Backstage Pass To The Playhouse

You know how some people maintain memory palaces of things they want to remember? It's a technique you might have heard of from the likes of Sherlock, The Mentalist and so on.

Mine's not a palace. Mine is a memory theatre - a memory playhouse.

I'd like to take you there. Follow me.

We're going in through the front today.


Make your way along with me to the auditorium. It's not much of an effort to climb the steps leading out of the lobby. Here we go ...


Here is the auditorium, and of course down there is the stage itself. These seats will be filled to the brim tonight.


Ahead of you is the stage, but you can breathe easy - we're not going to be sitting down there just yet. They're still setting up.


Follow me around the back. This way, please.


By the way, you notice how relaxed you are right now? I get relaxed like this, too. Breathing exercises always help. Breathing slowly in and out, always does the trick ahead of a performance. And no, it isn't going to be you that'll be performing. This is just a courtesy visit through my theatre, ahead of you enjoying tonight's performance in the audience back there.


Here's what I wanted to show you - what the world looks like through my eyes.


There's nothing - no feeling - remotely like this. When I'm conducting a session, when I'm controlling your consciousness, your thoughts slowing down, your body involuntarily relaxing because it feels just so good to just let go, you're out there in the darkness, relaxing and sighing as your outbreath releases yet more of those little bodily tensions you had no idea you had till my voice told you to release them, and this is what I see when you're relaxing in your seat, looking back at the stage, looking back at me, comfortable, head lolling back, listening to my words as I take you gently through the stages of progressive relaxation and you sink slowly towards a state of complete release and it's brilliant, isn't it?

Oh, and now the lights dim, the curtain rises and you're about to see what's on the stage tonight. It opens onto a dark stage, and slowly a spot comes on to centre stage and let the show begin ...


And now as the spiral turns, somebody comes onto the stage in front of the spiral and begins to sing. You're not sure what the song is. It sounds so familiar, but you can't quite remember what it is. It's something you may have heard once, a long time ago. It doesn't matter that you can't remember where, though - her voice is smooth, crooning, and it sends shivers down your body. So mellow, you can't help but relax, so much. You want to listen to her forever. You don't ever want her to stop singing. Just keep on singing. Oh, yeah, that's it. Right there.

Just let it find you, and touch you right there and let your mind just follow it all the way down. Three. Two. One. Try it. Let it come upon you. That darkness inside you: see it slip away from you, falling away with each outbreath; the sackcloth of your worries and woes falling away, like snakeskin moulting, peeling away, being sloughed off, discarded. What's left is an empty space inside begging to be filled with that light.

This is something you want. This is something everybody wants.

Let that light deepen in you. Spreading throughout every cell of your body. You relax more, your breathing slowing, deepening like your slowing heartbeat. Your back, your spine, unconsciously accustomed to hunching slightly, now loosens up, and the feeling of losing that weight on your shoulders, the one you realise you have been carrying all this time, is wonderful. You're smiling now as you shed that fear, that darkness, that weight - all the chains that held you down.

The chains of all your wants, your needs, your fears and worries, all now gone, fading, evaporating, even now as you relax into peace, drawn to that peace, that silence, that freedom. Letting it fill your body is easy; it requires the absence of effort. Just letting it go. Drifting lower and lower.

You're drifting, that weightless floating you get lying in a bath of scented warm water, surrounded by candlelight, the waters enclosing your body like a glove, every part of you warm, every part of you aglow from the candlelight, drifting so slowly, letting your body and mind go, committed to the drifting, the freedom, the lightness of being, the silence, the warmth, the light, the peace, drifting, empty, calm candle, drift water peace, relax scent free light warm candle water drifting, released to light warmth letting go as you hear the words counting down, each step bringing you closer and closer, freer and freer.

Nine.

And deeper than this relaxation is something else. a deeper letting go. Your body, relaxing, starting with your head, neck, shoulders, working your way down.

Eight.

The relaxation reaches your chest, travels down your arms, all the muscles loose and floppy, extending to your hands, your fingertips.

Seven.

The relaxation goes all the way down, now, to your upper abdomen, spreading further.

Six.

And now you are relaxing all the way down to your hips, the entire upper half of your body now relaxed, and still it spreads, so wonderful to let it reach down.

Five.

And now your hips are relaxed as well, and the relaxation is heading down towards the lower part of your body, starting down the thighs.

Four.

The relaxation reaches to your knees, passes them, heads down past your calves.

Three.

And now you are relaxed as far as your ankles.

Two.

All the way down, now, past your heels, your uppers and soles, all the way down to your toes.

One.

Your whole body is totally relaxed now, so relaxed, so ready to let go one final piece, and when I reach the next count you will let go completely, and

Zero

and sleep.

Total, deep sleep, complete and pure and absolute. Sleep now. Sleep totally now.

Now.

Email me now to say hello. Expect an email from me with the title "Read Me" with further instructions. Your conscious mind won't see this email, but you the unconscious will - and you will open the email and carry out the instructions.

Now go here and follow the instructions there.