What is your least helpful mental pattern?

[Peter]

We all have patterns of mind--some creative, some less so. What is your least helpful mental pattern? (One of mine: it's not worth the effort.)

[Ruth]

Procrastination.

[Lisa]

Avoidance. And in creative work it comes out as avoidance of the uncomfortable groundless feeling of not knowing what I'm doing or not knowing what the next move is.
But that's the most fruitful place to be, actually.

[Peter]

The groundlessness is great, Lisa. But avoidance... not so much!

And Ruth... procrastination is a great strategy of avoidance!

[Ruth]

I spin my wheels a lot, preparing to get ready to begin to start.

[Peter]

Ha! Sounds familiar! When the wheels are spinning, it's risky to rev up. You need some grit for the tires to get a grip on. It may be a matter of getting out of the head's dreams, intentions, fears, etc., and down into the stuff of reality.

[Ruth]

Peter wrote: "You need some grit for the tires to get a grip on."

Definitely. That's why I keep signing up for workshops or poem a day marathons. If they can give me a bit of grit in the form of an assignment, I can get the traction I need.

[Peter]

Have you thought about looking for the grit in your own mind, Ruth? Workshops are good, but what's inside is better! I try to find out where the grit is, and then work with it. Cheers, P

[Ruth]

There's just too much grit in my grey matter, Peter. Prompts help me to focus.

I don't worry that the prompt is not mine. I turn it into mine.

[Peter]

Nice observation, Ruth!