myth's OF 5.75G Journal

[myth]

Thanks for the insight, explanation, and recommendation, Shannon. It's greatly appreciated.

I certainly hadn't doubted the progress. There's definitely some amount of fear reduction happening, but, as far as I can tell, that reduction has seemed incomplete on an individual fear-by-fear basis more than on a collective one. And, in that form, it seemed like it could delay progress through the metaphorical tangled ball of yarn, if the yarn were getting thinner rather than untangled, broken, or removed. And removal by whittling away seemed... unexpected, I guess?

Ahead of your suggestion, I'd already added a day of listening and subtracted a day of break on this past cycle. I'd have gone further with it, but, as you usually lean toward making incremental adjustments, I'd decided to start small. But I'm happy to push it further and see where that goes.

In general, though, sub breaks do me a lot of good. Not because I dislike being told what to do (even though I prefer a damned good reason for doing it), but, I suspect, for two completely different reasons:

1. I'm unpracticed (and, therefore, inefficient) at multi-tasking. Much of the world greedily tackles 20 things at once and completes 0-10, whereas I tackle 1, complete 1, and move onto the next. Fewer attempts, but lots of completions per attempt, and the shorter that the pulsed burst is, the faster that I am at making progress off of the previous accomplishments. Can I do it differently? Sure, being serial about things doesn't have to be an identity, but, as far as I'm aware, people tend to be better at the things that they practice. I see it a bit like asking non-driver to learn to drive (and, presumably, get a license and buy/insure a car) so that they can travel to your house; it's within the realm of possibility, but it's not the fastest (or cheapest) way for them to get there.
   
   More to the point, processing input (download/extract/read/comprehend/execute) is a series of stages, and, in my version of one-thing-at-a-time-land, focusing on download gives very little focus to the other steps. Sub breaks provide me time to focus on those other steps. I actually greatly enjoy the read and comprehend stages. Automatic writing takes over, and it's like, through typing, my subconscious is teaching my conscious a sub-inspired class through (very literal) dictation. The outer me enjoys the process of reading letters from (and asking questions of) the inner me(s), and the inner me(s) love the respect and attention of being heard by (and getting to respond to) the outer me. It's surreal, but it's also very enjoyable at multiple levels of consciousness. But... that conversation doesn't happen when I'm busy listening to subs. At least, not overtly. Not when I'm awake.
   
   
2. Thanks to my work environment/conditioning, my Pavlovian response to any request of me is like a two-step firewall procedure. First, I deny, then I allow. If asked to do something, my instinctive reaction is: "Wait. Let's back up. You asked me to do X, but, really, you want Y to happen. Tell me what Y is, and I'll see what I can do to help you find success. I'll riff on it for a bit, find sustainable and equitable win-wins, and the end result might be even more satisfying than X would've been. And, if, by the end, X is still our best bet, we'll go with X." Sub breaks allow me the time and space to riff on what the sub was encouraging me to do. I'm a logical guy, but I'm creative too. I can take a tiny bit of something and run pretty far with it, if given the latitude to do so.
   

So, for me, dropping or minimizing sub breaks might have some potential disadvantages. Or, I guess, more precisely, some sacrificed advantages. Doesn't mean that I'm not willing to (or going to) explore that, since I already am, but it could mean that it might backfire for me in ways that it wouldn't for others. Might not too, of course. There may be advantages that I'm not taking into account. Every sub's different, and I won't know until I've tried.