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by Eric Christopher
Essential Preliminary Steps
Before Eliminating Stress
Step
One: Become
aware when you are feeling stressed.
Step
Two: Decide
that you no longer wish to feel stressed.
Step
Three: Identify
what thought, feeling or situation is at the forefront
of the stress.
I.
The Stress of Overwhelm From Too Many
Things Happening in Life
Get two sheets of paper. On one, write at the top:
“Things I cannot control.”
On the other sheet, write:
“Things I can control.”
On this sheet, write all the things you have to
do, tasks you must get done, etc., or anything you have
some control over.
Next to each item, write when you will do it, and
include if anyone can assist you if necessary.
Under the paper headed “Things I cannot
control,” write down everything that causes you stress
that you have no apparent control over, such as an
illness or accident, etc.
Give this list to God, the Universe, or your
Higher Power, indicating that you’ll work on the first
list, and will be happy to receive any assistance on
second list if it is in your highest good to receive it.
After listing out each of these items, ask
yourself if it is possible to control your reaction
to these stressors.
(The answer is “yes” in all cases.)
The next exercises assist in this process.
II. Brief
Preliminary Exercise Before the De-Stressing
Visualizations
Although the following short preliminary exercise is
a fast, effective stress reliever in itself, its main
function is simply to relax and focus your mind,
inviting you to let go of distracting thoughts that
prevent you from fully allowing yourself to rest. Briefly do the following exercise before selecting one of the
de-stressing visualizations.
Once you practice it, there is no need to spend
more than 30 seconds on this warm-up visualization,
unless of course, you really want to. Always keep in mind that since it is your mind that creates
the stress, your mind can also create peace, to the
degree that you focus it.
Now, bring back the very powerful imagination
that you had as a child, and begin. Here it is:
Close your eyes and imagine that you paint a circle
of light around yourself with your mind.
(If you have trouble with that, simply pretend to
imagine, and it will be much easier.)
Now draw a black curtain around everything
outside of that circle of light.
Pretend nothing else exists for the next few
minutes but you and this Eternal Moment of Now. Thoughts of past and future have faded into non-existence
behind the black curtain. Imagine that nothing else
exists in the world but you in this moment.
Allow yourself to begin to feel as if you are a
leaf floating towards the bottom of an infinitely deep
ocean, and suddenly you notice that the space goes into
infinity in all directions.
Above you, below you, to the right, to the left,
in front and in back of you, is infinite space.
Then imagine that you dissolve and also go out
into infinity in all directions.
Nothing and everything exist in this moment, like
being in a void of Oneness.
Feel the calm and simply be in it.
Now launch into one of the following
visualizations.
III.
Changing Momentary Stress Into Enjoyable
Feelings
Breathe
in and Feel Whatever Word You Want
Imagine
that a brilliant, warm, glowing light suddenly emerges
in front of you. Imagine and act as if this is a divine expression of infinite
peace, joy and unconditional love.
Take a deep inhalation and imagine that you
breathe the soothing light into your heart center on
each inhalation, and on each exhalation, deeply feel
that soothing light spread to every cell of your body. Feel it grow stronger with every breath.
After a few breaths, attach the word “peace”
to the light on each breath.
Breathe in the word “peace” along with the
light on every inhalation, and then spread the light of
“peace” to each cell of your body on every
exhalation by silently saying to yourself, “peace”,
on each exhalation. Go deeper into it, and feel it stronger with each breath.
After several breaths, switch the word to
“joy”, and notice how the vibration of the word
“joy” feels different than the word “peace.”
Imagine that with every breath, the growing
vibration of these words and this light begins to slowly
spread through your body to the space all around you,
and you feel that you are basking in this light.
Next, experiment with breathing in different
words such as love, strength, confidence, etc., and feel
how the energy vibration of each word feels a bit
empowering in a different way.
Mentally
Transport Yourself
Imagine
that you are in the most pleasant place you can think
of. Really
feel yourself there.
Take in the smells, sights, sounds and
temperature on the skin.
Use your imagination to make it come alive.
Most importantly, begin to become aware of what
you are feeling in your body as you are there.
Notice how good it feels to be there in your
mind’s eye. Go
deeper into that feeling and let it grow stronger, as
strong as you can. (Remember, your brain will activate the same electrical
impulses and body sensations as if your body is actually
there, to the degree that you focus on it.)
Feel the relaxing sensation and take it with you
as you open your eyes. Keep it with you as the back-drop of your mind as you carry
on with your day, as you do whatever it is that you are
doing.
Identify
and Create
Similar
to the above exercise, visualize yourself in the scene
of your grandest future, the highest version of
yourself. If
more than one scene comes to mind, just pick one and
focus on it. What are you doing? Feel
yourself drop into that scene and make it come alive. What are you feeling as you do whatever it is you are
doing? Take
about 45 seconds to vividly imagine this scene several
times a day, especially before going to sleep and night
and when you wake up in the morning to help imbed it
into your subconscious.
It is of extreme importance to not only visualize
it, but feel yourself in this future scene
activating all the senses, acutely paying attention to
what it feels like in your body to be in your grandest
future. As
you let those feelings wash over you vividly and often,
you help to draw that to yourself.
(This is, in part, applying the science of
quantum physics. For
more information about this, see the surprisingly
entertaining DVD on quantum physics called “What the Bleep
Do We Know?”)
Activating
the Power of Now
Perhaps
the easiest and most simple technique is from Eckart
Tolle’s book The Power of Now.
He puts it plainly:
“All problems can only exist in the past and
the future, not in the present moment.”
Thus, in a moment of stress, become aware that
you are feeling stress and stop your thinking by simply
being sharply focused on everything there is to notice
about the moment. Pay
close attention to everything that you observe with your
eyes, ears, nose, sense of taste and touch.
Awaken and enliven all of your senses.
Then make a note of everything that you
appreciate in just this moment. If you stay fully present, centered and appreciative in each
moment, the future will take care of itself.
As you become more aware of the present moment,
you will more often become the observer of your thoughts
and feelings, thus taking on the ability to choose what
thoughts you want to run through your mind.
IV.
Eliminating the Stress of Unwanted Feelings,
Thoughts and Fears
Follow the Trail to the Root of the Feeling
This
is a written exercise.
When you are feeling an unwanted feeling, what
can help eliminate it is to put it under a microscope.
When you are feeling angry, jealous, fear, etc.,
consider the question: “What is behind this
feeling?” To
use fear as an example, you would begin writing
spontaneously, completing some of the following
statements such as:
“I am afraid because…”
“And that makes me afraid because….”
“And that makes me afraid because….” “And
if that happens, then…” “If that happened,
then the worst thing that could happen is…” and so
on. Often,
going to the root fear begins to feel absurd and you may
feel like laughing at it.
This exercise often tends to expose the core of
our unwanted feelings as unlikely or unnecessary
thoughts needlessly churning over and over in our minds.
Directing
the Unwanted Energy out the Door
The
pre-requisite for this visualization is a focused mind
for 10 minutes. Feel the unwanted thought or feeling as strongly as you can.
Let it grow and expand.
Intensify it by breathing into it.
After feeling it strongly, identify where on your
body you notice that feeling the most.
Focus on nothing else but imagining that feeling
as pure unwanted energy in your body, with no other
thoughts attached to it. When you can feel it strongly, press your hands down on the
place in your body that you seem to feel that energy the
most. Next,
gently lift off your hands and imagine a door replacing
your hands on that area of your body where you just
placed your hands.
Now imagine, sense and feel that energy begin to
leave you through that door, being directed out with
your intent. As
you breathe out, feel it leaving you.
After a few minutes, you’ll intuitively get a
sense when it is all gone. Next, replace that old energy with the most desirable
feelings. For
example, imagine peace, confidence, strength, vibrancy,
love or joy coming into you through that same imagined
door, and spreading to every cell of your body on each
exhalation.
Dropping
Through the Unwanted Feeling to Happiness
Something
magically transforming happens with this exercise
because we’ve never really done it before.
Usually we spend our entire lives subtly
resisting or avoiding unwanted feelings, but you’ll
notice that it is nearly impossible to stay deeply
focused on the energy of a feeling before it morphs into
something else, deeper and deeper until we reach a calm,
(our true nature.)
This process is similar to the prior one in that
it involves focusing solely on the unwanted thought and
feeling so intensely, that you imagine nothing else
exists in the world but the vibration of the energy of
that unwanted thought and feeling.
Now let go of the thoughts surrounding that
feeling, and feel it only as pure energy all over
your body. Imagine
you are in the middle of it, bathing in it.
Go deeper into it.
Try feeling it as intensely as you can for as
long as you can, and then imagine that you go to the
bottom of it, and feel strongly the feeling or thoughts
that are underneath that feeling.
You may want to imagine dropping through a door
at the bottom of each feeling.
Think of nothing but feeling the pure energy of those
feelings, making them as strong as possible.
Notice how the feelings change after several
seconds or a minute as you continue to drop down to each
feeling below the one you are feeling.
Eventually, people tend to feel a sort of void.
At that point, imagine going deeper into that
void, so far into it that after awhile, it begins to
feel somewhat calming.
Go deeper and deeper into the calm feeling until
it begins to feel peaceful, and go into that
further, feeling nothing else, until it changes into a
happy feeling, and then go into that further, etc. until
you can go no farther and you find yourself soaking in a
very good feeling.
The
Sacred Heart Flame
This
is a short visualization.
Imagine there is a tiny flame in your heart.
Imagine an image of your body resting beside it,
being warmed and soothed and comforted.
Just allow the image of the body to rest there.
Now allow the little flame to begin to dissolve
anything no longer required, like the past or any
suffering or any worries.
And then allow that image of your body to
dissolve into the image of the flame, let it be totally
consumed by it. Notice
how that feels. Just
relax into it and let everything stop.
Rest.
V. The Stress of Carrying the Past With You
Rescripting
the Energy of Past Events
Are
you subconsciously replaying the tape of an old unwanted
memory in your mind?
The past is only memories.
Memories are only thoughts and feelings, which is
energy in your system.
Here is one way to get rid of the unwanted stuff.
Imagine that you rise above yourself so that you
see the top of your head below you in your mind’s eye.
Rest there a bit, but then imagine that you
gently float higher, as if you have the vantage point of
being in an airplane and you are nothing but a tiny
speck far below. Then
as you peacefully float higher still, you see the
curvature of the earth. As you continue rising, you have the vantage point as if you
see the earth below you from a spaceship.
Then the earth looks like the size of a quarter,
and then becomes so small that it is the size of a pea,
far below you as you quietly observe yourself to be
removed from the chaos and commotion of the planet
below. Then
the earth fades away completely, and you turn to the
right and perceive a huge warm soothing light beginning
to consume you, filling you with a deep calm.
Bask in it awhile.
Then as you look down, a timeline of your life
appears below you. The present is straight down, the future is to the right and
the past is to the left.
Drift over to the left and let your mind take you
directly to the source of your unwanted feeling so you
see the scene, situation or event down below you.
Notice that there is a beginning point as well as
an ending point to that scene.
This time, replay the script of that scene, so
you go through it differently, with opposite energies.
Beam down to yourself those feelings of strength,
confidence, empowerment, joy, understanding, or whatever
you choose. Rescript
it completely so that you are feeling empowered, strong
and happy at the end of the scene.
Then, imagine that you drop down into the
“you” below you, at the beginning of the rescripted
scene and experience yourself in it from beginning to
end, feeling deeply in your body these new and better
feelings. Then
rise up above it again and move to another possible
scene to rescript until you feel like coming back, in a
stronger state.
Neutralizing
Negative Feelings
Make
a written list of ten joyful events in your life.
Next, list 10 painful events.
Focus on one of the joyful events and imagine
yourself so vividly in that past scene that you can feel
in your body how happy it is to be there again. Activate all the senses, notice what you see, feel,
hear, touch and smell.
Feel the temperature on the skin.
Let the scene really come alive, and record it in
your mind and body.
Next, move to one of the painful events and let
it also come alive for you in the same way, so you can
feel the unwanted feelings clearly in your body.
After you’re there for about 45 seconds and you
can feel it strongly in your body, surprise and startle
your body by making a fast, immediate switch back
to the joyful event and then feel that event just as
vividly and strongly in the body as the first time.
Let it grow even stronger, completely
neutralizing and canceling out the negative feelings.
Emotional
Freedom Technique
One
of the best ways to clear the stress of unwanted
feelings is this powerful process.
Try this well-researched and effective
acupressure technique, the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT),
in which you tap particular acupressure points while
tuning into the unwanted feeling, emotion or memory.
This is an amazingly effective process.
All the information you could want about it is
available at www.emofree.com.
Written
by Eric Christopher, MS, CHT
www.ericjchristopher.com
“Imagination is the door through
which disease as well as healing enter.”
--
Swami Sri Yukteswar
“Imagination is the
gateway to the soul.”
-- Edgar Cayce
References and Recommendations
The Holographic Universe, Michael Talbot
The Hidden Messages in Water, Masaru Emoto
Entangled Minds, Dean Radin
Power vs. Force, David Hawkins
The Feeling Good Handbook, David Burns
The Journey, Brandon Bays
Quantum Healing, Deepak Chopra
The Power of Intention, Wayne Dyer
The Secret, (book and DVD)
What the Bleep Do We Know? (DVD)
The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle
Ask and It Is Given, Esther and Jerry Hicks
www.emofree.com
Science of Mind Magazine
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