Psychonavigation

A Tool for Meditation and Creative Visualization

2010 Frederick E. Dodson

Psychonavigation is one tool that covers all aspects of psychological and spiritual
development. It is uplifting and empowering to anyone who uses it and can be
applied anywhere and anytime in an infinite number of variations. It is a method of
exploring perception, awareness, consciousness, creation, being. It is a tool both
practical and mystical.

I am not promising sex, money and enlightenment, but I am promising that you will
find more of yourself and a certain degree of inner peace and creativity. And in
finding that ocean of silence and the wellspring of creativity that flows from it, the
lesser goals of sex, money and enlightenment may be had more easily 

If you are well-versed in psycho-spiritual tools you will quickly recognize just how
comprehensive this gem is. But even those without experience in Meditation, Yoga or
Mind-Techniques understand its usefulness.

I coined the word Psychonavigation to describe the activity of guiding, directing,

removing, focussing, intensifying, softening your attention or awareness. Awareness
is one of the most essential facts of life. Before you are a body or a mind or your
thoughts you are primarily an aware being. When that awareness is directed by you,
it is called attention. "Energy flows where attention goes" is a popular saying amongst
Meditators. What you continue to feed with attention first becomes more perceivable,
familiar, and important and then gains in solidity and reality. In this sense where you
put your attention has a lot to do with what you experience as reality and succeeding
at anything. What you release attention from recedes into the background and
eventually dissolves. Release attention from everything and you'll find yourself in a
meditative state that evolves into a blissful ocean of silence. But that’s a topic for
another time.

99.9% of the world talks about what is seen; hardly anyone talks about that which
sees. All news, Internet, TV, Radio, Schooling, Books – they all direct your attention
to this and that. Only very rarely is your attention directed to attention itself. In
Psychonavigation we are not only interested in the looked-at but also in the looker
and the process of looking itself. This core-ability, this essential skill was overlooked
in school. The very source of reality is overlooked by society. Instead we are taught
that the human is a reactive mechanism that has no choice but to respond to
environmental stimuli.

Psychonavigation can be viewed as a “guided attention exercise” that combines

hundreds of methods into one single action. In its most basic form it involves softly
and gently focussing on something for 60 seconds. And then, after that, focussing on
something else for 60 seconds, and then, after another 60 seconds, switching to
something else and so forth and so on. In the basic exercise I use in Courses, the
60-second-rhythm is kept for about 15 Minutes. Sometimes during this period,
attention is rested, put on nothing specific at all, taking a 60-second break.

Attention can be focussed on the "inner world" of thoughts, concepts, memories,

ideas and fantasies or on the "outer world" of objects, forms, spaces, structures,
people, plants and events. It can be focussed on the near (immediate surroundings)
or on the far (somewhere else).

During practice you alternate attention in a 60-second-rhythm thereby including the

negative, the neutral and the positive. For the sake of simplicity we will identify only
these three modes, “negative” meaning something you view as unpleasant or
problematic, “positive” meaning something you view as pleasant or desirable and
“neutral” meaning something you neither desire nor resist. The three modes do not
have to be focussed on consecutively. You might for instance have three 60-second-
rounds of something you deem positive or any other variation. In the beginning
stages of Psychonavigation it is more important that you keep a self-determined flow
of attention (energy) for a certain time span and that you learn to decide what to
focus on next. In the later stages it becomes more important what you focus on.

For beginners, the main point is to even be able to deliberately focus on anything at
all. Many still aren’t even all that aware that they can direct their attention
independently of what is going on around them and no matter what others tell them
to think and do. If there is noise around, you are not actually forced to focus on it. If
your attention is "lost" in something else, you won't even notice the noise. If
something is troubling you, you are not forced to keep thinking it again and again and
again, you are able to release your attention from it, to just let go. There is a great
value in learning to direct, retrieve and filter attention. .Even those "in the know"
rarely make use of the skill because the untrained ability seems hard to do or not
worth the effort. In the "normal" human, attention jumps around like a nervous ping-
pong ball, reacting to stimuli and inner cravings and resistances in a random fashion.
Overwhelmed by pressure, expectations from others, work, mass-media, attention-
grabbing advertisement and entertainment one succumbs to the world and just says
"OK, I give up trying to be self-determined. Just tell me what to think and do and I'll
do it". The mere step of taking conscious control of ones attention for 15 Minutes is a
quantum leap in power, before we even start with what you can put attention on and
in which ways one can focus attention”.

Just focusing on something, anything at all, will calm the streams of thought (clear
the mind) and let you regain a sense of willpower and purpose. This is where to
begin the journey.

The Negative

Psychonavigation includes a new way of approaching "the negative", i.e. thoughts

and feelings you'd prefer not to experience. In "normal" society the inner negativities
are usually "handled" by either trying to avoid them (Denial, Repression) or focussing
on them unwittingly, replaying negative thoughts and emotions over and over and
over again. In Psychonavigation we handle negativity differently. Instead of
repressing, suppressing and denying, we confront, accept or even embrace. And
then we interrupt the automatism and deliberately release. The confronting shows
that we are no wimps to be running away from mere thoughts. But our focusing on
the negative is not "negative thinking", because we are focusing on purpose,
deliberately and not subconsciously or automatically. That's a big difference that also
implies and facilitates control of the issue. Focusing on the negative that is already
within you in a way that is specific to the technique has the result not of prolonging
but of de-sensitizing whatever you are focusing on. In layman terms: Focus on good
stuff and it gets bigger, focus on bad stuff and it disappears. But only it is looked at in
that deliberate and non-resistant manner. Automatic focus on the negative is what
"negative thinking" is. The person thinks and talks negatively without even being fully
aware of it. And that really does undermine the quality of ones life and sends out a
bad vibe, which is then reflected as negative events. But ignoring or suppressing the
negative has an even worse effect, digging the rut deeper. The purposeful and
intentional focus on the negative stops the automatism. In my courses I teach not to
suppress it, not to express it, but to let it come up, breathe it in, and then Release it.

When incorporating the "negative" into the exercise you do this by on the one hand
confronting (courageously facing) and on the other hand gradually releasing your
own resistance, reactive-ness, judgement, fear-of and “wanting to get rid of it”.
Paradoxically full acceptance equals de-identification. What you push against, you
empower. Imagine beating your fist against a wall. To Release does not mean the
wall disappears, it just means you stop beating against it, and that frees your
attention for other, more pleasant things in life. Trying to get rid of something means
giving even more attention and energy to it than if you were simply observing it in a
relaxed, non-reactive way. It is true that focussing on the negative will initially make
the negative grow, will make it more real. This is why Psychonavigation-Sessions
does not involve deliberately looking for negative things to focus on. The negative
that is included in the Session is the negative that is already there within your field of
thought or awareness. Ignoring it or pushing against it means giving even more
attention to it than if you were simply observing it. The way to focus on it is the same
way you would notice clouds in the sky…they are there, they “just are”, but they don’t
have much to do with you. It is in this manner that you get an emotional and
psychological handle over any problem whatsoever.

In the case of an especially charged or emotional issue Psychonavigation is used in

the following manner: You alternate back and forth between the uncomfortable
subject and the neutral and positive. An example (in 60 second intervals):

Problem X

Neutral Object

Problem X

Neutral Object

Problem X

Positive Thought.

Problem X.

Neutral Memory.
Problem X.

Nice object.

Problem X

Neutral object.

Etc.

This sort of back and forth movement, this way of turning a problem on and off
deliberately, de-charges the emotion surrounding an issue, initiates new insights and
eventually allows you to regain total creative control of your awareness and
emotions. Focussing on it deliberately implies that you are no longer afraid to look at
it. Switching implies that you can do that and directs your awareness to things you
would prefer to be focussing on. You will experience this to work very well in
gradually dissolving your preoccupation with the item. It is only the preoccupation
with it that keeps it alive.

In general the negative or problematic is not included into the Session on purpose
but only in cases in which things arise in your daily life or during the exercise, that
you want to handle. You do not force bad things to come up just because you want to
see how you handle them. Nevertheless we will later talk about the usefulness of so-
called “negative” issues and in which way you can utilize “bad vibes” to your growth
benefit. Sometimes swimming upstream can make you stronger. But the beginner
definitely ought to learn swimming first, and this is best done downstream – by going
for things that are positive (or at least neutral).

The Neutral

When, while Psychonavigating, you deliberately focus on something neutral you do

this to relax. Something that is neither charged negatively nor positively has a most
relaxing effect on body and mind. In this way the neutral is a gateway to dissolving
the negative or immersing yourself in the positive. The neutral is also focussed on
when it seems difficult to make the immediate shift from the negative to the positive.
In this case neutral objects, things, people, places are focused on as a “stepping
stone". The neutral is also used to collect and centre oneself or even “get into the
exercise”. Focussing on neutral or only mildly interesting or boring objects in your
surroundings seems the easiest for most practitioners and is a good way of starting a
Session before using this stable platform to dive into the darkness or fly up to the
light. Neutral-mode is the only mode unaffected by the ever-changing winds and
attention-mongerers of the world.

The Positive

When deliberately focussing on the positive in Psychonavigation, you do so to come

into energy-alignment with things you would like to experience as reality. Energy-
alignment means that you are psychologically and emotionally ready for those good
things to happen to you, and by your persistent focus on them you are drawing them
and summoning them into your life. Rather than being a non-reacting observer
looking at something from the outside (as you would do for the negative), you are
here allowed to become more identified, “go into the creation”, enjoy it, take pleasure
in it. Often, enjoyment of that which you deem positive happens of its own and needs
no extra effort. If it does take effort to feel joyful Emotion when focusing on the
positive, then it must be something you would currently not really enjoy or something
that is too far out of your experiential reach or something you are actually resisting.
Even though it's more subtle and unnoticed by society, people do resist the positive,
loving, beautiful too, out of fear of loosing it or out of a feeling of overwhelm with all
the energy and change that accompanies that energy. Psychonavigation lessens
your subconscious Resistance to experiencing a good life.

In Psychonavigation, while focusing on the negative, you relax more, breathe more
softly. Focused on the positive you may become more interested or involved. For the
negative you give up fighting and for the positive you "let more in". Both are actually
the same thing but might be perceived differently by beginners. The ultimate long-
term purpose of this Meditation Technique is to gently guide your awareness toward
more and more beautiful places and thought forms and in this way become
accustomed to higher levels of energy and consciousness. The even longer term
goal is to transcend the Duality – beyond the negative and positive and neutral there
is the Infinite.

Pacing Tools

The basic version of Psychonavigation is 60-seconds-per-focus. If you want you can

use a 60-second-interval sound or beeper or watch to pace your time. If you have
issues with discipline, this may be a good idea. But if you're conscious and aware
enough of a person you don’t really need these tools. You can shift your focus by
your intuitive inner-clock or you can use breathing rhythms, walking-rhythms or
whatever else you wish. After you're beginning stages it is not even necessary to use
a 60-second pace anymore. You can try everything from a 20 second pace to a 3
minute pace or whatever else seems doable and interesting to you. 60 seconds was
chosen and is recommended for beginners because it is the approximate time your
mind needs to properly sync with something, to energetically align, to feel something.
Defining and Deciding Pace and Time is something that Psychonavigation really is
about. In daily life the mind tends to drift, be distracted, loose track, wander off, get
stuck on something, fall into unawareness and become heteronymous. Keeping a
pace strengthens your "muscles" of self-determination and centeredness, trains your
ability to make Decisions and stick to them (In Psychonavigation you are constantly
having to decide what to focus on next) and ultimately allows your sense of power
coming from within, to grow.

.Unlimited Use

The amazing thing about Psychonavigation is that there are no limits to the variations
in which it can be used. Why? Because there are no limits to awareness and where it
can be put. You can vary the pacing, you can include other techniques and exercises
into this one, and you can learn to extend your field of thought and attention outside
of habitually programmed patterns. An example of including other techniques into
Psychonavigation, at a 3 minute pace:
Morning Session

3 minutes of eye-training

3 minutes of breathing-techniques

3 minutes of chakra-energizing

3 minutes of stating Intentions for the Day

Afternoon Session

3 minutes of push-ups

3 minutes of no-mind-Meditation

3 minutes of muscle tensing and relaxing

3 minutes of abdominal Yoga

Evening Session

3 minutes of Visualizing

3 minutes of Focusing on an Object

3 minutes of Visualizing

3 minutes of Focusing on an Object

3 minutes of Visualizing.

Once you get a regularity going in your practice, perhaps starting out as a daily
session of 15 minutes, you can re-use any psychological, spiritual or body-technique
you have ever learned, including the ones you might have failed to follow up on. Or
you can choose to dedicate a whole session to a specific topic.

Topical Examples:

15 Minutes of "Visions of Beauty” (60-second-pace)

15 Minutes of “Gratitude” (60-second pace of different things to be grateful for)

15 Minutes of “Remembering my Childhood” (different memory every 60 seconds)

15 Minutes of “This painful Issue” (noticing various aspects of it every 60 seconds)

Once you practice how to intentionally guide your attention, anything can be done. It
is the all-inclusive Nature of Psychnonavigation that makes it a #1 Personal
Development tool.

During practice time, the world and its ever changing waves of circumstance, babble,
noise, confusion and urgency are no longer the source of your reality, you are. If you
don’t consciously decide where attention goes and what is really important to you,
the world will. Guiding your own attention is a source of real power, much more than
the fake symbols of "power" the world tries to sell you. It means you have stopped
the world for some minutes and taken charge of what goes on inside. You stop the
bombardment of input from the world, and start guiding your own attention…which is
a prerequisite to guiding your thoughts, words, deeds and ultimately your reality.
There are many things to be learned by guiding your attention on a regular basis.
One of them is, that what you put the most attention on, will eventually grow, start
attracting similar thoughts and feelings and finally manifest as reality in your
everyday life. Attention is accumulative. Put it on something and watch it grow. Stay
with it repeatedly and watch it manifest in your life. The reason you are experiencing
something similar everyday is because you focus your attention in a similar way and
on similar things from day to day, filtering out the trillions of other options of things
you could be focussing on (thinking about, looking at, remembering, hearing,
listening to, smelling, feeling, touching, tasting, perceiving). Expansion of Awareness
means to perceive things you haven’t perceived before, or have only peripherally
perceived before.

Basic Session Examples

This section is to give you examples of the bandwidth of the technique, in transcribed
form. Keep in mind, there is absolutely no limit to where attention can go. As your life
and experience change, include it all into your regular session. Daily, Bi-Daily,
Weekly, the choice is yours. In parenthesis I will note the purpose of some of the
specific attention switches. These notes were not part of the sessions but I add them
for the reader who will want to use Psychonavigation for self-therapeutic purposes or
in order to achieve altered states of being.

Session: Myself, 40 Minutes

Intention: Feeling overwhelmed by the day, intending to regain calm

Pacing: 60 seconds each

Location: Lying in Bed

Lamp in front of my bed

Spot on the Wall

My right foot + Breathing

My left foot + Breathing

Back to the Lamp

Back to my Body

Back to the Lamp

Back to my Body

(Note: The alternating of attention between the body and outside objects relaxes the
minds identification of "I am the body" and can lead to some interesting altered states
if kept up for a while)

To a tree outside

To a memory of another tree

To my favourite actress

Making love to my favourite actress

To my work

Again to my work

Overview of my work

To Melbourne, Australia

To a shopping mall in Melbourne

To a pair of socks in that shopping mall

To the lamp in front of my bed

To a Hotel in New York City

To my body

Again to my favourite actress

(Note: When looking away from something and back to it again later, acuity is
increased)

To nothing in specific (relaxing attention)

To no-mind

(stopping thoughts as they start to arise, as in “This cat is….”)

To that beautiful sports car

To my breathing

To breathe-counting

To a person I appreciate

To a daydream

To the wall of my room

Through the wall of my room

(Note: If attention is relaxed this could lead to extrasensory-perception of what is

behind the wall)

Softly to a problem I have (causes rush-through-body as energy is discharged)

To a point in the air

To the planet Mars

Exploring the surface of that Planet

Back to my left foot

Back to my right foot

To breathing.

Result: A sense of complete peace and freshness.

Session: Middle-Aged Man, 20 Minutes

Intention: Intensifying Focus on a Preferred Car

Pacing: 60 seconds each

Location: Sitting in a hard-back chair (increases attention)

Breathe-Hold-Exhale-Technique

Breathe-Hold-Exhale-Technique

(Note: Near the end of the first 60 seconds he decided to continue with the breathe-
holding-technique for another cycle. This is permitted in Psychonavigation as long as
it is deliberately decided).
Breathe-Hold-Pace Technique (I decided for another 60 seconds of it)

Spot on the Wall

Beautiful Shiny Sports car

Driving that Car

Driving that Car in a beautiful landscape

Driving that Car with beloved friends in beautiful landscape

Notebook on the Desk

Purchasing that Car

Seeing people impressed by the Car

Spot on the Wall

Breathing

No specific focus (break)

No specific focus (thinking about what to focus on next)

Selling the Car later

Driving the Car, feeling and smelling the leather of the seats

Silence, Observing, Meditation

Silence, Observing, Meditation

Silence, Observing, Meditation

Result: He actually forgot about this session. Years later he found notes of the
session and only then realized he was actually driving an almost identical car to the
one he had envisioned back then (5 years prior).

Note for Reality-Creators

In my book "The Reality Creation Technique" I describe the correlation between

thoughts and reality in Detail. "Visualizers" who think that imagining stuff will
magically make it come true might increase the likelihood of their technique actually
working if they include the following concepts into their Visualization practice:

1. You do this without expectation-pressure that the thing you are visualizing
“must” manifest in reality. In fact, forget about it after your session by doing
other things. Visualize only in a light-hearted and playful way, without any
neediness whatsoever.
 2. You don’t visualize so that it happens “later, in the future” and “out there in
reality”. You visualize so that it happens right now, “in here”, in other words
you can feel the joy of it as-if-it-has-already-happened. Do not fragment your
inner reality between now and future or between “inside” and “outside”. This
will increase the likelihood of your visualized thought-form having an effect on
physical reality.

3. Move towards not only visualising a two-dimensional picture in front of your

forehead or in your brain, but embodying, feeling, being, moving-as and in a
three-dimensional, touchable, joyful reality. Do not continue to visualize
something you do not feel or you are not happy about. Make your visualisation
a whole-body event. It is the energy-frequency that effects physical reality. It is
belief/intention, not desire. Closing the gap between desire and belief means
no longer looking at something from an outside viewpoint, “desiring” it, but
merging with it, becoming it, being it.

Session: Myself, 5-10 Minutes

Intention: A refresher or separator between work and private-life

Pacing: 30 footsteps each

Pacing-Tool: Taking a walk, Footsteps

Location: Outside, after work, before going home

Footsteps (starting out by counting 30 footsteps)

A building in the distance

A building close-up

The window of another building

A person walking towards me (without staring. attention can also be focussed without
the eyes)

Footsteps (I restart the exercise because I got distracted and forgot about pacing.
But rather than berating myself for it I simply restart!)

The concrete I am walking on

Thinking about what I am going to do tonight

Rethinking what I intend for tonight.

Intending a great evening (vocally spoken)

The clouds in the sky

Wide Focus (focussing on everything in my view, nothing specific but general).

Result: My mind is off work-time and on to play-time. So much that I have even
forgotten what the problem was at work today.

A Basic Course in Psychonavigation

If I were to teach Psychonavigation as a step-by-step Course from Beginners to

Advanced, in 7 hours, 7 days or 7 weeks this is what the procedure would look like.

Week 1: Outside & Neutral

You start with neutral objects in your immediate surroundings. These are the easiest
for most. This is also the mode I use when someone is too distracted or
overwhelmed to apply any other variation. Look at that lamp. Look at that spot on the
wall. Look at that Picture. Look at that Floor. Look at that spot on the floor. Look at
that vase, and so on. If someone is a total freshman to Focussing or Meditation I
would start in a pace of 20 seconds and not 60. 20 or 30 seconds is also the pace I
sometimes use when taking a walk.

If you do this while taking a walk realize this: You spend a large part of your life
preoccupied inside your mind. Attention lingers around yourself, your head, your
thoughts. During this exercise, maybe for the first time in your life, you are
deliberately extending attention to things you have never paid any real attention to.
See that house there in the distance? Give it a good look. Get out of yourself and
loose yourself in your surroundings. Ever notice the window-sill of that house? I bet
not. Gentle caress your attention over the window-sill. And the curtains. Project your
attention into the house for a moment and get a feel for the "vibe" prevalent there.
Now look at something close – the tree perhaps. And the squirrel running up that
tree. The mere act of extroverting your attention and thereby getting out of the "me,
me, me" Mode will solve 50% of all of your problems. Why? Because these problems
have no other Existence than in your mind.

Week 2: Inside & Easy

Here you focus solely on thoughts, inner impressions, images, memories or

fantasies. In week one you focussed on the “immediate surroundings” in the physical
world, and here you focus on the “immediate surroundings” of the inner world. What
would that mean? It means that you choose thoughts that are easy to think or
remember, thoughts that represent real things to you, things familiar and close. The
thoughts that are the most easy to think tell you a lot about your current condition by
the way. Finding out what type of thinking comes to you easily allows you to define
where you stand (psychologically and spiritually) and from there improve your state.
For some, thoughts of sex might come most easily because sex is something
everyone naturally enjoys. Or memories of what just happened yesterday. Do not yet
reach for thoughts that are "too-good-to-be-true", this would cause a strain between
status-quo and desire in those unpractised. If you don’t know what to think about or
focus on then use objects in your immediate surroundings by copying them in your
minds eye. “Not knowing what to focus on” is one of the main stopper when it comes
to living a powerful and happy life. If you can't decide what to focus on, others will
decide for you. Psychonavigation eventually solves this problem. Visualisation is
helpful to keep focus, but you don’t have to be an expert in visualising in order to
focus on the inner world. It can also be a vague impression, a feeling, a “sense of
something” or a memory. Inner Psychonavigation can be done with eyes open but
most find it easier with eyes closed.

Week 3: Inside and Outside

Here you start alternating between outer objects and inner “objects” (thoughts). This
is still quite simple. When you alternate between an object in your immediate
surroundings and a thought or imaginary image you will probably notice a difference.
But when you alternate between a thought and something “outside” that is not in your
immediate surroundings you might come to the point where you realize: There is no
difference between “inside” and “outside”! Here’s an example. Put your attention on
the wall in front of you. Now put it through the wall, to the other side of the wall. If you
don’t know what is on the other side of it, speculate about it. Now put your attention
even further “outside” to the Empire State Building in New York. Alright, now put your
attention “inside” and think about what is behind that wall. And now think about or
imagine the Empire state building. What is the difference? Is the Empire State
Building “out there” or “in your head” or neither nor? I’ll leave that up to you to figure
out. Realize one thing though: Awareness is not limited to your brain or to an area
around your forehead. Don’t have everything happening in that tiny space. You are
welcome to extend attention all the way to the actual Empire State Building and
“touch it” with your attentions-fingers. You are not limited to body or mind; you are
limitless and can travel anywhere. In very advanced versions of Psychonavigation
the challenge is to figure out the difference between Imagination and Perception so
that extrasensory perception (Remote Viewing) is the result.

Week 4: Neutral and Positive

By now it doesn’t matter if your attention is inside our outside and it's OK not even to
differentiate much anymore. Seeing some difference between "inside" and "outside"
is based on the fallacy that "you" are somehow located inside your brain (mechanistic
view of reality) or as a soul inside your body (religious view of reality). There is no
evidence whatsoever for either propositions. Instead it is your day to day experience
that awareness can be anywhere and everywhere or be localized at one point.

Furthermore, all too rigid separation between “imagination and reality” is one of the
main things that keeps you from making your wildest dreams come true! The moment
you say "Ah, it's only a dream" you have devalued it within and your body, mind and
life will follow your command. In this sense, focussing on a thought of a new House
at the lake, seeing the House on TV, seeing a picture of it and seeing the House live
and "real” have the same overall effect on consciousness. The differentiation and
separation is only made by you.
Focusing on the neutral and the positive: By positive I mean things you feel good
about, things that interest you, things you like, things you enjoy, things and people
you love, places you are fascinated by and so on. See if you can also find things that
actually spark some pleasant sensations in your body. The ultimate purpose of
Psychonavigation is Emotion and Emotion is the Energy that gets things moving in
your life. Your perception, your actions, what you notice and do not notice, your
Intentions, your mood and stamina - it is all directed by what you feel. And what you
feel is directed by what you think and believe. And what you think and believe is
directed by what you focus on most often.

Week 5: Neutral and Negative

By alternating between the negative and the neutral you give yourself a rest for a little
rejuvenation before you dive back into the unpleasant. The more emotionally charged
or problematic an issue is, the more important it is to pace your time, because
attention easily gets either distracted from the process (resistance) or gets lost in the
depths of self-pity or apathy. Being able to switch back out of it on purpose will give
you a good handle on the process, going back into the negative on purpose you'll get
an even better handle of the issue. With unpleasant realities you will find that you
might need a longer time frame than 60 seconds to “get into it”. In this case you can
pre-define something like 3 Minutes or you can decide to repeat 60-second-cycles.
Of course the neutral should then be focussed on a similar length of time. I repeat
what is important when processing the negative: Relax, breathe, release resistance.
Just "let it all come up", that’s the way it goes out. Alternate between the issue and
something else. Don’t be shy to face what is really bothering you…several times.
Shying away from it will not solve it. Letting it all come up will.

A Note on Loosing Track

What to do if you do get distracted? What to do if you find you have forgotten the
time-cycle? What to do if you have gone overtime or undertime? This is no problem
at all. Do not berate yourself for it; otherwise you heighten the probability of it
happening again. Don’t be too strict. The purpose of pre-defining a pace before you
start was so that you can re-instate it when you loose track. Loosing track is a typical
symptom of earthly life. So when it happens in your session, just acknowledge it and
use the event as an opportunity to re-start the pacing. You will sometimes loose track
within a session. This does not make the session invalid. Just like in “real life”, when
you loose track of your goal you can either use that knowledge to get back on track
or to forsake yourself. Do not put yourself down just because you have a break in
concentration. Praise yourself for even having started a session.

If you frequently loose track during sessions then experiment with changing the
pacing (e.g. 20 seconds) or restart with the easy mode of neutral and outside.
Another very helpful trick to get back on track in a session is to devote an entire cycle
to conscious breathing. I might notice myself having drifted off and think: “Alright.
Let's get back to the Session. 60 seconds of breathing.”

Not being able to focus for any amount of time at all is a warning sign of more severe
states of overwhelm. In this case I recommend you abandon the practice described
herein and seek conventional professional counselling.
Week 6: Negative-Neutral-Positive

Now you apply all three modes, maybe with eyes open for the “outer world” and eyes
closed for the “inner world”. You need not do it in negative-neutral-positive
succession although it is interesting to do so. If negativity is not there in your life or
field of awareness, do not include it. But it is highly unlikely that there is absolutely
nothing that bothers you. Anything that bothers you should be included into the
exercise as negativity. Once no negativity pops up or offers itself to you
spontaneously you may continue with neutral and positive. Some of deeply seated
traumatic incidences to handle and will require many months of processing, while
others will only notice mild disturbances now and then. Negativity is a typical part of
the world so don’t be surprised at all the trash that comes up during Sessions. It does
not come up because of the Session, it was there all along, in the background or
subconscious. And by letting it come up it can dissolve. Anything and everyone can
be included into a Session and any aspect of this “anything”. If for example you feel
bored about Psychonavigation, then include that: Have 60 seconds of deliberate
boredom.

Week 7: Reaching out further

Finally you reach out further. By habituation we keep putting attention on the same
things. As we keep putting attention on the same things, we keep invoking similar
types of energy. In invoking similar types of energy, we keep experiencing the same
things or variations thereof. If you want to experience something new in life, you will
have to learn to gently guide your attention towards other realities and higher octaves
of joy. Have you ever put your attention to the other side of the world? Ever put it to
the Antarctica and flown over its icy surface? That would be an example of stretching
attention beyond your habituated focus. That would be stretching in neutral mode. In
positive mode you would be reaching for higher, lighter, better thoughts (without
straining yourself). So if that sport car has been your focus in many sessions you
might up the level one notch by putting your attention not only on the sport car but
actually driving it yourself. And one notch higher you might put your attention on
driving several different types of sports cars. And even one level higher you might
ask yourself why you want a sports car, find out that it’s a feeling of joy that you
actually want and focus upon that joy, bringing what you really want into the here and
now. One notch higher you might focus on flying a designer-spaceship and not only a
car. “Reaching out further” is the highest level of Basic Psychonavigation and a
stepping stone to the advanced levels. Staying on this level of sessioning for the rest
of your life would teach you to gently and gradually climb higher and higher levels of
intelligence, creativity and happiness. You begin to understand that consciousness
does not differentiate between “reality” and “imagination”, and the two begin to blend
as you walk through the day feeling high. This is where Psychonavigation is heading.

This completes the treatise on "Basic Psychonavigation". For Part 2 of this article,
"Advanced Psychonavigation", see our Online Resources.