Be and Breathe Relaxation Training Exercise

Take a moment to think about the space between your activities during your day. For example, the space between finishing getting ready to go somewhere and actually being there or the space between putting something in the microwave and waiting for it to heat up or something else. Just begin thinking of the spaces between your activities you have planned for today while you, also, begin exhaling more completely and relaxing deeply in your forehead, your neck, your shoulders, your jaw and your ribcage muscles a little bit at a time. During the spaces between each of your activities is a good time to exhale fully and relax your upper body muscles a little bit in order to interrupt the stress reflex’s muscle tension effects specifically in your upper body. Exhale again and relax a little more in the tightest muscles you can locate in your upper body. Which of your upper body muscles are the tightest right now? Continue identifying them now. Exhale slowly and fully and rest your tightest upper body muscles just a little more right now. And continue this process during each of your spaces between your activities during your day, no matter how short or long these spaces actually last; just exhale fully into these spaces and relax a little more deeply in your tightest muscles.

If you have a little more time right now continue your thinking about other spaces between other things like the spaces and patterns between the stars in the night sky, the spaces and shapes between the leaves on the trees outside, the spaces and shapes between the clouds in the daytime sky, the spaces between the rocks across a mountain stream, the spaces between your muscles and your bones or something else. If you have physical or emotional pain in your body or mind somewhere, think about the space between the worst pains and the spaces between the painful areas of your body and mind and the better feeling areas. Exhale and relax your tightest or most painful areas in your muscles and mind just a little more deeply again and again into the space of this moment. Focus your attention on these spaces between things and allow these spaces to provide you one or two degrees of separation right now between yourself and your activities, yourself and your worst physical and emotional pains, yourself and your stressors, yourself and your deadlines or your muscles and your bones. Allow the spaces between things to capture more of your attention today so that these spaces can provide you with a degree of separation and protection in which you can take a moment to exhale slowly and fully and relax deeply in your tightest and most painful areas in your body and mind again and again. Think of the most comfortable, quietest and calmest parts of your body or mind and exhale fully and relax these areas a little more, too, as you notice your areas of comfort. Enjoy thinking about your degrees of separation and protection between yourself and your stress that insulate you for a moment and allow you a moment of pause and rest. You have completed the Be and Breathe RTE.