Escaping Sin

My very good friend Karl mentioned this on his blog (to which I now have a link). He was talking about how it is really hard not to sin when thinking about not sinning. His example was this:

"Listen to me now: Don’t think of the number eight. Don’t think about it. Careful…don’t think about the number eight! What are you thinking about right now? That’s right - the number eight."

I'm in a rugby acadamy, and not long ago we had a few sessions on a topic similar to this one. What we learnt was a way to get your mind off something that is distracting you or impeding you from any task that your trying to complete. It is a little bit complicated and I can't remember it word for word so please bear with me.

The first thing that we got taught was that humans can have up to seven pieces of information going throught their head at the same time. And if for example someone is about to take a conversion in a rugby game, but one of those seven pieces of information is the thought "I must not miss, I must not miss" (in other words a negative thought) then there is a high chance that whoever is taking the kick WILL in fact miss.

We also got taught an interesting (though confusing) concept. Take the numbers one to ten. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10...These are your concentration numbers. Tell yourself that the numbers 1-4 are negative, and relate these to thoughts about the past (e.g. A player taking a conversion thinking about a past kick that he missed). Also, relate the numbers 7-10 to negative future thoughts (e.g. A player thinking about what might happen if he misses the conversion). Now the numbers 56 (in the middle), is the desirable concentraion numbers, it is the "now". When you are in the "now", you are only thinking about the task you are about to perform, not about what has happened, nor about what might happen, but what IS happening. The whole aim of this excercise is to put your concentration numbers into the "now", where you arn't under stress or plagued with temptations or distractions about what is going on around you - your mind is clear and open to other (possibly less harmful) thoughts.

The way that we got taught to do this, was to take a scene. ANY scene. But one that you will never forget, it could be anything - the best moment in your life, a moment that you dream of constantly, anything whatsoever that you will be able to remember on demand. Now what you do, is relate the number 56 with that scene. Keep putting that scene through your head, and when you do, bring that scene to life - make it as if you are there, as vivid as possible. Think of the sounds, the smells, the colours and textures of that scene.

That is the basic principle of the whole excercise. But it won't work unless you practice it. Find a quiet space where its just you, and keep practicing going into that scene, and try and concentrate JUST on that scene even for a milisecond. When you come out of it you should notice that your mind is clearer and you can focus on other things more easily.

As you practice more and more, you will need to start practicing in harder conditions. For example go into a park and practice going into that scene and concentrate entirely on that scene for as long as possible. If you're doing it properly, you shouldn't be able to hear any other sounds or be thinking about anything else.

Some of you may not be able to do this, and that's perfectly fine. But for those of you who can, it can be an awesome help when you're struggling with a temptation of simply struggling to concentrate on a specific task.

It's worked for me.