A Question About How to Relax
A process of elimination
This week’s question arrived in an audio message from my friend Rachel on Monday 3/4/24. If you would like to submit a question to me, feel free to email it to: sudwinks@gmail.com.
Although the question I’m answering highlights not drinking alcohol, the focus will stay centered in the question itself, which seeks tips, ideas, and suggestions for relaxing in general. Rachel is a long distance friend who I have stayed in touch with over the last several years, especially after the height of my addiction and finding steps forward into recovery. She has her own, unique story and simply wanted to stop drinking to feel better and connect more with herself and her life. This was her most recent question to me, and she gave me permission to answer it on my Substack.
Hi friend, I hope you’re doing well. I have a quick question for you about not drinking alcohol. I am loving not drinking. I’m loving it so much. I am happy I had my fun while I had it lol, but I am loving sober living so, so much. With that being said, however, I do feel like I don’t relax as well, which is a bad habit. I know I used to be better about relaxing. I’m working on relaxing. I just love doing things and going. I’ve realized that so much of probably why I started drinking was because of the relaxing side of it, and I was wondering if you have any tips or things that you enjoy. I love doing little mocktails or different things, but I’ve noticed that it doesn’t force me to relax. I guess I just need to be more aware of it? Anyway, I’m realizing I need to force myself to relax more and to rest in the moment. I’m just wondering if you have any suggestions, things that you learned or anything you have, and if there’s nothing, if it’s just: “yes Rachel, it just takes time, and you have to learn how to do it,” then I’m okay with that too. I just thought I would check, and I hope you’re doing well. I would love to hear about your life if you want to share anything, and yeah, I’ll talk to you soon.
Rachel, as you know, you sent this to me on Monday, and I left you with a read receipt until my text reply on Wednesday. That’s because every suggestion I thought to give you made me think of something that came before it. Because we’re friends, I know that you stopped drinking alcohol relatively recently. I realized that what I do now to relax looks a lot different than what I needed when I first stopped drinking.
Regardless of drinking or not drinking, many people are struggling with this. Many people are struggling to relax.
I still struggle with this too.
Because anything difficult takes practice, I’m prompted to share a previous post titled Solid Fluidity. I wrote about “the work of effortlessness” or, in other words, working hard to relax.
Back in 2020, I listened to someone talking about how they held stress in their shoulders, so bad sometimes that it felt like they held their shoulders up by their ears. “They’re not supposed to be up there!” they said laughing. I remember listening to them and placing my hands on my shoulders to press them down. The days following that, I noticed how tense my entire body was on a regular basis. I noticed my sore legs in the morning as if I was flexing them all night. I noticed how I clenched my teeth when I was really focused or around a larger group of people. I talked about it with a friend and she recommended Epsom salt baths and getting a massage. The same person I booked the massage with also gave me information for a Zoom series she offered called Yoga for Body Connection. I wrote about this in a recent post titled A Question about Yoga.
I said yes to that weekly group on zoom because I didn’t want to be a tight ball anymore. I wanted to be in my body and be in my body relaxed. I wasn’t looking for a workout. Rachel, again, because I know you, I’m aware you exercise and lift weights. You are in killer shape. I can tell it energizes you and makes you happy. I imagine you even get into a meditative state sometimes when you’re doing it. The meditative state or “the zone” you get in isn’t something you force. It happens as a result of your focus.
I think it’s worth mentioning that before I could even think about yoga or meditation, I needed to replace my drinking with other activities. I couldn’t go from drinking straight into stillness, nor straight into another substance. Either of those options would have triggered more addictive behavior. For a while, all I needed was to stay busy. Idle time was dangerous. So I went to work, AA meetings, meetings with my sponsor, and I started playing volleyball again. Action and more action. That’s what I needed, and maybe that’s been good for you too, Rachel. Inevitably, I needed to rest, which is what you’re discovering now too.
Just like anything else, it's a practice, and it evolves. Rachel, you or anyone else reading this may be much farther along, but to be thorough I’m going to start from my worst point of struggle. My journey to being comfortable and relaxed in my skin started with a 12-step program. I had a mentor. I surrendered. I believed in and trusted something bigger than myself. I took full inventory of my life. I asked for help. I made amends. I developed a daily spiritual practice. I helped others go through the same process. Even doing those things, I relapsed with alcohol and my behavior. I got back on the wagon and kept going.
Here’s where I think you are, Rach. I started to have certain releases, or random sensations of bliss in seemingly insignificant moments. I wrote about this in my post Anticlimactic Mountaintops.
I started to notice miracles happening in everyday moments. I can understand now that it’s because of the calmer harmony I began to experience. By doing the inner work, I allowed my heart to be in the driver’s seat again, which helped my mind become quiet enough to realize what was actually in front of me…
…when I walked to the mailbox, and the perfect breeze caressed my neck, and I stopped and stood with my eyes closed in the middle of the sidewalk.
I could crawl into bed and enjoy the sensation of the covers on my skin because I wasn’t blacked out by bedtime.
I tasted those moments and wanted more of them.
In the warmer weather, I love being in nature. I know you love being outside too, Rachel, so keep noticing the specific details you love about it. If it seems boring at first, see if you can stay until you notice something you didn’t see or comprehend before. Give the flower or tree or water the same focus you would give a set of reps at the gym. Keep focusing on that flower or tree or water until it becomes a miracle.
Everything is connected. The way we are showing up in one area is how we are showing up in another area. After a couple years of this foundational inner work, I started to realize I didn’t need to be in such a rush all the time. In other words, I have the rest of my life to live my life -lol. I wanted to want to stop and smell the roses. I took someone’s recommendation for guided meditations on an app called Insight Timer. I started to notice and surround myself with people who seemed free and relaxed, like my friend Sarah Jane who gave me the massage and led the yoga group.
From there, I started yoga, which led me to the power of the breath and focus, and ultimately, meditation. For me personally, the practice of yoga has been the most effective avenue to being able to fully relax. There are various types of classes out there, such as power flow, vinyasa, restorative, and yin. Whether you start yoga or something entirely different, it will be like anything else that’s new to you. It’s probably going to be uncomfortable at first, but try sticking with it until the release happens.
Relaxation happens after release. Energy is moving. Tension happens from holding. Energy is stuck.
This is energy work. We will be most relaxed when we are being the most organic version of ourselves. We are the most organic version of ourselves when we eliminate what has been covering us up and suffocating us. It’s a process of elimination, which concludes in the one, true thing.
I was joking with my sister-in-law recently about my realization of yoga as the gradual process of my body becoming like it was when I was a baby. In that moment, I watched my 7 month old niece sit on the floor and lay forward, flat like a pancake, with her chin between her lower legs.
You’re smart enough to know I’m not talking about physical flexibility here, although that’s always a plus. I’m talking about the overall state of that baby- trusting, simple, curious, and open. The baby has no fear, stress, or tension in the body… unless you sneak up on them and say “boo!” like a crazy person.
Trusting, simple, curious, and open.
Start with the self, and tell yourself the truth.
Can you trust yourself, or do you second guess yourself?
Can you keep it simple, or is everything usually complicated?
Are you curious about what’s possible, or decided on what’s impossible?
Are you open enough to be in silence, or closed off because of the noise?
Trust, simplicity, curiosity, and openness manifest in a relaxed body.
Fear, confusion, apathy, and closing off manifest in a tense or sick body - like a disease… dis-ease.
I experience all of these things. We all do!
The path to relaxation is both long and short.
It took me 33 years to just “relax and be myself.” That’s the long way of looking at it.
It takes me about one hour to relax after a long work day. That’s the short way of looking at it.
You asked what I enjoy for the short path to relaxation, so here is a list of some things that have helped me:
Yoga
Walking
Cooking or baking- with the determination to not be in a rush or “task mode.” I put on music on the TV or in my ear buds and have fun with it (I also just realized my mom does this, hi mom, love you)
Meditation (guided audio, journaling, prayer, music, walking, sitting upright eyes closed on a bolster, counting breaths- this practice varies and has a lot of layers)
Doing anything with my hands that’s not on a screen or keyboard - anything! Doing my nails, potting a plant, coloring, reading (turning the pages of a book), knitting, petting my cats, fixing or cleaning something around the house (yes, it's all perception and doesn’t always have to be an arduous task)
Sex - yeah, I said it!
Lion’s mane has been a good supplement for elevating mood and having mental clarity throughout the day. I take that in capsule form
Specific CBD or THC products
Instrumental music
That’s my list, and you may look at this list and not be interested in any of it, and that’s fine. So, how can you know what would work for you? Let’s look at the common denominator of the things on the list.
It all requires getting into my body. What do I mean by that?
I mean it requires me to get out of my head.
All of those things help me feel. They are practices that help me sit with what I’m feeling, even if that feeling is uncomfortable. The moving meditations can be helpful for beginners because you have somewhere to channel the uncomfortable energy. The stillness is where it’s more difficult to sit with the uncomfortable energy.
So, try moving and then being still.
If you’re interested in learning yoga postures, starting from the basics, I recently launched my YouTube channel. There are only a few videos up, and my next one will be a 30-minute flow. Let me know if you have any specific requests.
If you would like to experience some relaxation in the body here with me now, feel free to tap the link at the top to listen to the voiceover. I will guide you through a meditation, and it might be nice to close your eyes and listen (voiceover time marker: 15:31).
Come into a comfortable seat.
I recommend a chair, couch, even on a bed with your back against a pillow or the wall.
If you can, ground your feet, both feet grounded on the floor or the ground beneath you.
Allow the eyes to come to a soft gaze or closed (unless you’re still reading this without listening ; )
Connect with the breath.
Take a deep breath in through the nose, and out the nose.
On your next breath in, sit tall through the spine, lift the crown of the head.
And exhale, draw the shoulders back, down the spine, over the hips.
Notice your sit bones, the surface beneath you, where your body meets your seat.
Notice any clothing on your skin, material touching your skin.
Take another deep breath in.
And out.
Start to imagine your energy pulling inward to the center of your physical body, almost like you’re pulling everything into the middle, your torso, maybe inside your rib cage, into the chamber of your lungs.
Breath in.
Let it go.
Stay there in that expansive space breathing.
A chamber expanding and contracting.
Go deeper.
Into this expansive room.
Now you might not even be picturing your body anymore, just a big open space that you’ve entered inside of you.
Be there and breathe into that space.
If anything outward starts to pull you out, even like a thought.
Pull, let the pull bring you back inward.
You might have another thought that tries to pull you outward.
Inhale, and sit back, pull back inward to the room inside of you.
This is always here for you.
Your center is always here for you.
The world keeps spinning around you. There will always be motion around you in the physical realm.
Your center is always there, relaxed, and still, and quiet if you would make the space to stop and go there, and pull in with the breath.
You can stay here as long as you like.
Otherwise, start to bring life back into your fingers and toes.
Flutter the eyes open if they closed.
Turn your head to one side; just notice the space around you.
Come back through center; turn your head over the other shoulder.
Notice the space around you here.
Come back to center.
Maybe you come back to reading the post.
How do you feel?
Linked song lyrics:
The sun sets for us.
The sun sets for us.
You might not know this, but it does.
The sun sets for us.
Thanks! I feel better already ❤️👏
Thank you Jeannie. I did your 30 minutes of Yoga to Feel Rejuvenated. It was AWESOME. I feel great now ❤️