To take the regular process, first let go of the muscles,--that will
enable us more easily to drop disturbing thoughts; and as we refuse,
without resistance, admittance to the thoughts, the freedom from
care for the time will follow, and the rest gained will enable us to
awaken with new life for cares to come. This, however, is a habit to
be established and thoughtfully cultivated; it cannot be acquired at
once. More will be said in future chapters as to the process of
gaining the habit.
IV.
OTHER FORMS OF REST
DO you hold yourself on the chair, or does the chair hold you? When
you are subject to the laws of gravitation give up to them, and feel
their strength. Do not resist these laws, as a thousand and one of
us do when instead of yielding gently and letting ourselves sink
into a chair, we _put_ our bodies rigidly on and then hold them
there as if fearing the chair would break if we gave our full weight
to it. It is not only unnatural and unrestful, but most awkward. So
in a railroad car. Much, indeed most of the fatigue from a long
journey by rail is quite unnecessary, and comes from an unconscious
officious effort of trying to carry the train, instead of allowing
the train to carry us, or of resisting the motion, instead of
relaxing and yielding to it. There is a pleasant rhythm in the
motion of the rapidly moving cars which is often restful rather than
fatiguing, if we will only let go and abandon ourselves to it. This
was strikingly proved by a woman who, having just learned the first
principles of relaxation, started on a journey overstrained from
mental anxiety. The first effect of the motion was that most
disagreeable, faint feeling known as car-sickness. Understanding the
cause, she began at once to drop the unnecessary tension, and the
faintness left her. Then she commenced an interesting novel, and as
she became excited by the plot her muscles were contracted in
sympathy (so-called), and the faintness returned in full force, so
that she had to drop the book and relax again; and this process was
repeated half-a-dozen times before she could place her body so under
control of natural laws that it was possible to read without the
artificial tension asserting itself and the car-sickness returning
in consequence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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