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5:26am September 15, 2013

➸ Trying to find the right words: Sometimes I just don't know.

youneedacat:

This isn’t about something bad that needs to be fixed. Well it sort of is but it sort of is not. The part about finding all these bad things and trying like hell to figure out how to get rid of them and not knowing how, that part doesn’t need to be fixed, it’s a good thing,…

Yeah I’m way too familiar with that particular one.

What I was told to do was basically, get used to recognizing when motivations like that pop up. And every time you recognize it, get rid of it. It may keep popping up, or recognizing it alone may be enough to make it go away. (And if you feel like a wonderful and virtuous person for doing this as well, add that to the list of things to throw out, too.)

I’m not sure how to describe throwing stuff out of your head though. I’ve been practicing it since 1999. And it’s become second nature. As I recall, I started by interrupting things in the middle, and then pushing them back closer and closer to the beginning until I could just get something in my head to stop just by thinking it. It’s come in handy for all kinds of things though. Including this.

So basically any time I see a motivation like that, and I’m able to, I get rid of it. And that sometimes means doing it just once, sometimes many times. But if it turns into a wrestling match where I am arguing with myself, that just makes it worse. It has to be just simple, firm, direct, stopping it. Whatever it was.

But I’m not good at describing this because I’ve been doing it too long. It’s a mental movement that doesn’t translate well. But it may be the single most useful thing I’ve ever learned.