Method
Develop a practice of unblocking yourself.
Ping Practice is a method for developing a practice of unblocking yourself.
You can think of the method a bit like using a pause button or a camera...
When you notice yourself resonating with or resisting something, the method invites you to name what's giving rise to that sensation and then letting it go.
No categorizing or sensemaking. In these tiny moments, you’re simply creating a breadcrumb for your future self.
"Pings" as we call them in the Ping Practice universe [i], are treated as standalone, timestamped thoughts that you can leisurely browse, relate, and reflect on at a later time.
When you happen upon a past ping that resonates, the method invites you to:
Bump pings you want to remember to the top
Reply to pings you have more to say about
Edit pings you’d like to refine
The steps above are designed to help you carry a conversation with yourself so that you can:
Become clear about the subliminal intentions/needs/values/goals/etc. that are important to you
Create memorable cues your future self can use to remember these intentions and develop the capacities to embody them
Zooming out
Ping Practice assumes that the insights and ideas that inspire movement start in our senses and become legible to our thinking minds through reflection.
The idea was borne out of me noticing a pattern: there were a shifting handful of intentions that feel important for me to remember in any given moment.
Intentions were, and still can, get overridden by the:
Familiarity habit can tempt me with and
Fear of uncertainty that can come with making new choices.
Details
Ping
Ping Practice assumes that within the tiny, everyday, and easy-to-dismiss moments of resonance are clues to new meaning and insight. Let's call these "Pings."[ii]
A ping can take on any form: word, phrase, title, rhyme, name, lyric, quote, place, color, texture, melody, idea, feeling, etc.
The most important thing about Pings – and what differentiates them from other thoughts – is that a Ping is language that moves you, "clicks," or otherwise causes you to feel something in your body.
You are likely encountering a Ping if the movement or attraction you sense seems intuitive, automatic, reflexive, and happens without thinking...as if what you are encountering relates to something latent within you.
Process
Ping Practice is a loop with 6 steps within it.
The first step is Notice or Sense. This means being aware and present so that you can notice things that "Ping" something within you.
The second step follows quickly after the first: Naming.
Giving some language – no matter how rough – to what Pinged for you and locating this ping in the place where you've put all of the other pings you've logged before. The most important thing in this moment is making sure the name you give to the Ping is specific enough for your future self to recall what you were referring to.
The third steps is to Revisit previous Pings. The cadence with which you revisit can vary. The most important thing is that you spend enough time with what's pinged for you to develop an ambient and intuitive sense for the what's been speaking to you.
The fourth step happens as you Revisit: Engage. For a Ping to acquire meaning, you need to:
Edit Pings so the language you use to represent them better reflects what it was that you initially noticed.
Respond to Pings as a way of exploring all that a particular Ping could contain/bring up for you.
Relate Pings to one another to help identify and name patterns that could help to explain your resonance with a particular Ping or set of Pings.
The purpose of Ping Practice is to turn the little things you notice (Pings) into insights that you can apply/act on. A core part of the "applying" part is making sure Pings are easy for you to Remember in the small windows you have opportunities to apply them. This means two things:
Making Pings that are important to you memorable so that you can quickly recall them and
Organizing these Pings in places where you will you be able to easily "reach" for them when you have opportunities to act on them
The last step before the Ping Practice cycle repeat itself is Embodying. Taking the insights you have converged on and acting on them. Doing so will cause you to Notice new things which starts the cycle all over again.
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