Hi. It’s me, Owen, and I want you to know that I’m here for you. Thank you for picking up my book. It means a lot that you have chosen to put your trust in me. I’m guessing that, since you have managed to read this far, you are probably feeling something has been missing from your life. That something has been me. With my workout you can be the person you have always wanted to be.
What makes my approach so different is that it doesn’t demand you waste years in therapy trying to understand why you are so useless. Instead I can get you to become perfectly comfortable with the futility of your existence in just 10 minutes. That’s why there is Ten in the title. And don’t be put off by the word Zen. I’m not trying to turn you into a Buddhist monk. The publishers just said I needed a word that rhymed with ten.
Before we start the workout, I want you to lie down and relax. Perhaps you are feeling stressed about not being able to complete the workout in 10 minutes. Don’t be. Ten is only there to rhyme with zen. Deep. If your workout overruns by a minute that is still OK. Because 11 also sort of rhymes with zen. And ten. That’s the symmetry of my psychic world. Ten to Zen is based on my professional work with my patients. Some of whom are A-list celebrities. And some of whom are complete nobodies. Like you. Welcome. I’m glad you have joined me.
My workout is based on the latest cognitive behavioural therapy and mindfulness research, much of which has been discredited by other professional psychotherapists. Which only goes to prove that they should also be doing the workout to set them on the right track.
A word of warning. This workout demands your commitment. There may be times when you find the going tough. When you feel like giving up. There have even been times when I have been doing this workout and my own amygdala has been playing up. These are the times I needed to hang in. You must too. Try to imagine me as the Joe Wicks of the mind. Only a bit less shouty.
Your thoughts are not who you are. Susan, an international PR consultant, used to always be anxious about being an hour late for everything. By encouraging her to believe she was living in New York, I managed to reprogramme her thinking so she was always four hours early. Try to slow down your thinking. If necessary, write down your worst fears. Feel the serenity that comes from finding out you are the bore you’ve always thought you were.
Now we’re ready to start. For the first minute, I want you to stop whatever you are doing and take time out of your busy life. Allow yourself to feel the pleasure of being inert. Once you are perfectly still, use the second minute to check in on your emotions. Tell yourself that whatever emotions you are experiencing are perfectly normal. One patient, Chris, a transport secretary, used to tell me that he couldn’t prevent himself from feeling as if he was failing at everything. I set his mind at rest by telling him it was perfectly normal and he really was as useless as he feared.
During minutes three and four, you have to find your own personal calm space. It can help to name your calm place. Mine is called Ian. To find your calm space, place your arms across your chest and start tapping with each hand alternately 20 times. This may sound a bit new age but it is based on hard science, known as eye movement desensitisation reprocessing, patented by someone who operates out of a back room in Colindale, and helps to calm you down a bit.
The next step is to spend two minutes concentrating on your breathing. Breathe in. Then breathe out, thinking about where the air is going. It’s easier than it sounds. I once had a patient called Jeremy who was convinced he never breathed. After several months I was able to convince him he did.
Once you have mastered breathing, I want you to focus on mindful thoughts. To accept yourself as you really are. Theresa was a prime minister who used to worry that she was doing a terrible job. I was able to tell her this was a perfectly normal feeling – that she really was doing a terrible job and that she needed to embrace her inner shitness. Once she had learned to do this, she felt much better about ruining the country.
Lastly I want you to wear a cloak. Doing Ten to Zen can make you quite chilly and it’s important to keep warm. You can also imagine that the cloak is protecting you from all the bad things that might happen to you. Like dying. Unless you really are dying, in which case there’s not much I can do.
And that’s about it. Try to do this all at least once a day. Even if it’s only for a couple of minutes. But don’t give yourself too hard a time if it all gets a bit too much and you give up entirely. At the very least you’ve made me feel good about myself by buying the book.
Digested read, digested: Zenophobic
