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The Practice Of Relaxation
By Elizabeth Penning

Let yourself go! Yawn, stretch, and rub your eyes as if you are sleepy and tired; As you stretch yourself, extend and separate your fingers. If you do not know what to do next, try to imitate a cat, which always makes a regular ritual of stretching itself. First of all stretch while you are lying on your back, then roll over on to your left side, and repeat the whole operation on your right side. When you have yawned and stretched carefully, you will be in a "non- active" frame of mind, because the practice of relaxation is an exercise in non-activity. It is a basic principle that is often ignored.

Here is a test that allows you both to control and to practice your capacity for non-action: Stand up, feet apart, and lean your trunk forward almost at a right angle to the legs. Then let the arms hang loosely in front. By turning the shoulders from left to right, swing the arms like the pendulum of a clock. Make sure that they and the hands are really swinging, without taking an active part in the movement. When the pendulum action is properly set in motion, stop the movement of the shoulders, and allow the arms to move freely from left to right. The scope of the swinging action lessens quickly; let each arm come to rest slowly like the pendulum of a clock running down.

Focus on what is happening in your arms and hands. If your hands are not completely limp and relaxed, start the exercise again. Have them first shaken from the wrists so that the fingers turn freely with the movement of the hands. Go on with the exercise until only the pendulum-like action is guiding the hands and arms, without any muscular intervention on your part; you can see now how they can participate in a passive manner.

To control relaxation in the arms, sit on the ground, or on a chair. Let your right hand and arm hang inert, as they did when you were swinging them. Take hold of the middle or index finger of the right hand with your left, and raise the arm. If possible, ask a friend to control its relaxation, raising it by pulling on the index finger and then making it swing from left to right. You and your friend should get the impression of dealing with a dead weight hanging from the index finger like a ham from a hook. Your helper should now release your finger without any warning, and if the arm is correctly relaxed, it will fall back inert. You will have some idea of the nature of the state your arm should be in if you lift up the arm of a sleeping child.

Now experiment with the gravity in the whole body. Give yourself a nice, warm bath where you feel relaxed and rested by the heat of the water and by the force of gravity. Pull out the plug and allow the water to run away. As your limbs emerge, you will feel yourself drawn down to the bottom of the bath and you will collapse like a puppet with no strings, feeling heavy. Learn to evoke this sensation of heaviness whenever you want to, without water, and you have reached the first stage in relaxation.

Author Details:
Elizabeth Penning, copywriter for various web sites writing articles about natural health and other related subjects for sites such as the A-Z of and Information Junkie.

Source: Meditation Articles

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