the journey to relaxation
July 17, 2022, 4:27 am
Star Valley, Arizona
What I most want to show with my life and my story is the process.
That whatever I understand now, wasn't something I always understood. That I choose to change and grow and integrate and incorporate and unlearn and let go and do the work.
I choose to practice, little by little.
It's hard for me to go back and tell this story of my Wild Way Home, where I came from ... which seems so far back from where I am now ... as I'm still on the way to where I'm going.
Yet I want to because I want to demonstrate the process --- my process.
I read things like what I wrote below now and I cringe, slightly, because, back then, I "didn't quite get it."
But that's not really it. Maybe I did get it --- mentally.
What bothers me most is how my intellectual/philosophical/spiritual conclusions in a piece like the below writing might be correct (yes, revelation does happen in states of relaxation!), but what I hadn't yet even begun to do was the real, difficult, little by little, step by step personal work to embody such conclusions.
I hadn't yet really begun the work, for instance, of beginning to become conscious of my feelings, emotions, and bodily sensations from moment to moment. Of beginning to be willing to note and feel and be with the deep trauma buried in my body and unconscious. Of beginning to be willing to be aware of WHY I always felt the need to be in control, of WHY I had so much anxiety and anger and fear and tension, of what it FELT like to experience that need to be in control, of what it FELT like to be anxious, angry, and afraid.
I wanted to bypass all that to get to the "happy ending," the philosophically and spiritually pretty conclusion.
Mentally, I understood what I wrote to be true. And so the below writing does reflect a part of the process where I am becoming conscious of something I was previously unconscious of (that relaxing the body is vital to returning to present awareness and noticing what is going on from moment to moment.)
Yet, I hadn't begun to embody the feelings and the work and the minute little practices that lead to actually relaxing; I just understood relaxation was what I ought to feel and activate.
I thought the way to relax was to only feel "happy," to only speak and allow myself to think "positive thoughts."
I thought relaxation, healing, being oneself in a natural, organic way ... I thought these were things I could skip right ahead to, that I could force, and that I could will.
Now I am beginning to experience that there is no short cut. That my body only begins to feel safe and to relax as I acknowledge and feel and am with all the blockages that have kept her from feeling safe and relaxing.
Phrases in my piece below like " [you are] an endless font of compassionate, tender, gentle, creative, happy, peaceful energy..." are only half true.
For I am also a raging torrent of fear, vitriol, grief, and disappointment.
It's the acceptance and being with ALL the parts of myself, ALL the sensations, ALL the emotions, ALL the feelings ... It is the relaxing into and breathing with ALL that I am that brings about true and authentic and embodied relaxation.
Little by little. Breath by breath. Moment of present awareness by moment of present awareness.
For me, the process --- the journey --- of relaxation has looked like first understanding everything mentally and just wanting to BE THERE ALREADY ... to philosophically and spiritually bypass the difficult, slow, regressive, circular work of embodiment. Of practicing noticing my actual present moment bodily experience as it is. Of being where I am rather than where I want to be.
I wanted to just be relaxed already so I could RELAX! rather than realizing that learning to relax --- and unlearning to constantly be unrelaxed --- was going to start showing me all the ways and whys of how I couldn't actually relax. How my natural impulse was to keep returning to TENSION rather than relaxation. And then relaxing into that.
So, the below piece of writing from my old notebook shows where my brain started to get the import of this relaxation thing.
Over my process, during this story, I'll begin to experience that my body doesn't receive relaxation from big fat spiritually and philosophically impressive conclusions.
My body becomes relaxed by practicing and being with whatever comes up. All of it. My body becomes relaxed by noticing what is, and breathing into wherever I feel tension.
In the end, I reckon I'll come back around to agreeing with a lot of what I wrote below (after all, the end does spiral right on back to the beginning, iddn't?).
The difference will be that I know what it FEELS like to relax; that I embody the practice of relaxation ... rather than just spouting pretty words that my brain says look good.
relax; we're going back to the beginning
January 6, 2021
la cabina en Cody
revelation happens
in states of relaxation.
surrender:
give
in to the release . . .
let go. sigh it out.
drop the shoulders
unclench the jaw ~
relax
When we surrender we are relaxed because we know we are safe. We have accepted the safe thing to do is to let, and to allow, to stay. And since we are staying we must be safe, and whenever we’re safe, which is nearly all the time in reality, we can and do relax.
It is only in a state of relaxation that things can come to you because everything opens, dilates, surrenders to the flow of life and of blood.
Relaxed where nothing holds it tight, holds it back, tries to be in control.
We will always be at our best, no matter the task or not task, when we are relaxed. Literally, more lifeblood, circulation, energy flows to us in this physiological and energetic state.
The idea is calm, tranquil relaxation, a state of blissful surrender, in every situation.
It’s already taken care of; you’re safe; you can relax.
It is in this state you receive messages — you are shown.
As in YOU are shown to the world for the first time, really, as the natural flow and current and flavor of your service flows through you naturally.
You are shown: Revealed as an endless font of compassionate, tender, gentle, creative, happy, peaceful energy.
This possibility always exists — ready to flow forth when we just relax and trust it. We must realize that we are not in control anyway.
We are one with All That Is.
So what, exactly, is there to be in control of?
What if we relaxed, knowing we are one with All Energy and All Energy is intelligent?
EVERYTHING that happens is to help us, to help us grow, to give us a way — albeit often hidden, unexpected, UNSEEN —
We cannot see if we’re trying to control, and therefore limit and constrict possibilities.
But everything is coming to lead you closer … should you choose to open, surrender, relax to it … closer to who you really are.
You are not this single, separate, helpless being that was born and will die, that others can hurt (because they’re apart from), that can be alone and thwarted and betrayed and forced to withstand all this hurt from the outside, neverending tirade of grief and attacks and heartache — NO!
That is not who you truly are.
When you relax and open, you find there is a Power much greater than this little illusion separate ego version of you could ever have imagined. And YOU in your capital T True capital S Self are Eternal, are IT, are All.
All is One and therefore your Awareness is that All and is connected to it!
Relax! Smile! Sigh!
Surrender!
Shake it out!