For this exercise you need a long string of beads and a timer. Put a paper clip or other kind of marker between two beads to indicate your beginning point.
Sit comfortably and begin breathing very gently and smoothly through both nose and mouth (see breathing for details) with your eyes either closed or open. Just relax a while and get used to this kind of breathing.
Now set the timer for five minutes and begin to count mental events--feelings, thoughts, sounds, visual perceptions, smells, tastes, kinesthetic sensations, images, memories, emotions. Every time you notice one of these mental events, move a bead through your fingers. "When you find yourself interpreting or making stories, count that and return to the exercise."
At the end of five minutes, notice how you feel. "Are you more concentrated? Has your attention sharpened? Is your sense perception heightened? Any insights into your usual experience of time?" Recording these findings and insights will bring more clarity and help make the exercise more productive for you. Finally, record the number of beads counted during the exercise for comparison with later repetitions of the exercise.
Repeat the exercise several times.
After you have practiced this exercise a number of times, "the type of mental events may change. There may be beginnings of thoughts, or parts of sounds. Count each as a whole event. When in doubt about counting an event, count it and count the doubt."
After practicing the exercise a while, a sense of appreciation may appear as you sink into exerience, no longer so driven along the surface of time's movement. As you become more concentrated, the sense of time passing can change.
This exercise "breaks up the circular thinking that goes on in emotionally charged situations. The task at hand [counting mental events] leaves little time for dwelling on and interpreting events; it takes the meaning out of thinking and releases spontaneity while increasing concentration." Emotions act as a kind of glue that holds the moments of a situation together. Emotions also fuel the flow of time, and tend to perpetuate the past in the future. In this exercise the emotional momentum is transformed, leaving more space between mental events and a heightened awareness.
The exercise can also train us to develop a different perspective on the parts of innumerable mental events that we summarize with the term "self" or "ego." After doing this exercise for a while, you may find little remnant of the self that was actively doing the first few repetitions of the exercise. You can drop some of your identity as the doer, the pusher of your life and experience. You might begin to see how experience is presented to you effortlessly and spontaneously. Instead of that original self that was separate from various mental contents, there may be a permeable observer consciousness which is more merged with the mental contents in a field of awareness.
After getting a good feeling for this exercise by doing it in a relaxed way quite a few times with very smooth and gentle breathing, you can try doing it quickly--trying to increase the number of events counted from one repetition to another. Done this way it can be very useful as a method of brainstorming, or in preparation for brainstorming on some topic. It transforms mental sluggishness and brings one's "wits up to speed." Since the exercise trains us to immediately let go of mental events, it breaks up the usual continuity of past learning and behavior, allowing creative insight and new behavior an opportunity to emerge.
Quotes above were taken from an article by Marjolaine Tourangeau titled "Games & Exercises for Trainers," published in the August, 1986 issue of El Camino Update. This exercise was adapted from pp. 37-54 of Dimensions of Thought, Vol. I, edited by Ralph H. Moon and Stephen Randall (Dharma Publishing, Berkeley CA, 1977).
[ Presentations |
Consulting Services | The
Optimal Work Vision | Endorsements
| Readings
|
Founder | Mailing List
| Time Management Guide | Home
]
RESULTS IN NO TIME
send email; phone & fax: 510-303-1035