Sessions
Welcome to Session 1
In our session today, we are searching for feelings of calm and refreshment, like we are on the fourth day of a relaxing holiday. To do this, I suggest practising curiosity – can you remember when you wandered in a delightful new place with a friend or solo, when you read a book with innovative ideas or saw a new face and felt the tickle of new possibilities? Perhaps you also recall the jubilation of twisting through alleys to find a café by the sea unexpectedly. We are going to dial down any demands on ourselves, attainment of goals or “shoulds”, and instead, do a micro-wander that takes very little energy but gives us a chance to explore, choose what we like and celebrate anything that feels comforting or delightfully simple.
We are going to do this program using very small amounts of energy. When I say small, however, the total still may be a substantial % of your daily allocation, so please rest as much as you like. Anytime. You can relax by deliciously doing nothing or by finding the nicest ways to move. There is also the option to relax the body. At the same time, the brain explores things of interest or imagines motions we want to enjoy (like an elite athlete visually practising prior to an event). When we choose, we can also give ourselves specific brain resting time. Our brains use a lot of energy in active thought and action, so occasional restful processing time (like zoning out, lying, watching leaves blowing in the trees or gentle awareness of a meditation teacher’s voice) gives brains time for integration and recharging.
ME/CFS limits our energy, so we can benefit from gaining respectful awareness of how much energy we personally have to spend each day. That is, what sits easily in our energy envelope. (Our energy can also be described as how much gas we have in our tank, money in the bank or spoons available to use). In all the metaphors, there is a sense of a limited but valuable resource that is being used by background activities (e.g. breathing, temperature regulation, digestion, thinking), by activities we choose/need to do (e.g. standing, cooking a meal, new movements), and by our stress habits.
We also have a comfort envelope. When coping with demands in our environment (e.g., noisy shopping malls, sudden change of temperature) and internal issues (leaky gut, infection, painful back, hypermobile joints), we use energy more energy than when we relax. Something you could explore before the session begins is reducing background energy. What makes you make you more comfortable? A cushion under the head and a cosy blanket over you? A hot water bottle or a cool cloth? An extra cushion under the legs or folded towels under the wrists; lower the volume on your device and pull the blind half down. How comfortable can you get? 7% more? Let’s get background energy usage down so we have more of our valuable energy for gentle learning and having some fun.
Respectful awareness of energy and comfort also helps us when we move. If someone says to turn your head, we usually go right there, as far as the head turns, and our eyes stare ahead or dart around. But if we are doing it with more consideration, we can also move our chest to take the strain off the neck. We can shift the balance of our knees and our feet. We can help facilitate the distribution of forces across the rest of the body through muscles and the elastic properties of fascia. We really only find this out if we slow down and make the movement smaller. When we go smaller, slower and as lightly as possible, we can also begin to feel where comfort turns to strain at the end of the line of movement. We can relax stress habits. Could “less is more” be a way to save energy, pace better and achieve more?
I suggest you aim to do this lesson as gently as if you were planning to do it three more times and still have some energy to spare. You might need extra energy later in the day, so don’t spend it all here now. Enjoy relaxing and exploring new details instead. Like you are enjoying an imagined holiday.