My Journey On Relaxation was a very pleasant one. The main idea was to direct the flow of your own blood to the muscles that are most tense; saturating them in order to feel a relief of tension pain. I didn't know that 80% of ones blood supply stays within the GI tract and the other 20% sort of stagnates around the rest of your body. The audio was helpful by explaining this fact in order for me to be more open about his suggestions on shunting the away from my abdomen and move it towards my arms and hands. What really helped me was the phrase he used while we imagined our blood moving through our veins, "...with every breath you take, and with every beat of your heart..." This made me feel simply alive and special; relaxed and focused on my body. I appreciated his suggestion of feeling energized near the end of the meditation because I would have fallen asleep, I was so relaxed. But bringing up how we can tell ourselves how energized we now feel allowed me to consciously and happily open my eyes and begin to write my reflections on here about my experience tonight. Yes, it is night time for me now; that time of day I accomplish not only my important class work, but also another cup of tea :)
Kaplan University (n.d.) Journey On Relaxation, MP3; Retrieved on November 18, 2011 from http://www.kushs.net/kaplan/HW420/JourneyOn.mp3
Emily, you reminded me of the key word "saturate". Yes, that is one that stuck out to me during this exercise and, I believe, made the journey a bit more powerful. Yes, I find that there are key words that trigger more favorable responses in my life and saturate is a perfect example of that for me in this exercise. Thanks for the reminder! I am glad you enjoyed the journey as well . . . along with your cup of tea. :)
ReplyDeleteHello Emily, funny how we focus on our body in order to get in touch with our minds. This simply confirms the mind/body/spiritual connection. But yes it is calming to focus on our heart beating and blood flow and letting our muscles relax. Then we are allowed to let our minds relax. I find my own meditation. I have been naturally using visual imagery for as long as I can remember. I used this technique even as a child in order to enable myself to sit in school....sitting is hard for me, however, meditation is not. So go figure right?
ReplyDeleteFirst I must say that your Blog is beautiful and immediately makes me relax and look forward to reading what you have to say. I too enjoyed the meditation exercise and felt warm and alive when I was engaged in this activity. I found that my hands tingled when I was deeply engrossed in the meditation. I do better with a guided meditation versus other kinds but don't mind trying various types. I wish you the very best:)
ReplyDeleteRelaxation and meditation came to me many years ago though my body (as Kelly stated above). By relaxing my body I was able to deeply experience my inner-self: physically, mentally and emotionally. By the way Kelly, what tea were you drinking when you wrote this blog? Mint?
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