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Let's have a look at a simple technique that will help you relax your mind and take more control over your ideals and goals. This technique can be used over and over, in most situations, and consists of two distinct phrases.

1. Decide on an aspect related to your life that you have been thinking of improving. Focus on just one specific element.

2. Project yourself as already having achieved your goal. This can be done using an 'I am' statement ' if you want to loose weight you might say 'I am fit and feeling good in my body'.

3. When you feel confident enough try to say your word out loud and listen to your own words. Try to speak in a positive manner, eliminating any negative terms from your phrase (such as 'can't', 'don't' etc)

4. Take a walk, maybe outside or inside your home and keep repeating the statement as you do so.

5. Let yourself wander around for at least 15 minutes, while repeating the statement in your mind. You will experience new thoughts triggered by the things you come across in your walk. If your mind gets further from the 'I am' statement gently try to concentrate more on it.

6. During your walk pay extra attention to things that attract your thoughts. Have a small notebook ready and write them down, or draw a sketch of the object that got your attention.

For the second phase you have to return to your initial place and continue the process.

7. Sit down and have a look at the items you wrote about. Try to draw something that portrays all the elements you noticed ' it doesn't matter if you are good at drawing or not.

8. Breathe slowly and start looking at the drawings in front of you. Try to allow your mind to concentrate only on the drawings and nothing else.

9. Think about why those items got your attention during your walk.

10. Also think about what it is that grabs your attention now, as you look at the drawings. New ideas might have appeared as a consequence of following step 8.

11. Now try to see what the connections between the items you noticed and your 'I am' statement are. Integrate the statement and the items into an imaginary story such as: 'This tree I noticed had really healthy leaves, just like I am happy with the state of my body'.

12. For the last step take a few slower, deep breaths and think about how this exercise worked.

You might have noticed that your mind tends to selects elements from the surroundings on its own. It is interesting to see that all the selected items are somehow related to the 'I am' statement. You can use the benefits of dreaming actively for a very wide variety of situations. The make believe game you play puts you on a direct path to solving your problem. Constantly analyzing and worrying about what is troubling you can take a long and winding path, but that will take a lot of your time and energy, while the results might be unsatisfactory.