Breathe into it

I was massaging a particularly tight gluteal muscle on one of my clients the other day and he was talking animatedly like he always does and I was listening to him while maintaining my pressure on this one spot. The tissue was taught and absolutely did not want to release. After a bit he stopped talking and kind of laughed and said, " I'm fighting it...I can feel myself tensing up". I told him I could feel the same thing. I suggested he take a deep breath and focus on the area and breathe into it (the muscle) and see what happens. We both took a nice big breath in, focused our attention on the muscle underneath my (elbow at the time) and as our attention and intention went to the muscle it "let go". Instead of forcing my way through the muscle I simply and gently stayed there with my intention for it to release. Instead of fighting me and holding his breath and bracing against the pain and discomfort my client embraced his body and what he was feeling. He provided it the oxygen and circulation it needed and the love and attention for it to dissipate effortlessly.

And so I started thinking about how we move about in our everyday lives. We plow through this task and that chore just to get things done! We race from this errand to that location without even knowing how we got there. And we forcefully shove and honk and scream and scoff when things don't go our way, don't happen fast enough, or don't meet our expectations. What a stressful approach to take when things might be easier if we would just stop and breathe into it.

If you can't change something there's no use getting stressed about it because that just adds to the problem. Instead, I've learned to ask myself, "What can I do next time to avoid this situation?", or "How can I make this easier on myself the next time this happens?" This helps me feel more in control of myself and I stop "reacting" and start actively living in the moment. And I must admit, it's much easier to get through life's little bumps if you can remember to breathe, let go of the expectations, stop fighting your way through life and just let it flow!

Yours in health,
Lee Anne :)