THE SELF-RELAXATION
There is no question that man, with his modern
behavior, damaged and constantly wastes the ability to relax.
This is because he constantly lives in a state of attention and
waking, through all the cares of everyday life, especially if he
is not able to manage these cares through the non-involvement.
The consequent tensions somatize into the body, by turning into
contractions, active day and night, that consume in a short time
all the energy. To better understand what happens, try to clench
your fists and keep the contraction as long as you can. The
consequent consumption of energy will make you tired and
desirous to end the experiment. This is what happens for every
little or big contraction of which you are or you are not aware,
present into your body. Also being with knitted brows is a slow
but inexorable hemorrhage of energy.
The first and most important path to walk, when you decide to
restore or to improve the quality of relaxation, is path of
awareness. It is thanks to the awareness that we discover that
our tensions somatize, and it is thanks to the awareness that we
can intervene by modifying even the chronic behaviors and habits
that cause hypertension and nervous disorders.
It happens to many people, for example, to sleep and dream with
clenched jaws or with other parts of the body contracted. These
people will have a bad awaking and usually they start the day
tired, even before to go to work. This brings to a store of
tension that today is called stress. So, it would be much better
to practice what I’m going to explain you below, for some
minutes every day, before it will be too late.
At the end of your working day, or at anytime you can, in an
adequate place, find and create the right atmosphere, for
example paying attention that noises and other won’t disturb you
during the practice. Lay down on the floor and completely relax
your body.
The key of the success is in the meaning of this word:
relaxation. To reach a complete relaxation is very difficult
because you have to restore the behavior of confidence that man
left on the fields of his lost battles (he believes so, until he
discovers that the lost battles are, instead, big moments of
growth, especially of inner growth).
So, lay down confidently and become aware of the whole body.
With the tiptoes outwards, turn your hands palms up, so that the
sense of touch won’t bind you to the material level. Bring the
chin closer to the breastbone, reducing the curve of the
cervical vertebras and relax your face in its every little part.
(You have to know that for an expert eye the face is like a map
of the mental tensions).
Try to relax with your means for some instant, as good as you
can, say to yourselves: I’m relaxing myself. This is to put the
attention on what you’re doing. Mentally go over the whole body
and relax any contraction you find. Try to be motionless until
you’ll end the practice.
Now, you will notice that is very difficult to divert your
attention from the ordinary content of your mind, made of
memories, of what happened during the day or even in the past.
The way of awareness is made of present. It is made of the Here
and Now, as the oriental schools say, and this is the only
important thing. How many people, in fact, spoil their life
living into past bad experiences, becoming insensitive to the
messages of joy and pleasure that nature continuously sends
them?
I state that to make you able to appreciate the nice message
that the relaxation technique, that I’m explaining here,
represents. It is a moment that belongs to your present, a
moment of joy, the joy of feeling and of pleasantly abandoning
ourselves to the universal energy. The universal energy will
enter you, as soon as there will be the right circumstances:
when your body and your mind, without any tension, will open
themselves by letting the universal energy come in.
The best mean to keep the mind into the present, continuously,
is the concentration on breathing. In the same time, this
concentration allows to control the emotional plane. By
regulating and balancing the flux of air that enters into the
lungs through the nostrils, so that the breathing in and the
breathing out will have the same duration, reach a fruitful
state of harmony and equilibrium. By mentally counting, make the
breathing in and the breathing out last 6 seconds each one. Keep
on until the time you dedicate to this practice ends. The end of
the practice has to be gradual.
Staying motionless, bring back the attention on the body, on the
physical plane and reach the idea you have to move. Begin the
awakening by moving the toes and then the fingers. Sweetly turn
your head to the right and to the left and then make at first
little movements, then bigger ones, until you will feel the
desire of stretching yourself, as when you only just wake up.
Always patiently, sit down and when you feel ready to, stand up.
Your practice is finished
by Amadio Bianchi