(Exercising Your Mind)

• Personal Exploration Topic (p.e.t.):
  A theoretical construct that utilizes a more constructive linguistic
  framing in place of the usual terms like issues, problems, etc..

PROCEDURE

1). Sit or lie in a place where you are comfortable and relatively undisturbed by sound.

Complete silence and total darkness are another option.

2). Begin breathing slowly, in and out of your nose while counting backwards from your current age to one. Continue conscious breathing and

3). Tell yourself ‘I will begin another count backwards from five to zero’

4). Start counting back, and when you reach zero, repeat zero to yourself zero times and then

5). Close your eyes.

6). Follow this with the words ‘I have entered a safe and helpful place, a self in healthful space, I help myself this way.’

7). Allow yourself now to decide whether or not you want to remember your experience; once you have decided, that is all you need.

8). State your desire for your experience, or ‘personal exploration topic’ (p.e.t.) in a positive statement, such as “I am playing violin very well, having fun, and feeling good while doing it”

9). Now count from zero, up to five,

10). open your eyes, then count one to five several times. That’s it.

FOOTNOTEs

a). No pause for dealing with any (p.e.t.) Everything should be as ‘real time’ as possible. As you condition yourself, you will develop more ‘endurance’ in the desired state, and will have then have the depth and/or focus you require to be able to explore. Most of us will have a satisfactory experience, and this can be duplicated and/or modified to best suit your personality and pace.

b). If you think to yourself “I dont feel like I entered hypnosis” then you probably did, and if you did not, feeding yourself this sort of facilitative translogic(ft)
will certainly serve to convince or confuse you sufficiently enough to ensure more success on your next practice.

c). making a recording of yourself delivering the above outline, should also ease the transition into the desired state(s).

d). Theoretically, you could simply read this once, and recall as much of the procedure possible, inducing state(s) simply through the directed focus required, to recall the steps. This may be a mild, or deep and lengthy induction I call directed focus induction (d.f.i.). It is similar to trying in vain, to remember something without having direct access to the solution.

You have the option of refraining from referencing this text. When you have had enough, or, have recalled everything; use steps 9 and 10 from above to exit the mindset if you wish. You could always just use the d.f.i. to fall asleep, or frustrate yourself into insomnia. Let me know how it goes. Have fun, and be well.

Copyright 2005 by Hakeem Alexander