How do I, "get out of my head?"

"You never really relaxed. You seemed stiff the whole time. It was like you waaaay overthought everything. You need to stop thinking and start simply feeling."

This is what my friend told me when we went to a cuddle puddle together. He is trying to get me, "Out of my shell." He is trying to get me to, "Loosen Up," or, "get out of my head." So, he invited me to these various unrelated closed new age-ish non-religious groups. Some of them involved eye gazing, telling strangers your emotions, or dancing around a fire without abandon.

Writing idiomatically, I understand, "solve for x," thinking. I understand algorithmic thinking. Like, when I clean a house, I have a checklist that I visualize/imagine like a heads up display in my vision. When I change lanes, I always signal, look at relevant side mirror, check behind me for blind spot, turn. When I have a conversation, I follow the FORD model for small talk. Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams. There is more to this algorithm. For manners, I follow, "Daisy Eyebright's, "A Manual of Etiquette on Politeness and Good Breeding." I pay attention to the corner of peoples eyes/mouth for reading facial expressions.

Question: What the heck is this mystical/magical, "get out of your head?" How does someone like me practice such intuitional thinking? How do people, "feel," what to do next instead of follow a pattern or a process?

I tried meditation, journaling, and these other activities, but I don't see how they do anything. When I meditate, I can turn off words/mind-pictures, and I can just listen to the sounds around me, the emotions in me. However, it doesn't help me know what to say in a conversation, or know what to do in a cuddle puddle.

submitted by /u/JJEng1989
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from Buddhism https://ift.tt/2RbfuAI