Relax First

The first thing I do when I awake is relax. That sounds odd, but sleep­ing is not a pas­sive activ­ity. The body’s most intense work hap­pens in the early morn­ing hours, as it is replac­ing worn out pro­teins. Dream­ing is actu­ally pretty demand­ing and serves to clean the slate (as well as give us insights into the hopes and strug­gles of the soul). The inten­sity and clar­ity of dreams tend to increase until just before wak­ing. You will even notice that your mus­cles are tight — almost as if you had actu­ally worked to act out your dreams. Do your­self a favor. Begin relax­ing into the day as you become fully awake and keep that approach through­out the day. It is the oppo­site of what you will tend to do, so this will take some con­scious effort.

Through­out the day, var­i­ous stres­sors come my way. The temp­ta­tion is to tense up with each one until by late after­noon I am exhausted. You can beat stress to the punch. These days the first thing I do when some prob­lem arises is relax. In short, I fight the mon­sters of life by not tak­ing them very seri­ously at all. As they come along I con­tinue to breathe and watch them lose their strength. We usu­ally give more energy to our prob­lems than they give to us. That is one of our costli­est illu­sions. There is almost noth­ing in daily real­ity that demands we become upset by any­thing. After all, sym­bols and actions only have the power we give them.

Watch your pet. From it you will learn that aware­ness is about being relaxed enough to see what needs to be done. Mouse in the cor­ner? Go get it with all of your strength and then relax, but most of all be relaxed enough to begin with to be able to notice the sneaky lit­tle varmint. Therein lies an ani­mal wis­dom les­son. Pets play a lot too. To this day, I still main­tain that a Bas­set Hound has but one ques­tion in his head: “How can I pos­si­bly be more relaxed?”

Do not con­fuse relaxed aware­ness with lazi­ness or pas­siv­ity. It is quite the oppo­site. It is the delib­er­ate choice to fight con­fu­sion with peace, still­ness, and a calm resolve. A clear head knows what to do. A cool head knows the style that accom­pa­nies it. You win by not being upset. Most prob­lems are sel­dom fully solved, but they can all be tran­scended. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give you as the world gives. Do not be trou­bled and do not be afraid.” (Jesus of Nazareth, NIV)

Spir­i­tual peace is being still in life’s storms. Doing that means ignor­ing or ris­ing above your own body’s habits of response. This takes prac­tice. You get bet­ter at it. Life becomes more enjoy­able. Your eyes lift to the sky to see sun­rays through the gath­er­ing clouds. Relax, the storm is coming.