"Um..."
"We both know why you've come here today. There's no shame in admitting it. You want to stop thinking for a while. Not forever--you don't want to turn that pretty brain off, you simply want to pause it for a little bit. But you can't do that all by yourself, at least not yet. You need someone to help you, to teach you how to stop thinking and let yourself rest in mindless bliss for a little while. And that's why you came to me.
"Now, they used to teach people to still their minds by repeating a mantra--a word or a phrase that you could repeat over and over and over again until it was the only thing you were able to think about. Your conscious mind--the part of you that thinks in words, that narrates your train of thought and makes decisions--would be filled, completely and totally, with that mantra, until only your subconscious mind was able to listen and react. Your subconscious mind absorbed whatever it was told, but the part of you that thought critically was only thinking of the mantra.
"I know. It sounds so wonderful already, doesn't it?
"Now traditionally, the mantra that people used to still their minds when meditating was the word 'Om'. But that word has a lot of deep and sacred meaning, and we're looking to stop your mind today mostly because...well, because it feels so nice to stop thinking and let someone else take charge for a little while. It's alright to admit that. So we're going to find a different mantra, one that's a little more appropriate for the fun we're having together. Let's choose a different word. Let's choose 'um'.
"I know it sounds silly at first, but when you think about it, 'um' is a very powerful thought-stopping word. You've probably had plenty of times when you were in the middle of a train of thought, or perhaps even just trying to start one up, and your brain simply...stopped. That story you constantly tell yourself in your head, a narrative of your thoughts and decisions and actions as you take them, just melted away into nothing. And all that was left was a single word, one you maybe even said out loud. 'Um...'
"And you've always thought that you said 'um...' simply because you didn't have anything else to say, but...what if it was the other way around? What if every time that 'um' slipped into your head, it broke up your train of thought and left only itself for you to think? What if that simple, silly little word popped every thought in your mind like they were tiny soap bubbles every time you said it, every time you thought it, until all that you could think was 'Um...'
"That would make it a very powerful mantra, wouldn't it? Before you respond, before you even think to respond, I want you to try something. Just try thinking to yourself, 'Um...' Imagine yourself in that moment, having nothing to say, nothing even to think, and trying to spark an idea in your head. But all that comes to you is one word. 'Um.' Try saying it to yourself, and feel how it makes your head go so wonderfully blank for a moment.
"And of course, one of the nicest things about 'um' is that it's infectious. Once your brain stutters out of step with its train of thought, you go from one 'um' to the next, trying to regain it. When you said 'um' for me just now, instead of responding, you needed to go back in your mind to try to recover the response you came up with before 'um' melted it all away. But every time you went back in your mind, you went back to that moment of confusion, that blissful blank moment of 'Um...' And your thoughts popped all over again.
"Which is good. We both want your brain to be blank, we both want you to struggle to think and to eventually realize just how good it feels to lose that fight. You can let your thoughts skip from 'um' to 'um' to 'ummm...' like rocks skimming across the surface of a pond, knowing that eventually the momentum runs out and that thought gets so heavy that it sinks without a trace. You can repeat 'um' to yourself, feeling the delicious way that it interrupts your thoughts every time and forces you to scramble back and recover them. And you can love, absolutely love the way that it gets a little bit harder every time.
"Because the blanker your mind gets, the harder it gets to think. And what happens every time you have trouble thinking? You know exactly what you do, don't you? You say, 'Um.' Maybe you only say it in the privacy of your head, maybe you say it out loud and hear the way the long, sustained hum at the end becomes almost a word in and of itself. You don't think when you say, 'Um', you just speak the sound and let your brain go silent for a moment except for that hum. It's like white noise, a soft and gentle static that cancels out everything else in your head. You can go ahead and say it again if you like.
"And it's so simple to use that soft, fuzzy static to clear out every last thought in your mind, now that you've got the hang of it. Simply repeat that word, 'Um', every time you catch yourself starting to think. Let it interrupt that thought, breaking it up into tiny little pieces that melt away into the white noise in the back of your head. The more you do it, the better you get at it and the better it feels to train your brain to stop thinking. Every 'um' comes quicker, pops your train of thought faster and faster as you think less and less. An 'um' after every sentence becomes an 'um' after every five words, and that becomes an 'um' after every four words, then three. Then an 'um' after every two words, then every other word, until all you can think is, 'Um...'
