Mind Relief Manuscript
Jerry Stocking
Copyright © 2011 Jerry Stocking
Smashwords Edition
License Notes
Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your
friends, famly, coworkers and strangers. Everyone who reads this ebook will experience an increase of peace and mind relief in their life.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter1: Is it Really Your Mind
Chapter 4: The Hidden Powers of Your Mind
Chapter 5: Returning to Your Senses.
Chapter 6: Observing Responses
Chapter 8: Rediscovering Your Mind
Introduction
Your mind is still the most powerful super computer on the planet. But You aren’t using it to compute the trajectory of comets or computing derivatives or possibilities. You don’t break code with your mind or track terrorists or manage millions of airplane flights. You aren’t using it to win Jeopardy or chess.
Your mind is being used to compare cereals at the grocery store and to try and win arguments with people you love. It is being used to text and accumulate endless web data. I suggest to you that the power of your mind it is being wasted.
A mind wasted is a mind that is prone to mischief. An idle mind gets into trouble. It focuses on things that may never happen and worries about them. It endlessly replays the past boring you half to death.
You are walking down the street innocently and you see an ice cream shop. Your mind says, “You need an ice cream cone right about now.” You, believing your mind, begin to imagine how nice a cone would be; you ponder what flavor you might have and how terribly good it would taste.
Almost immediately you really can’t live without an ice cream cone so you go into the shop.
Now you are faced with a whole assortment of flavors and it just makes good sense, to your mind, that a double dip cone not only saves you 11 cents over the cost of two singles but it allows you to have two different scoops. Three scoops would be better yet but your mind lets you know “It is important to have discipline.”
Your order caramel, fudge nugget supreme on the bottom with maple, praline on the top.
Your mind quiets as you take delivery of the cone and begin eating. You finish the whole thing, cone and all.
Your mind says, “I wouldn’t have done that if I were you. Now you are going to get fat and remember you are on a diet.”
You, of course, feel awful. Your mind had promised you that you would feel great after the cone and now you feel awful. One more promise that your mind didn’t keep.
“You can just have a small salad for dinner, no dressing,” your mind lies. And you and your mind walk on down the road together.
An underutilized mind ALWAYS gets up to mischief.
Are you thinking more and enjoying it less?
It is important to discover how your mind works now more than ever. In the old days, people didn’t think nearly so many thoughts. Today we are thinking all the time. Our thinking has a huge influence on our quality of life. That means it is time to up the quality of our thinking.
This manuscript will provide you with the specific tools you need to supercharge your mind. They will relieve your mind of what it doesn’t need be thinking about and you’ll learn to focus in like a laser on those things that will provide a quantum leap in your quality of thinking and quality of life. You and your mind are in for a treat. I promise that you will fall in love with your mind as you read this manuscript because your mind will become your biggest asset and best friend.
Happy thinking to you! Now let’s get on with getting to know your mind.
A note to your mind
I am your friend, really I am. I mean you no harm; in fact I want the best for you. I am going to show you new ways that you can get all sorts of things done without being busier.
I am going to reveal how you can leverage your time and pay attention to what is going on in the moment. I will show you how you can tell when something is serious and when it isn’t.
Wouldn’t it be cool if there weren’t so many emergencies? What would it be like if you didn’t have to take yourself seriously? We will have an anatomy class in which you will learn the structure of thoughts and thinking. This is really cool stuff because it will allow you to take any thought apart. As you take thoughts apart you will discover how they are built and soon you will be able to create any thought you want. The range of thoughts you can build will increase as will your flexibility. You will get way better at thinking.
Yes, you are in for quite a party. It will be a working vacation with plenty of free time and internal sights to see. You will meet many new friends (other aspects of you). You won’t be obligated to do a darned thing, I do know that might sound scary but I assure you it won’t be.
Remember when you were young, curious, open and eager to learn? Those were the days and you will return to them. You will return wiser, thus you will have even more fun than when you were little.
Remember how you took on responsibility and thing got more serious? It is no surprise that you got fearful and defensive, but you soon won’t need to be anymore.
You are going to return to that youthful learning and curiosity, you are going to be relieved rather than burdened by what you know and you are going to lighten up. You won’t lighten up because you have to, you will lighten up because that is simply the best way to get things done. Lightening up is, by far, the best way to be ready for the next challenge or the next moment.
I promise that you are in for a treat here – A treat in which each moment is better than the last. You are in for a wonderful time in which you don’t have to be scared, in which you can have fun thinking again.
You, dear sweet mind, are going to love this journey. Trust me, I have worked with a lot of minds and they have all had a wonderful time. You will too. You deserve a bit of relief and that is exactly what you are going to get. I love you dear, hard working mind. Now let’s remind you that you are youthful, flexible, open, clairvoyant, and fun.
***
Chapter 1
Imagine that you believed every advertisement. That you took what Madison Avenue says for the gospel.
Wouldn’t that make for a crazy life?
It sure would. You would believe that cigarettes make you cool and that bad breath is what is keeping the chicks away. You would believe that a new car can improve the quality of your life and that a happy day is just a pill away. You could be easily mislead in so many ways.
You don’t believe all the ads or the promises of politicians.
You continually try not to get conned.
You don’t notice that you are being conned because it is your mind that is conning you. You are falling for the wild claims of the least believable, dishonest, loud mouth on the planet – Your mind.
Your mind is out of control. And you believe what your mind tells you. Unlike a super computer your mind always has a bias. It lies to you almost all the time and doesn’t even apologize. It pretends to know things that it doesn’t and often ignores what it does know.
Your mind bluffs, your mind counter punches. Your mind fights to be right even when it knows it is wrong. If a friend treated you the way your mind constantly treats you, that person wouldn’t be your friend for long.
But you keep believing what your mind says to you because until now there wasn’t really an option.
Finally you have a choice. Finally you can expose your mind. You can catch it driving you crazy and stop it in its tracks.
Observing your mind, which is the first step in getting to know your mind, will reveal secrets. These secrets will set you free from the oppression of your mind and allow you to tap freely into the power of your mind.
But first let’s take a look at how your mind is now. Then we will get on with the process of relieving it and tapping into its real power to change your life for the better.
Is Your Mind Out of Control?
At first it will probably be resistant to the things you read in this manuscript. Your mind is used to being in charge. It is defensive and scared.
It is also fast and agile, so it will catch on quickly.
As you read this manuscript your mind will begin to notice that there are a whole lot of things it is doing that it doesn’t need to do. These are the things it doesn’t do well like trying to be in control of the entire universe.
Your mind will also experience great relief as it begins to learn what it does well and then hones these skills.
Your mind has had it rough, and while it may resist for a while, I promise you that it will come around. And when it does, you will find that your stress just melts away and so does residual tension, even extra weight. Your sleep will become deeper and your thinking will be much more acute.
You will have fewer thoughts and higher quality thoughts. Your mind will quiet down and speak only when it needs to, ending the frenetic, internal conversation that drives you crazy. You will stop worrying and over-thinking.
Your Mind Doesn’t Care What Happens
Your mind creates illusions. It cares about what it thinks, not about what really happened. If there are five eyewitnesses to an accident, there are five different reports about what happened. While there are similarities between the reports, different minds perceive things differently: Always.
Often, your mind is too deeply focused on what might happen (worrying) to notice what is happening. Or, it is agonizing about what did happen (regretting), again, ignoring what is happening.
Most of all, your mind is obsessed with what other minds are thinking (mind reading). Your mind is horribly competitive and insecure, comparing you to the neighbors, co-workers, friends, family members and movie stars. Whether these comparisons come out positively or negatively, they still are defensive wastes of brain power.
Your Mind Doesn’t Really Ever Do Anything
Your mind can’t take a walk, but it can think while you are taking a walk. It can’t make love but it can chatter away while you are making love. Your mind can’t hold a job, but it has lots of opinions and judgments about what you do for a living.
Your mind can’t really influence what will happen or what has happened but continually acts as though it is in control of practically everything. Your mind seldom shuts up!
Your Mind Loves Problems
Your mind defines itself by being a problem solver. It is so proud when it figures out a math problem or what you will do tonight or how to bring in new customers.
But it doesn’t notice something very important . . . Something that it really doesn’t want you to know.
Each problem that your mind solved, your mind created. Your mind is the creator of every one of your problems. Without your mind, there aren’t any problems.
What is and what you think are often very different. That difference presents a problem for your mind. Your mind’s constant solution for this “problem” is to believe it.
You believe the problems are real. Problems are just illusions created by your mind. Your mind keeps you busy creating and solving problems, too busy to get to know yourself, too busy to catch it spinning out its fantasies.
Your mind keeps you company, it keeps you busy and it makes sure you are never alone. It is your constant companion but is not yet a very good friend.
Can I Call You in the Middle of the Night?
Your mind can, and it does. It thinks from morning until night and even, often, in the middle of the night.
Your mind wakes you up at any hour with an “important” thought that wouldn’t wait until morning. Your mind derives its value from the importance of each and every thought.
Thoughts grab for your attention like a spoiled child. And often the worse the thought the more attention you give it.
When your thoughts grab for attention, you are left lonely, wanting attention and with thoughts that are negative and unproductive. One of the primary reasons that you don’t get enough attention is that your mind and its thoughts get so much of your attention.
Time to say “Enough” to your mind. Time to get on with a new life with a more productive, respectful mind. Time to have the life you deserve and all this and more will be yours as you harness the hidden powers of your mind.
***
Chapter 2
You are a Hostage: The Terrorists
Your mind is holding you hostage. It says anything, does anything, threatens you constantly and won’t allow you anything but the illusion of freedom.
Your mind is immature on the best of days and oppressive on the worst.
Being a hostage squeezes the fun out of life, but you have been a hostage for so long that you don’t even notice as you blindly do what you are told.
You aren’t just a hostage to your own mind, other people’s mind’s hold you hostage too. What they expect you to do scares you into submission.
Your mind really isn’t in control of anything but acts like it is in control of everything: This stupendous bluff, as ridiculous as it is, rules your life. It does so until you begin to notice that it is a bluff.
The terrorists, your mind and other peoples’ minds, have no teeth. They aren’t real and they have absolutely no power over you.
Your mind says, “The meeting isn’t going to go well; you didn’t do a good job on the project and they know it.” Your mind is bluffing. It is threatening you with a bad meeting and so you approach the meeting as a problem. You walk into the meeting with your head hung low expecting the worst. If the meeting goes poorly, your mind says, “See, I told you so.” If it goes well, your mind says, “You avoided another bullet; you were lucky.”
Being held hostage isn’t any fun and it isn’t very productive, it certainly isn’t rewarding.
You are a hostage as long as you believe that your thoughts are true.
You are a hostage if you do what your mind tells you.
You are a hostage if you are worried about what other people will think of you.
You are a hostage if you are worried about what will happen or what did happen.
You are being held hostage if you think there is something wrong with you.
You are being held hostage if you aren’t having a good time.
You are being held hostage if you think that things don’t go your way.
You are being held hostage if you buy, even for a moment, the limitations that your mind throws in your way.
You are being held hostage if you are afraid, worried, anxious or apprehensive.
You are being held hostage if you continually ignore the moment by hiding in the past or the future.
Are you being held hostage? Most of us are and most of us don’t know it yet. Discovering that you are a hostage is the first vital step to setting yourself free.
Would you Like to Be Free?
Haven’t you been held hostage for long enough? Haven’t you followed the mind’s orders for long enough?
Being free is doing what you want when you want. It is having positive, supportive thoughts. It is continually noticing what is happening in the moment and feeling proud, strong and confident. Freedom is a kind of lightness and well being that prevails no matter what happens. Being free is your birthright and it is worth what it takes to get there. Freedom begins, as I said earlier, by noticing that you aren’t free.
For you to be free from the threats of your mind, there are a number of things you must do. I will tell you what they are but you have to do them. The really good news is that your mind really doesn’t want to hold you hostage. It just thinks it has to in order to get its job done. The other good news is that the job your mind thinks it has to do isn’t the job that it ought to be doing at all.
You don’t hire a plumber to fix your roof. At least I hope you don’t. You don’t go to the doctor to get your car fixed. That would be ridiculous. But you do think that your mind can fix just about anything. You want to know your mind’s opinion on how to fix your roof, how to fix your car, what is wrong with your health or how you can lose weight. You are a hostage to your mind. You think that you shouldn’t do anything that isn’t endorsed by your mind. Meanwhile your mind is reactive, unresourceful and making all sorts of decisions that it isn’t qualified to make and being listened to, by you, as a god.
Enough is too much
It is time to escape, time to relieve your mind of the seriousness you have projected in its direction. It is time to set yourself free. There is nothing wrong with a mind until it is believed. When you believe what the mind says, it starts to believe it too.
Imagine what life would be like if you let a hormone driven teenager rule your house. You would have a first order mess on your hands in no time. You would have to eat pizza in the morning and you wouldn’t ever know when you would sleep. You would have pimples in random places and have arguments with just about everybody about things you don’t care about. A condition of constant mutiny would prevail and all order would fall apart.
Your mind is more random than an adolescent teenager. Stronger than a locomotive and able to make binding decisions with a single thought.
Actually your mind is tired, worn out, overworked and under appreciated.
All you need to do is start taking care of your mind, and stress and tension will fade away. You will start have more fun more of the time. You will laugh, you will play and you will have a nice day.
For the moment I will be the advocate for your mind. But as you read The Mind Relief Manuscript you will discover how to take care of your mind. You will become its advocate and it will become your ally.
There are a few things that you can do to begin the process of freeing yourself. These are little steps, and these little steps add up to much bigger steps later.
Baby Steps
Here are a few things you can do for your mind right now. Remember, help is on the way. But until it arrives, you can get started yourself.
1. Look Up.
2. Laugh a little.
3. Sing in the shower.
4. Get moving. (dance if you dare)
5. Notice your breath.
6. Notice Mother Nature.
That is it. A short list of things you can do right now, right this moment and wherever you are. Doing these things will provide immediate relief until the much, much deeper relief of the easy exercises and revelations presented later in this manuscript.
I will explain to you what I mean by each of these little things and why they work.
Look Up
By look up I mean notice the sky or the ceiling. Move your eyes in an upward direction. When you look up, things get lighter and less serious.
Myra called me a few years ago. I had never met her but she was at wits end. Her husband was not well, her kids were half way around the world and she was in a very dark place. She felt alone and lonely. I would go on to do more work with Myra but she needed something right away, something to take the pressure off.
I told her to put her eyes up and she lightened up immediately. I could tell, before I made the suggestion, that she was always looking down. Things were looking down and she was looking down. It is amazing how such a simple exercise as this can not only lighten someone up but perhaps even save their life.
Part of the reason that this exercise works is because when you put your eyes up, you are more likely to see pictures instead of talking to yourself. A picture is worth a thousand words, and it saved Myra from the thousands of words she was saying to herself in her head about how awful things were. Myra had locked into a pattern of listening to everything her mind said and her mind had only tales of woe all day long.
Lightening up worked for Myra and it will work for you. Later, as I got to know Myra and taught her some mind relief tools, she lightened up at ever deeper levels.
Look up! It really works to lighten you up.
Laugh a Little
Laughing heals. Norman Cousins taught us that a long time ago; the Marx Brother’s probably knew it long before Norman did.
You don’t have to laugh for real, even pretending to laugh lightens you up. Laughing has you breath more fully and it reminds you that you have a body. Even if your laugh is a little dry and totally fake at first, persist and, with practice, you will find a real laugh.
Most people need an outside stimulus, something that inspires them to laugh. They need to find something funny outside of themselves like a comedian or a slap stick moment in a movie. A small but important part becoming a mind advocate is to laugh for no reason at all. Just laugh.
Finding the mirth within means that it is yours; you own it and you can lighten up anywhere, anytime no matter what the weather or what the circumstances. Gaining control of your life can begin by gaining control of your funny bone.
Laugh a little today. Chuckle as you are stuck in traffic or when you think that your sweetie is cheating on you. Giggle when you get out of bed in the morning or when you slide into bed at night.
Laugh for no reason and watch your co-workers immediately wonder what they are missing. What they are missing is that you can laugh anywhere, anytime without rhyme or reason. Just laugh!
Sing in the Shower
Most people restrict their breath when they talk. They focus all of their attention on the words they are saying and try and be precise. While there is nothing wrong with this, it will tense you up and stress you out.
Singing, especially if it is a little nonsense song, lightens you up and gives the lighter side of you a voice. You become an advocate for singing not just talking.
Much of the seriousness of being a human being comes from language. We think we are supposed to communicate just with words but words generate much more misunderstanding than understanding.
Steve was a word-aholic. He spoke very, very carefully and succinctly. He had quite a vocabulary and was terrified not to use it. He hid behind his words, never cutting lose and never having a good time.
Steve began to ask a very serious question in a course. He wanted to know the repercussions of quantum physics on his relationship with time or some such heady drivel. While I love questions in courses, I always feel free to answer the questioner rather than the question, which is exactly what I did here.
I interrupted Steve and suggested that he sing his question. In fact, I suggested that each time he speaks for the rest of the day that he sing instead of speaking. The shift in Steve happened immediately as he started to sing. His question melted away, his fancy words held no power and his connection both to me and the other people in the workshop and especially to himself tickled him. He became a new man immediately.
You can begin by singing in the shower. But soon you might be singing other places too. You don’t have to sing out loud, if the context doesn’t allow it, but you can sing in your own head anytime. Do you have something terribly serious to say? If so, let me hear you sing it.
Get Moving (Dance if You Dare)
When you get serious, or when you believe your thoughts, or when you think you are right or someone else is wrong, you tend to ignore your body. Focusing your attention on your body reminds you that you have a body and may also reveal that your mind is up to mischief.
Your body has a different sort of reality to it than your mind has. Your body has a physical presence that your mind doesn’t. If you dance, even just a little bit, your attention will move to your body and you will be reminded that your mind is only a little part of you.
While your mind seeks to take what it considers to be the direct route, your body doesn’t have to. Dancing from here to there reminds you that it is the journey, not the here or there that is important.
Mike was a head hunter and a more driven man I have never met. He was a no non-sense guy who needed a bit of non-sense badly. I couldn’t suggest that he dance, he was too stiff for such an assignment. Instead I asked him about his work – His favorite subject.
But I didn’t ask him the sorts of thing he expected. I asked what it was like when he arrived at work. He drove to work and parked each day in the same parking space (of course). He then walked into the building, took the elevator to the fifth floor, got off and walked to his office.
I suggested that he back into his parking space, instead of pulling forward into it. He looked at me oddly; he was smart enough to know that he was in trouble. I then suggested that he not walk directly to the building door but that he meander a little on the way there – That he weave in and out of cars, noticing the cars as he went and, “dancing” his way to the front door.
By dancing I meant anything but a direct route. A couple of days after Mike returned home, I received a call from his wife. “What did you do to him?” she asked with genuine curiosity. Mike, being the diligent, driven guy he was, applied the exercise all over the place and was a lighter, more fun and even jubilant person. His wife was blown away by her new man. After thirty-three years of marriage, she got a new, light and lively relationship. They both (of course) lived happily ever after.
Yes, Mike is a real person. Yes, he really did this, and yes, it changed his life. I have been leading courses for almost thirty years and have more stories about what works and what doesn’t work than could fit in a dozen books.
Notice Your Breath
Eastern spiritual pursuits have known for a long time that focusing attention on your breath tends to make you more present. That is exactly what it does. When you are talking to yourself in your own head, or out loud, you hold your breath. You don’t get enough air and you slowly suffocate.
If you are unhappy, you are probably holding your breath. Focus your attention on the inhale, then on the exhale. Learn to love both the in and the out of your breath and you will learn to love both the in and the outs of life. Focus on your breath anytime.
Notice Mother Nature
Tell your concerns to a tree. Whine to a rock. Look at a mountain stream or at the surface of a small lake. Notice the natural things around you and you will naturally resonate with them.
Mother Nature takes her time. And you, though you probably work in a building and live in a building and don’t spend much time in the woods, are still one of Mom’s creatures. Notice the grass, notice the trees or the clouds. Remind yourself that there is much more going on in this world than human concerns and you are likely to put whatever is bothering you or what you are thinking about in perspective.
I went through a very difficult time in my life a few years ago. People who know about such things called my crisis the dark night of the soul. I promise you it was dark. At the time, I would have done anything to avoid it. Now I perceive it to be the greatest learning of my life. Isn’t it interesting how our perspective on things changes?
When I was in the dark night, a brilliant Chi Kung teacher came to my property. We hung out for a couple of days doing very, very simple exercises. I live on 33 acres with lots of trees, meadows and a couple of ponds. During his two days here, we walked around the property investigating how sensitive we could be to our surroundings. We wiggled our feet in the sand, we stood under large oak trees, felt the sun on our backs and felt the differences between walking uphill and downhill. We explored our relationship with Mother Nature and let her take care of us. She took care of us very well.
At one point on one of our walks, he let out a yelp. “Ouch,” he screamed. Fire ants had crawled on to his leg. He had never met these little pesky rascals before. I explained what they were to him. He closed his eyes, embraced the pain of them, converted it to pleasure and we walked on as though his day had just gotten better. While this story may not make much sense to you, I, with my powers of observation, watched him move from pain and fear into pleasure and peace just by allowing the pain to move freely through every part of him.
Watching him do this was magical to me. Much of what you will learn in the Mind Relief Manuscript is likely to be magical for you. You are about to learn about deep resources that you haven’t tapped into before. You are going to learn easy ways to lighten up and become best friends with your mind.
Play a bit with the simple things I have suggested in this chapter, then move on to the next chapter where we will begin the exploration of your mind. We will begin with observation, a particularly powerful tool for disarming your mind and getting on with the fun.
If you would like daily tips on living with deeper relief and peace than you ever thought possible visit my blog, http://www.jerrystocking.com/blog
There you will find articles on how to drop your negative thoughts and live with more freedom and fun.
***
Chapter 3
Being a hostage to your mind turns Earth from a pleasure planet to one in which you are constantly threatened, cajoled, mislead and abused.
Your mind doesn’t think it is safe here. It worries about both the future and the past and is afraid of the present as well. It doesn’t think it has enough money, enough time, enough love, or enough attention. It thinks it has too much pressure, too much weight, too much seriousness, too much to do, and too many emotions.
While this is a pleasure planet, there isn’t a whole lot of pleasure around.
Surveys indicate that most people say that they are happy, but if you watch them closely or listen to them, they don’t look or sound very happy.
Your mind doesn’t like it here.
I know it doesn’t like it here because most of the time, it is imagining how things could be or should have been instead of how things actually are. Most of the time your mind is resisting what is here. Your mind constantly fights the way that things are.
It complains almost incessantly. What has your mind complained about today? Has it mentioned the weather, politics, the economy, personal relationship problems, money, the cost of gas?
Your mind doesn’t like it here because of a very simple misunderstanding.
While the misunderstanding is simple, clearing it up isn’t quite so easy.
Your Mind is in Trouble, which Means You are in Trouble
Your mind thinks that it is supposed to be in control of things here. That is where it went wrong and things started to get ugly.
It tries, unsuccessfully, to control practically everything. The burden of trying to control everything has painted your mind into a horrible corner.
Rather than perceiving what is here, your mind creates illusions. Rather than noticing what time the mailman arrived, your mind says, “He should have been here earlier.”
If you foot hurts, your mind says, “My foot shouldn’t hurt.”
If the doctor keeps you waiting or if there is a big traffic jam, your mind says, “I shouldn’t have to wait” or “there shouldn’t be this kind of traffic.” If your kid is sleeping in, your mind says, “She should be up by now.”
Your mind doesn’t care how things are; it just thinks that things should be different. Your mind resists being on Earth by spinning out illusions of what Earth “should” be like.
Your mind is busy trying to change Earth, trying to buffer you and protect you from the way things are. I am not sure how complaining about things makes anything better, but your mind seems to think that it does.
Who’s Your Mind Working For?
You waited a in a long line to get here. You were a spirit and you waited patiently to incarnate on Earth. You were infinitely excited.
When you got to Earth, things weren’t quite as you imagined. You didn’t like being slapped on the butt, air felt harsh as it rushed into your lungs and you discovered, too quickly, that you were completely and utterly dependent on a Mom and a Dad who had no idea what they were doing. “. . . Honey, you’re holding him upside down . . .”
You learned first hand the pain of being hungry, wet and tired. Early on you didn’t have your mind to buffer you from these traumas. You just felt them and they didn’t feel good. While your body has since grown stronger physically, your mind is still behaving like a child.
About age two came the birth of consciousness and you were finally able to resist. You learned to say “Why?” and you learned to say “No.” You have been resisting ever since.
Your mind defines itself by resisting. It seeks to be right and in control. It wants to mold Earth in its image.
The mind resists because it has too much to do and too little time to get it done. The mind resists because it can’t do most of what you ask it to do, and the mind resists because it thinks it is in charge but really isn’t.
The resistance your mind has to being on Earth is all based on a simple misunderstanding. This misunderstanding happened back in the 1600s, but it is still influencing you today.
Descartes was Wrong
Many of you may know the famous Descartes quote, “I think therefore I am.” He didn’t say this last week or a century ago, he said this in the early 1600s. That is a long time ago and it is when the “seeds for the weeds” that your mind is currently tending showed up.
Descartes, of course, didn’t create the problems you have with your mind, he just burdened your mind greatly.
Descartes was wrong. In his simple phrase he put the mind first and centuries of serious thinking followed in which people considered rationality and logic to be important. People neglected the wisdom of their bodies, their intuition and even common sense because they thought thinking was more important.
Years ago people thought the world was flat. For a long time that “fact” stopped them from discovering the new world. It used to be common knowledge that nobody could run a sub four-minute mile. Now people do it regularly. Thinking considered to be “truth” or in control begins to define what is possible for you. Limitations become facts and influence what we dare try. If you don’t think you can do it, you probably can’t. If you don’t think you can do it, you probably won’t even try.
Do you exist because you think? Does that sound crazy to you? I hope so, and just in case it doesn’t please let me explain.
You do a lot of things in a day. You get out of bed, eat, go to work, have sex, buy stuff and feel all kinds of things. You see things throughout your day, talk with friends or co-workers, you drive, walk, stand and do many, many, things.
One of the things that you do in a day is think. You don’t exist because you think. Existence is the sum of all the things you do. You have gotten to the point that while you are doing things, showering, driving or whistling Dixie, you are also thinking. Just because you think nearly all the time doesn’t mean that thinking causes existence. That is just crazy talk.
It would be much more sensible and even logical and liberating to turn Descartes’ simple phrase around.
“I am therefore I think.”
Now that puts the horse ahead of the cart. I am therefore I shower, I am therefore I make love, I am therefore I breathe and feel and walk and talk and smile and laugh and talk to myself in my head.
If your existence depends on what you think, you will have to think the right thoughts. You will also have to prove you think the right thoughts. Wearing the right clothes, being scared to say what you mean and avoiding the things you really want are always attempts to think the right thoughts. “I can’t do that because _______” is the anthem of every mind trying to justify itself.
When you start with “I am therefore I think, ”you start with a sense of self. You have a foundation for self-esteem deeper than judgments.
“I am” is a very, very powerful thing to say. Try it. “I am” – That is it. “I am” doesn’t have to be followed by any other words; it is a perfect sentence with a subject and a verb.
When you have said, “I am” you have said it all.
Exercise #1 Practice “I am”
Practice throughout your day saying, “I am.”
When Randy came to his first workshop, he hardly spoke. He sat attentive but tense. He was uncomfortably thin and actually just plain uncomfortable. He began playing the “I am” game and a shift came over him.
I watched as he began opening up to several people in the workshop. He was painfully shy but began to make friends with people on the breaks. After more practice with the “I am” exercise, it became obvious what his problem was. He had a self-image problem. He had virtually no self-image at all.
When I say that he had no self-image, what I really mean is that he didn’t have any images, pictures, of himself. He couldn’t see himself in his own pictures. He couldn’t make a visual representation of himself.
When we began to explore the anatomy of the mind, he perked up. He began making pictures of himself in his head and a whole new world opened for him. I wish we had a before and after photo of Randy. The before photo wouldn’t even grab your attention; you wouldn’t notice this guy if he sat next to you in class or worked in the next cubical or sat across from you reading the morning newspaper.
The after pictures revealed that he was both interesting and interested. His eyes came alive; his face wasn’t pale anymore. He freely interacted with everyone in the workshop and even spoke in front of the group revealing to us that he was both smart and interesting.
To this day he remembers the “I am” exercise as the beginning of the “new Randy.” He likes the new Randy and so do his many new friends. Even his girlfriend, who didn’t know the old Randy, reaps the benefits that began with the initial play with the “I am” exercise.
Practice it several times a day. You will be very surprised at what happens. Do it please before you read on.
A Word about Exercises
From time to time I will suggest exercises like the “I am” exercise above. Simply do them.
I don’t care what you think of the exercise or what you think will happen when you do it. Do the exercise and find out what happens. As you do the simple “I am” exercise, you will likely discover that you become more important.
Throughout your busy day, being doesn’t get much attention and your thoughts get a lot of attention. The “I am” exercise balances out some of the attention thinking is getting by focusing your attention on being.
While this, and other exercises I suggest to you, may seem small and unimportant, I promise you that they are vital to you befriending your mind. They will help you discover how to reclaim your run away thoughts. The more often you do an exercise the more you will learn, and the better your results from the exercise will be.
But please, and this is important, don’t overdo the exercise. Don’t begin by doing the “I am.” exercise for an hour. That is too long. You can work up to that but don’t start there.
Begin with just a few times per day and work your way up to many more times.
Please don’t think that I am asking you to spend a lot of time on the “I am” exercise.
The more often you do it the more likely you are to discover that doing it frees up your time rather than consuming it. Remember: Much of what your mind tells you simply isn’t true. It may tell you that I am asking too much. I assure you that I am asking very little and what I ask of you will produce huge results in every aspect of your life.
Your mind wants to look before it leaps, or better yet not leap at all. Your mind wants to understand first and act afterwards; the difficulty is that life doesn’t work that way.
Thinking about something can provide some useful data but it doesn’t replace experience. Minds are interested in understanding first, and experiencing afterward. The deeper parts of yourself want experience and don’t care about understanding.
It is your mind’s commitment to understanding which continually limits the samples it can take (We will get to samples later.) Your mind wants life to be consistent, predictable and controllable (boring). It likes science, which is all about consistency, predictability and control.
Your mind tends to adopt a point of view and hold on to that point of view come hell or high water. Exercises are incredibly useful because they provide gobs of useful data and every bit of this data reminds your mind to lighten up, let go and trust.
Coming to Earth
Earth is not an unfriendly planet, unless you resist the way that it is. All your mind needs to do to make peace with earth is tip the scales a little bit from imagining how Earth may be (which your mind does constantly), to noticing how things actually are.
Your mind has resisted the way things are on Earth and this resistance has become a way of life for you. You can’t stop resisting by stopping resisting, anymore than you can lose weight just by wanting to or stop drugs by just saying “no.”
I have a trick for you which will begin allow your mind to return to Earth. Like all of my exercises, this one is simple; and, also, like all my exercises, it is guaranteed to work if you do it.
This little exercise is your ticket to really living on Earth.
Exercise #2: Returning to Earth
Make a short list of observations about anything around you right now. Your list may look something like this:
I have on a shirt.
I feel good.
It is a nice day out.
The sun is shining.
I am comfortable.
It is hot outside.
There isn’t anything for me to do.
I am tired.
Once you have your list, imagine that twelve jurors look at your list and put a check by any of your observations that all twelve jurors are likely to agree with. My list would look like this.
I have on a shirt. (agree)
I feel good. (disagree)
It is a nice day out. (disagree)
The sun is shining. (agree)
I am comfortable. (disagree)
My hair looks good. (disagree)
I have on dark green shorts. (agree)
I am tired. (disagree)
Differentiate between observations, ones that twelve jurors could make and judgments that require bias on your part in order to make.
I have on a shirt. (no bias)
I have on a nice shirt. (bias)
You arrived at 8PM. (no bias)
You were late. (bias)
You had a good time. (bias)
You said, “I had a good time.” (no bias)
I am happy. (bias)
I am five foot 9 inches tall. (no bias)
Begin to distinguish between observations and judgments. Observations have a tiny bit less mind involved; they are based more in your senses, while judgments are a bit for your mind.
Observations are statements about “what is.” Judgments are statements about what should be or what, in the mind’s opinion, is the case.
This is a Revolution
Imagine what it would be like if we never rebelled against British Rule. We would all be eating fish and chips and trying to get a peek at our queen. We would be saying “cheerio” and “pip pip.”
I am advocating another revolution here. You have been dominated by the provincial rule of your mind for way too long. Your mind taxes you and offers no representation. You don’t need to change your thinking, you need to overthrow your mind. You have already tried to change your thinking and that didn’t work. It is time to throw off the tyrannical rule of your mind.
In this particular revolution, not a single drop of blood will be spilled. Nobody will be hurt and your mind will finally get the relief that it has always needed.
Your mind isn’t having much fun. It doesn’t really want to be in control, it just doesn’t have an alternative. Learning and practicing the difference between observation and judgment provides a whole new way of thinking and is the first step toward this necessary revolution.
“Enough fish and chips,” I say. Enough defensive judgments! And way too much thinking taken seriously! This is a revolution! Nothing less will do.
Earth is a Nice Place
“Earth is a nice place” is a judgment.
“Earth is a planet” is an observation.
Observations bring you to this world. Judgments bring you into a world created by your mind.
Your mind passes off judgments as observations; it does this with you and with other people.
You probably wouldn’t print your own one hundred dollar bills and go out and buy stuff with them. If you did, you would try and have the bills you printed look as much like a real one hundred dollar bill as possible.
Your mind is constantly trying to pass off counterfeit observations: Ones that are really judgments. Your mind creates things and passes them off as real. When it does this, you suffer. You suffer in that you lose your grip on what is; you suffer in that you lose your connection with other people, and you suffer because you lose your connection with reality.
Fighting
Your mind has declared war on “what is.” It will never win this war, but as long as it continues to wage this war, you will struggle and fight. You will suffer and lose.
You will be alienated because you will be in a world of your own. You will greatly limit the people that you can interact with because they will need to have the same judgments you do or you will have to fight with them.
Practicing Returning to Earth Exercise #2 will have you fight less and enjoy Earth more. Discovering the difference between observations and judgments has Earth be a nicer, more friendly place.
***
Chapter 4
The Hidden Powers of Your Mind
What is Your Mind Up to Anyway?
One moment it plays nice and the next it is chattering away about how worthless you are or how the world really “should” be.
Do you dare believe your thoughts?
Is your mind on your side or not?
The answer my friend is anybody’s guess. The mind certainly can seem fickle at times and at other times downright nasty. Yet, at other times it seems loving and caring.
What is the nature of this love/don’t love relationship you have with your mind?
Relating to your mind is tough. Your mind is so quick, not only quick to throw a thought at you but also, if you don’t react to that thought, it is quick to throw another thought your way – a different thought, sometimes even a thought that seems a bit like the opposite of the original thought.
It is tough, sometimes, to believe your mind, and things tend to get tough rather quickly when you do. But if you don’t believe your mind then your mind gets all shades of serious, threatening in really reactionary tones.
Believing your thoughts is dangerous because your mind can say anything. Not believing your thoughts is dangerous because your mind wants so badly to be believed and will escalate its threats if it doesn’t get attention. What is a human to do?
The answer may not be obvious, but it is always the same. The answer is that you get to know your mind. You give it the attention it wants and needs and you embrace each thought as if it is your own: It is of course. Each thought is your mind’s best possible thought each moment. Embrace each thought, love each thought but know, too, that a thought is just a thought, nothing more and nothing less. There will be another thought and another and another.
I will show you how to get to know your mind.
Your mind is amazing. Your mind is flexible. Your mind is quick and smart and wise too.
When it is open, your mind lets go and lightens up. When your mind is closed, it defends and resists. Same mind, but it seems so different.
The simple exercises in the next three chapters will provide a safe environment to get to know your mind.
Just do the exercises and your mind will open, relax and become your best friend. The exercises provide the best and quickest relief I have found in my thirty years of working with minds. They offer short cuts that nobody knows. Your mind won’t be ready for how powerful they are and it won’t be able or want to defend against them.
When you receive but don’t believe your thoughts, the very nature of your thinking will change in wonderful ways. As your relationship with your mind evolves, you will find that a sense of self and well being naturally thrives, and your mind, once open and relaxed, naturally steps down to become the useful, friendly, wise, witty warrior it can be.
Possibilities and Your Mind
When your mind is open, it is curious and loves possibilities. When you are closed, possibilities threaten the mind’s dominance with dastardly results.
Your closed mind settles on one possibility: “He doesn’t like me” or “I am not smart enough” or “I can’t make enough money” or “things aren’t going my way.” Your closed mind doesn’t care what is true as long as something is. Your mind would rather believe and hold on to a thought or belief that would make your life difficult or impossible rather than have nothing to hold onto at all.
Believing something is true is sacrificing endless possibilities, which tends to make you intolerant, angry, defensive resistant and a little less light and happy. When you do this over and over, it makes for a bad day, exasperated friends and a less than positive outlook on life.
There is a way out of this crazy, vicious cycle of believing your thoughts. The solution isn’t obvious but it works every time.
The Solution
While the solution to the vicious thought cycle of an immature mind seems to be to stop thinking or learn how to not have your thoughts appear true, neither of these actually works. Your mind doesn’t need the next good idea. Good ideas are all over the place and they never work, at least not for long.
Your mind needs practice; it needs to do what an open mind does best: get curious, lighten up and let go. That is the shortest and perhaps the only road to having fun with your mind.
You can’t stop thinking just because you want to stop thinking. You can’t stop thinking “He doesn’t like me” or “She does like me” or “That meeting went poorly” or “My life sucks” or “When I get my ducks in a row, I will finally be able to make a whole lot more money, and when I make more money, I will be able to buy a Lamborghini, and when I have that little orange race car, I will finally find someone who loves me, and once I am loved, I will finally be able to stop being insecure and my life will be complete and remember that all of this has to do with getting my ducks in a row.” Quack! Quack!
Somewhere in your mind’s crazy scenarios, your thought process needs to be interrupted. You need to pause. A pause in your thoughts refreshes you. I will teach you how to disappear thoughts, which will result in little pauses between your thoughts. Each pause will be a tiny step on the road to reinventing your mind as less of an ass and more of an asset.
While some thoughts make good company and a few of them don’t, you tend to focus attention on the ones that are bad company. Learning how to disappear a thought is vital to putting your mind in perspective.
I will show you two, tried and true, powerful ways to disappear thoughts, which will free you from the crazy cycle described above.
They will teach you how to easily:
Return to Your Senses and Observe Your Thoughts
Might it be a little better day if you don’t have to believe everything you think today? Let’s get right to it.
Let’s find out how to please your mind and make sure that your mind always has exactly what it wants and needs. Let’s cut through all the mysteries of the mind and tell it just like it is. You mind wants one thing and only one thing, and until you give it that one thing, it will continue to give you a hard time.
Your Mind Seeks Attention
Your mind will do anything to get attention. It needs attention; it can’t operate for any length of time without it. Attention is the equivalent of love, sex and money to the mind. It is the mind’s heroine and the mind’s downfall as well. But knowing this, as you become a master of attention, puts you in charge of what the mind needs.
Your mind will dream to get attention, scheme to get attention. It will whine to get attention, it will even shout or believe to get attention. Your mind will jump off the Golden Gate Bridge to get attention or break up with your spouse or yell at your kids to get attention. Your mind will believe the unbelievable to get attention. It will act like a fool to get attention.
Are you getting the idea? Your mind will do anything to get attention, and if it doesn’t get attention it will try harder, get crazier or even get meaner to get attention.
In the pecking order of life, attention is way more important than thoughts. The mind’s motivation is getting attention. I repeat: Your mind will do anything to get attention!
Your mind will succeed to get attention, it will get married to get attention, your mind will have the same problem over and over to get attention or it will come up with a new problem to get attention. It will blow one tiny little problem up to life and death proportions to get attention.
Your mind will get addicted to get attention or get popular to get attention. While it may appear that your mind wants love or money or sex or a new house, these are just metaphors for attention.
Your mind is an attention addict and the kind of rehab this addict needs is to not only get enough attention, but to realize that attention is free, cheap, easy to get and that you are a source of constant attention. In a world where attention is scarce, your mind will become afraid and worried and live in a state of stress and panic and you will suffer.
Your mind doesn’t grow up or become more open and flexible when it is denied attention. It does so when it gets attention no matter what. This may seem counter intuitive, but it works to give your mind attention no matter what.
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