Relaxation

Index

  Introduction

  Relaxation

  A dive into the depths of man

  1st The memory

  2st Forgiveness

  Note

Andrzej Budzinski

RELAXATION!

TO

UNDERSTAND ONESELF

Original title: Rilassamento. Per conoscere se stesso

Translated by: Martyn Fogg

San Bonifacio 2017

Introduction

When we begin to reflect, we discover that we have so many, I would say so very many, things to change - so many that we do not know where to start.

Well?

Too much confusion!

Calm down. Calm down!

One thing at a time!

Without hurrying!

With patience, you can achieve everything!

Today, unfortunately we lack patience. We all want everything immediately and, even better, for the day before yesterday. Do you know this saying?

Patience is the virtue of the strong!

Observing life today, we ourselves and what is happening around us, we realise, with sadness, that the strong are lacking, that is: THE PATIENT PEOPLE.

We want to become strong. Well? Thinking logically, we must become patient. Either we do things well or it is better not to do them at all.

OK? Do you agree?

Whoever does not, please shut this book, do not continue reading it - it’s for those who want to become strong.

Who of us does not want to become strong?

No-one!

That’s the correct answer!

Goodness – we’ve taken the first step. I was thinking it would be worse You’re convinced! However, we often use the word “patience” in the wrong way, as a justification for our wrong behaviour. The mechanism is more or less like this:

we are wrong

to say to ourselves “patience”,

but then to not do anything to change our behaviour

– we remain as we were before

and we make mistakes again,

saying to ourselves “patience”

and so on, ad infinitum!

! In this case, patience does not come into it: this is not patience. I’ll repeat it again – it’s a justification!

When I talk about patience I am thinking of Patience with a capital P.

P

P

P

that is: a planned and constant work on ourselves which brings us to improvement. We can make mistakes, but we don’t want to remain with our mistake, drowning, we commit ourselves to be braver. Braver every day, step by step.

There you are, now I would like to give you some practical suggestions on where to start. What habits to develop.

Relaxation

In my opinion, I say it from personal experience, this habit is fundamental,

I would say the habit of all habits,

The mother of all habits.

Because when people become whole inside and outside, they live in peace with themselves and with the whole universe, when they are capable of controlling themselves - their own emotions, thoughts and behaviour, and they understand themselves, well then, yes - everything becomes easier. The improvement becomes a natural thing, gradual and constant, without beating yourself up.

Why is it so important?

Because at the same time it helps me change inside and outside. I embrace my whole person, visible and invisible, my body, my soul and my spirit1. The method that I propose is suitable for everyone, without excluding anyone – a believer in God2 and non-believers.

1st. What must we know before starting?

1 An autonomous method, that is: every one of us can perform it on our own: it’s a series of exercises in concentration that focuses on various zones of the body, to obtain a state of relaxation both at the physical, and the psychological, level, to increase vital energy and control one’s own behaviour.

2 Through exercises that we can consider “mental”, we can obtain real body changes, which are capable of influencing our psyche.

3 The mind and the body are not autonomous and independent, but they are strongly linked, in a relationship of reciprocal and constant influence, for this reason it is possible, through mental activity, to obtain changes in the organic functions and vice-versa.

4 To obtain psycho-physical benefits, that is: relaxation of the mind and body, the exercise must be repeated constantly, so that it does not become autogenous, that is: that it generates itself, without the concurrence of will, in an automatic and spontaneous way.

5 To shape your own personality according to desired traits.

6 Help to overcome negative psychological states: insecurity, fear and depression.

7 Help to regenerate physical and psychological energy.

8 Already after a few weeks of the training, we can notice the feeling of well-being, relaxation, calm and self-control that come on their own spontaneously, without any effort on our part.

To learn the fundamental things about the method, we need at least 6 weeks divided into 6 stages. The exercises must be carried out at the right moment and in an appropriate place, in a comfortable position. The most suitable position is supine.

2nd. What do we have to work at?

1 Feel the weight of your body - bringing on a gradual inertia and muscular skeletal relaxation.

2 Feel the heat of your body - which gradually brings on the smooth relaxation of the musculature and vasodilation.

3 Mastery of cardiac function (auto-regulation of cardiac frequency).

4 Mastery of lung function (regulation of your breathing).

5 Abolition of tension in the organs of the abdominal cavity, through action on the coeliac plexus (autonomous nervous system).

6 Mastery of the vasomotor regulation in your head (a feeling of freshness on your forehead).

3rd. Exercise plan in order

Phase 1 - Learn the correct posture to facilitate concentration and achieve the right order:

 The state of relaxation of the skeletal muscle to feel the weight of your body,

 The state of relaxation of the vascular system and the feeling of warmth,

 Slowing down of the work rhythm of your body (heart beat and breathing).

2nd Phase - Feeling the sense of peace and internal tranquillity.

3rd Phase - It depends on the individual needs of each person: in a state of deep relaxation - giving suggestions on what we want to work on:

 fear

 self-image

 relations with others

 relations with God

 forgiveness

 self-esteem

 the stages of your life

 the various problems in your life

 the past

Each one of us should know it for him/herself. You can work out every problem periodically, for a few days.

OK, ready?

Shall we start? I knew it - you can’t wait.

Pay attention! Pay attention! If we want to change our life, the theory and knowledge is not enough, but we need practice. The theory is the start, practice is the route to…??? to be discovered. We must exercise relaxation:

1 every day constantly

2 it must become a habit

3 1-3 times a day

4 for 15-30 minutes

5 the most appropriate place and position (the best position is supine)

6 wear comfortable clothes, not constricting

The exercise is divided into 6 stages for 6 weeks.

We breathe in through our nose and breathe out through the mouth. The breathing must be slow, but naturally done through the diaphragm.

Stage I (1 st week)

The aim - to feel the weight of your body. Here is the first step to achieve, in a simple way, complete relaxation of the body.

 We start with relaxing the skeletal musculature. In practice, we must imagine that our body is becoming ever heaver: you start with the formula “my right arm is heavy”, then you continue with the left arm, and so on, you gradually proceed, thus generalising the feeling of heaviness over your whole body, all its parts (my body becomes inert), my arms are heavy, ever heavier, very heavy.

Stage 2 (2 nd week)

The aim - to feel that our body becomes warm. Here is the second step to achieve, in a simple manner, complete relaxation of the body.

 It is in fact possible to obtain a real peripheral vasodilation, corresponding to the relaxation of the musculature that covers the blood vessels. This condition is realised through the induction of heat which, as for the heaviness, becomes generalised from the arm to the whole body with the feeling of delicate and pleasant warmth.

 In practice, we must imagine that our body is becoming warm, ever warmer: you start with the formula “my right arm is warm”, then you continue with the left arm, and so on, you gradually proceed, thus generalising the feeling of warmth over your whole body, in all its parts (“my body becomes warm, my arms are warm, ever warmer, the warmth embraces my whole body”).

Stage III (3 rd week)

The aim - to calm and control the rhythm of your breathing

 With the formula “my breathing is calm and regular” your breathing becomes deeper and spontaneous, approaching that state which you have during your sleep.

 Having reached this phase, we arrive at an ever greater state of calm and less interference from worrying thoughts.

We breathe in through our nose and breathe out through our mouth. The breathing must be slow, but naturally done through the diaphragm. Our breathing must become ever calmer.

Stage IV (4 th week)

The aim - exercise to calm your heart (“my heart beats calmly and regularly”).

 This exercise, regulating cardiac activity, allows for the consolidation of the state of relaxation; moreover, as cardiac functionality is very much influenced by psychological and emotional factors, it helps us to reach a deeper emotional relaxation. It helps people who, in stressful situations, feel a violent and sometimes irregular heart-beat.

 Let’s move our attention to the heart, its beat, its rhythm and let’s repeat “my heart is beating calmly and regularly - ever calmer and regular - I’m relaxed, ever more relaxed”.

Stage V (5 th week)

The aim - to feel internal warmth in the solar plexus

 A nervous structure situated under the diaphragm, between the stomach and the vertebral column, which connects to numerous internal organs: stomach, intestine, liver, pancreas, kidneys and adrenal glands.

 With the formula “my solar plexus is pleasantly warm”, that structure spreads over all the above-mentioned abdominal organs.

Stage VI (6 th week)

The aim - to feel a cool forehead

 While for the body stretching and relaxation are encouraged by vasodilation (exercises of the weight and warmth of the body, see stages I and II), as regards the head, vasoconstriction - a pleasant calming feeling, that is: we feel a delicate coolness on our forehead.

 This exercise foresees the repetition of the formula “my forehead is pleasantly cool”, which induces in us a feeling of well-being and relaxation also around your head.

 In this phase of relaxation, we are by now in a “state of bliss”, that is: a deep feeling of bodily and mental calm, which is the essence of relaxation.

The relaxation is complete and deep.

by now

We have become experts!

The ideal would be, the aim is: that this exercise should become a habit.

Benefits of the constant practice of relaxation:

 stretching the body,

 recovery of physical and psychological energy,

 improvement in vital performance,

 normalisation and self-regulation of the bodily functions,

 emotional tranquillity,

 greater introspection and self-awareness

 control of your behaviour

 reduction in the perception of pain.

A dive into the depths of man

Every one3 of us is like a house with three rooms4:

1 the room of the soul (to be set up)

2 the room of the body (to be set up)

3 the room of the SPIRIT (set up and unchangeable)

Our actions correspond to each room.

BODY SOUL, the mind or the heart SPIRIT the look the sound the taste the smell the touch the will the memory the emotions the feelings the thoughts the self-esteem the conscience the awareness the ego the awareness of God the voice of God the law of God the door of God the connection with God the door to eternity

We can say that the soul is found halfway between the spirit and the body, it is like a mediator between the spiritual and the material. It is the “field of battle” between good and evil. I do not want to touch on all the functions of the soul, but only on some which, in my opinion, can help us in our awareness of the positives and negatives that we find in ourselves.

Are you 20 years old?

40

60

80

100

120

all this time is our past, our history, our life - inside us there are the marks, the wounds and the scars, the successes and the joys of our history - we can say a “book” where there is written everything - in detail.

Do we want to know our history?

To put it in order?

Make peace with ourselves?

Now!

Right now, is the right moment!

1st The memory

As5 I have written before, inside us, in our memory, we find all of our past. Let us try to imagine that we find ourselves in an archive full of shelving, full of dusty documents. This image has a certain effect on us, but also makes us curious. In the beginning, perhaps we do not have the faintest idea of what we must do, what and where to look.

Too many things!

Disorganised!

Covered in dust!

We certainly know a term: dust6. Here is what we must do: dust off our memory, that is: bring back light and significance to those histories that we have lived and that have made us what we are. To do this, we start from now and little by little we turn back.

There you are!

The second habit to develop!

EVERY DAY MAKE “AN EXAMINATION OF YOUR CONSCIENCE” OR “SELF-ANALYSE THE DAY”!

The development of this habit is fundamental to keeping our memory in order, without suspended or unresolved things. From today on, we must do it regularly, right during the evening relaxation, before going to sleep

How do you do it?

In a simple way!

During our relaxation remember everything we have experienced during the day. Put everything in order, the positive and the negative things. We are thankful for the positive things, for the negative things we ask for forgiveness, with the prospect of improving ourselves by doing a program of work. For example: this week we commit ourselves to working on our patience - in our tone of voice, or in listening - and so on. This regards the present. There still remains our past that is disordered and needs to be sorted out. We see that the things in our work plan become clear:

 let’s keep the present in order,

 let’s dust off the past.

I know a proverb:

TIME HEALS THE WOUNDS!

On the one hand yes: you need time, like everyone on earth, but on the other hand: you do not need to believe that time heals the wounds without your cooperation. Every wound must be worked out in a planned and systematic way. We must know what to do.

First step to heal the past!

My past is influenced by my present. The positive and negative things. With the positive things, we do not have problems, in fact they give us pleasure. The things that annoy us most are the negative things and, among the negative things, those that we have ignored, without sorting them out. It is not enough to forget the negative things which have made us suffer, if they are not sorted out, they make us still suffer today and, if we leave them like that, even tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. How do we know this? In stressful situations and during disputes, all our experience returns and takes away our strength.

What does this mean?

That inside of us are like hidden, suffocating illnesses, “under control” - but active. A bit of “fire” is enough and it returns to make us feel bad. To keep them under control, we need energy, so much energy - unsettled things of the past are like vampires that suck out energy. Try to imagine - if there are so many, they “eat” all the energy we have to use to live. We lack energy and we are weak, psychologically and physically. I think we have understood why we must make this effort, to dust off and put our past in order.

To better understand what and why, I will tell you of an example. Sincerely, I do not remember where I read it, but that does not matter. Let’s try to read it looking at ourselves.

Pay attention!

There was a kingdom, very beautiful, but also very particular because full of bandits. They were everywhere. They gave a lot of trouble and created so much unease to the people. They robbed and behaved very badly! The people were complaining. So many times, the king tried to defeat them. But all his attempts were useless.

The thing became unsupportable. The king, with his advisers, was looking for a solution to sort out, once for all, the problem of the bandits. After a long meeting, they decided to request help from cavaliers specialised in these cases

A miracle!

Already after a week of the presence of the cavaliers, the bandits’ activities diminished so much. After a month, the people almost forgot their nasty tenants. Everybody was content, or rather, most content.

They did not know how to thank the heroes.

However! Pay attention!

The brigands by nature are very crafty and also in this case showed the maximum cunning. To not be completely beaten, they hid, saying: “we are hiding and we are pretending that we are no longer here”. When the cavaliers went away, they started up their activities again!

The whole kingdom was convinced that the bandits were no longer there and asked the king to disband the cavaliers, thanking them cordially.

The king - a wise man - replied: “It seems so, but it only seems that the bandits are no longer here. I say to you that they are here, but they are hidden. We have won the first phase of the battle. Now we must follow them and seek them out, until we have exterminated them all. Until we do this, we cannot dismiss the cavaliers.”

Try to reply to me: “how long have the cavaliers remained in the kingdom?”

Don’t you know?

Well then, I propose a game to you!

Write the letters of the alphabet in order. 7

___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

16 5 18 19 5 13 16 18 5

The second step to heal the past!

To run away from pain is a natural thing. Our negative experiences are painful for us, too painful, well then, we have three possibilities:

1 either we confront them, sorting them out notwithstanding the pain,

2 or we put them off, forgetting them.

3 or we hide them and pretend nothing happened.

Unfortunately, so many of us choose the second or third possibility. Try to imagine: an unresolved problem, a second, a third and so on.

What are you thinking?

What is happening inside you?

We are allowing the “vampires” to grow in us. Still further, we are offering them food to eat and allowing them to consume our very precious energy, which allows us to live. But in this case, our energy is lacking, because we have inside us many, very hungry parasites. They eat and grow, instead we are ever weaker.

Excuse me, do you like vampires?

Aren’t you afraid of them?

I personally don’t like them!

For this reason, I have decided to sort out my memory!

As I have written before, it is not enough to re-order your mind once - it should be a constant effort, every day at the end of the day. It is not enough to forget or hide our past, pretending that everything is OK.

It’s not OK!

The things not sorted out, sooner or later return.

We can make this effort during our relaxation, when we learn the technique. Take a walk in the archive of your memories, starting from today, from the present, and little by little return back to the start of your life, and still deeper, until you meet God our Creator.

The aim?

To put our lives in order!

To confront the past to heal it.

Let’s make ourselves comfortable. The show is starting, a “film” I would say very interesting, very intimate and personal, where we, at the same moment, are protagonists and spectators.

What does that mean?

That we are fully and emotionally involved!

Every scene can arouse in us different emotions and feelings: of joy, peace, security, sadness, pain, fear, shame, hate, vendetta, love - it depends on what the scenes represent for us. The painful scenes arouse in us negative emotions and the pleasant scenes arouse in us positive emotions.

Certainly!

You’re right.

We can run away, but flight does not resolve our problems, because the “demons” of the past will follow us. They will not leave us in peace, we cannot run away from them because they are inside us, in our memories. They go where I go. I cannot run away from myself. I want peace, I must confront them without fear. In reality, they cannot do us any harm. The harm has already been done. Inside us, the pain really exists, but it is not only a bad memory, it is a real wound that “bleeds” and does not stop doing it until it is healed.

Remember!

We are here for this!

To be healed!

What does being healed mean?

Forgetting? Being cleaned of the painful moments and leaving the pleasant ones? Eliminating them? Doing a “reset”?

If only!

No! We cannot do that!

Because we cannot change our past. What we have done, or what others have done to us, it is done and that’s it! It can be that we remember it up until the end of our days.

However! However! However!

Without pain and without negative emotions!

Make peace again with our past!

Looking it in the face without fear!

Do you hear?

What a relief!