I want to dedicate this post to my new experiment in biphasic sleep, which I will describe in a moment. But first, let me go over this year in personal development briefly.
Personal Development
Before I start, a side note.
I haven’t blogged much of my major personal development advances recently, partly because I really see this more as a lightworker’s blog than a personal development blog.
My soul message is a lot to do with living according to our true essence, and that’s more what I want to teach here. Personal development is an expression of our true essence, which is why I do it.
I’m not broken and don’t need to be fixed 
But I’m a river in motion, and what I know is to flow towards the sea. That’s personal development as an expression of our true essence.
So, let me go over this year so far in personal development, for your inspiration.
80/10/10 Raw Vegan
About three months ago, I went 80/10/10 (very low fat) raw vegan without making a particularly big deal about it online, and as of this writing I’m feeling very successful with this tricky diet and experiencing some incredible results.
I spent about a month eating “perfectly” in this diet – e.g. breaking none of the rules I had set myself – but I eventually succumbed to binge eating and shameful feelings about eating cooked food. So I started to take a different approach. I decided to let myself eat whatever I wanted to eat. No rules. The idea was to let myself learn to DESIRE not to eat “bad” foods rather than just controlling myself all the time. In general I always use this philosophy on myself as much as I can, but I still have some conditioning to break through.
As I was saying, I let myself loose. I could eat whatever I wanted, but I would make a point to undertake doing so with as much consciousness as I could muster. I would meditate on the experience and really feel what I was feeling. If eating something made me feel bad, I wouldn’t run from this any more.
First I did end up eating a lot of bad stuff, but I have been steadily improving, till the point where I’m at now where I eat cooked food maybe once every three days. I’m VERY happy with the results of this diet and I keep on moving closer to adhering fully to it – not because I “should” but because I have found a place in myself where it just feels right to avoid pain and maximise pleasure in this way. I’m not restricting myself of anything, I’m just eating consciously. The great thing is now I listen to my body and eat as it tells me to; I don’t force myself to eat the quantity and sort of food I thought I “should” eat.
I’ve simplified the process I went through here a little. There was a lot of inner work to do to get where I am now. For instance, I sorted through some unconscious patterns in which I rejected responsibility. I would eat a bad food because I “wanted” it, but in my mind I wouldn’t accept responsibility for the fact that I’d feel bad afterwards. If I did happened, I’d just feel powerless. This was all a child-rebelling-against-parent pattern which is long outdated and was well worth ridding myself of.
Anyway, I brought these and other unconscious patterns to conscious awareness, and, in so doing, allowed myself to realise my capacity to choose new ways of doing things. I think this was a major part of my current success in this diet.
Going No Poo
Another thing I wanted to write about but didn’t quite feel was blog-worthy was going “No Poo”, which means giving up shampoo. I now no longer use any hair products or soap; I just clean myself with plain water. The diet helps, though for anyone who is interested, it seems to be that anyone can give up shampoo and have their hair begin to regulate itself fully in about a month or so. I tried it once when I still ate meat but gave up after about 25 days; I couldn’t take how greasy my hair was getting. A little after going 80/10/10 raw, I tried this again and honestly didn’t have to wait more than about a day for my hair to get back to normal. It hardly stopped being normal.
Sleeping On Hard Surfaces
A bit before all this, I gave sleeping on hard surfaces a go. A friend of mine does this and says it’s excellent for her back. Like going No Poo, there is an adaptation period where things are harder than before but then the change becomes natural and easy. I couldn’t get it to work though. I had such problems sleeping that I eventually suffered sleep deprivation and had to leave it off to some later date when I feel ready for another try.
So that’s my personal development this year in a nutshell.
Biphasic Sleep
Now for what I want to do now.
Biphasic sleep. It’s about sleeping in two periods every 24 hours. The first period is a nap that lasts one dream cycle; I’ll set my alarm to give me 90 minutes. The second period is for four and a half hours or however long you feel like staying asleep.
The benefits are said to be really good. The main benefit is that you sleep less per 24 hours; typically 6 hours. For most people that would be a gain of 2 hours. As I rarely sleep as little as 8 hours a day, I think I would gain even more time in my day, as I’ve heard it said that people who sleep a lot tend to end up sleeping 6 hours like other people when they take up this rhythm.
There are other benefits too. I’ve heard that biphasic sleep gives you more energy, more intuition, better quality of sleep, better dream recall, and more lucid dreams. All of these benefits seem pretty sweet to me.
Unlike with the Uberman polyphasic sleep rhythm which Steve Pavlina tried once, I won’t be making my daily schedule too unmanageable. Hey, I live in Spain, where the “siesta” at midday is practically an institution. Compared to other forms of polyphasic sleep, biphasic seems very easy and convenient and with a lot of returns for the effort that goes into it. And if I don’t call it something so outlandish as “biphasic” – if I just say I have a “siesta” at midday – I may even briefly appear to be a normal person, to someone who has failed to look too carefully. That is convenient
The Biphasic Sleep Experiment
I’ve decided to start the experiment with a rhythm of going to bed at 4:30 AM and waking up at 9 AM. Then later I will have a nap at 4:30 PM for 90 minutes.
For today I’m going to set my alarm to wake up at 9 AM so I’ll be sleepy enough to nap at 4:30. Later, though, I will only use an alarm for the nap.
I’m super psyched about this change — wish me luck!
{ 0 comments }
