Hey friends —
Today’s meditation is an edited Do Nothing Project video from a couple years ago (starts after 3 minutes) - more on the why of this in a sec. The larger context is me pondering the signal of support that I send out via this Substack, and the larger rhythm of practice that can support a human through this strange situation called life. I would love my signal to overlap with that rhythm as much as possible.
With meditation – as with any practice – consistency is key. Day in, day out. For the rest of your life.
Sigh.
I have wished this truth were otherwise about… 17,155 times. That’s once a day since I turned seven, which is the approximate age I realized that I would become the things I repeatedly did.
There’s no getting around this. If you repeat anger and contraction and fixation, then your default behaviors will become ever-more angry and contracted and fixated. If you repeat openness and patience and joy, then your default behaviors will become ever-more open and patient and joyful.
Deliberate practice is where we practice being the person we want to be. Of course we try our best to be this person all the time, but it’s so much harder when we’re buffeted by daily stresses and distractions and the damn inconvenience of other people. Hence the value of finding a protected time and place to practice.
Different rhythms of practice work for different people. What is your rhythm? It’s useful to think about this. Here’s a fairly common rhythm (also, roughly, my own):
Daily meditation - say, 10 to 20 minutes.
Regular reminders – via books, friends, articles – to apply the practice in life.
Weekly / Monthly community gathering & meditation – say, 30 to 60 minutes.
Occasional practice check-in.
Annual retreat.
A daily meditation – guided or silent – gives your nervous system a taste of what matters. That settling and sanity and presence then ideally becomes a little more available through the rest of the day. These healthy psychospiritual qualities build, in much the same way cardiovascular health and muscular strength build with regular exercise. Yet in other ways meditation is very different from physical exercise. It’s not just a case of use it or lose it. Meditation can permanently change your baseline. There are insights you never forget, understandings that transform how you experience life. It’s magical.
A weekly or monthly community meditation reinforces all of this by putting it into a larger social context. Now, you are connected to all these other people who see the value of the practice. Relationships form. Values and motivations shift. The same goes with an annual retreat – even just a weekend. A longer period of time devoted to practice makes space for insights to land more deeply. The things you thought you knew already – in your head – become things you now experience in your body. Not the same. And the community sharing amounts to a sort of collective learning, part of a larger human process. It can be very powerful.
The question of whether anyone needs to work directly with a teacher is one I’ll take up in a future post. For now I’ll just say it depends on the person, the technique, and how fully you want to go for it. In general, it’s helpful to get external feedback about practice once in a while, since it’s hard to see our own blind spots. Fortunately, many people find feedback simply through reading about practice, or listening to others share their experiences. The biggest two teachers in all of this – by far – are, first, the silence (ie. YOU are the teacher) and, second, the community of humans (and animals and trees) all around.
What is the signal of support in this Substack?
It’s evolving. Three Fridays a month there’s writing and a guided practice. Sunday nights are our Do Nothing Project (DNP) community meditation sessions. Beginning this week, these will happen via Substack Live, and will be archived both on Substack and YouTube for anyone to watch later (I’ve written a short note about this change below). Once a month is Home Base Hangout, where we meditate over Zoom and I offer practice feedback and we laugh a lot.
For daily meditation support, in addition to my offerings on Calm and Happier, there are many many free resources. There’s Insight Timer, there’s the Home Base meditation archive, and there are 350 (!) guided meditations on my YouTube channel – that’s one for almost every day of the year. Here is a link to my most popular DNPs. These are a record of my changing life over the past six years, through the birth of two kids and many moves and life vagaries – all of it happening through the prism of not doing anything. Except, accidentally, things did happen. From surprise appearances by mega pop stars, to my black-and-white 100th episode silent film edition, to unplanned explosions of ADHD and bipolar hypomania, and much more. Lots here to support a regular rhythm of practice.
To honor six years of the Do Nothing Project on YouTube, today’s meditation – above – is a tightened version of the second-most popular episode I’ve done, called Dissolve the Remove. It’s been watched over nine thousand times – I have absolutely no idea why – likely some algorithmic glitch.
I want to thank my friend
, who has been helping me with the DNP almost from the beginning. He’s created every thumbnail, moderated the comments at most sits, and taken the wheel as the main guest teacher when I’ve been unable to host due to kid / life hijinx. He’s been generous and creative and skilled in his guidance. Now Andrew has his own community meditation every Wednesday. I expect you’ll still see Andrew occasionally on Substack Live, but there is no longer need for a moderator, or someone to make thumbnails. Other folks who’ve helped over the years are , Fred Pond, Lauren Rosen, Brooke Thomas, Erin Oke, , and . Some of these folks have their own weekly and monthly offerings (I’m still working on compiling this list). Thank you, friends. It takes a community.Ok – a lot of logistical intel there, but I wanted to lay out all these resources in one place. Now: let’s find our rhythm!
Love Jeff
A few quick notes—
The Do Nothing Project (DNP) is now happening on Substack (more info below). The next one is this Sunday, November 30 – at 8pm EDT. Link here.
New to Home Base? We have over 50 guided meditations in our library, and over 350 guided DNP Meditations on YouTube. Use any these as part of your daily meditation support.
UPCOMING CHANGES TO THE DO NOTHING PROJECT
What does it mean for you that the Do Nothing Project is now on Substack Live? Nothing! The main difference is a different link. You can either watch it on your browser, or on the Substack app. You DO have to be a subscriber to Home Base – paid or unpaid – but then you will already be a subscriber if you are reading this post or email. If you come to the broadcast later, it will be archived here, as usual, and also on my YouTube channel, for the moment.
If you want to get an emailed reminder of the DNP on Saturday – some people like this – then go to homebasewithjeff.com and click the dropdown arrow under your profile picture, and from there click “Manage subscription.” Make sure “Do Nothing Project” is selected under “notifications.” This is also where you can turn off all your notifications, so they stop driving you crazy.
