Hi Wally,
I did get a laugh out of your title...and I do have an angle to offer on procrastination:
It is connected to confidence in my case. And I do believe it can be a factor for many with Nparents.
One enduring visceral childhood memory I have is 'the Claw', that is the way my father would grab my wrist to stop and sideline me. Look I've done it myself, a child is about to dart into the road without looking or whatever. You are busy with something else and say to a child just wait a minute. But this is different. My husband saw him do it to me all these many years later and afterwards said it angered him.
Me, for the first time instead of reaching for some deep breathing dissociative this too shall pass state of mind, decided I had a right to independent movement and, shock horror from all family members, pulled my arm out of his grasp...also it turned out, alleviating my husband's feelings at the same time.
When you consider that way back in the mists of my forming world this was happening, a powerful campaign to control my actions by another human being, is it so surprising that I have some hesitations now?
For the last ooh nearly a decade now, I have been coming to grips with this. And doing so in the way that benefits and pleases me the most. I wanted to be able to sculpt large pieces out of terracotta. It became known as my war with gravity...
On the one hand it was technique and experience which I was gaining simply through the practise. And on the other hand, of equal value in both process and outcome, it was confidence.
I declared myself an anti perfectionist. That helped. And I rolled with the punches. No more pile ons for me. No more bathing in a welter of self criticism and doubt beyond that engendered by what was happening.
It was like I had a certain amount of energy for each piece. And it would run out before it was completed and I would know this had happened because I would start procrastinating.
Now I can see it was a process of hope and despair.
First something sparks a picture in my mind. Then I work out how to do it. And start building it. I am fuelled by hope that at the end of this process of building that initial picture, so dear to me, will be before me. And somewhere near the end, in some unspoken corner of my mind I have already assessed the reality of it all and know that I have failed, and so procrastinate to avoid that moment when it is finished and I can see that I have failed.
Now I promise this is not procrastination, I really do have to go now, hope this helps!
