Relaxing into your being
Relaxing is not always seen as “achievement”. Yet it is the key to so many things.
Only a relaxed body and mind can receive. And receiving means: nurturing ourselves, living a sustainable/balanced life, being creative, getting ideas that lead us directly to the path we want to be at. Relaxing makes you open for life, for others, for yourself…
Allowing ourselves to relax…
Many of us come from a background where success is measured on how much we “do”. And when our society thinks of “relaxation”, it is often combined with reading, watching TV, being with friends…
What I am talking about is, relaxing and being fully present with ourselves. If you are not used to that, you might meet quite some resistance. At least that is what I experienced – coming from an extremely full life (first: dance education plus school plus performances, then: studying plus working plus training), but also a family where sitting on the couch and doing nothing was something that just never happened.
The first time when I questioned that and tried to do nothing and just be, voices came up like: “Should you not do something, be productive?”; “Where is that leading to? At the end you won’t get anywhere with your life” … and then of course also feelings came up that I didn’t really want to feel: discomfort, insecurities… this feeling that you go somewhere, a deep abyss, not knowing where it ends. Yeah, relaxing can be scary! :-)
A path to liberation
But once you get through those first start-up difficulties, you will feel how liberating the act of doing nothing is. It has nothing to do with being lazy… or, even worse, being a looser. It is – at least in my understanding – the allowance to be yourself. To accept and love yourself, “even” if you don’t do anything. That doesn’t mean that you have to sit still for hours ;-) But it’s about not adding anything extra (just because we think we have to).
This is the moment where your body can finally relax. A relaxation that is much deeper than what you have ever felt before. And feelings like pure joy, satisfaction, peace can come up.
Not, because of something (that you have achieved or experienced in the outside world). No… just from a state of experiencing yourself fully – exactly how you are in this moment. It is an amazing gift you can give to yourself. And, I believe, the value that people bring from being relaxed is much bigger than the value we get from being very productive (but stressed or even close to a burn-out).
It’s a BIG STEP to DO NOTHING
At the end it is quite an achievement to trust so much in life, in the present moment, in our journey, that we can allow ourselves to walk that “path of relaxation”. Of course, we can’t be relaxed all the time. And it’s also important to feel the fire, the adrenalin, the “positive” stress or drive (and even all the other feelings we experience in our productive lives). But I believe that relaxation should be a pillar in our lives – just as being active, serving, going for what we want.
It’s about those moments where we stand still with what is. Just then we can feel what’s the next step, what is needed right now, where to go. But also it’s the time where the best ideas come and where we can fully enjoy the fruits of what we have worked for. Feelings like love, connection, gratitude. This is something we don’t want to miss!
Knowing how difficult this can be, I can only say: it’s possible! For everyone!
A massage is a wonderful start into that journey. And for everyone who wants to go a step further: In Dance Therapy you learn how to meet your authentic self and discover a completely new way of moving through life.
Relaxed, accepting, open, trustful, flexible… and all the rest that makes you as YOU ARE.
The woman floating in water is Inna Kulazhenkova. I made this picture on our trip to India. We were there to create a dance piece together. And also in that project we chose the path of relaxation: Instead of standing in the studio every day, creating, we took many moments “off”: traveling, sleeping, sitting. At the end this was such a deep experience. And it brought us definitely stronger together than if we would have tried to be productive the whole time. So, when we created the piece we almost didn’t need to “do” anything. The choreography/story was just unfolding itself. Thank you, Inna, for that! I believe it was a courageous decision in that moment and showed me a completely new way of working.
