Exercise 3: Spend some time in a happy place and then return

– Define where you are.

– Stay there for some time so that you could get what you need: it could be some peace and quiet or emotional support. It can easily be something else.

– Return to “here and now’.

Similar kind of technique is used in such schools of psychotherapy as Ericksonian therapy guided by affective imagery and several other movements: patients are asked to think of something pleasant and spend some time reminiscing. You need to find your happy place where you can recharge.

A little cave

A person might remember that when he or she was a child and went to the seaside to spend holidays, they would dig a little cave in the sand, which felt like a very comfortable and safe place. Everyone has its own unique image of a happy place, which functions as a vitamin in adult life.

In psychocatalysis, this method is used only in specific cases when a patient expresses a certain need for that.

In general, setting one’s attention free, calling it back and “dragging it away from something’ is a big job, which we will successfully complete along the course. For now, let’s ask ourselves the questions where our intelligence and soul are? This can be seen as a useful complement to the work you have already done.

This task is based on the following observation: the things that “steal’ our attention can be inside our body as well as outside. We began by letting go of the tension-causing sensations in the depths of our body, and as a result, we have decreased the overall level of tension. Nevertheless, we also need to deal with what is at a distance and drains our energy, attention, and a part of the resources of the nervous system.

Topics, which disturb our mind, can be allocated along the vertical and horizontal axes. The most harmful are those worries, which have managed to creep into the core of the body and reach the solar plexus.

However, we need to work through everything that is “on the way’ to the core.

Where is my intellect?

Exercise 4: Paying attention to the problems and sorting them out: if they are dead-end, go away from them, and find the solutions to the problems that have something promising!

Stage 1: Going away from dead-end problems

1. Diagnostic phase

Ask yourself a question: “Where is my intellect? What is my attention focused on? What is it busy with? What is it aimed at?”

At the level of sensations, there might appear an image of your intellect, being an octopus with its tentacles (or an amoeba with its pseudopodia). This “creature’ has spread in different directions and left them there.

Things that keep our attention are often found above our head, in front of it, or above it.

In our mind, choose the fattest “tentacle’ and walk on it to find out what is hiding at its end. You will see that it is holding your attention with your internal vision. Either it will be an image, that reflects the essence of the problem, or you will somehow realize what draws your attention.

2. Phase of evaluating spontaneously formed conditions and finding a solution to them

As far as each direction is concerned, you decide whether to keep it and invest your effort in it or whether it is enough and it is time you got your energy back.

Different tactics

It is quite likely that once your eyes are closed, you will find out that some part of your attention is filled with mental notes and post-its: these are the reminders about the things that require your attention, and you should not forget about that because they are important. Moreover, you have no right to rest until they were resolved.

Perhaps, some of these errands do not deserve the high priority you have given them, and their importance was ascribed spontaneously.

Some part of your attention can also be lost in the errands, which have long lost their importance, and you simply need to walk away from them.

3. The phase of changes: the solutions to set your energy free!

A) As far as investing your attention in something that has no future, stop yourself right away and simply observe how your energy, which you have given to this, goes back to your body (as light, warmth, a stream of water, or something else that is pleasant). The “tentacles’ are being pulled in, and the surface of the “ball’ is getting smooth.

Meanwhile, the things, that are not of your concern, or which have lost their relevance, should return to where they came from in the first place.

These actions will give you an opportunity to focus on what is important and relevant right now.

B) If there are justified reasons that require your attention, but they can wait, then you make a note in your agenda and realize that you will return to this issue in own time; until that moment, you don’t have to worry about these issues.

Energy comes back to you, as well as that chronic, but inactive “bulging’ in this direction will smooth.

C) When it comes to urgent issues, make your decisions right now: in what order are you going to do it, and how are you going to do it? Then you have to do it.

If you need ideas to help you find the solution, there is an additional exercise for this purpose.

While mentally remaining on the issue, use the “tentacle of your attention’ to scan the space for necessary solutions. Are they near or far? Most likely, they are already on their way. And it is also likely that they are in the same direction where the problem is.

From feeling preoccupied to working

Within your mental space, there is a trajectory of ideas, which help you solve this or that problem: this trajectory is an arc. From afar, that is: at the front, and from above, it moves towards you, to the upper frontal part of your head. Then it goes into your body. Your task now is to give way to these bright ideas. Let them flow into your head, and then spread over your body. They come at the level of the chest, making your soul calmer and firmer, making your willpower stronger at the level of solar plexus: let your confidence of success grow and turn into determination.

Along with growing determination, tension will be decreasing, and you will be able to move into action.

These exercises reduce empty worries preventing your body from spending your intellectual energy twice on the same issue. You remember about the issue, you act and solve it, and then you forget about it! You do not need tensions, all you need is to solve and act according to the principle “One thought, one action.”

When you give way to your sensible ideas, something like light, water, a little cloud, or another kind of something positive pours into your body. You begin to feel calmer.

This is a step-by-step algorithm according to which you work.

Stage 2: Finding solutions and confidence

– Where is the knowledge useful for solving these problems? Is it near or far? In what direction is it located?

– What does it look like? Is it a cloud, a sun or something else?

– Should you let them come closer to you and enter your body?

– Observe the way it is happening: a ray of light, a cloud or a stream of water “settles’ in your body.

– Explore what it feels like to be filled with useful information. How much of that necessary knowledge do you have now?

– If you think there is enough of it, then think what issue could be successfully resolved using the knowledge you possess? How quickly can you resolve it? What will you do first?

A lump turns into a path

What used to be a stumbling block for you, what created an obstacle in front of you, is spreading in front of you like a bolt and turning into a band you can move along step-by-step, and gradually solve the problem. What used to seem like a big problem turns into a much smaller issue.

Every given moment in time, you just should make a single step, and this is how you can work your way to the solution! You do what you should do, but without any tension. As soon as your tasks are completed, those mental notes pinned to the surface of your attention disappear and sink in your body, and then you experience the sense of completion and composure.

– If you need to complement your knowledge or get more information to come closer to the solution of your problem, think and plan where and how you can get it. If you might find it useful asking for a consult with an expert or study the question yourself, and thus, bring your knowledge to the necessary level.

Make sure you are wishing for the right thing

Recently, it has become quite a trend to make New Year resolutions more down-to-earth, and instead of saying “I want to own a castle on the beach!” you go for a more goal-oriented “I want to learn to promote my online services efficiently, and I would like to make progress in learning a foreign language!” etc. I think this tendency is very positive! If you have new skills, you will have an increase in your income. Your dreams will get support!

Streams flow into your head

It turns out that our intellect can appear in the places where it does not have to be, but it still has responded to us. The general message of this task could be formulated the following way: “My attention, return from the places where you are not supposed to be!”

While you are working on this task, you will feel the flow into your head while many different objects fall back into their place. They will be used as fuel for your body, and they may enter through the wide opening in your head and then move from to your body.

Such work can become useful not only at the level of your head, but also at the level of your soul.

Strength, given away by mistake, will flow back to your chest. It means that what used to “lure’ you, but was unreal, will let you be, and your strength attached to these emotions will be set free, too.

We will realize the following: “I am being filled with energy. It is being transformed into its original state. It feels so good and pleasant! I am myself again. My attention and my soul have returned to their place from numerous attachments and commitments. Now, I feel more like myself than ever before! I can invest my energy in the direction I choose, and that is great news!”

Putting the bone back into the joint again

Sometimes, the participants of the seminars when trying to concentrate find out that the energy of their attention is very far away, light years away. However, even in cases like these, nothing prevents you from deciding if this attention is justified. Getting your attention back into your body is always a very pleasant sensation. In some way, it reminds me of putting the bone back into the joint. The moment of putting it back requires patience and attention, but then everything falls back into its place.

In certain cases, when a person needs to get his or her soul back, they need to travel to the sky: feeling desperate to find happiness on earth, souls try to find it elsewhere. These are special cases.

If there are any complications

Getting to “see’ your sensations requires time. If it does not seem to work right away, you need to make the first go, then switch to another task, and then again return to self-observation, but it must be done without any tension or pressure. Your sensations will eventually show through. The whole idea of perception of one’s body and space is natural and available to everyone. Even if you have never practiced anything like this, you will quickly realize that your sensations are always close to you and you can see and understand the processes within the realm of your consciousness.

Tensions, caused by the fact that some of your needs have not been satisfied or by some unaddressed traumas, “muffle’ our finer sensations. Nevertheless, it not the reason to give up; it is an invitation to face those louder tensions and contour distortions and work them through. This is exactly what we are going to do now.

PEACE OF MIND AND INTEGRITY OF THE SOUL

Tensions and traumas

The soil and the seed

The information we learn can have a different fate in our body and it is not always fortunate. There is a parable about a seed in the New Testament.

Matthew, Ch. 13, 3—8

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. When the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop – a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown”.

This parable is about the fate of the word on the Kingdom of Heaven.

Turning a seed into a crop 100 times means being good soil capable of taking in the grain of truth, let it root and grow. “The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” (Ibid, v. 31—32)

We are talking about knowledge of the language. Its successful development means the same: 1) taking care of the soil so that it could accept the seeds of knowledge; 2) sowing these seeds; 3) subsequent cultivation of the tree to the moment “the birds of Heaven come’, i.e. till getting a visible result.

One needs peace of mind

Being successful in the learning process corresponds to the calm but active state of the central nervous system (CNS) and to the balanced functioning of the autonomous nervous system (ANS): both its sympathetic and parasympathetic parts. The latter system is also referred to as autonomic since it is responsible for energetic processes. The smooth functioning of different levels and parts of the nervous system contributes to the stamina in a learning process and life in general. However, chronic stress of the sympathetic part, so-called sympathoadrenal conditions and hyperexcitation, leads to fatigue, exhaustion, and decreases educability.

In practice, we sometimes encounter cases of extreme conditions when one is too exhausted and too reserved. In cases like these, learning something new is highly difficult even, if one tries really hard. In such a state, a person is like a stony dry soil from the parable as mentioned above. More than that, this soil can be “littered’ with weeds of harmful impressions, which crawled into our mind at the early stages of life and studying. You need to weed the field of our mind and expand it if you want to cultivate useful knowledge on it.

Two sources of stress

Stress has two causes: adaptation to the new and old trauma

Stress of adaptation is a reaction of mobilization, which appears in different periods of life when one finds him/herself in new circumstances without prior preparation for them. It does not concern dramatic events only. Starting school, which is natural absolutely, can turn out to be the cause of stress. When this event is long gone, your autonomic nervous system (ANS) “remembers’ how much stress it caused you and cannot calm down.

Congestive reactions of the autonomic nervous system as tension, anxiety, lack of confidence, irritability, anger, rage, and even fury can appear at different stages of life:

– separation from parents at very young age;

– entering kindergarten or school, changing schools or moving houses;

– changes in the family (death of the family member, separation and divorce, new members of the family, birth of a new member of the family)

– fights between parents and other specific conditions in childhood;

– changing physiology;

– entering university;

– starting a job;

– birth of a child;

– changing jobs and positions;

– information concerning health problems;

– retirement (also the cause of stress).

These seemingly regular events disturb our nervous system; adapting to them does not happen right away and results in prolonged energetic “restlessness’, which appears once and then automatically remains there.

Another category of conditions that consumes body energy is the consequences of psychological traumas such as fright, deceit, betrayal, and loss. These are more serious situations than simply facing something new and adapting to it. These are the situations when a body is affected all of a sudden and reaction to them remains in the autonomic contour of the person, even when the events are long gone.

Atlas of emotional experience

Consequences of psychological trauma and chronic stress tend to “settle in’ our body and then build up. Each of such experience has a corresponding set of sensations and levels of the body that it affects. As a response to the lack of competence, we get a lack of confidence; when a problem remains unresolved, we worry; when our future looks uncertain, we experience anxiety; and when we get frightened, we have fear. We feel annoyed because of someone’s constant moralizing; we feel offended when we are disappointed, and our expectations do not match the reality; we experience anger and rage when someone is rude to us; and we want revenge when someone betrays or cheats us.

Traumas are the following: fright, disappointment, offence, betrayal, infidelity, and loss.

The tendency of its progression is the increase of tension till it reaches the level of “sympathoadrenal status’, which may even lead to “the syndrome of burnout’, a condition difficult and sometimes even impossible to restore from. A person gradually turns into a “squeezed lemon’, and in these circumstances, learning something new is absolutely out of the option.

Fig. 13. Gradual loss of balance, accumulation of stress in the course of life.