Voluntary idleness
Stop, do nothing and try not to think about anything for at least ten minutes. Keep doing nothing even if you feel guilty because something inside you feels that you are wasting your time. Repeat this exercise day after day until you no longer feel guilty about loafing and you have discovered that a little physical and mental idleness every now and then helps you regenerate.
With eyes closed
Close your eyes and stay with your eyes closed for a few minutes. It will help you think about what you are thinking about, without being distracted by what you see.
Ask questions about others
Make a list of people with whom you have had relationships of any kind. Read the list randomly by asking yourself the following questions:
- What would they want from me?
- What would I want from them?
- What do they appreciate about me?
- What do I appreciate about them?
- What do they despise about me?
- What do I despise about them?
- What do we share?
- What do we not share?
- What could we share?
- How could we cooperate?
In front of everyone’s eyes
Imagine that everything you do, think, and feel at any given moment is recorded in a movie that everyone can see live and will be able to see in the future.
Imaginary friends and theatrical scripts
Imagine having a number of friends (male and female) with whom you can do anything and talk about anything. Imagine being in the company of one or more of these people and interacting with them in a certain way.
Imagine recording all the transactions that take place between you and these people in a theater or movie script.
How to employ the next sixty minutes
Think about what you can do in the next sixty minutes. Consider various hypotheses about how to employ that time. For each hypothesis, ask yourself how the people you know would react to knowing that you did what you hypothesized you would do. Would they approve? Would they disapprove? Would their sympathy and esteem for you increase or decrease? Which of my needs and desires would be met, and which would be frustrated?
After considering various hypotheses, make a decision freely being aware of the likely consequences of that choice in your social relationships.
Something new
Imagine that you are thinking about and/or doing something new, something you have never thought about or done before.
Relational and interactive analysis
Consider any concrete object or abstract entity and examine its meaningful relationships and interactions with you and other people, things, or ideas.
Things that I fear or make me feel bad
Make a list of things or ideas that you fear or make you feel bad, and reread and update it from time to time.
Unwanted emotional reactions
Make a list of the emotional reactions you would prefer not to have, indicating the situations in which they occur and the causes that provoke them (people, activities, words, thoughts, memories, images, etc.).
Reread and update the list periodically until you have no more unwanted emotional reactions.
When you happen to have an unwanted emotional reaction, make a note of it to add it to the list.
Occasionally, look at a series of images, and for each one ask yourself:
- what is my emotional reaction to this image?
- Would I like to change or neutralize that reaction?
If the answer is yes, add that reaction to the list of undesirable ones.
Usefulness and harmfulness
Look around, both in a real and metaphorical sense, outside and inside yourself, and of every thing or idea you see or that comes to mind, ask yourself: To whom and why might it be useful? To whom and why might it harm?
Suspension of judgment
Go to a bookstore, pick a book at random, imagine its readers, try to understand why they like that book, without judging them or despising them. Do the same thing for Facebook posts, newspaper and blog articles, and any other direct or recorded human expression.
Random encounters
Imagine meeting a series of people chosen by chance from among the earth’s inhabitants, one at a time, and attempting a dialogue and interaction with each of them. Think of the things you can say to her and that she can say to you.
Analysis serve/use
Analyze a newspaper article, video, or book in terms of serving and using, that is, detect, in what is being told, the transactions of serving and using (using a thing or person = using it). In other words, it detects who uses whom/what and who serves whom/what.
Adoptive parents
Imagine being born again being able to choose your parents. Who would you choose as your father and mother? Make a list of famous people or people you know personally whom you wish you had as parents and imagine what your life would be like if you had.
Acting Another
Imagine you are an actor and you are playing the part of someone very different from you. Invent and improvise a few scenes in which that person is the protagonist and dialogues with others.
The good of X
Consider whatever comes to mind (person, idea, object, situation, process, action, etc.) and look for all that is good in it, overcoming any cognitive and emotional biases.
Do this exercise especially on particular people or categories of people you dislike.
My roles and the roles of others
Ask yourself what roles you would like to take on, in what social groups, and whether other members of the respective groups are willing to accept you taking on those roles.
Also ask yourself what roles people you know have assumed in general and toward you in particular, and to what extent you approve of them.
The purpose of the exercise is to bring out, and deal with, any confusions, conflicts, competitions and obstacles in assigning roles, with the understanding that only by assuming agreed-upon roles is it possible to interact peacefully and productively with others.
Watching TV without sound
As an act of rebellion against the mass media system, watch TV without sound, and ask yourself critically (i.e., setting aside common sense) why you see what you see. By removing the audio you will avoid being entranced and manipulated by what you see and hear. In fact, seeing is a voluntary and controllable act, while hearing is involuntary and uncontrollable.
What can you teach me?
Imagine a number of randomly chosen people you know personally, or publicly known or unknown characters.
For each of these people ask yourself, “What can you teach me?” keeping in mind that each person has something to teach, including his or her experiences and mindset.
Conflicts between needs
Identify conflicts between your needs and describe them on a piece of paper.
For each conflict, decide which need you would like to prevail or to which you would like to prioritize.
Analysis of news, TV programs, movies, stories, representations
This exercise consists of doing an analysis of any news story, story, movie, TV program, photograph, artwork or representation in general trying to answer these questions:
- why do people behave the way they do?
- what are their ends?
- needs: who needs what?
- pleasures: who is satisfying their own needs or those of others?
- pains: who is frustrating others’ needs or being frustrated in their needs?
- serving: who/what is serving whom/what?
- use: who/what uses who/what?
- hopes: who is hoping to meet his/her own needs or the needs of others?
- illusions: who deludes or deludes other people that certain needs will be met?
Environment configurator
Imagine designing, i.e., configuring, an ideal (yet realistic) environment, entering into it, and interacting with its components.
Imagine being able to choose all the components of that environment: location (closed or open), interior and exterior architecture, colors, furnishings, furniture, paintings, books, newspapers, media (audio and video recordings, websites), musical instruments, computers, machines, other objects, people (known and unknown), animals, plants, etc.
Choose the configuration that would best meet your needs and desires.
Personal book
Imagine that you have a personal book that only you can read. It contains your memoirs and advice to yourself. Imagine that you write in this book, whenever it comes to mind, anything that you may find useful to remember. It is an autobiography and a vademecum, to be read especially when you do not know how to behave in certain situations.
If you want, you can write and actually use such a book.
The people in my life
This exercise consists of imagining the most important people you have met in your life, as if they were all together in one place, say a ship, and asking yourself what each of them would like from you, what they could offer you or take away from you good or bad, what they gave you and what they took away in the past.
Lunch with …
The exercise is to imagine a lunch attended by 2 to 6 people (including yourself), sitting at a table and in conversation. It involves imagining the things those people might say to each other, as if it were the script of a play.
The names of the guests, whom you will choose from people with whom you have difficulties or relationship problems, should be written in the plates.