"Being about it and not talking about it"

This post describes more experiences and struggles I've had while doing the practices described here. There's some rambling going on in some parts, so keep that in mind.

To paraphrase a good quote I found here, doing the work found here does feel like cleaning an entire neighborhood with a plastic toothbrush. Doing it feels more right/like a path with heart than incessantly thinking about it, as I've noticed that more work = little rewards from intent. It's more difficult than I expected -- but very rewarding at times!

The farther I go with this practice, the more I lose grip on the years of inventory I've gathered before I got here. It is ridiculous how much these belief systems, concepts, ideas, blah blah blah et cetera just ramble incessantly at all times. They all make the magic go away.

I cannot emphasize enough how much my internal dialogue is the one thing that ruins magic.

However, many techniques scattered in the many posts work and help. They help to get the rambling to shut up.

While driving to work, practicing silence slightly quenches the inner dialogue. Even verbally asking intent for silence helps.
Recap reduces the effect of memories in mental chattering. The silence rocks from a river, when squeezed, give a place to direct my attention to get some more seconds of silence. The "what's my next thought gonna be?" question, but thinking it without words, helps a bit too.

I never thought I would get so excited about going from a mere two seconds silence to five, MAYBE ten on a good day. If I collected daylight glitter and it's dark, the visuals are interesting but the internal dialogue interrupts too frequently to actually hold the image until eventually disappearing.

All of it sounds absolutely ridiculous when described. I felt crazy standing a specific way, tapping my heel on the ground doing the recap tensegrity series felt like being a grandma in a spiritual voodoo pilates class. Or when in the bathroom, swinging my arms in the dark and looking for colors.

However, every step that involved action, found in this path, felt like actually getting closer to the goal of magic. Like a literal step forward. It led to seeing maybe 1% more magic than last time.

Every step that involved talking about it, thinking about it, even planning it, interpreting it, remembering old visions, etc all felt like it harmed my progress. It meant maybe 1% less magic than last time. Like a person who did a cool thing once for 2 minutes, then talked about the thing for 3 months after that. Rather than DOING (and not-doing) more cool things!

The temptation to think and talk about this is so repetitive too! I once saw a pattern of transparent purple in the sky on my way to work and lost focus of driving for a second, which was dangerous. Then the inner dialogue became all about talking about it! Telling family, friends, coworkers, acquaintances, etc. It would describe and fantasize. Just a bunch of blah blah blah.

Specifically, I'd notice wanting to talk about how, after practicing what's found on this subreddit for a while, seeing colors a cloud that "aren't" there. It steered me away from practice!

How does that even make sense? I'd hear in my head "The image looked so weird, it was like a rippling blah blah blah blah blah" and then getting lost in that blah blah blah for more than thirty minutes without realizing!

Even though what I've seen is the tip of the iceberg, it's fun! I laugh at myself when I say to, what I think may be very very faint and transparent IOBs during practice, something along the lines of: "Guys, if anyone is there, I am so sorry! I want to perceive you better, but I am still working hard on shutting off my inner dialogue and I am running late for work. I hope you liked my mashing energy dance! Bye bye! I hope to see you later!"

Again, certain actions feel so out of place. Going from prayer and chanting about enlightenment to squeezing river rocks so I can see purple in the dark is hilarious. edit, I dont do the prayer chanting thing anymore, it's the wrong puzzle piece

Perceiving certain things has the same sensation as when I was a kid, being afraid of the monsters I thought were in my closet. I got rid of my fear in the dark at the time by telling myself they weren't real.

Now I get to sit in fear, waiting for colors and shapes to appear while telling the voice that used to comfort me in the dark to "shut up because they are scaring the colors away."

My biggest hurdle right now is the tendency and temptation to think about these practices rather than do them more often. It's so easy to slip into. But the only thing produces a fun (or scary) experience with these practices is literally doing them.

Thinking about how to practice never works for me. It often just led to me not practicing at all! The only thing that has ever worked to get any results for me can be simplified into this:
-Learning and memorizing several tensegrity moves
-Recapping, even for five minutes, or on the spot when random memories come up throughout the day
-Emphasize silence silence silence constantly and always
-If I have a genuine question, it's probably here somewhere. Keep reading, it's probably here
-Being able to laugh at my fumbles and telling the self-pity dialogue to stop interrupting (recap helps a lot with this)

I do appreciate all the practical info I have found and continue to find here. From the perspective of sharing my sensory experiences from an empirical perspective, maybe this post will help reinforce what's already said here? I don't think I'm saying anything new.

Also, if anyone knows of any posts or CC book pages to check out that helped shift them from being a "talk about it" person to "doing it," (doing more magic) please let me know. If the answer is to keep doing recap, maintaining silence, doing tensegrity more often, and/or reading all the books, it's also appreciated.