A Materialist's Guide for How to Listen to Your Body (PLACEHOLDER)
PLACEHOLDER POST
This is just a placeholder so I can link to it from other posts. Below are incoherent notes.
I want to write a little guide to spell out what convinced me to finally take seriously these ideas around “listening to your body”. I thought it was all woo-woo hand-wavy mystical bullshit. Apparently it is very concrete, verifiable, and there’s a way to prove it for yourself. Taking this seriously has dramatically improved my life and my relationship to others.
(my view of myself when this worke dfor me was that I live in my mind, and that I “have” a body, rather than I am a body).
Basically:
Start with passage of “To feel a thought” by Brian Greene? Why is this physicist talking about how to “feel thoughts” ??? What does it mean?
It means convincing your rational, logical mind is NOT enough to convince you. My body needs to be convinced too.
There’s clinical proof of this: the placebo that works even if you know it is a placebo. Your logical mind knows, but your body doesn’t know this.
Don’t lie to your body
When someone you respect and admire says something mean to you or whatnot. You might say, “well I don’t care about what they say”
That’s not going to feel good. It’s a lie, your body knows it.
Techno-opimism is another example. I rationally agree when someone says, tech won’t save us. I’m like yeah sure. But I still really feel like it does. And I act as such.
I think in some ways it’s all about: what is your initial reaction to anything? Watch that, before you have the thought. You can almost watch this in other people, watch their faces. I’ve seen people wince at an idea. They hate it before they’ve had any thoughts about it
You might say that’s crazy. no, that’s what happens to everybody ALL THE TIME
YOU HAVE A STRONG EMOTIONAL REACTION TO AN IDEA, now that drives your rational thoughts towards finding (1) reasons why it sucks (2) reasons why you love it. You do this over and over and that can build an entire world view.
What are these emotional beliefs that drive you? That drive all your thoughts without you even realizing?
We learn this NOT to override our bodies. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. This isn’t a productivity hack (although this is a side effect!)
Your body has its own beliefs. And opinions, and feelings. You, in your rational mind, do as well.
The goal is to work together, don’t fight.
Look, if one of you wants to do something, but hte other really fucking hates it, don’t do it. (Or at least explain why it’s super necessary)
Most of the time, you can instead compromise: find something else to do that BOTH of you want (or at least that neither of you is super against).