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Showing posts from April, 2022

[Video] post-MAPLE residency life update!

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Breaking patterns and mindfulness

I've become more aware of a phenomenon that I've begun to think of as "the gravity of patterns." (And when I say patterns I'm referring to the patterns of how we relate to ourselves and the world, which manifests in all sorts of "internal"- and "external"-facing behaviors.) There's a way in which we create the relationships and circumstances that we come to expect, or habituate ourselves to, and this is the force—gravity—that draws others in. And in a sense, makes others complicit in our views of reality. To give a slightly more obvious example, in the past I've self-identified as being powerless and untrustworthy. This led to behaviors like bulldozing my own preferences and not setting boundaries, and also giving others the authority and power to "solve" my own problems. From the other side, this kind of pattern is very tricky, because its gravity pulls you towards giving the other person what they want, and yet what they wan