Trust Your Chair

Funny how life throws me opportunities to practice what I preach...

Yesterday, while in the ER and holding my little boy "E" who had taken a nasty spill from a bike, I was reminded of a practice called "Trust Your Chair" taught by healer Thea Elijah.  So, there I sat doing my best to comfort E and realized my whole body was stiff.  Seriously, what child is going to feel comforted in the arms of a parent that is tense and stressed?  Certainly not mine.  Here's what I noticed: Only the tips of my toes were touching ground.  My leg muscles were wound up,  shoulders contorted, and my breathing was shallow.  I was in a total panic that my baby was in pain.  He was bleeding.  He was crying.  I was crying.  My heart was breaking that I couldn't seem to help him feel better.

And then I took a breath.

Somehow in becoming aware of the tension in my body, I also became aware that if I wasn't able to find comfort in my own body, I couldn't help E find comfort in his.  I softened.  I breathed again.  I placed my feet flat on the floor, shifted my tone of voice from "worried" to "you are going to be ok".  My shoulders dropped and I allowed my body to surrender to the chair.  Completely.  E snuggled into my arms, stopped crying, and settled.  We both stopped crying.  We found a way to reverse the upward spiral of anxiety that we had found ourselves in just moments earlier.

Whatever your body position right now, pause for a moment and observe how you are using your body while looking at this screen.  In this moment, are your shoulders up by your ears? Are your feet tightly tucked under your chair, with your upper body craned toward the screen as if you are about to spring into action? Are you slumped over, chest caved? Which of your muscles are tight and which are loose?  The way in which we hold our physical body has everything to do with how we hold our emotions and thoughts.  Create ease in your body and observe what happens to the rest of you.

Experiment now with softening your belly, your shoulders, your lower back, your jaw.  Give yourself permission to trust the furniture that you are sitting on.  Give it the weight of your entire body and allow yourself to be supported.  From this place of physical softness and surrender, you may find your thoughts flowing more easily, or your breath deepen.  In letting go of muscle tension, you can find yourself deeply grounded and rooted. 

The more you practice this relaxed body, the easier it will be to find it when you are tightly wound in the opposite direction.  You can practice "trusting your chair" while holding your child, listening to a friend, sitting in traffic, or if you are having difficulty falling asleep.  Here's the guarantee: when you soften and create ease in your physical body, the rest of the world will go easier with you.

Ease is contagious.  Spread it generously.