Rest is your birthright

Loosening your grip is a practice; letting go is just as much an act of faith as holding on. 

We spend so much of our lives hunched over, gripping tight, holding on, clenching our muscles, bracing our hearts… it's like we live in an almost constant state of inhale… holding our breath, eyes bulging, white-knuckling our way through this while waiting for what's coming next. 

Flight, fright, freeze, or fawn. So many things to carry, to handle, to work through, to endure, to decide, to do, to battle… 

Aren't you exhausted? 

Take a moment.
Settle in.
You might close your eyes, or soften your gaze. 

Breathe. 

Inhale deep into your belly, and then fill your lungs with air until feel as though you might burst. Hold that breath for a count of four, and then let it go, let it flow out of you, steady and gracious.

As you keep breathing, scan down your body, starting at the top of your head. As you meet each part of you with your attention, make a conscious decision to relax your muscles.

Feel your shoulders drop, your jaw soften, your stomach release… feel the tension you may not have even known was there melt into this atmosphere of softness you are creating. 

Life is precious, practice being gentle with it.

Loosen your grip. White knuckling your way through is only going to stiffen you up and bring you pain. In the end, it will keep you from seeing the beauty and the wonder that is already here and enjoying the rest you are already allowed to have. 

Remember: You don't earn rest through productivity and achievement. Rest and relaxation is a vital part of living a life. After all, life isn't about earning or achieving. 

In a talk she gave in Sydney Australia, Liz Gilbert said: 

"We need a revolution of being relaxed. Every martial artist knows that the most relaxed person in the room is the one who holds all the power. The one who is embodying themselves in perfect peace is the one who has real power."

Loosen your grip. You can't hold onto life, after all, you can only let it flow through you.

Holding on doesn't make things still, it only makes you stuck.

Relax. Breathe. 

Radical acceptance is the pathway to peace. It's the kind of peace that Paul was talking about when he wrote to his friends about the possibility of transcendent peace, the kind that doesn't make any sense, filling their hearts and minds.

I know life can seem like the wildest ride in the park, and you may find yourself clenching and tightening and gripping on with all you've got, and it seems as though if you let go you'll be lost, you'll lose, so you knuckle down in an attempt to build safety for yourself and those you love, but dear one, you can't be lost.

Even if you lose your way, you are never really lost.

You are always right here.

You always have access to that deep well of presence in you and around you. The tyranny of perfection is that it demands immediacy from things that ever and always take time, take rest, take habitual choosing… that take practice. 

So have a try. Let go. Loosen your grip.

Discover the possibilities of peace.

Spark a revolution of relaxation.

Meditation: "We need a revolution of being relaxed. Every martial artist knows that the most relaxed person in the room is the one who holds all the power. The one who is embodying themselves in perfect peace is the one who has real power." Liz Gilbert. 

Continued in the upcoming series, "The Tyranny of Perfection" this week with a subscription in the App.

Written by Liz Milani.
Instagram: @thepracticeco