Thanks for sharing, HugoZyl. Your story is an interesting and eventful one. I hope the resources here help you continue making progress.
As for myself, I’ve noticed recently that the gap between having a sensory experience and experiencing a triggered response has increased in duration. Along with this, the strength of the triggered response itself seems to have weakened.
As a result, the mind is beginning to observe for itself the arbitrariness of attachment, in the sense that it clearly depends on conditions rather than being something intrinsic.
I’ve also started to notice how the act of assigning meaning subtly shapes how things appear. There are moments where it becomes clear that the mind is actively making things seem a particular way.
For example, when I look out of my living room window at the apartments opposite me, I can sometimes see the mind quietly engaging with that visual experience, moulding it into something agreeable. This process is quite subtle (at least for me at present), but it’s something I didn’t notice nearly as clearly before.