Stress Elimination... if I had known it was so easy

I mentioned a stress relief method loosely in a previous post and referred to it as "dissolving stress". Perhaps that is not quite accurate, but to each their own.

The longer version:

I usually do this in the morning before anyone else is up and make it the first part of my meditation process as it actually clears my mind and emotions. I recognize stressful feelings within me as I sit quietly, relax my muscles, breath steady and find my center. The actual source of the feelings does not matter as it is the stress that I am removing from my body.

Keep in mind that feelings are reactions of the body to commands from the unconscious in reaction to various sensory stimuli. These stimuli can be external, sounds, smells, visual data etc or internal, memories or imaginary experiences. Consider what happens when you think about past events, perhaps a fight or dangerous situation. Your body has very similar reactions as if you were there, these can be strong or weak reactions but they are reactions none the less.

With my eyes closed I imagine what these reactions or feelings would look like if they were visible, I usually come up with a grey or black smoke roiling about inside of me, sometimes shot with colour, red or green not unlike seeing lightening in heavy clouds as a storm approaches. I open a path from me to an external point and visualize the smoke flowing away from me in a stream and filling a clear sphere in front of me. I let the flow continue until I feel the feelings dissipate and my visualized or imagine body clears of the smoke. as the last wisp leaves I see the sphere full of smoke in front of me and imagine it exploding in every direction... away from me as I don't want to inadvertently get some of this back. As the parts fly apart I imagine them to all disappear or burn up.

The timing is variable and, to be honest, I have no idea how long this takes from day to day. I just let it go until it feels that it is done. I do know that once I have cleared away this negative energy that I feel as if a fog has lifted and everything takes on a fresh new feeling and it lasts longer than I might had thought possible.

I also know that I am dealing with a variety of things that should, or perhaps would normally have caused me a great deal of stress and anxiety over the last few months, with almost no stressful feelings. It is getting to the point where I wonder if I shouldn't be allowing some of this stress to stay. I do realize that is just my old habit patterns and comfort zones kicking in to try to get me back to "normal".

Jeff.