There is something so important for both healing and pleasure that we tend to overlook.

Maybe because it’s so simple, and in its simplicity, we forget about the power it has.

To relax.

We tend to live, and love, and experience pleasure in a state of tension, of tightness. For most of us, that’s become the default state of our bodies, minds, hearts, and energy. Simply due to life.

Here’s what happens, and in this, we begin to understand a lot about releasing, about letting go, about softening, and about the impact this has on our pleasure.

When something stressful or traumatic happens to us, we contract. That’s our body’s natural reaction (and it doesn’t have to be major stress).

We tighten up.

We don’t always release the contraction; more times than not, it stays there. And a big part of that is we don’t digest the experience, take from it what we need, and let the rest go—physically, emotionally, mentally.

And the next time something similar happens, we tighten more, until that becomes the way our bodies are.

This began way back in our lives when we were young. But if someone sits with us, helps us feel what is there, if we learn how it moves through us, if there is acceptance—release—of the feelings, if there isn’t the judgment we hold on negative emotions, it could move.

The stress of life, the expectations, the judgments, the experiences we have, the way we think it should be, the comparison, and many other elements, all create tension.

And in this tension, energy can’t move in our bodies.

Muscles can’t move freely.

Feelings can’t move.

Thoughts can’t move.

We just hold on.

The sensation we feel is limited.

The experiences of pleasure we have are short-lived.

And often, all that we’re looking for is a brief release, a relaxation, a softening, an opening.

A space to breathe, deeply, fully.

To feel.

To be.

Because the tension keeps us doing and thinking incessantly, we keep it in place, to stay alert, awake, vigilant in an overstimulated body, with an overstimulated nervous system that needs more and more.

Relaxation takes us into stillness.

Relaxation takes us into quiet.

That’s the place we can let go. That’s the place we can feel. That’s the place of intimacy, of connection. And of deep pleasure.

Relaxation is the place where the wisdom of the body can guide us into what it intrinsically knows to do, and we can listen.

Relaxation is the place where sensation deepens. Relaxation is the place where the energy of pleasure can flow throughout the whole body.

It’s so simple.

It’s not always so easy.

And it’s so important.

As we become more aware of this through our experiences (because that’s the only way we get it), then we can think about it, talk about it, read about it. Within the body is where it happens.

As we become more aware of it, we see the impact it has on all aspects of our being.

There are so many ways to experience this in the body, and for me, one of the deepest and most impactful ways is touch. Slow, gentle, heart touch, which reaches deep inside of us, opens the layers of tightness, of armoring, of tension, of contraction.

Melts us, softens us, opens us.

To release.

To let go.

To feel.

To experience.

Relaxation is the space of possibility.

It’s the way we can dance into space, into the air, the life around us, and the space within us.

It’s the way we can connect.

I remember reading that one of the prime criterion for us to have a sexual energy experience, for us to have a spiritual experience, is relaxation.

And the deeper the state of relaxation, the deeper we can go.

Here’s a Touch Practice of Relaxation, a micropractice, that, in a few breaths, can drop you into your body softly.

Take a breath in, deep, slow, and slowly let it out.

Rest your fingertips against each other, softly.

Take a breath in, slowly out.

Then let your fingers and palms touch, softly.

Take a breath in, slowly out.

Have the awareness, even if it’s in your imagination of your hands melting into each other.

With each breath, the boundary of your skin disappears.

Just for a few moments.

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