Mind Stories

Introduction From March 21, 1997

The following “mind story” can be read to you by a caring person, or you can record the text onto an audio tape, CD, or cell phone. Alternatively, you can order an mp3 from me by sending a check or money order for $18.00 (or more, if you wish to contribute to my efforts to maintain this site) to:

Jerome Freedman, Ph. D.
PO Box 665
Larkspur, CA 94977

You can also order custom “mind stories” by sending $72.00 along with your favorite place of relaxation and your most immediate concern to the above address.

Note that in Jewish tradition, the number 18 represents life! To life – L’hiam!

This mind story was developed over a period of years between 1971 and 1974. I have taught it to hundreds of people over the years and especially to my son when he had cancer at the age of seven. I taught it to my young girls who are now twelve and fourteen! I hope you find it useful in your recovery or improvement of your life!

Preparation

To prepare for doing a “mind story,” find a comfortable place where you won’t be disturbed for at least thirty minutes. Wear loose fitting clothes and remove everything from your pockets that you feel safe in doing. Turn off the phone and the answering machine and give yourself the space to simply relax and enjoy yourself for thirty or more minutes. Put up your “Please Do No Disturb” sign.

This practice can be done as often as necessary. I recommend at least two times a day. A good time is in the morning when you wake up. Another good time is in the evening just before you go to sleep. I often do a “mind story” in the middle of the afternoon, when I’m feeling tired or fatigued, but any time you feel comfortable is a good time to do a “mind story”.

This mind story is just a template. You can make your own personal adjustments as you become practiced at doing it. In reading the “mind story,” be sure to pause a sufficient amount of time whenever you see the ellipses (…) to give your mind and body a chance to execute the instructions in a calm and relaxed way.

The purpose of the mind story is to help you reduce stress by increasing relaxation. Don’t be concerned about how well you visualize the scenes that are described below. The important thing is to remain calm and allow your mind to work in it’s own way.

I am going to ask you to visualize yourself relaxing on a beach. This can be a place that you already love and enjoy, or it can be some place that you make up yourself. It can be a real or imagined place, as long as it works for you. In future mind stories, you may prefer to change the venue to a mountain top, a meadow, a flowing stream or river, the bank of a peaceful lake, or the eighteenth hole of your favorite golf course. It’s not where you chose that is important, but the sense of calm and serenity.

If you are making your own tape, begin reading now.

Basic Relaxation Practice

Please lie down on your back in a comfortable position on the floor or on your bed at a time that you won’t be disturbed for at least thirty minutes. Loosen any clothing that you can and make yourself completely comfortable…

Let us begin by stretching and relaxing all of the large muscles of our bodies. Begin by stretching you legs and feet as long as you can, and pointing your toes as far as comfortable… Now let them go and stretch your arms and hands high above your body in front of you. Spread your fingers apart… Now allow your arms to relax at your side… Arch you back as much as you can and really feel the stretch…. Now let it go and relax… Roll your head from side to side three or four times… And now back to a natural and comfortable position…

So now we’ve stretched and relaxed all the large muscles of our body except the chest muscles. To stretch and relax the chest muscles, I’m going to have you take six deep breaths. When you hear the word, “relax…,” inhale as deeply and completely as you can, filling your lungs from deep in your belly, all the way to the top of your chest. When you hear the words, “relax now…,” let go of the air in your lungs just a quickly as you can without strain. Ready… relax… inhale completely and deeply… relax now… let it all go… relax… once again, inhale completely and deeply… relax now… letting it all go… Relax… complete inhalation deep into the belly… relax now… letting go… Relax… once again, inhale as deeply as you can… Relax now… allowing the breath to flow out of your body… Relax… relax now… Relax… inhale deeply one last time… Relax now… let it all go.

Now allow you breathing to become normal… Withdraw yourself into yourself, and become aware of your posture… Make any adjustments that you feel necessary in order to feel completely comfortable and at ease… Be aware of no other spaces but these spaces… Be aware of no other times but this time… Be here… Be now… Be here… now…

Imagine yourself lying on a beach of soft white sand… This can be a place that you’ve been before, or a place that you’d like to visit, or a place that you simply make up… It’s totally up to you… Any place that you find calming and peaceful… The sand is so soft and so comfortable that you really enjoy lying there… You can feel the grains of soft sand gently against your hands and arms… The sandy feeling triggers a calming effect on your body… You can hear the waves crashing against the shore in a calming rhythm… You can smell the ocean air and virtually taste the salty water… You can see yourself lying there on the beach… As you look along the edge of the sand, you and appreciate just how beautiful it is… You can see a little yellow bird digging in the sand not too far away from you… Then the bird takes wing and starts to fly up into the sky… Higher and higher it goes… up into the clear blue sky… It flies so far away that all you can see is the clear… blue… sky. And into the sky starts to flow a single, large white cloud… drifting slowly…slowly across the sky… high up and far away. And the calmness and peacefulness of this cloud reminds you of just how relaxed you are lying there in the sand…

And you’re just lying there and your hands and arms are getting very, very heavy… And your feet and legs are getting very, very heavy… And your hands and arms and feet and legs are getting very, very heavy… And you are feeling completely and deeply relaxed. To help you relax even more deeply, invite the top of your head to relax… just like your hands and arms… just like your feet and legs… Relax your forehead… Relax your eye brows, eye lids, and eyes… Every muscle and every nerve… Every muscle and every nerve… Relax you nose and nostrils… Relax your cheeks… Relax your lips, chin and jaws… Every muscle and every nerve… Every muscle and every nerve… Relax your neck all the way around… Relax your shoulders…, upper arms…, and elbows…, lower arms…, and wrists…, hands…, fingers…, and finger tips… It is perfectly normal to feel your blood pulsating in your finger tips… In fact, this is a sign that you are approaching a deep level of relaxation… Relax your fingers…, hand…, arms…, and shoulders… Relax your back… and Relax your chest… Take two more deep and complete breaths… Relax…., relax now… Relax…, relax now… Relax your abdomen… and all the abdominal muscles and nerves… Every muscle and every nerve… Every muscle and every nerve… Relax your thighs… Relax your knees, calves and ankles… Relax your feet and toes… and relax the tips of your toes… every muscle and every nerve… every muscle and every nerve. Remember, any tingling sensation that you feel in your feet and legs is merely a sign of deep relaxation…

And now, every muscle and every nerve of your whole body is completely relaxed… from the tips of your toes… all the way up to the top of your head… and from the top of your head… all the way down to the tips of your toes… and you are completely and deeply relaxed.

Once again, relax the tips of your toes… and your toes… Relax your legs… Relax your buttocks and hips… Relax your abdomen and all your abdominal muscles and nerves… every muscle and every nerve… every muscle and every nerve… Relax you chest and shoulders… Relax you arms…, hands…, fingers… and finger tips… Relax your fingers… hands… and arms… relax your shoulders… Relax your neck all the way around… Relax your face… relax your forehead… and the top of your head…

And now, every muscle and every nerve of your whole body is completely and deeply relaxed… from the top of your head… all the way down to the tips of your toes… and from the tips of your toes… all the way up to the top of your… and you are completely and deeply relaxed…

To help you relax even further, imagine yourself at the top of a twenty story building, waiting for an elevator to take you to the ground floor… You press the “down” button… The door opens… You walk in and turn around… You press the “ground floor” button and watch the floor indicator light above the door as it indicates floor 20… The more clearly you can see the “2” and the “0”, the more relaxed you become… 20… 19… Invite yourself to feel more calm and relaxed… calm and relaxed… 18… letting go… 17… feeling safe and protected… 16… feeling comfortable and relaxed… 15… Remember, the clearer you can see the numbers above the door, the more relaxed you will feel… 14… Drifting gently down… 13… Down… and down… 12… letting go of all tension and worry… 11… feeling safe, protected, calm and relaxed… 10… 9… Feel going deeper… 8…deeper… and deeper… 7… 6… deeper… and deeper… 5… deeper…, deeper…, and deeper… 4… You’re feeling more deeply relaxed than you’ve ever felt before… 3… We’re now reaching the zone of deep relaxation… 2… almost there now… 1…

The door opens… you step out of the elevator… and find yourself in a beautiful and charming room, which you can explore more fully the next time you come here… For now, you find a comfortable place to lie down… and feel a sense of deep relaxation… A sense of great calm and peace spreads over you like a gentle breeze on a warm spring day… Your body feels so grateful that you’ve been able to give it such comfort, peace, calm, safety, and relaxation…

As you lie there… you begin to recall how you got there… You began with stretching and relaxing all the large muscles of the body…, then you stretched and relaxed you chest muscles by taking six deep breaths… inhaling when you hear the word, “relax”… and exhaling when you heard the words, “relax now”… Then you imagined yourself lying on a beach… and noticing your surroundings… You could feel, touch, taste, and smell your place of relaxation with all you senses… Then you started looking around… You saw things close to you…, at mid-range…, and at long-range… just like in a good movie where they shoot close-up shots…, medium-range shots…, and long-range shots… You will use this information when you visualize your goals in the next segment of this “mind story.” Next, you allowed the sense of relaxation spread throughout your body… from the top of your head… to the tips of your toes… and from the tips of your toes… to the top of your head… and you were completely and deeply relaxed… Your state of relaxation was enhanced when you counted back from 20 down to 1… And now… here you are…completely and deeply relaxed, comfortable, and safe.

Now begin to focus on your major short-range goal for today… This should be something that you want to accomplish between now and up to three months from now… Pick something that will make you feel really good about yourself… You may want to plan a vacation to Hawaii… or a trip to France… or buy a new home… or a car… What ever it is, just allow it to come to you in a calm and relaxed way… just as you are right now… Now take a few moments to focus on your goal… remembering to visualize it with full sensory awareness… What do you see around you?… What do you hear?… What can you smell?… Taste?… What are you experiencing in your body?… What other bodily sensations do you perceive?… I’m going to be silent for a few moments to let you experience your goal as completely as possible… The next time you hear my voice you will continue to learn from your experience…

(Two minutes of silence.)

A good time to do a “mind story” is in the morning just after you wake up… Another good time to do a “mind story” is just before you go to bed at night… In fact, I almost always use a “mind story” or some other practice before I go to sleep… Another good time to do a “mind story” is in the afternoon when you come home from a hard day’s work… But any time you can find about thirty minutes of uninterrupted time is a good time to do a “mind story”…

And now, it is time for me to end this session… I will now count from one to five… With each count, you will find your self becoming more and more aware of your environment… One… coming up slowly now… Two… feeling more alert… Three… by the time I get to five, you will be wide awake, feeling fine and in perfect health… Four… feeling more and more alert… Five… wide awake, feeling fine and in perfect health!!

How do you feel? This would be a great time to write about you experience. Let me know what you think.

Thank you very much for your efforts!

May you be at peace!
May your heart remain open!
May you know the beauty and the radiance of your own true nature!
May you be healed!