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The Clear Mind Method (which I invented)

It can be used to help quiet your mind for sleep, clear your head, pre­pare for a task when many other things are dis­tract­ing you, etc.

Use it in good health:

First, close your eyes.

Sec­ond, either imag­ine you are doing this (and if you can please do) hold out your hands palms up.

Third, imag­ine that the activ­ity of your ver­bal inner voice (the one that you will be using to actu­ally talk your­self through this process and also the same one that says unkind things when you really want to say them out loud) is rep­re­sented by a light. Today I was using a can­dle light image to rep­re­sent the activ­ity; some­times it was red, some­times orange and some­times yel­low. By “activ­ity” I mean that if you have a stereo with an equal­izer and when music plays the lights are very active, I mean active in this way. The more noise or ver­bal activ­ity of your inner voice, the more that this light flick­ers in your palm. Use your inner voice in a con­struc­tive way and announce to your­self what you are mon­i­tor­ing. “Right hand.” “Left hand.” “Right hand.” “Left hand.”

Fourth, imag­ine that the sen­sa­tions you feel are rep­re­sented by a flicker in your left hand. The idea is to actu­ally FEEL with your skin, feel how hun­gry you are, feel any pain in your body, feel any dis­com­fort, feel any kind of sen­sa­tion that you can feel. Feel your own breath. Feel your own weight. Tense up your feet and relax and FEEL that tens­ing and FEEL that relief. Work your way from the bot­tom of your feet up through tens­ing your legs, torso, arms and up to your scalp. Today I was imag­in­ing the the flick­er­ing to be a blue can­dle flame.

Fifth, as you work your way up your body in the fourth step, check in with your inner voice and watch the activ­ity for both as you go. Try to do these alter­nately. Right hand, left hand, right hand, etc. Announce these to your­self as men­tioned before. Watch the activ­ity with your mind’s eye but feel the sen­sa­tions and watch the activ­ity in both palms.

Sixth, as you watch the activ­ity light in one hand, you also watch the other one. You will notice that as you work your way up and announce what you are mon­i­tor­ing, your mind will be calmer. At a point, you will only hear your own inner voice and your body will be float­ing with­out sen­sa­tion. At that point, you tell that voice to stop. If you hear any­thing again, you just watch your palms in your mind’s eye. Watch that activ­ity until it dies out like a fire that has no more fuel to burn.

I’ve been doing this for a year now, so I actu­ally don’t have to hold out my palms and I was able to do it curled up for sleep.

I’m delighted to share this with you.

Enjoy.