Learning to tame the mind - recognize two mind states

I like to keep things simple and this will be my attempt to explain the beginnings of something rather complex (leading to something very wondrous) in as simple a manner as I can manage. Before I get going, the first thing that we need to accept is this:

- we have a mind but it is not who we are

Therapists will like to refer this to us as we sit in our tangled mess of thinkings; "you are not your thoughts". An experienced sufferer might discount this statement as nonsense but over time it becomes the truest thing we might ever realize. So, that's that.

The next step is to start recognizing what is going on with this mind of ours. Here comes the simple bit: we notice that it goes through various cycles but the main one to observe is that we become contracted (we are getting things done, we are stressed out, upset) and we become relaxed (we are letting things go). Sounds obvious. However, merely noticing these two states takes a lot of effort - we need to catalog everything; the state of our bodies, how we are feeling, the quality of our mind, the type of thoughts we are having, the thoughts we are believing, where these thoughts are located and so on. The other thing we need to experience are the extremes of these two mind states - the worse stresses and deepest relaxation. Once we have this information logged in our awareness then we can begin to learn how to move from one state to the other, but that is it for now. Two states - observe.