Friday, January 28, 2011

Stress Elimination... if I had known it was so easy

I mentioned a stress relief method loosely in a previous post and referred to it as "dissolving stress". Perhaps that is not quite accurate, but to each their own.

The longer version:

I usually do this in the morning before anyone else is up and make it the first part of my meditation process as it actually clears my mind and emotions. I recognize stressful feelings within me as I sit quietly, relax my muscles, breath steady and find my center. The actual source of the feelings does not matter as it is the stress that I am removing from my body.

Keep in mind that feelings are reactions of the body to commands from the unconscious in reaction to various sensory stimuli. These stimuli can be external, sounds, smells, visual data etc or internal, memories or imaginary experiences. Consider what happens when you think about past events, perhaps a fight or dangerous situation. Your body has very similar reactions as if you were there, these can be strong or weak reactions but they are reactions none the less.

With my eyes closed I imagine what these reactions or feelings would look like if they were visible, I usually come up with a grey or black smoke roiling about inside of me, sometimes shot with colour, red or green not unlike seeing lightening in heavy clouds as a storm approaches. I open a path from me to an external point and visualize the smoke flowing away from me in a stream and filling a clear sphere in front of me. I let the flow continue until I feel the feelings dissipate and my visualized or imagine body clears of the smoke. as the last wisp leaves I see the sphere full of smoke in front of me and imagine it exploding in every direction... away from me as I don't want to inadvertently get some of this back. As the parts fly apart I imagine them to all disappear or burn up.

The timing is variable and, to be honest, I have no idea how long this takes from day to day. I just let it go until it feels that it is done. I do know that once I have cleared away this negative energy that I feel as if a fog has lifted and everything takes on a fresh new feeling and it lasts longer than I might had thought possible.

I also know that I am dealing with a variety of things that should, or perhaps would normally have caused me a great deal of stress and anxiety over the last few months, with almost no stressful feelings. It is getting to the point where I wonder if I shouldn't be allowing some of this stress to stay. I do realize that is just my old habit patterns and comfort zones kicking in to try to get me back to "normal".

Jeff.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Concentrated Unconscious Directive: 100's

I went back into my past and pulled some experiences of severe procrastination in action (or is that inaction?) and wrote short excerpts expressing the feelings that went along with them. I then re-wrote them in the way that I would have preferred to have them turn out in my ideal world and noted in each what, in particular I changed for the better. I then merged all of the good points and wrote a script that covered all aspects touched upon in these short descriptions and added some feeling, and came up with the generalized version of my ideal non-procrastination story. I mentioned this briefly in a previous post

I have re-written this many times to tweak it to be my perfect story and have repeatedly read this to myself while visualizing the ideal model each sentence or thought represents somewhere around 100 times. Each time I look for anything that bothers me about the story and re-write whatever part that is to make it more ideal. Each time I do this I re-read it at least 20 times to be sure that it still rings true.

Here is my current Concentrated Unconscious Directive:

"I feel fully engaged as I plan and compile a list of the various tasks and steps involved in a new project. After noting which items that I need help with, or could easily delegate, I follow up promptly and accordingly. I feel enthusiastic as I begin the first task.


Using a very concentrated focus I effortlessly fly through the subtasks. I know with certainty that I will easily meet the due date as all of my interim target dates are being met.


I sit back after just completing the last task and let the warm feelings of accomplishment flow through me as I reflect upon the whole experience of executing the project, not only on time, but ahead of schedule.


Definitely a success and a 10 on my scale of desirability.


This is an example of the way I would like to approach, plan, execute and experience all of my projects, large and small.


Please make this happen in ways that are for the highest good of me and of all concerned."


I plan on reviewing this each day by reading it 20 times as being sure that it remains ideal. This seems to serve me in ways that has me unconsciously looking for ways to get going on projects on the go. It does not replace good planning and execution but it spurs me on to actually do some of it. The last bit is the directive part as it serves as an instruction to my unconscious to observe what I visualize as ideal, then I back it up by stating that this what I want to happen.

Jeff.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Workload Paralysis, a chance to be objective

My eldest daughter is preparing for her grade 12 exams starting Thursday this week. Last night she was having some trouble, at the time I was not sure what it was but she was beside herself and practically in tears. Then it hit me as I noticed a familiar pattern.

I used to have trouble with having feelings of being overwhelmed by various tasks, projects and responsibilities, sometimes to the point where I would be on the edge of tears. Most times at least to the point of inaction... I just could not fathom what I had to do next as everything was seemingly as important or urgent as the next thing. The result was an emotional paralysis of sorts. It was not until fairly recently that I have managed to get over this tendency, after all it took many years to hone that skill of paralysis, it would take more than reading a book or doing an exercise to get over it.

Basically, I recognized her state and knew what she had to do to overcome her current state and move on. I often get told to not try to fix everything (apparently it's a guy thing) but this needed some action steps to get her through the ordeal.

I sat with her and had her list all of the projects, assign an approximate time to complete each and decide when each is going to be due. There was studying, labs, essays and a couple of other things. Once she had a concrete handle on everything and the scope of each on paper in front of her, it was easy to decide which to do first, second, etc. Her real trouble was trying to consciously juggle every project at once.

Ah, that brought back some old feelings of futility of my own.

Tonight she brought her English exam guide home to show me. That was the first subject requiring targeting, the exam essay questions. She may still have feelings of being overwhelmed but she has a plan now and is working towards her goal piece meal.

There is nothing quite like offering help to my kids and having it accepted and see it help them. Imagine that with a 17 year old.

Jeff.

Monday, January 24, 2011

-30 F, cold makes one think.

Today we hit our typical January lows. -33C (-27F, it's getting cold enough that they are close enough).

At least there is no wind chill with that.

Of course when temperatures get this cold here my thoughts wander to warm sandy beaches... OK... HOT sandy beaches. Sure, I could pack it all up and head South but this would be disruptive to the kids' routine as we need to address change of schools, missing friends and all that that would entails. The kids say they would be up for it, in fact I think that they have both suggested it separately to one time or another heading into this winter season.

Possible, but not too likely..

This year I am not bothered by the cold as much as I have in years past. I am not certain whether it is an acceptance of the cold as part of life in Canada or whether each year I just get more used to the short burst of extremely cold weather. It may even be that my relative time clock is picking up speed and the cold snaps seem shorter. The corollary is that the warm seasons may also seem relatively shorter.

The most likely reason is the fact that, for me, winter becomes a time of reflection as I am not one to do a whole lot of outdoor activities in the cold. Sitting in front of the fire is a favourite past time now. During these times of introspection I find a little bit more of myself and this adds up to a greater acceptance of my environment that I have chosen to live in as being a part of who I am, on a conscious level. I know that my environment really has nothing to do with the unconscious me.

The more I accept my outer trappings as a part of me the more I come to realize the less they really are. While this gap between who I think I am (conscious) and who I really am (unconscious) seems to be widening that is only a matter of perception.

Enough for the thinking bit for now.

Jeff.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Concentrated Unconscious Directive: Repetition

I like to write. It is almost more the technical part as pen puts ink on paper... typing, while not the same, has it's own variation of what makes it enjoyable. Writing on paper forces me to put my thoughts into a semblance of order so they make sense once I get to the end of the sentence.

The physical act of writing is a form of habit. Each stroke and letter is a practiced action that has developed over years by forming the same shapes on paper repeatedly. Eventually anything that is repeated many times becomes an almost automatic response... or more accurately, an unconscious response.

In the same line of thinking the unconscious act or writing can work in two directions. Just like learning the individual written letters and joining strokes through repetition, you are teaching your unconscious what you want to happen when you think of a particular letter or group of letters for each word.

Seeing as we seldom use much of our entire mental capabilities at one time (that's a whole other topic, suffice it to say that the classic 10% ever being used is just wrong but the total processing power is staggering none the less) and we can learn and memorize huge amounts of data that we are able to recollect at any given time I would think that our unconscious is capable of rather complex teaching patterns.

Back to the imaginative "great" experience from the last post about procrastination. I have already internalized the imagined experience of one case of overcoming procrastination but that can only do so much. So I write the scene out and embellish it to produce my ideal experience adding many details and feelings. Keeping in mind the unconscious capabilities for complex learning, I can, through repetition, teach my unconscious a new concept of what I would prefer instead of my typical procrastination. Obviously the best method to perform the repetition would be to write out the scene many times or perhaps just read it. Either way the idea is to allow myself to re-experience the ideal scene which embeds the the whole into my unconscious thinking. The next time an opportunity arises to procrastinate on that particular activity I will choose not to procrastinate on an unconscious level... or more accurately, choose to do what ever it is that is to be done.

The next step would be to generalize the imagined scene to allow it to encompass more than just one task. I may look at identifying the feelings that I experience when I do procrastinate and use those as a trigger to let me know when I need to engage the more enjoyable version of what I should be doing instead. I know those very well and they shouldn't be too hard to nail down in a descriptive manner.

Jeff.

Concentrated Unconscious Directive

I suppose this is part two from my last post. I would rather split these up in the interest of producing posts that are far easier to create and edit (not that I actually end up doing much editing). In other words, in a conscious effort to train my unconscious to get used to the idea of getting a post completed more often. I already have dozens of incomplete posts that, once I get past a certain length in the initial writing, I just come to a halt on and do not finish for often inexplicable reasons... or unconscious "reasons".

As I said last post, I don't believe that there is reason behind my unconsciousness.

Thinking back to many past procrastinated activities I consider what I felt at the time. It's not hard to do as putting my mind in the situation creates the exact same body feelings that I experience at the actual moment of procrastination. I find that this is as true with most remembered or even imagined experiences. My favourite is claustrophobia, which I don't have but I can create very strong physical feelings if I imagine some of the worst possible claustrophobic situations that I can come up with, in fact some that I have been in and only now thinking back on them creates those tight chested, heart racing, blood pressure spiking sensations.

Ok, back to procrastination, that little tangent is typical of my procrastinative  responses. I imagine a situation where I had opportunity to procrastinate but didn't, or at least not for long. This lets me feel the reaction that I have typically, then I can get past that to the part where I actually complete the task or get started on the activity. Then I focus on the starting or completion feelings and eliminate the initial negative ones.

Take my last post for example. I started it and finished it and it felt great to hit that "PUBLISH POST" button. In fact, I tune that up and create a stronger than good feeling, turn it into a great feeling. I enjoy creating these posts, I enjoy the little editing that I do and I enjoy hitting that "publish" button and I concentrate on that to make it a conscious great experience completed. This could have been any activity but this is the most recent.

I close my eyes and use the reverse technique that I mention in a past post about meditation and clearing. Rather than focusing on the inner negative energy and letting it flow to an external imaginary point and dissolving it, I focus on the seeming external imaginative "great" experience and let that associated feeling flow inward to infuse my inner Self while keeping it associated with starting and completing the activity or task. I avoid using any negative idea like "not procrastinating" as I feel that any negative will be counter productive in the un-reason of my unconscious.

And I find that I have completed another post and feel great about it.

The next step involves documenting this in a way that allows me to establish it as a high priority for my unconscious in order to over-ride the current automatic procrastination tendency.

Jeff.

There is no reason for procrastination

In keeping with the procrastination topic I decided to take a closer look at what it will take to overcome my procrastination issues. My reasoning here is that anything that I decide to attempt is often thwarted by my procrastination tendencies... even activities or tasks that I LIKE to do, forget for now about things that I don't like to do. So for me to even take steps toward any self improvement or other beneficial activities I need to overcome this issue first.

One example: My wanting to set up my bike on my stationary trainer to use during the winter.

I know I like to use it off season and I like the results in not losing my cardiovascular performance. I like listening to various musical selections along with the spinning techniques that match the music. I bought a top of the line trainer a few years ago so I wasn't dealing with substandard (for me) trainer issues. It's just an all round enjoyable part of my exercise routine in the winter and it certainly makes starting the spring cycling season much more enjoyable starting out more fit than having done nothing all winter long.

It took me until January to get this setup and using it for no other reason than I just didn't do it. Considering it took all of 10 minutes I cannot for the life of me figure out why I did not just do it two months ago. I chastise myself every time I thing about not getting things like this done, sometimes AT THE TIME OF NOT DOING THEM.

Obviously if I consciously WANT to do something, know that I will benefit from it, have no reason why not to do it then it just doesn't make any logical sense to me on a conscious level.

Enter the unconscious level.

Rather than trying to figure out my unconscious "reasoning", as I don't believe that there is reason involved in unconsciousness anyway, I decided to take a different approach. I will tell my unconscious what I want to do and establish a pattern that, like any habit, will become "second nature" to me. In other words I will create an unconscious directive.

To be continued (in keeping with my attempt to keep these posts shorter in order to overcome any resistance to getting into a long dissertation on any topic)

Jeff.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Wanted: Conscious Concentrated Effort

I know I am a habitual procrastinator, no news there. If a project can be put off until the last possible second I can manage to do it. In school it was studying, essays or assignments, cramming and working late to get what ever it is done. At work starting projects and multi-staged tasks, with the same overall M.O., start at the last moment.

The interesting part is that I also can manage to pull it off at that last possible second as well. School work, while not as good as it could have been was more than acceptable. Work work, same deal, which leads me to continue the pattern as if not only getting things done at the last moment, but starting them when I know there is just enough time to manage to finish on time. I find it interesting that I can manage some of these projects in that fashion.

The good, the bad and... well.... the comfort zone.

The good side of this procrastination streak is that there are many things that, upon closer inspection as a due date looms, they really need not be done at all. So what was the due date all about anyway?

The bad side is that it produces stress, stress that I am sure I could learn to live without... or could I?

Everything leads me to come to better understand where my comfort zone is. I feel comfortable doing things exactly the way that I do. At least I must if I cannot change my tendency to procrastinate.

Let's say that I actually got a head start on everything that I did and finished it all at least on time and perhaps ahead of time... what would be different? Well, I might not be stressed about the project, I expect that I would spend more time on it to get it just right and I would end up working on projects that may not be needed at all.

Right now I have a stack of paper on my desk that I know I could push through in 4 hours straight. I don't usually get that amount of time straight through so I keep telling myself, "if I just start it, I can get it done". We all know where knowing that leads... nowhere until the starting begins. And here I am writing a blog post about it rather than starting it.

Case in point.

Ultimately I am leaning toward conscious methods of applying the same absolute least amount of time to complete tasks and projects in a similar manner as I would if they were due right now. A directed concentrated effort but without the imposing deadline. I may need to change the way I view the end target, time of completion, as the stress is what seems to help me focus on the project with that single mindedness that I just don't manage otherwise... unless I am doing something that I really enjoy of course. Just starting it is not enough on it's own.

Jeff.