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The problem is it can get nauseating for the audience when the mentor goes on and on and on. They say stuff like: "Please, no more! I don't want to communicate with [[The Lifestream]]; I want to see plot happen!" Taking a real approach to it can easily end up as [[Info Dump]] unless you do something creative with it.
 
There have been times in [[Real Life]] when people have in fact embraced this notion wholeheartedly; the so-called [http[wikipedia://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism |Romantic movement]], for instance, was highly characterized by artists and philosophers [[Romanticism Versus Enlightenment|critical of the Enlightenment's philosophies]] that (among other things) often shoehorned nature in as a sort of mechanical automaton and people as beings perfectly capable of using the power of rational thought to solve any problem. However even [[Henry David Thoreau]] had to get his book published and he likely needed to think for that.
 
This has some [[Truth in Television]]. When our brains learn a new skill, we learn it step by step. With practice, the process becomes implicit, meaning it can be done without really thinking about it i.e. "second nature" and "muscle memory". In high stress situations, the part of the brain that first learned the skill comes back to the fore, and tries to perform the skill explicitly, as if you were learning it all over again. This is why some athletes have a tendency to "choke" under pressure. Once you start thinking about doing something, [[Centipede's Dilemma|it suddenly becomes very difficult]] and awkward to perform. Of course, this only applies when the skill in question is something you have done a couple thousand times. The reason it becomes so effortless is because we repeat it so often. This approach does not work when trying something for the very first time.
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* Different variants in [[Disney Animated Canon]] film ''[[Pocahontas]]'' and Disney Animated Non-canon film ''Pocahontas 2.'' The point of Grandmother Tree's teachings in [[Pocahontas]] (put quite succintly in "Colors of the Wind") was for Pocahontas to get and stay in touch with nature; this is done to [[Anvilicious]] extent. Its direct-to-video sequel has, shortly before Pocahontas goes to Europe, Grandmother Tree asking her to get into and stay in touch with her heart--that is, her human nature--and then disappears.
** "Listening to her heart" somehow manages to cross the difficult language barrier for everyone, something which [[The Nostalgia Chick (Web Video)|The Nostalgia Chick]] is incredibly confused by.
* Something similar is used by Ramirez to train Connor MacLeod in the film ''[[Highlander (Film)|Highlander]]'', although he's trying to teach him how to feel immortal. As well as a little [[Wax On, Wax Off]] too.
* ''[[Star Trek (Film)|Star Trek]]'': "Put aside logic. Do what feels right." Notable since it's actually ''[[The Spock|Spock]]'' saying this.
* Both played straight and subverted in the ''[[How to Train Your Dragon (Film)|How to Train Your Dragon]]'' movie with Hiccup.
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* ''[[The X Files]]''. Mulder says this while giving Scully a [[Hands -On Approach]] to baseball. Of course, as he was delivering an Aesop about how you play baseball to forget about all your troubles it was a [[Justified Trope]].
* A contestant who made it into the top 24 on the tenth season of ''[[American Idol]]'' was given the advice that her performances were not emotional enough and was told not to think so much. '''''Feel'''''. Certain other contestants in past seasons have been told a similar spin on this.
* ''[[Firefly (TV)|Firefly]]'' When the crew invades a skyplex to rescue [[The Captain]], secondary defence of the ship relies on [[Preacher Man|a shepherd]], [[The Medic|a doctor]], [[Wrench Wench|a mechanic]] and a [[Mind Rape|mentally traumatised]] [[Waif Fu|young girl]]. At the time, Book is the only with ''known'' combat training. Although Simon does try hard to help, Book ends up having to advise him that he's [[Don't Think, Feel|thinking too much]] and should just go with the shot. In the end, it doesn't help. Simon still can't hit the broad side of a barn. {{spoiler|His sister, on the other hand... [[Psychic Powers|does feel it]].}}
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* Or, talk yourself through every step of tying a tie. If you've ever worn one to go to school, chances are you just do that on instinct by now.
* Learning a foreign language. Once you get past the basic grammar, the advancement occurs by going by the flow.
* Acting used to be about the rote memorisation of gestures - there are books from the Victorian era demonstrating the correct way to hold your hand to your head to express grief, melancholy, and so on. [http[wikipedia://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislavski |Constantin Stanislavski]] was the man responsible for tearing down the melodramatic traditions of the theater of his time, encouraging his actors to empathise with the characters they were playing by recalling similar emotions from their own lives and actually feeling them on stage, rather than just imitating them; Lee Strasberg, the father of [[Method Acting]], drew inspiration from the Stanislavski System. In a slight reversal, Stanislavski backed off from the "Don't Think, Feel" position later in life, mostly because recalling intense emotions night after night took a heavy toll on his actors and (reportedly) reduced a fair few of them to near nervous wrecks. It's also worth noting that getting ''really'' involved in the emotions you're playing as an actor can sometimes cause you to forget the words you're meant to be saying - as anyone who's been reduced to [[Angrish]] in the middle of an argument can testify.
** This is very true. There's a reason all the great method actors eventually ended up neurotic messes, and emotional burnout has been the kiss of death to an otherwise potentially successful budding acting career. When you're so stuck in character you literally cannot get out of it and have a panic attack as a result, serious shit is wrong.
** The moodiness and excessive identification with the character is more a mark of an American school of thought on Method acting, rather than being a true expression of its general principles. In reality, the [[Don't Think, Feel]] aspect of his method really was more about generating the character's behavior by examining their motivations, their goals, and then doing what people would naturally do under such circumstances, rather than a forced series of conventional gestures. An example in his first book on the method has his expy (The lessons are presented in story form) basically having a girl do a scene where she's looking for a valuable watch. In her first take, she does a bunch of melodramatic gesturing. In the next, he advises her to work out what the sensible actions of somebody looking for a watch would be, and chain those together to create her actions. In the first example, she's simply doing conscious imitations of emotional behavior. In the second, she's doing what the character would be doing, and expressing the feelings of the character through that.
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[[Category:Skills and Training Tropes]]
[[Category:Dont Think Feel]]
[[Category:Trope]]
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