Mind-Manual

Photoreading Update

Hopefully this will be my second last photoreading update. The next one will say that I am photoreading tons of books all the time, I’m hoping.

My experience with photoreading has been a little rocky, to say the least. I’ve had for close to 8 months now, and while I went the whole course pretty early on, I haven’t been photoreading on any sort of a regular basis. I guess it’s been difficult for me to trust my intuition. I’ve an analytical mind and its hard for me to do that. And apparently I love my independance and am just a ltitle attached to it and I suppose I believe independance and control come from consciousness, rather than something other than the conscious.

Anyhoo, I’ve hit some landmarks in hte last few days while activating what I’ve photoread. I was studying for a test earlier this week and I had photoread the chapters involved (I tend to photoread things anyway, before I regular read them, to sorta build in the habit) and since time was sparse, I skipped a paragraph. Then I realized I skipped that paragraph and went back to read it over again and found that there was indeed no useful information there.

Last night, I was activating (reading, photoreading-style, skipping stuff that’s unimportant, etc) a book and again I was skipping all sorts of irrelevant information. I was also getting some real signals as to what was important and what was not. There’s no word that I can think of to describe it, but it was like the vibration of certain passages was higher. It just felt like somethings were more important. And I would go back and read it again, and sure enough, there was little or nothing important in them. So, I guess that’s what listening to your intuition is about/feels like. It’s a surprisingly carefree process. Its very much just following your intuition, and not really thinking "oh, that parts interesting, there" or "ignore that". It’s more of a gut feeling thing and just let my eyes flow aruond the page. And also actively try to understand everything is important, too, so its kind of a paradox.

I’m hoping that this will start to lead me towards greater achievements with photoreading books of interest to me. I think that some of the other stuff I’ve been doing lately has helped me with photoreading. Wisdom of uncertainty, letting go of my need to be in total control, some stuff with IM, etc.

My next step is change my tendancy or desire to read everything and trust in the wisdom of uncertainty. The photoreading system is built on the idea of multiple passes. So in the first pass, you get the general ideas and layout of the book, the second pass, more info, the third pass, more info, and on and on until you feel like you’ve gotten all you want outta the book. Sometimes you don’t go past the first pass, sometimes you end up rapid reading (kinda like regular reading) the book. For me, I tend to start reading a lot more in the first pass than I would like to, and almost start regular reading the book. I’m going to break out of that soon, I can feel that I am.

Anyhoo, I’m looking forward to improving my photoreading skills with great anticipation. My mind salivates with the thought of the potential benefits I could gain from photoreading. Understanding things faster, better and in a shorter frame of time. That would be a huge advantage when I want to learn about a new field quickly, which is something I end up doing often enough.

Life is good.

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Notes on life

I’m running every day now. It really is amazing how quickly I picked up this habit. There’s a point one reaches in their own development where when you decide to do something, its virtually garunteed that you’ll go through with it, without resistance from within. I’m not totally there yet, but running every day is, I think, a good land mark along the way. I am appreciative of my journey and my place on that journey so far. I do recognize that I am procrastinating on my essay, but I am appreciativeo f how far I’ve come.

Running every day, though, has included some very good benefits. Doing it soon after waking up allows me to wake up faster, have more energy during the day. Yesterday, in my three hour lecture I noticed I had higher concentration for more the lecture. I’m also able to relax a bit more. And I love the boost to my mood and self-esteem that regular excersize gives.

Here’s the thing, resistance is within. It is not within the act itself, but it is actually within. It’s not the act of running (theoretically) itself which I don’t like, its the feelings associated with it. I’ll get sweaty, I’ll be in pain, it won’t be fun, and so forth. And on and on and on our brain chatters on. I use two ways to reduce that sort of thing:

1. Make it a routine. Routines are like habits, once they set in, its harder to get out of them than you think. So you don’t have to psych yourself up to go running or working out or whatever every day for ever, just for the first week or so. Set a time so that one naturally leads to the other. Waking up naturally leads going to the washroom and brushing your teeth, which, for me, naturally leads to running now. "Habits are like a cable. We weave a strand every day and soon they cannot be broken."
2. Learn to control your mind chatter. Ever pay attention to the thoughts you’re thinking? Here’s a quick meditation: Find a quiet place and focus on your breath or your heart beat for a few minutes. This part is just to calm down a little and slow the pace of your mind, you’ll probably think here, too. Then, start to notice your thoughts. Just notice them first, without judgement. Its kinda hard to do in the beginning, to notice your thoughts and think them. One way might be to turn the volume of your thoughts down a little bit in your head. Just imagine your thoughts becoming quieter and quieter and they will. Sometimes you’ll start thinking something and that reminds you of something else and then something else and you’ll suddenly think, "how did I start thinking about this?"

There is a saying that the mind is like a drunken monkey. And it really is. With practice, you can start to notice your thoughts more and more and notice the really quick reactions to situations or thoughts that you have. Running might bring up the image of sweat and pain, for you, or it might bring up the image of you feeling great, running with a smile on your face, having lots of energy and really enjoying the rest of your day.

If you’re interested in this sort of "mindfulness meditation", I also recommend reading The Power of Now. My mindfulness expanded greatly after reading that book.

Life is good.

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