So you needn’t and shouldn’t stop at just removing the negative programming.
It is important to either loosen up or remove unwanted programming first because you only have a limited amount of space in your cmem, but some of these things are coded deep and you can’t just expect to rub a knife and be done.
For removing them that’s what I recommend though - a full body rocking motion interspersed with writing and emotional release. I was chemically assisted but I didn’t need anything ‘in mind’ to deprogram myself. I just chose a knife and rubbed with a blank mind until something came up; then I would jump to the computer *that second* and write without thought. As soon as the feeling started to manifest, I would get it out, and it was often followed by heaps of cathartic crying.
You can also install positive mods in your sim. This is the whole aim.
Now… many people can just go and smell the roses or read a book or look at their kids and that is enough. I think that is because of regular dopamine signalling meaning they have a more reliable way to code salience. They are born with naturally low dvar, aren't traumatised, and are halfway enlightened already. Lucky buggers!
For people like me… no. I can barely sit still, never mind smell the flowers, never mind have that encoded as *salient*. No no no; my mind will be racing to the next email I have to compose or the next thing on my list. The next quest marker.
What I need to do is use motion and words and be very conscious about how I change my programming.
This is something I figured out on aripirazole and it changed my world, quite literally. It changed the 0.0005% of the world I actually process, and that changed everything.
I walk.
I write messages to myself.
I publish them here.
And I read them at the end of the day.
The walking is a form of moderate-stimulation meditation which means I have a regular drip of dopamine that enables salience encoding.
The writing is a tangible thing. It uses my eyes and my fingers and my mind and then later it is reinforced with my eyes and my mind once more, sometimes muttering things so it includes my mouth and ears too.
I publish it as a way of exporting. ‘Forgive me father for I have sinned’, while meditating. It’s the same mechanism.
Often I will need to work out some thought or other; why did this happen or why do I feel this way or why did this person treat me like that. Writing these messages to myself while walking makes processing things easier, and once they are out of my working memory they consolidate in my long term memory and can be easily wrangled later. I can stop spinning plates and stack them in the cupboard.
The reality is that if your dvar is high, you will be unable to focus on the small joys of life. It will all be big thrills and spills, and a lot of your writing will be erratic or angry, especially at first.
Dvar is something you can train with time. Just because we are born with a higher default value doesn’t mean we can’t move it upwards or downwards based on behaviour and circumstance. Walking meditation while exporting your woes and importing the beauty of the world is like a turbocharged version of gratitude journalling that actually works.
Sitting there at a desk and trying to force gratitude into your mind will not work. You’ll have to jiggle that leg like a motherfucker and even then; nope. Not gonna happen for someone like me. Especially not if your memory is full of unacknowledged trauma.
So walk. Message yourself while walking. You don’t need to share online, but get home and copy those messages out using the desktop app then read them sometime.
I have shared all of mine so that people can see how the inside of my mind changes as this thing progresses. I don’t have data from before aripirazole, but I was an angry, motivated man. I knew nothing but competition and self-improvement. I was *far* angrier than the early aripiprazole messages, but I was able to restrain it through a lifetime of gritting my teeth. Aripirazole removed my ability to grit those teeth and people started to see the reality.
I also had no idea how to drive the car of my new mind when aripirazole hit; this is what they call ‘mania’ in the literature. It’s when you are in a state of high-d low-dvar, similar to nibbana, but you lack the neuronal capacity to contain it. Meditation of all forms also helps to build neuronal strength; it actually increases the density of your frontal cortex. I got control after a while though, thanks to walking meditation and knives.
On a neurological level you will have an easier time reprogramming your sim if you keep moving with a regular rhythm. It could be anything; rocking, rowing a boat, riding a bike. You could speak to yourself, draw, whatever works for you. Don't text while cycling.
You could knit. You rarely see an angry knitter.
/jb202508201033