Stimulus & Response

Shawn's (85% accurate) bio: police sketch artist, Industrial Light and Magic creature designer, professional pumpkin carver; Harvard classical music education, metal bands, deep listening. Day job: fake body parts. Synesthesia. Sound healing. Deep listening. Sympathetic resonance. Sound meditation. Sound bath. “Thin Places.” Open aperture vs. the leaf blower. Harmonic series. Hum buzz > coffee, chocolate, Twitter, or Facebook. Zygomatic bone.

Damon: https://www.sidestreetcoaching.com

Jeremy: http://jeremynsmith.com

Shawn Feeney: http://shawnfeeney.com & https://www.instagram.com/shawn_feeney/

Shawn’s BFF project: http://www.shawnfeeney.com/projects/bff/

Shawn’s fruit and vegetable art: https://modernfarmer.com/2014/10/next-level-fruit-veggie-sculptures/

Pauline Oliveros TedX talk, “The difference between hearing and listening”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QHfOuRrJB8

Balinese keckack performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViKT5gPoZW8

Music teacher’s quote (via classical Indian musician Gita Sarabhai): “The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind, thus making it susceptible to divine influences.”

John Cage's 4'33": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTEFKFiXSx4

Shawn Feeney, “Thin Places”: https://shawnfeeney.bandcamp.com/album/thin-places

What’s a mantra? “Your will be done, Spirit, not mine. In me and through me, show me what I need to do this day.” There is no tree that is doing it wrong. “Nothing really matters. There is only now. That’s a thought.” Worry = 95% as bad as disaster…for years. Intro to gathas: breathing in, breathing out. Power > speed. Nervous system like a metronome. You can be nervous and perform great at the same time. Splitting the screen. The witness. Tweak your training. Flow triggers. Focus (as muscle) -> curiosity -> enjoyment. Find your own mantra.

Stimulus & Response: https://stimulus-response.com

Verses (Gathas) for Mindfulness Practices:

http://mindfulnessacademy.org/en/mindfulness-essentials/79-teachings/52-verses-gathas-for-mindfulness-practices

Default Mode Network:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/default-mode-network

Dr. Andrew Huberman:

https://www.instagram.com/hubermanlab/

Positive Psychology: 11 Activities and Exercises to Induce a Flow State

https://positivepsychology.com/flow-activities/

“The Science Behind Finding Your Mantra and How to Practice It Daily”: https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/mantras-101-the-science-behind-finding-your-mantra-and-how-to-practice-it

Pandemic storytelling. Macro and micro storylines. Metamotivations. Three questions. Break-up and rebirth. Hero’s journey. How to assess reality. Daydreaming the new story. Self-compassion. The asshole in my head. Damon’s doppelgänger. Safety nets and stoicism. Happiness = reality - expectations. Self-unemployed. The new story, the open-ended story, the story of adventure. Pick your moral first. The most important part of any story. Improv.

Damon: https://www.sidestreetcoaching.com

Jeremy: http://jeremynsmith.com

Matt Mullins/Black Rooster Productions: https://vimeo.com/mattmullins

Scott Barry Kaufman, “Transcend,” on the hierarchy of needs: https://scottbarrykaufman.com/books/transcend/

Metamotivations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamotivation

Three questions: 1. What is the story I’m telling? 2. Is it true? 3. If so, is there another story I could be telling that’s also true?

Hero’s journey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey

William Upski Wimsatt quotes: “The hardest lesson I keep having to learn: there is no substitute for loving myself, respecting myself, and being true to myself. There are no shortcuts. You can’t use anything external to substitute for inner-love.” & “You are where you are for reasons, many outside your control. Your job is not to judge yourself. Your job is to be honest with yourself about where you are (wherever that is), to be gentle with yourself, and to daydream possible paths to get where you want to be.”

William Upski Wimsatt, “Please Don't Bomb the Suburbs”: https://bookshop.org/books/please-don-t-bomb-the-suburbs-a-midterm-report-on-my-generation-and-the-future-of-our-super-movement/9781936070596

Dr. Kristin Neff on self-compassion: https://self-compassion.org & https://bookshop.org/books/self-compassion-the-proven-power-of-being-kind-to-yourself/9780061733529

Dan Harris, “10% Happier”: https://bookshop.org/books/10-happier-revised-edition-how-i-tamed-the-voice-in-my-head-reduced-stress-without-losing-my-edge-and-found-self-help-that-actually-works-a-tr/9780062917607

Stoicism: Marcus Aurelius: https://dailystoic.com/meditations-marcus-aurelius/

& Ryan Holiday: https://dailystoic.com/obstacle-is-the-way-summary

The writing prescription: 15 minutes a day, 4 days in a row. The erosion punch. MAPSIT (Make A Plan, See It Through). Writing groups. Give feedback -> learn to edit yourself. Routines to keep going despite self-judgment. Pomodoro technique & nervous system reset. Dopamine = on the right track. Researching, reporting, and journaling. “Submarining” vs. full-aperture. Silent meditation retreat experience. Catching the train to the present moment. Writing tips: 1. Want something; 2. Say it to your mom; 3. Do a really bad job & make it better.

Damon: https://www.sidestreetcoaching.com

Jeremy: http://jeremynsmith.com

Matt Mullins/Black Rooster Productions: https://vimeo.com/mattmullins

Writing Therapy: https://positivepsychology.com/writing-therapy/

Pomodoro Technique: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique & https://francescocirillo.com/pages/pomodoro-technique & https://pomofocus.io

“How Dopamine Helps You Keep Going When Things Get Tough”: https://youtu.be/eJFfoSQcC0A

“Measuring the impact of high quality instant feedback on learning”: http://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/2506/1/Nutbrown_MeasuringTheImpactOfHighQuality.pdf

“9 Tips to Create a Truly Effective Peer Feedback Loop”: https://360learning.com/blog/tips-effective-peer-feedback-loop/

Philosophy. “Last week I was a Hindu, but this week I’m a Buddhist.” China, India, and Greece. Sutras and Shakespeare. Encountering the Dalai Lama. Life’s task: discover our true nature. Building the temple. Locking the world out. The shortest commute in the world. Three years, 150 yards apart. Our inherent luminous nature. Understanding->experience->engagement. Marlboro ad. A liberation movement for our minds. The moon and the stars. The etymology of obsession.

Jeremy: http://jeremynsmith.com

Lama David Curtis: http://www.tibetanlanguage.org/About_Us/davidcurtis.html

Matt Mullins/Black Rooster Productions: https://vimeo.com/mattmullins

Henry Bugbee: http://faculty.salisbury.edu/~jdhatley/BugbeeLife.htm

D. T. Suzuki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._T._Suzuki

Kagyu Ling Monastic College in France: https://www.karmapa.org/centers/france/dhagpo-kagyu-ling/

David’s cloistered three-year retreat: http://www.tibetanlanguage.org/PDF/ThreeYear.pdf

“Why do Buddhist monks sleep upright?”: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8112619.stm

Tibetan Language Institute & Big Sky Mind: http://www.tibetanlanguage.org & http://www.bigskymindmontana.org

Pandemic time. “I’m doing the wrong thing. I’m doing it wrong. And I’m way behind.” Yesterday and tomorrow. Engagement and graduation. My grandmother, the one-year-old. Flying cars—and back to fire. Geologic time scale. Why zebras don’t get ulcers. Simultaneity. The miracle—and trauma—of being born. The book of everything that ever will have happened. Do you need to be remembered? Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone utterly beyond. What’s left in the pot. Playing with my daughter. “When things feel big, go small.”

Damon: https://www.sidestreetcoaching.com

Jeremy: http://jeremynsmith.com

Matt Mullins/Black Rooster Productions: https://vimeo.com/mattmullins

Geologic time scale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale

“Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers” by Robert Sapolsky: https://bookshop.org/books/why-zebras-don-t-get-ulcers-revised-and-updated/9780805073690

Heart sutra (Prajñāpāramitā) mantra: http://visiblemantra.org/heart.html & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vNbEjdfJCI

Unit of self. Are we separate from everyone and everything else, or are we all connected? Fingers on a hand. Forced isolation = famine. Catch. Keith Sawyer on group flow. Us-vs.-them-ism. Tonglen meditation. Comparing chickadees. “A human being is having this feeling.” The best—and worst—I can do. Wall of wins. We’re all in this together. Being with.

Damon: https://www.sidestreetcoaching.com

Jeremy: http://jeremynsmith.com

Matt Mullins/Black Rooster Productions: https://vimeo.com/mattmullins

“The Social Brain and Its Superpowers” (Matthew Lieberman TedX talk): https://youtu.be/NNhk3owF7RQ

“What Mel Brooks Can Teach Us about ‘Group Flow’” by Keith Sawyer: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_mel_brooks_can_teach_us_about_group_flow/

Jeremy’s book on community farming, “Growing a Garden City”: http://jeremynsmith.com/growing-a-garden-city.html

“How to Practice Tonglen” by Pema Chödrön: https://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-practice-tonglen/ & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x95ltQP8qQ

Quote Jeremy attributed to his sister attributing to Maya Angelou: “The best a person can do, I can do. And the worst a person can do, I can do.”

“Cosmic Eye”(Google scales of the universe) video: https://youtu.be/8Are9dDbW24

“You Would Rather Endure Electric Shocks Than Sit Alone With Your Thoughts, Study Finds”: https://time.com/2950919/alone-with-thoughts/

Thich Nhat Hanh, “The Heart of Understanding,” on “interbeing”: “If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. If we look even more deeply, we can see the sunshine, the logger who cut the tree, the wheat that became his bread, and the logger’s father and mother. Without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist. In fact, we cannot point to one thing that is not here—time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat, the mind. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. So we can say that the cloud and the paper ‘inter-are.’ We cannot just be by ourselves alone; we have to inter-be with every other thing.”

Inner tubes and the illusion of the control. Reframe the game -> successful right now. Karmic vs. capitalistic framing. “Have your second child first.” Alert and calm. “Trust your stuff.” Interoception. The pretzel. State management > time management or stress management. Aikido centering. Finish line illusions. Up-level your vessel. We all have the same ending.

Damon: https://www.sidestreetcoaching.com

Jeremy: http://jeremynsmith.com

Matt Mullins/Black Rooster Productions: https://vimeo.com/mattmullins

Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness: https://osher.ucsf.edu/sites/osher.ucsf.edu/files/inline-files/MAIA-2.pdf

“The Way of Akido” by George Leonard: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0452279720/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_FMlgFb3Z1DEWE

“It's Not About Love Afterall” (Rev. angel Kyodo williams TedX talk with centering practice): https://youtu.be/PztCw49OQ2g

“Whitewater Philosophy” by Doug Ammons: https://dougammons.com/product/whitewater-philosophy/

Anger—and every other feeling—management. Feelings as information and alarm bells. “Name it to tame it” and the "description prescription.” Emotional ID and body scan -> create space. Meeting conflict hack: “That’s a big statement. I’m going to need a moment to process that.” Triple loop learning. Personal philosophy and daily intentions = roots. A user manual for yourself. The practice zone and the performance zone. The video camera test. Chattering teeth. The blow hole. I am this feeling -> This feeling is happening to me -> This feeling is happening.

Damon: https://www.sidestreetcoaching.com

Jeremy: http://jeremynsmith.com

Matt Mullins/Black Rooster Productions: https://vimeo.com/mattmullins

“Triple Loop Learning”: https://medium.com/vertical-learning/triple-loop-learning-c2193dba794f & https://educationtechnologysolutions.com/2017/03/triple-loop-learning/

Adam Bryant and Adam Grant on creating your own “user manual”: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/business/questbacks-lead-strategist-on-his-user-manual.html & https://www.adamgrant.net/wondering-archives (scroll down)

Michael Gervais on “Living in Alignment with Your Personal Philosophy”: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/living-alignment-your-personal-philosophy-michael-gervais/

Google study on the #1 metric for high-performing teams: psychological safety: https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/google-spent-years-studying-effective-teams-this-single-quality-contributed-most-to-their-success.html

William S. Burroughs and “Doing Easy.” Flow. Not thinking -> better at it. Pay attention to the retake. “I’ll try anything twice.” 4% harder Flow formula. On your tiptoes. The zone, the pocket, and treeing. Recovery! Having a feeling fully for 2 minutes straight vs. 1 second per hour for the rest of your life. Don’t judge the drift. Eating cookies at 11:30 a.m. Nervous system reset. Authentically uncool. Self-compassion as shock absorber. Attention and intention—lazy at work, industrious at rest. Both sides of the page.

Damon: https://www.sidestreetcoaching.com

Jeremy: http://jeremynsmith.com

Matt Mullins/Black Rooster Productions: https://vimeo.com/mattmullins

“The Discipline of DE (Do Easy)” by William S. Burroughs (and short film by Gus Van Sant): https://www.fnord23.com/the-discipline-of-de-do-easy-an-essay-by-william-s-burroughs/

DE quote I: “DE is a way of doing. It is a way of doing everything you do. DE simply means doing whatever you do in the easiest most relaxed way you can manage which is also the quickest and most efficient way, as you will find as you advance in DE."

DE quote II: “You can start right now tidying up your flat, moving furniture or books, washing dishes, making tea, sorting papers. Consider the weight of objects exactly how much force is needed to get the object from here to there. Use just the amount of force necessary…. Guide the dustpan lightly to the floor as if you were landing a plane.”

Yoga Nidra guided meditation exercise: https://youtu.be/KJyES0Wi-fc

“Almost Famous,” Lester Bangs: “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.”

Lao Tzu: “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”