The following exercises are designed to help break the habit of self-identifying with our mind and our feelings. The reality is not that we are a mind that somehow directs itself through the world; the reality is that we have a mind that we are supposed to be directing so that it might do the proper thinking that will help us make our way through the world.

Lengthy and frequent depressions can forge themselves neural pathways that can engineer your brain to the point that depression becomes a habitual way of life. You can re-engineer the brain by exercises, behavior, and thinking that forge new neuronal pathways that can replace the old habitual depressive ones.

I have attended many seminars and encounter groups and I have learned a great deal from them. Some of these exercises are inspired by dozens of different systems, portions of which I have adapted over the years for my own use. Some of the exercises seemed to create themselves in answer to particular problems I was working on at the time.

These exercises do not need to be done in any order. They are just to be fiddled around with and not taken too seriously. Take any part of this section and try it. If you make a commitment to one exercise and fail, just reaffirm the commitment and start again. If one works for a while, and you want to drop it for another, nothing will be lost.

The Transition Exercise
Empty of Mind	The First Thing You Can Say Yes To
Passive Voice Exercise	Name That Feeling
Keep Your Eye on the Apple	I Am Now
Laugh and the World Laughs With You	Autonomic Writing
The Pool or Pillow Scream	Make-Over
Once More, With Feeling	Just Do It
Pick a Thought, Any Thought	Dirty Laundry List
Witness for the Persecution	Mania, Mania, Wherefore Art Thou Mania
Commune With Our Nature	Sticks and Stones Can Break My Bones
Sit There, Don't Just Do Something	Well, Excuuuze Me!
Color Me Blue, or Pink, or	Tracking Behavior
Okay. I Give Up	Tracking Behavior #2
Alice in Wonderland	Who Am I?
Waiting To Exhale	Wannebe List
The Inspector General	Green Frog
A Conscious Cup of Tea	Do Not Think of an Elephant
The Art of Silence	Pray for Somebody
Now You See It, Now You Don't	We Have Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself
The Headless Horseman	The Cat Comes Back
Listen to the Music	Silent As a Stone
Ninety Years Old and on Your Deathbed	Speaking in Tongues
When Things are Closing in	Don't Give 100% Effort
The World is a Dream	Sentence Completion
Anger is Fear, Great Anger is Great Fear	Invite the Terror to Tea
As the Twig is Bent	Magic Wand
The Road We Do Take

Exercises To Get Rid of Stressful Thinking