The best way to release chronic tension from an area is to work it. Work is the healthy interplay of tension and relaxation. Power is the speed with which relaxed can become tense or vice versa. When something is worked it should have a rhythm like breathing lungs or a beating heart: an elastic give and take: an interplay of forces generally in equilibrium. This sort of work, free from constrictions or antagonisms, will benefit any living system by making it stronger and more fluid. A strong system is one that can tolerate greater stresses, one that has a large range between its relaxed state and its tensed one. Fluid means the movement between the two extremes flows like a liquid, the viscosity of which should be under your control: refinement. Working properly and becoming stronger will not only increase your maximal tension but will also increase your maximal relaxation.
Chronic tension sets in when the system refuses relaxation: when it chooses to remain in a tensed state: when it holds on. This could be due to stresses being repeated too regularly without allowing the system to properly recover/relax (not having the power to cope), e.g. a labourer who doesn't rest sufficiently between bouts of hard work: his muscles eventually forget how to relax. Or it could be due to a sudden unexpected or unusual stress/trauma which has caused so much fear that the resulting tension dare not be released. Either way, the tension eventually becomes natural to us and the only way to release it is through a practice that works on forgetting self. This, of course, requires the removal of the stresses that caused the tension long enough for the individual to gain enough strength to cope, and the attachment to at least an inkling of something better. I'm reminded of one of my teacher's cats, a brown Burmese who had undergone some trauma before we got her, causing her to be basically terrified of everything and anything. All the time we've had her (17 years) we have striven to give her only one message, that of love and affection, and gradually that fear has dissolved revealing a beautiful animal who possesses great courage: underneath the fear there was a warrior waiting to leap out. It's a miracle really but has made me realise how long it takes (almost a lifetime), that you really must remove yourself from the occasion of sin, as the Catholics say, and that underneath all that tension/ego who knows what you are. The meaning of life is to uncover your essential nature and then share it with the world: to learn to let your energy out. This is the crux of heartwork.
Chronic tension sets in when the system refuses relaxation: when it chooses to remain in a tensed state: when it holds on. This could be due to stresses being repeated too regularly without allowing the system to properly recover/relax (not having the power to cope), e.g. a labourer who doesn't rest sufficiently between bouts of hard work: his muscles eventually forget how to relax. Or it could be due to a sudden unexpected or unusual stress/trauma which has caused so much fear that the resulting tension dare not be released. Either way, the tension eventually becomes natural to us and the only way to release it is through a practice that works on forgetting self. This, of course, requires the removal of the stresses that caused the tension long enough for the individual to gain enough strength to cope, and the attachment to at least an inkling of something better. I'm reminded of one of my teacher's cats, a brown Burmese who had undergone some trauma before we got her, causing her to be basically terrified of everything and anything. All the time we've had her (17 years) we have striven to give her only one message, that of love and affection, and gradually that fear has dissolved revealing a beautiful animal who possesses great courage: underneath the fear there was a warrior waiting to leap out. It's a miracle really but has made me realise how long it takes (almost a lifetime), that you really must remove yourself from the occasion of sin, as the Catholics say, and that underneath all that tension/ego who knows what you are. The meaning of life is to uncover your essential nature and then share it with the world: to learn to let your energy out. This is the crux of heartwork.
Rigor of beauty is the quest. But how will you find beauty when
it is locked in the mind past all remonstrance?
William Carlos Williams
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