The first thing,
Of course,
Is just to take a little deep breath and feel a little more relaxed.
Now,
Do you hear that voice in your head now?
Is it talking to you now?
Seems to be continually talking.
So here's the question,
Is that the only thing that's going on in your head?
Sometimes it seems that way,
But I bet there's a lot more going on in there.
That voice,
Though,
It distracts us from everything else.
It wants all the attention.
It's an attention hog,
And that voice is verbal thought.
But it's not the only kind of thought.
There are also visual images,
Sounds,
And perceptions.
So here we're going to try not necessarily avoiding verbal thought or try and get rid of it or banish it.
But just notice how much is going on inside that's not verbal.
Sometimes I think of this as wordlessness.
What are you noticing that's actually not verbal?
And it could be your bodily sensations or it could be sounds.
Those are the two easiest ones.
So let's start with those.
If you hear an air conditioner hum,
You don't need a voice saying,
Oh,
That's the air conditioner.
If you're thirsty,
You don't need a voice saying,
Hmm,
My mouth is dry.
Just notice it.
So let that nonverbal awareness expand and expand until it fills up your whole self.
How long can you go on without words going through your mind?
If you fail quickly,
Just laugh it off and try again.
See how long you can stay in wordlessness.
Now if you fail and you keep thinking and thoughts keep coming through and if you find them coming,
Just let them come.
That's what they do.
Just let those thoughts happen and ask yourself,
Who's noticing these thoughts?
Is there a field that these thoughts are appearing in?
What is aware of these thoughts?
And here's a little bonus trick.
Give yourself permission to think anything you want except for thoughts about the future or thoughts about the past.
Thoughts about the future or thoughts about the past come up,
Let them go and see what else there is to think about that's not about the future or the past.
And one last little game you can play with your mind.
I call it Slippery Mind.
It's based on a fun house.
When I was a kid in Rye Playland,
In the fun house,
There used to be a slippery disk and all the kids would sit on the disk and it would start to spin and spin until one by one the kids would slide off from the centrifugal force.
But a few kids just would stay on and stay on.
But there were these little bolts with these little teeny tiny electric shocks in them and the guy running the disk would see a kid who wasn't moving and he would send a little electric shock and the kid would shift his weight and then he would break the friction and he would slide right off the disk.
So imagine your mind is a slippery disk,
Very smooth surface,
Spinning.
A thought comes in,
It just spins right out the other side.
The thought comes in,
It just spins right on out.
If a thought comes in and stays and wants to continue,
Maybe just give it a little shock and a little nudge or a little push and help it spin right out again.
So try this for 20 or 30 seconds on your own.
If some thoughts stick around in your slippery mind and continue to spin,
You can nudge them with a little jolt and watch them slide right out.
And just remember,
You don't have to control the thoughts.
They come,
But you can just let them go.
Let them spin right out.
