Friday 8 August 2014

Melting Tension


When approaching a practice session it is good to have an intention to 'work' on something specific, even if that 'specific' is simply being generally relaxed. It is so easy to have the intention to 'do' relaxing which obviously comes from a tense or controlling place, the exact opposite of what you're hoping to become.

Most of our practises start with some kind of 'Attention' posture. Remember that it's called 'Attention' because it's about paying attention to how you are right now, and feeling what is in the way of being how you'd like to be. The key here is Feeling. So... make it your intention to Feel.

Practising Sinking or Rooting, for example, won't do anything at all unless you feel. We have to come at it from the inside and intend to drop deeper into feeling before Sinking or Rooting can begin to develop. You can think about Sinking or Rooting whilst lowering your weight/centre of gravity, but you won't have Sunk or Rooted, you'll just appear to be a bit shorter than you were a few seconds earlier. Any tensions will still be present and may have even increased!

Feeling the melting of tension internally allows you to Sink. So Sinking becomes the end result rather than the starting point.

Have a clear intention and feel what you're doing, feel for your goal from the inside.

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