Make Your Damn Bed

Originally posted on day 1375 Stage 1 – Honeymoon Initial commitment and excitement to engage in tasks. For example, when you first start your journey in a new activism group. Stage 2 – Onset of stress Common symptoms of stress start being felt, such as fatigue, lower productivity and sleep disturbances. Stage 3 – Chronic Stress Lack of motivation + more intense symptoms felt on a very frequent ba...

Instead of trying to get rid of dopamine, focus on stepping away from habits and behaviors that no longer serve you. Read the Harvard Article on Dopamine Fasting here. Read the Cleveland Clinic's: Dopamine Detoxes Don’t Work: Here’s What To Do Instead Read Can the ‘Dopamine Detox’ Trend Break a Digital Addiction? SUPPORT JULIE (and the show!) DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund AND T...

How to stop scrolling. Start from where you are. Recognize what is a systemic issue. Practice "deciding" with intention when scrolling. Practice staying focused and catching yourself when you get distracted on your phone. Decouple your association of "dopamine" with "scrolling. Practice the standard addiction coping strategies: Make the desired habits more accessible + attractive. Make the habit y...

Why would you want to disconnect from your joy, when trying to restore your sense of joy? You can't go on a T-break for pleasure. Instead, focus on the modifying the way you get your pleasure, instead of eliminating the pleasure itself. Dopamine is just one neurotransmitter responsible for our sense of pleasure + joy. We can't and shouldn't want to detox our dopamine levels. Dopamine is essential...

I've been working on my relationship with my phone, on and off, for years. Sometimes, I use it as a tool. Sometimes, it feels like it's using me as a tool. Genuine + deeply rooted ad fatigue, traumatic events sprung upon me, most content is some form of engagement/rage/anxiety/fear bait, brain rot + ai slop, trolls + bot accounts. Misinformation + disinformation campaigns financed by literal gover...

People associate the feeling of feeling the most alive when they’re laughing and playing and goofing off. People feel the most connected with their purpose and life and future and desire to make the world a better place, when they are connected to joy + their ability to have fun once in a while.  But for some reason, as we get older - we make less and less time for play. We find it frivolous...

I overthink things that don't require second thought. I suck the fun out of joyful activities by worrying about doing it "correctly" or "perfectly" or performing "well enough to not embarrass myself" yet... even when there is no audience, I find myself performing. The expectations take away the true joy that comes from "creating" and "play" and "love" and "fun" and I'm trying to pay attention to t...

We love answers. We love conclusions. We tend to steer clear of open ended problems and tasks, because of this. But there are so many things that leave us with open ended problems that we will never be able to solve.  Learning to tolerate that discomfort is an important skill to practice. The "right" answers don't exist. Let go of your "need" to know. Embrace the wholeness of the human experi...

have been trying to stop thinking of every single decision I make as some deep moral test. Every time I stay in the shower a little too long, or support a shitty company, or buy a product wrapped in single use plastic, isn’t a condemnation of all of my character. I am not going to hell. I am not broken. I am not a piece of shit. I am a human being, set up to fail, but doing my best any-damn-way.&n...

I have complex feelings about our personal responsibility. As we know the richest 1% cause more climate damage than over half of humanity. 57 companies are linked to 80% of greenhouse emissions, but our society has pushed us into the thinking its ALL our personal responsibility OR it's not at all. But all or nothing thinking is counter-productive and self-defeating. Instead think of every single i...

We can actually build a better world, but we have to break the cycle of cynicism, first. THE CYCLE OF CYNICISM 1. Finding out about a problem 2. Wanting to do something to help 3. Not seeing how you can help 4. Not doing anything about it 5. Feeling sad, powerless, angry 6. Deciding that nothing can be done 7. Beginning to shut down 8. Wanting to know less about problems 9. Repeat until apathy res...

We can actually build a better world, but we have to break the cycle of cynicism, first. THE CYCLE OF CYNICISM 1. Finding out about a problem 2. Wanting to do something to help 3. Not seeing how you can help 4. Not doing anything about it 5. Feeling sad, powerless, angry 6. Deciding that nothing can be done 7. Beginning to shut down 8. Wanting to know less about problems 9. Repeat until apathy res...

We can actually build a better world, but we have to break the cycle of cynicism, first. Read the Inner Self Article on How to Make the World a Better Place. Watch a video about Kinesin (motor protein) . Read the report on Violent Crime And Media Coverage In One City: A Statistical Snapshot Read the American Military University article on media coverage of violent crime. SUPPORT JULIE (and the sho...

The invention of the modern clock has turned time into a commodity. It's something you can spend, save, waste, lose, or trade for money directly. Clocks should be a tool, not a box. Yet we have curated our entire lives around the 24 hour clock, sometimes to the detriment of our natural biology. World Atlas on the History of Time The philosophy institute on Tribal Calendars University of New Mexico...

“Do you think that the trees grow tired every winter of having to shed their leaves and think to themselves, I don’t want to go through another bitter winter? And when it comes time to regrow them in the spring, do you think they say “I don’t want to push new buds out, I don’t want to form new growth and bear new fruits.”  “You don’t have to struggle your way to a state of perfection, you jus...

A society grows great when old men plant trees under whose shade they know they’ll never sit. Yesterday we discussed the difficult task of creating Long-term nuclear waste warning messages , today I want to talk about longtermism , or the idea of doing the right thing for the future generations. William MacAskill on Longtermism Read about Long Term Nuclear Waste Warning Messages at BBC. Listen to...

If you need a conversation starter to break the awkward lulls and post-fight silences at your Thanksgiving dinner, I HIGHLY suggest looking up the wikipedia page for Long-term nuclear waste warning messages + discussing it with any and everyone who will engage. The question: How can we effectively communicate a truly DEADLY danger 10,000 years in the future? SUPPORT JULIE (and the show!) DONATE to...

"If we focus [too much] on ourselves and how we feel, then we are limiting our experiences by definition." Victoria Spratt wrote, in her article: "You’re Thinking About Yourself Too Much" SUPPORT JULIE (and the show!) DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund AND THE Sudan Relief Fund GET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com TUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE S...

Finding your purpose in life is like finding your favorite food at a brand new "all you can eat" buffet. You arrive hungry and excited, and everything looks pretty delicious. You try to fit a little bit of everything on your plate. You try tiny nibbles and some disappoint. Others surprise. Others are what you expect. And when it’s time to go back up and try new things you know a littttle more and...

"If we focus [too much] on ourselves and how we feel, then we are limiting our experiences by definition." Victoria Spratt wrote, in her article: "You’re Thinking About Yourself Too Much" Try   Huel  with 15% OFF for New Customers today using code MYDB at  https://huel.com/mydb .  SUPPORT JULIE (and the show!) DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund AND THE Sudan Relie...

"I think about myself a lot, and not in a good way. I find myself obsessing over past mistakes, cringey moments, etc. and end up feeling guilty and panicked. Eventually I end up concluding that I'm a terrible person who deserves to be feeling this way." Here is the Original Post on the Meditation Reddit: Read the Substack from Soft Perception who said: "the self is not optional. it is yours to inh...

Understanding your identity is honestly, none of your business. Don't attach yourself to an identity, because identity, is inherently limiting to it's understood definition. Some of us are trying to fit in where we don't belong, and we wonder why we're uncomfortable. Watch the full aurora quote: " It’s easy to feel safe in yourself when you stop analyzing yourself. And let go of the fact that...

Some of us don’t engage with the rest of the world anymore not because the rest of the world sucks any more than it always has - but because you have built an intolerance for the world where you are not the dictator.  As Siece Campbell put it, “your algorithm worships you. You are the only one who lives inside this tiny box, let’s say you’re spending 7+ hours on your phone every day, well tho...

The brain’s main goal is to protect us, so when we ask it to do anything new (particularly if you are neurodivergent) it signals to the brain that there may be danger lurking - so it refuses to do it, because it believes that is what keeps us safe. Many brains looks at all new tasks like a hot stove. So how do we manage this? According to kdimerc we can: Remove all unnecessary stoves. Look at...

Our brain’s main goal is to protect us, so when we ask it to do anything new (particularly if you are neurodivergent) it signals to the brain that there may be danger lurking - so it refuses to do it, because it believes that is what keeps us safe. Many brains looks at all new tasks like a hot stove. So how do we manage this? According to kdimerc we can: Remove all unnecessary stoves. Look at...