Letting Go

Letting Go

© Rick Hanson, PhD and Rick Mendius, MD  

Our topic is letting go, one of the five essential inner skills – the others being  awareness, insight, taking in the good, and using the will. (For background, please  see the Five Essential Skills articles here: www.wisebrain.org/articles.html.)  

We use letting go whenever we relax, get stress relief, release painful feelings like  worry or anger, take things less personally, or drop thoughts that make us and others  unhappy (like self-criticism or illogical fears).  

Letting go is an action of the mind – just like letting go of a tissue into a trash can is  an action of the hand.  

It is completely natural. For example, in terms of the body, you let go every time  your exhale or use the bathroom.  

Fundamentally, letting go is the opposite of the clinging that leads to suffering. And  thus very in line with mindfulness and meditation.  

A Word about Experiential Exercises  

This article will have some experiential exercises. As we’ve said before, when we do  any experiential activities, feel free to opt out of them if you feel overloaded or  uncomfortable. This is a class in inner skills, not therapy, and it is no substitute for  professional care of body, mind, or spirit.  

That said, sometimes exercises bring things up – especially if a person has had  traumatic experiences in the past, or is currently in the middle of a difficult  relationship.  

Be kind to yourself first and foremost; as they say, “First of all, do no harm.” Feel free  to skip an exercise, pull out of it once it starts, or deliberately take a fairly superficial  and safe slice at it. And if anything comes up for you that is significantly difficult,  we invite you to talk with us at the breaks, or contact us afterwards.  

Also, please know that some of the exercises will suggest that you try to become  aware of something, or do something, within your own mind. If you are unable to  become aware of or do that something, that is alright. Maybe that is a sign to 

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yourself to be cautious and take your time with that particular material. Or a sign to  investigate it further, on your own. 

As a closing note, the Train Your Brain course values and includes contemplative  activities. We hold these not in any context of religious advocacy, but as tools for  personal well-being and development whose foundation in brain science is being  increasingly established. And of the contemplative traditions, the one we are most  

familiar with is Buddhism, so we may speak in terms of it. But there is no attempt  here to “convert” anyone to anything, and it is fine to relate to the material in the  class however you like. As the Buddha himself said, see for yourself, always judging  within your own independent mind what seems to be true and useful.  

Saying Goodbye  

To get into the topic of letting go, make a list of some of the things that you’d like to  say goodbye to.  

You can pick things that alas will stick around even if you say goodbye to them, like  an annoying brother in law or a political leader you don’t care for. But you could get  the most value by listing things that you can actually let go of, like tension in your  back or excess fretting or having one glass of wine too many.  

Alright, now take a look at your list, and see if there is anything on there that you do  not actually want to let go of.  

For example, look at each item and imagine that some powerful force like the Fairy  Godmother or the cosmic vacuum cleaner or God or whatever could make that item  go away – and then ask yourself if you would like that to happen. If the answer is  yes, move onto the next item, and if the answer is no, cross the item off of your list.  

Now, if you like, you can tear up your list and truly let go of everything on it! If you  like, say good bye in your mind as many times as you want to everything on your list  as you do this.  

Really try to experience a genuine release or casting off of what you are releasing.  You could say goodbye again in your mind as you toss your pieces into the trash.  

Letting Go vs. Aversion  

Really try to experience a genuine release or casting off of what you are releasing.  You could say good bye again in your mind as you toss your pieces into the trash.  

How was this for you? What did you experience while doing it? What have you  realized or learned? 

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As we think about letting go of things, it is natural to consider the element of  aversion, which means disliking, resisting, hating, or fearing something.  

We often have an aversive reaction to whatever we want to let go of. But as we will  see in a moment, there are a lot of problems with having aversive reactions to things.  So let’s consider where aversion comes from, its costs, and how to let go without  aversion.  

In the brain, aversion is the result of deep, evolution-driven brain structures that kept  our ancestors alive and enabled them to pass along their genes. For example, a kind  of epitome of aversion – vomiting – is controlled by circuits deep in the most  primitive part of your brain: the medulla, in the brain stem, sometimes called “the  insect brain” because it’s so ancient.  

As a quick and simplified summary – and please look to our website, WiseBrain.org  for more on this subject– information is continually streaming into your brain from  the world, and being generated within your brain by internal processes of thinking,  feeling, imagining, wanting, remembering etc.  

That information is being continually evaluated by different regions and circuits  within your brain in terms of three fundamental dimensions: helpful to survival,  harmful to survival, irrelevant to survival. By “survival,” we mean both life and  death stuff and intermediate proxies, such as hunger and satiation, pleasure and  pain, anxiety and confidence, frustration and satisfaction, etc.  

If it is helpful, it could be registered with a pleasant feeling tone. If it’s harmful,  there’s usually an unpleasant feeling tone. And if it’s irrelevant, the feeling tone is  neutral.  

This feeling tone is generated mainly by a part of your brain called the amygdala –  there are two of them, actually, little almond-shaped nodes in the center of your  brain resting on top of the brain stem.  

Interestingly, in Buddhism, the feeling tone is considered to be so central to human  experience that it is one of the Five Aggregates of existence, which together comprise  physical reality and our experience of it. As such, the feeling tone is supposed to be  one of the four main objects of meditative awareness (called the Four Foundations of  Mindfulness). 

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The feeling tone is so important because it is our reactions to it – reactions of  grasping after the pleasant, aversion to the unpleasant, and over-looking or delusion  about the neutral – that lead us first to crave, then to cling, and then to suffer.  

This matter of the feeling tone and our reactions to it is one of those areas where  there is a deep and mutually illuminating intersection between modern neuroscience  and ancient contemplative wisdom. Fascinating to think about, and very useful to  practice with.  

To continue with the neurological theme, because survival programming in the  brains of animals, including humans, is more a matter of avoiding the bad than  enjoying the good, these evaluating regions and circuits are genetically primed to  perceive and react to negative information, which then trains them further to  perceive and react to negative information.  

For example, the amygdala is pre-programmed to respond to facial expressions of  fear or disgust in others, two key signals of threats to our own survival offered by  other animals in our troupe, our tribe, or on our television sets.  

By the way, this inherent “negativity bias” in your brain is why it is so important to  deliberately intensify and savor and “take in the good” of positive experiences.  That’s how you compensate for the brain’s natural tendency to hold onto and  showcase negative experiences and to let positive ones glide right by. For more  information on that, please look at the materials and listen to the audio from the last  TYB class, which are on our website.  

So Mother Nature gave us aversive reactions to help us survive and have  grandchildren. But as we have said before, she does not care if we suffer.  

Aversion causes us to suffer in many ways:  

  • In itself it is an unpleasant experience. As a sidebar, it’s worth noting that its  unpleasant qualities can lead a person to become averse to aversion. You see this in  what are called “counter-phobic” reactions, or in certain fundamental life strategies,  such as the 7 in the system of personality types called the Enneagram.  
  • It activates the “fight-or-flight” sympathetic nervous system, sending a cascade  of stress hormones throughout your body and pulling resources away from long term projects like digestion or maintaining a strong immune system. As we all  know, chronic stress reactions have serious long-term consequences for both mental  and physical health. For example, chronic aversion in the form of hostility is a major  risk factor for heart disease.

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  • Aversion often triggers the expression of negative emotions which have  harmful effects on others and thus on oneself.  
  • It often leads us to act in impulsive, harsh, and exaggerated ways that harm  ourselves and others.  
  • In a deep way, aversion divides us from the world by setting us against it or  apart from it. This creates a painful inherent tension between “I” and world and  adds to the sense of self which is itself a source of suffering.  

In contrast to aversion, letting go in the sense we mean it here does not include  aversion – though some may be arising in the mind at the same time, which is often  the case this side of enlightenment!  

Letting go without aversion means, primarily:  

  • Simply setting down and walking away. Releasing. Abandoning. Saying  goodbye without anger. Exhaling. Taking out the garbage. Renouncing. Turning  away from the bad.  
  • Turning toward the good. Planting flowers. Moving on.  

More broadly, healthy letting go could also mean:  

  • Not attaching in the first place. Not taking the other person’s problem as your  own. Not presuming that you are implicated. Setting a boundary between you and  it.  
  • Firmly – though without aversion – pushing away, cutting off, or refusing that  which is unwholesome.  

Letting go does not mean being lackadaisical, irresponsible, or uncaring. You can  care deeply about important things, and be inspired and motivated by heartfelt  aspirations, without holding onto the results of your wise efforts.  

In your brain, letting go is associated with three major regions or systems.  Understanding these structurally gives a concrete clarity to the three main aspects of  letting go – choosing, releasing/relaxing, and staying with it:  

  • The prefrontal cortex, located behind your forehead, and especially behind  your eyes, both decides what to let go of and sends signals to the emotion circuits of  your brain to settle down and move on. It initiates and sustains your resolve – or 

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what some might call Right or Wise Intention. This region does the “choosing” part  of letting go.  

  • When the letting go cascade begins, the parasympathetic nervous system  activates, fostering relaxation and contentment throughout your body, and  dampening down the sympathetic nervous system. This is the releasing/relaxing  part.  
  • The anterior cingulate cortex – one in each hemisphere (like the amygdala),  shaped like a finger, close to the center of your head – monitors how well you are  staying on your goal of letting go, and sends out a warning signal if you start holding  on instead. This region handles the staying with it part of letting go.  

So, when you let go, these parts of your brain are good friends, on your side. And  it’s OK to make a little bow to them.  

Physically Letting Go  

Like any of the inner exercises we do, it’s alright to experience whatever you get.  And if it ever gets uncomfortable, pull out of it and shift your attention elsewhere.  It’s also OK to ignore my suggestions, and go with what feels most valuable for you.  

OK, relax, eyes open or closed.  

Focus on breathing, especially the sensations of breathing from inside your body . . .  Like the cool air going down your throat and warm air coming out . . . Like the sense  of your lungs expanding and contracting, especially the inside of your chest.  

The breathing ongoing, the other contents of awareness just flowing on through.  Without grasping after them or aversion toward them.  

Now, particularly notice exhaling.  

Use the exhaling to sense or imagine things leaving you. Like bodily tension. Or  unpleasant feelings, such as underlying anxiety . . . or irritation. Or unwanted busy  thinking, planning.  

If you like, use the exhaling to let go of some or all of the things on your list.  

Now, see if you can get a sense of your whole body as you breathe. The whole body  breathing. 

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That sense of the whole body could draw you into a spacious feeling that is very  peaceful. It may come and go, which is fine. Just invite it back if it does.  

Now, see if you can relax any sense of top-down control of your breathing. Allow  your body to control entirely your breath, just like it would if you were sleeping.  Your breath may naturally slow to the minimum necessary.  

You are letting go to the body. Exploring and noticing the complete abandonment of  any holding onto the breath. Completely letting go of control. Being the body  breathing.  

In this place of letting go, notice what is continuing.  

Breathing continues. Awareness. The universe keeps on going. Your heart keeps  beating. You keep coming back even when you keep letting go.  

You can let go of the fear of letting go . . .  

Now, as you continue to let go as much as possible any control over the breath,  letting it do what needs to do on its own, you might like to add a sense of accepting  everything as it is . . . letting go of any effort or struggle with all that is . . . simply a  body breathing . . . aware . . . accepting . . .  

Alright, when you like, bring the exercise to a close.  

What did you experience during the exercise? What did you learn or realize?  A key point to remember: No control breathing gives the sense of a deep letting go  

By the way, you might be interested to know that when you were paying attention to  the internal sensations of your body, and also when you were getting an awareness  of your body as a whole, you were lighting up your insula.  

This part of the brain is near the anterior cingulate cortex we discussed earlier, and  like the ACC, there are two of them inside your head, finger shaped, and near the  center, so they are closely connected with the sensory, emotional, and executive  regions of the brain.  

The insula is especially involved in what is called interoception, which means the  sensing of the internal states of the body. Interestingly, since the sensing of our  internal states is a key element of empathy, the more aware that a person is of her 

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internal states, the more empathic she tends to be. The insula lights up when we are  being empathic.  

So if you want to be more empathic – or if your friends and family and kids and co workers and spouse would like you to be more empathic! – a good way to do that is  by paying more attention to your internal states. In fact, the more you do that – such  as in yoga or meditation – the thicker the neuronal connections get within your  insula.  

In effect, among their other benefits, activities such as these help people become  more empathic.  

Being Your Best Self  

Before we move on, I’d like to mention that there are many, many ways to let go of  problematic thoughts, feelings, body sensations, and desires. A whole list of  techniques is summarized in the handout. Check it out, and try the methods that  work for you.  

As you have probably noticed, letting go of one thing means embracing another,  even if it is only the space that is left when the other thing moves on.  

In fact, having that positive thing to join with often helps give us the comfort, the  courage, to separate from that which we let go.  

For example, bringing to mind the feelings you get from people who like or love you  can make it easier to say goodbye to a person who is not good for you.  

Or, to use a traditional example, in Hindu culture, individuals who are celibate –  they have let go of that part of their lives – are said to be “Brahmacharya” which  means joined with Brahma, a manifestation of God.  

In a sense, it is out of our joining with the wholesome that the abandonment of the  unwholesome naturally occurs.  

Exercise  

So, let’s explore this in concrete terms.  

Get out your pad and pen, and this time take a moment to reflect on one or  important things that you want to let go of – and for each one, try to identify one or  more things that you could join with instead. 

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To make explicit some of the major themes that may have come up for some people,  you could let go of:  

  • Painful feelings  
  • Resisting facts you don’t like but which can’t be changed. Here, it can be  especially helpful to think in terms of healthy surrender, of healthy giving up, as in: I  give up about the planet warming, even though I will do what I can about that . . . I  give up about the 49’ers losing record . . . I surrender to being 54 . . . I surrender to  having been put up for adoption as a child . . .  

  

  • Desires that lead to suffering  
  • Approaches, styles, plans, strategies, etc. that just aren’t working  • Holding onto things staying the same that are inevitably changing  

So take a couple of minutes for writing both important things you want to let go of  and their wholesome alternatives.  

Now, inside your own mind, go back over each thing you are letting go of and take a  moment to feel yourself joining with its wholesome alternatives. Get a sense of each  of those wholesome alternatives being alive in your life. A sense of them as already  existing fully for you . . . Noticing what that would be like . . . How that would be  good for you and others . . .  

Now, inside your own mind, for each thing you are letting go of, take a few seconds  or longer to ask yourself: “Is this me?” Am I this anger? Am I this craving for a  cigarette? Am I this longing for love? Am I this worry about our son? Is that worry  me?  

A major way we hold on, and do not let go, is through identifying with things. My  viewpoint. My job. My car’s position in the highway. My feeling, my thought, my  desire . . .  

Instead, inquire: Is this thought me? Is that goal me? Am I our son’s Bar Mitzvah  speech?  

There is no right answer here. Just explore and see what comes up for you, and keep  turning toward and engaging that which helps you let go. 

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It might help you to call up again the bodily feeling that you experienced earlier  tonight, of breathing with no effort, breathing as the whole body, as you consider:  Am I that? Is that me?  

In the space created by all that you have let go of, including making things “me” and  “mine,” take a moment to open up to whatever profoundly wholesome influences  you like.  

Such as love . . . or integrity . . . or God . . . or Buddha nature . . . or pure awareness . .  .  

Give yourself over to the wholesome, be devoted to the wholesome, and let go of  everything else.  

Rest here for a few minutes, returning to the wholesome, abiding in the wholesome  and letting go of everything else . . . .  

How was that for you? What did you experience? What can you take away? What  can you learn?  

Some key points related to this exercise:  

  • Turning to the wholesome rather than struggling with the unwholesome. Just  don’t pick it up any more. Focus on planting flowers rather than pulling weeds.  
  • The deep, natural bodily sense of being that clings to nothing . . . our resting  state, our true nature  
  • Not claiming the unwholesome as “I” or “mine”  

Conclusion

This month, we suggest you keep focusing on letting go. If you like, you could use a  regular event, like the ringing of the phone, or walking through a door, or whenever  you notice that the hour has changed, to let go deeply, for example, exhaling fully.  

In closing, as a great teacher, Ajahn Chah said: “If you let go a little, you will have a  little happiness. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of happiness. And if you let go  completely, you will be completely happy.”

LETTING GO: Key Skills

Letting Go in the Body

  • Ordinary breathing, focusing on exhalation, intending to let go  
  • Breathing with no “top-down” control of it, completely surrendered to the body  • Have a strong sense of the whole body, abiding as the whole body breathing  • Diaphragm breathing; breath of fire  
  • Heartmath: Equally long inhalation/exhalation through the heart with a positive emotion  • Scanning the body and releasing tension. Progressive relaxation  
  • Using imagery to relax  

Letting Go of Thoughts 

  • Two fundamental errors: Overestimating the bad and underestimating the good  • Systematically argue against errors of thought, on paper or in your mind.  • Identify "sub-personalities" generating errors of thought; thank them for sharing, ask if they  have anything new to say, and then tell them to shut up.  

Letting Go of Emotions  

  • Have compassion for yourself.  
  • Name the feeling, own it, accept it, and if you can, choose it.  
  • Imagine/sense the emotion leaving on the exhalation, or draining out of the body, or being  released to the universe or even to God/the mysterious Divine.  
  • Use imagery, like standing in a cool mountain stream washing pain away.  • Sense the underlying softer, deeper, younger feelings . . . and then let them go.  • Vent safely, like writing letters you don’t send, yelling, or hitting something safe (e.g., pillow).  • Sense positive feelings replacing negative ones, like security replacing fear.

Letting Go of Wants 

  • Use the same methods as with releasing emotions.  
  • Sense the underlying, positive wants, and respond to them.  
  • Do a rational analysis of the plusses and minuses of the desire, and choose what makes sense.  • Reflect on the suffering that is embedded in most desires.  

Letting Go of Self 

  • Perspectives: The more we "self" experience - personalize it, identify with it, cling to it - the  more we suffer: "no self, no problem." The degree of self varies; it's not an omnipresent fact; it's  continually constructed. When self is minimal or absent, notice that it's not needed to function in life.  • Observe the activity of self and experiment with reducing it.  
  • When others are upset, see the ways it's not about you: They're on automatic; you're a bit player  in their drama; they are already punishing themselves; you are separate, with good boundaries.  • Each day, take time to sense the fact of your interconnectedness with everything.  • Regarding what you want to let go of, ask: “Am I that? Is that really me?”

General Methods

  • Say goodbye to what you want to let go of  
  • Notice that when you let go of everything, peaceful benign awareness remains.  • Accept, surrender to the facts that currently exist; give up about changing the past.  • Join with the wholesome and let that crowd out the unwholesome.  
  • Be the awareness of the experience, not the experience itself.  
  • Notice that all experiences change. 
  • Keep evoking positive feelings.

LETTING GO: Key Brain Activities 

Amygdalae

  • Almond-shaped nodes, one in each hemisphere, resting on top of the brain stem  • Main region categorizing experiences with the feeling tone of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral  • Our response to that feeling tone – approach the pleasant, avoid or attack the unpleasant, pass  over the neutral – creates craving, then clinging, then suffering; thus, attention to that tone is vital.  • Amygdalae emphasize negative experiences, a key source of the brain’s innate “negativity bias”  • They react quickly and intensely, often swamping more reasoned frontal lobe responses.  • They help activate the “fight-or-flight” stress hormone cascade; chronic arousal has bad effects.  

Prefrontal Cortex

  • Located behind your forehead, and especially behind your eyes  
  • Decides what to let go of
  • Sends signals to the emotion circuits of your brain to settle down and move on  • Initiates and sustains your resolve – or what some might call Right or Wise Intention.

Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS)

  • The “rest-and-digest” wing of the autonomic nervous system  
  • Fosters the relaxation, calm, and positive emotions that  
  • More primary than the stress-focused sympathetic nervous system (SNS); it’s great to realize  that your hard-wired resting state is relaxed, peaceful, and ongoing  
  • Connected like a seesaw, as the PNS activates, the SNS is suppressed; routinely stimulating the  PNS is thus a great way to reduce and heal chronic stress reactions  
  • Major ways to light up the PNS include full breaths, deliberate relaxation, positive feelings,  meditation, yawning, and stimulating the lips.  

Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) 

  • One in each hemisphere, shaped like a finger, close to the center of your head  • Monitors conflicts in attention and goal-pursuits  
  • Tells you how well you letting go, and sends warning signal if you start holding on instead  • Strengthened by meditation, and by activities that integrate thinking and feeling  

Insula

  • One in each hemisphere, near the ACC, also finger shaped  
  • Closely connected with the sensory, emotional, and executive regions of the brain  • Especially involved with interoception, the sensing of the internal states of the body  • Since that sensing is key to empathy, the more aware a person is of her internal states, the more  empathic she tends to be (and the insula lights up when we are being empathic).  • So, a good way to become more empathic is to pay more attention to your internal states, which  will actually thicken the neuronal connections within your insula.  

LETTING GO: Selected Quotations

If you let go a little, you will have a little happiness. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of  happiness. And if you let go completely, you will be completely happy. – Ajahn Chah  

Do what you can, with what you've been given, in the place where you are, with the time that you  have. – South African boy who died of AIDS at about age 12  

Anything less than a contemplative perspective on life is an almost certain program for unhappiness.  – Father Thomas Keating  

Walking the great walk/Letting go of attachments/I am coming home. – Jerry Freedman  People are not disturbed by events, but by the views they take of them. – Epictetus  

Life is fragile, like the dew hanging delicately on the grass, crystal drops that will be carried away on  the first morning breeze. – Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche  

Time held me green and dying/Though I sang in my chains like the sea. – Dylan Thomas  Don't worry. Be happy. Make efforts. – Meher Baba  

To study the way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be  enlightened by all things. – Dogen  

With dewdrops dripping/I wish somehow I could wash/this perishing world - Basho  

In the deepest forms of insight, we see that things change so quickly that we can't hold onto anything,  and eventually the mind lets go of clinging. Letting go brings equanimity. The greater the letting go,  the deeper the equanimity. In Buddhist practice, we work to expand the range of life experiences  in which we are free. – U Pandita  

Liberation happens through non-clinging. The first step is using the power of concentration to begin  seeing all the different places of attachment, identification, and fixation of mind. – Joseph Goldstein  

The heart of the path is so simple. No need for long explanations. Give up clinging to love and hate,  just rest with things as they are. That is all I do in my own practice.  

Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do  not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. When you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist  nothing.  

There are dozens of meditation techniques to develop Samadhi and many kinds of vipassana.  But it all comes back to this — just let it all be. Step over here where it is cool, out of the battle.  Why not give it a try? Do you dare? - Ajahn Chah

Letting Go 

By the end of the day, I feel frazzled and chock full of pent up feelings and thoughts. I  don't want to let all that out on my kids or my husband - and I hate it when I do - so do  you know any ways to get rid of this stuff without exploding?!  

It's really normal to feel like you describe. A mom is dealing with so many  feelings and needs and wants in her children and partner that the stress builds up  over the course of a day. Plus many women have been taught in various ways to  keep a stiff upper lip and not to say anything that seems like a complaint -- which  just keeps things bottled up and festering.  

Of course, it is important to be able to say what needs to be said to your husband  or to your kids or to other people. But it's always also helpful to be able to let go  of painful feelings, thoughts, stress, or tension entirely within your own mind.  Plus, you can adapt these skills for your children, from the age of preschoolers  onward, which will be very, very helpful to them.  

Here's a summary of practical methods for letting go - and you can learn more  from the other recent columns on our website, www.NurtureMom.com.  

Relaxing Your Body  

It is almost impossible to be upset when your body is relaxed. Try one of these  relaxation skills, even in the middle of a challenging situation:  • Breathe slowly and deeply while imagining that tension is leaving your  body with each breath.  

  • Try to inhale and exhale for the same amount of time (e.g., inhale for a count  of four, exhale for four). Imagine that the breath is going in and out of the region  of your heart. Meanwhile, recall or think about things that give you an  appreciative, grateful, loving feeling. (For more on this simple but powerful  technique, check out the books from the HeartMath Institute in Santa Cruz.)  • For a young child, a little trick that will help her breathe deeply is to ask her  to exhale fully and then hold the exhalation for a couple of seconds - when she  inhales, she’ll naturally take a big breath.
  • Deliberately relax certain trigger points, such as the jaw muscles, pelvic  floor, or the "third eye" between the eyebrows.
  • Recall or imagine a very happy, peaceful scene.  

You can deepen your capacity to relax when the fur starts flying by practicing  relaxation techniques at calmer times, like right before bed:  

  • Systematically put your attention on each major part of your body, starting  with your feet and working up to your head. If it helps, think a phrase like  "relax," or "locate a point" for your left foot, right foot, left ankle, right ankle . . . all  the way up to your scalp.  
  • Tense your muscles for about five seconds and then relax completely.  • Imagine that you are v-e-r-y heavy, sinking more and more deeply into your  bed  
  • Imagine that your hands are very warm, like holding a cup of hot cocoa (this  one is especially good for insomnia)  

For kids, bedtime is a great time to train them in these techniques, since they'll  put up with more mumbo-jumbo to keep you in the room. The point is that you  will initially take them through some of the methods above, and then over time  you will expect them increasingly to use the methods themselves at night -- as  well as during the day, in real-life situations.  

Releasing Painful Feelings  

Yes, life has its share of suffering, and we are certainly not suggesting that you  resist difficult feelings or suppress them. Instead, we're talking about simply  helping them on their way.  

  • In a way that's safe, vent - and there are a variety of options. You could  really let it rip about how you feel in a letter that you'll destroy after it's written;  perhaps burn it in a ritualistic way, scattering the ashes far and wide, letting all  the feelings go as you do so. Or tell a trusted friend, with the crucial intention of  getting it off your chest and getting rid of it, rather than getting more worked up.  Or imagine ranting and yelling inside your own mind. Or yell out loud while in  the shower, on top of a mountain, underwater, or while driving a car (stay in  control of the car!!!).  
  • Sense the feelings draining out of your body, perhaps as if there were tiny  valves at the tips of each finger and toe.  
  • Exhale the feelings with each breath, visualizing them as smoggy clouds  leaving your body.  
  • Imagine the feelings being swept away by standing in a cool and refreshing  stream on a beautiful, sunny day  
  • Imagine putting the feelings into a jar and tossing it into a river to be carried  off to the sea, or placing them on a rocket ship blasting off to be burned up in the  sun. 

Saying Good-bye to Negative Thoughts 

With this method, you get on your own side and argue against needlessly  negative, limiting, or inaccurate thoughts, beliefs, expectations, and assumptions.  On paper or in your head, you need to talk to yourself - and it's the opposite of  crazy!  

A structured approach is to treat the thoughts that make you (or a child) upset as  propositions that may or may not be true, and then list three or more ways that  they are totally wrong. Try to see which of these classic mental errors might  apply: treating a small problem like a big one, regarding a temporary situation as  permanent, underestimating your own abilities, overestimating the scale or the  likelihood of the challenge, or forgetting about resources in your world.  

For example, if an 8-year-old is afraid that bad guys could break into your home,  together come up with a list like this one: All our windows and doors are locked. Your  bedroom is next to ours. I'm a real light sleeper. There's never been a burglary in our  neighborhood. We leave a light on. Crooks look for easy targets, not houses like ours. The  dogs next door bark at anything, and they'd sure scare a burglar away. Besides, we're not  rich, and burglars go where the big jewels are: we don't have anything they want!   

Or for an adult, suppose that childcare has fallen apart yet again for a mother,  and she has to take a day off of work to deal with it, and she's got a dreadful  feeling it'll never work out. To feel better, she could remind herself that: There are  lots of childcare situations out there, and one of them has to work. I've found decent  childcare in the past, and I'll find it again. Meanwhile, maybe my mom can take care of  my daughter for a few days. Time will pass, and we'll get through this. The important  thing is to keep going, to love my sweet girl, and be loved by her as well. 

You get the idea. This method works best when you do it in a structured and  determined way. Give it a try!