Relax What You Don’t Need

It's easier than letting go.

Alone on the gym floor, stretching before class, I heard that little voice within say, “Relax what you don’t need.”

I wasn’t surprised.

As a dancer, I learned the technique of deeper stretching long ago. I breathe into the muscle that hurts and relax it.

Sometimes, it is not the muscle I am stretching that is holding on, but one I had never noticed before.

Relaxing that muscle results in a further range of movement, the elimination of pain, and a marked increase in energy.

However, I knew those words were telling me more than how to stretch more effectively.

They were demanding I do the same thing with my thinking.

They wanted me to send my awareness deeper within to discover what thoughts, ideas, notions, and habits I hold onto that keep me stuck and relax what I don’t need.

That idea followed me around all day.

I kept hearing reminders like, “Relax that thought about yourself, that person, that idea. You don’t need it to accomplish what you are doing now.”

As I relaxed my thoughts that I didn’t need (which turned out to be quite a few), I had more time, energy, and desire to be present for the good in life.

A few days later, it was my “go for a walk day.” I didn’t want to, so I relaxed my objection and went without further effort to make myself do it.

While on the walk, listening to “Relax what you don’t need,” I discovered my back muscles were tight, that I was clenching my hands, and that something in my ankle was bugging me.

Following the mandate I was hearing, I reasoned that I didn’t need any of those things to go on a walk, so I relaxed those ideas about my back, hands, and ankle, and the tension and pain disappeared.

My internal thoughts were so tight!

“Why aren’t you walking faster? Speed up to get better exercise. This is too late to go on a walk. Why aren’t you at least jogging? Stop dawdling.”

“Do I need this kind of berating,” I asked myself, and since the answer was “No, no one does,” I relaxed those thoughts and let them go.

Walking in that state of mind, I had time to see that the sky was a bright blue, the clouds were floating fluffs, the trees were multiple shades of green, the flowers were blooming, and the temperature was perfect.

I passed a bluebird sitting on its house and a bunny in the yard, and neither moved.

Perhaps it was because my thoughts were not imposing on their space.

For fun, I pretended each thought was a cloud drifting by, and before I knew it, I had finished the walk, feeling much better physically, mentally, and emotionally than when I had started.

The idea of relaxing what you don't need differs from the idea of letting go, which can sometimes seem like work.

There is no work involved in relaxing.

Instead of telling myself to let go and being upset with myself when I can’t let go, I relax for now. I know I can pick up those thoughts again if I want to.

When stretched, the muscle’s natural response is to pull back to protect the body from injury.

Does that sound familiar?

Isn’t this what we do when we stretch beyond our normal behavior? Things get in the way, or we get discouraged, so nothing changes.

When stretching in the gym before classes, almost every day, someone will say to me, “I could never be that bendy. In fact, I never was.”

My answer to them is, "Yes, you were. All children are bendy. It’s just that you didn’t keep it up.”

If they haven’t walked away from me by then, I remind them that they, too, can return to a more bendy stage, but they have to practice stretching and relaxing.

Moving forward in life is the same thing.

As children, we could stretch forward in life, fall, and pick ourselves up again, thinking nothing of it. Somewhere along the way, we started thinking that falling and making mistakes were bad.

We tensed up and stopped expanding.

Here’s the cool part. We can start again.

We can remind ourselves to “relax what you don’t need.”

Relaxing what we don’t need is an art.

It is the art of not trying.

It is the art of recognizing what tension is holding back the natural expression of our being through our body, actions, and thinking.

Relax what you don’t need. Go ahead, try it, and experience the difference!

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