 
### 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

Introduction

Chapter1: Is it Really Your Mind

Chapter 2: You are a Hostage

Chapter 3: Welcome to Earth

Chapter 4: The Hidden Powers of Your Mind

Chapter 5: Returning to Your Senses.

Chapter 6: Observing Responses

Chapter 7: Time to play

Chapter 8: Rediscovering Your Mind

Who is Jerry?

## 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

Is it Really Your Mind?

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

Welcome to Earth

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.

Growing up is always a battle for attention. A young child wants his or her parents attention. It is "game on" as the child tries different things to get it. We tried an experiment with my daughter. We gave her unlimited attention. It wasn't easy but it turned out to be worth it.

No, it didn't spoil her. Spoiling someone is giving them attention for something you wish they wouldn't do. Your mind has been spoiled terribly. It has been given attention when it did things you never, ever wanted it to do.

My daughter never needed attention because she always got it. This made her self sufficient, self directed and loving and caring for other people. She discovered herself as a source of attention not as someone who needs attention. Your mind needs and deserves attention.

Your mind also needs to get out of the control game of receiving attention for some thoughts and not for others. If your mind gets attention for thoughts like, "He doesn't like me" or "I am in trouble now" or "I screwed up" or "the other foot is about to fall," it will think more of those thoughts. Whatever your mind receives attention for, it will do again, and again and again.

The thoughts you are thinking now are there because when you thought these thoughts before, they received attention. Attention, given to a thought, simply orders your mind to think that thought again.

You have driven your mind crazy by the way you dole out attention. Your mind does anything that results in attention. My daughter just graduated Summa Cum Laude from college. Unlike her peers, she got "A"s because she could and for the fun of it. She didn't do it to prove herself. She did it for the sheer, unadulterated fun of it.

Indian gurus have told us for a long time that we already have what we seek. But we haven't listened because our immature minds are bent on seeking. Your mind seeks in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. Your mind will even seek late at night or on holidays. Your mind is seeking more attention, better attention and different attention. A seeking mind is a crazy mind, a frantic mind – a mind out of control. Your mind needs and deserves attention, and when it gets it, then and only then can it relax and bask in the perfection of things. It is time to provide your mind with the attention it needs.

Giving Your Mind Attention

Selective attention is your mind's worst enemy. Freely given attention sets your mind free to open, to think incredible thoughts and to explore possibilities. When certain thoughts receive substantially more attention than other thoughts, your mind keeps thinking the same thoughts over and over. If you pay more attention to the thoughts that make you worry, you will worry a lot.

Attention is the focusing of consciousness. And while this may seem esoteric or spacey, it isn't. Your attention is fast, lively and flowing. It is a vital force in your life and usually goes unnoticed. You don't decide to focus your attention on a thought, it just happens.

When you walk in a room, your attention takes in certain aspects of the room, perhaps a vase or a picture on the wall catch your eye, faster than you can think or plan what to notice. When you meet someone, you may notice that they have a high voice or that they are overweight or wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt. Your attention goes to certain aspects of them. Your attention is much faster than your thoughts. Your attention is the flow of information through your senses: what you see, what you hear and what you feel (pictures, sounds and feelings). At the same time, your thoughts are the blocking of pictures, sounds and feelings.

The flow of pictures, sounds and feelings is vibrant and alive. Once these sensory experiences are blocked, held constant in a thought, they consume rather than deliver attention and energy.

To understand what I am saying here simply think: Thoughts = stopped, Attention = moving. Thoughts block energy; attention allows energy to flow. Everybody wants more attention.

Your mind wants attention. Knowing what your mind wants gives you the leverage to finally influence your mind.

If you are going to teach a dog tricks, you must give the dog either attention or treats. Actually attention and food are both treats for a dog. If you are going to train your mind, you will need to give it treats in the form of attention.

Attention is the only treat that will reward a mind for very long. Your mind tires quickly of the new car or the swimming pool or the increase in salary. It promises that life will be complete when it gets these but it never delivers. But attention is different for the mind; your mind has an insatiable appetite for attention. So, if you are going to master your mind, you will need to master attention.

Now lets get on with mastering attention and then, in the next chapter, we will discover two simple tried and true ways of influencing your mind and they both have to do with mastering attention.

Master Attention or Perish

You have clamored after attention your whole life. You wanted it from Mom or Dad; you wanted it from your teachers and friends and your spouses and kids. You wanted it from your family members. You have a checkered and erratic history of getting attention and not getting attention.

Though you have pursued attention your whole life you don't know much about it. I am now going to teach you just enough about attention that you can use it to tempt and train your mind.

There are two kinds of attention: Quantity and Quality

Quantity of attention is simply how much attention you get. When you are focused on quantity of attention, then the more attention you get the better. Any attention will do. You don't care if you are being punished or yelled at as long as you are receiving attention.

Quality of attention isn't about receiving attention. To explore quality of attention is to discover that you will never, ever receive attention unless you give it. So quantity of attention is about getting more attention and quality of attention is about giving attention.

We are all after attention but mastering attention is about giving attention. As long as you think you don't have enough attention, you will do anything to get more. Imagine that you already have enough attention and your job, like the executor of a will, is about doling out attention. Who will get your attention, what thoughts will you give attention to and which ones won't receive attention?

The first secret about attention that nobody knows is that you are a source of attention. In fact, you are the only source of attention there is. Attention is a purely human gift that you get to give, and give and give.

While it has always appeared that attention is something that you needed to get, the only way to get it is to give it. You were stingy with attention because you didn't know that you were the source of it.

Exercise #3: Attention

Touch your little fingers together and notice what you feel. Then touch your little finger to your tongue and notice what you feel. Do this simple exercise a couple of times.

When you touch your fingers, you feel both fingers but when you touch your little finger to your tongue, you just feel your tongue. That is because your tongue is closer to your brain than your finger is. The difference is about one one-thousandth of a second. That isn't very long, but it makes a difference to what you feel.

Attention Myth Number Two

The second myth about attention is that there isn't enough attention to go around. This is a lie that almost everyone believes. The truth is that there is plenty of attention and you can have all of it that you want. You create attention all the time. You are the source of attention.

Because you have been busy trying to get attention you probably haven't noticed what you can do with attention. Attention can be focused on what you know, which makes you certain and sure of what you know. Attention can also be focused on what you don't know, which has you become curious and open and it keeps your attention moving and provides you with energy and lightness. Attention focused on what you know stops attention, converting its natural kinetic energy to thoughts.

To discover yourself as a source of attention, focus your attention on what you don't know – questions, and less on what you do know – answers.

There is so much more that you don't know than that you do know, so by focusing attention on what you don't know, you live in a much bigger world, a world of wonderment and magic.

Pull your head out of the sand; you aren't an ostrich. Start to notice and fall in love with all that you don't know. I remember playing with clay as a kid. The clay came in five different, bright colors. But at first the clay was stiff. It needed to be worked, it needed to be kneaded and it needed the warmth of your little hands. It also needed the constant awe and curiosity of a young artist: You. Your mind needs a bit of kneading and it needs awe and curiosity. It needs warmth and attention from you. When it gets it, there will be a hot time in the old town tonight.

You wouldn't buy a three-story house and never even enter the top two stories would you? Of course not. But there is so little you have explored on Earth because you were just too darned busy trying to get attention. When you get that you are the source of attention, Earth becomes your playground and your mind becomes a kid in a candy shop.

You May Not Know What You Know

Have you heard of neuro-economics?

Scientists asked people to listen to music and determine which songs would become hits. They did this with loads of people as scientists are tempted to do. The songs picked didn't become more popular than the songs not picked. Thus it was concluded that the subjects were not able to discern a hit from a non-hit.

But the scientists didn't stop there. At the time that they played the music for the people, they also had them hooked up to a brain scan machine, which measured the activation of the subjects' brains. Now this is where things get exciting.

Excitation of certain reward centers of the brain fired off much more often during the songs that became hits – Statistically significantly more often. The obvious conclusion that the scientists reached is one that has been obvious to me and my friends for a long time. The subjects didn't know what songs would be hits, but at a much deeper level they did "know." This was indicated by brain activation as to what songs would be hits.

They knew but they didn't know that they knew. This simple study tapped into the depths of knowing that are possible, and provided proof that there are parts of us we don't know yet.

What I am saying is that this is a huge world, both inside of you and outside of you. And when you pretend that you already know, your world shrinks making your mind look huge and your problems totally serious.

Satisfaction only comes, and stays, when your attention is free to roam. Satisfaction is never, ever the result of finding something in particular. It shows its sweet self when your attention is exploring, looking for nothing in particular and open and available.

You simply get to discover yourself as a source of attention. When you do, genuine satisfaction, quality of attention and unconditional love will surround you.

How difficult is your life? Very difficult for a mind seeking attention. Very easy when you discover yourself as a source of attention and finally your mind is flooded with attention. When your mind has enough attention, and only when it has enough attention, then it is set free from seeking attention.

Hiding and Seeking Yourself

You are playing a game of hide and seek with yourself. If you think you know yourself, you stop looking, listening and feeling and rob your mind of attention. You stop playing and get serious. You hold to one thought of who you are, while your mind in an effort to regain your attention, offers up countless other thoughts. As you ignore these thoughts, you mind gets a little upset, then more upset.

When you stop, your mind becomes instantly claustrophobic. It needs attention and tries to get it. A shark needs to keep moving or it can't breath. Your mind needs to keep moving, always moving and never settling down. Constant movement causes your mind to be distracted, pausing has your mind catch up with itself.

Each moment can be a creative inspiring one when you give attention. Learning to love everything you do and finding possibilities where others don't will inspire you and everyone around you. Even the simplest thing you do in a day, when done in the presence of attention, becomes fun and interesting.

There are so many aspects of you hiding from you that the game of hide and seek is particularly apropos.

Becoming a master of attention is a game of hide and seek. And you are both the hider and the seeker.

Imagine that you are playing Tic-tac-toe. But there is something you don't know about the game. Your opponent is aware that you are playing three-dimensional Tic-tac-toe but you aren't. Not only will you never understand the game, no matter how hard you try, but you will also never win. Discovering yourself as the source of attention opens up new dimensions of you that your mind gets to play on.

Mastering Attention

When you master attention, you make it yours. It becomes your attention, you own it because you can make it sit, roll over and play dead (alive).

When it is your attention, marketers can't grab it and use it for their own designs. A relationship can't numb your attention and your mind will always have plenty of your attention.

You will always need attention, and you always have attention.

Give attention freely. Give attention to your thoughts. In the absence of attention, your thoughts become more demanding. In the presence of attention, your thoughts become expansive and entertaining.

Mastering attention is about giving and receiving attention freely. When you are just as willing to give as to receive attention, then your mind can relax. Do the simple exercise below to balance giving and receiving attention.

Exercise # 4: Mastering attention

Begin to notice your attention. What is your attention focused on now? And where is it now? Begin observing your attention. Notice if a thought grabs your attention. Get curious about where your attention is.

The first step to becoming a master of attention is noticing your attention. Your attention is much wiser than your thoughts. You attention will teach you about attention. Anytime, anywhere, notice your attention.

As you notice attention, begin to feel it as a flow, as though attention is like water flowing toward you and away from you at the same time. Always flowing. Feel the flow of attention.

Bonus Story:

Confidence and Competence: the Twins

I used to sell real estate limited partnerships. I had no idea what I was doing. The first thing I did when I got the job was walked up to the number one sales guy in the office and said, "Watch my tracks." Then I went home figuring I had set up the game.

The next day I discovered that he, being there for two years, had all the good leads and leads were seldom coming in anymore. I needed to create a game and I was a greenhorn. Not wanting to get hurt too badly, I began calling therapists. I figured they couldn't be too nasty to me, and they weren't. I didn't sell to any of them either.

Time was wasting, so I created a new game. My girlfriend at the time, Jacki was very outgoing. She lit up a room just by walking in to it. I printed out a bunch of cards that read, "Who says there is no such thing as a free lunch?" I wedged that card in the property brochures and Jacki started inviting business owners to lunch. She would walk in an office and invite people to a free lunch.

It wasn't long until I had a weekly luncheon with forty or fifty people present. I had all the leads I needed and within a month or two and I was the number one sales person in the office.

I began with confidence, challenging the number one sales person and then followed up with competence, showing ingenuity, flexibility and the unwillingness to be second best.

A small piece of the math of attention includes the two equations below:

Confidence = time + inattention

Competence = time + attention

As you can see from these equations, the twins, confidence and competence are almost identical except that confidence is dependent on attention being off, and competence is dependent on attention being on.

Quality of attention is always on as you give your attention away. Quality of attention means that you are always and forever building competence.

Confidence has such a big reputation and is touted as a cure all. The whole, "just be confident" thing is just so much BS. You don't like people who are confident without competence to back it up. You can't trust them.

Confidence and competence had a race. Competence won, while confidence bragged about winning.

Quantity of attention is sometimes off and sometimes on. If you are receiving enough attention, then life is good; if you are receiving too little, then life is bad. Good is on and bad is off. When you try and get attention, you are hunting for confidence; when you give attention, you are becoming more competent.

The struggles of most people are the result of quantity seeking attention, which results in a specific level of confidence. If you happen to get some attention your confidence rises without your competence rising. When this happens you become cocky. If you happen to get less attention for a while your confidence drops and you develop a case of low self esteem thinking you can't do things that you really can do.

When your confidence and competence are out of whack, you suffer. Your mind tries to bridge the gap between confidence and competence, defensively spinning out justifications.

"I was late because I was caught in traffic."

"I didn't get the project done because I had a sore throat."

"I didn't sleep well because I was worrying about tomorrow."

"She wouldn't have gone out with me even if I had asked."

"The stock market went down because of bad economic news."

Your mind has what it wants or it has its reasons for why it doesn't have what it wants – Justifications. Notice as your mind offers you endless justifications.

When you give attention, your competence is constantly rising and it doesn't really matter how much confidence you have. Your perception of yourself is based on what you are actually doing not on what you think you can or cannot do.

When confidence is ahead of competence you think you can do things that you can't do – Making your mind a critic of reality. When your competence is ahead of your confidence, you think you can't do things that you can do making your mind a critic of you.

Either way you are screwed. Because either way you are a critic and the only way out of this bind is becoming a master of attention, which means that you both give and receive attention freely.

Selling real estate limited partnerships, I learned a lot about giving and receiving. I gave to my clients and I received from them. I didn't need their attention and I didn't need them to buy from me. And I gave them attention freely.

With the free flow of attention, our minds relaxed. We didn't need to defend ourselves. We weren't adversaries; we were working together. I wasn't trying to trick them into buying and we became friends. Sales, in the presence of giving and receiving attention, becomes a kind, peaceful process.

What else could mastering attention change?

***

## Chapter 5

Returning to Your Senses.

It is About How You Think Not What You Think

June and James had been married for 28 years. They were happy together so I was surprised when I received a desperate invitation to join them for breakfast. Both of them had attended my courses and though we weren't friends, we had mutual respect for each other. At breakfast I quickly noticed the problem.

June and James were intellectuals; he was highly successful in a college theater department and she was very successful as an English teacher and public relations coach. But breakfast wasn't as much fun as I would have expected. These two sat on opposite ends of the table only physically about six feet apart, but in their thinking they were miles apart.

While they were both liberals and shared political and religious beliefs, they just weren't communicating effectively. He was silent, though it was obvious that he was upset and she sat, almost trance like, not ever looking directly at him, but looking past him.

The first half of breakfast, as I sat quietly, was punctuated by June and James talking but not really connecting. He would say something and she wouldn't really hear him. She would then ask a question which had nothing to do with what he had just said.

It was as though each of them was on a cell phone, but a different call. I wondered how it was possible that these two highly intelligent people could have come to such an impasse. Then, I coughed loudly and began to gag.

That is right, I choked and choked loudly as though my life was in jeopardy. Both June and James focused all their attention on me. And I said, "Now that I have your attention let's get a little work done here."

That's right. I wasn't really gagging; I was offering this unhappy couple a way to communicate. You don't know me but if you did this wouldn't surprise you a bit. Often the best way to reach people has nothing to do with speaking or explaining things to them.

All I had to do was look around the house to learn about June. The house was immaculate. Everything was in its place and everything was spotlessly clean. June is one of those people who focuses mostly on what she sees. Things need to look right and if they don't look right, she gets very upset.

James, on the other hand, sat at breakfast in a sweat suit that was worn and had not only a couple of stains on it but one of the pant legs was ripped in two places. June didn't dare look at James because she didn't like how sloppy he looked. James felt terrible because June obviously disapproved of him.

Looking at their front room, the difference between them became even more obvious. Though the furniture wasn't new, it was clean and well kept up, with the exception of James' chair which was a nearly worn out lounge chair with crumbs on the seat and terribly worn leather arms. His oasis in the room, his chair, was an eye sore to her.

The problems they were having were because of the way each of them was thinking. June was very, very visual while James didn't see much and would focus his attention on how things felt. The purpose for my choking at the table was to generate such a loud sound that she would be shocked out of her pictures and he would focus his attention on the sounds I was making rather than how he was feeling.

While these two had lived happily in different worlds for years, they really hadn't gotten to know each other very well. But recent budget cuts at the university had put such pressure on them that they really needed to communicate. He felt so bad about his future and she was so worried about the possibility of them losing their jobs that they were forced into the need to communicate.

My noises were intended to draw them both into the world of sounds, him from his world of feelings and her from her world of pictures. It worked. The second half of breakfast was very different from the first. June and James were talking together and making up for years of non-communication. They were connecting and resolving all sorts of issues that had been making their marriage much less than it might have been.

I was pleased a week later when I met with June and James again to discover that not only were they still talking deeply together, but he was wearing a brand new sweat suit without stains or holes and she was actually expressing her feelings, something that she had never done before.

Your Thinking is Based on Your Senses

Each of your thoughts is composed of pictures, sounds and feelings. Every thought has data from each of your senses.

But like June and James, you probably tend to focus your attention more on pictures or more on sounds or more on feelings. June focused almost all of her attention on pictures while James was continually focused on his feelings.

Getting to know how you think is becoming familiar with the pictures, sounds and feelings that compose your thinking.

I remember the first time I played a video game. The game, I think, was called, "Asteroids." The game featured little pin pricks of light that we were supposed to perceive as alien space ships. These ships were continually zig-zagging from the top of the screen to the bottom. I was supposed to press a button that would shoot and destroy these alien ships. If I did so, I got to live to press the button again, possibly destroying another ship. If I didn't hit the alien ship, it hit me and after this happened three times, I had to pay another quarter.

Your mind is throwing thoughts at you. If you can disappear these thoughts, you won't have to take them seriously and you will get to live another day. If too many thoughts hit you in a day, it is a bad day in which you are being continually manipulated by your mind.

Learning to focus your attention on your senses will render your thoughts powerless and open the door to a whole new way of thinking: OBSERVATION. Observation is thinking without bias. Another word for this powerful, radical thinking is witnessing.

I see, I hear, I feel

Your senses are your interface with the world. Becoming aware of your senses, will have you live more in this world and less in the world of illusion created by your mind.

Exercise # 5a: Seeing

What do you see right now?

Close your eyes, what do you see?

"Banana" what do you see when you read that word?

Look in the distance; zoom in on something very close to you.

Create a picture of yourself as a young kid; then make a picture of yourself old.

See something that has never happened.

See something that happened yesterday.

Close your eyes and create a picture of yourself in your head.

Picture yourself receiving a gold medal.

Picture yourself flying in a rocket.

Make pictures of yourself; make pictures of other people. Notice the things around you. Watch the people in your life, look closely.

Exercise #5b: Hearing

What do you hear right now?

Hear your mother's voice.

Talk to yourself in your own head and listen carefully.

Listen to music and pick out the sound of each instrument.

Sing and listen to the tone of your voice.

Sing high, sing low, sing loudly and sing quietly.

Listen to others carefully when they speak. Not just to the words but to the tone of voice.

Listen to the wind, listen to a river or the water running from a faucet.

Listen inside yourself, are there any sounds inside?

Listen when you speak. Hear your own voice and then vary your voice, vary pitch and volume, very timbre and tempo. Create a little tune and hum it whenever you want.

Exercise #5c: Feeling

What do you feel right now?

Is there anywhere in your body that hurts?

Anywhere that is tight?

Rub your arm very softly and then slightly harder.

Can you smell anything, if so, what?

Shrug your shoulders, bring them up and then drop them.

Shake your body around and notice all the sensations.

Put a little piece of fruit in your mouth and taste it.

Anytime, anywhere, notice how you feel. Do a quick inventory of your body. How do your legs feel, your feet, your belly, your arms? Feel your body, close your eyes and explore your immediate surroundings by feeling.

Thought and Feelings

A picture isn't serious; it is just a picture. A sound isn't serious; it is just a sound. A feeling isn't serious; it is just a feeling.

How does your mind take a group of pictures, sounds and feelings and convert them into a serious thought?

It beats me.

How does your mind have you believe a thought?

That beats me too.

In fact, that is exactly what the mind does. It beats you. It beats you by adding importance, relevance and seriousness where there isn't any. It beats you into submission. It threatens you until you will believe every thought.

Returning to your senses is an important step in disarming a cruel mind. Continue to notice the pictures, sounds and feelings that compose each thought.

A turning point in Alice and Wonderland is where Alice says to the queen of hearts and her whole mob, "You are nothing but a deck of cards."

Find the meanest, nastiest thought that you can and say to it, "You are nothing but a bunch of pictures, sounds and feelings."

Is it a Nice Day?

Focusing on your senses will take some practice but it isn't hard and it generates a powerful momentum toward positive change in the moment. (momentum to the moment).

If you think the thought "It is a nice day," first notice the thought and then get curious about what inspired that thought. What pictures, sounds and feelings did you have before you thought, "It is a nice day?"

Perhaps you saw the sun shining or even felt the warmth of the sun on your back, then, maybe, you said to yourself, "The sun in shining; there aren't very many clouds in the sky; it probably won't rain." Then you may have had a feeling, perhaps a softness or warmth inside.

You did all this in a fraction of a second and then the thought "It is a nice day" seemed to appear out of nowhere. Focusing your attention on what happened before the thought showed up, will allow you to discover that thoughts aren't true or false, they are just conclusions reached from a bunch of pictures, sounds or feelings. Peanut butter and chocolate came together and there was' Reese's. Pictures, sounds and feelings came together and you had thoughts. Actually, they had a party.

The day isn't nice; it is just a day. Certain pictures, sounds and feelings came together and there was the thought "It is a nice day."

Without sensory data, without pictures, sounds and feelings, there wouldn't be any thoughts. Attention focused on pictures, sounds and feelings reveals that thoughts are not the beginning or the end that they pretend to be. They aren't the first word or the last word on anything; they play just a bit part in the dance of who you really are. Putting thoughts in perspective relieves your mind.

Following the footprints

Winnie the Pooh and Piglet go heffalump hunting. On this adventure, they mistake their own footprints for heffalump tracks. This is a delightful metaphor for the pursuit of becoming a friend to your mind.

Your senses leave footprints that you can follow to assist you in the process of returning to your senses. Two brilliant men, Richard Bandler and John Grinder discovered that when you see pictures, you tend to put your eyes up and to the right or up and to the left or defocused straight ahead.

When you are intent upon listening, either to your internal dialogue, or other sounds, you tend to put your eyes sideways and to the right or left or down and to the left. When you are feeling, oftentimes you will put your eyes down or down and to your right.

Begin noticing where your eyes go and where the eyes of the people you are interacting with go when thinking or speaking.

You don't need to figure out anything from where the eyes go, just notice. Do they put their eyes up, sideways or down? Are you putting your eyes up, sideways or down? Noticing the small, and sometimes big movements of people's eyes will likely make it much easier to return your attention to pictures, sounds and feelings.

We could spend many productive days exploring what Richard called "eye access patterns." All you need to know now is that all thoughts are composed of pictures, sounds and feelings.

Thoughts happen when pictures, sounds and feelings pose for a mental snap shot. The snap shot – the thought – grabs your attention and makes the moment it was taken particularly relevant. Returning to your senses puts your thought, your mind and each moment in perspective.

Your senses are unbiased observation; your thoughts spawn biased judgements.

In the next chapter, you will tune in, turn on and inspire your ability to observe.

Exercise #4: Eye Movements

Observe the eye movements that go with pictures, sounds and feelings. Notice, too, that when your attention is on your senses, it isn't on your judgements.

Spread it Around!

Everyone could use a little mind relief. Here's how you can help spread the word:

Send the FREE manuscript link to a friend. Link:

http://selfexploratorytools.com/MRM.html

Tell a friend about mind relief and eat an M&M or two.

***

## Chapter 6

Observing Responses

In the Beginning

In the beginning there was a stimulus, then there was a response. The doctor taps your knee with a special little, expensive hammer and your lower leg jumps. The hammer is the stimulus and the leg jerk is the response. Another name for stimulus/response is cause/effect.

BF Skinner was a pioneer in something he called operant conditioning, which is the study of stimulus/response couplings and how they define so much of what you do.

If I say the word "lake," notice that you have a response. Your response is likely to include making a picture of a lake. Some people will make a picture of a specific lake while others will picture a generic lake. If I say the word "stove" to you, again, you are likely to see a picture. The word lake and the word stove are stimuli followed quickly by your response. Responses happen very quickly.

You didn't really pick what lake or stove to picture. These were picked for you at a much deeper, automated part of yourself, like your leg bouncing when the doctor hits your knee.

Your mind may have a difficult time admitting that the lake or stove you saw wasn't really determined by the mind. Your mind has been taught that it is in charge of everything. It, of course, isn't.

Feuding

Remember the old quiz show Family Feud? On the show, two families compete for big prizes. They don't have to guess the capital of Mongolia; all they need to do is figure out what the most likely response most people would give to a stimulus. So a question asked on Family Feud might be, "What are three things someone might bring to a swimming pool?" That question is the stimulus and the correct answer is the response that the most people give.

This quiz show doesn't test intelligence, rather it measures how tuned into the automated stimulus/response couplings one is. Most relationships, businesses and human enterprises are less about intelligence and more about automated stimulus/response couplings, because that is really what your mind does best.

Your mind puts together stimuli and responses so that is what you get if you rely on your mind.

You don't get a creative existence; creativity is an expression of who you really are. You get regurgitated, automatic stimulus/response couplings. Since these couplings are automated, they don't need attention. They progress in predictable ways from beginning to end without attention.

The phenomenon that I am describing is why most people wander sleepily through their days, months and years without noticing much. It's because your mind is continually engaged in its own version of Family Feud. Your mind sees, hears of feels something and as fast as it can, which is very fast indeed, it seeks to come up with a response. It doesn't care what the response is as long as there is one. Its first job is to come up with a response; then its second job is to have a response to its response.

When One Quiz Show isn't Enough

The stimulus of writing about Family Feud had me think of The Price is Right. On this show, a player is invited to pick the set of matching his/hers motorcycles or take what is behind curtain number two.

So the choice is between something known – the motorcycles, and the unknown – whatever is lurking behind the curtain.

Your mind is continually faced with this sort of choice. Should it take its first response or should it risk taking the next response? It knows what its first response is but the second response is behind curtain number 2 and is unknown. It has to trade the known for the unknown. It is forced to make this kind of decision millions of times a day.

Most of the time when it makes these choices, it does so beneath the level of attention. But, wedged between your first known response and your second, unknown response, is the little jewel your mind wants: Attention.

Your poor mind, it is constantly being quizzed, tested and very seldom rewarded. On a quiz show, there is an end to this process. There are only so many curtains that you can pick from and at a certain point you get to go home having won or lost. But your mind is caught in eternal quiz show hell, not really knowing if it won or lost and having to go on choosing and doing its best with the slimmest of feedback.

Sorry for using the quiz show example to illustrate the dilemma of your mind but it really is apt. If you don't know how your mind works in relatively simple terms, you can't provide it with relief. Begin to tune into your mind, catching it as it throws out responses, hoping that the responses are the correct ones. Watch, too, as it is offered the opportunity to trade for the unknown behind the curtain.

Relief at Last

Within the process of how the mind works, is the relief the mind needs. The mind thinks that it is in charge of what happens. It thinks that its answers are the determining factors in what you say, do, accomplish and think.

Knowing how the mind works makes it possible for you to observe what the mind is doing without taking the mind's responses seriously. When you think that your thinking is "the truth," there is huge pressure on your thinking. When you take your thinking lightly, the mind becomes what it always was meant to be: Entertaining.

Using your mind for endless entertainment, relieves your mind. It removes the burden from the mind and thinking becomes fun and funny instead of dead serious.

But I haven't told you how to take the pressure off of your mind yet. I have told you the pressure needs to be off of the mind, and I have explained a lot about thoughts, but promised you that life will be better. So here comes the really good stuff.

The Really Good Stuff

The incredibly good, magical and mind relieving news is that if you don't grab on to the first response that your mind throws at you – the completely automatic response, there is another response, and another and another and another. You can be like the pitcher in baseball shaking off the sign from the catcher (your mind).

If you are under great pressure, it is seldom your first response that is the most useful. If you are having an argument with your sweetheart and he/she says something truly nasty like, "Your mother is a _____________." (please feel free to fill in the blank with your first response, then your second response, then third and then fourth.)

When your spouse speaks that way about your mother, a fight of first responses begins. First responses come fast and furious; nobody wins when knee-jerk, insecure minds clash. It's your mind's first instinct to defend itself in the presence of a perceived threat, and your mind perceives almost everything as a threat. Your first response is usually the dumbest, and after the forth or fifth response, you probably begin to notice that you actually agree, at least in part, with what your spouse said about your sainted mother.

Your first response is usually the most knee-jerk of the row of responses – the most automated one, or you could just say, the most jerky one.

Your mind is constantly trying to please and defend you. It does so by throwing responses at you until you grab (believe) one. Believing one means simply not noticing the next response which makes the one you stopped at "true," at least true for you that moment.

The real beauty of the mind isn't its accuracy at all; it is the mind's ability to pitch response after response tirelessly. Again, your mind doesn't care what responses it throws at you, it just seeks to throw out one that gets your attention.

Art and poetry are the result of noticing later responses, while fighting and overreacting are usually the result of grabbing at a first response.

Not taking your first response often provides you with peaceful pleasure. (Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.)

When you don't take your first response but notice what it was, and you don't take your second response but notice what it was, you have taken a huge leap toward getting to know who you really are. How does that work? When you don't grab onto your first response for dear life, a number of things happen.

1. You mind notices that things aren't serious.

2. Your mind then reacts to both the original stimulus and your first response.

3. You discover that your mind isn't really a dictator. (there is always an alternative response)

4. There is a strong gentle pull toward a third or fourth or fortieth response.

Let's explore each of these in greater detail, wallowing in the benefits of this simple exercise, which can remove the tension or pressure from any situation.

Your Mind Notices that Things Aren't Serious

When you don't take your first response, your second response is almost always lighter and less demanding. Your third response is even lighter, and your mind begins to lighten up naturally. As your mind becomes less serious, so do your thoughts and your mind doesn't have to respond so quickly, which lightens you up even more. Lightness builds on itself.

Your Mind then Reacts to Both the Original Stimulus and Your First Response

As you watch the responses, each one not taken dilutes the original stimulus, so your next response is partially from the initial stimulus but it is also influenced by each subsequent response.

In other words: Watching your responses without taking them, personalizes the process of thinking. Thinking, in turn, becomes more personal and less reactive. Your mind can actually get the attention it needs by sharing in the experience of observing itself, rejoicing in responses not taken and relaxing into a new and friendly internal universe, where it is not responsible for thinking the same thing over and over again just to survive.

As you don't take your early responses, your self-esteem will rise because you will have explored broader expanses of who you really are in the process of thinking and observing your thoughts.

Exercise # 8: Responses

Practice observing your first and second and third responses, then take your fourth response. Vary the number of the response you grab onto. Your responses go on infinitely, so you can observe ten, or twenty or even a hundred responses without grabbing any of them. Predictable things show up the more responses you observe.

1-2: You are hooked

5-6: You are unhooked

20: You are humored

32: You are peaceful

65: You are present

100: You are awakening

Infinite: You are enlightened

These aren't hard and fast numbers, but they give you an idea of ranges of responses.

You Discover that Your Mind isn't Really a Dictator

It may appear at first that the importance of your mind is based on you believing each thought. That is the essence of a closed (immature) mind. But a thought can receive attention just by being noticed.

Your mind isn't really trying to dictate what you do; it is just trying to get attention. Your mind can share in the fun of you not believing what it is thinking, freeing your mind to come up with more creative, outrageous and entertaining responses.

The essence of creativity is wandering further and further from the normal, defensive first responses of an immature mind. As you learn to observe responses without grabbing them, your mind starts having fun. Your mind also is nourished by the tiny burst of attention (the jewel) between responses.

There is a Strong Gentle Pull Toward a Third or Fourth or Fortieth Response

As you observe responses, you will discover subtle pleasure in the very process of observation.

Observation is attention without action.

When you don't have to respond, you can get to know yourself. You can discover that you aren't one response believed, but you are the sum of all possible responses. Not grabbing your first response for dear life has you tap into more and more possibilities.

My first book was about 250, arduous pages. It was tough to write and would have been tough to read. The good news is that nobody read it. I threw it out. Those were 250 pages that needed to be written to clear my mind and opinions I had about writing, so the possibility of my next book, Thinking Clearly, could be written and published and enjoyed by a lot of people.

Possibilities are what the mind is really great at generating. In fact, when you used to take your first response as the gospel, your mind couldn't and didn't explore other possibilities. It was constrained and limited in ways that it, by not taking your first response, is now rewarded. An open mind loves possibilities; and a day well spent is a day in the land of possibilities.

When your mind is focused on possibilities, you will come up with new and creative ideas all over the place. You will feed yourself and those around you by being interesting and novel. Your flexibility will sky rocket and you will get stuck much less often. You are in for a party because you are the party. Instead of seeking to derive value, self worth and validation for your mind from relationship, you will bring value, self work and validation to relationship, your job and every other aspect of your life.

Practice, and More Practice, Provides Relief, More Relief

Not taking your first or even second response relieves your mind incredibly. Now it is time to practice this.

Remember that thinking about practicing isn't the same as experiencing it for yourself. You can think about practicing or you can sit down with a friend and just practice.

Exercise # 9: Later Responses

Have the friend say a word and notice the first word that comes into your mind, or the first picture or feeling. Don't say the first word and another word shows up. Say the second word out loud then your friend says the first word he/she thinks. You say your second word and the friend gives the first word. So you are always giving your second response with the friend giving their first response. After you have done this a few times, go out to your fourth response while the friend keeps giving the first response. Practice this for a few minutes then switch roles with the friend and then you give your first response while the friend gives the second and then fourth.

Advanced Exercise: Both of you give your fifth response back and forth and back and forth. Notice the bond that develops between you. Notice, too, how relaxed you become by not having to take your first response.

It's Magical and it Works in so Many Ways!

The results from this simple observation exercise are palpable. Can you feel them?

The more often you don't take your first response and the more you practice taking later responses, the more relief your mind will experience and that is when miracles start to happen.

If you were on a life raft in choppy seas, you probably wouldn't spend much time painting, would you?

Painting might be the last thing on your mind. Your mind has been under such pressure that it has ignored the art of living and gotten tangled up in the trauma of being right and surviving. Not taking your first response or your second or even your third response relieves your mind so that it can get on with the art of living. It can create, it can entertain you and it is free, probably for the first time in a loooooooooooooong time, to enjoy life.

Your mind is creative; it is perhaps your best friend and ally. You and your mind are in for a treat.

Not only will your mind reveal itself to be much more creative, it will also get faster, more accurate and remember things more clearly. When taken off the firing line of control, the mind is capable of incredible feats.

As you shift from grabbing makeshift mental responses, you will begin to discover that you don't actually ever have to respond!

No Response Necessary.

You don't ever have to respond.

What I am suggesting is beyond the scope of this manuscript, but, with practice, it will happen to you.

As you begin to discover that you don't have to respond, you will also get to know deeper parts of yourself. When you don't take your first response, there is the possibility that your next response will be from a deeper level. By the time you get out to your tenth or twentieth response, it is way more likely that this simple game will teach you or remind you that you have many very interesting layers and aspects of yourself.

Discovering these layers has inherent in it, the discovery of yourself, not as a responder but as a stimulus: Always a stimulus.

***

## Chapter 7

Time to play

Novelty

If you have done the exercises in the previous chapters, you should feel less stress, more freedom and relief from the pressures of your mind. If you haven't done the exercises, please go back and do them. Remember, the more often you do the exercises the more relief you will feel.

Now that relief is here we get to play a little bit.

Let's recap. Your mind wants and needs attention. All minds need attention and they will do anything to get it. When your mind is open and relaxed, your mind loves novelty. When your mind is closed and defensive, it needs consistency.

It is easy to tell what state your mind is in because if novelty (all sorts of new and different stuff) tickles you, then your mind is opening. Isn't it cool when a new movie comes out or a new restaurant comes to town? Newness thrills us. If you love habit and repetition and you try and keep everything the same all the time, then your mind is defending itself and closing, and chances are you find new things threatening.

It really is that simple. So now that your mind is opening, let's get on with some less than serious play.

Exercise # 10 Novelty

Find ways to add novelty to every nook and cranny of your life.

Basic Examples:

Talk on the phone using the other ear.

Put your other pant leg on first.

Brush you teeth with the other hand.

Sleep on the other side of the bed.

Drive a different route to work.

Speak faster than usual. (New Yorkers, speak slower.)

Advanced Examples:

Have someone feed you a meal.

Learn to write with the other hand.

Go out and sell something to someone random.

Walk backwards for a bit.

Sneeze upward.

Share this manual with someone.

Feed your mind novelty today and I promise you a better tomorrow.

What Protects You Makes You Weaker

In the olden days, knights wore armor. From what I hear, armor was very hot and very, very heavy. Armor itself got in the way of life; it restricted movement and was terribly difficult to wear.

Your armor is your thinking.

Not your original thinking, but your structured, repetitious, automatic thinking.

Spending your time believing your thoughts has you act like a turtle that has retreated into its shell. While the turtle may think it is safe, it can't eat and it can't move around. While turtles live a very long time, they actually don't spend much of their life hiding in their shells. Life with head and feet exposed make life worth living; living hiding out doesn't.

You hide out too and you might not even be aware of it.

You are a multi-dimensional being; there are a lot of layers to you. Often you are trapped on the surface, reacting to your thoughts as though they were true and living a serious life. You are virtually hiding on that superficial level.

But the surface is turbulent, like the surface of a lake. Any breeze or disturbance influences the surface. Any piece of bad news, a speeding ticket or even a parking ticket upsets you.

Your deeper levels are calm, peaceful and powerful.

First responses keep you in the shallows; later responses reveal your depths. They also invite you into a magical world in which there are no accidents, mistakes, less than productive behaviors or threats to your well being.

What Deepens You Makes You Stronger

Imagine what it would be like if you didn't have access to things below the surface of Earth. Heck, you would have to live without turnips and peanuts. There would be way less gravel and not much gold either. Diamonds would be even scarcer than they are. I have no idea how you would get around because there would be no oil or gas.

There would be very little metal and no coal. We would have to live in warm climates and walk places. Life would be very different.

I wonder what life would be like if you were able to tap into your own depths. What wonderments you would discover there.? As you tap into your depths, you will discover new and profound resources that will allow play to generate more bountiful results than you have ever produced with work.

The energies in your depths are great – the wisdom dazzling and powerful. Most people don't, except in brief moments of great tragedy or insight, tap into their depths. Not taking your first response or your second or even your third, makes it much more likely that you will begin to tap into other levels of you, where your real natural resources are.

This Journey Begins with the First Step

You are entering a new world – a world in which your mind supports you and works with other aspects of you as an equal partner. Your old world will still be available, the world in which you defended and responded, but you won't spend much time there. Why would you?

You have already taken several steps in this new world. When you notice that thoughts are just a bunch of pictures, sounds and feelings, that's an important step. When you begin noticing the difference between observation and judgement, that is another important step. Yet another step is when you don't take your first response.

Yes, you have entered a new world. Now it is time to provide you some orientation in this new world of yours. You need to learn up from down, inside from outside and East from South.

Most people lack orientation; they wander around aimlessly. They wonder why they don't have what they want. You can't have what you want until you know where you are. If you wanted to go to Tampa, the most important part of getting there is knowing where you are now. If you want to be happy, healthy, wealth or wise, the most important first step is to just know how happy, healthy, wealthy or wise you are right now.

Knowing where you are allows you to celebrate when you progress. Not knowing where you are has you not even notice that you have a lot to celebrate.

Most people don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. Yikes, I don't even want you to imagine the problems this causes, but watch people and you will see people continually not acting in their own best interest. That is because their own best interest isn't available when their minds are driving them crazy.

At the beginning of a journey, before you do anything, before you think anything, before you even decide (or choose) anything, you must orient yourself. In the case this new world created by the radical shift in your relationship with your mind, you need orientation. Orientation, as I am speaking of it, is all about attitude. Please let me explain.

What is Attitude I Hope You Ask?

Lots of people talk about attitude but few know what it is. Attitude is your philosophical orientation. Attitude is your answer to the question: "How friendly or unfriendly is the world?" Your attitude about how friendly or unfriendly the world is totally determines the quality of each moment.

I define attitude as a specific orientation toward everything. I have discovered a single attitude that provides me with more possibilities and keeps me consistently growing no matter what I am doing.

The attitude that I suggest here will serve you in a foreign country, it will serve you in the depths of yourself, it will serve you at a restaurant, it will serve you in business, it will make your vacations more fun and rewarding and not only have people like you, but have you like them and you like yourself as well. Attitude will provide an overall, unchanging method or approach to all that you meet on your journeys.

With the proper attitude, it won't make any difference whether you are lost or found, whether you are winning or losing or whether you are currently thinking you are right or wrong. Without the proper attitude, you will, at best, suffer a good deal and, at worst, you will get in your own way over and over again.

While some people say that attitude is everything, it isn't. It is a darned good start and with the proper attitude at the start, the mood for the journey is appropriately set.

What is the Right Attitude?

I hope that at this point you are asking that question. If not, please re-read the last few paragraphs. If so, please take a nice comfortable breath, get curious and I will tell you a little story . . .

Once upon a time there were two men. One of these men was big and strong strapping fellow; the other wasn't very big, wasn't very strong and lacked the smarts the good lord gave him. While there were many differences between these two men, the difference that made the difference was attitude. The first man, the bigger, stronger and smarter of the two, approached each situation with confidence as though what he knew was much greater than what he could learn. He approached new challenges full of himself, up to the task and certain both that he would succeed and that he already knew everything.

The second smaller, weaker and not so bright man approached every situation as though he missed almost everything all the time and was grateful for anything and everything that came his way. He was always curious, continually questioning and attentive. He knew well that what he knew was only a small piece of what could be known and he was thrilled each moment, tickled by anything and everything he learned.

It didn't take the big, smart strong guy to get into trouble, and it didn't take the smaller, weaker, more curious and open guy to succeed mightily.

New Attitude – New Life

The place to begin your new attitude is with a theoretical and then practical appreciation of one simple and incontrovertible fact.

You miss almost everything almost all the time and act as though you get almost everything all the time.

I invite you to read that statement a few times in hopes that you will get it more fully, and in doing so, miss a little bit less. You miss almost everything almost all the time and act as though you get almost everything all the time.

This simple statement, thought and then experienced, provides an orientation you can use now and will always need later. The statement begins a new description of your relationship with everyone and everything.

At first it may seem like just words but as you begin to integrate it into more and more aspects of your life, you will discover that it assists you in letting go and lightening up just when you need to. It is an ally which is always there, always ready. Allow me to explain.

You miss almost everything almost all the time while thinking that you get almost everything almost all the time.

Exercise #11 Witnessing

Ask yourself the following questions often:

What are you missing this moment?

What are you missing in this moment that could transform your life?

What are you missing in this moment that puts you on the defensive?

What are you missing in this moment that has you be asleep?

What are you missing in this moment?

Here are few more questions for you. Please feel free to come up with your own questions.

Are you missing how funny you are?

Are you missing some of your resources?

Where are you hiding?

What do you think is absolutely true?

Are you missing the fun of life?

Are you missing the agony of defeat?

Are you missing a chance to be spontaneous?

Are you missing the joke?

Are you missing almost everything almost all the time?

Become endlessly curious about what you are missing. A closed mind focuses on what it knows (what it is getting). An open mind rejoices as it gets endlessly curious about what it is missing.

How to Be an Ass

I assume that I am an ass. I don't waste any energy trying not to be an ass. Ironically, when I assume that I am an ass, I am usually much less of an ass and I can dance with possibilities because I don't have to be careful.

But if I am expending energy trying not to be an ass, then I am truly an ass's ass. Asses want people to like them, not noticing that the people who like them, like them and the people who don't like them don't like them.

Asses continually try and influence things they can't influence, like the past or the future. They spend their time worrying about what may happen or regretting what did. They believe their thoughts to the extent that they think their thoughts are all there is and miss out on everything else. Asses simply don't get the message no matter how many times it is delivered. Asses don't embrace the attitude or orientation that they miss almost everything almost all the time and they think that they get almost everything almost all the time.

Trying not to be an ass makes you an ass. Trying to be an ass has you be an ass and know it. A wise man uses and can sit with his "assness," enjoying and embracing it. A fool resists being an ass and thus, continually denies and protests his very nature.

Knowing that you miss almost everything almost all the time and that you act, think and believe that you get almost everything almost all the time, is your nature and thus, it is the first step toward getting to know yourself.

Remembering that you miss almost everything almost all the time is as close as you can come to an antidote for being human. It allows you to forgive yourself. It even allows you to forgive yourself in advance.

Forgiving yourself in advance is the essence of this orientation.

Exercise # 12 Opposites

You miss almost everything almost all the time and think that you get almost everything almost all the time.

The simple, novel exercise to provide you with the attitude: "You miss almost everything almost all the time" is:

Speak when you don't want to speak and don't speak when you have to say something. Fight when you aren't moved to fight and wage peace when you are moved to fight. If you do this, you will find that you not only can act independently of what your mind is telling you to do, but that you usually aren't obeying your mind when you are having fun. Your thoughts were after attention not contributing to you living a better life.

Do the exact opposite of your initial temptation.

Move in closer if you want to get away.

Whisper if you want to scream.

Stand tall if you want to curl up in a little ball.

Speak if you can't find any words.

Be obvious if you want to hide.

A friend of mine called me a few years ago. At first, I didn't recognize his voice. He was terrified and needed my help. He explained that he had been working a top-secret government facility; he couldn't tell me what he had been working on. He had recently quit and was absolutely certain that the FBI was after him and that they were going to kill him.

I had known this guy for a long time and never seen him act the least bit crazy. He truly believed what he was saying and wanted my support in escaping alive. I was worried about him, but I knew that telling him that he was acting crazy would only make things worse.

"The FBI has a very difficult job," I began, "They need to protect and defend when it isn't even obvious what they are protecting and defending. They need to find people who are hiding from them." He confirmed that to be the case. "So, I request that you make their job easier."

He lived on about ten acres and right behind his house was a large hill. I requested that at noon each day for a week he climb the hill and stand, obvious as can be, on top of the hill. That way the FBI can find him, making their job easier. He knew me well enough, even though he was very scared, to do what I said. Three days later he called me having followed my instructions to a "T.""They aren't really after me, are they?" he asked.

"No, I don't think they are."

Your mind can cook up all kinds of madness for you, but you don't have to believe it and you don't have to act on it.

Often doing exactly the opposite of your immediate tendency reveals that your mind was convinced of something that isn't the least bit true. Oddly, and humorously, doing the opposite of what you are driven to do often leads you to deeper aspects of yourself.

Living with the fact that you miss almost everything almost all the time and act like you get almost everything all the time will allow you to step out of your armor, it will relieve and relax you as you discover that your defenses aren't necessary and weren't working anyway.

You miss almost everything almost all the time and operate as though you get almost everything almost all the time. Approach your life with this attitude and you are in for a wonderful ride. Adopt that attitude and you have taken the first, important step toward getting to know yourself.

Baaaaaaa, Baaaaaaaaaaa

Most people are sheep. They blindly do what their mind tells them to do.

The simple definition of a sheep is someone who looks inside themselves when they should be looking outside of themselves, and looks outside of themselves when they should be looking inside themselves. You can find these people practically everywhere.

These are the people who are driven to get better by hopes and dreams, not by actions. These are the people who buy the next great thing culture offers them and avoid self- knowledge like the plague. These are the people who are the victims of their own thoughts and dreams, always taking their first response.

You don't have to be a sheep.

If you have had enough of being a sheep:

Don't take your first response.

Observe your thoughts.

Return to your senses.

Sing in the shower.

Become a friend of your mind.

Eat with your opposite hand.

Giggle often at nothing in particular.

Do the opposite of what you are driven to do.

Back to You Miss Almost Everything Almost All the Time

Yes, you miss almost everything all the time. You miss feelings, you miss opportunities, you miss thoughts, you miss romance, you miss love, you miss respect, you miss owning everything and being everywhere.

If you can begin to get that you miss almost everything almost all the time, you will begin to feel the first positive rumbles of an earthquake, which will shake up your world in a wonderful way.

An old friend of mine used to say that the opportunity of a lifetime comes along at least once a day. As you begin to approach the world knowing that you miss almost everything almost all the time, you will discover that it actually comes along each moment.

What my old friend meant by the opportunity of a lifetime coming along at least once a day, was that you didn't need to grab it when it shows up because something else will come along again soon. What I mean, is something much deeper and more profound. I mean that you don't ever need to grab it. It will grab you if you are observant and open when it shows up.

As you master attention, the more obvious it will become that you don't have to reach out and grab things. They will come to you. You don't have to end a relationship by some force of mind. In fact, ending it that way doesn't end it at all. It only ends when it is time to end.

There are so many things that your mind is trying to control. Lightening up and letting go will relieve your mind and make every little moment a delight.

Once you discover that you miss almost everything almost all the time and act like you get almost everything all the time, you will lighten up. You naturally will forget that you miss almost everything almost all the time, and when you remember that you do, you will let go of all sorts of things and smile or giggle more and frown less, or appear serious less often. You simply can't approach what your real treasure is, seriously. Digging your way there takes too long and won't turn out well. Learning your way there is a bit like digging: It won't work either.

Notice how you hold to "the truth" which is anything that you think in the moment. Loosen your grip on the truth; consider that "the truth" might be only one possible truth of many. In fact, imagine that what is the truth to you at this moment might not be the truth to you in the next moment.

People used to think the world was flat; in fact, they were convinced of it. Ancient medicine used to greatly value leeches as a tool for heath. Personally I have only had a couple of leeches on me and, believe me, I didn't feel any better about any aspect of life until I got them off and the places they sucked stopped itching.

When you hold tightly to your thoughts you miss even more than almost everything almost all the time. Imagine that you are headed to Disney World for a day with the kids. That could certainly be fun. But then imagine that you have to take your dresser and your refrigerator with you to Disney World. That would make the whole day a lot harder and much less fun. Heck, they might not even let you in the place.

Taking yourself seriously – holding on to "the truth" – is like bringing unnecessary stuff along wherever you go. It makes your travels very limited. If you bring along baggage about your mother and your ex-spouse, the next relationship is way, way more difficult.

The incredibly good news is that you can get anything you really need from reality and reality is everywhere. You don't need to hold onto the truth, the truth is what is. God remembered isn't nearly as liberating or enlightening as God experienced in the moment.

Love remembered, or held to or believed isn't the same as love in the moment. Because dinner at your favorite restaurant was great last night doesn't mean that the same food will be good in a week or a month or a year. The food spoils, it doesn't keep indefinitely. Ideas, thoughts and beliefs spoil much, much faster than food does.

You miss almost everything almost all the time and act, think and believe that you get almost everything almost all the time. Learn it! Get it! Live it! Love it!

***

## Chapter 8

Rediscovering Your Mind

Working and playing with people's minds over the past thirty years has been quite a treat. I have watched as people transformed their relationship with their minds, transforming their lives at the same time.

Everyone I have worked with has gotten benefit, and often the magnitude of the benefit they receive is in direct proportion to how wild their mind is.

Can I tell you a couple of stories?

A number of years ago I worked with a group of school district administrators. The superintendent of schools was among them and I knew from the start that he was in trouble. I watched subtle changes in him as the workshop day went on. You know the way a spring storm comes in out of nowhere, dumps a bunch of rain and then is gone?

Watching him was like watching a spring storm. His jaw would tighten, his eyes would glass over a little bit and he would frown. But before he did any of this, he would stare straight forward with his eyes defocused. I knew from years of experience that he was seeing a picture in his head and was reacting to that picture even though he had no idea what it was.

On a break, he approached me for personal help. It seems that he was ready to quit his job and get divorced. Having watched him with his co-workers, I could tell that they liked him and that he was doing a good job. He had been married for 38 years. As we talked, that spring storm came through again and I interrupted it. I stopped him mid sentence and said loudly, "What is that?"

I caught him in the act of picturing something. Caught, his jaw went slack, his eyes grew large and round. He relaxed and started to tear up.

Turns out that he was being haunted by a picture beneath the level of his awareness. The content of the picture doesn't matter but I will tell you anyway. Two years before the workshop, he had run over his son's foot with a power lawn mower. That picture had taken over his life and he wasn't even aware that it had. Becoming aware of the picture made all the difference to him. I followed up with him later and he was enjoying both his job and his marriage.

_Moral:_ It is often what we are doing that we don't know that we are doing that gives us a hard time. _Remember:_ You miss almost everything almost all the time and act like you get almost everything almost all the time.

Jim did a course of mine a few short years ago. He is a nuclear physicist. Though I am a teacher, I take every opportunity to learn. In this case, I had a lot to learn. Before the course even started, I asked him about nuclear power. Turns out that his job was counting atoms. He works at a nuclear plant and has to provide an accounting of atoms to the government on a regular basis.

Accounting for something so small seemed quite magical to me. So did the fact that Barium atoms absorb hundreds of times their own weight of loose electrons when it is time to cool the core of the reactor down.

Amazing stuff. Jim was amazing too. He was tall and slim with a big mustache and was socially cumbersome. It didn't take long to realize why. He had no pictures of himself in his own head – No representation of himself at all. With a little practice in the mirror and a bit of exploration of his feelings, he excitedly began making pictures of himself.

We didn't stop there though. His energy flow was very small in that long distance between his head and his toes. Like many engineers I have worked with. he tended to lock himself way up in his head and ignore his emotions and feelings.

While you may not like what I suggested to him, he certainly did. In fact, with one little exercise, his whole life changed radically. He had never been a ladies' man. It's not that he didn't like the ladies; he wasn't able to approach them. And though they may have noticed him, they never got a chance to know him.

I apologize in advance for what I am going to tell you next. The way that I work isn't that I figure out what I am doing in advance. I trust much deeper parts of myself to sort things out and then I just do whatever I am told to do. I listen carefully to those deeper parts of myself: Always. In this case, I was told to do something outrageous.

I said to Jim, "From now on, when you talk, I want you to talk to your penis." If you are saying good morning to a co-worker, I want you also saying good morning to your penis. If you are talking about the weather, you are telling your penis about the weather. Every time you talk, make sure that you include your penis as part of who you are talking to.

Jim laughed uncomfortably, as you might expect. It wasn't until a couple of months later that I saw Jim again. He was standing tall, had on a white shirt with the collar open and looked like he had just walked off the set of a cowboy movie. He was the good guy and he had stories about how the women were chasing him. His whole life had turned around in those few short months. He was excited, and was now ready for more play. He had a steady girl and we explored how to make relationship rewarding and how to make it last.

You may want to attend a workshop sometime. Actually, I would really like it if you did. We have an incredible time and your life will never be the same in wonderful ways.

Getting Your Mind Right

Putting your mind in perspective is important. It creates a revolution of gigantic proportions in your life. When you have the badly needed mental relief and you have become friends with your mind, you can get on with other kinds of really delightful exploration.

The exercises in this manuscript are sufficient to relieve your mind of its burdens and urge it to take on a far more appropriate job than temperamental ruler of the known universe.

Once your mind is relieved, it begins working for you, harmonizing with deeper parts of you and making your life an entertaining and inspiring symphony.

You will look back on what things were like when your mind was out of control and marvel at how far you have come and how much fun you are having. You will also be quite surprised at what a great companion your mind is. It has a great sense of humor and it is able, when not under stress and tension, to create a life worth living.

The Little Map of You

With your mind relieved, you can lightly continue the process of getting to know yourself.

Getting to know yourself is discovering that you are a multi-dimensional being.

You range from very deep to astonishingly shallow. You are all of these levels at the same time but your attention doesn't have access to all the levels, in fact, it doesn't have the ability to tap into anything but the more shallow levels. But it is always influenced by the depths.

Your thoughts have more restricted access than your attention and your senses are between your attention and your thoughts. Below your attention is energy, and even deeper than that is who you really are.

In the pecking order of you, thoughts are very, very superficial. If thoughts are grabbing much of our attention, then they really aren't likely to be very accurate, rewarding or relevant. If you think that thoughts are relevant, then you institutionalize missing almost everything almost all the time while thinking that you are getting almost everything almost all the time.

Even shallower than your thoughts is your speaking. Speaking is just the auditory component of thoughts. When you focus your attention on what you say, then you are even less relevant than when you focus on your thoughts.

Can you see how small a part of yourself and how superficial a part of yourself thinking is?

When you think that thinking is relevant, when you buy Descartes'' line, "I think therefore I am," you are taking a tiny, insecure, partial representation to be all of you.

Sample Rate

Remember a few chapters back I said I would mention sample rate and how useful it can be to both relieving your mind and tapping into deeper aspects of you? Well, time has come to speak of sample rate.

If you wanted to know who was going to win the election, you wouldn't just ask one random person who they were going to vote for and assume that meant who they were voting for would be the winner.

But if you needed to know who was going to win now, you also couldn't wait until election day when the votes were in. Gallup polls people by figuring out how many people, and how diverse a sampling of people, reflects a whole group. While the process of sampling to extrapolate a whole is both math and science, it also has a certain degree of error built into it. While it can be wrong, it usually won't be.

Gallup knows that the more people it samples and the wider population those samples are from, the more likely the resulting projection will be accurate. In your depths, the sampling is intense and wide, providing great accuracy. In the shallower parts of who you are, the sampling is sparse and narrow, meaning that its projections more closely represent random results rather than methodical accuracy.

Thoughts contain few samples and have a very narrow range. They, by their inaccuracy, put you in constant danger. Your mind reacts to that danger by closing and becoming defensive and certain. Your mind perceives that it is under attack, and it responds accordingly.

The best defense that the mind has to fear is to become more certain, more stuck, less flexible and that is exactly what it does. Its defense is against its own inaccuracy. When you take your mind seriously, you pit it against itself because its samples are few and far between, yet it wants to be certain. The fewer samples you take and the smaller range of samples the less certain you should be, but a defensive, insecure mind becomes more and more certain. It circles the wagons and defends its right to be wrong.

What your mind needs to do, is increase both the quantity of samples and the diversity (quality) of samples, but since it is already scared, it shrinks instead of expanding.

Training your mind to wait for more samples and taking deeper samples is a slow arduous process. Actually, the real game in getting to know yourself is not to make your mind deeper; it is to use the deeper aspects of yourself – (attention, energy and being) when your mind is overwhelmed. The "Opposite" exercise from the last chapter accomplished this feat effortlessly. The simple opposite for relieving any closed mind is "Surrender when you want to fight."

If your mind can't surrender or really needs to be right or is just stuck way too deeply in the mud of thought, there is another way out.

When your mind is just way, way too stuck, scared, defensive, righteous or lonely, all you need to do is ask a question. If you are in the midst of an argument with someone else or if it is an internal battle you are fighting, just ask a question. But the question must be asked with genuine curiosity.

If your spouse says "You should have taken the trash out. I can't believe that you didn't take it out already!" you might ask "Would you like me to take it out now?" or you might say "Was it my turn to take it out?"

Your question has to be sincere and if you are interacting with someone else you should shift your attention from inside of you to outside of you as you ask.

Giving Birth to Yourself

When you were first coming into the world, the closeness of contractions indicated how imminent your birth.

In the process of getting to know yourself, and your mind, you will experience expansions. Giving birth to yourself, getting to know yourself, the closeness of your expansions indicate imminent birth. They also indicate tapping into your depths, which is accompanied by awakening and possibly even enlightenment.

You are reminded that your roof leaks when it rains. But you don't fix the leak when it is raining, you would get all wet. When it is sunny and beautiful out, your roof doesn't leak anymore so you certainly wouldn't fix it them. The conclusion to this simple logic of the mind is that the roof never gets fixed.

What I am trying to tell you is: When the going gets tough, you get what you have practiced.

Practice when things are going well. Practice noticing the difference between observations and judgments. Practice the "I am" exercise to build your self-esteem. Practice, practice and practice some more. Get to know your depths when you don't need them and they will be there as a resource when you do need them.

Back to Sample Rate

Somebody says, "You look nice today." They have thrown out a stimulus. There is no tactical difference between what they have said and them saying, "You look awful today." Both phrases are identical to your mind. Each is an attempt to impose a point of view.

Notice your response when someone says, "You look nice today." Then notice your second response and your third and your fourth. Like Gallup, you are taking a bigger sample of your responses and by doing so, you are using a simple comment as an opportunity to get to know yourself.

If you grab your first response, you have polled one voter and jumped to a conclusion. If you take your tenth response, you have polled ten voters and your response will be much more accurate, more fun and might even yield a profound result from a not very profound comment.

On the North pole or in Venice, in your front room or backyard, at church or the mall, with friends or by yourself: Anywhere, anytime, with anyone is the perfect place and time and company to get to know yourself more fully and more deeply.

When you have the voting results from ten voters on two or three precincts, you don't project a winner. But your thinking, when you rely on it as the sole or a very important source of data, jumps wildly to conclusions with either very little data or manufactured data.

The two primary tools that the mind uses to extrapolate data are rationality and logic – the two primary tools that the mind uses to convince itself it is right are bullying and closing.

A closed mind is a terrible place and it makes your life less worth living.

You need to open to your depths, and to open to your depths, you need to not respond, and not respond some more. Only in not responding can you discover what your mind has been up to and why. When you discover this, you can finally forgive your mind and get on with living as the multi-dimensional being that you are. You deserve a break today and you can only have one when your mind is relieved of stress, tension and the need to control.

The Depths

Remember you are both shallow and deep.

As the famous fisherman Buck Perry said, "The fish are in the shallows, in the deep or in between."

Your thoughts hang out in the shallows, they can't stand the depths and they will say, do or imagine anything to keep away from the depths.

Your words are shallower than your thoughts and your feelings are deeper.

Your attention is deeper yet, and your source of energy even deeper.

While you may make a lot of money, get divorced, get married – practically anything to stay away from the depths, you won't know genuine satisfaction, presence, passion, relationships or peace until you tap into your depths, which is only possible when your mind is finally at peace.

Upsets are the vehicle of communication between the shallows and the depths.

You sit somewhere near the surface like a carnival game. You want to win the cuddly teddy bear and to do so, you have to whack the moles with a hammer when they pop their heads through little holes.

You sit, poised, waiting for any upset to show up and you smack them down as hard and fast as you can. You do this all day long and wonder why, at the end of the day, you are tired.

The teddy bear eludes you; smacking the upsets becomes intrinsically rewarding and you are lost. You don't dare be lost, so your thinking swoops in and suggests that you are found.

Once your thinking has successfully defined lost as found, you are left with hope and little else because your life is a thin shell of what it could be. You become a fragile exoskeleton, breakable and desperately missing the energy and passion that makes living worthwhile.

Tapping into your depths returns you to a world of attention, with you as the source of attention. it reminds you that you are an energy source too and that your being is intrinsically of value.

You Can Do It

You can put your mind in perspective; you can make friends with it and fall in love with it.

A wild mind is the least lovable and loving thing on the planet. When you fall in love with the least lovable thing on the planet, you have certainly accomplished something magical.

Using the Self Exploratory Tools explained in this manuscript will help you fall in love with your mind.

Read back over the manuscript, do the exercises and watch, listen and feel into your depths as your mind lightens up and lets go.

Your mind can't tap into your depths, but it can benefit from your attention going down, down, down into the deeper parts of you.

In a later manuscript, I will get into how to access your depths. For now you have a bunch of new tools to interact with your mind – Self Exploratory Tools. Enjoy! Play!

As your mind quiets, you will experience a deep sense of well being and peace, and out of that tranquil experience, will rise new forms of motivation and new, much more spiritual, aspects of you that we will explore in other manuscripts.

For now, congratulations to you and your mind; you have begun an amazing process, a process that will provide endless rewards for YOU. Your mind has always done its best and now it will do much better and better providing you with incredible, creative and energizing thoughts. It will also likely generate some worldly success, freeing up your time and energy for an exploration of your depths.

If you get the idea that I have more to say, you are certainly correct about that. Some of our courses go for two weeks with long hours each day. At the end of the two weeks, people don't want to leave. They want more. Practice all that is available in the Mind Relief Manuscript and as you reap the reward available here, just let me know when you are ready for more.

Congratulations!

You completed the Mind Relief Manuscript.

Remember to go back and practice the exercises. Each time you do will reveal new and profound insights into the depths of who you really are. I invite you to read this book again whenever you are searching for Mind Relief. I promise that each time will be like reading a different book as you notice more of the magic contained within.

In the interim, visit my blog, at <http://www.jerrystocking.com/blog>

I write only articles that will make your life more peaceful and fun.

Finally, ask yourself who in your life is stressed and a hostage of their mind. Do you see them differently after reading this book? Is it easier to feel compassion for them and see how they believe their mind?

Consider giving them their own free copy of the Mind Relief Manuscript. Just send them the link to: <http://www.selfexploratorytools.com/MRM>

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## Who is Jerry Stocking?

Jerry Stocking, your mind advocate, is a modern day Thoreau living in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in North Georgia with a view of our culture from the outside. Each day in his mountain retreat is an endless exploration of existence, consciousness, and feeling what it is to be a human being. Being present and mapping the terrain back to who we really are is Jerry's main occupation. His thirty-two acre farm creates an atmosphere conducive to introspection, opening, and playing, which are often lacking in our fast-paced world.

Jerry has two children, Emily (23), Judson (19), and a growing cast of friends and players. There is a continuous stream of fascinating and interested people traveling to the farm. Home to various seminars and retreats, it has unlimited areas for wandering, ponds for dipping, a rock garden for Chi Kung, owls, deer, coyotes, great oak trees, a blueberry orchard, and a daily sunrise and sunset inviting reverence.

Jerry's credentials are impressive in education and experience alike. A Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Jerry has been studying and using NLP for 25 years. He is an Associate Instructor of the art of Chi Kung. He has done extensive training in other-than-conscious communication and no-fault psychology. He graduated in 1974 from Northern Michigan University with degrees in psychology and philosophy. Still learning and exploring daily, Jerry has reached a point where he is able to give back some of what he has learned in hopes that it will improve the quality of life for others. In addition to personal coaching he now hosts frequent tele-classes, and leads workshops in NYC, throughout the USA, and abroad. His courses and coaching are a mixture of art and craft uniting mind and body into a personal and pragmatic alliance.

Jerry hasn't always lived in the mountains. He used to live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and drive to work wearing a suit and tie. He was a successful financial consultant at Shearson-Lehman Brothers. His past careers span the gamut of experience from owning two retail stores, to industrial design, to selling investments. Yet all of Jerry's occupations have some things in common; he was successful at each of them and all of his job changes required a greater commitment to people and an increased ability to relate effectively with clients and co-workers.

Jerry loves people and is committed to finding out what is possible for "us" as human beings. His love of people and desire to contribute to them are apparent in his writings, books, and seminars. Jerry is founder of a non- profit educational corporation, A Choice Experience, Inc., which focuses on exploring human possibility and gently exposing illusion. He also has published six books on subjects ranging from Thinking Clearly to Spiritual Enlightenment.
