Free free free!
How do I break free?
I have heard this many times "the only person who is limiting u is u.."
Everything seems to be converging on that.. Do we have to learn acting/drawing/singing??? no! we just have to allow ourselves to do it.
Its shocking! how we stop ourselves from being good and wonderful by limiting ourselves with too much conscious control ,our brain unfortunately is designed that way.
- Drawing on the right side of the brain.
- Inner game of tennis
These are two books which talk about this freeing ourselves but in a scientific way. In brain language. off-course all the spiritual books talk about this all the time, its the same thing but sounds different. Thats what I want to prove - that what spiritual books are talking bout and what these books say, is the same thing.
The books call this, letting the right brain do the job, while making the usually dominant left brain, shut up.
from wiki
Edwards's method of drawing and teaching was revolutionary when she published it in 1979. It received an immediate positive response, and is now widely accepted by artists, teachers, and others around the world. Underlying the method is the notion that the brain has two ways of perceiving and processing reality — one verbal and analytic, the other visual and perceptual. Edwards' method advocates suppressing the former in favor of the latter. It focuses on disregarding preconceived notions of what the drawn object should look like, and on individually "seeing" edges or lines, spaces, relationships, and lights and shadows, later combining them and seeing them as a whole, or gestalt.[3]
I think right/left brain is a bit of a simplistic divide( wiki says this too). I like the ego/sub-super-conscious divide. however u look at it, shutting out the critical/ controlling part of the brain is the key. Doesn't this sound exactly like meditation?
J Krishnamurthy just says let go of words, dont associate words with things, u will free yourself. Why? how? Its so hard to understand. Betty Edwards finally made me understand why that is. When u use words to denote something, the left brain makes a symbol out of it. If I try to draw an eye, I always draw the eye symbol that I made when I was 10. not the real eye I am seeing. When I just draw lines and shapes without identifying it as eye, I draw very accurate drawings.
Same with life situations, JK says u dont see the present u an approximation for that situation in the past and u react in the same way. It is not bad, but thats not exactly reality, is it? :) Its good to be conscious that we are doing that.
When I was trying to learn juggling, if I just saw the person doing it and copied it, I was able to do but as soon as I started thinking how, I lost it.
( I wonder how some people can think about how to do physical stuff and still do it well. my bro and husband are really good at analyzing what they are physically doing and still do it very well. They may be better communication between left/right brain, I think their left brain delegates to right when they play, just like mine delegates to right when I draw )
Art, sports, meditation, healing, astral sight obviously need this but surprisingly even math, coding, minesweeper ( the so called left brain activities) also can be better when we let go, even writing...Its not left/right brain but its using some higher faculty in brain. getting into the zone more like.
The basic requirement of actually doing something and enjoying it seems to be to surrender. to trust ourselves to do it and let go.
To do our job and genuinely not care bout the result. Is it this they are talking about? Must be, otherwise its just drudgery.
As of now, getting into zone happens involuntarily, those books tell me to notice the difference between not being in the zone and being in the zone and slowly u will be able to go in and out of the zone voluntarily. I did a meditation once, in which the lady was very insistent about noticing the state of consciousness, how trance is different from full awake state. So u can go into meditative state easily when u want.
I love how all this converges.
I know all this but why Am I not free? Left brain is so dominant! Switching on the "zone" is recursive, to get into the zone we shouldnt try but let go! and be in the Zone!!! Argh!!!!!!
== from here on its for myself, I seem to need more convincing ==
I take a huge white paper and try to make random marks on it, Its so hard. I am so inhibited. Its hard to mess up a page. :) making bold strokes is hard, I always keep an eraser close. I make a small drawing in one corner. Most of the new comers in the drawing class drew small pictures :) it takes practice to let go. once I let go, I see myself making bold strong marks in color, over writing on what is already there, not bothering to correct. things come out awesome. :) ( May be I wouldnt call it awesome at all in critical mode :) )
This BTW is not extrovert introvert thing, It looks like it is a problem with external boldness but it isnt. difference between being free and being bold is same as between acceptance of pain and denial of pain. Being bold is ploughing thru inhibitions and being free is when these inhibitions are not there at all. May be extroverts are more free... i dono.
(its not just boldness, hesitation about making marks of paper may be about our parents telling us not to waste, govt telling us not to waste paper, conservation mentality, why to use new when I can use old for practice mentality, not being confident that I will make a good drawing, all sorts of things )
Acting class
I m so awkward and not good at acting, and self conscious and embarrassed and struggling and the rest of the class is like this too. Half way thru the class ,I realise I m pretending that the chair is a toilet seat and I m smuggling it thru immigration, I am whispering and voice modulating and winking and everything and having so much fun. We are all doing so well too.. We just shut down some part of us which said we cant do it, which asks what people will think and makes us feel selfconscious and one hell of a time we had :)
Cooking
Cook is hard, I m not a good cook, I used to believe that. I m actually a wonderful wonderful cook. Thats my latest gift ( thank u G ;). because I allowed myself to be it. I allowed myself to be gifted, Thats it. It is allright to make mistakes, Trust that I will do well. no measurements, no recipes. Have a picture of what taste we want at the end and I just know what to put and what will taste good. ( most times.) When I want to recreate the same and use my brain and start thinking, Its horrible :) even simple food dont have that magic anymore.
sometimes we let other people tell us, we are not good . I feel only when we think ourselves that we cant do well, we are not good. only then we believe when other people tell us we are not good, so it starts in us( mostly)
Bowling
every ball was gutter ball, after throwing 4 balls into gutter, I asked them to raise the side railings so the ball wont go into gutter at all. kids mode :-( yeah I was just horrible,
but once the railings were raised, I never once touched them!???! WT... Its like fear of being horrible makes me really horrible. the more I think I should do well, the worse I become, the more I think about just having fun, things go well.
