Tag: Performance

Lightly child, lightly

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blank-word
There’s a regular pattern now:
in the morning the day begins calmly,
then by the evening I’m _________
[…]

– Simone de Beauvoir, Letters To Sartre

Credits:

  • Image Source: Nini Poppins. Quote Source: Fables of Reconstruction
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

Lightly child, lightly

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dress-wind-breeze-white

Lightly, lightly, very lightly
A very light wind passes,
And it goes away just as lightly,
And I don’t know what I’m thinking,
Nor do I wish to know.

~ Fernando Pessoa, from section XIII of “The Keeper of Sheep,” A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems

Credits:

  • Image Source: Mary Parker (via eikadan)
  • Quote Source: the distance between two doors
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

Lightly child, lightly

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dreaming-piano-lightly
Take the piano teacher, for example. He always says, Relax, relax. But how can you relax while your fingers are rushing over the keys? Yet they have to relax. The singing teacher and the golf pro say exactly the same thing. And in the realm of spiritual exercises we find that the person who teaches mental prayer does too. We have somehow to combine relaxation with activity…

The personal conscious self being a kind of small island in the midst of an enormous area of consciousness — what has to be relaxed is the personal self, the self that tries too hard, that thinks it knows what is what, that uses language. This has to be relaxed in order that the multiple powers at work within the deeper and wider self may come through and function as they should.

In all psychophysical skills we have this curious fact of the law of reversed effort:

the harder we try, the worse we do the thing.

~ Aldous Huxley, The Divine Within

Credits:

  • Image Source: Anka Zhuravleva (via Ishtyaks)
  • Quote Source: Brain Pickings
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

But your attention is focused, your vision becomes crystal clear

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YoungDeokSeo3-sculpture-face

As soon as the stressful event occurs, it triggers the release of the cascade of hypothalamic, pituitary, and adrenal hormones — the brain’s stress response. It also triggers the adrenal glands to release epinephrine, or adrenaline, and the sympathetic nerves to squirt out the adrenaline-like chemical norepinephrine all over the body: nerves that wire the heart, and gut, and skin. So, the heart is driven to beat faster, the fine hairs of your skin stand up, you sweat, you may feel nausea or the urge to defecate. But your attention is focused, your vision becomes crystal clear, a surge of power helps you run — these same chemicals released from nerves make blood flow to your muscles, preparing you to sprint.

~ Esther M. Sternberg, The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions

 

Notes:

Calm Down (Top 10 Ways to…)

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How-Successful-People-Stay-Calm-graph1

Forbes: How Successful People Stay Calm:

TalentSmart has conducted research with more than a million people, and we’ve found that 90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control. If you’ve followed my work, you’ve read some startling research summaries that explore the havoc stress can wreak on one’s physical and mental health. The tricky thing about stress (and the anxiety that comes with it) is that it’s an absolutely necessary emotion. Our brains are wired such that it’s difficult to take action until we feel at least some level of this emotional state. In fact, performance peaks under the heightened activation that comes with moderate levels of stress. As long as the stress isn’t prolonged, it’s harmless.

While I’ve run across numerous effective strategies that successful people employ when faced with stress, what follows are ten of the best. Some of these strategies may seem obvious, but the real challenge lies in recognizing when you need to use them and having the wherewithal to actually do so in spite of your stress.

  1. They appreciate what they have
  2. They avoid asking “what if”
  3. They stay positive
  4. They disconnect
  5. They limit their caffeine intake
  6. They sleep
  7. They squash negative self-talk
  8. They re-frame their perspective
  9. They breathe
  10. They use their support-system

Read full article @ Forbes: How Successful People Stay Calm

Thank you Tarique