“Don’t Think!”

Teacher: “Don’t think!”

Me: “Don’t think?”
…In my mind, I resist. What is this Zen mumbo jumbo? I need to think. I’m trying to learn how to weave a carpet, and you’re telling me not to think?

Teacher: “Don’t think. Just weave.”

Me: “What? Okay… I’ll try.”

“Don’t think!”
Isn’t it funny how certain things people say just stick with us?

“Don’t think” still echoes through my awareness almost a year later as I weave an Armenian carpet—but now, I no longer resist it.

“Don’t think” was the instruction my teacher, Lilit, gave me during one of our carpet weaving classes in Yerevan, Armenia in March of 2025. At the time, I was learning the Armenian Sumak carpet weaving technique, which has a clear structure around when—and how much—you can jump between warps. I was struggling to understand when to start a new bundle of thread and when to continue with the existing one.

Long story short: it’s incredibly easy to overthink and micromanage the process.

And sure enough, experience proved my teacher right.

It’s easier to simply not think—to go with the flow and let the weaving unfold as it wants to. When you follow the structure, decision points tend to resolve themselves. What once felt complicated becomes an intuitive, almost obvious choice about how to proceed.

And it’s in these moments—when my hands seem to know before my mind does—that I’m reminded how much of this work is not mine alone.

To my teachers: thank you.

I can’t help but think of my teachers whenever I weave. So much of what they shared with me has stayed—woven into my hands, my habits, and my way of seeing. I’m deeply thankful for their kindness, their firmness, their patience, their openness… and all the small, quiet lessons in between.