Here we are. A whole new project. The MEDS Project lasted for 6 beautiful, revelatory months and gave me to opportunity to observe myself as I gently embedded practices of Meditation, Exercise, Diet and Sleep into my life, as mechanisms for a non-pharmaceutical mental / physical health recovery journey. The MEDS Project certainly gave me powerful, self-compassionate tools to manage and heal aspects of depression, anxiety, PTSD and adrenal fatigue, and it allowed me to work more gently with my beautiful autistic features and gifts. The project taught me so much, including a great deal about the limits to my capacity for compliance to a regulated self-care regime! By the end of the project, I was less focussed on tracking my MEDS, and more carried by the learning coming out of my regular dialogues of discernment with my inner self. The final point of the project saw an inner, child-like version of myself stepping forward to invite me to experience exhilaration, adventure… peak experiences.
So, here I come to investigate ‘peak experiences’ and to understand a more global approach to my own self-management, self-healing, self-love. I’m going to ask myself:
- What is the ‘peak state’, for me personally, and for others?
- What happens if we place our attention on accessing and understanding peak states… whatever they may truly be? I’m not talking here about getting out of my head on endorphins or stimulants… I’m talking about getting into my being with experiences that maybe simply get me beyond my head’s intellectual / thinking / rationalising side… and more connected with my heart, my soul, my inner child, my intuition, my spirit, my higher self. I’m interested in what happens when head, mind and spirit come together in pure, loving, attentive harmony.
- What are we human beings capable of, in terms of the vividness and richness of our experiences? Can I get more grounded in to my body and relish this human, physical experience more thoroughly than ever before?
- Are peak human experiences possibly a profound rebalancing antidote to the heart-sickness and mental distress of the current Western condition?
- How can we immerse ourselves so deeply in the highest frequency experiences available to humans, that we become forgetful of self… and yet more deeply aware of self than ever before?
- And how can we achieve this without fetishising the hooked-up state, without starting to depend on ‘avoiding the everyday’?
- How can we apply ‘chop wood, carry water’ to the peak state… or rather, what do we have to understand to find the peak state in ‘chop wood, carry water’? And when do we allow the mind to step down its commentary?
- Where does neuroplasticity fit in to this? In 2016, my blog project was called Rewire, and it documented my seeking to rewire my brain during a period of severe mental illness. It was beautifully effective. What more can I learn here?
- What is the relationship between the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system in terms of accessing peak states which calm rather than over-excite the system
- Who are the best writers and teacher on the peak state?
- Where are the places I experience peak state?
- Is the peak state an inside or an outside job? In other words is it dependent on my inside state or in external conditions?
- Can you only have peak experiences at the weekend / special occasions / outside of the day-to-day schedule / at a price? Or are there ways to bring the peak state into the absolute daily modus operandi? (chop wood, carry water…)
Onwards. What will be my approach, my methodology? Will I write daily / weekly? How will I register my learning?
Ask us.
What’s my best approach?
Let it come to you. No efforting, struggling, or creating excess potential. Softly, dear one. Find your way effortlessly. Maintain the journalist’s spirit of enquiry.
Ah, yes… Of course. Softly does it. Let’s leave it here for now. Thank you.
Welcome all. Let’s see what we learn in this lovely project.
Amen.
