"While I’ve talked about this at an individual scale, I suspect it holds true at higher levels of organisation."
This sentence reminds me of the tale of the quarterly report that's prepared for board meetings. If you ask around, no-one knows why the report is prepared. It simply is prepared every quarter.
Ha, I've been re-watching all of Yes, Minister lately with my partner and I love all the "this is just how it's been done for hundreds of years, Minister!" lines
Hmm very interesting, and counter to the often used "fully your gut" advice that is often used in somatic circles. I'd imagine the ideal route is to find a balance between the two.
Yeah, I suppose it's around when should we not trust our feelings and what to operate by instead. Ofc, I understand we don't want to act from strong emotions, to instead process them, inform our actions by them, but I guess general heuristics here might be helpful.
What you wrote about, about change and unfamiliarity seems critical and I wonder if there's further aspects that you'd offer.
If you go wider on your grip on bench press, it will feel weird. You might lift about the same or a little less. Keep doing it to train the new pattern, though, and you'll be able to lift much more over the next several months. Good/neutral weird.
Go too wide, and you will be able to lift a lot less. You've gone over the optimum. Bad weird
I like the example showing unfamilarity within movement. Think that is a good way to see on what level this is already happening. Yesterday did a practice of shifting weights between my feets. After some time of slow movements into different directions i noticed my right foot is within its familiar position slightly more rotated. When adjusted i sensed the unfamilarity of it. Don't want to impose a right/wrong placement of my foot too early but just noticing the terrain of familiar and unfamilar is inducing insights. If this plays out on this small scale i can easily imagine bigger scales.
This is an excellent practice! Normal Alexander Technique stuff actually plays out at these smaller scales of self-inquiry, I just like thinking about the higher order patterns.
yea, when i read the acticle they felt so connected. my little noticing of my leg and the higher patterns. it makes me think of bringing the mind back into the body (quoting bonnitta roy) but it seems we also need these higher patterns understandings to do that.
Hmm... if you're habitualised to putting effort into something, it *feels* like you aren't putting any effort at all... therefore it becomes hard to release that effort because it's hidden in the familiar
I think when learning anything, one of the most important things you can do is get good feedback loops and I think this means trying to get an understanding of "what's right and why" and mapping this onto your internal sense of is right and wrong.
In language learning communities online, there's this recommendation of having a "silent period" where you only input the language, for some months to a year. The reason is because if you say things wrong, or make mistakes in pronunciation, before you have a sense of what the language actually sounds like, you won't know to correct and it may even "feel right". Worse still, you'd get repetitions of pronouncing things the wrong way which may be difficult to change later on.
This piece deeply resonated! Thanks for writing and sharing it. I've always thought about doing new/hard things in the traditional term of facing a "fear," but diving a click deeper and into the body, this feeling of "unfamiliarity = bad" often feels like the root of the more nebulous "fear." Super helpful!
Love this piece and your writing style, nice one!
Thank you!
i sense theres even a trap here of people pursuing the familiar bad over and over again - I think this explains why people stay in jobs they hate too
Yeah I agree, there’s a version of this where familiarity is equated directly with safety / comfort even if it’s terrible
Great piece
Thank you!
I can really relate to the anecdote about coffee in the morning! I know it doesn’t serve me in the long run, but it just feels right…
Right??
I mean... familiar????
I like this perspective you've shared Michael.
"While I’ve talked about this at an individual scale, I suspect it holds true at higher levels of organisation."
This sentence reminds me of the tale of the quarterly report that's prepared for board meetings. If you ask around, no-one knows why the report is prepared. It simply is prepared every quarter.
Ha, I've been re-watching all of Yes, Minister lately with my partner and I love all the "this is just how it's been done for hundreds of years, Minister!" lines
Hmm very interesting, and counter to the often used "fully your gut" advice that is often used in somatic circles. I'd imagine the ideal route is to find a balance between the two.
Indeed, the more provocative title to a essay I have yet to write is "Don't Trust Your Feelings"
I would love if you could expand on this in an essay.
Noted! let me know if you have any specific questions I can explore
Yeah, I suppose it's around when should we not trust our feelings and what to operate by instead. Ofc, I understand we don't want to act from strong emotions, to instead process them, inform our actions by them, but I guess general heuristics here might be helpful.
What you wrote about, about change and unfamiliarity seems critical and I wonder if there's further aspects that you'd offer.
In a culture that is so somatically underdeveloped, I could see how this could get one into many tricky situations
I always think of this in terms of weightlifting
If you go wider on your grip on bench press, it will feel weird. You might lift about the same or a little less. Keep doing it to train the new pattern, though, and you'll be able to lift much more over the next several months. Good/neutral weird.
Go too wide, and you will be able to lift a lot less. You've gone over the optimum. Bad weird
I like the example showing unfamilarity within movement. Think that is a good way to see on what level this is already happening. Yesterday did a practice of shifting weights between my feets. After some time of slow movements into different directions i noticed my right foot is within its familiar position slightly more rotated. When adjusted i sensed the unfamilarity of it. Don't want to impose a right/wrong placement of my foot too early but just noticing the terrain of familiar and unfamilar is inducing insights. If this plays out on this small scale i can easily imagine bigger scales.
This is an excellent practice! Normal Alexander Technique stuff actually plays out at these smaller scales of self-inquiry, I just like thinking about the higher order patterns.
yea, when i read the acticle they felt so connected. my little noticing of my leg and the higher patterns. it makes me think of bringing the mind back into the body (quoting bonnitta roy) but it seems we also need these higher patterns understandings to do that.
Oh nice example, I like it
Hmm... if you're habitualised to putting effort into something, it *feels* like you aren't putting any effort at all... therefore it becomes hard to release that effort because it's hidden in the familiar
I think when learning anything, one of the most important things you can do is get good feedback loops and I think this means trying to get an understanding of "what's right and why" and mapping this onto your internal sense of is right and wrong.
In language learning communities online, there's this recommendation of having a "silent period" where you only input the language, for some months to a year. The reason is because if you say things wrong, or make mistakes in pronunciation, before you have a sense of what the language actually sounds like, you won't know to correct and it may even "feel right". Worse still, you'd get repetitions of pronouncing things the wrong way which may be difficult to change later on.
This piece deeply resonated! Thanks for writing and sharing it. I've always thought about doing new/hard things in the traditional term of facing a "fear," but diving a click deeper and into the body, this feeling of "unfamiliarity = bad" often feels like the root of the more nebulous "fear." Super helpful!