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most concrete example I have of using little nudges in what i pay attention to leading to easy no-will-power behavior change: i used to consistently overeat. because of lucky metabolism stuff it was never a health problem, but i'd reliably feel bloated and bleh after meals
as a kid, I self conceptualized as "type of guy that can always finish off everyone else's leftovers". this gave me a Thing, and also was reinforced by friends and family also in my extended family, eating giant fucking meals together that gma cooked was main bonding time
it's probably only the past 3 years when I even noticed "huh... I often don't feel good after meals". it took some time before "maybe I could eat less and feel better" was an idea that crossed my mind a handful of times i tried to hold the intent "don't eat as much", didn't work
i'd heard that eating slower can help with this. something about it takes a baseline 20m for hunger signals to actually abate, so if you scarf down your food right away you can eat more than your body actually wants. i wasn't that good at will powering "slow down" either
i tried an easier cue, "put my utensil down after I take a bite, and don't pick it up till I've swallowed" (in contrast with the previous mode of loading my fork right away, and putting it into my mouth as soon as i'd swallowed enough for more to fit in) this one was doable!
here's the kicker. it turns out that for me (generalizable?) the main moment when my body would give me info about "does this still feel good?" was in the sensations of swallowing. Even before my stomach would hurt, if i was eating too much, swallowing would feel bad
when I slowed down, and payed attention to "it does NOT feel good to swallow this", the feeling was able to pretty freely backprop into how much i wanted to take another bite! i didn't have to hold a notion about what i *should* do, i could just not do the thing that felt bad
interestingly, my previous speedy mode of eating was what enabled me to ignore this signal. the moment when I'd be swallowing was also the moment i was putting a fresh bite in my mouth, and i could pay attention to how yummy that was instead of how bad it felt to swallow
since doing this it's become v easy to not overeat, and it's accomplished in a very robust way. I can just feel into how I don't want to, and I know what parts of my experience to pay attention to for the relevant bodily signals
meta-point: sometimes internal conflict or self-destructive patterns are maintained by collapsing awareness onto a small set of sensations. by practicing feeling into EVERY aspect of whats happening, what feels easy and what feels right can reconfigure and be in harmony
also, i don't need to *ignore* how good food tastes for this to work. The end result is not suppressing attention on what's yummy in favor of what's not. The end result is holding both in attention at the same time, feeling into both of them, until they sort themselves out
this "move" is easiest to do with food, cuz there's such clear feedback and also it's not "real time", i can pause as much as i want. i try the same move with more complex stuff, like being at a party and liking and not liking aspects of what i'm doing harder, but still useful