When things are out of balance and we get wound up, stressed, anxious, or can’t sleep etc, many times people look to add things in.
Adding “relaxation” teas, adding a few yoga classes. Some breath work, some massages.
This can help to a point.
The other method is via subtraction.
If we recount what we actually are doing each day. At home, at work, on our computers, on the phones. We inevitably find constant activity.
The subtraction method means we reduce as much as possible. We eliminate obvious distractions, or habits that aren’t serving us.
In place of these things, we do nothing. We relax, we socialise.
Sounds ludicrous.
It’s an art.
A lot of the noise is there simply as people are unable to do nothing. Uncomfortable with silence, unable to stop. They fill the void with another email check, another social media check.
You can watch this from the side sometimes, or, even more strange is to watch yourself when you get caught in it.
What would it look like to start from the bottom? Wipe the slate clean and then build our day from a non-automatic reality?
Inspect habits for what they are – automatic patterns that we have developed – some of which from a very young age – and many of which simply don’t serve us.
The subtraction method is not very popular, as it illuminates our reality just a little too clearly. It also requires some external help – someone to help us see. We see what we actually* are doing moment to moment, and often we’d rather avoid this truth in a search for productivity and growth.**
*The italicising of the word actually is inspired by J. Krishnamurti, who writes on awareness and the inseperability of the conscious and sub-conscious mind. He encourages us to look at how we actually live, not how we “think” we live. This is a lot more difficult than it might appear.
**There is more to this, we are also subjected to many circuits that are designed to trap us. Dopamine responses to alerts, tones, messages are an example.
