Week 11/2022: Cosmic calibration and other ways to explore the universe

Week of 14 March 2022

A not too bad week

What did I want to do this week?

• Study: TAFE work (finish Module 2 and catch up on the additional reading I’m putting off)
• Personal: Upgrade my Evernote
• Personal: Complete Unit 2 of the Urban Geometry photography course
• Personal: Finish the supplementary part of the Cosmic Calibration program and write a blog post about it
• Routine: Trial being offline in the mornings at work

Did I do it?

I worked on all these things but completed only one of them. I had to downgrade my Evernote in order to upgrade it (don’t ask). I imagined I could do this when my subscription expired on Friday and I cancelled the auto-renewal. Not so fast! I had to wait for the time zones to catch up so that the downgrade could be processed. Then I could upgrade it. 6pm Sunday. Done.

I did some of the TAFE work (thing 8) but am still putting off the additional reading. I’ve started Module 3, which is about numeracy, and completed all of Module 2 apart from that additional reading that isn’t mandatory.

I watched the videos in Unit 2 of the Urban Geometry course. I needed to go out to do the actual exercises but the weather has been uncooperative in terms of me being able to photograph in the light I need. So that part of Unit 2 is on hold.

Cosmic Calibration

I finished the supplementary part of the Cosmic Calibration course (thing 22). This is a course offered by Christian Rivera (aka C-Note), who I came across when I was falling down INTP rabbit holes researching my INTP personality type for my university project. I wrote about understanding my type in the previous post to provide a little context.

Christian has a podcast and a YouTube channel called Dopamine and Other Happy Chemicals, which are his online spaces for sharing his personal growth experiences including (but definitely not limited to) as an INTP.

Cosmic Calibration is one of a number of courses Christian offers INTPs, and it focuses on developing your extroverted intuition (Ne), which, you might recall, is the area I feel like I most need to work on. This has made itself known to me from more than one source, and when something keeps coming up in all sorts of places like this, I know I have to pay attention.

Earlier this year, Christian very kindly provided an opportunity for people on his mailing list to go through the course at no cost, in exchange for providing feedback. I was lucky enough to score one of the free spots in the course, so I wanted to set that out up-front, but I was under no obligation to write about it or promote it in any way other than providing Christian with the feedback he requested.

So with that out of the way, I wanted to share my experience with the course and what I learned.

The program is intended to help INTPs, especially people like me who feel they are stuck in the introverted thinking-introverted sensing (Ti-Si) loop I wrote about last week, to better connect with our extroverted intuition (Ne). Christian says, “This program is a set of core principles for accessing joy in a way that nurtures and expands your thinking ability”.

I found the course content engaging and interesting, and highly relevant to where I am and what I need right now. I’m glad I was already familiar with the basic concepts of the Myers Briggs system, what the INTP code means and how the cognitive functions work together before I started the course. Christian does provide a good overview of this material at the start, but this information has been something I’ve had to absorb and understand over a period of time so I would have found it difficult to come in to the course cold with no background at all.

The first section looks at how INTPs fit (or don’t fit) into the world, and what some of our potential pitfalls might be (including that pesky Ti-Si loop that keeps us stuck) and our fixation on being right (aka Truth). I related to a lot of the ideas in this section, and it really brought home that to get out of this loop, I need to wake up my extroverted intuition.

I felt like there should have been some alarm to alert me that my introverted sensing was gradually taking over my life and to haul my intuitive function out of its slumber. But what happened instead was something like in those movies where the people get frozen to go into space and they’re supposed to be thawed when they get to the new planet, but the spaceship overshoots the planet, the thawing mechanism never gets triggered and, when it finally does, they’ve overslept by 400 years and are in a new galaxy. That’s how foreign my intuitive function has felt.

The second section is about getting out there. It taught me more about my extroverted intuition function and what I need to do to develop it more to create more beauty, joy and curiosity in my life. It complements other work I’m doing and reinforces that I’m on the right track.I feel like this was perfect timing.

The final section is about connecting with other people. You know in actual real life. (Eeeek!) It covers some of the ways INTPs can be awkward around other people and provides some strategies to use to manage this. Not surprisingly, it involves using the extroverted intuition function and getting curious.

I got a lot out of the course and it was a worthwhile experience, even if it did take me a little longer than I’d hoped. Christian shared a lot of valuable insights that are relevant to what I’m doing to explore my INTP personality type, and I thank him for the opportunity to participate. I encourage you to check out his Youtube or podcast or some of his courses if his work sounds like your type of thing.

My next challenge is putting it all into practice and that’s what I hope to share more of in coming weeks on the blog.

What worked well this week?

Gradually making the morning planning and afternoon review routines (thing 12) part of my day, even if I rush through them seems to be working well.

What didn’t work so well?

Taking myself offline for three or four hours in the mornings hasn’t worked out as well (thing 12). Monday was a public holiday and I had meetings on Wednesday. I devoted a large chunk of Thursday to a task I wanted to get finished, set up my “do not disturb” and got on with it. It did work, especially once I got into the flow of the work and put the idea that anyone might want to contact me urgently out of my mind. Nothing I do is that urgent it can’t wait for a few hours. I need to keep doing this more regularly so that it starts to ‘click’.

22 for 2022 summary

• Things completed this week: 22
• Things I worked on this week: 4: (8, 12, 21, 22)
• Things completed to date: 5 (10, 11, 13, 18, 22)
• Things in progress: 4 (1, 8, 12, 21)
• Things not started: 13 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20)

What do I want to do next week?

• Continue my TAFE work (catch up on the unread articles)
• Make an appointment to do last year’s tax return
• Review the Mindspot Week 2 material
• Do the exercises from Unit 2 of the Urban Geometry photography course
• Now that I’ve upgraded my Evernote, tidy up all the tasks in there
• Refine my morning planning routine
• Continue the offline trial at least two days during the week

Weekly summary

What did I learn this week?

A great quote from Christian’s course encouraging me to get out and use my Extroverted intuition more:

Experiencing more things will expand your knowledge. Therefore, getting out of your Introverted Thinking (Ti) is in service of Ti.

What was the best thing about this week?

Seeing some amazing sunrises on the beach.

What I’m reading this week

• 7 1/2 by Christos Tsiolkas
• Menopocalypse by Amanda Thebe
• Find Your Unicorn Space by Eve Rodsky

Habit tracker

• Days I went for a walk in the morning (Goal = 7): 7
• Days I did my morning planning routine at work (Goal = 4): 3
• Days I did controlled breathing (Goal = 7): 7
• Days I did jaw stretches (Goal = 7): 6
• Days I did my post-work pack up routine (Goal = 4): 4
• Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 3
• Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
• Days I went for a walk or did other physical activity in the afternoon (Goal = 5): 7
• Days I shut my computer down before 9.30 (Goal = 6): 6
• Weekly review at work: Yes
• Weekly review at home: Yes