Redesign Your Mind by Eric Maisel

Author:Eric Maisel
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642505122
Publisher: Mango Publishing Group
Published: 2021-08-09T16:00:00+00:00

Visualization: Visualize twisting a plastic ice cube tray, releasing its contents with a mighty cracking sound, and breaking through the resistance that’s keeping you from your work.

Writing Prompt: Have a discussion with yourself about what you intend to do when you feel blocked or resistant.

Chapter 27

Less Fear: Embracing an Old Friend

All of the thinking that we need to do—from calculating, to problem-solving, to predicting, to creating—produces a certain amount of anxiety.

This natural anxiety might be handled relatively easily if we just remembered that it was coming, and if we possessed some anxiety management techniques to deal with it. Our usual way, however, is to not see the anxiety coming. We have no good plan in place to deal with it, are surprised each time it arrives, and instead of handling it well, we employ one of the following unfortunate anxiety reduction methods:

•Maybe we flee the encounter—that is, we run away from the activity of thinking. We begin to think about something we need to think about, and almost immediately get up and do something else. Or we stay put but send our mind elsewhere, somewhere easier on our nervous system, like off to shop, play a game, or check the weather.

•Maybe we employ some dangerous “canalizing” tactic, so as to help ourselves stay put. We scratch at our head until it bleeds, we bite our fingernails until they’re bitten down, we keep a Scotch bottle or a pack of cigarettes handy or soothe ourselves in some other unhelpful way as we struggle to think.

•Maybe we quickly opt to think small. Maybe we have a certain novel in mind to write. We sit down to begin it, anxiety wells up in us, and we decide to write a blog post instead. Writing that blog post allows us to congratulate ourselves on having gotten something done. But inevitably, those congratulations turn to chagrin, since a part of us knows what our real intention was when we sat down.

•Maybe we play it safe in other ways. For instance, it is much easier on the brain to repeat a memorized message than to think. Most people who regularly communicate with others do not do much thinking on their feet, as that is anxiety-provoking work. Instead, they craft messages and then repeat them. Those repeated messages are then woven into a stump speech or become the tapes that they run. We sound more intelligent and more confident and do a better job of staying on point when we just repeat our canned messages. But where’s the creativity, innovation, or heart in that?

•Maybe we instantly fantasize. As soon as that anxiety arrives, a smart person who naturally loves story, metaphor, narrative, and fantasy can easily stop working on their novel and instead fantasize about winning the Nobel Prize. They let their mind wander, fantasizing about success, conquests, revenge, or anything else that might prove soothing and distracting. Because the brain of a creative person is agile, it can spin itself lovely fantasies all day long—winning

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