Pressure situations almost always involve conflict. As those of you who already did the Identify Pressuring Emotions exercise may have found, there are often conflicting feelings associated with the tasks you want to accomplish. Although we have a tendency to ignore the conflict, we can do a physical exercise to bring the conflict to center stage, resolve it, and relieve our physical and emotional tension.
Throughout this exercise, do the breathing discussed in Balance Your Breathing: breathe through both nose and mouth with the tip of your tongue on the upper palate an inch or two behind the front teeth. (This breathing technique is used in a number of martial arts, and has been researched in applied kinesiology. The technique quickly balances left and right hemispheres and upper and lower body energies.)
Now either standing or sitting, put your hands close to your shoulders with your palms facing forward. While imagining that a great force (the pressure of your job, or pressure from co-workers, for example) is pushing against your hands, slowly push the force forward. There should be strong tension in your arms and shoulders, but your belly and the rest of your body can be relaxed. Relax all the muscles you don't need to use. It's as though part of you is balanced and undisturbed within the eye of a tornado while there is strong energy and movement around you. Very slowly keep pushing the force away till your arms are straight out in front. It might take a minute to move your hands from near your shoulders to the point where your arms are fully extended. Then while maintaining the tension, very slowly move your arms back to the starting position. When your hands are back near your shoulders, slowly release the tension of the exercise, letting the posture melt. You may feel some tingling or warmth, particularly in your arms, shoulders, and hands.
Just keep relaxing for two minutes and attend to the sensations and feelings as they become more subtle. Just feel whatever is happening; keep letting go of the content of thoughts and return to the immediate feeling of what's happening. Trace the sensations as they become more and more subtle over the two minutes.
Repeat the exercise twice more--you can get a much greater sense of relaxation and develop greater balance that can prevent pressure from getting set up in the first place. Relax for two minutes after each repetition.
This exercise has been adapted slightly from exercise 80,
pp. 318-9 in the book Kum Nye Relaxation, Part 2, by Tarthang
Tulku (Dharma Publishing,
1978).
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