Updated November 19. 2025; December 6, 2025, Feb.3/26
(Short version far below )
The Problem
I drop things, spill things, bump into things, break things, choke on things and misplace things. I’m clumsy. I never thought of myself that way until someone told me. Then I saw it in all movement that I didn’t need to pay close attention to. I could climb any tree, walk on any roof without mishap. But I couldn’t wash dishes without bumping them, without splattering the water, without occasionally dropping one. And I often injured myself mildly, and sometimes worse, while playing sports or working with tools.
The Cause
Not character, not upbringing. Instead, psr’s. Psr = inappropriate or imaginary problem solving response. It’s not real solving of real stuff. Ipsr is too long and doesn’t roll off the tongue well, so … psr.
The Solution
Bitch and complain the psr’s. (synonyms are “flow” or “flow-with” or “deconstruct”, but not “complaining” because it’s not distinct from every complaining). I often have to do it many times (instructions are in the examples below). But this is not a flaw. The repetitions build a memory centre that pulls my focus into it. While there, I don’t oppose myself by finding fault with every thought that forms my true response/my decision, leaving it internalized. Instead, I simply externalize my true response. I move it from inside my mind to outside it. into my muscles. I turn the thought into action.
Good to know:
- While my mind can go blank more than a few times in a day, most of the time my mind produces a constant stream of thoughts and feelings. This stream causes many distractions, all day every day. In order to survive, (that means not die), I need to be good at ignoring them. The most important distraction is what happens at the end of thought or feeling: loss of momentum. Momentum is that automatic progression of thought towards a goal, whether the goal is good or bad. Momentum feels good. It’s painful to lose.
- All loss, no matter how small, causes pain. That pain is the feeling I call grief. Thus, loss causes grief.
- Failure causes loss of my goal, in other words, loss of what I was trying to achieve, The loss caused by failure causes grief. The most important failure in daily life is the failure to ignore the most important distraction – loss of momentum. The most important loss of momentum is at the end of my thought that forms my true response, my decision. Failing to ignore this loss of momentum causes a grief that affects every part of my existence. I call the grief triggered by my failing to ignore the distraction that is the loss of momentum, “the pain of failing to ignore”.
- Everyone is born with a different intensity of the pain of failing to ignore.
- If my pain of failing to ignore is strong, I am naturally afraid of it. The appearance in my mind of a decision triggers the need to ignore distractions, most importantly loss of the momentum of thought I was in while I was forming my decision, my true response. Failing to ignore this loss of momentum triggers my high pain of failing to ignore, which triggers my fear of that pain. As a result, I’m afraid of making the decisions I create all day. When my fear of making a decision appears, I’m compelled to solve that fear. So, I search for its cause. The only cause I can find is a problems – a fault – with the decision. I solve that fault. Often I find multiple faults and solve them. Solving it or them gets me the positive feeling of relief. Relief replaces my fear of my decision and fools me into thinking that I’ve gotten rid of the pain of failing to ignore. The result: I’m always editing -looking for and solving flaws, problem-solving the thought that forms my decision/my true response. To sum up: I edit my decisions in order to get relief from my normal fear of this abnormally high pain.
- One of these edits/problem-solving responses (psr’s) to a decision is the fantasy that the feeling of relief will make me feel like acting, feel motivated to act, on my decision. (Here lies the source of the world’s fruitless search for motivation.) But it doesn’t work. As soon as I solve one problem, a new one appears. In fact, solving signals my brain that I want to do more solving, so I can get more relief. So, it brings me more problems. Quickly, the problem solving gains momentum, and grows out of my control until it becomes frightening and snaps me out of it. I call this constant line of psr’s “fear driven seeking of relief” or “second guessing to panic” or “obsessing” or “bad momentum” about my decision. It’s the outcome of trying to feel-like acting on my decision.
- If my pain of failing to ignore is weak, I’m not afraid of it. Therefore, when I’m forming a true response/decision, my brain doesn’t produce anxiety – an abnormal fear of a normal situation, and other psr’s that mess around with my decision. I’m free to focus on externalizing it by matching my actions to the image of me acting -my action image.
- All emotions, including the grief caused by loss of anything, big or small, will keep coming back if I oppose them. To solve grief, including by avoiding grief, is to oppose it. As a result, solving grief causes it to come back.
- All my problems are caused by me trying to solve/oppose the grief I call the pain of failing to ignore. Culture says I should fix this pain. My brain says I should feel it, that is, let it run, and see how it won’t harm me if I do. This will make me ignore it by moving my focus onward to seeing and externalizing my true response/my decision. I externalize by matching my actions to the action image of my decision.
The Seeing Sequence is the sequence of bitching and complaining /flow/deconstructing psr’s in order to see my true response. It gets me to stop believing my psr’s which gets me to stop trying to solve the pain of failing to ignore. As a result, the pain, like all emotion, runs out by itself, most often in bits, not all at once. A good almost must-read: Why the Seeing Sequence works.
(NB (nota bene, Latin for note well): words below, that are in brackets or separated by forward slashes, mean I can choose from several wordings, or the words are instructions, or blanks to fill in that fit my own experience.)
How to Bitch and Complain/Flow with/Deconstruct Psr’s using the following Example List
1. Clumsy hands
2. Clumsy body/Injury proneness
3. Clumsy swallowing
4. Forgetting where I put things.
Example 1. Clumsy hands
I knock over dishes when I pick them up or put them down. I look away when I pick up a toy, or when I pick up a knife while I’m eating or when I pick up a hammer or when I type a single key on a keyboard.
Step 1
Pick the thought or feeling I think is a psr. Optional: A useful guide: The Database of Psr’s
In this example: I look away let my mind wander as soon as I start a movement with an object that doesn’t require my full attention.
Classify my emotional response to the psr using three simple classes:
“good me” for feelings that are positive (pleasure) or for feelings that I imagine will solve things fast and result in a positive feeling. For example: anger always comes with the fantasy that I can shake up the environment or shake up even my own mind into changing from not going my way to going my way. Thus, the feeling this fantasy triggers is good. Thus, “good me, I’m angry”.
“bad me” for hurting or judging myself, by predicting failure or by presenting a problem to spoil my happiness. For example, finding fault with myself when I’m given a compliment.
“poor me” for fear and for feeling sorry for myself.
(NB. I decide on how many psr’s I want to b and c. It could be just one, or I could do all of them until they stop coming. The more I practice, the closer I get to one, then a ghost of one, then none. The number of practices is like learning to walk, or to play a musical instrument, or to play a sport well or to cook food well, or do anything well. It’s a large number. )
Like this:
Predicting failure of my movement to be as fast as I started if I focus on getting it right, on it accuracy. Bad me.
Now I’m afraid. Poor me.
Good me, solve my fear (and get the positive feeling of relief from it) by looking away and thinking of something else when I grasp (this object or when I put it down).
Good me, I love the fantasy that I don’t have to pay attention when I do something that simple.
(There are often more psr’s. But here I cut off the b&c after a few, or even one).
Step 2
The reversal: find the cause of the psr’s, not by asking why, but by imagining what I would see if I didn’t do psr’s to myself.
Because poor me if I didn’t ( love this fantasy that I can look away and let my mind wander when I start to move an object ),
I’m afraid I’ll see I’m in the pain of failing to ignore distractions, (which occur at the end of my thought that forms my true response; that wording is coming below)
namely, the delay in the pleasure of getting over the grief from the loss
of momentum caused by the end of what I was just doing:
(which was)_______
(
I fill this in using one of five possible “endings”. If I don’t know which one to choose, I can guess.
Endings
1) “the end of what I was just doing, (which was): imagining my action image if I see all the parts of it, or previewing my action image if I see a quick glimpse before I work out the parts”.
Examples:
All parts – doing something I’ve practised many times.
Quick glimpse: I see myself putting down a chopping knife just before I come to the end of using it, but my work surface is crowded and I haven’t yet looked for a place to put it.
2) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): trying and failing to match my action to my action image“.
Example: My failing to look at an object all the way to my reaching for it and grasping it.
3) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): feeling my happiness/satisfaction about my success (at forming and externalizing my true response, in other words, “at matching my action to my action image)”
Example: I look where I’m reaching for an object that’s not easy to hold onto, like a bunch of twigs to start a cooking fire.
Or “feeling happy/satisfied/content about what just came into my mind without me trying”. (This happiness is more passive than me matching my true response. It’s just experiencing, that is, enjoying, receiving, observing-not-solving, not editing, not perfecting, not putting my mark on, what the environment or my mind gives me that fits me and therefore triggers pleasure.)
Example 1: something beautiful coming into my view. For this the wording is “the end of what I was just doing: enjoying seeing beauty, or feeling lucky (seeing beauty)”.
Example 2: While observing a situation, usually a real problem, I get a bright idea about how to understand it or how to solve it, or both. I use wording something like: “the end of what I was just doing: feeling happy that a bright idea popped into my mind.”
4) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): experiencing or observing a problem (or something that is different from what fits me), that I can’t solve now or have no business solving even if I could, or both.”
(Four Examples from an endless list:)
a) observing your lazy consideration (about what you know I need you to consider). (Example: your anger at me for being independent of you.)
b) observing your disapproval. Example: your disapproval of my shun of your lazy consideration.
c) observing your fear of making the transition on your own from awake to falling asleep; and your attempts to get me to fix that fear for you.
d) experiencing a coincidence that doesn’t fit me (bad luck, such as an accident, or anything I have no interest in, like most distractions. This ending is similar to 2) above in that the end is a failure. But the difference is that it’s a failure of the environment to go my way, while 2) is my failure to make myself go my way.
5) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): being in a blank, (a state of no thought or feeling).”
A blank occurs when:
a) I don’t know or can’t remember what to think when I need to find an answer. This could be before I’ve tried to figure it out or after I’ve run out of ideas. Example: a math equation.
b) I finish a feeling, say happiness, that isn’t a psr. Or I finish matching my action to my action image, and I haven’t decided what to do next.
Example: A common sequence in me: end of solving, say an easy addition of a list of numbers; end of happiness at my success; a blank; then the psr “predicting failure” predicts the blank will fail to be brief; that causes fear, which is another psr; then a third psr: fix the fear in the quickest way I can think of – repeat what I just finished thinking or saying or feeling or doing. Thus, I often repeat myself to fill in blanks at the end of thinking or feeling or speaking or doing.
)
(End of endings, now continuing with bnc)
(I choose: ____________) imagining a preview of my action image (of my decision) to pick up this _____(object (I say what the object is) or put down this object).
At the end of my thought that forms my true response:
I’m already dead inside about this act of ignoring. (Dead inside means I don’t at all feel like ignoring)
But I have to ignore anyway (if I want to get true response out there: avoid being clumsy).
So start ignoring the delay by focusing on
(ignoring is done by focusing on something other than the thing I want to ignore)(I want to ignore the delay in getting over grief, so I focus on something – matching the action image of my decision with action – other than the delay in getting over grief)
mechanically (which means without feeling like it/without motivation)
(externalizing my true response/decision by matching my action to the action image of my decision/true response)
______.”(I describe the action image of my true response)
fill out the details once I start: looking at what I’m picking up, observing how good my grip on it is, and looking at the space between my hand and other objects around it as I move it in space (and put it down if I’m done with it.)
Step 3
Wait to see what comes into my mind next.
If another psr, repeat Steps 1 and 2 until: psr’s stop, or I decide to stop, or I run out of time and have to do something else.
If my true response, I naturally (which means in first-party observing self/un-self-consciously/without stepping outside myself/without thinking)
______ ( I describe my true response)
fill out the details as I go along, in this case as soon as I start to move: I look at the object as I pick it up, I observe my grip on it ever so briefly, I see what my hand might bump into while I’m moving it. When I put it down I look at where I’m putting it until I let it go .
Short version:
psrs: my mind is wandering, good me.
distraction: (delay in the pleasure of getting over) grief from loss of momentum (caused by)
end of what I was just doing: previewing my action image to (pick up or put this down)
true response/decision: focus on _______( fill out the details as soon as I start )
Repeat all until I do it.
Example 2 Clumsy body
I bump into the table as I get up. I bump into the arm of a chair I go to sit in. I bump into the corner of a door frame as I pass by it. Where did I get this sore spot on my toe? I bumped it on a chair leg as I walked by. And that’s just part of my day. When I move fast, such as when I play a sport, I often let my mind wander. The result is I’ll swing an arm or leg too far and hit something, or I’ll trip and fall because I haven’t picked up my foot enough as I start to run, or I’ll scratch my arm or face when I complete a throwing or shooting action or a dance step. The result: more injuries than the friends I play or dance with.
Step 1
Pick the thought or feeling I think is a psr. Optional: A useful guide: The Database of Psr’s
In this example, when I move my body, I charge ahead to the image of me in action, my action image, without including where my limbs go,
Classify my emotional response to the psr using three simple classes:
“good me” for feelings that are positive (pleasure) or for feelings that I imagine will solve things fast and result in a positive feeling. For example: anger always comes with the fantasy that I can shake up the environment or shake up even my own mind into changing from not going my way to going my way. Thus, the feeling this fantasy triggers is good. Thus, “good me, I’m angry”.
“bad me” for hurting or judging myself, by predicting failure or by presenting a problem to spoil my happiness. For example, finding fault with myself when I’m given a compliment.
“poor me” for fear and for feeling sorry for myself.
(NB. I decide on how many psr’s I want to b and c. It could be just one, or I could do all of them until they stop coming. The more I practice, the closer I get to one, then a ghost of one, then none. The number of practices is like learning to walk, or to play a musical instrument, or to play a sport well or to cook food well, or do anything well. It’s a large number. )
Like this:
I’m predicting failure: failure to move fast and smooth the way I imagined; failure to get it right even if I hold my focus all the way through matching my actions to my action image; failure to hold my focus longer than now. Bad me.
I’m magnifying that failure to forever. Bad me.
Now I’m afraid. Poor me.
Good me, fix my fear by jumping to the end of my thought and then lunging to match its action image so I can feel the pleasure of relief from getting it over with and from then letting my mind wander as I start to move through space.
Good me, I love the fantasy that I don’t need to watch where I’m going. I’ll just sense where, or see it in my peripheral vision.
Good me I love letting my arm or leg relax and swing out of control when I’m most of the way through a movement.
Bad me, thinking that only losers need to watch where they’re going.
Good me, I love believing that my short attention span does not cause some of this clumsiness, and therefore I don’t have to rehearse to keep my mind from wandering off. (A short attention span causes what I was just focused on to slip out of memory. That slip causes me to forget what I was supposed to do. The remedy is rehearsing, which is repeating what I need to focus on before I do it.)
Step 2
The reversal: (find the cause of the psr’s, not by asking why, but by imagining what I would see if I didn’t do psr’s to myself.)
Because poor me if I didn’t (love these fantasies),
I’m afraid I’ll see I’m in the pain of failing to ignore distractions, (which occur at the end of my thought that forms my true response, that wording is coming below)
namely, the delay in the pleasure of getting over the grief from the loss
of momentum caused by the end of what I was just doing:
(which was ) _________
(
I fill this in using one of five possible “endings”. If I don’t know which one to choose, I can guess.
Endings
1) “the end of what I was just doing, (which was): imagining my action image if I see all the parts of it, or previewing my action image if I see a quick glimpse before I work out the parts”.
Examples:
All parts – doing something I’ve practised many times.
Quick glimpse: I see myself putting down a chopping knife just before I come to the end of using it, but my work surface is crowded and I haven’t yet looked for a place to put it.
2) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): trying and failing to match my action to my action image“.
Example: My failing to look at an object all the way to my reaching for it and grasping it.
3) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): feeling my happiness/satisfaction about my success (at forming and externalizing my true response, in other words, “at matching my action to my action image)”
Example: I look where I’m reaching for an object that’s not easy to hold onto, like a bunch of twigs to start a cooking fire.
Or “feeling happy/satisfied/content about what just came into my mind without me trying”. (This happiness is more passive than me matching my true response. It’s just experiencing, that is, enjoying, receiving, observing-not-solving, not editing, not perfecting, not putting my mark on, what the environment or my mind gives me that fits me and therefore triggers pleasure.)
Example 1: something beautiful coming into my view. For this the wording is “the end of what I was just doing: enjoying seeing beauty, or feeling lucky (seeing beauty)”.
Example 2: While observing a situation, usually a real problem, I get a bright idea about how to understand it or how to solve it, or both. I use wording something like: “the end of what I was just doing: feeling happy that a bright idea popped into my mind.”
4) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): experiencing or observing a problem (or something that is different from what fits me), that I can’t solve now or have no business solving even if I could, or both.”
(Four Examples from an endless list:)
a) observing your lazy consideration (about what you know I need you to consider). (Example: your anger at me for being independent of you.)
b) observing your disapproval. Example: your disapproval of my shun of your lazy consideration.
c) observing your fear of making the transition on your own from awake to falling asleep; and your attempts to get me to fix that fear for you.
d) experiencing a coincidence that doesn’t fit me (bad luck, such as an accident, or anything I have no interest in, like most distractions. This ending is similar to 2) above in that the end is a failure. But the difference is that it’s a failure of the environment to go my way, while 2) is my failure to make myself go my way.
5) “the end of what I was just doing (which was): being in a blank, (a state of no thought or feeling).”
A blank occurs when:
a) I don’t know or can’t remember what to think when I need to find an answer. This could be before I’ve tried to figure it out or after I’ve run out of ideas. Example: a math equation.
b) I finish a feeling, say happiness, that isn’t a psr. Or I finish matching my action to my action image, and I haven’t decided what to do next.
Example: A common sequence in me: end of solving, say an easy addition of a list of numbers; end of happiness at my success; a blank; then the psr “predicting failure” predicts the blank will fail to be brief; that causes fear, which is another psr; then a third psr: fix the fear in the quickest way I can think of – repeat what I just finished thinking or saying or feeling or doing. Thus, I often repeat myself to fill in blanks at the end of thinking or feeling or speaking or doing.
)
(End of endings, now continuing with bnc)
(I choose: ____________) depending on how many objects I might run into, imagining my whole action image or imagining a glimpse of my action image then working out the details once I start.
At the end of my thought that forms my true response:
I’m already dead inside about this act of ignoring. (Dead inside means I don’t at all feel like ignoring)
But I have to ignore anyway (if I want to get this decision out there: ( imagine the details and then match them ).
So start ignoring the delay by focusing on
(ignoring is done by focusing on something other than the thing I want to ignore)(I want to ignore the delay in getting over grief, so I focus on something – matching the action image of my decision with action – other than the delay in getting over grief)
mechanically (which means without feeling like it/without motivation)
(externalizing my true response/decision by matching my action to the action image of my decision/true response)
______.”(I describe the action image of my true response)
match my actions to my detailed action image.
Step 3
Wait to see what comes into mind next.
If it’s a psr, such as I feel like leaping up from the table, or I go into my mind wandering as I start to move through my home, where I’ve bumped into almost everything, repeat Steps 1 and 2 until psr’s stop, or I decide to stop, or I run out of time and have to do something else.
If my true response, I naturally (which means in first-party observing self/un-self-consciously/without stepping outside myself/without thinking)
______ ( I describe my true response).
Whole body movement is usually not as simple as reaching for an object. So, before I start, I look at where I’m starting, where my body and limb movement will finish, and the space between me and objects along the way, Then I match my movements to my action images. If I decide I can do this once I start, I’ll create an action image in which I move slower in order to observe objects and space.
Short version:
psrs: good me, I love jumping to the end in my thought and then lunging for it, without looking at the space between me and objects along the way.
distraction: (delay in the pleasure of getting over) grief from loss of momentum (caused by)
end of what I was just doing: Imagining a preview of my action image
true response/decision: focus on _______( fill out the details before I start, or go slow if I haven’t looked ahead, haven’t planned the movement )
Repeat all until I do it.
Example 3 Clumsy swallowing
I’ve noticed this for a long time. But I never really thought about it as a psr. Now I see I don’t pay attention to swallowing either. It happens about once a day when I drink something and then cough. Rarely, when I swallow a solid after chewing it not enough it will get stuck. Yes, I’ve had a few close calls.
Step one
Pick the thought or feeling I think is a psr. Optional: A useful guide: The Database of Psr’s
I’ve jumped to the end of swallowing and am hurrying to catch up.
Classify my emotional response to the psr using three simple classes:
good me” for feelings that are positive (pleasure) or for feelings that I imagine will solve things fast and result in a positive feeling. For example: anger always comes with the fantasy that I can shake up the environment or shake up even my own mind into changing from not going my way to going my way. Thus, the feeling this fantasy triggers is good. Thus, “good me, I’m angry”.
“bad me” for hurting or judging myself, by predicting failure or by presenting a problem to spoil my happiness. For example, finding fault with myself when I’m given a compliment.
“poor me” for fear and for feeling sorry for myself.
Like this:
Good me, I love jumping to the end of chewing (or to the end of taking a liquid into my mouth.)
Poor me, I feel tense if I have to chew longer.
Good me, I love thinking of other things when I finish thinking of swallowing.
Step two
The reversal: (find the cause of the psr’s, not by asking why, but by imagining what I would see if I didn’t do psr’s to myself.)
Because poor me if I didn’t,
I’m afraid I’ll see I’m in the pain of failing to ignore distractions,
namely, the delay in the pleasure of getting over the grief from the loss
of momentum caused by the end of what I was just doing:
(which was) imagining my action image (of my decision to swallow).
At the end of my thought that forms my true response:
I’m already dead inside about this act of ignoring.
But I have to ignore anyway (if I want to avoid choking).
So start ignoring the delay by focusing on
mechanically
swallowing properly.
Step 3
Wait to see what comes into my mind next.
If another psr, repeat Steps 1 and 2.
If my true response, I physically feel where I’m starting – my mouth is full of chewed food; then where I have to make the food/liquid go – to the back of my throat; and the space between my food at the front and my wind-pipe at the back before I guide the food backwards.
Short version:
psrs: I love jumping to the end of swallowing and then wandering in my mind as I swallow
distraction: (delay in the pleasure of getting over) grief from loss of momentum (caused by)
end of what I was just doing: imagining my action image of swallowing
true response/decision: focus on _______ ( focus on matching that action image from beginning to end )
Repeat all until I do it.
Example 4. Misplacing or forgetting where I put things.
As the saying goes, “I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached.” This is not contact clumsiness. It’s missing-the-target clumsiness (the target where I want to place an object, like my knife or my phone) because I’m not looking at it.
Step 1
Good me, I can’t wait to get putting it down over with.
Good me, I’m more efficient if I just toss it aside while I don’t look where it will land.
If I have to look at/focus on where I put it, I’m a loser. Bad me,
Good me, solve being a loser by letting my thoughts wander or leap ahead to the next thing to do when I start to put things down.
Step 2
Because poor me if I didn’t (love my thoughts leaping ahead),
I’m afraid I’ll see I’m in the pain of failing to ignore distractions,
namely, the delay in the pleasure of getting over the grief from the loss
of momentum caused by the end of what I was just doing:
(which was) imagining my action image (of my decision) to put down this _____ (object).
At the end of my thought that forms my true response:
I’m already dead inside about this act of ignoring.
But I have to ignore anyway (if I want to avoid wasting time looking for it).
So start ignoring the delay by focusing on
mechanically
looking at where I put it. And if I have a short attention span, rehearse by gazing at it for a second or look away after I gaze at it and picture where it is or tell myself where it is at least ____ times,(Hey, whatever it takes).
Step 3
Wait to see what comes into my mind next. If I didn’t look where I put it, repeat steps 1 and 2.
If my true response, I look at where I put it and maybe saying where I put it or looking away and picturing where I put it.
Short version:
psrs: Good me, I’m more efficient if I just toss it aside while I don’t look where it will land.
distraction: (delay in the pleasure of getting over) grief from loss of momentum (caused by)
end of what I was just doing: imagining my action image
true response/decision: focus on _______( looking at where I put it, and memorizing that if I suck at remembering it. Fortunately, memorizing becomes fast if I practice it enough times. )
Repeat all until I do it.
How I’ve been doing on this project.
Early times:
Caught myself blaming objects, blaming how the world was constructed, thinking that bumping and dropping things was just the cost of doing the business of moving my body. All my life, I had labelled these and other psr’s as normal thoughts.
Did b and c (bitching and complaining/flow) 15 to 30 times a day, while being amazed at how many times I had to do it because I moved clumsily.
Middle times:
B and c came into my mind more often, I put it off less when it did, and sometimes it came without me trying.
I did it sooner into the psr of jumping into my action image without checking the position of my body, and especially my hands, among objects around me, and thus I caught clumsiness before it came out.
B and c’d gradually less, because I was paying attention more before and during movement. But not a lot less compared to what I expected.
Took pride in being more graceful while doing simple physical tasks. Didn’t see that coming.
18 months later ( I started it before I wrote about it):
b and c has become 70 per cent more habitual. But I still catch myself starting to be clumsy five or six times a day.
It’s worse when I’m distracted by being upset and not doing b and c about my upset.
It’s also worse when I’m in a hurry. I get into this fantasy that momentum will carry me through to the end without my having to pay attention. But now I b and c that fantasy and the urge to hurry, in order to “save time” (Imagine, I used to think rushing to save a few seconds was a sensible thing to do).
A surprise: if I’m clumsy four or five times in a row, and I b and c each time, I’m more graceful without working at it for a while. This didn’t happen in early times. Theory: memory center wasn’t built large enough yet.
I value movement more. It’s like I know a secret of life, the one that’s obvious to non-clumsy people.
Spills are way down. Bumps and tripping over things way down. Not looking when I put things in containers or pick them up is way down. Not shutting cupboard doors is way down. No broken dishes in many months despite a few close calls. I more often remember where I put things, so time wasted looking for them is way down. I cough less when I drink liquids.
22 months later:
I b and c as soon as I set my thoughts adrift before I move. It’s automatic about 9 times out of 10.
This high frequency happened because I saw that skipping b and c sometimes, in the fantasy that clumsiness will go away in some distant future, resulted in my old memory center kicking in. As a result, I was clumsy more often for the next minutes that contained movement.
I often shorten the statements to one “good me, I love not looking where I’m going”.
If I don’t use wording about the pain of failing to ignore often enough, I may as well tell myself my true response as a reminder. But this doesn’t produce true change. It’s me following a rule I’ve memorized in order to oppose my clumsiness. That’s a psr. As a result, I don’t reroute my focus into letting the pain of failing to ignore run out. That takes me back to those old anxious times before I started to b and c. Back then, I would tell myself not to be clumsy, and other psr’s that never worked to change me.
To my surprise, I see how much movement there is in a normal day and how every movement is affected by my clumsiness. In other word, how even small movements require some focus. The only exceptions are when the consequences of not paying attention will hurt me or another. For example, I’m always careful on ladders.
On the other hand, I even have to pay attention when I hug someone, lest I squeeze too hard in my enthusiasm. Yes, I know. People who aren’t clumsy are careful without having to think about it. Lucky them.
I still love my foot kicking backwards at a drawer as I walk away from it after I forgot to close it. But I do b and c the forgetting. Because getting it right later is too late.
My acts of clumsiness in a day, 3 to 7, are still more than I think I can achieve, which is zero most days, for now. That’s because I’m still getting over my disbelief at how every movement is clumsy if I don’t pay close attention to where I start, where I’m going, and the space between me and objects on the way. But I’ll get there.
How do I know? I keep getting better with practice.
How I measure “better”
Number of times I b and c when I notice I was just now clumsy,
I have also started to notice when I plan a movement ahead. Doing that is coming more often, but it’s only an interim measure. I’m already not noticing when I’m not clumsy compared to before.
An unusual measure of better, Dec. 6, 2025:
I mentioned above how I’m valuing paying attention to movement. The valuing is now taking the form of slowing my focus down enough to watch myself do each sub-step of a movement, and enjoying myself as I move carefully through space. I don’t have another care in the world at that moment. What grounded pleasure in carrying an armload of food through my front door! Or in making a list of sub-movements required to arrange and wash a few dishes! They have the same value, the same thrill of dedicated movement, as taking a shot, with my opponent and friend giving me barely the space, in front of team mates and family, that I’ve practice hundreds of times in preparation for just this moment.
Most recent times. Jan. 19, 2025 ( about 24 months later)
Okay, that didn’t take long to get old. The thrill of mastery is being replaced by the expectation that this is the norm, the routine, the standard operating procedure.
Now what turns my crank is catching all the times where I’m slightly clumsy and bitching and complaining them.
Example:
I was looking at where to put my fuel can, but I was imagining what mess I would have to clean up if I spilled it. As a result, I missed seeing the space between the can and the edge of where it would land, bumped into the edge and almost spilled it.
Psrs: Good me, I’m almost there and looking at it. Now I can look at a fantasy in my mind.
Distraction: grief from loss of momentum caused by
End of what I was doing: moving toward the landing spot.
True response: look at the space left to cross and cross it. Hold focus to completion. Stick the landing. ”
Daily frequency of having to do this: 5 – 10. Versus frequency off big clumsiness described above: near zero. (All my practice has come together fast in a new memory centre in the last 2 months).
Conclusion: Five to ten times a day, when I move, I have the fantasy that 90% matching is enough. It isn’t.
Why? If I let myself believe that last 5 per cent of psr’s around movement, they quickly route my focus back to my old memory centre in which I feel the strong pleasure of relief from the pain of failing to ignore. That relief is created by letting my mind wander away from the pain. Bang, bump, drop, choke quickly follow.
Now, redemption could be achieved if I can make my way back out. But if I could live forever but only remember the last thing I did, would I want to remember achieving redemption? No, I would want to remember getting it right.
So my next true response, after getting the redemption of correcting focus to stick the landing is: no exceptions to b and c. None. Get it right, so that “right” is what I remember.
But why? Because stable mood and identity follow. In whatever I do.
Postscript
Reminder 1 to self:
To b and c or not to b and c. That is the question. To b and c is to suffer the frustration of missing the starting signal – a psr, an astonishingly large number of times. To not b and c is to suffer repeating anxiety and the exhausting work of trying to solve it. Thus, both ways are difficult. And that sucks. But only I can decide which way I want my existence to suck in any moment, when I do catch the signal, the psr.
Reminder 2 to self:
I need to memorize these sentences or I’ll never do them. And even when I do memorize them, it will take more suffering my anxiety before I remember to do them, and even more suffering before I even decide to do them after I remember. Even then, I’ll need more practice to do it live, in the moment. That’s the easiest way? Yup.
Reminder 3 to self:
The above two reminders are about what causes change in my brain: persistent practice that builds alternate memory centres. Change doesn’t come from judgment or punishment or encouragement or copying rules or help from another. So I’m free not to use them, and I’m especially free from needing to judge myself for not using them.
To repeat in another way: the only thing that changes my brain is seeing through the tricks my anxiety plays on me to solve itself, and disbelieving them by b and c, over and over again. Only then will I have built a new memory centre, a new planet, of bitching and complaining/deconstructing that redirects my focus onto my true response.
Reminder 4 to self:
Question
Why don’t I just say what the distraction is? It’s grief. The grief from the loss of momentum caused by the end of whatever I was just doing,
Answer
Because grief would not be a distraction if it went away instantly. While grief is brief, like all emotion, it keeps coming back in waves. While I’m feeling the grief, I’m distracted into checking how long it’s lasting. As a result, the distraction is not the grief. It’s the delay in the pleasure, the relief, of getting it over with. That delay in getting over grief from loss of momentum occurs in the instant I have to transition, that is, change, my focus, from the high return work of forming my true response to the low return work of externalizing it. In other words, to go from fun to boredom without complaint.
Reminder Summary
To take this answer back to where I started seeing. Me being distracted means I have failed to ignore when I most need to ignore. My high pain of failing to ignore is triggered by this failure. Because the pain is intense, it frightens me. To solve the fear, my brain is compelled to use psr’s to fix, not the fear, but its cause, the pain.
But, if I want to avoid disappointing myself by failing to externalize my true response, followed by my scrambling to adapt to the consequences, I must not give in to the fixing of the pain of failing to ignore. Through more repetitions than I ever feared, and in every part of my life, I must train myself to b and c until I can mechanically, like a reflex, focus on externalizing my true response.
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