Relax Into Your Original Self: A Narrative Therapy Practice
/“Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.”
Thomas Moore describes the Original Self so beautifully:
“Far beneath the many thick layers of indoctrination about who we are and who we should be lies an original self, a person who came into this world full of possibility and destined for joyful unveiling and manifestation. It is this person we glimpse in another when we fall in love or when we idealize a leader or romanticize an artist. This is the person who comes to life in us briefly as we get married, start a course in school, or try on a new joy - before worry and cynicism have set in. Chronically trying to be someone other than this original self, persuaded that we are not adequate and should fit some norm of health or correctness, we may find a cool distance gradually separating us from that deep and eternal person, that G-d-given personality, and we may forget both who we were and who we might be… When that ever-creative soul is allowed to rise up from the deep reservoir of life that is home, we become unpredictable and not easily squeezed into narrow expectations of what a person should be….. (our lives take a shape) that we could never plan or design.”
NARRATIVE THERAPY EXERCISE:
After reading Thomas Moore's description of the Original Self, enjoy a guided relaxation practice with me here. Then open your journal and try some Narrative Therapy.
On a fresh page, write down the Chinese Proverb: Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.. Pause for a few minutes. Then ask yourself: What do I look like when I am most relaxed? What do I feel like, in my mind and body, when I am relaxed? What is it like to be me, relaxing? Pause and let any images or words come to mind. With out judgment, jot down your free-flowing thoughts.
Enjoy this 10 minute guided meditation with me online.
