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TWO RELEASING EXERCISES Floating on Water Floating on the waves
To visualize
"floating" is
a simple letting-go of everything. If your attachment to your body and brain
seems a bit loose at the best of times, this is probably not a good thing
for you, but if your tendency is to be rigid or over-controlled or tense,
perhaps emotionally repressed, this technique might be quite helpful.
Lie
down and just let go of your muscles, your body, your bones, your thoughts,
your feelings. Just let yourself sink on your bed and don't do anything.
Every time that you become aware of a thought or an emotion, let it go
out of your mind and breathe it out of your system. This is not
a relaxation technique nor a meditative exercise they are disciplines,
an exercising, if you will, of our mental and spiritual 'muscles'. This is
just becoming totally limp, without boundaries, gently awake and gently
aware.
It
is sometimes possible to sink very deeply into this quite rapidly, but other
times it may be more difficult. Often it helps to do a meditative or
relaxing exercise first. Many people also find certain kinds of quiet,
flowing music helpful. The feeling this process
leads to is similar to the letting-go that happens in meditation or
relaxation, but definitely not the same, and it seems to be a complement to
(but certainly not a substitute for) meditation and relaxation techniques. There is a related technique, which we might call dissolving. Looking up from within the ground...
You
simply lie on the earth and let yourself dissolve into it, letting yourself
experience being a part of the earth. Don't make any effort to do this
just let it happen.
This
is a relaxing-into, a kind of surrendering. It differs from
floating in that dissolving
is a melding, a becoming one with something else, something large and
serene, while floating is more of a being nothing. All of these things floating, dissolving, meditating have certain similar
effects: a sense of serenity and deep peace, a recharging of energy, a sense
of having thoroughly rested. This is, of course, accompanied by the obvious
things of reduced physiological stress, a more balanced response to the
circumstances of life, et cetera. Yet each of these techniques has different
results as well. Meditation strengthens certain abilities self healing, concentration, attainment of mental skills but more to the point, It seems primarily a mental-energetic activity of opening up and letting go of all stresses and emotions. However, once the stresses disappear, there is a deeper layer of meditation that appears and it unfolds AWARENESS of the AXIAL Cosmic Center of pure Being within oneself.
Dissolving
nourishes us in some hard-to-define way. When we have done it and
really sunk into the earth, we feel cherished, nurtured, and strengthened.
We usually feel 'plugged in' to something very large and powerful and
loving. The response we have seems primarily emotional with physical and
mental 'side effects'.
The effect of floating
is harder to define. The response
seems primarily spiritual/emotional
there is a sense of lightness and a kind of pervasive, free-floating
joy. Something people often notice is that they feel they have shed burdens
on some deeply unconscious level, burdens they didn't know they were
carrying. It seems to ease transformation. Relaxation is quite difficult for some of us because it is about letting go and releasing boundaries and trusting and for many of us, that is the hardest thing to do. We may have a lot of fears and insecurities that arise from being ungrounded and not centered. Hence, we need to learn to deal with those in a positive way. The different types of exercises and essays which you find on this website are written specifically to help and encourage seekers in the many different layers of awakening... Back to the List of all the Exercises
01/02/06 |