As I have mentioned before I train in Kokikai Aikido.
One our basic principles is to relax and the benefit of this principle was driven home yet again yesterday while in the dentist chair. It was time for my 6 month checkup and he was cleaning my teeth.
I need to backup a little here and state that while I like my dentist, there are a lot of childhood issues still floating around that make me REALLY tense in a dentist office. This usually means I come home with an aching jaw even when nothing other than cleaning is done (I have been known to leave finger imprints on the arms of dental chairs).
Back to yesterday and as I am lying there I think about relaxing. I can tell that my shoulders and jaw are tightening up as he works on my teeth, so I make an effort to release that tension. This is an ongoing process as every couple of minutes the tension starts to build again and I need to work on releasing it once more.
At the end of the visit, my jaw doesn’t hurt and my shoulders don’t feel like I have been lifting weights.
This may seem like a small thing, but to me it is great progress.
What things in your life might get better if you were better able to relax through them?
