An old man with a fishing rod wrapped up warmly on a small folding chair protected from the rain by a huge umbrella at the waterside. A woman knitting at her dinner table. A teenage boy sitting on his moped chewing gum in front of a cafeteria in a small, desolate shopping area. A jogger in the park. A meditating monk in his cell. What do they have in common? They are all thinking of nothing in particular.
Goal
Ĺ To introduce a number of ways to attain a state of mental quiet, or ‘thinking of nothing in particular’, and give you the possibility to find out what technique works best for you.
Introduction
There are many techniques to free us from our everyday worries and provide us with some moments of mental quiet. This mental quiet is characterized by what I have called ‘thinking of nothing in particular’, which I use as a kind of generic name for all these states of mental quiet. These techniques transform a situation into a moment of quiet and recovery.
The common features of these techniques are:
Ĺ They stop our usual lines of thought.
Ĺ We cannot do anything wrong in it.
Ĺ We do not need to worry about a thing.
These states of quiet vary in depth: from simple musing and reflecting to being completely away from the world.
We can use these techniques in many places, for example at work, during breaks and waiting periods, but also at home or in transit. We can use them also in various combinations.
The important point therefore is: determine what you like best and what works for you.
Preparation
A good preparation for the following techniques is stretching completely as if you are about to go to bed: stretch and feel fully comfortable, as a cat does.
Techniques
First, a simple but effective technique. Close your eyes, take one or two deep breaths and exhale quite slowly. Repeat this and empty your mind completely. Pay special attention to exhaling slowly and as completely as possible. Bear in mind that breathing frequently and deeply in succession, without properly exhaling, can lead to dizziness and sometimes even fainting, a phenomenon called hyperventilation.
Another technique: Focus with your eyes open on a single point in front of you. For example, focus on a point on the wall, a candle flame, the central point of a basic, symmetrical geometric shape and so on. Try the same with your eyes closed on a point somewhere before you.
A third possibility: Listen with your eyes closed to music and dream away. Use headphones if you want.
A fourth option: Repeat for some time a so-called mantra, a single word preferably of one syllable, either silently or aloud. Appropriate words are love, nice, fine, hope and so on.
This is a simple but effective technique for cleansing all thoughts from your mind.
Fifth, imagine the nicest smile possible – your own, that of a loved one, the smile of a favorite painting, statue or movie star – and send it to a place in your body where you feel tension or pain.
Sixth, use a muscular relaxation exercise. The exercise described below you can apply yourself without any risk – the worst that can happen to you is that you fall asleep – though you should not do this exercise when you are plagued by injuries or other complaints concerning your muscles or bones.
If you want, you can record the instructions yourself on an audiotape, CD or DVD. Of course, you can also use headphones.
Instructions
Ĺ Sit down on a chair with armrests.
Ĺ Stretch fully, like a cat would do.
Ĺ Sit in a relaxed way, though straight, your back against the back of the chair, your arms on the armrests.
Ĺ Close your eyes.
Ĺ Take one deep breath and exhale slowly, as completely as possible.
The exercises then consist of each time stretching each of the following groups of muscles separately during about six seconds – nottooforcefully, of course, you don’t want to get muscle cramp – but still so that you feel the tension well. Then let go of all tension from the muscles in question for half a minute. Focus for another half minute on the deepening relaxation of these body parts. Feel the relaxation and the warmth. Feel how heavy these body parts become.
Each time I’ll mention first the muscles one by one, without you doing a thing yet, so that you know what is expected from you. Then I mention them again, while you now tense each of them the moment I mention them.
Successively, this is concerned with the following groups of muscles, which you each tense for about six seconds.
Ĺ Arms: clench your fists, tense your underarms and biceps.
Ĺ Face: frown, close your eyes tightly, turn your nose up, clench your jaw, bare your teeth.
Ĺ Neck: push your chin against your chest and keep your head in that position by putting your hand behind your head to provide counter-pressure. Now push your head backwards.
Your shoulders are not involved.
Ĺ Upper half of the trunk: pull back your shoulders, your elbows against your trunk, so that your back comes loose from the back of your chair; ensure that your hands stay relaxed.
Ĺ Lower half of the trunk: strain your belly and bottom muscles at the same time, as well as your sphincter, as if you are holding your water.
Ĺ Legs: stretch your legs in front of you, your feet flexed upwards as if you are pointing with your big toes at your nose.
Sequel
You are very relaxed now. To relax even more deeply, you can imagine that you are walking down a flight of stairs of five steps. Each step down relaxes you more. I now count slowly to five. . .One: you feel yourself relaxing even more. . .And two: and more and more. . .Three, even deeper. . .Four, still deeper and deeper. . .And five, now you are totally relaxed. . . Enjoy your relaxation, as much as you want. . . Know that, when you come back to your normal state of consciousness, you will feel completely rejuvenated and energized. However, that is not your concern now. . .Just let yourself sink into this marvelous relaxation. . .Enjoy it to the full.. . . There is nothing you have to do. . . Just enjoy your relaxation. . .
If you wish you can enjoy some fantasy during this relaxation. For instance, lying in an easy chair in the shade of a giant umbrella on a beautiful tropical beach, a nice cool drink on the little table next to you, the sound of the waves breaking, the smells of the ocean and now and then a whiff of the exotic palm tree garden behind you.
Or swimming in the clearest of waters, the brilliant sun on the water, on the drips on your eyelashes, the coolness of the water on your skin and feeling how you become totally clean.
And so on.
When you want to go back to your everyday state, just imagine going up the five steps again and come more and more back with every step into your normal state of consciousness.
Count back from five to one, and at once open your eyes. Clench your fists and look around you. Everything is still precisely as you left it. Stretch again, and feel how rejuvenated and energetic you feel.
Ĺ How does it feel to do these relaxation exercises?
Ĺ Which of these relaxation exercises is the most effective for you?
When you have become fully familiar with the relaxation exercise, you may skip the tensing part. Just breathe in deeply one time, then out, and relax successively each of the muscle groups. Once you can control this technique, the next step consists of practicing doing this without shutting your eyes. This allows you to evoke some thinking of nothing in particular in all kinds of situations without anyone noticing it, for instance during a meeting.
Still another way to ‘empty’ your mind is engaging in all kinds of sports that involve endurance. Examples are running, swimming, bicycling and all other forms of lengthy rhythmic movement such as dancing, which in time lead to thinking of nothing in particular.
However, it does not have to be that drastic. Leisurely walking or bicycling is also good for musing and daydreaming. As well as each of these forms of movement being an effective method of reaching a state of thinking of nothing in particular, they also contribute to your physical fitness.
Ĺ How does each of these methods work for you?
Ĺ Which is the least appropriate one and why?
Ĺ Which one do you find the easiest and which the most pleasant?
Ĺ What makes it pleasant?
Ĺ What possibilities do you see to make these techniques more effective for you?
Ĺ Where and when can you apply these techniques best?
Comments
Ĺ What can we do with all these methods to be able to think of nothing in particular? To start with, we can practice them at fixed times of the day. We can practice thinking of nothing in particular also during the breaks and waiting periods mentioned before. This is simply pleasurable, but it can also help us to center our thoughts, concentrate better at work, prevent and counteract stress and sleep better. All in all, we can use mental quiet purposely to refresh ourselves and to feel more energetic and centered.
Ĺ All of this makes bringing about mental quiet an important tool in a dialogue session, both as a part of preparation as well as to cool down if things become too heated.
Ĺ In addition, we can use mental quiet in a more focused way to calm down and make contact with ourselves, when that is needed. In this way, we can better control interfering thoughts and emotions such as anxiety and tension. We then can think more clearly about our next moves. To this end, we must sometimes retreat from the situation at hand. At other times, however, we can use the relaxation techniques to calm down on the spot.
Apart from this, we can use this approach to ask ourselves questions and give ourselves tasks (later in this chapter).