u/Icy-Ninja-622

I've had a lot of insight which seems valid but changes nothing. I'm not just talking about something seeming important and maybe revolutionary when it first comes up. Even reading things I wrote many years ago can be impressive.

Yet, practically none of those things actually led to improvement. They're just analytical observations with no power to do anything.

My best guess about this is that there is a system of emotional limitations, and trying to "rationally" apply such insight would be breaking that system of limitations. This seems very rarely recognized. People recognize if something is physically impossible, or someone doesn't have the money to afford something, but it's as if emotional limitations don't exist and people should simply behave rationally. I guess the closest I've seen to an acknowledgement of this is protectors in IFS. You could easily claim that what a protector is doing isn't actually practically useful in life in terms of rational material goals, but it can have an important psychological purpose.

So, then the question is: how can insight be useful? Why couldn't I figure out the freedom I actually have, even with that system of emotional limitations?

I felt like patching the firmware instead of attaching an oscillator to make one tile act as if connected to the power supply and become a master.

The tiles are based on an ESP32, MY9262 LED controllers, and RS-485 communication between tiles. This is an ESP32 chip on a custom circuit board, not a module. The flash is not connected to the standard pins. You can look at the SPI_PAD_ values in the espefuse summary or trace the pins. The correct argument for working flash access is: -sc 17,11,9,16,6

One obstacle was flash chip protection. The 2 megabyte flash chip seems to be by ISSI, with manufacturer ID 9d and device ID 7015. This is like IS25WP016D, but the chip has a write protect feature that I don't see documented in data sheets.

SPI command 2Fh retrieves the contents of the protection registers. Something like this can work using esptool:

            for a in range(0, 2*1024*1024, 131072):
                print(a, self.run_spiflash_command(0x2F, addr=a >> 7, addr_len=32, read_bits=32))

I guess each bit corresponds to 4096 bytes. (Note that 4096 * 32 = 131072) Memory addresses increase from least significant bit to most significant bit, and from one register address to the next higher register address.

If you want to unlock everything, that is command 2Bh. You need to do a write enable before it.

            self.run_spiflash_command(6)
            self.run_spiflash_command(0x2B, addr=0, addr_len=24)

The "Built on Fri Feb 1 10:37:37 2019" ota_1 firmware relocked everything as before when it booted, but the "Built on Thu Jan 4 17:57:30 2018" ota_0 firmware left everything unlocked.

If you want to write protect part of the flash yourself, that is command 23h. It seems to only be able to change bits from 1 to 0, and cannot be used to unprotect part of the flash. It also needs a write enable.

            self.run_spiflash_command(6)
            self.run_spiflash_command(0x23, addr=prot_val, addr_len=32)

The somewhat tricky part here is prot_val. The read command, 2Fh, reads 4 bytes at a time, but this writes 1 byte at a time. The high 3 bytes are the byte address, and the low byte is the byte being written at that address. I have not explored this command extensively, because the firmware locks itself.

If you alter the firmware, you must also update the checksum at the end, and the SHA256 value afterwards. This is standard ESP32 stuff. It starts with 0xEF and then XORs every byte from every segment with it. (This means, not the image header, extended image header, or segment headers.) The SHA256 is based on the whole thing, from the first 0xE9 byte to the checksum, inclusive. If you don't do this, the modified partition is considered corrupt and the other partition is booted.

Ghidra is decent for reverse engineering the firmware, and esp32_image_parser is a good way to extract a partition into an elf file for loading into Ghidra. You probably want ota_1.

With esp32_image_parser you can also list the partitions and see why the protection bits are set the way they are.

A bit about the frequencies on the ID lines:

The ID frequency to the master tile needs to be between 45 and 65 Hz. I am guessing that the power supply probably provides a 3.3 V logic signal based on the incoming AC frequency (instead of having its own oscillator).

The ESP32 MCPWM is used to measure incoming frequencies and output another frequency on the other port of the tile.

Here are input frequencies for slave tiles: 150, 190, 230, 280, 340, 410, 490, 580, 710, 840, 910 Hz All of these need to be within plus or minus 5 Hz. So, for example, a tile receiving between 145 and 155 Hz on one port will consider itself the first slave tile, and output 190 Hz on the other port. I do not think the duty cycle is important.

The RS-485 lines are continuous throughout the whole tile chain, so this is needed to set tile identification and ensure that individual slave tiles can be addressed in a predictable fashion.

Both master and slave code limits itself to 4 slave tiles. Don't assume you can simply connect together 12 tiles and make it work without firmware modification. That would probably also need power connections in the middle to avoid overloading the connectors.

If you want to modify an ota_1 partition "Built on Fri Feb 1 10:37:37 2019" to make it act as if it's getting 55 Hz on the bottom connector, this could do it, at offset 1548841 in the file:

00000000  f0 20 00 06 02 00 86 4a  00 68 11 d1 31 16 00 41
00000010  ff ff 0c 16 69 b1 0c 06  3d f0                  

Checksum should be 55 and SHA256 should be a953d3de71daf7f95e2d8c527868345ee0dbcfeab001a243eb9aa83e059c20bf

It might be interesting to develop a 3rd party firmware, maybe based on WLED, with way more firmware effects and a more user friendly LAN interface. Though I'm not planning to do that now.

I used to think that I could read books about trauma and they would explain the kinds of things I'm experiencing. But, actually, I notice various experiences which are rarely discussed. I want to understand more about those experiences.

I don't want to make this post into a list of things I want to understand, and instead want to ask how to approach this kind of thing in general. But I will mention two things that are on my mind now.

I often experience a very obvious link between changes in perception and changes in my mental state. A healthier mental state tends to make the world around me seem more vivid and energized. Objectively, it all looks the same, but subjectively, it looks very different. I've rarely seen this discussed.

Recently I've noticed progress is correlated with spending much less time listening to the music I used to listen to. When I do listen to it, I'm less connected to the enjoyment I used to feel. It's as if listening to familiar music and enjoying it in habitual ways was an escapist bubble that was holding me back from healing.

Draining effort that I ignore is one thing that can get me stuck.

I'm not talking about physical effort, like physical labour, or even mental effort like intellectual tasks. Mainly I'm talking about the effort involved in doing things that parts of me object to.

Doing things to please others may have the largest impact for me. It can be automatic, like "this is the way I'm supposed to behave", or it can seem necessary for safety. Even though parts of me seriously object, there can be very little obvious internal activity regarding that.

Accomplishing things for myself when parts of me object to those actions can also be a problem. Sometimes, upon seeing the outcome there can be a kind of relief, as the parts which objected find that what I did was actually good. But often this does not happen.

Various free time activities, like spending time on social media, being active on social media and even watching videos can also be draining.

Often when I encounter difficulties, there isn't a clear emotional narrative. Instead, I'm dealing with avoidance and compulsive action which seems almost automatic.

I could compare it with being near the edge of a tall cliff with no guardrail. That seems to automatically modify my behaviour to avoid danger. I don't think about falling and possible consequences and decide to take precautions based on how I feel about that. The only situation which might trigger such thoughts and feelings is if I do something which seems very unsafe.

Similarly, applying sunscreen before outdoor activity doesn't seem motivated by thoughts and feelings about sunburn and cancer. The main thing I do is evaluate my expected UV exposure depending on conditions and plans and decide to put on sunscreen.

In these situations, even though the normal behaviour seems automatic and not emotional, it is possible to see thoughts and feelings about it. Impulsive avoidance and compulsive action based on psyschological factors can be much harder to understand. How do I get to know what is behind that?

Conceptually it makes sense that protector parts are involved. Avoidance may be avoiding conditions which could trigger an exile, and compulsive action may be soothing to try to keep an exile exiled. But when these things happen in such a rapid impulsive way, they are very hard to understand. It doesn't seem like I can simply ask the protector what they're afraid of.

Sometimes I understood the reason after I went against some of these impulses, and bad things happened. But, even though what I learn may eventually be helpful, this doesn't seem like a nice way to proceed, and there can also be harmful consequences. I'm hoping for a nicer way to address such things, which builds internal trust.

Any kind of THC only cannabis tends to put me into unpleasant introspective analysis if I take more than like 2.5 mg of THC edible and my mental state and current environment isn't exceptionally good. That can lead to insight which seems valid and important even years later, but it does not help me improve.

Last spring I had a few experiences with cannabis containing both THC and CBD. With it, I didn't get stuck in such unpleasant introspective analysis. Those kinds of thoughts could occur, but they would pass, with me focusing on something else instead of getting stuck in that introspection loop.

That made me curious about the effects of CBD by itself, and finally, recently, I tried that. It definitely has some effect on my mental functioning, experience and behaviour. It seems to reduce the intensity of some kind of rapid impulsive experience that normally pushes me to avoid or compulsively do some behaviours. This can lead to doing what I normally wouldn't, or to feeling an emotional narrative instead.

This once again makes me curious about that impulsive experience which pushes me to avoid or do things. A lot of what I've read about trauma talks about emotions, but this experience doesn't seem clearly emotional. I could compare it to being near the edge of a cliff with no guardrail. My avoidance of doing risky things there does not seem to be a result of emotions, like fear of how I might fall and get hurt or killed. Something else modifies my behaviour, and that seems more immediate and less based on thought or imagination. In that situation, its effect is appropriate. I'm bringing up this example because similar phenomena control me in what seem like objectively far less dangerous situations, where they seem inappropriate.

Before I used the CBD, I also thought about one of the main things that makes drugs attractive. Recently I've been doing exceptionally well, in terms of feeling safe enough to function, and doing various things. But I've been lacking in experiences where I feel entirely safe and fully relax into the present moment. CBD is one substance which puts me closer to that. Probably the rapid impulsive experiences that CBD reduces otherwise pull me out of the relaxed safe present moment state.

I used to have more experiences where I felt very safe and in the present moment. They were still rare, only happening in particular circumstances, which often became habitual. I thought I had accomplished something when I could reach that only using black coffee, or even no substance at all, only some nice experience. But that did not seem helpful. It's like there was a switch that flipped, and a wall between the states. Feeling safe enough to function in more situations is probably better than having occasional good experiences like that but feeling stuck at other times.

I'm not thinking of CBD as some kind of solution. I doubt that any indefinite chemical mind alteration is a solution. There is probably some need to engage with whatever causes those impulsive experiences which control me. It seems like a lot of parts work, like IFS examples, is on a different level, focused on emotions and thoughts instead of the impulsive experiences I encounter.

It is extremely obvious that I function much better in an emotional state that is aligned with doing things, compared to an emotional state where obstacles predominate.

It is also obvious that I cannot simply keep overpowering those obstacles and doing things regardless of my mental state. (Some people may claim one should do that, but right now I see those claims as a kind of abuse, and not reasonable advice. If they are well-intentioned, that is probably because some people are in a different situation, where this strategy works for them.)

This can lead to the conclusion that I need to somehow change my mental state so I can function better. This can seem obvious, but it may be a deceptive dead end.

The problem with that strategy is that my emotional state is not something arbitrary, which may be freely changed. The obstacles I deal with are a result of various things, like serious concerns that remain ignored, attempts to force myself into something I don't really want, unfulfilled needs I'm trying to ignore, and desires I'm ignoring.

An attempt to change my state regardless of all that is more like escapism than healing, and it is not sustainable.

Interestingly, terrible things that happened and simply left me feeling bad aren't a large part of the problem. Actually, the problem is more oriented towards the present and thoughts about the future. The past is mainly a problem via resulting limitations. Maybe the worst effect of trauma was teaching me to limit my freedom in ways that have a negative effect on my emotional state.

Edit: A corollary of this is that when I reached better states, there were reasons for that. I'm not just talking about following a behavioural recipe to feel good, like going somewhere and doing some things. There are deeper reasons about what made those activities safe and meaningful. Those deeper reasons need to be addressed in other situations. It is possible to learn via recognizing those deeper reasons.

The concept of psychological parts is clearly very relevant for understanding my experiences. But it's hard to precisely define parts.

Internal Family Systems was my first source of information about parts. Protector actions, which involve avoidance, distraction and soothing to try to deal with parts that seem like a problem, definitely happen. But my experiences don't show clear protector parts, and instead show something more integrated.

Instead of talking about exiles, it makes more sense to talk about unintegrated motivations. That is when I clearly want something, but I kind of gave up on it or try to ignore it. This is what leads to protector-like actions, which try to keep these motivations suppressed.

They're not merely motivations. There can be an emotional response, like frustration, anger, sadness or even hate because that motivation is being ignored. This is most similar to parts. The protector-like actions are probably attempting to avoid these emotional responses.

When a motivation is ignored, there generally seems to be some kind of reasoning about it, which could be described via language, and which could maybe be called rational. Often, the general pattern is that attempting to address that motivation would be unlikely to lead to something good, and would involve unacceptable risk of bad things. But that doesn't make the motivation go away.

There can also be language based reasoning about what I should be doing instead. This can seem very reasonable. But I can seem powerless to actually do those actions. So, then it seems like I'm being bad, by not doing what I should be doing.

The problem is that actual motivation, which is required to do things, comes from something else, not language based reasoning. When I say a particular motivation is integrated, that means it is contributing to my overall motivation, because I am working towards goals which are related to that particular motivation. When a motivation is unintegrated, it is not contributing that way, and it may instead motivate other protector-like actions.

It's weird how little I seem to have talked about trauma in this post. I guess traumatizing experiences are relevant because they create the intense motivation to reject certain motivations. They can certainly make a motivation seem unsafe, so that it must be stopped. Emotional neglect probably also contributes toward not developing ways to express motivations into action, and because of that instead learning to suppress them.

One lingering question right now, after what I wrote so far, is about the causes of internal conflict. Sometimes it seems like different parts of me want things which are so opposed to each other that there is a need to follow some motivations and ignore other motivations.

The recent event, where I relaxed around a dog and then got scratched by the dog, led to an interesting social interaction.

I briefly communicated about it to an online friend, and he just said the dog was probably being playful. That's like he ignores my feelings and views the event as okay because of the dog's feelings. When I discussed this further, he also talked about how he has many good experiences with dogs and accepts that they may scratch him. That is again like he ignores my feelings, and applies his own perspective and feelings to the situation.

As I continued to discuss this he suggested that I stay away from dogs and offered to stop sharing content about dogs in private chats. Once again this seems to ignore my feelings, because it's more like "I don't have space for your hurt, so just avoid situations where you might get hurt". Obviously this is very restrictive, and the sort of thing that in general might lead one to stay online a lot instead of doing things, because that is safest. Surely some more specific advice is possible, about how to try to avoid getting scratched by dogs without always avoiding them.

He also got upset when I objected to his responses, to the point of discussing ending the friendship. I also had doubts over whether I should consider him as a friend despite knowing him for decades, because of lack of caring about my feelings.

This may all seem stupid and trivial, because it is just a superficial scratch from a dog. But it's not trivial because it is a pattern I've been encountering a lot in life.

Other far more serious examples include people ignoring the emotional impact my mother had on me during her horrible crises.

Also, the suggestion to avoid dogs in general reminds me of some advice from my mother, where she also wanted me to be safe, and suggested things that restricted my freedom a lot to keep me safe.

This might seem off-topic for this subreddit. Like, maybe it seems more appropriate for a subreddit about emotional neglect. But it is on topic regarding what gets me stuck. I think the feelings which get ignored become somehow buried, and then my activity becomes restricted in order to keep them buried. I avoid action which might bring up such feelings and get stuck as a result.

Avoiding dogs in general is probably a simple example of one way to get stuck. There are other more complex examples that are about avoiding triggering feelings, and not simply avoiding feelings that result from physical injury.

Furthermore, the ability to relax is correlated with ability to be myself and express what I feel. Not doing that is in itself a significant effort, which reduces my capability to do other things at the same time.

For me, this suppression of feelings is probably the main factor that keeps me stuck.

Occasionally, when I'm in an exceptionally good state, I can intentionally choose to relax around dogs.

My mother taught me that dogs are dangerous. Part of this "teaching" was by seeing her distress when a dog moves toward her. I've learned to be tense when dogs might come within touching distance. Though I don't look directly at them like my mother, but keep track of them via peripheral vision, and this is probably why they approach her much more often.

Sometimes, when I'm in an exceptionally good state, I can choose to relax instead of entering that habitual tense state. That is the first reason why I used vent flair. I hate how most people don't seem to recognize that something I've called "energy" is needed to modify behaviour like this. If I'm not in such a good state, relaxing is not an option. It seems like most people expect that ability to be available regardless of my current state, and that is unreasonable. Actually, I'm failing to communicate how much I hate this. But maybe I'm saving that for the next thing...

When I relax like that with dogs, they may respond dramatically, in a way that seems well intentioned and probably loving, but can be unpleasant or damaging. The last time I did this, the dog of an acquaintance grabbed my leg with front paws, and scratched me.

The scratches were minor, not visibly drawing blood, but leaving a thin scab later on. By itself that is not a big deal. But what I intensely hate about this is that on one of the rare moments when I was able to relax with another being, that being hurt me. Theoretically, it would be so nice if relaxed moments led to good experiences that make relaxing more seem right. But this makes the tense way of behaving around dogs, that was taught by my mother, seem right.

Trauma stories often seem to involve the perspective "you're safe now, but due to past events you incorrectly feel unsafe". This is more like "you live in a shitty world where relaxing and letting your guard down leads to getting hurt".

I notice that good periods in my life are correlated with no coffee or other sources of caffeine.

Caffeine seems to enhance experiences in the right circumstances. It's not useful for overcoming psychological obstacles, but can help in settings where I already feel safe and comfortable enough to do things. In those settings, it can counteract tiredness or sleepiness, make me more active, and make some experiences more enjoyable.

But a good experience enhanced by caffeine may be followed by getting stuck. Maybe some kind of crash afterwards amplifies the emotions that get me stuck. Maybe some of the increased activity facilitated by caffeine also leads to negative feelings later, via parts of me who were overruled when I did those things.

So, with caffeine I tend to have isolated good experiences, and without it I tend to have more stably good longer periods.

When I haven't been using caffeine in the last few days, an experience that was usually enhanced by caffeine can be still be good without it, without the sense that I'm lacking some enhancement that caffeine would deliver.

When read about psychological parts, it seems people often talk about getting to know specific parts as individuals. I've almost never experienced something like that.

It is clear how some actions increase internal discord. Part of me may choose to do something that another part of me objects to, and feelings can build up from that objection.

It is possible to learn how some patterns of behaviour cause this. Examples include promising something nice to myself and then not following through on that promise, or caring too much about what others want and not enough about what I want.

But I've made almost no progress in getting to know individual parts who are affected by such things. That is very vague, and if I tried to describe it in more detail, that would be more like making up stories than describing reality.

A lot of the time when I seem stuck, there is conflict between a shallow part of me that reasons via inner monologue, and deeper parts of me that disagree.

The inner monologue reasons about why I should do something.

That reasoning could be about risks or harmful consequences of not doing something. This may be perfectly reasonable when I zoom in on it, but other parts of me may feel that it helps enable bad things they don't want. Those concerns are usually not considered in the inner monologue.

Even a seemingly free choice to do something that is supposed to be nice but not required can be a problem if other parts don't want that or have unaddressed concerns about it.

Healthy sense of self is about greater integration of all that. Trying to force the inner monologue reasoning to drive behaviour regardless of other parts of me is not a good strategy.

While reverse engineering an ESP32 firmware, I encountered a function that Ghidra couldn't fully disassemble. I thought it was a single precision floating point division routine, but I wasn't certain. Then I remembered that objdump can disassemble, and I have it as part of ESP-IDF, so I disassembled using xtensa-esp32-elf-clang-objdump -D -b binary -m xtensa. In case anyone is curious, here is the division routine. Ghidra only disassembled the first 3 instructions.

    0:	362100        	entry	a1, 16
    3:	5012fa        	wfr	f1, a2
    6:	5023fa        	wfr	f2, a3
    9:	7032fa        	div0.s	f3, f2
    c:	b042fa        	nexp01.s	f4, f2
    f:	3051fa        	const.s	f5, 1
   12:	30546a        	maddn.s	f5, f4, f3
   15:	0063fa        	mov.s	f6, f3
   18:	0072fa        	mov.s	f7, f2
   1b:	b021fa        	nexp01.s	f2, f1
   1e:	60656a        	maddn.s	f6, f5, f6
   21:	3051fa        	const.s	f5, 1
   24:	3000fa        	const.s	f0, 0
   27:	6082fa        	neg.s	f8, f2
   2a:	60546a        	maddn.s	f5, f4, f6
   2d:	30086a        	maddn.s	f0, f8, f3
   30:	d071fa        	mkdadj.s	f7, f1
   33:	60656a        	maddn.s	f6, f5, f6
   36:	00846a        	maddn.s	f8, f4, f0
   39:	3031fa        	const.s	f3, 1
   3c:	60346a        	maddn.s	f3, f4, f6
   3f:	60086a        	maddn.s	f0, f8, f6
   42:	6022fa        	neg.s	f2, f2
   45:	60636a        	maddn.s	f6, f3, f6
   48:	00246a        	maddn.s	f2, f4, f0
   4b:	f007fa        	addexpm.s	f0, f7
   4e:	e067fa        	addexp.s	f6, f7
   51:	60027a        	divn.s	f0, f2, f6
   54:	4020fa        	rfr	a2, f0
   57:	1df0      	retw.n

When I'm struggling or not having a good time, my mind is often dominated by an inner monologue of thoughts. This can involve attempts to decide what to do, or to motivate myself to do something I think "should" do. Sometimes it instead focuses on something escapist, in a way that might be called maladaptive daydreaming.

Good experiences involve less inner monologue and more of just being in the present moment and focusing on present moment experience.

During good experiences, decisions often happen without a lot of thought. They involve a different kind of thought, that seems to arise spontaneously. This also does not lead to continuous inner monologue about what I've decided. Many times I simply accept an idea that arises, and then later do it, kind of automatically. There seems to be no continuous mental focus or effort between the decision and action.

When I'm in an inner monologue state, it seems like I need mental persistence and effort to decide what to do and then do it. But this seems to practically never actually happen. Instead, trying harder gets me more stuck in thinking about things, and farther from really deciding or acting on those thoughts. Though, the effort involved is nevertheless draining.

So, that inner monologue state seems dysfunctional. But I'm not about to say that the solution is simply stopping inner monologue and acting on thoughts that seem to arise spontaneously. This is much harder to actually do, and even if I succeed, it is probably still escapist. Both the inner monologue and spontaneous thoughts are parts of me. I guess I need to better understand what the inner monologue is trying to accomplish.

A key thing relevant to emotional neglect is that focusing on inner monologue can involve neglecting parts of myself that generate those thoughts which seem to arise spontaneously.

One good example was waiting for an event, going online on my phone, and feeling angry. Then a thought arose about how I could do something useful, preparing for what I had planned later. As soon as I accepted that, the anger was gone, and I had plenty of motivation for that preparation.

Another good example was manually pruning a bush, with thoughts arising a few times that "there's too much to cut here, I should use the machine". After that arose a few times I followed it, had a reasonably good experience and got a reasonably good result.

In both cases, an inner monologue state would probably involve getting stuck in the existing pattern, waiting for the event, and manually pruning the bush, while draining myself and putting myself into a worse state.

The most important observations here are the futility of trying to force things in the inner monologue state, and how other useful thoughts can seem more subtle, quiet and less persistent than the inner monologue.

When I'm struggling or not having a good time, my mind is often dominated by an inner monologue of thoughts. This can involve attempts to decide what to do, or to motivate myself to do something I think "should" do. Sometimes it instead focuses on something escapist, in a way that might be called maladaptive daydreaming.

Good experiences involve less inner monologue and more of just being in the present moment and focusing on present moment experience.

During good experiences, decisions often happen without a lot of thought. They involve a different kind of thought, that seems to arise spontaneously. This also does not lead to continuous inner monologue about what I've decided. Many times I simply accept an idea that arises, and then later do it, kind of automatically. There seems to be no continuous mental focus or effort between the decision and action.

When I'm in an inner monologue state, it seems like I need mental persistence and effort to decide what to do and then do it. But this seems to practically never actually happen. Instead, trying harder gets me more stuck in thinking about things, and farther from really deciding or acting on those thoughts. Though, the effort involved is nevertheless draining.

So, that inner monologue state seems dysfunctional. But I'm not about to say that the solution is simply stopping inner monologue and acting on thoughts that seem to arise spontaneously. This is much harder to actually do, and even if I succeed, it is probably still escapist. Both the inner monologue and spontaneous thoughts are parts of me. I guess I need to better understand what the inner monologue is trying to accomplish.

A key thing relevant to emotional neglect is that focusing on inner monologue can involve neglecting parts of myself that generate those thoughts which seem to arise spontaneously.

One good example was waiting for an event, going online on my phone, and feeling angry. Then a thought arose about how I could do something useful, preparing for what I had planned later. As soon as I accepted that, the anger was gone, and I had plenty of motivation for that preparation.

Another good example was manually pruning a bush, with thoughts arising a few times that "there's too much to cut here, I should use the machine". After that arose a few times I followed it, had a reasonably good experience and got a reasonably good result.

In both cases, an inner monologue state would probably involve getting stuck in the existing pattern, waiting for the event, and manually pruning the bush, while draining myself and putting myself into a worse state.

The most important observations here are the futility of trying to force things in the inner monologue state, and how other useful thoughts can seem more subtle, quiet and less persistent than the inner monologue.

Whenever I reach an exceptionally good state after an especially good experience, that seems like an essential nutrient.

From that point of view, most past struggles seem to be due to lack of that essential nutrient. Even when struggles seem to relate to past bad events, that's not simply a constantly present trauma, but something that gets amplified when I'm in a bad mental state. Obviously the solution is not trying harder in a bad state, because that can become impossible, but doing things to maintain a better state.

It is intuitively obvious when something brings about a better state, but analytical understanding can be flawed or missing.

One key confusion is that enjoyable experiences in the present moment aren't necessarily uplifting. Whipped cream does not make strawberries more uplifting. Spending time watching something I enjoy on YouTube can be draining.

Another confusion is that fixed plans or "recipes" for good states don't really work like that. They may repeatedly lead to a good state, but the most important factor is how those actions fit into my life. Those various factors make them uplifting. Changes in circumstances can change the effect.

There is sort of a connection to parts here. Experiences are uplifting when various parts of me agree with them. They can be draining when some parts disagree.

This might be more about emotional neglect than more overt abuse trauma. Maybe as a summary: I've learned to ignore parts of myself which disagree with what I'm doing, but when too much of that builds up then I get stuck.

Edit, important: It also seems necessary to have good things to look forward to. That can sometimes get me unstuck even before I've had a good experience.

I have a set of LIFX tiles and connecting cables but no power supply. That means I need some way to supply power and the 60 Hz signal from the power supply to the first tile.

As far as I know, the connectors are proprietary, and cannot be purchased. If they can be purchased somewhere at a reasonable price, let me know.

I do not want to find and purchase a rare and expensive replacement power supply.

I would love to open up the tile. That would allow me to add a standard connector for the power and signal. I would also love to have a look inside. However, the seam along the side is very deep. It seems like the whole side of the tile is glued to the side of the back. I'm sure how to open it without seriously damaging it.

One thing correlated with good states is listening to and engaging with brief and kind of subtle thoughts and feelings.

When I'm stuck, there tends to be a monologue of thought. It can be analyzing things, trying to decide how to handle something, worrying about something, planning for what to say to someone, and other things.

In good states there is less of that monologue, and more of other kinds of thoughts, which arise more spontaneously from observations and feelings. The monologue can be repetitively focusing on something, and these can simply occur once or a few times.

The monologue is not very connected to action. It may decide that something needs to be done, but lack the ability to affect my behaviour. Those other thoughts and feelings have much more of that drive for changing behaviour.

Because they're far less repetitive and insistent, those other thoughts and feelings can be easy to ignore. Following them is correlated with better states and being more productive. Ignoring them is correlated with getting stuck.

Accepting an idea that arises can lead to accomplishing that almost automatically. It doesn't have to lead to an inner monologue about what I will be doing. Thoughts about the goal may only come up occasionally, as an occasional check or when important decisions are being made.

It can seem like the constant inner monologue state is dysfunctional. Various good ideas arise spontaneously, not via constantly trying to figure something out. The disconnection between it and action is remarkable. Maybe that monologue is a kind of freeze response, redirecting energy into thinking instead of action.

For as long as I remember, I've had some habitual enjoyable and/or productive experiences. One example is taking a walk from home, often while listening to music. Another is when I drink a cup of coffee and vacuum everything that gets vacuumed regularly.

These are patterns of behaviour associated with their own mental state. They're like "follow this recipe to get this result". Focus on a broader sense of self or changing circumstances outside of the activity is somehow restricted. Maybe they also feel kind of dissociative.

Something also prevents access to these behaviours when my current state isn't good enough to allow access to the associated mental state. There can be some tools I can bring into the experience to help access the mental state, like also listening to music while vacuuming, even though I usually didn't do that. But ability to do such things is limited.

Objectively, these behaviours seem good. Taking a walk is healthy. Vacuuming is beneficial. Also, the positive impact these experiences have on my mental state is valuable. But, there is also an intuitive concern that they may be holding me back. Holding on to those patterns may prevent me from healing, because they involve a kind of dissociation instead of full presence of sense of self during the experience.

I've also felt like reconnecting with ways of enjoying life seems healing. Losing psychological ability to have a particular kind of good experience seems like a serious loss, even or especially when objective circumstances don't prevent it.

I keep wondering about this because I've almost never seen it discussed. I guess my experience is different?

One hypothesis that comes up repeatedly is that maybe that's what life is for most people, but they have much more of it going on. So, their habitual enjoyable and/or productive experiences are interwoven, filling a lot of their time, instead of being isolated islands.

I also wonder about the effects of music and caffeine, which are part of some of these habitual patterns. Both are accepted by society. Yet, I wonder if they can be psychologically unhealthy dissociating things. Music seems like an easily available and virtually free way to feel good, but reducing it in some settings seems healthy. Surprisingly, even though the music feels good and seems to tune me into a good mental state associated with it, I don't necessarily feel worse without it.