Hi,
just as David I´ve decided to start my own practice thread rather than use the general one in order to avoid the chaos that´s likely going to break out here.

So for a little introduction: I´ve always been very self-concious and perfectionistic which since early puberty resulted in low self-esteem. After a 1 year episode of drug abuse which caused a severe social anxiety disorder and depression there was one day which particularly stood out:
From the minute I got up until the evening I went to bed I had the most intense anxiety attacks, terror, shaking I´ve ever been through... very close to the limit I thought I could endure. The next morning was quite different, I felt as if some huge part of me/my identity had dropped away. Although feeling confused and lost there was also a tremendous reduction in fear in general. That was the starting point for my spiritual search.
I´ve been meditating since, on and off for 2 years, but due to inconsistency in practice never got to stream entry (not that I know of anyway).
Meditation helped me hugely in terms of self-awareness, quieting the mind, raising self-confidence by reducing my need for affirmation by others and allowing for more space/freedom to choose how to act on my desires/impulses.
The constant cycling between what I assumed to be equanimity and dark knight territory wasn´t too enjoyable though. Less identification with my emotions/thoughts
didn´t prevent them from occuring and all to often was and am I (and accordingly my actions) still subject to them.
This lead to my interest in the first accounts of AF that I read here which seemed reasonable and useful to me, furthermore they fitted some suspicions I had all along.
Reading the AFT website was.... well, a challenge.

Don´t think I´ve ever had to look up more translations/definitions.
I`ve tried to incorporate HAIETMOBA in daily life and I´m still in the early phases of maintaining attentiveness and felicity.
Although attentiveness requires constant effort (which makes it a somewhat tiring exercise) the process itself as understood by me:
1) Paying attention to sensory input and mind states.
2) If I don´t find myself being happy and harmless, investigate the reason (underlying belief/conditioning) for that.
3) Ask myself wether the cause is silly or sensible. [*1*]
4) Get back to feeling happy.
Here are some contemplations/problems I´ve encountered:
1. Figuring out the real cause of suffering can sometimes lead to pure speculation/psychologising. An intellectual exercise which does nothing to prevent future occurrences of the same kind. When one actually finds out the real cause there´s a felt relief in the body, not just a deep exhalation happening as part of temporary relaxation, but also a kind of shivering/"energy" radiating out of the body. Anyone else have similar experiences? Any hints how to discover the real underlying belief or is it just a matter of exhausting all possibilities?
This poses especially problematic when a mixture of feelings or just very subtle feelings are involved.
2. Positive and negative motivation: When one loses only parts of the negative motivations (fear of loss of status/affiliation, fear of loss of financial independence etc), to do certain things this can lead to rather problematic situations.
E.g.: After losing my positive motivations to earn large amounts of money due to Mediation/Dark Knighting, the only reason which caused me to work nonetheless was when my stress levels (fear of financial/existential demise) reached a certain threshold. As soon as the situation improved so did my motivation reduce again.
Eliminating only *SOME* of the conditioning generating this stress lead to higher and higher thresholds, translating into even more severe situations arising before action was/is deemed neccessary.
Only on the still rare occasions of 99% contenment with this moment of beeing alive, am I free to choose what to do: enabling me to actually enjoy working/earning money.
3. Being attentive, happy and harmless is less a challenge in physical activities as it is in intellectual. I feel much more embedded in the situation as I don´t have the full amount of cognitive capacities available to simultaneously think AND sense. I´d especially be interested in Trents experience of this as I recall he was/is(?) working as a computer programmer, anyone elses opinion of this is certainly welcome too tough. ;)
4. Compassion/pity: I have encountered several moments where (disguised) forms of (self-)pity / compassion arose, e.g. someone in (emotional) pain experiences a surprising positive change/message and bursts into tears of relief... and so was I. This has diminished greatly.
5. Engaging in social settings/conversations is quite different: If I were to "pull through" with the method, there seems to be hardly anything which I can contribute. All small talk is eliminated and I´m just.... there. Although I´m aware that there are underlying beliefs (of appearing boring and awkward) holding me back, I´d be interested in everybody elses opinion on this.
Although it is possible that I´ve experienced PCE´s on 2 occasions under the influence of drugs, my memory of them is quite distorted and might have just been ASC´s. Other than that I´m not even sure I had EE´s... there were times I felt tremendeous joy and lightness but it didn´t feel like a particularly different way of being/perceiving.
Overall I´m nevertheless way happier than ever in my life despite going through pretty challenging times. More input for practice I guess
So that´s it so far, feel free to comment and correct my assumptions (and english for that matter) or sharing your experiences.
Thanks to everyone devoting their time here, it´s a really unique place for sure.
Martin
[*1*] This has posed a problem in instances related to the stuff mentioned in "2.". When the only thing that keeps driving me to do something is fear, I can hardly genuinely answer the question if the belief causing fear is silly or sensible with "silly".