Streaming Consciousness Exercise: Fishing Expedition

Here's an exercise that will help you become aware of your innate connection to Streaming Consciousness, and allow you to experience as aspect of its wonderful functionality!

Let’s say that you’re going fishing. You have a boat. You put your boat in the water, and you point it upstream or downstream to find your favorite spot. Streaming Consciousness is like a river. Once you’re in this stream (and you’re quiet and centered) — you can direct your thoughts upstream (backwards in time, to the past) or downstream (forward in time, to the future). In Streaming Consciousness — the current moves both ways!

Your past only exists in the way you perceive it. It’s possible to revisit defining moments and shift your relationship to them. Change the way you see them. When you do this and come back to the present, you’ll find a softening around that memory, which ripples into the now.

Traveling Upstream to the Past

We all have things in our past we regret — things that we feel define us in some way. Sometimes these moments have led us to a place where we now feel undeserving of happiness. Well guess what? You can go back and make new choices.

You can go back and change your feelings; you can change your reaction. You can add to that moment the wisdom you’ve accumulated since then. You can soften the blow. etc. You direct your thoughts upstream to that moment — when the event or moment happened, and locked you into your current way of thinking. Don't forget — the current flows both ways!

As the observer, you can now look at the choices you made or the choices that were made for you that don’t serve you in your life. With the benefit of hindsight, you can see the role you played. With compassion, you can surround yourself there with unconditional love. You can forgive yourself or others. You can tell that person you were coming from fear or jealousy...feeling unloved...

You will feel a difference, the effect of this shift...in the present!

Traveling Downstream to the Future

Here's a wonderfully functional use of Streaming Consciousness! Let’s say you've got this big event coming up, a week from Friday. You’re in charge of organizing the whole deal. You’re thinking, there’s no way I can get it all done in time!

You’re losing sleep. You’re beginning to convince yourself that you’re going to fail. It’s not going to work. People will be disappointed. You can feel the stress in your body whenever you think about it. You know you’re making a mountain out of a molehill, but you’re finding yourself more and more worried and stressed. You’re procrastinating to no end. You’re barking at people for no reason. You NEED help!

So here’s the good news! — you can go beyond linear time in Streaming Consciousness? — You can float your boat downstream, to flow to the future!

• Sit down, quiet yourself, and imagine putting your boat in the river. Really be there...opening up your senses to all that's around you... cool breeze....hearing the sound of birds overhead as you step into the boat, getting your balance...the splash of the water as you push away from the dock...really feel it!
• Next, itemize in your mindall the things that have to get done — arranging for food and entertainment...invitations...getting your suit or dress to the cleaners...
• Then imagine that you’re tossing out your fishing line — one that goes beyond time! You're tossing out your line downstream — to that future event, a week from Friday! Attached to your hook are all those things on your mental list that have to get done.

Suddenly, you feel a tug. You’ve caught it! You’re now connected to that event! Imagine yourself there, half-way through the evening of your wildly successful event.

Feel it — as if you're really there! You're hearing the upbeat chatter of the happy guests...smell the food, about to be served...feel the coat sleeve of your freshly pressed suit against your skin...your sense of relief — and gratitude! — how beautifully and effortlessly it has all come together! BE THERE! You can laugh, go ahead. You amaze even yourself!

Now imagine yourself — taking the boat back to the shore. Tie it up good. You’ll want to go fishing again. And by the way! — the fishing rod has this amazing quality. You can fold it up tiny and put it in your hip pocket. The line, too, by the way, is magic. It’s still connected to that future moment. But it’s tangle-resistant. Wherever you go, it’s with you.

All through the coming days, be present! Show up! Attend to all that you need to do. The moment you start to worry or stress — return briefly to that future moment. Feed it, infuse it with that feeling of relief, as if — mission accomplished! You can even pull out the rod and crank the reel a few times yourself. You’re sleeping better. Things are coming together. You’re even excited about it...etc. Also, notice the way the event draws you toward it — closer and closer. The feeling of a job well done. You always knew you could do it!

Here's the magic of all this, accessing a future moment in this way. As you move through this stream of consciousness, through each day leading up to your event, you’ll feel that future moment as it starts to pull you towards it! And you'll notice that way synchronicities line up along the way, all the way up your big and wildly successful event!