Inner Work

For the week of January 22, 2007

Wasteful Tensions

Leaks in our spiritual vessel limit the benefit of the practices we do to increase our supply of inner energies. We waste energy in many ways, such as allowing harmful emotions to run rampant through us and indulging in physical excesses like overeating, smoking, and drinking too much alcohol. Another basic, often unrecognized waste of precious energy occurs through unintentional, unnecessary bodily tensions and fidgeting.

Habitual muscular tensions prey on us in repetitious patterns in our forehead, around our eyes, lips and mouth, shoulders, abdomen, or anywhere else in our body. Of course some tensions are required: we could not stand or walk or perform the myriad movements of life without using our muscles. But many tensions clearly serve no useful purpose and do squander our energy: hunching our shoulders, contorting our face, tightness in our belly, etc.

A second mode of energy waste through muscles is the repetitious, purposeless movement of fidgeting. Examples include playing with pocket change, drumming our fingers, playing with a pencil, moving a foot back and forth while sitting, chewing on something inedible like a pencil or the inside of our cheek, scratching when there’s no itch.

If we try to contain our tensions and stop fidgeting by inner force, the energy released will find another wasteful outlet. Nonessential tensions and useless fidgeting often result from some destructive emotion looking for release. So instead of trying to bottle them up and thereby piling on yet another kind of tension, we take a different approach.

When we notice unneeded tensions or fidgeting, we just relax into presence and let them go. In that relaxation we conserve the energy that was being wasted and allow it to enter our being and enhance our presence. The key to this method lies in not attempting to relax the tensions or stop the fidgeting directly, but rather to relax our self when we notice tensions or fidgeting. Relaxing from the inside out allows the tensions and fidgeting to subside naturally and effortlessly. We put down an inner weight and breathe a sigh of relief.

For this week, notice your own unnecessary muscular tensions and fidgeting. Relax yourself to relax the tensions and let the fidgeting calm down. Allow the energy to stay in your relaxed being.

About Inner Frontier                                    Send us email 

Copyright © 2001-2024 Joseph Naft. All rights reserved.