One: For a month, set aside 15 minutes a day. Set aside time when no one will interrupt you. If needed, divide this exercise into 3 five-minute segments.
Two: Sit back and relax for the first 5 minutes. Imagine your ideal day. In 5 minutes, you can imagine a lot! Envision yourself waking up, stretching, and going about your ideal day. What are you doing? How are you feeling? The more vivid your imagination, the better! Sense the sounds, the tastes, the smells, and the sights as the day unfolds before you. Most important, experience the pleasure!
Three: In the next 5 minutes, pick out portions of this ideal day when you are alone or enjoying your animal companion. You are selecting this set of images because they are completely within your power to bring about, without others' participation.
Four: Identify a five-minute time slice that you can duplicate today. Select something that you don't currently do, or something that you generally don't allow yourself to fully enjoy.
Five: Use your third 5-minute segment to engage in the activity you enjoy. Let yourself be totally in the moment. Pick the time of day when it will be easiest for you, and when this activity (or lack of activity) will mean the most to you.
Does this seem simple? It is! Yet engaging in this exercise provides you with 5 profound benefits:
Benefit One: You develop your powers of visualization. You can call on this skill to reduce stress, enhance creativity and even promote healing in tiny slices of time.
Benefit Two: You become clearer about what time choices truly reward you. The more often you visualize, the more you learn about what time choices fulfill you. Learn what truly makes you happy, which will be different than anyone else's 'pleasure profile".
Benefit Three: In just fifteen minutes a day for a month, you create a pattern that's easy to maintain. A month of continuous daily practice establishes a new life pattern. What an easy way to add daily pleasure to your life!
Benefit Four: You demonstrate your power over your life through simple time choices. Nothing helps foster self-reference like experiencing simple pleasures you provide yourself.
Benefit Five: You cultivate the gift of being in the moment. You'll experience firsthand how this focus stretches time and multiplies your capacity for enjoyment.
