If you place a rock carefully on the surface of a lake it will sink. If you could stretch the rock and stretch it more and more until it is flattened like a piece of paper and then place it on the lake it will float.
Emotions and thoughts are the same. When emotions and thoughts are all bunched up together in a tight ball (or rock) they weigh you down. You can feel the heaviness and even describe it as carrying a heavy weight or shouldering the burden. When you stretch out those same emotions or thoughts, they become light and flexible like wings and can become so thin they dissolve.
When the weight is gone we return to our natural state of happiness.
We tend to get caught in the rush of emotions and thought about what will be happening or what already did happen. We lose sight of the detail of what is happening in front of us right now.
All this changes when we stretch out and take in a long view, like that at the Grand Canyon. There is something about seeing something far away that draws our attention into that space. Maybe the view is so magnificent we actually stop whatever we were doing or thinking to just look. In the looking we are stretched out and can actually feel a physical bodily sensation at the same time. Hold on to the sensation of this view. It would be the same from the top of a mountain or form the top of the Empire State building.
Another image is that of watching a block of ice melting and merging with a lake that it has been dropped into. Here it takes some time to watch block of ice getting smaller and smaller as the water of the ice merges back into the water of the lake.
A third image is that of watching a flower grow. Probably the most difficult due to the length of time and attention that has to remain fixed on one thing.
The key to these images or experiences is that attention is drawn into what is happening rather than thinking about plans for tomorrow or thoughts of yesterday. It's as though when the thoughts of tomorrow or yesterday are bunched up into a ball and added to what is in front of us we sink like a rock in a lake.
Going backwards by imaging the flower growing, the block of ice melting or the long view of the Grand Canyon brings a stretching out of that ball of thought, an image of relaxation and a renewed sense of happiness to emerge.
Another image is to imagine yourself stretching out in front of you as far as you could see. Extend this image of yourself behind you again as far as you can imagine. Now take that image and allow it to slide over to the right out to infinity and also to the left. Now the hard part extend that huge front to back and side to side view of yourself into the third set of directions up and down. You now have a gigantic three-dimensional cube like image of yourself. You have stretched yourself out to infinity. And with your eyes closed you can even feel this sense of being big even enormous. From this viewpoint everything else seems small. You have stretched out into a bigger world.
Another way of stretching is to take in a nice long slow full comfortable breath filling the three areas of the lungs. The lower portion of the lungs is first filed by breathing in and expanding the abdomen. While holding the abdomen out the middle portion of the lungs is filled by expanding the ribs outward and expanding the chest. And while holding the abdomen and chest out the top portion is filled by raising the shoulders and collarbones. The breath is slowly let out in the reverse order. Start by still holding the abdomen and chest out and release the breath by lowering the collarbones and shoulders. Then release the chest and finally allow the last of the air to be expressed by pulling in the abdomen.
Each of these breaths may take from 6 to 12 seconds in a smooth rhythmic fashion.
In what ways do you stretch out and flow into happiness?
Michael
Stretching for happiness
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