Half-Power Thinking

Here's a little trick I learned a while back from one of my students. Whenever you are having difficulty using Noticing as a tool, take the amount of effort you are using to Notice and cut it in half and see what happens. Then cut it in half again and then again until what you are doing is just a whisper of the effort you were using when you started.

The student who came up with this idea was blessed with more than her share of excess tension and this technique, which she dubbed Half-Power Thinking, was a useful way for her to trick herself out of trying too hard. Experiment with it whenever you are having trouble with any activity. Just keep cutting the effort you're using in half and see what happens. Experiment with it whenever an activity is going great. Just keep cutting the effort you're using in half and see what happens.