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Negative Conscious Mind interference


kirkjames

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How do you deal with a busy conscious mind during or before a big competition or any other competition? ie. problems at work, with friends, advice you really do not want to hear. I am two weeks before the World Champions of Cowboy Action Shooting and having trouble with negative thoughts. Any advice or routine you follow.

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My never ending, moment to moment method is to let go of each negative thought as soon as I notice it. You can stop reading now if you want...



"It's the mind that is the problem, not the problems that it breeds." -Krishnamurti



None of our problems can be solved by thinking about them. It's like trying to put out fire with fire. We must take control of our mind at its root, which is silent awareness.



The work comes down to becoming more adept at noticing, and quickly letting go of, each negative thought, as soon as it appears.



We have become conditioned to allow our mind to wander around to a variety of topics, without ever knowing what we are actually thinking about. That activity creates all of our problems. Therefore we must train ourselves to harness awareness.



Visualize your mind, and its activity, like this. Draw a big circle on a piece of paper (representing your mind and all its activity). In the middle of that circle, draw a small circle, less than an inch in diameter, which represents silent awareness. Around the inner circumference of the outer circle, draw 6 or 7 circles of various sizes, representing various "problems," or specific topics. Then draw a line that connects each outer circle to the inner circle. (Your pic might resemble the attached file.)



The lines going from silent awareness to each topic or problem are the paths the mind travels to get from awareness to each topic.



Silent awareness can be felt by the human mind as a state of stillness. Notice how seldom your mind is just still and aware.



"Everything good has awareness for its root." -Bodhidharma



Put your mind in silent awareness by asking, I wonder what my next thought will be? The moment you finish the question - your mind is silently watching. Note how quickly the mind moves down one of the paths (in the pic) toward a specific topic. The movement from silence toward a topic happens so quickly it is extremely difficult to catch the movement's beginning.



To strengthen your mind's ability to stay aware, you might try the breathing method outlined in this thread.



Although we have allowed our mind to become unconsciously conditioned to wander all over the place, unattended to, we can train our mind to remain sharply aware. You just have to want it, and work for it.



Notice (a thought as it appears), let it go, and watch for the next thought. And repeat.



Notice, let go, repeat.



One last word from K: Attention is a state of mind without contradiction. So to resolve problems is to attend. It's not a trick!

post-171-0-22168300-1402357659_thumb.jpg

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  • 4 months later...
  • 1 month later...

Mental toughness. Its easy to let negativity jump into your head, especially on the range when you have a bad stage. Just gotta force it out of there! Can dwelling on a poor stage help the next one? No, so don't let it.

As for pre-match, I try to listen to music on the drive there and while walking the stages in the morning. Singing the lyrics in my head and just looking at the stages pretty well keeps my simple mind busy enough that negativity can't pop in :)

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We have become conditioned to allow our mind to wander around to a variety of topics, without ever knowing what we are actually thinking about. That activity creates all of our problems. Therefore we must train ourselves to harness awareness.

You just have to want it, and work for it.

Never caught this thread until today. Maybe that's bad luck, or good timing. In the past several months, two of my colleagues contributed directly or indirectly to the deaths of hospital patients. When I read the above quotes by Brian, I instantly knew those words point to the difference between days when I'm very good at my job, and days when I'm not as good.

Not to say that my days away from shooting are all filled with casting aside negative thoughts, some of those I hold on to as lessons learned. But knowing I can activate a mind that does know what it is thinking about, that is a powerful tool which now earned, I refuse to let slip away.

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Brian and fellows....

I am having some difficulties with this approach. I think my issue is not understanding how my mind works, as noted in the excellent breathing thread.

I'll try to describe the event in hopes that it will provide enough to trigger insight.

When I do the breathing exercise, thoughts creep in between the counting. Looking for the next desired thought - the next number in the counting - doesn't completely block out the creeping thought of "other things". The two events - the counting and the thinking - seem to exist simultaneously in different compartments of my consciousness. The creeping thought sometimes overpowers the counting, especially in the respiratory pause between counting. Counting faster doesn't help.

Referring to Brian's circle diagram above, it is as if more than one of the ideas represented by the circles can occupy the conscious at the same time. Perhaps computer parallel processing is a useful analogy, or simply fast processing speed for queued process ideas (the circles flowing in a circuit thru the consciousness).

The bottom line is that the undesired thinking isn't completely eliminated or even effectively suppressed.

I'm trying this technique to deal with things other than match shooting problems. It's the shooting problems from past experience on the 2 way range that loom largest.

Any help is sincerely appreciated.

-john

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Stumpyv8

Thanks. I will give it a read. I recently found Odyseius in America helpful in understanding the "why" though not the "why now". Not to cause thread drift, but I do acknowledge that awareness skills and seeking an error proof day are exceptionally helpful life skills. Ironic that the practical application of "with winning in mind" and "beyond fundamentals" go so far beyond their primary subject matter. Useful ideas in thos books.

BENOS

Thanks. I have to keep working on it. At least now I am aware of it and some of the causality. That's useful itself

-John

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  • 4 months later...

As usual, Brian's post is brilliant. Here's how I have solved this problem for myself:

I created a TRUE counter-statement for every negative thought. It doesn't eliminate them, but it processes them and puts them at rest. Over time, they creep in less and less.

My counter statement is based on experience, so i trust it completely.

"I will shoot my best by calling every shot."

What if so-and-so is here today? He sometimes beats me...

"I will shoot my best by calling every shot."

I'm giving a class here in two weeks and I NEED to win this match decidedly.

"I will shoot my best by calling every shot."

It's based on the fact that I cannot control the outcome of the match. If I worry about the outcome I give attention to that which I cannot control. This causes the brutal irony of giving up control of the ONLY thing I have control of: Every shot I fire.

And, the better you have prepared (trained correctly) the better it works.

Only at the highest level could you put an outcome presumption in there. the statement must be absolutely true to work.

"I will win the world shoot by dry firing 30 minutes a week." That won't work because it's not likely to be true.

There are level of participation issues in there, and that has to do with setting appropriate goals, but the true counter-statement has worked very well for me.

I also think there are certain personality types who don't need this stuff... but they are few and far between, and they usually can't explain what works for them.

(or they don't want you to know)

Ask Eddie Van Halen what scales he uses, and you'll get a goofy grin.

Ask Steve Vai, and you'll get a three hour music theory lesson.

.02,

SA

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Of course not. I have a VH tattoo and wear a VH belt buckle to work everyday.

If the interviews have truth in them, here's what we know about Ed:

1. He switched from drums to guitar only after AVH hijacked his drum kit while he was delivering papers to pay for it.

2. He won at least one classical piano competition by memorizing his assigned piece as opposed to reading the music.

3. He spent the vast majority of his teenage years sitting on the side of his bed playing guitar and drinking Schlitz tallboys.

Steve Vai went to Berklee and got hired by Frank Zappa as a "stunt guitarist" by transcribing (converting to written music) a piece of spoken dialog recorded by Zappa.

Two different paths.

One contains more "work" and the other contains relentless experimentation.

Vai can (and will) tell you exactly what he did and does, Ed can't or won't. We also know that Ed was encouraged by DLR to lie in interviews to keep ANYONE from getting anywhere near his signature sound. That's why Ed did the "beat it" solo in secrecy because he didn't think DLR (or anyone else) would ever hear it.

Ed's Rhythm work is whatever sounds good (major suspensions in minor chord progressions are common, in violation of strict music theory) and his lead playing is whatever sounds good and is visually convenient on the fretboard. I see a lot of the same frets used on all six strings (once again in violation of strict music theory)

It's more of a Jazz based approach in which every chord becomes its own key while its in use as opposed to a traditional approach in which the entire tune is in a given key and as such has "right" notes and "wrong notes"

I also just learned yesterday that Al and Ed argue about music theory quite a bit...

So no, I wasn't dissing Ed. :)

I watched a young man named Brad Balsley shoot through nationals one year by wandering around the stages, finding an open one, looking at the stage for a couple of minutes and then tearing it a new butthole. Pretty sure he was top 16 that year. He couldn't or wouldn't tell me how he did it. I just concluded that nobody ever told him this stuff was hard.

The extrapolation is that some of us will have to work harder (and differently) than others.

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  • 3 months later...

I appreciate the information from this post. It has been over a year since it was first posted. The counting and breathing exercises have widened the gap between thoughts. At one time I could visualize the Roman numerals, but lost it. The mental game is tough, and I realize there is a lot of hard work ahead. I am much better at witnessing the comments at the range without processing them. I realize the mental game is the hardest part of shooting and separates the best. Unfortunately had a hip replacement that has set me back. I am reading a book titled, The power of Now, which reinforces much of what Brian said. While I am in a different style of shooting, Cowboy Action, I have learned much from the website and appreciate others sharing their successes.

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