For more info about this series please go to https://wordpress.com/post/catherinestrang.com/1455 This post takes 1-2 minutes to read and the exercise as long as you wish.

Today’s post on the theme of clearing the mind is a method for rooting out – or peeling back the layers – of thought on any given topic or issue, from wide topics to personal issues. It comes from a book called ”Loving Relationships” by Sondra Ray that I read many years ago and involves using the question, “My truth about (subject) is… You would continue to repeat this question about your chosen topic until there are no more answers or reactions. There are are of course even deeper ways of getting to the root of an issue such as the digging down method used in NLP and other therapies and this is what I would use in a therapy session. But the “My Truth Is” method is great for self help and also for making a start when you don’t know where to start!

To practice this exercise you would first pick the subject you wish to work on, whatever is bothering you. If it’s, for instance, relationships you could start global (“My truth about relationships is…”) then go into aspects such as “My truth about men/women is, then into whatever is personal to you. Use this exercise for anything; money, work, individual people, health, family, life and very specific details such as an emotion or single problem that is troubling you. Really, any concept, issue or event you can think of that you want to explore a little deeper or just empty your mind of.

Then take a pad of paper and write “My truth about (insert your topic) is…” at the top of the first sheet of paper and as you say this statement immediately write down your response. Continue to repeat this statement out loud and quickly jot down your responses until you dry up. If you come up blank write anything, it could be a sound you make, an emotion you feel or just write “I don’t know”. The trick is to force yourself to go into a kind of stream of consciousness mode and don’t accept a blank space. Most people will easily cover at least one sheet of paper with responses, so keep going!

Of course most of what you write will be rubbish but this is the point, it takes the garbage out of the mind and onto the paper where you clearly see it. Once seen many of the thoughts simply dissolve. There is then a second part to this exercise that delves a little deeper into what remains, into what has a charge to it, a reaction.

It can be very useful to leave it for a day or two before coming back to what you have written as even more of what you wrote may have dissolved but more importantly, in the act of dredging up perhaps hidden thoughts, more may have percolated up in the hours since you first did the exercise. In the spirit of this I will post the second half of this exercise tomorrow. Meanwhile have fun seeing what may be buried in the subconscious!