I know I’ve mentioned this before, but the importance of relaxation just keeps being brought home to me.
I have a feeling that the need to learn how to relax may be more general than just me. But I don’t know.
The way life works, as I learned from my vision on Feb. 13, 1987, (1) is it follows an arc, yes – from God to God – but the arc itself, on closer inspection, is seen to be a coil or a spiral, like the nautilus, left.
Why a spiral? Because we keep returning to or coming back to or revisiting the same situations, lifetime after lifetime, until we learn the lesson at the heart of them.
For me, one of those lessons I keep returning to is not to be an overproducer, but to learn to relax – before I crash and burn.
Resistance, Stress
Merely thinking about relaxation raises an almost-instantaneous and instinctual resistance in me. What is it?
What resists is the constructed self that set its face against relaxation. In my case, a wounded child resists from a vasana, or core issue, in which my father repeatedly accused me of being a lazy, no-good, good-for-nothing.
Perceived idleness brought down on me the full weight of authority (the back of my father’s hand).
I probably didn’t want to do what he was asking and was dragging my feet.
Now the twig is bent. How will the tree incline?
The lazy, no-good good-for-nothing coped and adapted to become the overproducer, the Type A personality, the go-getter.
He followed the Protestant work ethic. Idleness in that view was sinfulness, indicating a lack of moral fiber. He felt deep down, if he were perfectly honest, that all his hard work would one day be rewarded. That overproducer is one aspect of my life, one voice in my head.
Another aspect of my life is the monk and awareness writer. For him, “idleness” equates to stillness, silence, and meditation. He has no problem with it. Relaxation, even idleness, are not his sworn enemies.
One Mask Stuck
Marcel Marceau: One mask stuck….
But they are for the overproducer. And the mask he constructed as a result of all this just happened to stick. (2)
Every article and book he adds to the pile is veiled defiance of his father. Even his generosity is veiled defiance of his grandfather, who used his money to manipulate and hurt people.
Mine is all an act. It’s all a mask. A mask that stuck.
I need to let go of a lifestyle founded upon stress, living off adrenaline, lacking love and, so, loving conflict and control, push and shove. It’s very male.
It sows the seeds of its own downfall, as the Divine Mother cautioned:
“It is painful for a being that seeks power for themselves or power over another, whether it is a parent over a child, a husband over a wife, a man over an army. It matters not. The yearning [for], the exercise of control never gives joy. The pain simply grows. And so the actions become more grotesque, larger, until the breakdown is and has [been] and will be occurring.” (3)
It took me a long time to see that, while what the Mother is pointing at was true for my Dad, it was also true for me. It came as a great shock, like a plane going through the sound barrier.
My overproduction is all part of that aggressive, pushy, unforgiving way of life. And relaxation is counter-intuitive to it. Nevertheless, time to leave a sinking ship. There’s no future for any of it.
Relaxation
I use the word “relax” because I think it has the fewest prior negative connotations. Most people in society know what it is to relax and enjoy doing it.
But really, we’re letting go into the peace of our Natural Self. It’s far more spiritual, more contextual than simply collapsing in a sofa.
Relaxation is a way of life that honors flow, embraces it, and makes it work. Relaxation is part of higher-dimensional living.
I need to acknowledge that relaxation is neither a sin nor an indulgence nor a sign of weakness.
I need to embrace it not simply as an occasional and temporary state of consciousness, but as an overall context for life.
As context, I am relaxed; I come from being relaxed; being relaxed is my default and my preferred state.
Footnotes
(1) See “Ch. 13 Epilogue” for an account of it, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/spiritual-essays/16244-2/the-purpose-of-life-is-enlightenment/ch-13-epilogue/
(2) Red hot news. As we get older, all the masks that we’ve donned again and again over the years begin to stick. Is there anyone younger listening? It’s called “coralization.” See “Coralization” at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2011/10/17/coralization/
(3) “Transcript ~ The Divine Mother: Take Up Your Divine Authority, AHWAA, February 23, 2017,” at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2017/02/28/transcript-divine-mother-take-divine-authority-ahwaa-february-23-2017/