Having trouble concentrating

[humanehero]

Hi all. So I'm pretty new to the whole tulpa thing. Started creating about two weeks or so ago. For the first week, things were going great. It seemed like Lyssa and I was making quite a bit of progress. She was pretty active, and I got basic emotions and later a lot of intention thought that was translated pretty clearly.

 

This last week though, especially the last few days have been rough. I know I need patience, but Lyssa has been kind of listless, and I feel like it's my fault. I try to active force every day, and I try to passive force too. With active forcing, I get a lot of intrusive thoughts that screw with things. I'm also at the point where I'm not sure what I should be doing when active forcing. As far as passive forcing goes, I'm awful at it. I just can't seem to keep her in mind for that long.

 

In short, because of my lack of focus, I feel like I'm backsliding. Can anyone offer any advice, especially on passive forcing?

[waffles]

Focus takes practice and you can obviously just keep going, given that you haven't been at it for that long anyway. But you know, since it's easier to concentrate on something that's interesting and fun you can always try mixing your forcing up a bit, doing some games or whatever you want.

 

Passive forcing can be hard starting off, and you kind of just need to get into the habit of it. In the meantime you can do something to remind you like something on your hand or whatever, or just keep at it yourself.

[Zer0.iNSaNiTY]

As waffles says, it's just practice and I learned that the hard way. If the problem is forcing is getting boring, then do something fun. Go explore your wonderland, fight some monsters or something, i dunno. Talk to her, learn more about her. Make some bouncy mushrooms and jump on them for a while :P

 

And passive forcing can be a bit hard to get into, but it's just a habit. After a while it becomes brainless. You can write something on your hand or wear something to remind you to talk to your tulpa, or associate an everyday item with your tulpa so that every time you see it, you remember them. Then, you just talk about anything that's going on at that time. After a while, you won't even need anything to remind you with, they'll always just be hanging around with you and you just talk to them naturally.

[Linkzelda]

Intrusive thoughts should be no surprise whenever you're trying to actively force. Common sense logic is that practice makes perfect to develop a proficiency in concentration, but your main problem seems to be the thoughts altogether.

 

You're worried that they'll affect something or someone, possibly your tulpa, and all I can tell you is that as long as you don't extremely attach to those thoughts, nothing will go wrong. The beauty of concentration, especially inward concentration, is that you're learning how to observe those intrusive thoughts to the point where you can filter them out and focus on what it is that you feel is pragmatic to produce results for you.

 

Thoughts are just thoughts, they do not represent any potential for ruining things for you. Merely shift your awareness elsewhere, and doing that takes practice. There's no right or wrong way to go about active forcing. Just think about your tulpa and do what you feel is practical for you. Mix some methods around and keep in the back of your mind that progression is better than perfection.

 

People can have results in the most unorthodox ways, which means any application for concentration can have just as much potential as the other.

[Strangelove]

Common sense logic is that practice makes perfect...

 

Reminds me of something my old orchestra teacher told us once:

 

"Practice doesn't make perfect; Practice makes permanent

 

Afterall, if you practice incorrectly, the end results will constantly be incorrect, no?

 

Then again, YMMV when it comes to what works best for forcing...

 

Anyways, there's a couple of guides here on meditation, and they've help me so far with focusing for long periods of time. basically what it boiled down to was getting comfortable like you would for forcing, and just focusing on the cold air as you breathed in and out though your nose. Every time I've had perfect conditions (for me at least), i've been relatively free of intrusive thoughts for close to an hour.

[humanehero]

Thanks for the advice all. As you've said, I'll just have to stick it out. I'll try not to take the intrusive thoughts so seriously, and I'll look into getting a wrist band or something to remind me to passive force.