I’ve been a fan of Tim Ferriss for years now. I’ve watched him change from a sort of driven tech bro type into someone who’s really working on himself. We have something in common: childhood trauma that came to light many years later.

It’s never easy, but so much better to face it and find helpful resources to learn and grow than to ignore it. Post-traumatic growth is real.

Anyway, I get his 5-Bullet Friday emails, and I want to share something that was in the most recent one, dated August 9, 2024.

Here’s Tim:

Question I’m asking myself frequently

“How do you feel when you wake up and when you get into bed at night, and how easily do you fall asleep?” The time in bed in the morning and at night tells you all you need to know. It’s not purely intellectual reasoning. It’s not a pro-and-con list. It’s not a spreadsheet. It’s not a Venn diagram. How do you feel? Are you even aware of how you’re feeling? How much energy have you spent blocking out certain feelings because you don’t want to feel certain things? 
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To borrow from Tara Brach: “There was a wise old sage who said, ‘There’s really only one question worth considering, and that is: What are you unwilling to feel?’” 
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Do you wake up with a sense of foreboding and anxiety and a desire to stay in bed? When you go to bed, are you full of anxiety and worries and preoccupation about what happened, or what could happen the next day? I use this question as a systems check-in for identifying things I should stop, lessen, or double down on.

~~~

This is meaningful to me, something I practice, checking in with myself, in bed and at times during the day.

I notice so much more now, like how anxiety shows up in my body and mind, how peace feels, what’s the difference between active monkey mind and no inner monologue, how grief feels, how vitality can fill me up and overflow with positive energy when all is well, and when my system is struggling with something.