If someone can turn off the thing in their head that tries to write the bottom line before filling out the rest of the page, that seems strictly better than this trick. I can’t, not reliably. Sometimes I fight that fight, sometimes the information is worth more than the better decision I think I can wrest.
For me, it usually doesn’t feel like a fear or an ick. I usually notice yums, if that makes sense. Like, “don’t step into traffic” or “don’t jump off the cliff” make me afraid, but the bottom line is usually pretty sensible as is the writing above it. It’s “don’t eat the donut” and “don’t snooze the alarm” that tend to have sneaky pre-written bottom lines I can beat with this trick.
On a more meta-level what if you just applied the same trick but to deciding to not make the bad decision? It’s a double negative on purpose because perhaps you would gain information on why you are not comfortable not eating the donut or snoozing the alarm, but only if you are go through the machinations of the double negative in your head. This is a trick I’ve been using more and more.
Something like: Tasty donut feeling → awareness of want → awareness of diet goals that contradict this want → awareness that you have a choice to make → deciding not to make the wrong choice to see what would happen → experience of not eating the donut → (experiential data: feeling hungry, feeling tired, feeling grumpy, etc. and positing reasons for why those things occurred) → next time you get the tasty donut feeling, you actually have more data than if you just ate the donut.
If someone can turn off the thing in their head that tries to write the bottom line before filling out the rest of the page, that seems strictly better than this trick. I can’t, not reliably. Sometimes I fight that fight, sometimes the information is worth more than the better decision I think I can wrest.
For me, it usually doesn’t feel like a fear or an ick. I usually notice yums, if that makes sense. Like, “don’t step into traffic” or “don’t jump off the cliff” make me afraid, but the bottom line is usually pretty sensible as is the writing above it. It’s “don’t eat the donut” and “don’t snooze the alarm” that tend to have sneaky pre-written bottom lines I can beat with this trick.
On a more meta-level what if you just applied the same trick but to deciding to not make the bad decision? It’s a double negative on purpose because perhaps you would gain information on why you are not comfortable not eating the donut or snoozing the alarm, but only if you are go through the machinations of the double negative in your head. This is a trick I’ve been using more and more.
Something like: Tasty donut feeling → awareness of want → awareness of diet goals that contradict this want → awareness that you have a choice to make → deciding not to make the wrong choice to see what would happen → experience of not eating the donut → (experiential data: feeling hungry, feeling tired, feeling grumpy, etc. and positing reasons for why those things occurred) → next time you get the tasty donut feeling, you actually have more data than if you just ate the donut.