What do you do about relaxation? I am often confounded by the fact that people think relaxation can be boxed into a weekend away or a trip to the spar on a particular chosen day. Please don’t misunderstand me…. Trips to the health spa are very good for you, but they can not possibly produce relaxation for anything more than a few hours. The relaxation we need to introduce to ourselves is relaxation that integrates with every minute of every day. We need to become aware of how we tense up and of how we change our breathing patterns when we do. We need to try to incorporate effective, relaxed breathing and relaxation into every moment.

I constantly notice myself being tense when I am in a meeting or driving, and sometimes even when I am reading or chatting to friends too. I am holding my shoulders tight and my tongue is pulled backwards in my mouth, producing tension in my face and jaw. I also notice my left frowning muscle is in constant contraction a lot of the time. Now you can Botox the frowning muscle, which will prevent the wrinkle, but there isn’t much that Botox can do for the shoulders and tongue. So perhaps, awareness of relaxing these muscles is more effective. We need to train our mental pathways to alert us to tension when it exists so we can intervene effectively and sustainably. Conscious relaxation isn’t going to bring a lasting effect any more than a massage is.

The problem lies in the fact that the neural pathways that create this tension are associated with a certain feeling or experience. So we need to recognise the result of the pathway in order to unravel the feeling or experience. So for example, I know my left frowning muscle tenses up when I am rushed and overloaded. As long as a feeling of overload exists, I need to release it, or support myself in some way to lessen the effect it has on my body. When I do this, my frown will spontaneously lessen. I might say, “just one step at a time”, “you’ll get there, Sue, it’s all going to work out fine” “just be present and do one thing at a time and do it well”. I often stop and write down all I have to do, which usually makes me feel more in control, so it’s not all just bubbling around in my head. The minute I feel my muscles tighten, or I notice myself frowning, I know what to do.

All I can say, is I am grateful for the barometer my body always provides for me. Feeling overloaded is a recurrent stress for me and ultimately there is deeper transformation required to lessen this feeling permanently, but these strategies work well in the short term. They make me feel better and enhance my productivity, where such negative feelings would diminish it severely. 
So this week make it relaxation week, and try to bring more relaxation into every minute of every day!

I want to talk about exercising for the sheer joy of being alive…. our bodies were made to exercise and to move and movement brings joy. I often hear people say: ‘I hate exercise’. If you are one of these people I ask you to challenge yourself and ask the question: ‘ is it exercise I hate or the idea of exercise?’ Our mind can be seen as a big muscle and most of us have very undisciplined, untrained and very out of control minds and I wonder how different things would be if we actually managed our thoughts. The truth is that the body was made to move and exercise.

Exercising is as natural to us as eating. Of course people like different forms of exercise, just like different people like different types of foods or climates. However I do not think there is a body that genuinely doesn’t like any exercise. So I challenge you to think of exercise as being a source of joy and fun and ask yourself how you can have more joy and fun as you exercise. I know for me gym is a chore. I do enjoy it when I am there, but it takes energy for me to go, but running is just fun. I never have to force myself to go. I just connect with the free, relaxed feeling it brings and I long to go.

 This past weekend I was lucky enough to run the ‘South African X-trail’ trail running race in the Cape. Even though the last day was cancelled due to foul weather, it was like running in heaven to be there and the euphoria that such a run produced for me has inspired me to want to encourage more and more people to try it. Maybe if you could change your mindset you would find that exercise IS what you were born to do and you could love every minute of it. Sometimes to get to the fun and the joy, we have to work through our resistance, but even inertia is a frame of mind. It may take time to get fit too, and there is no rush. But every day that we do not exercise is a day we have wasted a chance to enjoy ourselves.

Today I went flying with my partner who is an aerobatic pilot and experienced what I sometimes take for granted with him…. the exhilaration of sending it up into the skies and leaving the world far below. He took us barrel rolling and stall turning all over the sky and I sat in the plane (an Extra) strapped in tight to assist with the G-force and to keep me still even when we were upside down and I really got what it means to push the boundaries and try the seemingly impossible.

We pointed the plane completely vertical and shot upwards and then turned and skyrocketed groundwards as if we were about to nose dive into the ground and just as I shut my eyes in panic he expertly corrected us and flew us just low enough to make out the individual blades of grass in the field we were flying over. In spite of my stomach which objects strongly and violently this was one of the most pristine experiences I have ever had. I have been many times and what I saw today is that the more I have relaxed the more I have slowed it all down so I can really take it all in and appreciate every minute slowly and individually. 

 Luckily you can’t see how pale I am! But if you could have seen you would have seen sparkling eyes!