I
didn’t invent this technique, but I’m beginning to understand its
potential. Deep, profound relaxation is something I’d like to
experience more often.
It’s sometimes hard for me to unwind, so I’ve experimented with a variety of methods: biofeedback, progressive relaxation, yoga nidra, binaurals, float tanks. Probably the most extreme relaxation can be experienced through opioids. They are a powerful introduction to what’s possible, like psychedelics to a rigid belief system, but like psychedelics they are not a sustainable path. Besides, the whole point of relaxing oneself is not to depend on external circumstances (like drugs, alcohol, vacations, quiet neighbors, etc.)
I’ve bottomed out with the “be aware of tension and relax it” approach. Whether I tensed and relaxed muscles or breathed into them, or visualized them melting like a snow cone in Phoenix, whatever, there was a limit to how much response I could get. Relaxed, but not profoundly so. Not ecstatically relaxed where sinking into the sensation was pure bliss. I didn’t have the right key to unlock some ancient and baseline residual tensions in the musculature. Until I remembered something I’d heard and filed away. I don’t know, maybe I tried it half-heartedly once and thought it was cool and promptly forgot about it.
During my last float tank visit, after relaxing as much as possible with the conscious mind cajoling and encouraging and focusing on “letting go”, body scans, etc., I remembered this old idea. I scanned the body again, this time not looking for tension but for some place that felt “pretty good”, better than the rest; it might be a big toe, but there is always somewhere in the body that’s a bit more relaxed and at peace than anywhere else. And when I found this spot, I let that energy flood and inform the rest of the body. I repeated this procedure for wave after wave. Not sure quite how to explain the method… kind of like a tuning fork, finding a vibration and using that pitch to entrain everything to the note, or like unfolding/unpacking a sensation to flood/radiate to the rest of the body, particularly up in the face and scalp area. And there will be one part of the body that learns the vibration and new facility exceptionally quickly and well, and that part is promoted to leader of the next wave. This resulted in a profound unbinding. Exactly what I was looking for. So until this one bottoms out (I suspect relaxation has no limits) I’m happily exploring this new level. Give it a spin sometime.
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophies.
-Friedrich Nietzsche