A Simple Exercise to Encourage Opening

 

Oh my goodness! Spring has officially arrived! When I think of the season, the words that come are beginning, opening, transitioning, light, possibility, unearthing, and awe. The entire season feel like a "yes."  

In a recent A Mindful Life group, we did a simple exercise around saying, "yes." I want to share it with all of you because it is an easy way to help ourselves open our perspective and positively shift our experience from things that may feel mundane or that we may not see in a favorable light. It moves us toward gratitude and helps us not take for granted all of what we get to experience in being alive.

You can do this is as a journaling exercise, or in your mind, or out loud in the shower. The question is:

What today can I say, "yes" to (or what tomorrow can I say yes to, if you do this at night)?

Some things will come easily, but what if you also say, "yes" to those things that you might habitually resist, push away, or do by rote. And when you name it, take a pause and see what it feels like inside to be open to the experience, to be curious, to enjoy, to feel awe around it. For example, I can easily say "yes" to meeting my husband for coffee and when I take it in, I feel warmth, joy, excitement, and a smile comes to my face. I can also say "yes" to the discomfort I am having in my knee. "Yes" to the fact that my body is letting me know I need to shift something or pay attention, or rest, and yes to the fact that my body is protecting itself. I could say, "yes" to driving my daughter to her practice 25 minutes away and having that precious time with her in the car (of which I am aware will soon not be something I am needed for). Saying "yes" to these things opens me up to what is good in them, to what makes them possible, to the other people involved.

Whichever form you do it, be sure it doesn't become just a list you are making, like a to-do list, rather, stop with each one and try it on inside -- what is it like to open to the experience that you get to have in doing whatever it is. How does it feel different if you start by saying, "yes" rather than just go about it or maybe even resist or dread it? This is our life! We get to choose our perspective on it, how we go about it, what we bring to it, and we get to feel the joy of gratitude. 

Just like the spring says, "yes" to growth, to opening, to mud, to transitioning, to the possibility of everything, even as messy as it can be, we too, can meet our lives this way. It feels a lot better than its alternative. We can help ourselves lean toward joy.

"Just Relax" -- Seriously?

If you ever had someone tell you to relax in a stressful moment, most likely it wasn't very helpful, in fact it might have added irritation or frustration to the moment. In my 20's, training to be a massage therapist, we learned not to say to a client, "just relax.” If they could do it that easily, they probably wouldn't need a massage! Still, there were times I wanted to say it. There was a common phenomenon I would experience where a client would specify that they wanted deep work, yet when I would apply more pressure they would brace themselves by contracting their musculature. This, of course, was counterproductive for the client, and it just made my job harder because I would then have to use more force and effort. All it did was create more tension, more stress in their body and in mine. Often they didn’t know they were doing it at all. Thinking about this recently, I realized that this is a common experience in life.

We want to feel more at ease, less anxious, more comfortable. We want more peace, more joy, but what do we actually do? We guard ourselves, brace against what might come, contract our body to what is here or, more often, to what we imagine might arise. We create the opposite of what we want. Once we become aware of this tendency, we start see how much we do it on a regular basis. It's often in our interactions, or anticipated interactions -- when we ask for something, when someone asks something of us, when we open emails or texts, with bills that arrive in the mail, when we drive, shop, search for something. With this bracing, we end up expending more effort, create more physical and emotional tension, and get further away from what we actually want to experience. We all do this to varying degrees. It’s a very human, hard-wired need to want to protect ourselves, so we don't have to feel ashamed of it. What we can do is have more awareness when this habit energy is arising and we can practice letting it go.

When we see lightness and joy in certain people -- the Dalai Lama comes to mind -- it is so appealing because they aren't bracing against what's here. They are relaxed. So what do we need to do to “Just relax?” If we make it an invitation, not a demand of ourselves, we can choose to let go, to open to what is here without needing to fight or defend. We can be curious instead about whatever we find by trusting in ourselves to slow down and meet it with kindness. If we do this, what is there to brace against? “Just relax” might not be such a bad instruction to give ourselves (though I still wouldn't say it to someone else)! I might word it differently by saying, “Jean, it's ok to let go of contracting here, or Jean, it's ok, you don’t have to brace yourself right now.”

Once we have the awareness of tension in ourselves coming from anxiety, the unknown, feeling overwhelmed, or confusion, we can help our mind by letting go in the body. Letting the body influence the mind by choosing to relax the contraction, that sense of pulling in, tightening, narrowing. It can be very powerful and very direct. It can be harder to change what we are doing in our mind, than to change what we are doing in our body -- how we are holding ourselves.

My invitation this week is to use the direct experience of easing up in the body to ease the mind. You might notice when you've drifted into thought and, if it is a planning thought, an anxious thought, a worrying thought, an overwhelming thought, to sense your body and see where you can let go, where you can relax more. Choose physical ease and notice if that changes your thought or the feeling behind your thought. As many times as you need throughout the day, keep letting tension fall away.

🪷
Jean