Nah it’s less like a team rally thing and more like a weekly standup meeting about emotional state, as an exercise to train perception of our own emotional states.

I myself discovered I had absolutely no idea what emotion I was experiencing. What I believed was my emotional state, was a sort of “good” or “bad” depending on how much energy I had to act like I felt good.

I was playing this character, and the character was a positive person whenever I had the energy to be pleasant and act happy. And I played that character for decades from childhood on and wasn’t aware of it.

Just identifying how I felt once a week, and staring it to the group, helped me notice that there was an actual stream of real emotion happening, that I was treating as a sort of background noise to my project of summoning the energy to “feel good”.

It’s hard to explain. I had this universe of emotion that was fake, and I thought it was real. It’s like having black and white patterns, different patterns for different emotions. Angry is diagonal stripes, scared is squares, happy is circles, whatever. Then one day that rips open and behind it are these fields of pure color: blue, green, yellow.

I don’t know what those are.

But week after week we meditate and then after meditation I tell how I’m feeling. And eventually I realized those colors are the real thing that I thought those patterns were referring to. I thought those patterns were the colors.

I wish I could describe it better.

Omg I always thought that was a snot bubble and I had no idea wtf that emoji was supposed to convey.

Holy fuck I'm dumb sometimes.

I know 🙃 8's a great goal. Hard to achieve, but always worth trying for.

Whoa! You're coming in hot there, buddy. But there is no situation where step 1 doesn't help in some fashion. My guess is step 2, the infinitely more difficult step is where you struggle. Good luck, I guess...

To piggy back on what that guy is saying... better put... He's talking about becoming a regular. I've done it at more than a few places throughout the years.

I haven't lived in one place for more than 3 years out of the last 25 of my life. Making friends is hard. But one thing I did to help me get out of my funks is to go do something I enjoy. For me it was to find a restaurant I like and go sit at the bar. Don't need to be there to drink, fyi. Just go get some food and be present. Being on your phone is ok, but you'll be more approachable if you're looking up at a TV or something like that, so make it a point to put the phone down every now and again. Often times I found that even if I was on my phone, someone sitting next to me might make a comment about whatever is going on with a game or fight or something that was playing and it would spark a conversation. Doesn't have to be a long one. Remember, we're taking baby steps here. And hell ... You can fake your way through some of those conversations too. About a fight? "Yea man this is a really tough matchup, who do you think takes the win?" It does help to know at least a little about what's going on, but it's not required. Even a simple "I haven't been following along, what happened?" Can keep it going.

Anyways, after showing up more than a few times the servers and bartenders notice and will start talking to you. Asking your name and all that stuff. Conversations from there will go where they go. The great thing is that they are working. There's no pressure to hold an in depth long conversation since they have things to do. It'll start as small talk and eventually get deeper.

Again, this is in baby steps. This won't happen over the course of 2-3 visits. It'll be more than that. But stay for the meal, get one more drink, then leave. Same will be said about a coffee shop.

The key to this working is persistence and patience. And that goes for beating depression as a whole. It's not going to happen over night. It takes work, and it takes time, but eventually you'll get there... Just like you'll eventually become a regular at that coffee shop, restaurant, bar, arcade, pool hall, or whatever place you decide to go.

One foot in front of the other, keep it moving one step at a time, even if those steps are the length of a dime.

As a final note... Try not to talk down about yourself. It creates a feedback loop that can be hard to break and is self-fulfilling. Positive Mental Attitude... PMA. You're worth the effort.

So part of the coffee shop advice is true. Even if you feel it’s superficial to start. There’s actually a lot to be said for “fake it until you make it” type socialization. Showing up regularly at the same place, be kind to the staff, learn their names, and little by little you’ll find you start recognizing other regulars and the you. It’s okay for connections to start out not super real or deep, it still works those social muscles out. After that it’s just time investment.

That's assuming someone has the skills. I'm surrounded by people everyday. As friendly as they are, they are too exclusivist for me and I have the problem of not being good at keeping a conversation alive. Nothing sticks and it's hardwired, it's not going to change unless one of the unchangeable circumstances change.