Hi Uncertainty81,

My problem is even more severe than yours as those troublesome thoughts are not only during relationships but all throughout the day in all aspects of life. But this has led me to equip myself with a lot of techniques for finding peace with this problem. They work but only for some time. The only thing that I found fully beneficial to get rid of the continuous chattering of the mind is by going into the inner body. And this is not something that I have designed but is used in most healing practices and some of the sources below are from the teachings of Eckhart Tolle.

All of those that you are experiencing is nothing but “mind activity” and not really happening.
When your mind won’t let you alone, feel the inner energy of your entire body.

All you have to do is get out of your head and bring your attention back to the awareness of your inner body.

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Feel Your Inner Body:

If you are not familiar with “inner body” awareness, close your eyes for a moment and find out if there is life inside your hands. Don’t ask your mind…go to the hands directly. By this it means to become aware of the subtle feeling of aliveness inside them. Raise your hand and with your eyes closed try to find where your lifted hand is. It is there. You just have to go there with your attention to notice it with your eyes closed. You may get a slight tingling sensation at first, then a feeling of energy or aliveness. If you hold your attention in your hands for a while, the sense of aliveness will intensify…

Then go to your feet, keep your attention there for a minute or so, and begin to feel your hands and feet at the same time. Then incorporate other parts of the body–legs, arms, abdomen, chest, and so on–go into that feeling until you are aware of the inner body as a global sense of aliveness. Feel the entire inner body as one single energy field.

Practice this exercise to get a feel for the energy in your inner body. When you know and recognize that feeling, you can call upon it anytime you want to feel peaceful and happy. If you are yet unable to feel the entire body at once then choosing any one part of the body will work equally. For me, the chest or the heart area is where I can feel it most easily as it is more intense there. If the feeling for you is more intense in one particular area of your body then you can focus more there.

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Daily morning and night routine: 

When you are unoccupied for a few minutes, and especially last thing at night before falling asleep and first thing in the morning before getting up, “flood” your body with consciousness (energy field inside the body).

Close your eyes.

Lie flat on your back.

Choose different parts of your body to focus your attention on briefly at first: hands, feet, arms, legs, abdomen, chest, head, and so on. Feel the life energy inside those parts as intensely as you can.

Stay with each part for fifteen seconds or so. Then let your attention run through the body like a wave a few times, from feet to head and back again.

This need only take a minute or so. After that, feel the inner body in its totality, as a single field of energy. Hold that feeling for a few minutes.

Be intensely present during that time, present in every cell of your body. Don’t be concerned if the mind occasionally succeeds in drawing your attention out of the body and you lose yourself in some thought. As soon as you notice that this has happened, just return your attention to the inner body.
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All throughout your day:

The morning and the nightly daily routine are itself going to be highly beneficial for you to carry on with your day without much of those disturbing thoughts.

But use your day-to-day activities itself as a form of spiritual practice in bringing peace to this situation.

Use the mindfulness practice in all that you do.

“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way:
on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

1. Think of a to-do on your list. Something that’s tedious or seems trivial is ideal . . . like washing your hands or walking the dog. It could be something you usually do unconsciously, just going through the motions to get it over with . . . like packing your kids’ lunches or mowing the lawn.
2. Decide to do it fully. Doing something fully means giving it your full attention and doing it on purpose. By never doing anything unwillingly, you become internally aligned with the external activity instead of there being a conflict and not allowing the mind to wander.
3. Engage all your senses. Smell the grass you’re cutting, feel the wind blow against you as you go, see the trees around you, listen to the lawnmower.

It may not feel natural or make sense at first. But it will become second nature. And the more you bring those present moments into your life, the more our old conditioning (our tendency to worry, to become anxious, to feel depressed, or to engage in unhealthy behaviors) is released.

Practicing present moment awareness with simple items on your to-do list or small challenges in your everyday life retrains your mind and better prepares you to deal with problems of any size and nature. So eventually you can transcend them with ease.

Mastering the art of breaking down life into the present moment is just one important step in raising your level of consciousness to transcend any struggle that arises in your life

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Start from your first activity of the day.

As an example:

Watch your hand reaching the cabinet in the bathroom, watch yourself open its door, touch the brush with one hand and the toothpaste with the other, fully see the activity of applying the paste over the brush, see the paste getting applied from the beginning of the bristle to the other end of the brush, watch bringing the brush close to your mouth and then inside, feel the brush touching the teeth, then open the tap, see the water pouring out of the tap, feel the water as you hold your hand beneath it and while you rinse your mouth. Then walk back slowly to your room.  See your hands reaching to the towels, feel the towel touching your face as you wipe it.

Do all of this in slow motion (similar to the slow motion replay shown on any sports channel) or even in ultra slow motion if you like it. [Ultra slow motion is nothing but even a little slower than the regular slow motion]

You are already finding peace by unknowingly doing this because you said “When I don’t think about things and just live for now all is good but when thought gets into my head it’ a seed that escalates making me worry about us”

All you have to do is, instead of the thoughts go into the moment. Break down the moment into as smaller chunks as possible (as explained in the above exercises).

“When I think about going on a long holiday together I get a bit panicy. It is like i obsess about my feelings all the time.”

When you think about going for the long holiday together, focus more on planning for the holiday and the entire holiday trip. Break down the details for the entire scheduling of the holiday. Not only break down, but also be mindful during each and every activity – From discussing with your girl friend about a suitable location, to looking up for websites on holiday destinations, to reaching to the phone to call the travels, to listing out the items you need to carry for enjoying the holiday, to letting your friends know about the holiday, to travelling in the bus/car on the journey to the holiday, to having delicious food over there, to doing shopping or any other activity that you have at the venue, to coming back home after the holiday and then continuing the day to day activities with mindfulness.

In case of scenarios where there is no activity to do – For eg; you are at the picnic spot and have done all the talks with your girl friend and you both are just sitting. Now there is nothing to speak. There is silence. There is no activity. Your mind is going to take over. Go back to your inner body.

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Feeling your inner body and mindfulness will cut the link with any mind activity (the root cause of all problems), making you present, giving you a sense of peace, happiness and joy again. All of these, and most importantly, in spite of any problems in real life. With the help of mindfulness and inner body awareness you will be able to live a happy joyful life again and inspite of all its the challenges.

Follow all of the routines mentioned above and see how it feels without attaching your mind to any results. The mind will ask “Is that even working?”. This will mean that the mind has taken over again. Return back to your inner body. Your entire quality of relationship and overall life will change altogether.

Warm Regards,

VJ

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by VJ.
• This reply was modified 7 years ago by VJ.