On the one hand, relaxing with tension doesn’t seem to make sense. These two modes of feeling and experience—relaxation and tension—seem to be clearly binary, on opposite sides of the spectrum.
While one sensation does typically rise to the forefront of our awareness—we feel either tense or relaxed—both energies are always present, available. One informs the other, giving it shape. Maybe a bit like shadow and light.
Our human bodies are walking laboratories of these oppositional forces. The pump and flow of the heart. The contract and release of muscle. The firing off and receiving of neurons. (I might not be getting my physiology totally right, but you get the picture.)
The whole thing falls apart, and we would literally die, without a constant dance of tension and relaxation. And yet emotionally, psychologically, we tend to resist the exchange. We are, or want to be, in one camp or the other. Don’t go bringing any stress to my chill zone.
But obviously, life doesn’t work that way. Most of the time, life does not comply with our wishes for eternal ease and bliss.
You had a transcendent morning swim but now you’ve lost your car keys and are late to the meeting. You come home from an easy, fun night out with the girls to a sick kid and crabby spouse. You’re on the long-awaited vacation and bad news comes through.
It’s just life, and not such a big deal, unless or until the tension gets jammed up. Or you hit a rough patch where tension feels relentless, and has more substance and grip.
Maybe you try to ignore and solider on. Maybe you distract or medicate. Maybe you eventually succumb to what feels like relaxation but is actually more of a collapse.
What you might not typically do is tend to the tension, and feed it some of the relaxation that is also, always, here.
I’m not very good at this. I’m also not very good at breathing—my default for years has been a shallow, chest-centered breath with occasional stretches of not breathing at all—but breathwork has become a place I can play with the dynamic between tension and relaxation in a clear and tangible way. That’s what we’ll do today.
While “taking a breath” is now routine advice for meeting moments of stress, the practice of intentional breathing can, at least initially, evoke some tension in both body and mind. We’ll explore doing this with ease.
We’ll draw in some focused inhales, paying attention to what’s happening in our shoulders and neck. We’ll see what patterns of force or effort might want to emerge in our minds.
We’ll experiment with briefly holding the breath, which can feel like the ultimate contraction, and we’ll explore how it feels to soften in the midst of this pressure.
We’ll see that we can hold so much—the balloon of our lungs stretched to capacity—and we’ll confront our own ability to relax.
As always, it’s going to be quick trip. Maybe we’ll get somewhere new. Maybe, most importantly, we’ll see what’s already here.
xo,
Christa
P.S. Turns out this is a full five-minute Monday. Breathing takes time! (Also, might be time for a re-brand.) Thanks for playing along!
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