Layering: a concept for understanding effortful behavior change

one of the most useful concepts I've discovered in the last few years is "Layering", via @meditationstuff this article is a decent intro, though I think there's space to write a ton more about this from different angles meditationstuff.wordpress.com/2019/08/03/dav…

Mar 28, 2022

a lot of behavior change ends up being layery, which means it takes a lot of energy, has costs/friction and is never as smooth as

Malcolm Ocean 🏴‍☠️ @Malcolm_Ocean · Jul 9, 2021

@meekaale @QiaochuYuan I had a "try to be nice" layer on top of an abrasive layer that others called "asshole" that was itself trying to get social needs met atop a shy tender empathic mode. Trying to be nice didn't help restore my actual empathy. It was neurotic. twitter.com/Malcolm_Ocean/…

layering is closely related to neurotic strategies:

Malcolm Ocean 🏴‍☠️ @Malcolm_Ocean · Jan 2, 2022

I've recently started appreciating & refining a concept of "neurotic" which is a strategy for caring about something that's based on trying to avoid various pitfalls or problems without a clear idea of what "good" looks like.

layering is also closely related to the difference between "counteractive" and "transformational" change, in the coherence therapy frame:

Malcolm Ocean 🏴‍☠️ @Malcolm_Ocean · Sep 13, 2021

This is a good example of a situation/reason why it sometimes might be good to try a thing you're terrified of... this might require willpower, but it's different from counteractive approaches in that the use is to have a new transformative experience, not to maintain new state. t.co/3xV7mjRWwo

I have a dozen or so tweets using the term, and it's kind of intuitive but it's worth actually getting introduced to it directly via the article I linked above my tweets mentioning "layering" twitter.com/search?q=from:…

this article by Mark also talks about layering meditationstuff.wordpress.com/2021/08/09/mak…

I think my introduction to it was actually this section of his meditation protocol "an orienting model; layers and tangles; from "parts" to people to groups"  - "a brief layer/tangle model of mind"  - "the blooming, buzzing confusion" technical, fun: meditationbook.page/#31

this newer rougher section of Mark's protocol also talks about it "renunciation quibbles and other things" meditationbook.page/#157a9