Comment by abroadwin
3 days ago
> But is that not also "following a path laid out by someone else?"
Not really. I'd use the analogy of breathing. Imagine you're convinced that you need to breathe properly, so you consciously obsess over each breath (congratulations: you are now breathing manually). Then someone comes along and says "you know, you can just breathe without thinking about doing it right."
Is letting go of that manual breathing and just breathing without thinking about it following a path laid out by someone else?
Not a great analogy* tbh, I don't really follow but I think I understand what you are trying to get at. Forgive me if I am off the mark here
I think it misses the point of telling someone in search of self-help that the true way to self-help is "non-action/do nothing" to get there -- well you are now telling someone in the middle of a search for something they may not completely understand that they are looking in the wrong place and the correct place is "over here".
Now they are following your directions and still searching. When it's the searching that keeps them up at night.
*(as in someone becoming obsessed with breathing starts manual breathing -- to get their breathing stronger because they were unfulfilled with the previous way -- to support their weaker lungs [or why ever they started], and are told you don't have to do that you can breath without thinking (except that was the og problem), will not all of a sudden be, wow you are right I can breathe on my own like before and my previous issues that led me to try different suddenly disappeared when I went back to improper automatic breathing where I was breathing too short, too fast and through my mouth)