Replacing Apathy with a Lust for Life

Reasons to stay in bed are like reasons to be cheerful. They can be numerous and perfect for robust health and well being. The reason can sometimes be less suited to a happy productive day, instead dragging a person down into a darkening pit of laziness and despondency.

Photo: tuxthepenguin84

Today's article is about replacing apathy with a get up and go attitude. It's literally about getting out of bed or off the couch. It's a bit tongue-in-cheek but when you've lived with someone (or you are someone) who experiences apathy, then it may prove useful.

I think we all have ideas about what apathy is. In the past I estimate I've 'wasted' days, weeks, months maybe years because of apathy. I have very few regrets because the past is where it is, behind me and there is nothing I can do about that. This present moment and the future is better served by my energy.


Is it ignorance or apathy? Hey, I don't know and I don't care. Jimmy Buffett


The first part is about helping yourself and the second part is helping others remove apathy. I've purposefully not covered areas like diet, nutrition, sleep and uses of psychoactives like coffee, alcohol and other drugs. I've aimed for a simple approach that may be useful to people in creating a direction and then launching themselves into it. It's worked recently for a friend's partner and it worked for me recently too. You have to be willing to change and recognise a need for it. Otherwise it is not time well spent.


“My generation's apathy. I'm disgusted with it. I'm disgusted with my own apathy too, for being spineless and not always standing up against racism, sexism and all those other -isms the counterculture has been whining about for years.” Kurt Cobain


Helping Yourself: Replacing apathy with a lust for your life

• Take heart: the belief you have about staying in bed, sits beside the belief you have about getting up and into enjoying your day. The right one has yet to be brought forward to brighten your feelings and propel you onward.

• When you're in bed and can't be bothered to get up yet, do the following: Picture all the best moments from your recent memory. Any moment or event that made you laugh or smile and feel good. Put them side by side in your imagination and run through them. Remember each one with a bright, lively quality. Then choose one or more that you will like to repeat for real today.

• The funny thing is the body will usually follow the voice in your mind, whether it's uplifting and passionate or dull and depressing. So take care about what you say and how you say it. Say something wonderful to yourself.
  

• Consider one thing, act or goal you will really love to do today, however small, bizarre or achievable (that avoids being apathetic in bed). Make it a vivid, colourful, life size experience on the inside. Feel your whole body move with this. Imagine the results of doing that thing and how you and others will benefit from it. Then get up and do something like it.

• The truth is that this moment, only in the present moment, is real and is where your thoughts, desires and intentions can be most usefully guided. While you're in bed or slouching on the couch refusing to embrace the day consider this: too many limited thoughts of yesterday and tomorrow make you a muppet and not a master.

• Learn to consume in the present rather than be consumed from the past.

• You know the phenomena when you're in bed and a song you don't really like starts playing in your head? Well, change the track just like you would on a sound system. Choose a blazing track to get you excited and up.

• It's your thoughts and feelings that power you into the day not the material wealth or lack of it you have around you.

• Just be grateful that you have the opportunity to indulge in apathy. Such indulgence means you also have space to gather more beneficial opportunities toward you. Just get up and discover how easy they are to find.
  

I've not suffered from 'can't be bothered to get out of bed' syndrome since I was in my teens. I do sometimes experience 'can't be bothered to do anything productive, now I'm out of bed' syndrome. I know exactly what apathy is like, and there is very little to like about it. It's not relaxation, it's not recuperation or reflection or healing.

'Apathy is a sort of living oblivion' Horace Greeley


Helping Others: Ideas on turning the apathetic into the athletic (almost)
Firstly, find out if they are feeling healthy. If they are in good health and you decide to encourage them away from the bed or couch, do so in a way that aims for a positive response. That's if you can get to speak with them.

Hint
Being cajoled by someone else into an effort of enthusiasm, is like trying to electrically jump start your car when the tank is empty. Great questions to avoid: Why are you still in bed? What are you doing in bed? Why haven't you got out of bed yet?

1. Ask them if they are well and healthy.

2. Ask them if they are happy and refreshed after a long sleep.

3. Enquire about whether they are looking forward to anything special this day.

4. Engage them about that special something or suggest something they may find of interest.

5. Discuss with them what you will be doing today and ask their opinion on something. Get them intellectually and emotionally engaged. Continue to build upon this. Ask their opinion on more things and sound interested. You want them to feel better and motivated toward something (at least getting out of bed and avoiding the couch).

6. If they are obviously unenthusiastic, begin artfully using their tired, lazy inflections as you speak with them and gradually build in enthusiasm. Then engage them with useful questions to to help move their energy in the right direction.

7. A well directed bucket of cold water. It's cruel to be kind all the time.

8. Race into the room in boundless excitement screaming you've won the lotto.

9. Be warned even the most willing people can sometimes be unwilling to get out of bed for anything. Placate your frustrated ego by calmly telling yourself 'it's just another amazing facet of human nature.'

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the apathy of human beings. Helen Keller

Now you've read my current approach to removing apathy both for yourself and helping others replace theirs with something better. Tell me your experiences of overcoming apathy or how you helped others to do so. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Thanks for reading

Jens

Taking your Time for a Change

What's it like being stuck at the end of a long queue waiting for the supermarket checkout? Moving slowly inch by inch in a traffic jam? Sitting too long for the bank cashier to see you? Waiting not-so-patiently to see your doctor? I'm guessing the experience will have frustrated, annoyed you a little. Maybe that's an understatement.

Photo: badboy69

Imagine you could speed through time or race across moments in life. Where you once believed events moved too slowly, now you experience them at the pace you desire. Taking the time you'd prefer to feel the way you like.


'The only reason for time, is so that everything doesn't happen at once.' attributed to both Albert Einstein and John Archibald Wheeler

Remember a time when you had been travelling quickly then suddenly you had to slow because of traffic, pedestrians or delayed connections? Everything around you seems to wobble to an achingly slower pace. People move as if wading in mud and even the clocks on the wall indicate a rate of speed from a slower dimension. If you were to notice a stone falling from above, you suspect it would glide down like a feather.

There are ways to change more of your time in places, so more speed less haste, equals increasing pleasure. The cool thing is you don't have to walk, run, drive, fly or sail any quicker. You change your inner speedometer to create that for you. It's easy. Everything will be taken care of. This is how you can do it.


More Speed, Less Haste
Preparing our perceptions of things before they occur (and being calm and relaxed), can help many occasions be more enjoyable. It's about getting into your best state to appreciate more things. Changing the speed at which we relate to things before they occur, may make learning, exercising, standing in queues and travelling more pleasant.

I believe this exercise will positively change your experience of anticipated events, both before they occur and during the reality. You'll be changing your expectations of moments in your life and who knows what beneficial things may unfold.

• Think of a journey you'll be taking soon. This can be via car, plane, cycling, walking or running on foot or any combination you'll be using.

• Now see the journey as you expect it to be from beginning to end in your imagination. Obviously you won't be spending one hour or more doing this. You'll likely experience parts of the journey. Feelings of passing time and a dash of emotions with hints of your own inner dialogue too.

• Stop, stand up briefly and think of something pleasant. Smile.
  

• Sit down again and relax and just breath naturally. Take your time and relax well, so you are very comfortable.

• Imagine your expected, future journey again from beginning to end.
  

• See it and feel it occurring pleasantly and very quickly before you. As if you were watching yourself making that journey on a fast-forwarded film. Speed the film at a pace that is faster than normal and comfortable to you.

• Now, imagine you are in the fast forwarded journey. You are relaxed, still and happy.

• Pretend you are the calm centre. See everything moving around you at a fast speed. That includes everything in your scenery that will normally be in motion.
  

• Do this repeatedly so you can explore your dominant senses of that experience (usually your vision, kinaesthetic feelings and emotions). Remember to use a speed that you feel comfortable with.
  

Notice how differently you feel toward any anticipated journeys or adventures.
Do future events, journeys, training sessions, meetings feel easier and more agreeable to you now?
Do you feel this exercise will be practical or useful to you?

Maybe this will also help you, when you're considering learning something new and wondering how quickly you can learn it.


Another Hint & Tip in the Right Direction
Another exercise you may find useful is one by Richard Bandler, co-founder of NLP. He uses the idea of contrasting speed. In your imagination you exaggerate a slower speed so when you're in the real occasion, it will appear much faster by comparison.

• Imagine slowing down all aspects of an anticipated journey or occasion.

• Everything you observe becomes very, very slow in your imagination.

• The rate of movement of people, vehicles, animals, the elements like wind and rain, is greatly reduced. People's speech and breathing is reduced.

• As a result of this, when you live the real event it may seem much faster.

'Life is all about timing....the unreachable becomes reachable, the unavailable becomes available, the unattainable....attainable. Have the patience....it's all about timing.' Stacey Charter

I hope these suggestions are useful to you. Let me know you're thoughts.

Thanks for reading
Jens

3 Inside Tips for Your Health and Well Being

There are three powerful inner resources we commonly use to enjoy good feelings for relaxation, motivation, excitement, creativity and inspiration. The effect of this is often greater well being, goal achievement, changes in attitude, perceived health and positive outlook on life. I'll share my highlights of each to better illustrate what they are and how you can use them.


From the Inside to the Outside and Back Again
Your inner resources are the attributes of your personality and are innate human skills. We all share them. We are often grateful for them. They have a strong relationship between our outer world and our inner. Our imagination often acts as a liaison between the two. They are controlled by your mind and you are expert in using them in many ways already. In my experience these resources are our vision, our feelings and our inner dialogue.

People start by looking within and then move toward what's available outside of them. Personally, I think that's a very good strategy. When they know how to beneficially use what's inside them, then their reliance on other things is reduced. Co-operating with the skills you have and sharing your gifts with others, leads to greater happiness and independence.
It could be a metaphor for this burgeoning green, resourceful society we have around us. First locate and use what is naturally, locally, easily available and then share it. We may find it's more precious and pleasurable too.


The 3 Inside Tips for Your Well Being
As you read this you may find it's easier to go inside and discover even more of what's already available to you.

Vision

• I realised that when I get excited or happy, I experience a brightness or light in my mind. It's like a white and golden light. So now, when I want to feel good or even better about something, I imagine it full or suffuse with bright light and hey presto! the magic is there.

Feeling

• With any excitement comes really good feelings. These sensations can begin in my torso and quickly spread through my body to my fingertips and toes. The kinaesthetic movement feels like it sends sparks from my fingers and toes. My body feels energized and robust and my stamina improves. Whenever I want to enhance a positive experience, I notice which way feelings move and accelerate it by sending these wonderful feelings all over my body.

Sound

• When I find a positive, uplifting or motivating moment I naturally hear my inner voice exclaim "That's great. I'll do it!" My inner dialogue is dynamic, powerful and motivating. It resonates all around me, as though I'm bathed in it's sound, volume, tone and tempo. When I desire more motivation I use my inner dialogue in a way that reminds me of a rock bands PA system. It rocks and I roll with it.

As you consider personal experiences of using your three skills together with any desires for your brighter future, perhaps you will bring all your resources together and create something really unique. I don't know exactly what that will be when you have it ready to share, although I'm looking forward to hearing and reading more.


Earlier posts I've written on these inner resources may be useful to you for creating more good feelings and positive experiences. Check out these three articles:
This article reveals more of our fantastic internal technology.
Here you can explore using your visual and sensational imagination.
Your inner dialogue for relaxation.

Now you've read about the benefits of the suggestions above, you may like to comment on what you do that makes you feel good, better or just wonderful.


Let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading
Jens

How to Lose Relaxation - The Stress and Tension List

I asked friends to tell me of some of the behaviours and attitudes that made them feel stressed, tense or unhappy in the past. Things they could laugh about now and be happy to share. I did this to find common themes that we all successfully reversed, removed or replaced. This is a respectful, simplified and humorous list of the collated material.


People Have Unique Experiences - Sometimes Happy, Sometimes Sad
It's an unhappy, contemplative fact that many people in our world suffer. You can find statistics on numbers of people, countries, years and types of conditions including physical, social, political, psychological, economical and environmental. You may have experienced harsh conditions yourself or met with people who have. Maybe you are amazed by or respect your own and others tenacity for recovery or optimistic approach to life. I'm sure you can understand reasons for people's despair and depression due to their traumatic personal history.

Happily, there are many of us who have had few traumatic experiences in life. I believe we enjoy fruitful, healthy lives due to one or many of the following: stable society, education, adopted belief systems and lifestyles, parental upbringing, flexible approach to life, availability of work, respect and care for ourselves and others.


Anybody Can Experience Stress and Tension
However, there are people who have an uncanny ability to make themselves feel bad and worse. This can easily be done by thinking negative outcomes, events or repeating bad memories. Some people actively reduce their perception of themselves to 'bad and ruin'. In a quick period of time they can construct a 'bad' strategy to reduce their mental, emotional and physical health to the point of sickness.

I learnt for my own well being, that bad memories have no purpose beyond being a reminder of an earlier experience and 'guides' or compass points for future experiences. For example, if you've experienced any abusive relationship, you'll be aware of what others do to make you feel bad. There will probably be strong indicators of what you did to make yourself feel bad too. They are very useful examples of what to be aware of and even avoid in the future, for your own health and well being.


The Changeable, Removable Stress, Tension and Unhappiness List

• Find all those statements that make you feel discomfort and stress. Repeat them to yourself whenever you want to be tense and ill at ease.

• Go to places that you dislike, where you can do things you dislike but which other people say should be good for you.

• Talk often upon subjects that make you feel uninspired, uncreative and even miserable .

• Listen to music that makes you feel tense but others recommend because it's hip or required listening for your lifestyle.

• On a daily basis, read articles that depress you and cause you to reflect on the sadness and despair in the world.

• Regularly watch programs depicting violence, despair, depression just to make sure you are feeding your bleakest outlook on the world around you.

• Constantly compare yourself to others you regard as more successful, intelligent, attractive or generally superior to you.
  

• Think of memories where you suffered great emotional upset, like the break up of a long term relationship or collapse of a business. Do this repeatedly until you feel bad and consider visiting the doctor because you think you are depressed.

• Adopt a lifestyle in which you are in constant competition to achieve an idealised self or state of success. Key themes you may find great difficulty in: competition to be more attractive and accepted; improve yourself or conform to an others standard; persist in trying to drag yourself to the unrealistic goals you've set.

• Spend money. Spend lots of it to camouflage your unhappiness. Throw it away on items that convince you you're achieving happiness or the same status as your idol. Alternatively, convince yourself that lavish consumption is commensurate with 'successful' behaviour and buy, buy, buy. Also remember: shopping is retail therapy.

• Be dishonest with yourself. Set yourself goals that are in contradiction to your real and heartfelt wants and needs. Don't sit down to notice what you really feel and think about your needs in life. Never write it down. Ignore it for best ill effects.

• Set yourself a target to think about all the bad things that can happen in you life. Connect them in any bizarre way to any remote experience in your memory. Repeat frequently for disastrous effects on a daily basis.

A heartfelt thank you to those who shared their personal past as a contribution to this post.


Thanks for reading.
Jens

10 Steps for a Stress Less new Season

Relax, spring is here and for many people it's the season to rejoice. A warmer, sunnier climate is expected to be bouncing along our way soon. Accompanying this brighter change in season is often a change in attitudes, aspirations, dreams and hobbies. Well, it is amongst many of the people I've been talking with recently and that's an optimistic response to the end of the darkly chilled Scandinavian winter.

I've created a list of activities and changes that I hope will attract, amuse and provoke even more creativity from you, for a relaxing spring season. Each suggestion comes with it's own link to a site offering you diverse ways to enjoy spring. Enjoy!


1. Enjoy relaxing in the outside world again.
Maybe you never stopped or maybe you've forgotten what a bright outside world looks like between your workplace, gym, restaurant, car and home. I love the outdoors even if I'm just strolling along listening to my thoughts, my mp3 player or the world around me. I also prefer exercising outside too and rarely use the gym.
If you enjoy walking, cycling and running outdoors here is a useful website to assist you with maps and distances to measure: Map my run


2. Discover something unique about the natural world around you.
This season with it's extra daylight and warmth (usually) is the time to venture outside and really explore this. There's a curious aspect to nature. Did you know that there are mathematical principles visible in plants, human bodies and flowers and they are often expressed in the symbolic language of art, architecture, songs, myths, folk sayings and religions? Neither did I! You can take information outside with you from this site: Golden Number


3. Write poetry for the world to see.
As you cast your hungry gaze across the blossoming landscapes of springs' new vitality...Write something wonderful about the changing daily scenes and inspirations in spring. When you want to share it, (as well as social/microblogging it) submit it to this site
Poetry Magazine


4. Teach yourself Relaxation for less stress
Learn to relax easily and quickly. Discover how to use your imagination, memory and creative flexibility for relaxation. Tell your friends and colleagues when you feel it's good for them.
Begin here with The Relaxing Zone


5. A new season, a new reason to buy new clothes
Buy clothes that reflect the new season and your new 'mood' or 'attitude'. All the fashion houses release new season clothes and all successful high street stores do the same. Feel what colours and styles best reflect you and where you want to be this season. Fashion Chicks


6. Choose different foods for your diet.
Spring greens like asparagus and plantain are starting to come out now. Yummy. Did you know that passion fruit has more fibre per ounce than any other fresh fruit? Nor did I. You can select new foods based on nutritional value (which I suspect is a novelty for some of us) This site is helpful Nutrition Data


7. Grow yourself a herb garden.
Begin planting a herb garden or a herb box (if you have no garden) and you can enjoy their fragrance before using them in your cooking. All they require to grow well is sunshine with a light, fertile well drained soil. Simple stuff. Check this site. Herb Growing


8. Volunteering
A generous way to spread spring's energetic vibe whilst building upon your recognition of need and social responsibility. You can probably think of many ways to offer your skills and knowledge to your neighbours, friends or community. This site matches people and causes Volunteer Match


9. Learn basic digital photography
Capture scenes to inspire the wonder and emotions from the daily scenes around you. Upload and share on flickr or your various blogs and profiles. If you're like me then a few hints and tips are always welcome. The next step is remembering to take the camera outside with you (note to self). Find hints and tips here Digital Photography School


10. Relax and decide upon what you don't need.
Take some old clothes and household items to a charity store near you. Consider it an important aspect of your spring cleaning. You never know what things you might discover for yourself. Find what beliefs and attitudes are unproductive for you now. Exchange them for something more conducive to well being and the blossoming of spring.
Read this for imagining yourself doing something new Tune in, turn on, take off from here


I hope these suggestions are all useful to you. Please let me know your experiences or suggestions for other activities this season.

Thanks for reading
Jens

Day Dreaming for Creativity and Relaxation

Day Dream Believing
This article is written about one of my favourite activities. Day dreaming. It's a creative, focused, relaxed way to get insights for your future.
Whilst doing this you can allow anything to be possible with a free and open attitude. Day dreaming has a dual purpose. You are relaxing as well as creatively orienting yourself to gather ideas.

You'll notice I referred to day dreaming as an activity. A very pleasurable, fruitful activity.
That's because I see it as the beginning of creativity. It can be used systematically for inspiration, idea generating and seeing the whole picture as you would like it.
I find it very useful for giving me specific visual information with feelings, that confirm their appropriateness for what I want to accomplish.


To get useful results from day dreaming I suggest having four simple things in place:
1. Your direction - what you want to do. What would you love to do?
2. What you value and what you recognise as useful.
3. Goals you have decided upon.
4. Relaxation.


Begin Day Dreaming
This can be done anywhere you can sit down. Have a pen and paper available or a voice recorder to note your results.
Read through the following technique until you're familiar with it then practise and enjoy day dreaming.

Consider the following and have simple, brief answers. Use the answers as a magnet for the results you'll get from day dreaming.

• What is it you want to do?

• What is it's purpose?

• How soon do want it?

• Where will it take you in the future once you have it?

Day dreaming is for seeing, feeling and hearing the specific details within the answers. Continue into the next technique.


Relaxation.

• Sit down comfortably with your back straight and feet upon the floor.

• You can be looking straight ahead or slightly upwards.

• In your own time, take 3 relaxing deep breaths. Savour each breath as it flows in and out.

• With every gentle exhalation you'll relax more.

• Notice which part of you feels most relaxed.

• Gently take another deep breath and as you let it out imagine a warm and sensuous feeling growing in the area where you feel most relaxed.

• With your next breath imagine that wonderfully relaxing feeling moving all around your body.

• Enjoy pleasure in the deeper feelings of relaxation and imagine any tension washing away.

• Every breath you take can easily deepen this relaxation.

• Notice what would happen if you took this relaxation into your life.

• The more you allow things to happen, the more your natural breathing will be relaxed and relaxing.

• Stay with this feeling and be open to the ideas that will come to you.
  

Record whatever information is useful and attractive to you.


Day Dreaming Hints & Tips
In my experience a relaxed body posture is important for the best results. I have found a seated upright posture, with head up or slightly raised to be most comfortable. My eyes are gently focused at a point somewhere between my eyebrows and middle of my forehead for the quickest results.
Having the intention to receive appropriate or relevant information is useful. A playful, open attitude seems to encourage more results for me.


I'm very interested to know what you find from using this technique.

Thanks for reading.
Jens

Getting rid of that pain

This article highlights 3 ways in which we can help ourselves reduce or even remove small pain like backache, toothache, knee aches. I'm labelling them as Well Being 1, 2 and 3. It is to be used as a compliment to your lifestyle and any therapy or medication you may take. The cool thing is there are no side effects. You are using your own brain to remember and restore feelings of health.

Small, regular experiences of pain can be distracting at best and debilitating at worst. I'm assuming that you realise pain is an important sensation for you to notice. It is your body telling you that an area needs rest, recuperation, healing and maybe even rehabilitation. Listen to it and seek medical advice if necessary. Normally we only experience pain briefly before the body repairs itself and returns to a normal, pleasurable state of health. Of course some people do experience chronic pain or more dramatically debilitating pain as a result of injury.

People notice and respond to different sensations. People also explore themselves and their potential in different ways. I hope you can easily use these techniques to control sensations in your body. I recommend practising and playing. It's the best attitude for me when I'm curious about something new and untested. Please remember to adapt them to suit yourself. It's about self exploration, personal development and well being.

This article is concerned with small, brief pain as it is written from my experience of using the techniques to remove them. It may be useful for people experiencing chronic or severe pain too. Please let me know if this is the case. I always recall the 4 Rs with regard to my health and healing: Relaxation, Rest, Recuperation and Rehabilitation.

The feelings of pain may return for a variety of reasons. Use these techniques to reduce or remove them when they return. I hope they work very well for you too. Do these exercises if you feel happy and comfortable in doing them. Rarely, people may experience something less than comfort or curiosity and I always recommend they stop and do something else they prefer. Believing you can alter your bodies sensations to improve your feelings is a huge step in the direction of improved well being.


Well Being 1

• Remember what it feels like to have healthy normal sensations in the area of your body currently experiencing pain.

• Vividly recall what healthy sensations are like in every detail you can remember.
  

To help you, consider the following.

• Notice if there is any colour associated with the healthy feelings.

• When you make the healthy colour brighter does it increase good feelings?

• Notice if there is any movement associated with the healthy feelings.

• When you increase the healthy movement and spread it into the surrounding areas does it reduce the pain?

• Notice if there is any sound accompanying it also.

• When you increase the healthy sound does it increase good feelings in the area of your body where the pain was?

• There may be many more things you notice. Remember and record them in detail in your imagination because you will use them again soon.

• If you haven't already done so, infuse the area concerned with these good sensations of health.

• This may be enough to dramatically reduce or remove the pain.

• Remember what level of change you have made that is optimum for reducing or removing the pain and replacing it with normal healthy feelings.

I recommend you then settle into relaxation or use this technique to increase your well being.


If you still experience pain practice this next technique. It is presented in two different ways because either may be sufficient in reducing pain. Feel free to adapt all these techniques for your own benefit. The following tool is designed to reduce pain.
Use my suggestions as a guide only. If they are not reducing pain then use or explore something else that will.


Well Being 2

• Notice if the pain has an image with colour, size, feeling, sound, movement or any other attribute you think is appropriate.

• Take some time to notice what the attributes of pain are. Then begin changing them to reduce or remove pain.

• For example, reduce the colour to a thin, washed-out pastel like appearance.

• Reduce the feeling in the same way as a hand stroke across your arm gradually fades away.

• Slow any movement down so it stops.

• Lower the volume of any sound associated with this until it can no longer be heard.

• Reduce the image to the size of a pin head or so it disappears completely.

• Do this until the pain is gone or reduced.

• Then place the normal healthy sensations from the first exercise in the area of your body now free from pain.

A variation to the ending of this is:

• Take the changed feelings of pain and move them to the palm of your left hand and allow it to fall way like fine grains of sand in a strong breeze.

• Then place the healthy feelings you remembered into your right hand, sending them through your body gathering more healthy energy and revitalisation before they settle into the specific area of your body.

The third technique is similar to the last one but with an added feature. You will first rate the feeling of pain and do this again later to self assess the level of reduction of pain.


Well Being 3

• Rate the painful feeling on a scale of 1 to 5

• Make an image of the pain. Notice where the image is. Notice any colours, movements, sounds. Change them as you did in the previous exercise.

• After changing each attribute (and there may be as few or as many as you notice) rate the overall feeling on a scale of 1 to 5.

• If it has reduced but is not a 1 or 0 then continue to change the attributes further.

• If after the next scale it has not reduced further, send the changed painful feeling into your left hand and away from your body.

• Place the healthy normal sensations in it's place as in previous exercises. Again rate the level of change. Ideally it should be at 1 or 0.

I hope these suggestions for more healthy, healing sensations and the removal or reduction of pain are very useful for you. I hope you can integrate them into your lifestyle.


The suggestions I've made are based on the use of the imagination to create changes to well being using the brain and body's capacity to adapt and heal itself. They've worked well for me and I believed they would when I explored my way of using them. I'm fortunate in that I have never experienced serious illness or debilitating injury or pain.

I'm a big believer in using our own innate, imaginative skills for well being and health to compliment whatever assistance we need from our societies' medical and health authorities.
I think it's crucial to our well being that we take responsibility for our health and our actions. Sometimes we do not have a choice about what is put into our environments. We can have greater choice in how we use our minds and bodies to create the inner and outer environments we desire.

Thanks for reading
Jens