Deep Rest
When I hurt my arm a while ago, I did a relaxation exercise
while waiting for the medicine to kick in. I figured one run-through would be
enough to release the supporting muscles, but to my surprise, I had to repeat
the exercise several times to really relax.
I had no idea I was so tense.
When we were small, we knew how to rest utterly,
bonelessly. As adults, we figure a good night's sleep is all we need to
release the day's tensions. Yet even a good night's sleep might not be enough.
Tension can sneak up on us, building gradually. And we require deep rest to
counter that. If we leave it long enough, our bodies may force us to take a
break, through illness or injury.
Deep rest reboots our bodies, our emotions and our
thoughts. It turns us off for a bit, and then turns us back on. To get this
kind of deep rest, we need to feel like we did when we were kids: utterly
safe, with nothing to do, nowhere to go, and with a deep trust that when we
return we will be ready to face the world.
This isn't always easy when we are surrounded by the same
walls and furniture, the same people, the same little worries or irritations
or uncertainties, and the same habitual responses to them all. We may need to
pluck ourselves out of our usual environment or headspace and drop ourselves
down into a place that asks something different from us.
It doesn't have to be grand, like a trip to the south of
France (although that'd be nice), it could be as simple as taking lunch under
a tree or taking five minutes after getting home from work to drop onto the
bed or into the bath and go through a guided relaxation exercise (door closed,
please).
Until our bodies rediscover their natural rhythms, we may
need to schedule breaks. But whether we have five minutes or five days, deep
rest needs us to turn ourselves right off - our lives, our routines, ourselves
so that we reboot as a new person.
For me, the sore arm was a gift. It reminded me that small
tensions really can add up and that we may get so used to being tense that we
think we are rested when we are not. When I relax now, I work with an image of
a little kid in mind to remind me that deep, boneless rest is as natural to us
as breathing.
Stories like these are a regular feature of my free monthly Ezine, Starry Night.
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