Markis Hernandez > Recent Status Updates

Went over the type of "blocks" we will use to manage our time. Focus blocks are for our best work projects, and we want to stick to 3 focus blocks a week when it comes to our best work projects. Recovery blocks are time we use for self-care: exercise, eating, rest, and leisure. Admin blocks are for our menial day-to-day tasks, and social blocks are for when we are spending time w others, be it for work or pleasure.

The continues on w detailing the woes of overloading ourselves w too many projects by reminding us that large-scale projects may take around a year to complete and each large-scale project has many smaller sub-projects in them, so organizing our time and being detailed w how we approach said big projects is crucial. When breaking our projects down, its useful to use action verbs so we get how to proceed weekly/daily.

Ch 5 discusses how we will gauge our time for a project. Gilkey has us thinking about "chunks" as the things we need to do for our project. We can then put chunks into different time-based categories: Tasks - 15 min, blocks - 2hrs, months, and quarters. By categorizing our chunks this was, we can better see how much time will actually be needed to complete them, or if chunks can be broken down further.

A success pack is a group of ppl who'll help you complete your project. They are: Guides, Peers, Supporters, and Beneficiaries. It's important to name specific ppl for each class and to know exactly how they can help you and how you can help them (in the case of the beneficiary). Once this is done, you must reach out to them and seek out their help or at least review what important info they have to offer regularly.

Choosing a start date is a way to add more commitment and double down on a project. This helps maintain direction when we have other projects we are working on. Once we have made start and end date commitments, we can focus on people who can help us complete our project. Charlie refers to them as our "success pack" These are the 4 kinds of ppl to put in your success pack: ​Guides ​Peers ​Supporters ​Beneficiaries

The back end of the book feels like a vomiting of final thoughts and ideas around playing shows in general. There is some sound advice in there, like being clear about what the deal is between me and the venue and getting it all in writing. There is even a pro tip on unwrapping your CDs for your fans so you can sign them faster and just sign "thanks" on them if you're pressed for time. The house concert info was good

Identifying levels of success was an interesting concept. I quickly realized that a project can have varying levels of success within them. There is also the fact that you can have multiple projects going on at once, but each of them can have varying levels of success as well. What makes this interesting is that I do not need to focus on 1 project, but rather focus on projects that fit w what I can handle successwise

The book gets into SMART goals. Their variation is: Simple, Meaningful, Actionable, Realistic, and Trackable. I like this version. It's more open to diverse and abstract goals. It also directs us to SMARTify all our goals.

The notion of displacement (the idea that doing something means you're not doing anything else) struck a chord w me. I realize that I've been carrying all my ideas around and stabbing at them indiscriminately. Instead, I should put all the ideas down, pick out the ones that matter most, then choose one to knock out of the park. This way, I can then get closer to wholly completing another goal. This is essentially ch3

Gilkey uses the term "thrashing" to describe the reaction to our resistance toward our meaningful work. Thrashing is what we tell ourselves, how we procrastinate, or altogether avoid the work we know we should be doing. It's also picking easier work to do instead of the real work we know we should be doing. I realized that this past week I have been doing quite a bit of thrashing by prioritizing other people's work.

Along with the five challenges in the air sandwich are five keys that, in concert, help us better manage the deficits that aspects of the five challenges have on us. The five keys are: intention, awareness, boundaries, courage, and discipline. As I keep reading, a main point keeps drilling into my head: clarity and prioritizing go a long way toward accomplishment. We aren't as specific as we think we are.

One takeaway I received is that discipline means showing up when you don't feel like it. It also means committing to the time you put aside to do something. It seems to be the glue that holds the other 5 keys together. Having no realistic plan resonated with me. Things don't get done when we aren't clear about our intentions and how we will spend our time. Getting started despite limited resources is also noteworthy

It's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one that has a bunch of ideas, but am only moving the needle on a select few of them, and at no good pace/intention. They call it the "air sandwich". One piece of bread is those lofty goals and ideas and the other piece of bread is your actual life and responsibilities. The "air" in between the 2 are 5 things w the 1st one being competing priorities ​

I like the notion of turning an idea into a "project." Thinking about it as a project requires clarity and implies a time-based approach. I have lots of ideas, and that's fine, but the more important thing to do is to pick an idea, turn it into a project, and stick to it.

The biggest takeaway I received is how once medicating patients was proven to work, it started to replace alternative treatments and therapies completely. The problem is that it didn't reduce the number of people receiving medication but rather increased it. The biggest reason was that it didn't deal with the underlying problem causing the perceived need to be medicated.

Correlating low serotonin levels with prolonged cortisol levels in post-traumatic patients piqued my interest. Another thing that stood out to me is how those who experienced a traumatic event or a precarious upbringing tended to seek out instances similar to past events. There is a sort-of conditioning that derives pleasure from the past endured. Part of this is also a "comfort" in an experience we know.

Something that struck me was how intense a flashback is than just a memory. Bessel was trying to understand why these memories remained so vivid and visceral and didn't diminish like typical memories. He also makes the correlation that women who endured incestual experiences as children behaved similarly to the Vietnam vets.

One thing that really stuck out to me is that the vets could only see their flashbacks or did not see anything in the Rorshach test, but more so, what that meant. It meant that they could not access their imagination. Imagination is a vitally important component for creating one's purpose or feeling a sense of it. It's how we evoke things that we care about. It made me realize how much I underestimate my imagintation

We start off with what drove Bessel to pursue this lifelong career with Tom, his first wartime patient at the VA. Bessel made the connection that a lot of vets have simiar physiological symptoms including his father and uncle. BY reading a book written by Kardiner, he found the term "physioneuroses" which essentially means that the truma endured created not, just a mental effect, as presumed, but also a physical one.

The preface had me drooling to read more! The book's already driving the point home that not processing trauma leads to all kinds of interpersonal problems when we get older. There's also 3 ways to deal w it: 1) top down; gaining understanding of what is going on w us, 2) meditation and procedures that can dampen parts of the brain, and 3) bottom up; letting the body have experiences that contradict them feelings

Stage presence! A great tip is to speak more slowly than you would. This keeps you from tripping over yourself verbally and makes you sound more confident. Being comfortable on stage is important to convey to the audience, as it makes them more comfortable. Regarding booking, you want to book 3 months in advance on average and keep the emails concise. Get to the point of the email. Be sure everyone's happy w the show

Here we goooooo. Reading the praise alone got me super hyped to read this. Based on that alone, it looks like I'm in for a clinic on the mind-body relationship that stems from the trauma of the past. I'm buckling up my seat belt.

Read the loving-kindness meditation. I like how they start you out with repeating the mantras toward yourself, then to someone you love, then a neutral person, then someone who annoys you. Reading it made me feel better on is own.

The book is done at this point, but there is a girthy appendix, meditations, and inquiries on the backend worth reviewing. I found reading through the meditation prompts to be especially useful for more singular moments of mindfulness, or when you find yourself lost in thought in general.

Part of what makes a sangha important is being able to ask for help from others. It's something most of us lack when we were deep in our addictions, and though it will take time, practice, and some vulnerability to be comfortable doing it, the sangha is a great place to cultivate this important trait. Another important tool the sangha provides is access to wise friends and mentors.

Sangha means community. This is vitally important for those in recovery bc we have been used to isolating, not trusting others, and generally being alone. For Recovery Dharma, the sangha is the community that organizes and attend meetings is crucial for our journey. Its where we can learn to trust ourselves and others again. Its a safe space to be vulnerable. We must have faith that there is a sangha out there for us

Wise concentration is about training the mind to be focused and undistracted. We do this by practicing mindfulness, whether it be via meditation or bringing ourselves back to the present moment at any given time when we are paying attention to what is going on around us. It can also get us out of negative thoughts or feelings of craving. Sangha means "community". Recovery Dharma meetings strive to be a safe space.

Wise mindfulness is about being present w what is in our minds, bodies, hearts, and world. We want to be present for our thoughts in a matter that promotes compassion for ourselves and others and not get caught up in creating stories from these thoughts. It's about building awareness of our feeling without judging them or being hard on ourselves. There are four foundations of mindfulness practice.