Journal

[berrytwo]

I thought today might be as good of a day as ever to start a journal. Fresh out of Fest, I feel an intensified spark for ERE and feel much less like I am talking to a void now. I have been taking some time to do some integration work, and am hoping to write more about that soon.

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Here is an abridged version of my intro if you haven't read it and/ or met me:

I have been mostly a lurker here on the forums for a while now (with the occasional post here and there.) I talk a lot about ERE with my partner, who is much more deep into the ERE world. I am drawn to the forums for inspiration on simple living, new frameworks for looking at the world, and shared thinking.

I deeply value both connections interpersonally and to the natural world. I am currently very interested in Plotkin, Permaculture design principles, Myers Briggs (ENFJ), Non-violent communication, learning to mend, GTD, and just general lifestyle design. I currently live in the PNW in a community living situation which I am really stoked about. I work as an educator (not full time).


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In other words here are some projects I have been thinking about:

Project Homesteader: The fruits and eggs ( from our chickens) in my community all seemed to simultaneously produce an abundance. Every year a lot of it goes to waste. We tried to get a WWOOFer to stay with us, but it didn't work out this year. I am working on learning how to preserve more and/ or make things from scratch. I have canned very little, but felt inspired by MF's pickles at fest so may try to do some quick pickling this week, if there are extra cucumbers. @Jean gave the idea of Flan with extra eggs, I might try that out if someone doesn't end up making a huge frittata this week. DP (Dear Partner lol) made pear sauce yesterday, it was 10/ 10. I discovered the dehydrator that lives in my basement before Fest, we dehydrated some food for backpacking and extra fruit to share at Fest. Hoping to use it more to make fruit leather and other backpacking food. Is a dehydrator = egg boiler????

7 min presentation night: I have heard about this idea before. People come and share about anything for 7 min. Often they are funny, but they could be about anything. I was reminded of the idea the other day by someone and was thinking about the workshops at Fest. Not sure what format I will use, but am in brainstorming mode about that.


A current potential project I am thinking about writing an article for a very green magazine about Myers Briggs in communities. This is a topic I think a lot about, and feel like it would be valuable. However, I worry about writing about such a controversial topic. Will everyone simultaneously be asking have you ever heard of enneagram and/ or think that I am trying to put them in a box? Perhaps. My next step is to email the editor about how well it would fit with the publication theme and discuss if this would be a cancelation se-up.

[dustBowl]

Woo! Looking forward to this one. I've been thinking a lot about communal living setups since our conversation at the fest.

[OutOfTheBlue]

Great to see you're starting a journal, almost missed it because of the generic title!

Seems a pretty good timing after participating in the ERE fest.

Your community simple living/permaculture situation is of great interest to me. Working part time means you have more time to pursue your own agenda.

I realize that the ERE fest was also an occasion for members of the Plotkin MMG to meet in real, and curious to see what this shared bonding experience will bring to the group dynamics! Seeing faces in our discord meetings was a step towards more personal connection and away from the void, but meeting in person brings this to a whole new level.

I like how you talk about doing integration work after that ERE experience. We've touched upon the concept of integration in our last MMG meeting, and I think it comes from the field of psychedelics, but its significance is all-pervasive. For whatever experience we have, taking the time to integrate it into our lives often makes all the difference. Especially for spiritual/profound experiences, where coming back can bring a jarring sense of disconnect, integration work is crucial. Otherwise the potential for change does not get to fully bloom.

I wonder what does your integration work look like in this instance. I suspect journaling might play a part, but even starting this public journal could be seen as a concrete step as well!

[avalok]

Hey, nice to see you start a journal and glad you enjoyed the festival.

A current potential project I am thinking about writing an article for a very green magazine about Myers Briggs in communities. However, I worry about writing about such a controversial topic.

This would be really interesting to explore. MBTI really helped me understand that people think and operate in fundamentally different ways to myself, and that has made me more accepting of others. I get the sense conflict is one of, if not the, biggest challenge for communities to deal with? So would have thought this very relevant. I know what you mean about people feeling boxed in, it is something I stress I am not trying to do when discussing MBTI outside the forum.

[berrytwo]

Thank you so much for your encouragement!

@Avolok Conflict can be a biggie in community, you are totally right. I had a similar line of thinking around it being a way of understanding people who are much different than myself. It can also be really helpful for understanding strengths/weaknesses in both individuals and communities as a whole.

Fun fact: you are much less likely to find rationals in a community living situation than idealist. Perhaps, in part, because rationals tend to want to work more individually than collectively. Idealists on the other hand, are prolific (way way over the percentage per population in intentional communities.) The very first rational (from my knowledge) is applying to live at my community and I really hope she moves in!

@Outoftheblue Thanks for asking about my integration! I was thinking about how integration can be a tool for any way we leave our usual context (travel, mediatation, dreams ect.) It seems like a very Plotkin-esque doesn't it I have been doing some journaling, have had some coversations with DP, and hope to talk to people about it in our MMG!

@dustBowl Yay! Thank you so much. I just returned from reading through your whole journal for the first time. During, I had a moment of intense gratitude for both you and the platform of these journals/ ERE in general. What a gift it is to see others unfiltered thoughts, to see my own expereices mirrored, to learn from and about others inner worlds. I am looking forward to connectig more through our journals, MMG, ect!

[berrytwo]

Updates:

Pretty quickly after returning to ERE fest, my life started to pick up pace, after many months at a much slower cadence. I started to substitute teaching again. While it is not always freedom- to work, sometimes I see glimpses of it. This last week was one of those times. I played ultimate frisbee and capture the flag all day outside. Alas, students gave me COVID though, so my busy schedule came to a screeching halt. Today it feels good to rest, catch up on some reading and writing projects (including starting the MBTI community article), and enjoy the changing seasons from my room. I am thankful for the flexibility I have afforded myself with this job.

Homestead:

DP and I made apple pie from apples that had fallen on the ground in our yard and quiche with chard and eggs from our yard for our dinner shift (we take turns cooking dinner in our community). It was quite a lot of work to make the crusts but was well worth it.


Did not get to any canning this year, but hope to do so next year!


Social:

I have attended several events in the last month that have been meaningful to me including an authentic relating group, NVC, Plotkin MMG, and a grief ceremony. I am reminded of how rewarding it feels to do stuff in the external world (especially a Fe/ Se-ish place). The grief ceremony and authentic relating, in different ways, were able to push me to my vulnerability edges.

My intentional community has felt more cohesive, in part because people are coming back into their routines of the fall. I enjoy the vibrancy a lot.

I am on a journey to find deeper connections in the town where I live and feel like I am slowly finding the places where I might find like-minded people.

Project de-numb:

Reading Plotkin has been a reminder to me about the ways that I numb using the unhealthy coping tools of technology. I know this is not a very unique problem to have these days, it seems so normalized. My "numb-er" subpersonality could be welcomed home as a loyal soldier. I have healthy coping strategies that I could use, although they do not give the dopamine fix of Instagram. It is so insane how powerfully addictive it it. I am trying to create new pathways and brain patterns. Last month I started not using my phone until after morning tea/ coffee. Then I deleted Instagram. I am trying to add in activities and go-to things I can do when I need downtime.

[calamityjane]

Hey berrytoo! Great to see you started a journal, I'm excited to follow.

[AxelHeyst]

+1 I really like your updates.

My "numb-er" subpersonality could be welcomed home as a loyal soldier.

It never occurred to me to think of my numbing behavior this way but it totally makes sense. Light bulb moment for me.

[sodatrain]

Woo! Glad you started a journal and am looking forward to following along. I am fairly certain I can discern who this is...we had a nice chat doing dishes one night, right? Fruit and backpacking (and obviously PNW) are the other clues I'm leaning on.

[berrytwo]

Woohoo! Excited to share more of our journeys together

@sodatrain Yep! You got it. Thanks so much for stopping by.

[berrytwo]

Updates and musings:

Had some highs and lows this week or so.

Highs:

-Our cob oven has been broken for 4 years. DP and a friend fixed it in 30 minutes and we had an epic pizza party to celebrate. I made pesto from the basil in our yard.

-I harvested some shitakes from our inoculated logs for the first time.

-I went to a council (circle around a fire and talk about feelings and stuff) and made a friend!

- Sauna time X2

-Been active on forums and been reading/ learning a lot

-Had some great runs in the rain. Been feeling really strong

-Been 1 month (I think?) of no Instagram and have not been feeling the urge to look at it anymore.


Lows:

-I tried to have "The Talk" with my dad and it didn't go so well. My spending/ working habits have been peculiar to him since college, but I think he thought I would outgrow the "starving college student" phase once I graduated with my Master's. It has been a few years since then. It is hard to explain that you don't have to be starving to live on $12,000 a year...

-I have been a bit stuck on my Myers-Briggs article project. Words on paper don't always seem as elegant as they are in my head. I at least came up with a title that I am happy with: Myers-Briggs: A Tool for Better Understanding in Communities.


- I am dreading (and trying to avoid) having a difficult conversation with someone in my intentional community... Of course, all the upsides outweigh the downsides (for me) of living in community, but dang it is hard sometimes.

-Been super existential lately, more than normal lol. I feel like I need more meaningful structure in my life and a Ni vision. I have a lot of drive energy, but not really sure where to put it and how. In part, I need to figure out how to be more self-directed. GTD helps. I do think my temperament works a little better with some external structure. For some background, from the age of 9-23 I had a crystal clear vision of being an elementary school teacher. There were clear steps to get there. When I had a super negative experience teaching, I realized that I needed to make a shift. When I say it was an identity/ Ni vision destroyer, that is an understatement. Now I am sitting here, as NF's do, questioning what their purpose is in life. I have been WOGing a lot, I just find myself leaving feeling more lost than before. For me, meaning mostly stems from connections with other people. Most people in my life are working...I go to a lot of events (which have been really good for me) and have some structure with my community. I have pretty clear goals for the more far out future, but the shorter term, I find harder.


My ideas for Ni vision so far:
-Get a part-time job where I could meet people (as well as continue my job subbing, where I meet very few people my age)
-Start a business (My ideas are not fully formed yet but facilitation, mediation, education, one on one type stuff come to mind)
-Organize/ teach an ongoing class/ workshop (NVC, mindfulness, relational connection, authentic relating...)
-Take a class in something WOGgy
-Start my life over somewhere else lol
-WWoof again
-Write a book about community and relational mindfulness while I go travel to a bunch of communities...
-Create a mindfulness class in the high school nearby (lots of factors that would need to be in my favor for this one. )
-Do what I am doing, but go to more events and try to make more meaningful connections.
-Keep working on skills and become more of a renaissance woman
-Get a small training to specialize in more things in my WOG (Yoga teaching certificate, Doula certificate...)
-Seek out a therapist/ life coach/ peer whom I could talk through some of these ideas with

I imagine what I will do is some combination of these.

Thanks for reading my ramble, and feel free to share any ideas or thoughts you have!

[ertyu]

Life coach might be good because many of your ideas sound life coach-y. Choose one with an established practice rather than a wannabe punk so you can draw on their expertise when setting up your own practice. Ditto the WOGgy classes: many of the things you mention sound seminar-ey in one way or another; maybe the WOGgy classes can double as networking and learning opportunities on how one sets up events like that. Maybe there's someone in your area you can intern/volunteer with? Etc

I like the woofing/write a book about woofing combo. Join the kind of community you'd like to run, in the process learn how best to run it, start a blog and use it to leverage a book. Could consult with intentional communities or lead mediation sessions / teach at such communities in the future.

A yoga cert will get you far, too. There are jobs for yoga teachers at various retreats and resorts internationally (afaik there's a central website everyone posts them to); plus many resorts/retreats/intentional communities will let you stay for a period in exchange for teaching there. You've got enough to work with here, imo, good luck

[berrytwo]

Journal Update:

Project De-Numb:
With days short, many of my afternoons have been deeply engulfed in reading. I have been scouring the forums and asking friends for recommendations to satiate my Ni appetite.

Appetite Awareness Training (AAT) by Linda Craighead has been one book in particular that has been helpful.

AAT talks about repairing binge-restrict patterns with food (and normalized overeating/ emotional eating/ disordered eating patterns of our modern world). Craighead explores deprivation psychology, internal based cues, and how to actually change preferences. Frameworks in this book pair nicely with Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. This book has been insightful for me on both a personal level and I’ve enjoyed connecting many of the elements of this book to broader ideas, especially as it relates to ERE.

While the book is centered on teaching people to repair their relationship with food, this book could be reimagined to offer scaffolding for people feeling stuck/ in a place where one feels out of control (or dissatisfied) with any of their habits (sleep, technology use, spending habits… )

I have been most fascinated with the psychology of deprivation and how that plays into cycles of binge/ restriction. Diet (as defined in this book) is when someone is changing their eating habits with the sole purpose of losing weight. “Cutting back spending” could be seen the same way. It takes willpower. Both of these “diets” can trigger a feeling of deprivation that can have rebound binges. In any form of dieting we can create food (or money rules) that we try to follow. When we break a rule, we are at risk of the “What the Heck” response. Black and white thinking can cloud our rational thinking and we go all or nothing and we binge/ splurge/ go on a shopping spree/ quit whatever goal we had. Many people then feel guilty and frantically try to make up for their perceived lapse in “willpower” by purging, excessive exercise/ restriction, and/or returning their items to REI. And thus the cycle continues.

How to get out of the cycle: AAT starts by teaching how to develop an internally based self-monitoring system to create new patterns of eating that feel better, and get easier over time (not harder like dieting). The goal is to move from mindless consumption (or feelings of deprivation and then out-of-control binging) to a more regulatory pattern of eating she calls “normal eating pattern.” The first step is learning to identify stomach signals moderate hunger and moderate fullness.

There is much more to it, but I will leave it at that for now.

Future Plans:

Thanks for your response btw @ertyu, I find ideas being bounced around to be extremely helpful in my process.

Separately, and almost simultaneously, my DP and I felt this unshakable feeling that coming soon we are hoping to “shuffle the deck.” A call to exploration and to leave the village. I found myself deep in internet blackholes looking up possibilities. I just learned about my shadow loop (6th and 8th function) Ne- Te. It was almost comical how accurate it is to what I am experiencing now. What are all the possibilities?????? (Ne) How can I make a pragmatic plan around that (Te)? As the model goes, to get out of the loop I must access my Si. I feel like Si is too deep in my stack to even know what type of questions Si users ask, but my guess is something like: what have I done in the past that has worked for me? What I came back to is that I need to be in a highly Fe environment and my INFJ DP needs to have Ni time in whatever adventure we do.

Social:

About a year ago I wrote in my WOG that I really wanted to be in a women’s group. It kept showing up over and over again. I tried multiple times to set one up last summer and it didn’t pan out. In September it all fell together, I was at a training in Council and someone asked if the women in the group wanted to start a women’s circle. We have had 4 sessions so far and it has gotten deeper and deeper.

A friend of the community came to stay for a birthday. She is more fluent than DP and I in MBTI (and at one point taught workshops in it.) It felt so joyful to be speaking this common language together. It reminded me of fest in that way.

Other

I finally caved and digitized most of my analog GTD system. It seems like it will be more efficient for me, and breathe some new life into my system.

[grundomatic]

I'm not too familiar yet with shadow work, but your subconscious functions are my conscious functions, and thanks to you I googled "loop" and it's even the case that your shadow loop is my "regular" loop. Anyhow, seems like you landed on the type of Si question I use to hack down lists of Ne possibilities, "What happened last time I did this?", "Have I seen this before?", etc. At my age, I've accumulated enough life experience that it's easy enough to instantly just send some ideas to the cutting room by just checking the ol' memory banks. Someone without as much experience that wants to use Si might just have to try some stuff, but maybe use your conscious functions to help decide what to try, in order to avoid too many "learned the hard way" mistakes. What kinds of things have you come up with...or maybe better to ask what are the top couple options?

[berrytwo]

Excited to hear about your discovery of loop functions! Interesting that we are loop buddies, but opposite! I bet there is a term for that haha. I am sure they show up so differently because they are conscious/ unconscious. I'd be curious to learn more about how they differ/ are connected. Reading what you wrote makes me wonder how shadow loops are filtered. I think it is pretty hard to not filter my Ne and Te through my top two functions (Fe and Ni). I think extraverting how I feel (Fe) and trusting my intuition (Ni) is the way to go like you said.

To answer your question... by the day it seems to change. The general idea is a late spring or early summer adventure/ maybe a seasonal job in our collective WOG. Will update when I get some clairity Thanks for asking about it!

[berrytwo]

Deep Life Stack:

@AE posted a few weeks ago with the link to the Deep Life podcast. There is a new version (Deep Life stack two) and I have started it in the last week several days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWCbaDfEQwE

Here are my notes and the beginnings of my plans:

Each layer builds off of each other. You spend 1-3 weeks on each new layer.

Stack one: becoming a capable person

Layer one: Discipline *

Newport talks about having 3 keystone habits (head, heart, body) that you no-matter-what follow everyday and track.

I picked:

Head: Writing for 10 minutes every day
Heart: Meditation/ stillness 5 minutes
Body: Practice AAT before every time I eat

I spent a fair bit of time carefully picking out the three I wanted. I wanted them to be accessible for me, something I could imagine doing every day. I think sometimes I like to overcommit or reinvent myself/ my whole life in one go and then give up because I can’t keep up with my huge dreams (ie “what the heck” response in AAT). I am trying a more steady-paced approach with this. The first two I do regularly already, but it is not an everyday thing, especially on the days that I work… I feel better when I have those things in my life and once I get going I can write for 1 hour or meditate for longer periods of time. I just need the push to do it. AAT is a big one for me and one that I imagine needing the support of the other keystone practices.

I have in my calendar to mostly just focus on documenting and following through with this practice for the first two weeks.


*I have been reflecting on the word discipline a lot. Especially @Axelheyst ‘s threads on devotion vs. stoke. The way that Newport talks about discipline doesn’t exactly resonate, but I have been reframing it in ways that really do. I have been thinking a lot about the concept of reparenting in conjecture with these ideas.



Layer two: Control (GTD)

I have a digital system on obsidian that I use as well as a notebook to for my inbox/ idea catcher. It is working fairly well. My hope is to spend one week with the focus being on refining and supporting the system. I have it planned for the first week of my winter break so I plan to do a deep dive. I am hoping to line up getting Ready for Anything as well as read Zen to Done. I will also plan to have my quarterly check-in on the solstice.


Layer three: Craft
Craft is where you learn to get good at something. I think of it as skill-building too. My plan is to bring my broken sewing machine to my mom’s house over the holiday and we can learn how to fix it. My hope is that she can teach me some basics that I am still lacking. I hope to do some vision boarding of project ideas as well. During this time I am planning some collage party nights where my friends and I bring magazines and swap images. I can imagine also getting a book for this time on both sewing and collage.

I imagine stretching this one out to 3ish weeks to fully integrate this stack and the previous ones, especially after winter break.

Layer four: Simplification

I have a couple ideas of what I might do for this. One idea is a digital detox. The other is a mini-retreat/ fast. I think both are connected.

Not sure on the timing of this.


Stack Two: Cultivating Depth:

Values: This is where you write your philosophy of being and things like that.

Service: Non-trivial “sacrifice” to the world.

Transformation: Concrete changes: move to the oceanside/ quit your job.

Legacy: What do I want to leave when I am gone?


The thought is that you iterate this whole cycle (perhaps minus legacy) over 6 months- year.

[berrytwo]

Journal Update/ confessing my love to David Allen:

The Plan:

The intended outcome is to create new connections (ideas, skills, relational…) by living/ exploring in different environments.

DP and I have been inching closer to plans. I am mostly clear I want to go back to a Wwoof/ intentional community I just briefly visited before. There would be an opportunity to gain a lot of skills in facilitation, gardening, NVC, and a bunch of other ENFJ juicy stuff.

I posted this on Grundo’s journal, but I have been looking into challenge coursework as well.

Clothing Swap:

My housemate and I hosted a clothing swap, which was a goal of mine to have one before the end of the year. We invited a couple of friends and a few people from our house as well as Wwoofers who are staying with us. Already it has been joyful to see people wearing my rarely worn clothes.

Deep life stack:

This has been such a helpful framework for me. My keystone habits (meditation, writing, AAT) reinforce one another quite well.

I am on to my “GTD” next stack. Have been reading Ready for Anything and LOVE it. Actually, that is a bit of an understatement. I feel like every third line I experience visceral awe at the words coming out of his mouth and scramble them down in my diary.

One line in particular has been running through my mind a lot. “Am I doing the best thing that I could be doing right now?” It is such a simple line and yet it’s popped up so many times in helpful moments for me. It has morphed into my own personal affirmation: what would my higher self think of what I am doing right now/ systems in my life/ everything else? It is again, so basic, but has been grounding me in a much less frantic or anxious place.

One of the main takeaways is that I do not have a clear line in the sand about what projects I am currently working on and what are someday/maybe. This is in part because there is ambiguity about the next phases of life and also I just haven't decided on many of them. One of my current projects is to decide what projects I am working on and committed to and what ones I am not. The ruthless cutting/ reforming of projects I have done so far has already lifted a huge weight off my shoulders/ mind/ heart.

I have also been adding more intention to next actions.

I am just feeling really thankful that frameworks like GTD/ Ready for Anything exist and that I get to read them and bask in their juiciness. More than even that, I am grateful for the forum because I am not sure I would have found it without y’all and I get to interact with people I feel really inspired by <3

[AxelHeyst]

This is so cool to read! Ready for Anything is so good and I feel like so few people -- even those into GTD -- read it. Juicy is right.

“Am I doing the best thing that I could be doing right now?”

This reminds me of this, which jumped out at me the other day:

Your bad habits don’t seem worth quitting because you don’t have responsibilities (or prioritize those responsibilities) that deserve you at 100% capacity.

If the importance of those responsibilities outweighed the pleasure of your bad habits, you’d stop without question.

I read responsibilities as goals, desires, vision for life, etc. I really like the idea of a vision, mission, purpose, etc that deserve me at 100%.

(Caveat/warning that "Us at 100%" must necessarily include the rest, self-kindness, etc to not burn out and crater ourselves.)

[berrytwo]

@AH Woah, thanks for leading me down that rabbit hole! I ended up reading a lot of his stuff and found it quite interesting. I especially liked his image of having concentric circles, Ego in the center and expanding outward to Higher self and farther to the Universe. This idea has been really connected to what I have been thinking about and helped me have a cool map. I am looking forward to his book coming out soon as well! It makes me think about how if we set up systems to check in with the universe + our higher selves through meditation, journaling, dance, stillness, affirmations, prayer, GTD weekly review etc, we can more regularly have access to these other realms and make more aligned everyday decisions.


Last night was the Solstice and I had planned to create some sort of intentional ritual. I am not the biggest fan of traditional Christmas, Thanksgiving... but I do like celebrations a lot. At a little past dusk, I cleaned my room super thoroughly and gathered all the supplies I might need (lots of blank paper, multi-colored watercolored pens, candle supplies, collages I am most proud of, my journal, and big living questions that I had recently written down.) I lit some incents and several candles and turned off all other lights. I meditated for a while and "called in" my higher self and the universe to help me (for a moment I felt a little silly doing this, but it also just felt instinctual given the setting/ where my brain has been at.) I then basically did a GTD quarterly check-in, wrote a lot, and made some diagrams of different things going on in my mind/ heart. I forget how sacred moments like these are until I am in them. My intention is to keep this tradition flowing and to add more moments of reverence and clarity to my life.

[chenda]

I recommend this book if you like spiritual stuff: https://abeautifulresistance.org/being- ... wildermuth