I know the basic concept from "Effortless Mastery" through listening to Drummer's resource podcast, and I've been trying to plan my practice sessions by breaking it down into chunks that can be mastered in 3-4 hours, which is also partly what lead me to this predicament since I don't know how to break it down more.
But, unless I'm not understanding you correctly, it sounds like "breaking it down more" isn't helping and is maybe making it worse? I gather you're super motivated to get better and have the work ethic to put in the time and effort. But I think that kind of focus and determination can inadvertently become problematic if anxiety and worry start creeping into the process. Neither of those are conducive to playing good time as they interfere with our ability to hold onto something loosely, to notice it but not dwell on it.
You might try limiting the amount of time you work on something before moving on to work on something else. I would say that as soon as you start feeling anxiety/worry compromising your practice in a bad way, stop doing that exercise and practice something else, even if you only end up doing 5 minutes. Come back to it tomorrow. Another paradox: By going slow (i.e., a little each day) you can get better faster.
If I understand you correctly, it might not be optimal to only practice while obsessing about something?
I don't think it's optimal because your nervous system is being trained to be in that "obsessive" state when you play your instrument. And that seems to work against what you're trying to achieve.
How would I go about getting into this parasympathetic space?
One possible route is Mindfulness Meditation. This is a good place to start:
https://www.mindful.org/mindfulness-how-to-do-it/
In essence, you sit, you notice your breath, eventually your focus gets pulled up into a thought stream and as soon as you notice that, you bring your focus back to your breath. Repeat. Set a timer for 5 minutes and when that goes off, you're done, and you continue going on with your day. Then, do it again tomorrow.
It's important to remember that when you do this, you're not worrying about how "good" of a meditator you are, how much you're focusing on your breath, how often you get pulled into the thought stream, how long it takes to realize you're in the thought stream, whether or not you're getting "better" at it, etc. You're just doing it. It's like when you bush your teeth: You're probably not worrying about how good of a tooth brushing job you're doing, if your tooth brushing technique is better than it was yesterday, and if it's worse, what does that say about your competency as a human being, and this means you're a failure at life, etc. You just brush your teeth and move on.
In addition to a daily routine, you can do a bit of mindfulness here and there and include it in your drumming practice. Among other things, it might help you to get out from under the "gaze" of the people hanging outside of your practice room.
sounds like you mean "letting go" and "just play" and this is very difficult for me at the moment.
No, I don't mean that. If only it were that simple, eh? ;-)
...since waking up from The Matrix I'm a 100 % aware of everything I'm doing wrong at any given moment. There's even a part of me worrying about the things I probably dont' know about.
Yep, this is what anxiety does. It likely kept our earliest ancestors alive longer because worrying about everything kept them on guard against predators, the elements, other people, etc. Most of us don't require that level of worry these days. I've always made it home from work without being attacked by a hungry animal or having a group of people attack me and take my shit. But unfortunately, we're equipped with the "old model" nervous system. In a relatively short amount of time, we've evolved much further socially than we have biologically.
I don't mind putting in the hours, but it's frustrating when you don't know how to practice something. Repetitive practice I find easy and enjoyable. I don't know if it's comforting or unnerving, but Mike Dawson mentioned working on this for 5-6 years and still being frustrated so it's not just me.
No, it's not just you. And (for me anyway) it's a lifelong process, an apprenticeship without end, but in a good way. I hope I never feel like I've got nothing to work on.