if it does RUN.  I'm done running, and while not intentionally poking sleeping agents, not submitting to their shoddy programming environment.

speaking of fellow allies, anyone heard  from Mnemo lately?  I'll be down near his last listed embassy location in the next while, and thought I'd stop by for some real life interaction.

Hi dude, welcome aboard  :  )
Yeh, it's not an easy path having to watch confusion all around, which is maybe why one can appreciate regular solitude. Perhaps the most difficult thing is getting it through our own heads that we can't help anyone who isn't open to change and the thing is, most are not at all interested in change even when their current conditions bring much suffering.

Having a working mind and healthy emotions makes us sadly more aware of the awful waste of potential, seeing so many people struggle through their self-adopted unworkable systems they believe are their lives. Yet a part of 'caregiving' is taking care not to raise anxiety in folks while still managing to communicate with them. I have a long way to go on practicing this art! I guess most of us do.

Re: slow boot-up in the mornings – list of classic causes: eating before sleeping, sleeping pills, alcohol, too much weed, coffee or tea before sleep, CO2 buildup (open the window), sleep deprivation or inadequate sleep, habitual reliance on 'uppers' (can't wake up without coffee or a cigarette), jet lag, interrupted sleep, room temperature too high or too low (19c is optimal), overfacing (too many tasks to try to concentrate on all at once after waking), hangovers, shift work, and trying to change our natural sleep patterns (some who would naturally sleep in the day try to avoid doing so), and of course our old adversary; anxiety.

Shortcut which worked for me: arranging your schedule so that early tasks are routine and non-mentally-stretching, such as self care, tidying up, reviewing list of today's tasks, etc. Allowing the mind to 'come online' at its own speed and assume it knows what its doing, thus working with it.

I'm thinking that yoga or tai chi in the mornings probably might help, but haven't tried it yet.

Anyway hey, here we are!  :  )  Good to meet you, hope you have fun exploring the site, if there's anything you can't find, just ask.
All ahead full!  :  )
Best,
AR