We are probably inadvertently selecting for people who have some self taught/innate ability to self modify, since people who aren’t good at this don’t get as much out of the sequences. I’m currently working with a couple people that are bad at this to see if its something simple and easily fixed, and will report back with lessons learned.
I’m extremely glad to hear that. Do please report back, whether or not you succeed in teaching the skills.
Not much progress (or time) with one person due to a depression related lack of motivation (still struggling to find a method to tackle the motivation part, and it’s sorta a prerequisite for progress)
But good results with the other.
I wanted to instill a solid big picture base of “what are we doing, and why?”, so I spent a few hours describing in depth the idea of identity/belief space, attractors, the eerily strong commitment and consistency effects, and other forces that push us around.
From there I went on to talk about the importance separating the bad qualities from the rest of our identity and creating a strong sense of indignation towards the problem part.
The particular step by step instructions were to identify the problem thoughts/behavior and say “fuck that!” directed at the problem. For example, if you get upset from something that you don’t want to upset you- say “Fuck that” with the attitude of “I don’t want that to upset me, and I don’t want to be the kind of person that gets upset by that”.
It was extremely effective right off the bat. The person in question fixed about a handful of problems that day without so much as a word (problems that had been persisting for months because one sentence explanations weren’t enough). From the outside at least, it looked as if the problems hadn’t ever been there. With 30 seconds of effort, it was able to completely reverse a bad mood (i.e. tears to persisting genuine laughter and smiles).
It’s worth noting that actually saying “fuck that” out loud was more effective than saying it mentally, and that saying it repeatedly, forcefully, and in some cases jokingly was sometimes necessary
After a couple weeks, the technique described stopped being as effective and stop being used. It looked like a case of lost purpose- the words were being recited without the necessary attitude—as if it were supposed to be magic.
I had been coasting hoping that my job was done, but apparently she lacked the introspective skills necessary to notice attitude slipping. I guess more effort needs to be put into creating thought maintenance habits.
Another serious conversation about what the point of all this is and how, exactly, this was supposed to work got her back on track. All the positive signs of progress are back and exceeding my expectations in directions only tangentially related to what was explicitly discussed.
I think it will take more work to get her to the point of truly appreciating the sequences. I’ve got her to the level of easily knocking down trivially seen obstacles, but I think in order to get the most out of the sequences, you have to be able to notice the importance of things that are more subtle and take them seriously. With luck, this could be taught as easily, but for now my effort is on ‘error correcting code’ to keep her on track.
I’m extremely glad to hear that. Do please report back, whether or not you succeed in teaching the skills.
Your overall point also seems very good.
I have a detailed progress report for you!
Not much progress (or time) with one person due to a depression related lack of motivation (still struggling to find a method to tackle the motivation part, and it’s sorta a prerequisite for progress)
But good results with the other.
I wanted to instill a solid big picture base of “what are we doing, and why?”, so I spent a few hours describing in depth the idea of identity/belief space, attractors, the eerily strong commitment and consistency effects, and other forces that push us around.
From there I went on to talk about the importance separating the bad qualities from the rest of our identity and creating a strong sense of indignation towards the problem part.
The particular step by step instructions were to identify the problem thoughts/behavior and say “fuck that!” directed at the problem. For example, if you get upset from something that you don’t want to upset you- say “Fuck that” with the attitude of “I don’t want that to upset me, and I don’t want to be the kind of person that gets upset by that”.
It was extremely effective right off the bat. The person in question fixed about a handful of problems that day without so much as a word (problems that had been persisting for months because one sentence explanations weren’t enough). From the outside at least, it looked as if the problems hadn’t ever been there. With 30 seconds of effort, it was able to completely reverse a bad mood (i.e. tears to persisting genuine laughter and smiles).
It’s worth noting that actually saying “fuck that” out loud was more effective than saying it mentally, and that saying it repeatedly, forcefully, and in some cases jokingly was sometimes necessary
After a couple weeks, the technique described stopped being as effective and stop being used. It looked like a case of lost purpose- the words were being recited without the necessary attitude—as if it were supposed to be magic.
I had been coasting hoping that my job was done, but apparently she lacked the introspective skills necessary to notice attitude slipping. I guess more effort needs to be put into creating thought maintenance habits.
Another serious conversation about what the point of all this is and how, exactly, this was supposed to work got her back on track. All the positive signs of progress are back and exceeding my expectations in directions only tangentially related to what was explicitly discussed.
I think it will take more work to get her to the point of truly appreciating the sequences. I’ve got her to the level of easily knocking down trivially seen obstacles, but I think in order to get the most out of the sequences, you have to be able to notice the importance of things that are more subtle and take them seriously. With luck, this could be taught as easily, but for now my effort is on ‘error correcting code’ to keep her on track.