Three Ways to Clear Your Mind
May brings many fun and beautiful things: flowers, the Kentucky Derby, Mother’s day, and the Choice #5 from my book, DIY Conflict Resolution: Seven Choices and Five Actions of a Master: Clear your mind. Really. Do it right now. Stop thinking about the pain in your right leg or how uncomfortable you are. Don’t listen to the neighbors’ conversations, the airplane engines, the birds chirping, or the song stuck in your head. Forget there is anything beyond the words in this post.
It’s not easy to do. Is it? Almost immediately, you will do the opposite and start paying attention to your thoughts, You Rebel! You clear the canvas for a new, breathtaking creation, only to fill it with the first media to appear. You’re a decent junk artist, but you might be a world-class painter. You’ll never know, if you keep trying to create your masterpiece on top of a Renoir, Picasso, Velvet Elvis, or any other artist’s work. (It’s also not cool to destroy someone else’s art, even if you think yours is better.)
Are you ready to clear your mind and create your unique works of art? Here are three ways to get started:
- Clear your space
- Limit your media consumption
- Meditate—in whatever ways work for you
Over the next few weeks, we’ll go deeper, with some trusted experts in these areas. In the meantime, please share your tips in the Comments below and enter this month’s Amazon Giveaway for your chance to win my friend Mary Carlomagno’s book, Secrets of Simplicity.
Nance L. Schick, Esq. was trained in mediation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and International Center for Ethno-Religious Mediation (“ICERM”). In her current law practice, she mediates business, employment, and ethno-religious conflicts. She also serves as ICERM's Main Representative to the United Nations. She has coached new mediators for the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts MediateArt program and the New York University Mediation Apprenticeship Program, judged mediation competitions for the American Bar Association (“ABA”) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”), and authored a book, DIY Conflict Resolution: Seven Choices and Five Actions of a Master, which uses mediation techniques to help readers resolve various conflicts. In law school, Nance studied mediation, experienced it to a limited degree as a litigant, and represented the University at Buffalo in two ABA Mediation Advocacy Competition rounds.