Meditation-Mind Blog

Practicing mindfulness meditation through journal writing can be a very effective technique for going within. As you write, thoughts will come bubbling up and since you have to slow your thoughts down in order to write them down, it’s easier to observe them.

An easy way to do this is something known as free writing. In free writing, you sit down with paper and pen and write quietly for a time. (I find the quality of writing with paper and pen is different from sitting at a keyboard and I suggest it for this experience. Of course, your mileage may vary.)

There are many beautiful journals to choose from, but some journal writers I know feel inhibited from writing in them by the belief that something so beautiful should be saved for a special occasion. If that’s the case with you, just round up some scrap paper, a yellow legal pad, a looseleaf notebook made from recycled paper, or even an old paper bag, along with your favorite writing implement. Use whatever helps you feel free to write.

Then find a quiet place where you can write undisturbed for a bit.

The idea of free writing is to be free of concerns about spelling or punctuation or capitalization or proper grammar or even your subject matter.

It’s perfectly all right to write “I don’t know what to write.” for as long as that feels like what you want to write.

Eventually, other thoughts will come along and you can start writing them down.

The only real rule is to keep writing. Write continuously without pause whatever thoughts come into your head.

Sometimes the thoughts you put down will surprise and delight you; sometimes you’ll just be clearing out worries, fears, irritations, or what may seem like nonsense.

No matter.

Writing will help you pay attention for a while.

Some writers set a timer and write continuously for their chosen amount of time. I suggest that you just write continuously until you feel done, but allow yourself at least 15 minutes to do this, so that you have a chance to get the flow started.

To enhance this process even more, you can combine a brief relaxation with your period of free writing.

Start by taking three, slow deep breaths and with each out breath, let go of any tensions in mind or body, as you say to yourself “Relax.”

Repeat that slow deep breath in, and again on the out breath, say “Relax.”

And once more, breathe in, and on the out breath, say “Relax.”

Now close your eyes and let yourself relax even more.

Count down from 5 to 1 as you take 5 more slow, deep breaths, counting to yourself as you inhale, and letting yourself relax even more as you exhale.

Count 5 as you inhale and relax as you exhale … Count 4 as you inhale and relax as you exhale … Count 3 as you inhale and then relax as you exhale … Count 2 as you inhale and relax as you exhale … Count 1 as you inhale and relax even more deeply as you exhale….

Just let yourself feel relaxed, and whenever you’re ready, still very relaxed, open your eyes and begin to write.

Write continuously in stream-of-consciousness until you have a page or two or three and then stop when you feel done.

When you’ve finished writing, count back up from 1 to 5, bringing your peaceful feelings back with you.

Whatever you have written is for you alone. What you do with it is up to you. This exercise is more about the experience of focusing your attention for a time. Any insights you may have gained are a bonus.

You may want to save what you have written in a private place if it contains some thoughts you want to remember but don’t want to share with anyone else.

But it’s also OK to shred it or even burn it ceremoniously, if it was all about getting your flow started or about letting go of something in your life.

Give yourself the moment to complete this experience in whatever way you choose and then come back to your day, ready for whatever is next.

I wish you a satisfying writing experience.

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If you’d like to feel inspired to write in a similar way every day, check out Julia Cameron’s guidelines for writing Morning Pages in her book The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

Another wonderful book on writing, full of ideas for using writing as a meditation, is Natalie Goldberg’s classic, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“And now let us believe in the New Year that is given us —new, untouched, full of things that have never been.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke

 
“For all that has been —thanks!  To all that shall be —Yes!”
—Dag Hammarskjold

 
“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
—often attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe**

 

 

 

** I’ve loved the “begin it” quote for a long time and I don’t really need to know whether Goethe actually said it to be inspired by it. But to give credit where it is due and for those of you who like stories of the origins of things, here is one such story on the origins of this quote
 
 

 

Before you’ve tried self-hypnosis, it can be hard to picture how you might use it. Kind of like the initial reaction some people had to the telephone and the personal computer, it sometimes takes us a while to understand its amazing potential.

One powerful use for self-hypnosis is to help people prepare for surgery. Probably the most well-known research has been done by Dr.Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City who has found that his heart patients feel calmer, more in control and more comfortable physically after their procedures when they have used hypnosis and self-hypnosis.

What I find particularly appealing is the emotional comfort it offers.  Most people are at least a little nervous at the prospect of their own or a loved one’s surgery and may not want to talk about it. Listening to a guided meditation and learning some self-hypnosis techniques can be tremendous helps in calming any fears that come up.

If you’re expecting to have surgery or want to offer some support to someone else who will be, one of the best tools I’ve found is Belleruth Naparstek’s audio recording, Health Journeys: A Meditation to Promote Successful Surgery“ available from Amazon.

In her soothing voice, Belleruth helps you to remember your own strength at a time you may be feeling vulnerable and offers reassuring images of a team of helpers supporting you when you may be feeling scared.

Feedback has been very positive from the people I have shared this with. They thought it helped them to feel much calmer about their procedure and to establish a positive attitude for their healing process.

As a companion, an impressively thorough book with many helpful suggestions for those scheduled for surgery is The Surgery Coach: Mind-Body Preparation For Faster, Better Recovery by Joseph Casey

Joe Casey’s book could be called a holistic “travel guide” for surgery, as he helps you know what to expect, soothes fears, teaches breathing and self-hypnosis skills and gives many practical suggestions,  including a chapter on questions to ask your doctor, along with lists of resources to help you prepare, body, mind and spirit, for successful surgery and an easier recovery.

It may be interesting to note that Joe puts Belleruth’s Meditation to Promote Successful Surgery recording number one on his list of recommended tapes and CD’s too.

And a special note to my fellow hypnotists, even if you don’t need to prepare for surgery, this book is a hidden treasure. I’ve found myself referring over and over to Joe’s chapters on breathing and relaxation, the power of words, as well as self-hypnosis techniques and scripts of various lengths. It’s clear that Joe knows his stuff and is skilled at communicating it in a way that feels healing.

 

 

Counting your breath sounds like it might take quite a while. In truth, it’s a technique you can use for just a few minutes or continue for an hour, if you choose. Breath counting is a very simple meditation technique which provides excellent practice in keeping your mind focused. Practicing this technique offers lessons in maintaining concentration, noticing your thoughts without judging them, and returning your mind gently to its task.

Once you get the hang of it, this is an excellent meditation technique to use in any situation when you need to calm yourself. Visiting your dentist? Try a few rounds of breath counting. Just heard your bank bounced your check? Breathe and count.

The idea here is to count each breath for a series of 4 breaths and then to repeat that pattern of counting each breath for another series of 4 breaths, continuing until you reach 5 rounds of counted breaths.

The Technique
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As with any meditation, begin by getting yourself in a comfortable position. Close your eyes if that’s appropriate for your surroundings.

Now as you breathe in slowly, think “one” to yourself and then repeat “one” as you breathe out.

With your next breath, count “two” as you inhale and repeat “two” as you exhale.

Continue by counting “three” as you breathe in and repeating “three” as you breathe out.

And complete the first round by counting “four” as you breathe in and repeating “four” as you breathe out.

Go on to your next round of breath counting in the same way, counting “one” as you breathe in and repeating “one” as you breathe out and so on, repeating the pattern: In-1 — Out-1, In-2 — Out-2, In-3 — Out-3, and In-4 — Out-4.

Proceed with each round of breath counting until you’ve completed 5 rounds.

If you should lose track of your count at any time or you notice stray thoughts entering your mind, just let the thoughts float on by and gently return your mind to focusing once again on counting each breath, beginning again with “one”.

You can’t lose with this technique. During the process of learning to maintain your focus for longer and longer periods you also learn to look at your thoughts without judging them each time you gently return your mind to counting each breath. It’s all practice, no matter whether you’re maintaining your focus or learning to gently return to focusing.

As with all meditation techniques, you can modify this to suit your tastes. You might want to count to 5 or 7 or 10 instead of 4, for example, before you repeat the pattern.

Or, instead of repeating a series of 4 counted breaths, you may choose to set a goal of counting 50 or 100 breaths, noticing how high a number you can reach before you lose focus and return again to one. The task here isn’t so much to reach a high number as it is to give yourself plenty of practice at maintaining your concentration, observing your thoughts without judging them, and guiding your mind to a focused state.

In addition to helping to train your mind, each time you practice breath counting, you may also notice that you’re feeling much more peaceful than when you began.

“This is what I want from now on: a slower pace, a more centered existence, and the feelings of perfect happiness to be found in the moments I come home to myself.”
                                                 —Linda Weltner
“What lies behind us and what lies before us, are small matters, compared to what lies within us.”
                                                 —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Each day affirm that there is nothing in this world that can stop you from transforming your life, opening your heart, loving yourself and sharing your love with everyone you encounter.”
                                                 —Yogi Amrit Desai

 

 

Would it surprise you to know that you’ve been in a trance before? Not just once, but many times.

Here are just 10 examples of commonly occurring trance experiences:

1. That relaxed state we experience in between waking and sleeping, just before falling asleep and just before we fully awaken is one.

2.  Daydreaming, a natural occurrence healthy people experience many times a day, is an altered state, as well.

3.  Gazing out a window

4.  Or gazing into a campfire can induce one.

5.  Getting absorbed in a really good book can do it too.

6.  Being so intensely focused on a football game on TV that people can talk to you without getting your full attention

7.  Or seeing a thriller at the movies that keeps you on the edge of your seat can both provide you with a trance experience.

8.  Anyone who has arrived home without fully remembering driving there has experienced it.

9.  Watching and listening to something rhythmic and repetitive like windshield wipers moving back and forth in the rain

10. Or watching the scenery passing by to the steady click-clack of your train can induce it too.

All of these are everyday examples of times when you may have experienced an altered state of consciousness. I mention this to pull back the curtain on some of the mystique surrounding the trance state. It’s not really as woo-woo or weird as it’s sometimes made out to be. Instead it’s something rather familiar and commonplace and not at all threatening.

What happens in self-hypnosis or when listening to a guided meditation, is that we can learn to enter that familiar, very focused state intentionally whenever we choose to do so. So instead of it being a random event which happens without our recognizing it, we learn to recognize it and choose when we wish to enter it. In fact, it’s sometimes described as “deliberate daydreaming.”

By relaxing our bodies, focusing our minds and giving ourselves suggestions in that very focused state, we can accomplish some very beneficial things. As I mentioned in a previous post, the short list includes: relaxation and stress management, support for weight loss and quitting smoking, handling the fear of public speaking, controlling pain, enhancing performance in sports, music, on stage and on the job, easing childbirth, improving memory, sleeping better, preparing for surgery, accelerating healing, enhancing learning, improving self-confidence and calming a fear of flying. All that from a little “deliberate daydreaming.”

All in all, it may help you to know that when you practice self-hypnosis you will just be intentionally doing something you have done countless times before.
 

The experience of meditation and self-hypnosis can be quite similar in most respects - both are focused states which can be entered by putting attention on breathing or gazing at an object and both can leave you feeling calm and relaxed, as well as lowering your blood pressure, and helping you more easily manage stress.

I like David Harp’s brief and to the point definition of meditation - “Meditation is the art of mental self-control.” And the purpose of developing a meditation practice, then, is to learn to notice, understand and gain control over your thoughts. With practice, this skill will be available to serve you in even the most difficult circumstances. Along the way, you will be benefiting from the peaceful, relaxed state you experience regularly. In short, it feels good!

Self-hypnosis also needs to be practiced and offers a regular experience of a peaceful, relaxed state. It’s purpose can stop there - helping you to relax and calm yourself. It’s very valuable to learn for that purpose alone. By combining a focused, meditative state with specific suggestions, self-hypnosis is also commonly used to help people help themselves with all kinds of things they might want to change in their lives.

In addition to relaxation and stress management, a short list of the many possible effective uses of self-hypnosis include support for weight loss and quitting smoking, handling the fear of public speaking, controlling pain, enhancing performance in sports, music, stage and on the job, easing childbirth, improving memory, sleeping better, preparing for surgery, enhancing learning, accelerating healing, improving self-confidence and calming a fear of flying.The list goes on and on.

So, the chief difference between meditation and self-hypnosis seems to be your purpose in practicing them. Both are highly beneficial and while a person can practice both of them, if one calls to you more than the other, I’d encourage you to go for it. It’ll be good.

“The farmer channels water to his land.
The fletcher whittles his arrows.
The carpenter turns his wood.
And the wise man directs his mind.”
                      — The Buddha

“I am not a disbeliever in those who have told me they went to bed in the evening with an unresolved problem on their mind and woke up to find, waiting for them there in their consciousness, the correct answer.”
                                               —- Dr. Jean Hanson