Day Retreat Positive Neuroplasticity

Important: Meetup only allows 5000 characters. See here for the full description. This includes important additional information such as 'Logistics' and 'Recommended readings'.

Note: This is an independently organized event (not an official EA Netherlands event).
Note: This event will not dive into EA specific content. The target audience is people who already try or want to bring EA into practice but experience psychological barriers doing so.

How to participate
To participate, more than an RSVP on Meetup is required. Please fill out this Google Form and book a short 10-30 minute call with me (see form for details and instructions) to check if this retreat could be helpful to you and to discuss any further questions you would like to ask. I want to create a safe container and ensure everybody who comes knows what they can expect. So, reach out to me if you have any doubts; I am happy to try to find a solution that addresses any concern you have.

Description
Spend time with other EAs to learn how to grow strengths inside yourself to deal with repetitive negative thoughts, feelings, or problematic desires. Unpleasant and unhelpful behavior that is either constantly in your mind or gets consistently activated in particular scenarios.

Examples include procrastination, low motivation, being less productive than you would like, wishing you had more confidence to take better actions, fear of judgment by others, high anxiety in certain situations, and struggles with distracting yourself with Twitter/Facebook.

These problems can be very challenging to deal with. They often have an emotional component and may have some feeling of helplessness attached to them, which doesn't help with dealing with them. Another challenging aspect is that we are often only partly aware of why these thoughts are there, yet we notice they influence our behavior or mood unhelpfully.

You are also welcome to join if you haven't experienced these issues or have other problems and still think you can benefit from this method.

Method we use
On this day, we will explore a technique called the HEAL framework, a scientifically developed method to make progress on these above-described issues gently and safely. Dr. Rick Hanson, psychologist, Senior Fellow of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, and New York Times best-selling author, developed the HEAL method. HEAL uses the science of positive neuroplasticity to grow the strengths and mental resources inside you to tackle these issues. Strengths include resilience, determination, compassion, self-worth, and kindness to yourself. These strengths allow you to deal with the current issue and improve how you tackle challenges that arise in the future.

You can think of it as a loving-kindness meditation adapted for every strength we want to develop. Furthermore, the method is designed to rewire our brains effectively.

The HEAL model has been shown to have beneficial effects, and the main paper investigating and describing the HEAL method can be found here.

Structure of the day
Throughout the day, we will follow blocks of two hours of a structured program where we both listen to explanations of the method and practice it ourselves through guided meditations developed to practice the HEAL method. The aim is to be silent as much as possible during this time.

These two hours will be followed by 1 hour of unstructured breaks & socializing without silence. We encourage authentic and emotional conversations during that time. The yoga studio will function as a silent meditation room during the break, so there is an option to stay quiet if you prefer.

We kindly ask you not to engage in any arguing or intellectual discussion as well as any EA/rationality or similarly 'worldly topics' so as not to distract yourself from the process and stay present.

There will be a breathwork session related to the HEAL method in the middle of the day. Breathwork can be a somewhat intense albeit powerful experience for people. If uncomfortable, you can meditate in a different room to make progress.

At the end of the day, we will share impressions in small groups, listen to an inspirational poem related to the topic, and share some closing words.

About me
This is an independently organized event by me. I have run several mental health related workshops at the EA Summer camp and the LessWrong Community weekend and managed a 4-day event for CFAR alums. Lately, I have spent two months full-time improving my mental health, where HEAL was a large part of this, and in general, I am excited about techniques to get the most out of life. Currently, I am working full-time to shape my career path toward helping other EA people flourish.