Day 11: Facing the Tsunami of the Mind

When sitting down with yourself and wanting to write to assist and support yourself, it sometimes happens that suddenly the mind starts throwing up all kinds of thoughts, emotions, feelings, memories, pictures and one starts feeling overwhelmed as though facing a storm, a tsunami of mind-crap. From my experience this usually happens when I have already been postponing to write for some time, where, instead of writing on a daily basis and working through the reactions and experiences that came up throughout that day, I’ve been accumulating everything inside myself for days – and then when I take a moment to sit with myself, it is like everything comes up all at once and I can’t see the beginning or the end of it.

In those moments it is easy to feel so overwhelmed by the mind that one just gives up and gives in to the mind, and instead of facing the Tsunami and working through it – to just stop right there, lock everything back inside and continue to ignore it. Obviously, the only thing that will happen then is that the inner Tsunami will only grow bigger and bigger and the harder it will become to eventually work through the points.

What I have done in those moments – where I see my mind is so active and so many experiences and points come up all at once and I can’t seem to be able to write about anything as the whole experience just seems too vast – is the following:

Before I write I just sit with myself and I breathe – 4 counts in, 4 counts hold, 4 counts out, 4 counts hold – this assists in slowing myself down and if you apply this breathing technique yourself, you’ll find that the Tsunami inside will slow down to a little stream. Then, I try to identify one point in the stream – just one – it doesn’t matter what it is, it doesn’t matter if it seems like a ‘beginning’ or not – it can be a random memory, it can be a picture, it can be a word, it can be a feeling or an emotion, or a thought – just identify one point of the stream. Once I’ve done that, I apply self-forgiveness on that one point – spoken, out loud – until I see that I don’t experience any more reactions towards this one point and it stands clear inside myself. Then I go back to the stream and identify the next point – again, applying self-forgiveness spoken out loud – until the point is clear.

When applying self-forgiveness on a point that you’ve identified of the stream it is important to stick to your self-forgiveness application and not allow the mind to start engaging with what you’re doing, where you start analysing the point and start thinking about it or thinking about whether your self-forgiveness application is effective. If you notice such mind-activity – just forgive it as well. Then go back to the point you were applying self-forgiveness on and continue with it until the point stands clear within self.

When the mind is so active within self that you experience a Tsunami and we work through it with first breathing it down to a stream and then working through each point in spoken self-forgiveness, don’t worry about trying to make sense of the experience or trying to see the beginning and the end of the constructs – just stick to applying self-forgiveness and allow the self-forgiveness to flow – because when the mind is so active you’ll find that it is hard to really take on a construct and investigate it in writing as the mind will keep on interfering and try to ‘pull you off course’ so to speak – where eventually the writing will be done from a mind-starting point in terms of trying to ‘make sense’ of an experience, where you’ll try to force understanding and insights by in essence, making something up, instead of allowing self to see direct what happened. This direct seeing of how something exists within and as self can be done through writing only when one is silent and able to focus on just self here with the one point in front of self – not when the mind is racing like a Tsunami and one tries to steer a course in de midst of it. So – before writing, one has to take on the Tsunami head on through first doing the 4-count-breath application where slowly but surely the Tsunami will not appear so overwhelming, but will slow down  to a ‘manageable’ stream. From there, we identify one point of the stream and apply self-forgiveness until that one point stands clear within and as self. Then we identify another point and continue with this self-forgiveness application until everything in and of self is dark and silent. In this darkness and in this silence, self is ready to write about a point self experienced throughout the day and open it up in self-intimacy where self will see what self did and how the point exists within and as self.

As one speaks self-forgiveness out-loud, again, don’t think of what self-forgiveness statement to speak next. Once you’ve identified one point, you hold it within self and you’ll be able to feel physical reactions within the body. Zoom in to those physical experiences and see what they are showing you in terms of your reactions and your relationship towards the point you’re working with. How to do this is by placing/translating the physical experiences into words and then apply self-forgiveness from there. For instance – if the point you’ve identified of the stream is the word ‘friends’ – and when you hold that word within and as the totality of you and breathe, you find that your chest starts tightening, for instance. Then you zoom in/focus on that physical experience of the tightening of the chest and see how you can place it into words. For instance, when looking at the experience of the tightening of the chest, you feel that it is constricting you. Then from there, you apply self-forgiveness on how you’ve accepted and allowed yourself to constrict yourself and your expression in the presence of friends and/or how you’ve constricted yourself in who you are and how you present yourself so as to be able to please your friends and fit in. For instance:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to constrict myself when I am in the presence of my friends.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to when I am in the presence of my friends, present myself as someone I am not in order to please my friends and fit in with them.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit myself and my expression by only allowing myself to express myself in such a way that my friends will approve of so that I can be accepted and validated by them.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit myself in and as the belief that I need and require others to accept and validate me – instead of realising and accepting that I have to validate myself, I have to accept myself – and realising and accepting that I can validate myself and i can accept myself.

If you then feel the tightening in your chest loosening up, you can make self-corrective statements. For instance:

I realise and accept that it is for me to validate myself and for me to accept myself. When and as I see myself looking for acceptance and validation from my friends by presenting and expressing myself as someone I’m not – I stop, I breathe – I embrace myself inside myself and allow myself to express myself as me in self-comfortability without worrying about what my friends will think, I share myself with my friends as who I truly am.

Then you check if there is any other points related to the word ‘friends’ within and as self – by again holding the word within and as the totality of you and seeing if there are any reactions. It might be that you feel a pressure in your solar plexus, for instance – then you know that there is more in relation to the word ‘friends’ that requires to be forgiven and released before moving on to the next point. So, you apply the same technique of zooming in to the pressure and seeing how to place the experience into words. When zooming in on the pressure in the solar plexus, you may find that you experience a mix of anxiety and sadness – then you apply self-forgiveness on the experiences of anxiety and sadness in relation to friends – until the pressure in the solar plexus released. Then you make self-corrective statements. And so you continue with the point of ‘friends’ until you can hold it within and as the totality of you and there are no reactions to the word. Then you let it go and have a look at the stream again. You’ll see that as you work with one point of the ‘stream’, the ‘stream’ itself kind of moves to the background so that you can focus on this one point. Then when this one point is cleared up, you bring the stream back to the foreground to identify another point to work with.

And so you continue, until you’ve cleared up all points in/of the stream and everything is dark and silent within and as self – no movements, no reactions, no uncomfortabilities – just self, here, breathing. From here, one can then write about a point one experienced throughout the day, or a particular memory one has been wanting to investigate, etc. Where self will then be able to just write and in the writing, see what happened. And within the writing as well, one can use the body as a guide, where – if one starts feeling a physical uncomfortability as one is writing, stop for a moment and have a look at where you’re leaving points out or misrepresenting some information or not being entirely honest with yourself.

So – this is an overview as a suggestion of how to work and walk through the Tsunami of the mind before being able to write with, for and as self. To re-cap:

1. Apply the 4-count-breath technique until the Tsunami slows down to a stream

2. Identify one point, any point of the stream

3. Apply self-forgiveness on the identified point

4. If you find the mind trying to engage with thoughts, etc. – forgive those thoughts as well

5. If you find you’re having difficulty within your self-forgiveness application, where you start thinking about how to phrase your next self-forgiveness sentence – hold the point you’re working with in and as the totality of you and breathe . See what physical reactions/uncomfortabilities you can feel. Zoom into the physical uncomfortability and place it in words. Apply self-forgiveness from there. When the physical uncomfortability clears up, make self-corrective statements. Continue to do this with all points of physical uncomfortability until the point stands clear within and as self.

6. Bring ‘the stream’ back to the foreground and repeat steps 2 to 5 until the everything in and as self is dark and silent

7. Write.

If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment!