I have learned a simple truth. Relaxation is not the absence of stressors; it is a deep and active engagement with life. It is not an absence but a presence, and there is nothing passive about it.
Thanks to Meik Wiking, I recently discovered the concept of hygge, and I am not alone in that. The word seems to be slowly seeping into our language and consciousness, creating a label and identity for something we already loved but could not, perhaps, fully articulate. I am realising, however, that something has been missing from my own personal definition of that frustratingly elusive concept. While I completely appreciated and most wholeheartedly welcomed the ideas of comfort, cosiness and a satisfying, “homely” aesthetic, I had struggled slightly. Something I could not put my finger on was missing: there was a shallow emptiness where I craved... what exactly? I was looking for something beyond hygge, or so I thought.
The problem, I have finally discovered, was not a deficiency in hygge but a deficiency in my own understanding of what relaxation fundamentally is. I think there is an easy trap we can fall into, of believing that what we crave is escape. If only we can get away from and eliminate the excessive demands in our lives, then perhaps we can relax. “Relaxation” has come to be seen as either the removal of stimuli or else the replacement of unpleasant stimuli with equally intense stimuli of a more “entertaining” and often passively received nature. A distraction. Relaxation as dissociation.
But relaxation is not something to be sought periodically as pleasurable but effectively unproductive time out, something that allows us to regroup and once again enter the fray of productive life. Relaxation is the state of alert, active potential, the one through which all true productivity and innovation rises. The ideal hygge environment is not the one that allows us to escape but the one that invites us to be more fully present. Our brains crave engagement, meaning and purpose with a deep hunger. We drink it in through our pores. When we find ourselves stressed, rushed and unable to focus, the problem is not that we have too much. It is that we have too little. We have dis-engaged from self and from dialogue with our environments. Relaxation is the process of re-engagement.
The ideal relaxation massage, for example, doesn’t simply feel good but stimulates enquiry at our deepest core. We slowly reconnect and become reacquainted with each fibre of being; we are introduced to our bodies almost as to a stranger, learning its needs, responses and essential language.
My mistake, I discovered, was to seek less, when what I needed was more. More opportunity for mind and body to unite and engage in what they crave the most: revelling in that deep, insatiable hunger for life, knowledge, growth.
Now when I retreat to the sanctuary of my home I am greeted by invitations to presence. Colour, form, juxtaposition and angle; word, idea, puzzle and mystery. Challenge. Even sleep becomes a state of active enquiry, of entering into. And I feel myself respond. As I move about, my toes investigate each tiny crevice within the tiles beneath my bare feet, even as my eyes seek the endless combination of patterns they offer up. In the morning as I stretch into downward dog, I greet the carpet with heightened awareness.
My home is a conversation. Everywhere I look is a new question, a new invitation to engage. And, like all conversations, it is not static. It progresses. We argue, avoid, make up and embrace. We greet each other with excitement, eagerly asking, “What shall we do now?” We grow together. And the more deeply I relax, the more I step into life.
Thanks to Meik Wiking, I recently discovered the concept of hygge, and I am not alone in that. The word seems to be slowly seeping into our language and consciousness, creating a label and identity for something we already loved but could not, perhaps, fully articulate. I am realising, however, that something has been missing from my own personal definition of that frustratingly elusive concept. While I completely appreciated and most wholeheartedly welcomed the ideas of comfort, cosiness and a satisfying, “homely” aesthetic, I had struggled slightly. Something I could not put my finger on was missing: there was a shallow emptiness where I craved... what exactly? I was looking for something beyond hygge, or so I thought.
The problem, I have finally discovered, was not a deficiency in hygge but a deficiency in my own understanding of what relaxation fundamentally is. I think there is an easy trap we can fall into, of believing that what we crave is escape. If only we can get away from and eliminate the excessive demands in our lives, then perhaps we can relax. “Relaxation” has come to be seen as either the removal of stimuli or else the replacement of unpleasant stimuli with equally intense stimuli of a more “entertaining” and often passively received nature. A distraction. Relaxation as dissociation.
But relaxation is not something to be sought periodically as pleasurable but effectively unproductive time out, something that allows us to regroup and once again enter the fray of productive life. Relaxation is the state of alert, active potential, the one through which all true productivity and innovation rises. The ideal hygge environment is not the one that allows us to escape but the one that invites us to be more fully present. Our brains crave engagement, meaning and purpose with a deep hunger. We drink it in through our pores. When we find ourselves stressed, rushed and unable to focus, the problem is not that we have too much. It is that we have too little. We have dis-engaged from self and from dialogue with our environments. Relaxation is the process of re-engagement.
The ideal relaxation massage, for example, doesn’t simply feel good but stimulates enquiry at our deepest core. We slowly reconnect and become reacquainted with each fibre of being; we are introduced to our bodies almost as to a stranger, learning its needs, responses and essential language.
My mistake, I discovered, was to seek less, when what I needed was more. More opportunity for mind and body to unite and engage in what they crave the most: revelling in that deep, insatiable hunger for life, knowledge, growth.
Now when I retreat to the sanctuary of my home I am greeted by invitations to presence. Colour, form, juxtaposition and angle; word, idea, puzzle and mystery. Challenge. Even sleep becomes a state of active enquiry, of entering into. And I feel myself respond. As I move about, my toes investigate each tiny crevice within the tiles beneath my bare feet, even as my eyes seek the endless combination of patterns they offer up. In the morning as I stretch into downward dog, I greet the carpet with heightened awareness.
My home is a conversation. Everywhere I look is a new question, a new invitation to engage. And, like all conversations, it is not static. It progresses. We argue, avoid, make up and embrace. We greet each other with excitement, eagerly asking, “What shall we do now?” We grow together. And the more deeply I relax, the more I step into life.