What do you do to relax? It feels like one of those things which we should just know, but we have to learn to relax. Proper Relaxation is neither passive, nor simply “not doing”. It is like sleep. Sleep is a fundamental part of our learning process. Sleep is where we embed the way we see the world as we have seen it during the day, from the perspective of how we have seen every day. Where we store, work through, and connect our memories.
Learning to relax properly involves tensing and releasing. One of the most advanced Yoga postures is called Savasana, or the Corpse pose. It looks like someone is just lying there. A lot of people will walk out of yoga classes at the end, cutting Savasana short because they only focus on the conspicuous exercises as the most important. What you see is not all there is.
Savasana involves doing a body scan to methodically search out where you are holding tension. It is direct and intentional.
There are levels of relaxation that flow from each other. Physical Relaxation, allows Mental Relaxation, which allows you to get to the point where you stop thinking about yourself. Many of our waves of anxiety come from worrying about expectations, our worth, or our place in the world.
Deep relaxation allows you to connect with what matters. Like a passionate public speaker gets to a point where they are in conversation with the audience, and everyone is thinking about the shared idea... they are no longer self-conscious. Deep relaxation can allow you to be still, even when you are still in the chaos.
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