All of us are rushing around, prodded and pulled by our multiple duties and responsibilities. We’re doing too many things and worrying too much. Many of us are also in a mad rush because we’re running away from noticing the extent to which we’re not living the life we’d hoped to lead. Rather than realizing our dreams, doing our deepest work, and making sufficient meaning, we keep ourselves in perpetual mental and physical motion.
The only way to stop running is to demand of ourselves that we stop running. We must tell ourselves to stop. Either we come to a complete stop or we keep rushing headlong toward our next task, our next worry, and our next depression. You come to a complete stop by using Incantation 1, “I am completely stopping.” You think “I am completely” on the inhale, pause, and think “stopping” on the exhale. Then, and only then, will you actually stop.
You want the experience of coming to a complete stop, not just the experience of thinking some words. If the words “I am completely stopping” do not actually cause you stop, the incantation is not doing its necessary work. If you do not believe in the idea of completely stopping, if you fear stopping so much that you don’t mean it when you say it, or if you can’t quite grasp the concept, then you will need to do some preliminary work on practicing stopping. You will need to buy the idea. Do that preliminary work now.
Make a cup of tea, find a comfortable place to sit, and come to grips with the question, “Do I have permission to completely stop?” Wrestle with that question and with your resistance to stopping until you can honestly say that you agree with the precept “completely stopping is important” and honestly feel emotionally equal to giving stopping a chance.
Try Incantation 1 now. Repeat it a few times. Then make some notes to yourself about the thoughts and feelings that arose in you when you tried to completely stop. You may have met your darkest fears, largest worries, and gravest disappointments. You may have heard yourself say “I need a drink,” “I hate this,” “I have too much to do” or “This is ridiculous.” Right now, replace thoughts of this sort with “I’m not afraid of stopping” and “It’s about time that I stopped.” Talk yourself into the belief that completely stopping is vital to your mental and physical well-being. After you’ve had this heartfelt chat with yourself, repeat Incantation 1 a few times and see if you experience completely stopping.
Using Incantation 1
Here are some reports from clients and study subjects who have put Incantation 1 into practice.
From Katherine:
“I can see that my fear stands in the way of me completing stopping. I’ve been on the run all of my life. I’ve been on the run from myself and from the trauma I’ve carried with me since my childhood. My own existence reminds me of this trauma, so therefore I am on the run from myself. But it’s no longer a good solution to run from boyfriends, jobs, apartments, tasks, from everything. This really must change and that’s why I’m committing to using Incantation 1 every day, as often as I can.”
From Kristin:
“What usually gets in the way of me completely stopping is a compulsion to ‘get things done’ or else my need to run away from something that’s difficult to face. For a few moments after using Incantation 1, I experienced incredible relief. But it wasn’t long before I was plagued again by thoughts of all the things I ‘should, need or want to be doing.’ I have much more work to do on this!”
Are you in the grip of those twin vises, the compulsion to get things done and the need to run away from difficult thoughts and feelings? Picture in your mind’s eye the first vise opening. Turn the vise handle slowly and release the grip on your compulsion. Feel the compulsion to get things done release, dissipate, and vanish. Now picture the second vise opening and with it your need to run away. Do this work in your mind’s eye, getting out of the vise grip of whatever stands between you and completely stopping.
From Sam:
“I take this incantation to mean that I am not just temporarily setting aside the endless to-do list of aspiration and work and daily life, but truly believing that the present moment is already good, that there is no need for it to be improved upon or altered. What stands in the way of me completely stopping is a sense that work and life are a treadmill moving faster and faster, that standing still means that I am falling behind. There is also a sense that I should be more than I already am, which is a feeling that dissolves when you examine it and see that it’s based on nothing and means nothing.”
Do you feel like you’re on a treadmill that can’t be stopped? Calmly picture yourself on that relentless treadmill. Feel yourself reaching toward the control pad and punching the automatic slow-down button. Feel the treadmill gradually slow down. Really feel the experience of stage-by-stage slowing. Feel it stop. Calmly step off the treadmill and towel yourself off.
From Deb:
“I was recently sick for almost a month. One thing that I see with Incantation 1 and with the experience of being so sick is that both showed me the concept of coming to a complete stop. My illness forced me to stop, completely. I had no choice in the matter. What I noticed when I was getting better was that being busy in my mind and wanting to be busy in my body ‘came back.’ When I was too sick to move, I couldn’t do anything and the sky didn’t fall. There was a total lack of monkey mind talk and uncentered busy-ness. I remember thinking as I was getting better how much energy that monkey-mind thinking cost me. The idea came to me that perhaps, if I wasn’t that way when I was ill, I didn’t have to be that way when I was well. Incantation 1 gives me the same message in the very first breath.”
The sky won’t fall if you completely stop for a few seconds. Find the way to believe that. Then return to Incantation 1, repeat it three or four times, and experience completely stopping.
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Over the course of several weeks I’ll be providing a series of posts that will help you stay calm and centered in 2022. These posts are based on two of my books, Redesign Your Mind and Ten Zen Seconds. To learn more about the techniques I’ll be describing, please take a look at those two books.
To learn more, please take a look at Redesign Your Mind and Ten Zen Seconds.
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