The Secret of Albert Einstein and the Connection to NLP

There’s a story about Albert Einstein and a special “trick” he used that helped him come up with the theory of relativity. It wasn’t some advanced math formula—it had nothing to do with numbers, but everything to do with the mind.

You might be wondering, "what do physics and the mind have in common?” To answer that, let’s ask a different question: what came before one of the greatest inventions of all time, the airplane? The answer is imagination and creativity.

The Wright brothers, who built the first airplane, had something in common with Einstein: they were both able to imagine things no one had ever dared to think before. How does someone who walks on two feet even conjure up the possibility to fly like a bird?

What was Einstein’s “trick”? What helped him run thought experiments and come up with revolutionary ideas? How does this relate to dealing with anxiety?

Let me take you to a summer day—not too hot, not too cold. The house was completely empty, and all I could hear was my own heartbeat pounding in my chest. I didn’t know why it was beating like that, but it wasn’t new. This pattern had been repeating itself for years. Then I heard a voice in my head say, “It’s time to rest.” I felt my body sinking into fatigue, anxiety starting to take over, and suddenly I remembered something my psychology professor Tzvi once taught in class.

He had introduced us to a powerful mindfulness technique from what’s called “the third wave” of therapy. He didn’t realize that this same concept had existed in Jewish tradition for thousands of years— known as hitbodedut, or meditative solitude. By observing your thoughts and feelings with full awareness—but without judgment—you can actually access deep healing. Modern science is only just beginning to catch up to this.

So I found the most comfortable chair in the house, closed my eyes...and did absolutely nothing. That’s right—nothing. According to mindfulness, you don’t need to “do” anything. You just observe. In its more “active” form, you simply take mental notes.

“I feel fear right now,” I told myself. No trying to fix it. No running away. Just acknowledging it. “I’m thinking about my last job,” I noted. “I hear a child crying a couple houses down.”

I kept listening—to everything, both near and far—trying to just be in the moment. “I feel tingling in my hands and feet,” I recorded mentally.

I stayed in that state for an hour, eyes closed, just being present with everything inside and outside me. Occasionally, a tear rolled down my cheek. And then, out of nowhere—it happened.

My chest started to heave, and I burst into tears.

Suddenly I was back in 5th grade, at a crowded pool—kids everywhere, chaos all around. I didn’t know how to swim. The water was licking my lips, and I accidentally swallowed some. “I shouldn’t have come in,” I thought. I was tiptoeing, trying to keep my head above water when suddenly, two things happened at once: I got a cramp in my foot and couldn’t stay afloat, and two older boys from sixth grade decided this was the perfect moment to mess with the helpless kid and tried to dunk me under—“as a joke". They didn’t know that I truly thought I was about to die.

“I’m going to die!” That same thought flashed through my mind again, as I sat on that couch, crying. My body was shaking. “I’m drowning. I’m drowning. I’m going to die.”

The memory only lasted a few minutes. When it passed, I opened my eyes, stunned. All those times I’d tried to describe that awful tight feeling in my chest, I always said, “It feels like I’m drowning, trying to keep my head above water with no air left in my lungs". I never consciously remembered that incident from the pool. But in that moment, I was given a glimpse into my subconscious.

What’s really happening when we sit alone, eyes closed, and our subconscious starts speaking up?

In NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), this emotional-mental state we enter during deep meditation—or just before we fall asleep or right as we wake up—is called trance. There are different levels of trance, but the deeper you go, the more your conscious mind—the “gatekeeper” that filters thoughts and feelings—steps aside. And when that guard takes a nap, the subconscious gets a chance to speak.

This is why dreams—where our conscious mind is completely offline—can tell us so much about what’s really going on inside. During my private moment of mindfulness—my own hitbodedut—my subconscious allowed me to reconnect with that memory and release it, through images, sounds, and sensations.

In NLP therapy sessions, practitioners use this exact process to talk to the subconscious and help people let go of anxiety, habits, or painful emotions stored deep down. The incredible part is that you don’t need to be in therapy to do this- you can do it on your own. You only need a quiet space, a calm body and mind, and no distractions—not even your phone. If you sit long enough, something will eventually rise to the surface.

Now back to Einstein. What was his secret?

Einstein would sit in a chair holding something that made noise—like a set of keys or a small weight. He’d close his eyes and let his mind slow down. Before any physical experiments were done, physicists used to run “thought experiments,” asking what if? That’s how creative breakthroughs were born.

Einstein would slip into a meditative trance. And if he ever started to doze off, the object would fall from his hand, hit the floor, and wake him up—keeping him in that delicate zone between sleep and wakefulness, where the subconscious is most alive.

Each time, he’d drop a little deeper, and more creative insights would emerge.

You can try it too. Who knows? Maybe you’ll invent something that changes the world—in a practical or even a spiritual way.

I wouldn’t be surprised.