One of the most beneficial things we can do for our body,
Our mind,
And our health is to truly teach the body how to relax.
When we fully relax the body,
The nervous system shifts from fight,
Flight,
Or freeze to rest and heal.
The brain stops emitting the chemicals of adrenaline and cortisol that keep us in that fired up state,
And instead the brain shifts into releasing serotonin and oxytocin,
The feel-good hormones.
Learning to relax is more than just lying on the couch and turning on the TV or drinking a glass of wine at the end of the day.
It is a process to take the body through,
And the more that you move through this process of relaxation,
The easier it will become,
And you will become addicted to the feeling of relaxation rather than addicted to the feeling of fight or flight,
Which many of our systems are addicted to without us even knowing.
So let's begin by,
Whether you're seated or lying down,
Just closing your eyes for a moment and tuning into your inner world.
Just notice,
As you breathe,
Where you might be able to locate the places of tightness or contraction,
The places where breath and energy are not fully flowing.
And then we're going to do an exercise to bring this feeling of tightness and contraction even more into the body so that it becomes easier to know the difference.
And so I invite you to begin to activate the muscles of your body.
Extend your arms out and squeeze your hands into fists,
Curling them slightly so that the forearms tighten,
The biceps and triceps tighten.
Pull your shoulders down and back and feel a squeezing through that part of the body.
And then curl your toes,
But flex your feet and activate all the muscles of your legs.
Begin to squeeze your whole body into a contracted state.
Squeeze your glutes and feel your hips tighten.
Pull your belly button towards your spine and feel a squeezing through the torso.
And then scrunch up your face.
Squint your eyes,
Pull your lips back,
Tighten all the muscles of your face so that it feels as if your whole body is in a state of contraction.
Hold that feeling and take a deep breath in through your nose.
We're going to exhale that breath,
But continue to hold the squeeze in your body.
Stick out your tongue,
Exhale the breath,
But continue to squeeze,
Contract.
Perhaps you can even squeeze harder as you take another deep breath in through the nose.
Fill the body with breath.
Hold that feeling,
The expansion of breath,
The squeezing of the muscles.
And when you must exhale,
Stick out your tongue and exhale,
But continue to squeeze.
One final time,
Squeeze even tighter.
Flex the feet,
Curl the hands,
Scrunch up the face,
Tuck the chin slightly.
Take a deep breath into this contracted body.
Hold,
Hold,
Hold.
And this time when you exhale,
Release every muscle in your body.
Soften,
Settle,
Allow yourself to feel held,
To feel supported by the chair or the bed beneath you.
Surrender,
Surrender into that support holding you up and surrender into the stillness of this moment.
Surrender the need to be a certain way or to think a certain thing and just breathe.
Slow the breath,
Bring it down low into the belly,
Expanding,
Allowing the air to fill you up and exhaling completely.
Let it feel good,
Breathing in and breathing out.
Now begin to imagine above your head a waterfall of golden light.
Imagine that this light is pouring down from above and as it pours down onto the crown of your head,
You feel a sense of ease and relaxation move into your scalp,
Down around your ears and temporal bones and this relaxation flows down over your eyes,
Into your cheeks and your jaw.
Breathe and allow for this softening.
The back of your head rests even more into the support beneath it.
As you continue to breathe in the belly and allow this sense of ease to flow with the golden light down into your neck and your throat,
The softening comes into the shoulders as they become even heavier and this sense of ease of letting go rolls down through your arms,
The biceps and triceps,
Down through the elbows and the forearms,
Into your hands and fingertips.
Notice as you let go more and more,
You begin to feel the effects of gravity.
Breathe in the belly and let it feel good and let the mind follow this golden waterfall of light down through your chest,
Your rib cage,
Into the belly and letting go through the back,
Upper,
Middle and lower back muscles all begin to soften even more.
And as you breathe,
Invite the organs to relax and take rest,
Our heart,
Our lungs,
Liver and kidneys,
All of these organs are working for us nonstop.
And when the body is stressed,
They are working even harder.
So relax and invite the organs to take rest.
Breathing deeply,
Breathing slowly.
Let it feel good.
Now follow this golden waterfall down in through your hips,
Softening,
Surrendering through your glutes.
If you're lying flat on your back,
You may notice that your feet splay apart just a little bit more as you let go of those parts.
Allow your legs to become even heavier as the thighs,
The knees,
And the lower legs all soften just a bit more.
And now follow this golden waterfall.
It continues to pour in through the top of your head,
To pour through the body,
Touching every muscle,
Every organ,
Every cell,
And it flows all the way down and through the feet and the toes,
Dripping out through the bottom of your feet,
Moving the energy,
Moving any tightness,
Any contraction,
So that more of you can move into this body.
More spaciousness,
To be filled with the breath,
The essence,
The love that is you.
Feel that sense of spaciousness within you now,
And allow the mind to remember this feeling,
The more you move through this practice,
The more you will train the body to soften,
To let go,
To allow more of you,
The abundance that you are,
The love,
The magnificence that you are,
To flow through this body.
Your life is a reflection of the energy flowing through you.
You are the template that creates the experiences that you are walking into.
And so as you soften,
As you relax and allow more energy to flow,
A byproduct of that is you see your own life flowing with more ease.
Breathe,
And feel that ease within you at this moment,
And perhaps you just let the music play out,
And let your body fall asleep in this deep place of rest.
It is a beautiful way to drift into sleep at night.
It is in this state that healing happens.
There is nothing to do,
Only to relax and allow.
Namaste.
