Relaxation
Guided Imagery for Stress Relief and Well-Being
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Learn simple relaxation techniques
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Let the practical wisdom of Joel
& Michelle Levey guide you on your inner journey of self-discovery.
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Bryan
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Self-Guided.com
Seattle, WA USA
The Balanced
Mind-Brain State
fromLiving In Balance by Joel and Michelle Levey
One of the most amazing insights from our mind-brain
research is that when the mind is in a balanced state, the brain functions in a measurably
balanced way. As you watch the electrical activity of your brain displayed on a
color monitor, you can see how moment to moment the mind-brain state flows in and out of
balance.
When the brain comes into balance, there is a "synching
up" of the activity of both the left and right sides of the brain. It is like
what happens when dozens of individual musicians stop tuning their individual instruments,
or stop trying to drown each other out, and finally begin to actually play music together
as one orchestra.
When this unusually balanced brainstate was first discovered,
numerous researchers attempted to identify the key method necessary to bring it
about. After thousands of experiments, the data analysis revealed that the single
most important element was an open, focused quality of mind, sometimes described as
"panoramic attention" or as "mindfulness of space."
In this state of panoramic attention, the mind is balanced,
peaceful, open, clear, and powerfully present. Brain activity is balanced left to
right and front to back in a highly integrated, organized, coherent, and nearly superfluid
state of responsive functioning.
The good news is that you don’t need a brainwave machine
or fancy techniques to do this for yourself. With practice, you can learn how to
shift into this balanced mind-brain state whenever or wherever you like, even in the most
stressful of situations.
Here are some steps to discover this balanced
mind-brain state:
1.
Because it is easier for the mind to open,
equalize, and balance when your body is relaxed, take a few deep and easy breaths and
release any tensions you may become aware of. Take a few minutes to scan through
your whole body and to let the breath help you to draw your awareness into any regions in
your body that are calling for attention.
2.
Deepen this technique to help you focus your
awareness into any sticking points of tension in your mind. Breathing in, focus in a
deep and spacious way within the center of any thoughts. Breathing out, let the
energy of that thought flow or dissolve like a cloud melting into the deep clear sky.
3.
Next, sense and feel your whole body like a big
balloon that is completely open, unobstructed, and hollow inside.
4.
Now, as you sit here, sense yourself sitting
right at the very center of your universe. Consciously open and expand the field of
your awareness to become aware of you unique place in space. Sitting here, allow
the internal sense of openness and spaciousness to expand. Allow your field
scanners to reach up to see, sense, or feel whatever is above you, and to reach down to
sense and discover whatever is below you.
5.
Now allow yourself to effortlessly maintain
this evenly hovering, open awareness that attends equally to the flow of both inner and
outer experiences. Find the balance of mind necessary to equally attend both to the
things or people around you, as well as to the spaces between these things. Delight
in dwelling within the equalizing spaciousness of balanced awareness.
6.
As you deepen and expand this quality of
panoramic attention, effortlessly include the resonance of all the sounds filling the
space within and around you. In a similar way, sense everything within and around
you that is in motion … and balance this with the mindful awareness of everything
that is still and unmoving. Let this awareness extend equally to include all the
experiences within and around you.
Listen to Track 7 Inner Space from Joel Levey's Self-Guided Relaxation CD. It's
an extended version of Step 1 in this Balanced Mind-Brain State exercise. Click on
either link below to listen now (4 min 3 sec):
