“The way to relax is to ‘let go.’ ‘Let go’ of every tense muscle, every tense spot, in the body. Pain is tension. Pain can be inhibited by suggestion _followed by complete relaxation_. Drop your body, a dead-weight, from your conscious mind. Make your conscious mind a blank. It is the mind, conscious or subconscious, which holds the body tense. Give to the subconsciousness the suggestion of concentrating on one idea, and then completely relax consciousness. To make the conscious mind a blank it is necessary to ‘let go’ of the body; just as to ‘let go’ of the body requires ‘letting go’ of consciousness of the body. If, after you have practiced ‘letting go’ of the body, you find that your mind is not a blank, then you have not succeeded in getting your body rid of all tension. Work at it until you can let both mind and body relax completely. “It may help you to start as follows: Relax the body as completely as possible. Then visualize a rose, or a violet—some pleasant, familiar thing which does not arouse emotional memory-trains. Gaze steadily, peacefully, at the chosen object—think only of it—try not to let any memories it may arouse enter your mind. Keep attention steady, just seeing the color, or the shape of the flower and nothing else. Do not think things about the flower. Just look at it. Select one thing about it to concentrate on, such as its shape, or its color, or the two combined in a visual image: ‘pink and round.’ “If you find that you are made nervous by this effort, it is apt to be due to the fact that you are thinking things. Maybe the object you have chosen has some buried memories associated with it—something which arouses unconscious memories of past unhappy events. Roses may suggest a lost sweetheart, or a vanished garden where you once were happy and to which you long to return. If so, select some other flower to concentrate on. Flowers are usually the most restful, the things which are not so apt to be involved with distressing experiences. A bottle of ink might suggest the strain of mental work, a spoon might suggest medicine. So, find a peace-inspiring object to look at. When you have found it, just look at it, with undivided attention.