Superficially relaxation exercises relating to mindfulness might look quite simple, almost to the point of superficiality, but in reality the capacity to become and remain deeply relaxed consistently in life is a profound achievement.
Why so? Because to be able to remain truly and deeply relaxed in the face of all the nonsense that everyday life throws at you implies the achievement of three inner qualities that are not easy to attain:
Self-trust – The knowledge that your mind, judgment and convictions are not vulnerable or susceptible to emotional pressure
Self confidence – The belief that, whatever the challenge you have you are confident in the power of your mind to be able to respond appropriately and effectively
Self-esteem – The feeling and experience that you are deserving of happiness in life, and that you are confident of your own intelligence and its capacity to find solutions to your life’s problems (in this sense you could say that self-confidence is actually a subset of self-esteem).
Non-Resistance – Relaxing into our challenges as a way of practising mindful resilience and recovering from mental ‘hits’ faster.
Rather than theorizing, what I want to do in this article is demonstrate from my own experience how non-resistance works. The other night as I was falling asleep I was suddenly struck by a set of unusual feelings of loneliness, accompanied by images of myself in a big empty house. Caught by surprise by these feelings, I felt my body and mind resisting and trying to reject and deny these feelings, to try and ‘escape’ from them. Catching myself, I then altered my approach, consciously relaxing into the feelings of loneliness, immersing myself in them like submerging myself into the water of a swimming pool. By relaxing and practising non-resistance to the feelings, I found that after a short while they naturally dissipated and I fell asleep feeling relaxed and content; I was able to process and remain resilient to the emotional challenge through the practice of relaxational non-resistance.
Next morning I receive an email from a corporate client regarding a deal I thought was locked up. Turns out they have decided to go with another facilitator, instinctively following the momentum that I had created from the night before, I again practice non-resistance to the email and my emotional reaction to it. I allow it to flow through my body and mind, opening my chest and relaxing deeply. The result – my recuperation and regeneration time from that setback is VASTLY accelerated (not to say that there was no swearing mind ;-)), and I proceed through the mornings work and activities feeling fundamentally good despite the setback.
So, two related, practical examples of the practice of non-resistance there which I hope will give you some idea as to how to start practising it yourself.
How does non-resistance relate to the qualities of self-trust, confidence and esteem?
The capacity to practice non-resistance under stress depends to a large degree on how you have developed these three qualities within yourself. If you don’t trust and feel confident in yourself, it is very difficult to relax into an experience that directly threatens your wellbeing. If you don’t have self-esteem it can be difficult not to believe that on some level setbacks in life are confirmations that happiness is not something you deserve to give yourself each day.
Non-resistance is a practice that you can start today and find real benefit, but that to be a master of deep relaxation; you have to earn it over time.
Related articles: Non-Striving, The Shadow Child, Soft Forms of Psychic Self Defence.
© Toby Ouvry 2014, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com