The Mother of All Fuckups

I’ve shared plenty of techniques in this sub, but I failed to include reading instructions.

I often think it might be more helpful to explain what not to do rather than what to do, since we tend to get one thing right and ten things wrong.

Mistakes often come from assuming our beliefs are correct. So, the first "don’t" would be:

Don’t stop reevaluating what you think is correct and how things should work.

You could be doing everything else right, but one unchecked assumption might hold you back for a long time.

As a software engineer, I’ve often had this realization after hours of debugging. What’s interesting is how easy it is to lose awareness of it. I expect things to be simpler than they are, so I resist the idea that I might be taking the long road—and that usually comes back to bite me.

I’ve noticed something similar when reading instructions on a topic I urgently want answers for. I tend to skim over things I think I already “know” and rush to the parts I feel I’m missing. I rarely stop to reconsider if I’m even doing the “known” parts the right way.

Take breathing instructions, for example. If I say you should breathe gently and silently, here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Is my belly relaxed?
• Can I make my breathing more comfortable?
• Can I breathe less and still stay comfortable?
• Is my inbreath too fast?
• Can my outbreath last longer?
• Can I stay without breathing for longer after an outbreath and still feel comfortable?
• Does my breath change when I start using energy movement techniques?
• Am I compensating for a lack of sensitivity with stronger breathing?
• Should I stop asking so many questions and just let go?

The answer is to experiment with all these variables. Our energy systems are highly sensitive to subtleties, and exploring those nuances is key.