Journey On Relaxation exercise

For many year, about eleven, I was an avid fan of relaxation exercises and was a yoga/expressive dance fanatic. I practiced regularly, read every book I could get my hands on in relation to relaxation and visualization techniques and traveled as far as feasible to hear lecture on the subject and participate in group guided exercises. I felt I was not whole if I didn't practice regularly, I felt lost, incomplete. Yoga was an integral part of my identity, I lived, breathed, and acted in the ways of the sages and felt I imparted good upon all those I came in contact with in doing so. This all stopped about ten years ago. I had a radical change in my life and somehow, for unknown reason now when I look back on it, gave it all up. 

One day I simply stopped practicing, I Stopped Believing. In essence, I abandoned myself.

 A large part of who I was and why I acted as I did was discarded, never to be revisited until I had to sit through the fourteen or so mins of this guided exercise. I can be very unforgiving of myself, I tend to make radical and mostly harsh decisions and do not waver on them, this exercise challenged me to let go a bit, give in, and return to a former version of myself. 

It. Was. Brutal. I had a very rough time sitting through this. I found myself challenging the validity of the practices, assessing physiological reasons behind the "heaviness" and looking to quantify why and how these procedures effected people, namely me. It made me angry. I let it play through once. I went back again, cup of coffee in hand to try to bring myself to a calmer plane of existence and challenged myself to not let this exercise destroy my fortress of strength that has been built up to deal with daily trials and tribulation in my life over the past 9 years. It was truly a "smack in the face" for me, a revelation that although what I do works to keep things in check, it is a very...very..VERY far cry from healthy coping mechanisms. I can be and deserve to be a much more enlightened and positive light in this world, I pride myself on that, now is the time to get back and be that person. Strong, resilient and enlightened. 

Blessings,

Chris