360 Degrees of Mindful Living

Add Friction to Facilitate Change

By Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D.

We all like smooth sailing, for things to go just right, without any friction. And, yet, friction can be a nice wake-up call. Gurdjieff encouraged his students to give up “something valuable” but “not forever,” in order to create a constant “friction between a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’” (1). So, create friction as a wake-up call to your mind and raise your tolerance for friction. Every day quit something that you like but can easily live without. Make entirely arbitrary choices: avoid any kind of logical rationalization. We are not talking about wellness, but about awareness. Commit to a timeline of no more than a couple of weeks. Here’s the key: feel free to break the commitment any time, as long as this is done via a conscious choice. This isn’t an exercise in self-mortification, but an opportunity to practice de-programming and re-programming yourself. Say, you decide not to use your favorite coffee mug for a couple of weeks. As you reach for it in the morning and experience a moment of friction, you’ll have a moment of what Gurdjieff called self-remembering. You’ll appreciate yourself as the programmer: “That’s right, I used to mindlessly reach for this cup and now I am mindfully resisting this urge in order to remind myself of the fact that I am in charge of my own programming. I am following my own “should” now!” Ponder how adding friction may facilitate whatever behavioral/change objective you are currently working on.


Related Posts

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Links to This Article

From Psych Central's :
PsychCentral (November 8, 2009)

5 Comments to
“Add Friction to Facilitate Change”

“Commit to a timeline of no more than a couple of weeks. Here’s the key: feel free to break the commitment any time, as long as this is done via a conscious choice.”

This works fine for coffee mugs. Not so great for writing books, earning Ph.D’s, child-rearing, and marriages. :)

TPG: the idea is to practice waking yourself up, to set precedents of presence, so that you can reprogram yourself on larger issues. Use friction to facilitate a change in the baseline level of your behavioral fluidity, to lubricate those rusted gears of change, and then… change whatever large issues you need to change. Be well.

Got it. Makes sense, on that level. Changing coffee mug now. :)

I find this very interesting.
I will use it to replace self-sabotage as a mechanism to show me that I am still in control upon me! Thank you so much, again!

You are welcome.

Ask a Question or Post a Comment:


    Last reviewed: 8 Nov 2009

 

Eating the Moment

Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D. is the author of Eating the Moment: 141 Mindful Practices to Overcome Overeating One Meal at a Time. Pick up the book today!

Upcoming Books:
Present Perfect
"Present Perfect" (New Harbinger, Summer 2010),
and "The Lotus Effect" (New Harbinger, Fall 2010)

Recent Comments
  • Adam: Thanks
  • Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D.: Adam, I am romanticizing mindfulness. Diogenes of Sinope is an influential thinker, a true...
  • Adam: Pavel, aren’t you just romantasizing and glorifying eccentric and bizarre behaviour. I can see a lot of...
  • Adam: Thanks, I love Mike too!
  • Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D.: Sure.
Article Tools
Bookmark
Print
Email Friend


Stumble It!


Subscribe to Our Weekly Newsletter


Users Online: 2713
Join Us Now!