OTT

Indulgence in thoughts means being consumed by them and going with the flow of those thoughts. However, witnessing your thoughts would mean first being aware of the fact that there is a surge of thoughts which is not allowing you to move towards your emotions or breath. If you just pause for a second to bring this to your awareness, you would be able to be with your breath and observe it.

When you sit to observe your thoughts while observing the breath, the number of thoughts would start to diminish. As you stay longer with your breath, the underlying emotions (which the thoughts were suppressing, regulating or managing) would start surfacing.

One scenario could be that as you are witnessing your thoughts, they have already diminished. And now there is nothing left to write down.

The second scenario is that your mind is too stiff and you are controlling the thoughts. (We often control our thoughts because we judge them as good, bad, moral or immoral). Post the OTT (Observe the thoughts) session, check whether you have a calmer mind or is the mind still active with too many thoughts. If your mind is calmer that means your thoughts have diminished and the underlying emotions have reduced in intensity, periodicity & time interval.

This is surfacing to be grounded. Grounding emotion means either the emotion leaving the body or the intensity, periodicity and time interval of the same diminishing.

Connect with your breath, start observing it when this fear/anxiety comes up, and you would find the intensity, periodicity and time interval of this fear going down.

To understand how emotions are grounded, visit Whispering Wisdom Watch > Course Videos > Stop knowing your emotions. Experience them instead (Grounding Emotions – explained by Naveen Varshneya)

As you go further into the course, you would watch the lecture Science of Cure and Emotional Body which will deepen your awareness about the root cause of the anxiety and how it will get dissolved.

Watch the video Intensity, Periodicity & Time Interval to have deeper understanding of this concept. (Whispering Wisdom – Watch > Course Videos > Intensity, Periodicity & Time Interval Video)

First create time and space for the technique Observe the Thoughts- observe your thoughts while being with your breath- eyes closed. After a few minutes open your eyes and write whatever are the residual thoughts. Do not struggle to retrieve thoughts which have already grounded/you do not remember any more. Repeat a few times in one sitting, you would find a particular pattern of thoughts that your mind is stuck in. This shall enable you to connect to the breath more easily, thereby taking you to the state of Yog Nidra or sleep.

Repeat this process every time there is a surge of thoughts through the day.

The whole purpose of observing the thoughts is to access the emotions underneath the thoughts as you read the thoughts written by you. For e.g.- I need to rush to pick up my kids from the school. I can’t be late. Underlying emotions- anxiety/worry/guilt (I will not be a good mother if I am late), fear (what will happen to my kids if I am late). Therefore, when you write down a thought, check the emotion underneath it, else OTT will not be fruitful.

One scenario could be that as you are witnessing your thoughts, they have already diminished. And now there is nothing left to write down.

The second scenario is that your mind is too stiff and you are controlling the thoughts. Post the OTT session, check whether you have a calmer mind or it is the mind is still active with too many thoughts.

If our health and wellbeing is not our priority- it will not stay in our space i.e., we will not be committed towards doing the same. And anything that doesn’t stay in our space- we will fail to make the time for the same. When we are committed towards ourselves and sincere about our wellbeing, we will automatically be able to take out the required time for our practice.

Watch the video Time, Space and Energy in the course video section of Whispering Wisdom on the website to understand the concept of creating space. (https://www.curedemy.com/wwatch-course/ > Time, Space and Energy)

Read the chapter Healing Vs Treatment vs Cure for the definition of Discipline, Sincerity and commitment which will deepen your understanding.

Once your mind becomes hyper active with thoughts, it will not be able to cope with the emotions under the thoughts, and would always want to cope with it through some action. Thus, thoughts could lead to any active or passive action.

You will learn the concept of Algorithm in your Chetna Courseware in which you will learn how we develop the tendencies (actions) to cope with the emotions

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You can OTT while sitting as it will be easier for you to write the thoughts while sitting up. As you start to feel drowsy or moving towards Yog Nidra, you can lie down and connect with your breath. However, there is no rule with regard to this, it is just a guideline.

The positive emotions are emotions of higher frequency- therefore as you breathe on the same and try to nurture the same, it will bring up the emotions of lower frequency. For e.g.: if you breathe on the emotion of love, it may bring up the emotion of fear of losing the love/insecurity or jealousy. It is the nature of the higher frequency emotions to bring up the lower frequency emotions which constrain the positive emotion. Positive emotions call for clearing the baggage of negative emotions which keeps us from experiencing them.

Therefore, breathe on the negative emotions which surface post nurturing the positive emotions. This will help ground the negative emotions and grow the bliss. Grounding means the negative emotions will leave you or the intensity, periodicity and time interval of the same will reduce.

Observing the breath can be challenging if the mind is active as the thoughts block the ability to observe the breath.   
When we have a hyper active mind and scattered thoughts, we get stuck in the loop of thoughts and are not able to connect to the breath. When we do OTT, the said loop breaks as we pen down our thoughts on the paper.  Also, when we read the thoughts written by us, we are able to identify the emotions beneath the same, and it becomes easier to witness those emotions with the breath.   
Therefore, OTT helps us to decode our thoughts, and bring our emotions in awareness, thereby helping us to connect with the breath, which would eventually lead to the implementation the science of cure.