Exercise: Release that Caged Problem You Have with Yourself!
If there was one problem, you have about yourself, that you could release, more than any other problem you have – what would it be?
Complete the following sentence:
“The biggest problem I have about me is……..”
Write down your answer on a piece of paper. Write now. Make sure it’s not about an external event or person. Define the problem in terms of how you respond or feel about a situation or prospect of an event, e.g. “I feel lonely and incomplete” or “I’m desperate to have a relationship with someone special”.
Mindfulness Exercise to Change your Relationship to that ‘Old’ Problem
Close your eyes and take three conscious breaths, count 1 to 4 on each in-breath and out-breath with a short comfortable pause between each in-breath and out-breath. On each in-breath, imagine breathing in warmth and relaxation. On each out-breath imagine breathing out all tension and troubles of the day. Breathe in the ‘present’, breathe out the ‘past’.
Now allow your breathing to become shallow, regular and comfortable.
As you recall the words in your ‘problem sentence’, allow the problem to have some free space in your mind. Neither feed it (i.e. dwell on it) or fight it (i.e. try to suppress it). Now place it in a bubble. Let the bubble float to outer reaches and let it be, suspended motionless, without any energy tampering its existence.
On each out-breath imagine a beam of light, from a spot just above and between your eye brows, beaming down on to the bubble and filling it with light. As you continue to illuminate the bubble, imagine its contents becoming brighter and brighter.
(“That which upon light shines becomes that light” – St Paul)
Repeat this internal imagery every time the problem crops up in your mind for 17 seconds, for 17 days in a row. After 17 days, burn the piece of paper. Keep up the exercise thereafter.
Congratulations, you are now at the first stage in releasing your problem – for lack of attention is a bore to a problem. Like a spoilt child, it thrives on the attention of embrace or battle. As you change your relationship to the problem to one of indifference, it gets more and more bored. That old problem will start leave, slowly, day by day – until one day, “allez-oop,” it’s gone!
If you want my further help, get in touch!
Image: courtesy of Cyprus News Report
Shine on…!
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Paul C Burr
Business/Personal Performance Coach & Author
Facebook: Beowulf (>16,000 followers)
Follow @paulburr
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Paul C Burr 
#1 by Debbie Gunning on March 7, 2012 - 10:34
Thanks Paul – I miss your wisdom but will never forget how you taught me to rethink my life….take care….Debbie
#2 by Doctapaul on March 7, 2012 - 11:23
Thank you Debbie. Your kind words keep me going when the going gets tough. It gets lonely at times in the spaces I go to within myself. Yet hopefully every time I find out more about the machinations of our inner world – I can share it, This last few weeks I have found some personal insights in magic which I plan to share in generic form in due course. Some will be non fiction and some fiction. I plan to complete my first mini-novel by May.
Much love to you, family, you now who n Luke x/|\x