CHAPTER SIX

MEDITATION FOR RELAXATION

Physical Tension

Relaxation was the first of the benefits from meditation we listed in Chapter 1. Physical tension creeps up upon children unnoticed, leading to the slump in posture, the hunched shoulders and the drooping neck that are often all too evident by late adolescence. Physical tension is the cause of most of the muscular aches and pains we learn to live with as we grow older, the twinges we tend to feel from early adulthood onwards when we move suddenly, the stiffness and even the physical tiredness we experience at the end of the day.

It needn’t be like this. Children are not born tense. Watch small children as they curl up with their toys on the floor, when they run and when they play. The idea of pulled muscles, creaking joints and strained ligaments is alien to small children. Their bodies serve them much as nature intended.

There is a range of reasons why physical tensions start in childhood. One of the most important is that children (like adults) spend much of their time with muscles tensed for physical activity, but with insufficient opportunity to engage in this activity. Nature designed human beings for an active physical life, and our bodies are not yet adapted to the fact that in our gadgety, automated, screen and car orientated world, many of the things we do require very little in the way of muscular effort. As a result, from childhood onwards there is a tendency to take too little physical exercise, and for energy to remain as undischarged tension in nerves and muscles. As an analogy, think of twisting up an elastic band, and then only half releasing it.

Another reason why children build up tension from an early age is that they frequently suffer inner conflict. Many of their activities are undertaken at the request or command of adults. When these requests or commands are unwelcome, an inner struggle goes on between the need to obey their elders, and the desire to resist and please themselves. The result is that one set of impulses moves the child forward, and another tries to hold him or her back. An appropriate analogy this time could be a piece of rope with its ends pulled simultaneously in opposite directions.

A third reason for tension is that early on in life children brace themselves physically against criticism, much as they would if they were about to receive a physical blow. In the long evolutionary history of the human race, threats to safety have usually come in the form of physical attack, leading to an instinctive tensing of every muscle in order to defend ourselves or to run away (the so-called fight or flight response). Verbal attack has been a feature of our lives only since men and women developed the ability to talk (a comparatively recent development in the history of evolution), and the body hasn’t yet had time to evolve an appropriate response to this kind of threat. Thus from an early age we will respond as if the threat were physical, and pump adrenalin and noradrenalin into the bloodstream, raise the heart rate and the blood pressure, and brace every muscle in the body.

A further cause of tension in children is the repression of emotion. Children are all too often punished for showing powerful emotions such as fear or anger, and even given the impression that there is something naughty or wicked about these natural impulses. Very often (particularly in the case of co-operative and obedient children), the result is that they quickly learn to ‘hold on’ to their emotions instead of expressing them. This ‘holding on’ involves yet again high levels of physical tension. Frequently these tensions become habitual, building themselves into children’s posture and into the way they live their lives. When working with adults, some massage and bodywork therapists claim that by locating and releasing areas of physical tension within the body, they can help clients recall long-forgotten memories of traumatic childhood incidents, and go on to release the long-repressed emotions associated with them.

This is not an argument in favour of always allowing children to express their emotions, no matter how destructive. We live in a social world, and children must learn to think not only of themselves but of the impact of their behaviour upon others. Furthermore, extreme expressions of rage or dislike can bring their own tensions. However, it is an argument for helping children to acknowledge and discuss their emotions, and for helping them to find acceptable ways of releasing the energies concerned. It is also an argument for teaching children relaxation techniques which can help them remain naturally calmer in the face of stress . . . and one of the very best of these techniques is meditation.

The word ‘relaxation’ is insufficient on its own to describe the desirable habits of body management that arise from meditation, such as the ability to let go of tension, and the ability to become more aware of the body, so that the moment tension arises it can be identified and released. The following meditation will help the children to release physical tension, while body awareness is covered in greater depth in Chapter 7.

One way of helping children let go of physical tension is to play some soothing music, and encourage them to flop down on the bed or on the floor and progressively relax each group of muscles, starting from the feet and working up to the eyes and the muscles of the scalp. Unfortunately they can’t spend all their time listening to soothing music and flopping down on the floor. Once they are back on their feet, the tensions are all too likely to re-occur. They therefore need to be able to stay relaxed when their bodies are active once more, and as they go about the business of the day. Children need good body tone and posture, and at the same time an awareness of how they can maintain this for themselves. Exercises involving releasing tension are usually easy for young children to carry out. Often adults experience much more difficulty – sufficient evidence, if we need it, of the value of maintaining or developing the right attitude towards our bodies early in life, that is, an attitude of appreciation and respect which prevents us from putting the body under unnecessary stress or neglecting its care and requirements. Adolescents can have particular difficulty with this at times.

Jerry

Jerry, in his final year at school, revealed his tension by talking in quick, jerky, breathless phrases. He was encouraged to meditate upon his breathing, and to repeat the sound ‘so-ha’ softly to himself (or under his breath when sitting with classmates) on each out-breath. After practising this for several sessions, he was invited to try to keep this relaxed experience in mind when talking to others.

Jerry noticed a big improvement almost immediately – and so did his friends. He also noticed that his thinking became more measured and more effective. Instead of his thoughts tumbling over themselves as his speech had done, they seemed, as he put it, to begin to flow gently and creatively.

MEDITATION 3: Letting Go of Physical Tension

Encourage the children to sit with spines straight, heads upright (but not pulled unnecessarily back on the neck), both feet flat on the floor, and hands clasped lightly in the lap. This relaxed posture is not only good for the body, but it also helps the mind to remain lightly alert rather than drifting.

When the meditation is over, the children should be asked to open their eyes gently, and then to stand up while retaining the feeling of relaxed alertness that they have just been experiencing. If circumstances permit, ask them to move silently around the room, picking up and putting down objects, lacing or unlacing shoes, in fact doing any of the physical activities in which they engage during the day, but all the time maintaining their peaceful fame of mind and relaxed body.