The 90 Minutes of Solitude Exercise:
A.) Schedule 90 minutes this week to gift yourself. You will be embarking on a short voyage.
B.) Before leaving your house, remove all items from your pocket / backpack that could be a distraction – including cell phone, computer, magazines, newspapers, iPod, notebook, etc.
C.) Find a local forest or park and travel to it.
D.) Upon arrival, walk until you find a space away from any manmade stimuli, including other people. And sit down. There is no need to close your eyes, just be still.
E.) If possible, remove your shoes and socks, letting your feet touch the earth.
F.) Begin to watch the ticker tape of thought and notice how it fluctuates over the course of 90 minutes.
Some things you may want to pay attention to:
- How long does it take for your mind to become extremely quiet? If at all..
– What triggers your mind to become hyper active?
– What thoughts, positive and negative, begin to come up?
– What can you sense about your immediate environment?
– If you are working through a particular health challenge, what thoughts are coming up around this?
This type of practice is obviously not an overnight cure. But if you take 90 minutes of undistracted solitude once or twice per week, information about who you are and where you need help will begin to present itself. This hard earned information is what many healers use to help plot out a medicine map.
This inner map can be a crucial aid to ones recovery.
