The Healing Value of Relaxing
BM (before Maine)
I had never understood the concept of taking a vacation to relax. It didn’t make sense to me to go away to release all the stress accumulated from over-working. Work, work, work - until you feel like you’ll drop dead, and then - get away (from near death). Why not, I thought, create a lifestyle with balanced days (that include work and relaxing)?
Growing up, I experienced ‘vacation’ as needing a lot of frantic preparation. As an adult, coming back home from vacation meant making up for lost time. Vacation also developed a tint of the ridiculous to me. Like, “you can’t escape your problems by going away” and “no matter where you go, there you are”. For someone who has experienced trauma, the idea of ‘taking a vacation to relax’ seemed unrealistic.
For these reasons and probably more, ‘vacation’ became synonymous with ‘a waste of time’.
AM (after Maine)
While it is true that, when we prioritize time to relax, relaxation can fit into a work day, it doesn’t happen for many. While it is also true that vacation takes preparation and when back, there are things to catch up with, taking the vacation can be deeply revitalizing. And though it’s true that I am who I am no matter where I go or what I do, I’m coming to realize the importance of vacating my norm (as in ‘taking a vacation’) in order to relax. This is especially true when vacating to a natural spot, where it’s quiet.
Presently, I’m in ‘down east’ Maine, visiting my friend, Larry. The area we’re in, from Acadia north toward Canada, is called “down east”. It’s called this because of old nautical terms dating to the 1820’s (before the advent of clipper ships). Back then, ships used square sails that allowed travel with the wind. Because of this, traveling by sea was known as traveling “down wind”. The shape of the Maine coastline extends east as you move north, so, traveling north meant you were traveling east. So, to this day, the mariners traveling north along the Maine coastline say they’re traveling “down east”, and the section of land from Acadia to Lubec is known as ‘down east’ Maine.
I am staying with Larry in a cabin on Frenchman Bay. Frenchman Bay, established in 1613, was named “for Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer who visited the area in 1604” (from Wikipedia).
This morning’s sunrise on Frenchman Bay (at low tide).
All of this information and natural beauty helps me ‘vacate’ from the work I do, not only in the world, but even more, from the work I do in my mind.
Seals, Fish, and Meditation
Seals have free reign here in Frenchman Bay, because there are plenty of fish and no sharks (fish being food, sharks being predators). Listen for the sound of a breath in the water (like a whale’s breath), then look for a line of white, shiny ‘foam’ in the middle of the water. It means a seal is feeding. Larry explained that the seal swims under the fish, heading upward to eat them, causing them to jump up above the surface of the water. To us, on the shore, the jumping fish look and sound like the white line of foam of the tide rolling up on the shore, though it’s fish jumping for their lives.
I sat on the rocks this morning, watching the signs of seals eating breakfast. I thought how the water’s surface looks so calm, so peaceful - yet there’s life-and-death drama happening just under the surface. I thought how analogous that scene is to people’s façade, to meditation. We pass people on the street and think “they have it all together”, not knowing the drama they carry inside. We see people meditating, sitting still for 20-minutes, appearing calm and peaceful, not realizing all that’s going on in the mind.
Healing parts of the self
It’s good to feel our emotions, think our thoughts, acknowledge our body sensations - so that we accept them, get to know them, receive their gifts, identify their limitations, and give them the healing they need (to let go of control when they’re being harmful). In order to be healed, whole and loving, we must heal, accept and love our parts.
Try sitting in meditation for 20-minutes, and focus on what you’re feeling or thinking. Acknowledge both the lovely and the challenging emotions, thoughts, and body sensations. Accept them all; welcome them all. Hold them in your heart-space and your arms, like an unconditionally loving, benevolent parent - like the parent you want to be to yourself. After the sit is done, check in with yourself. Do you feel lifted up, more whole, and/or grateful ? If so, you’ve just done healing, toward self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-love.
Connecting to more than the self
We are also more than our parts - more than any one feeling, thought, and body sensation. We have and experience these parts, and we (all parts included) are connected with that which is larger - such as: others, nature, the energetic field, and Source (whatever that means to you).
Healing trauma
Trauma lives in the memory. It is stored in the physical, energetic, mental, and emotional bodies. While opening to quiet and stillness, one may find one’s self visiting a storeroom in the psyche that’s been housing trauma. The idea is not to relive trauma or deepen its wound; it’s to heal trauma.
When stored trauma is revealed, step back from the trauma, so you can see that it’s just a part of you. Step far enough back to see yourself connected to that-which-is-larger, to the bigger sense of Self. It is here, in the bigger sense of Self, that you can work on healing trauma, slowly, bit-by-bit.
If you sit for 20-minutes with your focus on emotions, thoughts, and body sensations, and find you’re feeling more and more sucked down into a dark hole (or like you’re regressing to a younger state-of-being) - you’ve stepped into stored trauma, and you want to step out. Change your focus to that-which-is-larger than yourself.
Focus on breathing in a brand new, fresh breath - full of oxygen and life and the invitation to soften and release. Breath out anything ready to be released. Imagine your exhale being transformed by the air around you - into particles of Light, of clean air.
Breathe in and out of the energetic field - that which we share with house plants and trees outside. Consider the symbiotic relationship between you and a particular plant or tree. Feel your energetic body traveling, like roots, into the warm, moist Earth. Feel your roots growing out, intermingling with the tree roots. Feel their welcoming. Feel their appreciation for you visiting them and connecting with them.
Breathe in Source and breathe out Source. Feel your connection with that which everything came from. Feel its pure acceptance for all that you are. Feel it’s pure love for you. Let yourself be held in this vast, infinite Love.
From this place, the larger sense of Self, you may visit the trauma you had dipped into. The visit will be short and sweet - like dipping your toe in water and pulling it out fairly quickly. Then, lay on the warm shore, soak up the sun… relate to the ground and trees and birds… connect with Nature and with your nature. Become your whole Self. When you’re ready, dip your toe back into the challenging water of trauma. Only a toe. Only a short dip. Keep coming back to the strong, larger sense of Self. The goal is to heal trauma, little-by-little, and emerge as a more whole Self.
The healing value of relaxing
This, I’m learning, is really what ‘vacation’ is about. It’s not about avoiding; it’s about healing.
I’m finding, both here in Maine and during meditations, a deepening connection to all my parts, to others, to nature, to the energetic field, to Source - to inner peace. I’m feeling this connection and peace living inside me. Even when I’m afraid or worried, I feel a deep knowing - that I can get through this (whatever this may be).
I now know, too, that, whenever I can, I can ‘vacate’ (away from home and/or in meditation) - to dip back into the serene waters of my heart-and-soul - to reconnect with that part of myself that the busy (internal as well as external) world cannot touch.