I was sitting in a tiny rental lodge, feeling resistance. It was about dinner time — I knew I should go make some food. I just wanted to sleep, sink into a bed and stay passive. It felt similar to when I’m recently awake, lying in bed, and procrastinating getting up.
On the one hand, making food would shift me into a new state of being, getting going and maybe feeling happier. For part of me, this promise didn’t feel real — not in the way the bed did. I realized I was stuck in a tie between Pragmatic-Analysis and Akrasia.1
I shifted out of this impasse by going into Beast-Mode. Practically, I acted out the first hedonistic impulse to appear — grabbing a date and eating it. Shifting my headspace into Beast-Mode helped ease the short-term resistance — the Beast-Mode shift made the possibility of future state-shifting more real. If I could go into temporary Beast-Mode, then surely I can enter a happy salad-making headspace.
My Akrasia headspace is quite stupid, lacking the theory of mind required to understand that my experience and headspace can shift to enjoy many things that temporarily feel “too much” — such as early-morning cold showers. Other headspaces of mine — including Beast-Mode & Pragmatic-Analysis — are much more mature, and able to account for the preferences & goals I hold in other headspaces.
When I’m in these mature states, I can control my reactions and mindset to a large degree — making mental moves to shift how I relate to things. When I’m in Akrasia, I feel resistance that makes everyday things hard to do — washing dishes becomes a slog through a nasty marsh. When I’m in Beast-Mode or Pragmatic-Analysis, washing dishes can be great fun — accompanied by singing, taking my time to make things sparkle, and enjoying the repetition.
Unfortunately, I easily forget that I can shift mindsets around. I “meld” with the negative thought patterns, forgetting other ways of being. When I’m anxious, I resist taking steps to improve the situation, fearful that I’ll do something to provoke even stronger anxiety. When I’m in Akrasia, I’m unable to imagine what flow is like — thinking that the grass is equally brown on the other side, and further away.
Historically, I’ve used Pragmatic-Analysis to deal with most challenges — with great success. However, it’s less efficient when dealing with Akrasia and Anxiety. The analysis easily turn non-productive, serving to affirm dysfunctional headspaces rather than finding a path forward.
Pragmatic-Analysis tends to frame solutions in plans, such as “I’ll step out of bed, go take a shower, then do some breathwork […]”. At this point, Akrasia starts resisting, either shutting down the thoughts or turning the planning into a daydreaming-ideation state. Shifting into Beast-Mode is a better plan — doing something immediately pleasant that is also invigorating/agency-inducing.
Your inhibitions exist to protect you. At some point in your life, something conditioned that inhibition, and the brain now thinks that not having the inhibition is dangerous, so it won't let you dissolve it until it's convinced otherwise. You can probably turn down an inhibition since it's quite easy to argue that most inhibitions are exaggerated, and that's the idea with the "magic dial" in Book review: "Feeling Great" by David Burns
So I think the extent to which you can change your state of mind depends on how many restrictions your mind has put in place, how many regions of this space are "forbidden regions". Some people won't allow themselves to do anything weird or "cringe", and for some people, this is true even if they're completely alone, which tells me that they've internalized some panopticon mechanism of protection against social judgement.
I also think we worry because we're afraid that if we stop worrying, something bad will happen. In other words, the worrying itself is a self-defense mechanism. Same with things like guilt and unhappiness, the beliefs are "If I stopped feeling guilty, I might do something bad", and "if I stopped being unhappy, then I might stop putting effort into my life". So unhappiness is a contract we make with ourselves. "I'm allowed to be happy once I achieve X, but not before"
So ultimately, most of the things controlling these mechanisms seem to exist in our "core beliefs". Some people also speak of "core values" and "identity" as additional restrictions, but I think these may just be other kinds of beliefs.
Indeed, teaching wisdom is really difficult. Most people will have to experience things themselves in order to get them.
I think the "trust the universe" thing is a bit like placebo (positive belief with positive results), a bit like praying (believing that a state will be reached, a bit like visualizing the future you want (anchoring a goal state and believing that you will reach it), and a bit like confidence (the belief that you can reach valuable states).
Believing that something is possible is highly useful. Have you seen how records (like in sports) improve over time? You can go 100 years with minor improvements, and then somebody beats the record, and now many other people, now realizing that it's possible, beat the old record as well.
And do you know the story of George Dantzig? A professor wrote two unsolved problems on the blackboard, and Dantzig, thinking they were homework, solved both of them. To tie this into the writing above, it's seems like limiting beliefs hold us back in life. Spiritual people seemingly attempt to lift these limiting beliefs by statements such as "Mind over matter" and "Belief can move mountains".
I think strong beliefs are a factor in some mental illness, though. Delusions of grandeur for instance. Some also describe depression as trapped, negative priors.
Finally, I'd like to bring up fight/flight/freeze/fawn. The difference seems to lie in your belief in your own strength (capacity for fighting), and your belief in the trustworthiness of other people (that fawning won't be used against you). Also the legitimacy thereof, are you allowed to use your strength, and are you allowed to be weak? Self-defense laws conflict with the former, and if you're a pillar of strength for many people, it will conflict with the latter. I'm not yet sure how to seperate "freeze" and "flight" though.
This past paragraph is useful to think about, as you want to grow stronger under pressure rather than weaker. To flip "Oh no I'm so useless" into an "I will show you!" and a "what if I fail?" into an "I will do my best". I think manipulating your beliefs can make you more 'antifragile'