I got into self-development in high school. Stoicism and rationalism-lite led me to meditation. Initially, app meditation and some books were most helpful. Siddhartha, the Headspace app, the Waking Up app, and Thich Nhat Hanh books were highlights.

In college, I took Dr. Kristen Neff's course Mindful Self-Compassion. She taught self-compassion practices in a more clinical, scientific way. It give me a structure for why self-compassion was important and how people often mistake it for trap-laden self-worthiness.

These meditation resources did not have a huge effect size compared to later ones, but they were essential for me to see that I could change my relationship to current moment experience. The little 2 to 10 minutes of training I did led to stronger metacognition and a sense of ease. The practices were easy and didn't require a huge change in belief systems.

I first did longer sits 40min+ with Michael Taft when he taught in-person in San Francisco. I experienced a good bit of drowsiness and mind-wandering at first! But I also started experiencing some of the more interesting effects of meditation.

It was an open awareness spaciousness practice, which was a foundation for a lot of what I've practiced since. Recognizing spaciousness has led to this understanding of when I'm in a state of expansion versus contraction. This sense serves as a compass for action and ethics.

When you feel open awareness, you start to notice a sense of smallness or tightness in your experience. You have to experience it to realize there's a before and after state.

Once you glimpse that, you realize that there's a way of being that can feel more open. You notice the space around your head and around your body, and there's an openness, spaciousness, and clarity.

I can feel my body sensations with much more salience and continuity. I was often gripped in my thoughts, and now I can let go further by seeing the process of getting distracted before getting sucked into thought.

Another cool thing about Michael Taft is he was very accessible. He's had weekly meditations for free since 2018 or something. And I've been a part of most of his online courses since 2020 or 2021. I'm also his tech support person, so I'm in all of the courses. I can ask questions. The community is amazing.

There's a deep resonance I have with his approach – both on the content, and the approach.

The content is like: Hey, awakening is a thing. And we're also going to integrate neuroscience and metamodernism and like psychedelics and all of this kind of stuff. It brought together people who care about the topics I care about – like death and dying.

The approach is concrete and more analytical, exact, and precise compared to a lot of spiritual approaches that can be fluffier, more vague, and you don't know what you're doing in this microsecond. The concreteness really stuck to me in a way that just felt very approachable.

The Alembic, in Berkeley California, is also a physical place where a lot of this work happens, run by Katie Devaney. It's been such a huge part of my journey. It feels like a safe retreat container where I can do seven to nine days of practice. It can be intense, but it's also relaxed, integrative, wholesome, and feels safe – it's not going to be too far over the edge.

It feels really accessible. They put on a bunch of events and bring together a bunch of people across different spheres and put them in one room (including online).

Kati is one of the cofounders of the Alembic. I would say she's one of my teachers too, and is also available to be a meditation teacher.

She has the systematic wide view. She both knows where the meditation goes in terms of awakening or liberation, and can speak to the practical stuff like: What does this mean right now for your life? What are your goals and how can you adjust to that? She's also warm, kind, very emotionally attuned, and emotionally integrative.