Allowing vs. trying hard
Using Teddy Bear Tech Support can help with doing more allowing and less trying hard.
Getting something down vs thinking something up
Here is a quote from Julia Cameron's book The Right to Write
- One of the simplest and smartest things I ever learned about writing is the importance of a sense of direction. Writing is about getting something down, not thinking something up. Whenever I strive to ‘think something up,’ writing becomes something I must stretch to achieve. It becomes loftier than I am, perhaps even something so lofty, it is beyond my grasp. When I am trying to think something up, I am straining. When, on the other hand, I am focused about just getting something down, I have a sense of attention but not a sense of strain.
To see this quote put into the context of Teddy Bear Tech Support go to Main_Page#Getting_something_down_vs_thinking_something_up_mode
You can’t try to feel. You have to let yourself feel.
Here's an excerpt from the tennis player Andre Agassi's autobiography. Stefanie and Andre are now married, and Stefanie is probably better known as Steffi Graf than as Stefanie Graf.
... I limp to the side and ask for an injury timeout. A trainer re-tapes my foot, but the real blister is on my brain. I don’t win another game from that point on.
I look up at my box. Stefanie has her head down. She’s never seen me lose like this.
Later I tell her that I don’t understand why I sometimes come apart—still. She gives me insights from her experience. Stop thinking, she says. Feeling is the thing. Feeling.
It’s nothing I haven’t heard before. It sounds like a sweeter, softer version of my father. But when Stefanie says it, the words go in deeper.
We talk for days about thinking versus feeling. She says it’s one thing not to think, but you can’t then decide to feel. You can’t try to feel. You have to let yourself feel.
Agassi, Andre (2009-12-16). Open (p. 326). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Playful participant vs controlling dictator
From the Bringing out the Best in Ourselves chapter from the book Fostering Reasonableness: Supportive Environments for Bringing Out Our Best [1]
"imagine yourself not as a controlling dictator of [your] mental processes but instead as a playful participant."
While we can’t control what’s going on in our subconscious, we can feed it with certain inputs or at least put ourselves in the right conditions to let our brain resolve the issue subconsciously. Such inputs might come in the form of the thoughts we nurture, activities we engage in, and the places we choose to visit. For example, when tackling a difficult task, one could consciously consider some alternatives and allow time for them to gestate. When the subconscious has finished processing, the answers bubble up to our consciousness. Such a mechanism underlies Boice’s (2000) recommendation to new faculty members to start before feeling ready and quit before feeling done. Different types of inputs may also be helpful. Problem solving may be aided by a long walk to take a break in a natural setting (Ivancich, Chapter 5; Sullivan, Chapter 4). Sometimes, providing less information may be an effective approach (Johnson, 2012; R. Kaplan, Chapter 2). Since the subconscious is out of our control, it may feel risky to rely on it. A helpful framing may be to imagine yourself not as a controlling dictator of our mental processes but instead as a playful participant.
Forcing vs. allowing
- Courting the muse
- Willfully making something happen
- Forcing is one type of trying hard
- See if you happen to get lucky
- Let your subconscious get to participate more