The Secret To Deep Relaxation
Can you relax? Can you bring yourself into a deep, soothing, meditative trance?
If the answer is no and no, take heart.
For many people, relaxing is tough. People tell me, “I breathe and try to refocus my thoughts, but I just get more stressed from trying to relax.” Ironic, but true.
Relaxing is not about doing and trying, it’s about letting go. Nonetheless, for the achiever in each of us, who likes to know how to do something, there are techniques that can be consciously applied to assist in letting go.
One of my clients has two kids and travels monthly between two residences. She wanted a short relaxation exercise to use during her kids’ naptime. Using one of her pleasant memories, I created an exercise that worked perfectly during her session. Her stress level went from six to zero.
A few days later she told me: “When I do this on my own, it’s like I’m watching it from the outside. I can’t get there.”
The good news is, after I showed her a simple technique, she got there. I’ll show you how.
Use your relaxation trigger effectively
Each person has a relaxation trigger. For my client, it was a specific place she went to on her honeymoon. She connected to many of the visuals of this place, but also triggered into relaxation from an auditory cue (specific music), and kinesthetic cues (the breeze). When I worked with her, I brought her back into the memory as if it was happening in present time. On her own, she wasn’t able to bring the memory alive.
The problem? She was dissociating from the pleasant memory, so the triggers weren’t effective. Dissociating simply means she was disconnecting from the memory. She was watching it from the outside instead of experiencing it from the inside.
When you disconnect from your relaxation trigger, you don’t get the benefits of self-hypnosis or meditation. Instead of feeling the juicy power of this technique right now, it’s like a forgotten dusty photograph on the shelf.
Reconnect to Your Relaxation Triggers
To clear away the dust and revive her happy memory, I taught my client a simple hypnosis technique called revivification.
Like the word “revive” revivification means “bring back to life.”
Instead of remembering a memory from a distance, revivification puts you in the event as if it’s happening now. This lets you revive the three-dimensionality and emotion of the original sensory experience for your own upliftment and relaxation. Dr. Michael Miller calls it “deja senti—feeling what one had felt before,” [1] in present time.
Revivification is a powerful tool used in hypnosis not only for deep relaxation, but for pain relief, weight loss, trauma release and soul retrieval, and even drug addiction recovery. Revivification is also the “magical” state used in hypnosis for past-life regressions as well as revisiting out-of-body soul experiences such as near death experiences and between-life experiences.
How my client learned to “revivify” her happy, relaxing place
In a hypnosis session, revivification is straightforward. You listen to the hypnotist, follow along, and enter the experience. Once you’ve experienced revivification with your hypnotist, it gets easier for you to enter that state on your own. Like riding a bike—you get better with practice.
Let’s try it.
Take a moment to float back to a happy, relaxing place. This could be a place in nature, being with a beloved pet, family member, or spiritual guide. It could be a vacation memory or sitting on your sofa looking out at the view, or a time in childhood when you felt safe and carefree. Maybe it’s an imaginary experience. Whatever it is, let it come.
Now instead of looking at your experience from a distance, place yourself in the experience as if it’s all around you.
Where are you sitting/standing/lying down/walking?
Now “look around” from the inside and ask yourself:
- What do I see?
- …hear?
- …feel against my skin?
- …taste? (If anything.)
- What scent is in the air? (If any.)
When you revisit your experience from this 1st person point of view, your physical and emotional experience floods back as if you’re there right now. You re-associate yourself with the experience, which revives it—like jumping into a live Harry Potter photo.
A few examples my clients use to relax:
- Sitting on a rock watching and listening to a stream.
- Petting their cat or dog.
- Walking through the woods.
- Walking through a field of wildflowers.
- Floating on a raft.
- Watching and listening to ocean waves
- Spending time with a grandparent.
…Looking out at a vast landscape, horseback riding, being in the eternal arms of spirit, jumping on a trampoline, flying a kite, floating among the stars. You get the idea.
Spice It Up
Your happy, relaxing place doesn’t have to be “real.” Use your creative imagination and spiritual resources to invent anything you want. One person I know likes to lie on a hammock between two clouds.
Trauma, Relaxation, and Spiritual Resources
Because of past trauma, some people experience anxiety when they try to relax. If this happens to you, bring along one or more of your spiritual resources for support. If discomfort comes, ask your resources to support you while you safely experience your emotions.
Your spiritual resource could be God, a meditation teacher, a saint, a beloved ancestor such as a parent or grandparent, magical fairies, angels, archangels, a wise counsel member, or spirit guides. Our spiritual resources love to give us their support and make us feel safe. When we ask for their help, our spiritual resources usually gift us experiences far beyond our expectations. So ask and let their support supercharge your relaxation session. Relaxation, in and of itself, allows us to heal at a deep level.
Use Your Creative Imagination
If you enjoy fantasy and science fiction, dress up your memories or conjure something up to help you relax. Put on your wizard hat and imagine drinking a magical elixir in your favorite sparkling color, (I like gold with blue sparkles). Float in a pool of healing water with twinkling angels. Feel a gentle rain of pure love showering down on you, washing away tension and pain. Soak in a pool of energetic peace, joy, or abundance. Fly among the stars or take a ride on a magic carpet.
Are We There Yet?
Using revivification during self-hypnosis can happen in an instant. A few days after showing my client how to revivify her happy relaxing place, a Greek Island, she wrote me a note saying, “I LOVE my “Greek Island time.”
Then she wrote this incredible testimonial, which I shamelessly share with you to illustrate how powerfully this technique can shift your life experience.
“I cannot tell you how much MORE I’m enjoying your book, Golden Words. Before I started working with you, it was lovely… beautifully written… but they were just words to me! As I read letters F and G last night… I found myself fully EXPERIENCING those letters/moments… I was in the cemetery… burying bad food habits and saying good bye… HAPPY to do it! In G… I was in the middle of a BEAUTIFUL garden and the scents were powerful!!! I found myself taking deep breaths… in and out as I read. The most AMAZING part to me, was that my eyes were open, yet… I was there!!! Unreal. I’m more hooked now than I was before. OH… and letter I is EXACTLY what I’ve been needing/missing!!! It truly helps me fully direct my prayers… helps me FOCUS… and get deep down, emotionally in my prayer… not just reciting to say them.”
Such is the power of hypnosis and the skill of revivification, which you can use to feel better on every level. Take a few minutes to explore your memories and creative imagination for resources. If you can’t find anything to focus on, meditate on the photo above of the yawning cat and watch yourself spontaneously relax. Yawning is a contagious, empathetic reaction that will slow down and deepen your breath.
You can also find a sensory trigger that works for you by exploring sensations through music (auditory), scent (olfactory), imagery (visual), kinesthesia (movement or physical sensation such as taking a bath or jumping on a trampoline), social connection (being with loved ones), and spiritual connections (being with your spirit guides).
If you’d like help revivifying your happiness, jump-starting your well-being, or experimenting with regression, use the vCita pop-up app here on my website to schedule your appointment. Your initial consult, where we explore your goals and make sure we’re well-suited to work together, is free.
Before you go off to try this, please leave a comment below to share your experience of revivification.
[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2609497/pdf/jnma00474-0071.pdf
Relax
rəˈlaks/
Loosen up. Unwind.
Decrease tension. Slacken, make lax.
