This piece was quite good, and seems to do two different things that are independently valuable:
1. Help people who are at step zero get a handle on what is even happening that’s worth exploring
2. Give a concrete tool to people who already have a rough idea of how to manage state of how to manage it better.
At some point it might be worth having a separate canonical blogpost for each of those, since people who need help with step 1 may not be ready for step 2.
I think it could basically be split in two. At the point where you have a “* * *”, you could instead have a final paragraph crystalizing what you mean by the induce-a-state skill, and give some tips for how to practice it.
Then, have another article starting with thee second half of this post, that opens with a paragraph to the effect of “last time I talked about Inducing a State [link]. This time I’d like to take that deeper...”
I’m not Raemon, but elaborating on using Gendlin’s Focusing to find catalysts might be helpful. Shifting emotional states is very natural to me-I used to find it strange that other people couldn’t cry on demand-and when I read Focusing I realized that his notion of a “handle” to a feeling is basically what I use to get myself to shift into a different emotional state. Finding the whole “bodily” sense of the emotion lets you get back there easily, I find.
This piece was quite good, and seems to do two different things that are independently valuable:
1. Help people who are at step zero get a handle on what is even happening that’s worth exploring
2. Give a concrete tool to people who already have a rough idea of how to manage state of how to manage it better.
At some point it might be worth having a separate canonical blogpost for each of those, since people who need help with step 1 may not be ready for step 2.
Seconding the advantages of splitting this post in two eventually so that both of these useful ideas have canonical blog posts.
Thanks! Do you have any particular thoughts on where expansion would be productive rather than redundant?
I think it could basically be split in two. At the point where you have a “* * *”, you could instead have a final paragraph crystalizing what you mean by the induce-a-state skill, and give some tips for how to practice it.
Then, have another article starting with thee second half of this post, that opens with a paragraph to the effect of “last time I talked about Inducing a State [link]. This time I’d like to take that deeper...”
I’m not Raemon, but elaborating on using Gendlin’s Focusing to find catalysts might be helpful. Shifting emotional states is very natural to me-I used to find it strange that other people couldn’t cry on demand-and when I read Focusing I realized that his notion of a “handle” to a feeling is basically what I use to get myself to shift into a different emotional state. Finding the whole “bodily” sense of the emotion lets you get back there easily, I find.