Tips & Techniques for Enhancing Your Listening Experience

While the Insight Program itself is a meditation technique, you can combine your listening experience with almost any other traditional meditation, relaxation or focusing methods you may already be using. We've include some helpful breathing, visualization, focusing and dreaming techniques that have been reported to deepen relaxation and enhance the experience.

Click on any of these links to be taken to the corresponding techniques:
Breathing Techniques
Focusing Techniques
Visualization Techniques
Dreaming Techniques

We will continue to add new items to this page so please keep checking back for additional visualization, focusing and dreaming techniques you can use to enhance your listening experience.

Breathing Technique 1 — The first breathing technique is designed to relax the body by making sure you are breathing as deeply as possible. Place a hand on your abdomen, below your navel. Inhale slowly and deeply, feeling your abdomen rise beneath your hand as you fill with air. Exhale slowly, feeling your hand sink as you use your diaphragm to push the air out. Continue to breathe this way, focusing on using your diaphragm instead of your chest to move the air in and out of your body.

Breathing Technique 2 — The second breathing technique involves giving each breath, both inhale and exhale, a specific count. As you inhale a deep breath, think to yourself "inhale 1". As you slowly exhale that breath, think to yourself "exhale 2". As you inhale the next deep breath, think to yourself "inhale 3", and as you slowly exhale that breath, think to yourself "exhale 4". Continue this count for a few minutes, increasing the count with each inhale and exhale until you reach a count of 50 or 100.

Breathing Technique 3 — The third breathing technique is a very relaxing method and can even be used as a quick stress reliever while not meditating. Sit comfortably in a chair or on the floor. Place your right hand over your heart, and place your left hand over your abdomen, just below your belly button. Rest your hands lightly, not firmly. Take a slow deep breath and concentrating on feeling the breath entering and filling you and you inhale. First, feel your right hand, over your heart, rising as your chest fills with breath, then feel your left hand, over your abdomen, rising as the breath passes into your abdomen and it rises while filling with breath. As you exhale slowly, feel your left hand sinking as the breath leaves your abdomen. Feel your right hand moving as the breath passes again through your chest. Continue to breathe this way for several minutes. As an addition to this method, try paying attention to your heartbeat beneath your right hand while you perform this breathing technique. Notice how it gradually slows as your body becomes more relaxed.

Breathing Technique 4 — The fourth breathing technique is called "following the breath" and has been used for years as a traditional meditation technique. Inhale, counting four until you feel filled with breath. Hold this breath while counting to four. Keep your throat and chest relaxed. Exhale, counting to four until the lungs are empty. The pace you use to count from one to four will vary from person to person. Aim for a relatively slow relaxing count but stick to a pace that is comfortable for you. Continue to count, following the breath, for at least two or three minutes.

Focusing Technique 1 — During your listening session, repeating specific affirmations to yourself mentally can attune your mind to higher levels of consciousness. In your mind, repeat the following statement to yourself: "I am more than my physical body." and "I control my reality." After repeating each affirmation to yourself several times, pause the repetition and reflect on what the underlying meaning of the affirmation is. Open your mind to any images and impressions you may experience. These are messages from your subconscious mind, offering you details and suggestions for getting in touch with your higher self or universal consciousness.

Focusing Technique 2 — Using affirmations can go a long way toward enhancing the overall effects of the Insight Program. We use them in the customized program levels and encourage participants to create their own affirmations while using the CD. Make a list of ten phrases or short sentences related to areas of your life you wish to improve. Keep each phrase positive and in the present tense. For example, try to word your affirmations using phrases that begin with "I am", such as "I am overflowing with creativity" or "I am healthy and full of energy". Avoid using phrases that contain the negative words "not" or "won't". Instead of phrasing an affirmation using negative wording like "I won't eat foods that are bad for me", try using positive present-tense phrases like "I eat healthy foods and feel energized".

Write down your ten affirmations and try to commit them to memory. It's perfectly okay if you can't remember them all at once. Read your list of affirmations prior to each listening session, then during the session repeat them in your mind. If you can't remember them all at first, repeat as many as you can remember. You'll find over time you're able to remember the full list. After a period of time, you can change your affirmations and begin using new ones, but you should continue to use the same affirmations for at least three to four weeks before shifting to new affirmations.

Visualization Technique 1 — As you begin listening to the CD, consider the quote "What you focus on is what you will achieve." Think of what you would most like to achieve, your primary goals or desires. As you think of what you would like to achieve, picture in your mind what it would be like to have already achieved that goal. Picture yourself wherever you would be, doing whatever you would be doing as you reach that goal. Imagine every aspect of it, physical and emotional. View every minute of it in your mind. The goal is to immerse yourself in this "daydream" as completely and totally as possible.

For example, if you were a runner hoping to win the Olympic Gold Medal in the 100-yard run, you would begin by imagining yourself at the starting line before the race. You would see the other runners line up beside you. You would feel the texture of the ground beneath your feet and hands as you moved into the starting position. You would go on to imagine yourself taking off, running the race. You would visualize the feeling of the wind rushing past you as you ran. You would feel the pounding of your heart, hear the sound of your breath, feel your feet hitting the ground with every step. You would visualize yourself crossing the finish line first. You would imagine yourself ascending the podium, hear the roar of the crowd cheering you on, feel the weight of the Gold Medal as it was placed over your head and around your neck.

Throughout this entire sequence, you would imagine the emotional feelings that would accompany this event—the nervousness prior to the race, the rush of excitement during the run, the joy of winning the race. The main focus should be on imagining every possible aspect, to such an extent the dream feels real. This is a technique that usually requires practice.

Dreaming Technique 1 — In order to explore your dreams fully, you will need to train yourself to remember them. Remembering your dreams and keeping track of them will allow you to watch for potential dream patterns that appear regularly. Those patterns can be used to help trigger lucid dreaming. Recording the details of your dreams will also help you to analyze each dream's potential meaning. Begin keeping a dream journal. Keep a notebook beside the bed and write down your dreams before getting out of bed in the morning. Even if you can't remember the dream in its entirety, write down any notes or recollections you have, no matter how small the detail may seem. Keep in mind dreams are slippery things. The moment you awaken and get out of bed, your dreams begin to slip away from memory. Instead of waiting to record your dreams, make it the first thing you do upon waking. As soon as you find yourself awake, stay in bed. Remain comfortably lying down in the same position and begin to recall as much as possible about your dreams. Once you have a good grasp of your dream details, pick up your notebook and write everything down. The key to this practice is to do it every day. Patience and persistence will definitely pay off. You'll gradually find it much easier to recall your dreams, and much easier to discern their meaning.

Dream Technique 2 — In order to control your dreams, the first step is realizing you're dreaming. As you drift off to sleep each night, repeat the following statement mentally to yourself: "I will awaken within my dream tonight and will realize the fact that I am dreaming ." Do this every night as you fall asleep, mentally repeating the statement over and over until you fall asleep. Eventually, from within your dreams, you will begin to realize when you're dreaming.

We will continue to add new items to this page so please keep checking back for additional visualization, focusing and dreaming techniques you can use to enhance your listening experience.

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