It’s easy to get carried away by the things that demand our immediate attention, like the urgent and pressing things. That’s also one of the reasons why most of us don’t achieve what we truly desire and end up barely making through life not mastering in any particular area.
What if you knew how to create an awareness within yourself that focused entirely on the internal experience?
What if we knew how to create that inner peace within ourselves, just like the air, the water, the Sunshine and the food on our table?
This state is called the Downtime state in NLP. The beauty of this state is you can create it all by yourself when you want to press pause a feeling or increase time frame of the feeling. This state is helpful to produce introspection and give more choices.
Why does one need to know about Downtime state, how is it beneficial?
Everyday throughout the day, may be during the afternoon sometime, eyelids become heavy, mind finds it hard to process things as fast as it would be able to during the morning. Your eyes may follow the outlines of the same sentence again and again to understand the meaning. There may be heaps of information of which you may have to decode and respond and when there is a time constraint to your response.
How many times have you found yourself wishing you could escape to a retreat and unwind?
Good news is you still can do this, with this technique called – Downtime.
Follow these steps to create your Downtime state.
Environment :
Create your environment in such a way that it is not too exciting. It should allow you to be centered.
Internalize:
Redirect your focus internally, begin by being aware of how you feel, your thoughts at the moment, the voices in your head, the sensations in your body, your mood at the moment. Be aware of all these things. Pick a memory to follow the next steps.
- Notice the quality of your internal voice, the memories, the fantasies you always wondered. Remember the best experience and focus on the audio content. The tonality of the voice, the tempo, the pitch and identify whether the voice is familiar to you.
- Be aware of the visuals in your mind, gently focus on the brightness, color, texture and all the things. Remember the same experience and notice all the visual aspects of it.
- Now think about how you feel about this particular memory and notice where you are feeling these sensations in your body. Be aware of the intensity of the feeling, notice how comfortable you are with these feelings swirling in your body.
- Be aware of the particular tastes you remember about this memory. What did it taste like? Sweet, salty, delicious, tangy, sour,etc., be aware of it.
- Now notice the fragrance that was present when this particular incident took place. What was it like?
Stay there for a while before you return to the present.