REST/RESTORE - GEAR 4

     If you are like most people, you do not take the time to rest and relax. The real problem is that we do not schedule this important time. We think we will relax when we have the time. How's that working out? I know very well it doesn't happen. So you must include scheduled time to Rest, Restore, and Relax!!

Be aware of your body and how it talks to you.

     When you are practicing your breathing and quiet time, whether in the morning with coffee or in the evening with tea, take the time to listen, or feel, what your body is saying to you.  Your body talks.  Are you listening?

Is your body saying “I am tired,” or “I’m sore or uncomfortable“?  Or is saying “I am calm today, I’m at peace,” or “I’m feeling energetic!”  Are you hearing it say “I am stronger today than I’ve been lately?” 

    Learn to listen and adjust to your body.  Give it what it needs. If your body tells you it's tired or in discomfort, give it more rest or, perhaps, more fuel.  If it tells you it feels good then embrace that, and use the body’s energy to be creative, or to get some things done that you have put off!

Try this practice, when you are in your quiet time...

     Breathe in deeply and imagine that you are taking in health with each breath. Then concentrate on the area of your body that is in discomfort, and, with each exhale, blow off that pain. Visualize the pain in a container, actually being expelled from your body and floating away into the air as the container becomes less and less full!  Practice this for 5-10 minutes at a time.

Visualize health and wellness...   as a white, cleansing light, or perhaps a green, leafy, breeze blowing into yourself.  Maybe it is an empty cup, filling with a beautiful colored liquid. Maybe it is just an array of color, filling the dark, black space of your closed eyes. 

Visualize pain leaving you... breathe out your pain, discomfort, or ill feelings. It could be an ocean wave, crashing in, grabbing your pain and pulling it out to sea.  It could be the cup filled with liquid, or color, slowly emptying, a little at a time, with every exhale.  Perhaps it is an image of a lead weight, losing it’s gravity and floating off your body, allowing you to lengthen and be less “weighted” down.  Perhaps it is you topping a hill, and finding yourself able to see the valley below, knowing it is downhill from here on out! 

 If you enjoy the pool, the lake, the lanai, or the front porch, these are perfect instances to sit quietly, breathe deeply, keep those eyes closed and pull yourself back to visualizing, in your personal way, “good health in...” (b-r-e-a-t-h-e) and “pain, discomfort, or ill feelings out...” (e-x-h-a-l-e). The waves in...the waves out. 

There are many applications for your phones, computers and tablets that play the sounds of nature, including rain, waves, fountains, and waterfalls, which allow you to relax and visualize the magnificent water around us.  You can sit on your lanai, and listen to your pool moving about, or the fountain you may have there.

Realize that the reason you practice these things, is so, when you find yourself in a situation in which pain or discomfort interferes and causes your body stress, you will know how to, simply and quickly, return to this place where you have been practicing to find. In so doing, you can feel at peace even during a normally stressful time.

Rest, now, and Restore.