Duration = at least 15 minutes.
Difficulty = 50/100.
This exercise developed by
Life Coach Cougar Brenneman.
Inspired by
Eugene Gendlin, John Lee, Deborah Jones, and others.
Select—or let your body select—your current emotion, mood, or reaction. Type a general, short description in this box.
What interferes right now with feeling great?
What’s a recent strong emotion, upsetting situation, high priority concern?
What drives your inner dialogue right now?
Repeat the name of a significant person, such as your mom or dad, spouse, child, mentor, abuser, enemy, or deity. Notice what emotion comes up.
Be inwardly silent for several breaths. Notice what emotion comes up.
In the next step, you'll still your mind by focusing on at least four or more slow, tranquil breaths. Seek to achieve inner stillness or inner silence.
Be honest with yourself. If it takes 200 breaths to completely let go of your reactions, then it’s worth it to take 200 breaths to completely release such deep-seated pain.
Seek to attain a state that some Buddhists call "bare attention"—one in which you are paying attention to the animation so completely that you no longer notice the meaning of the words. To the degree possible, just be mindful of the shapes of the letters—without even thinking about their phonetic sound. This will allow you to synchronize your breathing with the app without being distracted by concepts.
Move on to the next step after you have completely let go of your reactions.
Ready? Click the Step 3 button to begin the breathing step.
Inner Silence.
Be still.
Peace.
Quiet mind.
Release reactions.
Let it go.
Thoughts dissolve.
Concerns evaporate.
Relax spirit.
Let go of the topic completely. If your mind is in problem-solving mode, worry mode, reading-the-computer-screen mode, rushing-around mode, creativity mode, or any other kind of "mode," you haven't reached inner silence. Inner silence means bare attention—mindfulness without thought or reaction.
Trust the process.
Move on to Step 4 after you have completely let go of your reactions.
Ask yourself each of the following questions. Wait in inner silence for your body sense to provide the answer.
Write "I choose..." and make choices about your
situation, based on what
you've learned.
Repeat several times, surrounding each choice with
inner silence. Click the "I choose..." button
after every choice you make.
(Inner Silence)
Finish with Mastery Choices, surrounding
each choice with inner silence. Use your own definition of mastery.
Examples of Mastery Choices related to this
exercise include:
—I choose to live my life in full contact with my
ever-shifting moods.
—I choose to focus daily on emotional nuances that I experience.
—I choose to honor what my emotions require of me.
(Inner Silence)
I have developed 315 more practices which are part of the same curriculum. This number will eventually grow to 3,000 or 30,000, depending on what the users (you) decide to do with this curriculum. Each practice targets different goals and different problems, depending on what you need.
For a tour of the full curriculum, use the following blog as a guide: Take the Tour: Explore the Joyful Wisdom Journey Curriculum. This blog is a illustrated guide to clicking the button at the bottom of this page that's labeled "Coming Soon: What's Next? Your Next Move." You can click the button without the blog, but the UI is not very intuitive.
This prototype lacks certain features that will help you to use it. Eventually, you'll have a blog that automatically receives all of your written responses to any exercise. No more copying and pasting.
All pages will have have:
I've planned many other enhancements, but this gives a flavor of what's coming.
For a brief description of future programming plans, read the following blog: Plans for the Computer Programming Needed for the Joyful Wisdom Journey.