Remember how tuning works best when you can feel things clearly? When you're trying to adjust that shower temperature or find the right volume on your headphones, you need clear contact with the experience to make those small adjustments. The same is true for tuning your life toward what feels good — you need clear contact with how things actually feel.
But there's a challenge: that second layer of judgment we talked about often gets in the way of feeling things clearly. It's like trying to notice your full experience of eating while simultaneously criticizing your eating habits — the commentary and the feelings that follow it drown out the actual experience.
Here's a surprisingly effective way to get clearer contact with your experience: if you're going to do something anyway, try really enjoying it. This isn't about fighting or removing judgment — it's about giving yourself permission to fully experience what you're already doing. When you decide to really enjoy something, judgment often naturally fades into the background, letting you feel what's actually happening.
If you're going to watch that show, give yourself permission to fully enjoy it however you naturally want to watch it. Maybe that's curled up with a cozy blanket and complete immersion in the story. Or maybe it's with your phone in hand, scrolling while you watch. The key isn't to watch it "the right way" — it's to let any judgmental voices step aside for a moment so you can feel what's actually happening for you. You might even notice you're using multiple activities simultaneously (like phone + TV) to cope with underlying stress or to distract yourself from self-judgment. That's useful data too!
This isn't about endorsing these behaviors forever — it's about gathering accurate data for your feel-good tuning from what you're already doing. You can't tune what you can't feel clearly. When you're caught up in judging yourself for how you're doing something, you're not getting clean data about how it actually affects you. But when you give yourself permission to fully engage in whatever way feels natural, you might discover important information about both what works and what doesn't.
Take that break at the vending machine. When you let yourself really experience it, you might discover that those first few bites of chocolate provide genuine relief from stress, while continuing to eat mindlessly at your desk creates a subtle heaviness. Both sensations are valuable data. And as you stay curious without judgment, you might find that three mindful bites by a sunny window — actually taking a real break — gives you exactly what you need. The chocolate becomes part of a moment of rest rather than an attempt to eat your way through tension.
The same clarity emerges with other habits. That social media scroll you've been judging? Try really experiencing it. You might notice it offers real relief from overwhelm, while also leaving an emptiness if it goes on too long. With judgment set aside, you might naturally discover that a focused five minutes helps you regulate, while an hour of guilty scrolling just leaves you feeling drained. Some days you might even find that combining a quick scroll with something else — like a cup of tea or some gentle stretching — creates exactly the break you need.
Remember: every pattern in your life developed to meet some need — provide relief, create safety, offer comfort. Instead of fighting these patterns, get curious about what they're giving you. Maybe those extra bites of dessert offer a moment of pleasure and comfort after a stressful day. Maybe combining activities helps manage anxiety. These aren't "bad" patterns — they're solutions you've found to meet real needs.
A common fear may arise here: "But if I let myself enjoy these things, won't I just do them more?" Surprisingly, the opposite often happens. When we give ourselves permission to fully engage, we can finally feel when something stops serving us. Someone shared with me recently: "I'm so in tune with my body now that more than a few bites of ice cream just isn't worth it anymore." This wasn't through force or discipline — it came from paying attention to genuine experience.
This is how natural tuning happens. As you develop more sensitivity to how things actually feel, you might find yourself naturally adjusting — not because you should, but because you can feel what truly serves you. Maybe you discover that certain ways of combining activities feel better than others. Or that some patterns provide immediate relief but create subtle tension that builds over time. All of this is valuable data.
Think back to how we practiced observing the experiential data of before, during, and after. The same framework helps here. Before: what are you hoping this activity will give you? During: what is it actually providing? After: did you get what you needed? Without judgment clouding these observations, you might be surprised by what you discover.
This dual awareness naturally and effortlessly starts to unwind patterns that don't truly serve you and open pathways to patterns that do. It's not that the activities themselves create emptiness — it's that when you're really paying attention, you can feel the difference between momentary relief and genuine fulfillment. At first, you might not know exactly what you want to be doing instead, but by staying present with how things actually feel (rather than how you think they should feel), authentic desires naturally emerge and empower this feel-good tuning.
Moreover, as you practice enjoying what you're already doing, you might discover deeper insights about your feelings and patterns. Those feelings of "not good enough" that drive certain habits? They might actually be signals about something you deeply care about. But we can only access these deeper layers when we first let ourselves feel what's actually happening. For now, focus on the simple practice of enjoying what you're already doing — this creates the foundation for all the insights that might follow.