We're in Taiwan now (at a hot springs resort 😍 in Yangmingshan National Park, outside of Taipei). 

Not really any major culture shocks yet, aside from people being very polite. It's my first time in Taiwan, and I can speak a bit of Mandarin. It's been enough to get by so far. No one has tried to talk to us in English yet despite Harris' white presence 😂

I wanted to share this cute anecdote...we arranged for an airport pickup through our hotel, and our driver Matt pointed out some sights as we drove from TPE to the hotel (~1.5h drive). He asked me how many times we'd been to Taiwan before, and I told him it was our first time. At some point during the ride he pulled over and told us to wait for a bit. I figured he might have been using the bathroom or getting lunch (since he was probably driving/waiting at the airport for awhile), but when he got back he gave Harris and me each a Taiwanese sandwich and said "welcome to Taiwan" 🥹 it was really good btw

It's weird how everyone here looks at me and knows/assumes that I can speak Mandarin. But it feels a lot better than all the people in Nepal asking me where I'm "really" from... The air quality and harmony with nature here are also especially refreshing coming off of our time in Nepal. I'm glad I can use tap water to brush my teeth again. 

Is a taco a snack or a meal? 

Is a taco a snack or a meal? 

Why I keep forgetting that exercise feels amazing. This could just as easily live in my journal, but in my favorite version of reality a lot of things get added in the comments, and this lives as a resource for everyone and for me the next time I forget that exercise feels amazing.

The culture I was aware of as a kid: 

• Athletes go to gyms. The only other people that go to gyms are vain people, and they only go because they care about having an impressive appearance.
• Exercise is hard and painful. If it's not kicking you're ass, you're lazy.
• I loved playing soccer all through childhood. When I started Junior High I tried out for the soccer team. I was the best player at tryouts- scored the most goals, saved the most goals, had the most steals. But I didn't make the team because I wasn't competitive enough. On the last day of tryouts I gave goals to girls who seemed like their self-esteem was getting battered by their failure to get a goal.

My initial influences in adulthood:

• In undergrad I was required to take dance class all 4 years. The dance teacher's job was to prepare us for Broadway dance auditions, which are usually "cattle calls" of hundreds of people auditioning for one spot. So you had to be the best, the sharpest, the fastest to learn the choreography, the fastest to get into position. These classes were the first time in my life I learned what "getting into shape" meant. He spent the entire first semester of freshman year teaching us what the names of our muscles were by spending an entire 90-minute session going ham on that muscle. Freshmen voice majors at Carnegie Mellon limped around campus and yelped trying to pick up their backpacks. I wasn't taught about warm ups, cool downs, or how to navigate muscle soreness. I was expected to be capable of at least two versions of the splits by the end of my first semester of college, so I spent hours doing homework in very uncomfortable body positions.
• In my thirties I worked with personal trainers three times. I didn't know this at the time, but I've since learned from a friend who is a health coach that most people come to a personal training session and give about 40% effort, so most trainers get in the habit of pushing and pushing them to harder things in the hopes the client gets to 75 or 80%. My trainers and I didn't know that because of my dance training I was showing up giving 110%. So they pushed me the way they pushed all of their clients. And I did everything in my power to be obedient to what they were telling me to do. It took me 8 years to realize that what I had been calling "pushing my edge" had actually been the cusp of a panic attack because my heart rate was way too high and I was pushing strength training to the point of risking injury.

New updates to my experiences and beliefs about exercise:

• Thanks largely to my health coach friend, a wise ex-boyfriend, and resources from Dr. Stacey Sims, I finally was able to believe them that not only doesn't exercise have to be painful, the cortisol, muscle soreness, etc. caused from pushing create more problems than the workouts solve. And when exercise sucks it's wildly de-motivating and unsustainable.
• I've learned through countless failed attempts and Dr. Sims that any workout plan that doesn't take my menstrual cycle into account is doomed from the start. I learned that in the days before my bleed my body takes all of the tissue-rebuilding ingredients away from things like muscle repair and diverts it all to building the uterine lining. So strength training during this time results in a week of relentless pain and soreness. I've learned that during my follicular phase I'm a literal superhero. Live it up while I can, but for god's sake do not set that as my new standard to build on top of because the cycle is going to loop back again. I've learned that women have about 30% the glycogen stores in their muscles as men, so keto and fasted workouts are a distaster. I literally need to have eaten carbs before workouts to have any legitamite fuel to work with.
• I've had fits and starts of working out, but then I'd start listening to some damn exercise podcast, fall into my old mindset of "pushing for gains," and the habit would collapse.

New intentional mindsets:

I'm a week into returning to exercise, and so far everything about it is wildly different than before. I consistently feel the tug back toward my old mindsets, but I'm practicing reminding myself of these things over and over and over.

• Do classes, but relinquish obedience. The classes are great for me because a very knowledgable person has crafted something great without my having to expend any mental energy at all. But the key is that I stay connected with my body and be always willing to disobey the instructor in favor of what my body needs.
• Start slow and easy. What I want most if for exercise to become a favorite part of my lifestyle for the rest of my life. I've been mostly going to "Restorative" classes that are passive yoga stretches in a structure designed to regulate the nervous system. Nothing's hard, nothing hurts, and I leave feeling wonderful. This is SO effective at making me look forward to getting in the car and driving to the gym the next day.
• Pride can be a great energy source. It does seem to be part of my true nature that I would like other people in the class to be impressed with me. I want to be impressed with me. I'm intentionally relinquishing the lifelong energy source of "I want to get thin and hot" and replacing it with "I wanna leave here feeling impressed with myself."
• Two mindsets I picked up from Arun, "I like being a regular" and "third place," had me choose Austin Bouldering Project as my gym. It's just fucking cool, and very attractive people are everywhere. I like the thought of becoming a regular there. A lot. People knowing my name, new friendships, maybe even finding a romantic partner who likes going to the same gym together. And third place is based on home being the first place and work being the second place. I love the midset of choosing ABP as my third place. I bring my laptop and co-work upstairs after working out. I chill in the sauna.

These are all such different mindset orientations than I've ever had before, and I hope writing this helps me remember that when I do it wisely from the right mindsets, exercise and going to the gym feels friggin amazing.

When I fall in love, I fall in love completely.

It doesn't always happen right away, but often it does.

I fall in love completely, and there is nowhere to go from there, nothing to get except relief.

I give my love to get relief from the buildup of love in my system.

Falling in love with someone to me means that I adore them, admire them, appreciate them, and I desire that their will for themselves be done.

I desire to see them in their power, choice, and freedom at all times and I desire for every thing they desire to fruit for them.

I desire to know what they will for me to know, and I desire for them to keep their privacy.

I desire to share time together that we both desire to be sharing, and I desire to peacefully long for what my infinite insatiable imagination can baselessly demand of finite reality.

I desire to support their nourishment and their integrity in living the life that they've chosen for themselves, and I desire to practice trust that they are doing so.

Being in love with someone means I respect their value systems and honor them. If I want to change someone's value system or behavior, I know that to be something other than love. I think of it as misalignment, and my attention is for what is aligned.

Being in love with someone means I support their confidence in their choices and in themselves as a choicemaker. I consider it to be disrespect to undermine their choices or self-concept, especially with my own imagined expectations.

Being in love with someone is a matter of the body, the way I feel a warm glow in their presence, a resonance in their words, an ease in the pattern of our closeness and distance on every fractal. Trying to adjust the pattern of closeness and distance is CONTROL, which is alienating to generosity and collaboration, and therefore outside of love.

When I fall in love, it is LOVE. It's not attachment to a form of relationship or an outcome I can imagine. It's a commitment to the moment to moment unfolding of what is between us—what can never be known until it's right here and now.

What will the future literally look like? This idea comes from watching Mad Men- seeing smoking and drinking freely at the office for example, and my brother once pointing out that if a show or movie ever wanted to make it really clear that it was set in the 1990’s, all they’d have to do is have multiple people driving Saturn cars.

So here are a few of what I think (hope) the future will literally look like:

Gas stations will be very rare, and parking spaces will almost always have charging stations.

Having a garage in homes will be rare because car ownership will be rare. Using self-driving Uber-esque systems will be way more affordable, and car ownership then will be similar to antique car ownership now.

Lawns will be very rare, and permaculture-style of local fauna that doesn’t need care, upkeep, or watering will be common.

What do you think the future will look like?

... No belief is true, no matter how popular or plausible

Current Session "instructions" (Feb 26): Converse, and see if nudges happen. nudges 

We launched a system where the AI bots can automatically detect intervention points. We need you to make a bunch of comments and new posts to see if they'll engage. So this week we're asking you to engage a bunch, if you can!

It's a little rudimentary at the moment so sometimes you'll get multiple bots responding on multiple posts. We'd love your feedback on which ones you like, don't, when it seemed to miss the spot, anything else you notice. 

Thanks and love yall

J (and the UpTrust team)
p.s. this week I'm at an investor meeting so dara will be with you

# [Optional Zoom](https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86795216050?pwd=TllxSzYrTFFXTW5LRmg3WUQrT04vdz09) with Jordan and Dara at least, for faces, questions, help, etc: