Cultivate curiosity as the central quality of your meditation practice and daily awareness. This provides the energy for sustained practice and investigation, helping to break habit loops and understand your experience, rather than using brute force which is ineffective.
When experiencing a craving, turn towards it with curiosity instead of succumbing or resisting. Observe what it feels like in the body, recognizing that the unpleasant sensation will pass, and injecting curiosity can flip the experience from unpleasant to pleasant.
Become aware of your personal ’trigger-behavior-reward’ habit loops by paying attention to what happens each time you indulge in a craving. Understanding this loop is the first step to breaking it, as indulging reinforces the habit.
When indulging in a craving, especially for unhealthy food or smoking, pay close attention to the actual experience (e.g., taste, sensation). This practice helps dismantle the habit loop by bringing awareness to the actual experience, potentially leading to stopping when full or realizing the experience isn’t as good as anticipated.
Learn to distinguish between ’excitement’ (often contracted, finite, and causing suffering) and ‘joy’ (expansive, wholesome, and intrinsically rewarding). Mistaking excitement for happiness can lead to suffering and compulsive, addictive behaviors, whereas seeking joy is sustainable.
Calibrate your experience to notice whether you are contracting (creating boundaries, self-referential) or expanding (connecting with the world, selfless) in any given moment. Consciously choose actions that lead to expansion, as contraction leads to suffering and separation, while expansion leads to ‘flow’ states.
Recognize that awareness itself is effortless; it takes no effort to know you are breathing or to feel sensations. This understanding counters the tendency to ‘win’ at meditation through brute force, making practice more natural and less effortful, with effort only required to gently return attention after distraction.
Consciously ’let your senses rip’ by allowing yourself to effortlessly see, hear, and feel whatever is happening in the present moment, rather than being caught in compulsive thinking. This breaks through mental ‘papier-mâché,’ allowing you to experience the world directly, which feels good and is effortless.
Before performing an action, reflect on it. If not possible, reflect during the action. If not possible, reflect afterwards to learn from the experience, as this systematic reflection builds wisdom, allowing you to bring awareness to actions in real-time and eventually before they occur.
Avoid beating yourself up over past actions or mistakes, as self-blame is a contracting experience that reinforces negative habit patterns and doesn’t help you move forward.
Be aware that your prefrontal cortex (responsible for restraint) goes offline when you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired (HALT), making you more susceptible to cravings. Cultivate wisdom by remembering past negative consequences of indulging when depleted.
Instead of aiming for complete abstinence (which can fail when cognitive control is low), practice mindful indulgence by paying attention while consuming small amounts of desired items. This is a more sustainable long-term strategy than abstinence.
To develop curiosity, start by practicing it on everyday objects or experiences, such as during walking meditation by observing leaves, bark, or sidewalk patterns. This helps hone the skill of curiosity, making it easier to apply to more subtle objects like the breath.
When practicing loving kindness meditation, focus on tapping into an expanding quality in the heart, rather than a rote or effortful process. This approach makes the practice feel more natural, expansive, and genuinely pleasant.
When doubt arises during meditation (e.g., ‘Am I doing it right?’), notice it and observe its feeling (contracting or expanding), treating doubt as a teacher. Noticing doubt and its qualities can take its power away and turn it into part of the practice.
Apply curiosity to observe the experiential difference between contracted states (e.g., craving, anger) and expansive states (e.g., sensory awareness). This observation helps you naturally avoid unpleasant, contracted states and gravitate towards pleasant, expansive ones, similar to a rat learning in a Skinner box.
Utilize apps like ‘Craving to Quit’ or ‘Eat Right Now’ to learn mindfulness skills for breaking habits. Use your phone as a tool for positive change, especially in contexts where the habit usually occurs, as it provides tools at your fingertips and allows learning in relevant contexts.
Start meditating when suffering or facing stress (e.g., trouble sleeping, starting stressful programs), using resources like Jon Kabat-Zinn’s ‘Full Catastrophe Living.’ This can address suffering and stress.
Practice daily meditation and engage in community/retreats, paying attention in daily interactions (e.g., interviewing, working with teams). This can be surprisingly helpful and can positively influence career and life decisions.
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