Dwelling is what gets me. I wonder how I could have done things differently.  Well for me on dwelling, I practice really only one thing. It helps me quite a lot, but it seems to be sort of complicated. Disinhibition. Your mind is inherently aware of error. You won’t stop being aware of error, and you don’t have to make any special effort to be aware of your mistakes, do you?

Oh no, the ‘why didn’t I’ will haunt me. I start kicking myself. It’s a natural mechanism of the mind. To succeed at anything, I mean literally anything, you also have to be aware of the degree to which you haven’t succeeded yet.

Is that learning from mistakes, but not being too aware of the error itself? Actually, there is only one way to learn from mistakes, and people usually don’t do it. They learn mistakes. They don’t learn from mistakes.

The way to deal with dwelling is disinhibition. Do what occurs to you, and trust yourself, and give yourself permission to have errors. When you have an error recognize it, but don’t lose your goal. Don’t study your mistake. Don’t focus on it, and for truths sake don’t try to avoid mistakes. Do that, and you avoid doing much of anything, or learning anything.

So trust is key? Yes, trust is key.

And confidence comes with trust? Trust only comes from experience, experience from doing.

You can maybe make it into a game? How many mistakes can I make today? Yes, you could. Whatever makes you not take it so seriously. I like to consider paradox. It sort of shuts out my judging mind. No one is perfect, and yet everyone is. That’s a good paradox to think on.

It amazes me how hard it is for many around me to grant themselves errors. In the same way many people only want joyful moods, have fascist ideas, avoid self-reflection and are all on status etc. Exactly, it’s a very real issue.

Put juice on your cereal just because it’s wrong! Yes, I do recommend that. How many world changing discoveries were accidents? Were seen as mistakes? There was a glue company that was experimenting with a reusable adhesive, or some such. They made a new type, and they thought it was too weak for anything. They had invested a lot of money in this formula. We still use it, and we use a lot of it.  Do you know on what?  The post it note, and it was supposed to have been a “waste.” Action is like questions. The only thing really not worth it was what you refused to do.  Basically, there is plenty of evidence that you should have a dumb idea anyway. Accept it, and do the crazy thing if you want to, and feel you need to.

I’m disproving that on a daily basis though. My dumb ideas are all duds. My smart idea (I only ever had one) was also a dud. Congratulations. This proves the point. It’s all a level playing field. The geniuses in history rarely called themselves geniuses. Einstein was seen as the village idiot in his home town, and he was aware of how he was seen.

As a writer and artist I do a lot of let’s try this, let’s try that. Even the dumbest one possible. You would be surprised what that can do. I often write the worst poem I can think of, and voila, some nuggets of beauty emerge.  It can get us unstuck. I speak so well, because I do not think before I speak. When I’m speaking, I just speak. When I’m thinking, I just think. The idea you have to “be careful” strikes me as nonsense.

Well, there are times when being “careful“ is wise, such as at an arrest. Not a good time to call the officer a name. I don’t see that as being careful. I see that as being aware of the situation. You don’t have to be oblivious to be disinhibited, but if you are disinhibited you won’t trip up yourself. It’s just getting rid of false obstacles.

Being disinhibited is about doing what your mind and heart say yes too, and to not do what the mind and heart says no to. If you do what you feel you shouldn’t, that’s not disinhibition. It’s inhibition. You do have natural awareness and instincts.

The other side of making a lot of mistakes is you get the scorn of other people. They call you clumsy or hopeless. I have deliberately screwed things up before, or withdrew rather than let someone “show me.” People don’t really bother to correct me anymore.

I heard a talk by a Buddhist monk today. He said if someone offers to help you cross the street, let them even if you don’t want to go. That’s true. I will just as often let people do what I don’t ask for, or don’t need them to do, but don’t bother with being corrected. Letting them give can be the best way to give.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~