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This week, I’m learning to watch nerves, to read their energy signature and figure out what the person is feeling. It (hopefully) leads to creating sensations in the body, and possibly recognizing and altering mental states.
The hardest part? Sensing the energy, instead of seeing what I expect to see. Because I mostly know what I’ll see, based on how my own body feels, or the person’s posture. It’s easy to fill in the blanks. Of course, the whole point of sensing the energy is for the times when your expectations are wrong…
Learning communication was similar. I’d receive the message, read a few concepts, then start writing. I thought I was reading the message, but really, I was writing what I expected to hear, based on those first few concepts.
The solution? It’s simple, but not easy. Learn the technique, to read the message or sense the nerves. Then, slow down, step through the technique, practice each step. Do that 100 times, and your ethereal muscles will learn the motions, and they’ll start doing the proper technique unconsciously. Muscle memory, I suppose.
That’s the big lesson from communication: Slowing down isn’t enough. I had to learn the right technique. Without that, slowing down just means doing the wrong technique more slowly.
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“Just doing the wrong technique more slowly” – nice phrase!
An interesting post. It’s so true that the temptation to “end gain” and try and make the feeling (or picture or whatever) be there is hard to resist with all magickal stuff. You really have to be self-aware and make sure you ‘step back’ a little from the process to avoid this. A version of the ‘lust for results’ problem I suppose.
Peter Ralston approaches developing this “sense” from a martial arts perspective. He calls this “feeling-awareness” – and uses it to both explore the sensations of ‘what’s there’ as well as generate new feelings/experiences in the body. Probably a similar process to the one you went to when identifying “ethereal muscles” etc.
There’s a sample chapter of his book, which is called ‘Zen Body-Being’, here. (He has other books on this ‘effortless power’, but his writing style is pretty opaque except for in this one, which was co-written.)
That’s interesting. It’s a similar concept — be aware of what you’re doing — applied to the body, rather than to magickal connections and ethereal muscles. Thanks!