Why You Can't Relax

“Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.”
~ Hermann Hesse

Have you ever found yourself in a peaceful moment- a moment where there is no rush, no urgency, nothing immediately demanding your attention- and yet you aren't able to relax? You sit down, but your shoulders stay tense. You try to breathe, but your abdomen is tight and your chest feels constricted. You want to rest, but your system feels like it’s on high alert. You try to relax but your muscles are still braced against potential threats to your safety- both real and imaginary.

Most people think that stress only happens in the mind- that by changing your thoughts, you can change your reality. But where stress really takes place is in your body. Stress feels like pressure building up on the inside. It feels like a furrowed brow, a tight jaw, a closed throat, and shoulders raised up towards your ears. It expresses itself as shallow breath, as elevated blood pressure and rapid heart rate. Stress is not just racing thoughts and emotional volatility, it’s a somatic, embodied feeling of danger. Even when life slows down and gets quiet, your body is still acting like something has gone horribly wrong and it’s up to you to fix it.

So, what can you do to let go of stress? It is going to take some commitment on your part. You can’t make yourself feel calm just as you can’t think your way into presence. As Alan Watts used to say, “You can't force your mind to be silent. That would be like trying to smooth ripples in water with a flatiron. Water becomes clear and calm only when left alone." Stillness, therefore, is not something that you achieve by force, it is something you cultivate through practice.​

The good news is that your nervous system is not hardwired, it’s adaptable. Neuroplasticity means that the nervous system can change over time through repeated experience. You can’t stop life from being stressful, but you can cultivate inner peace by training your nervous system to return to balance. A single moment of calm, or the occasional moment of clarity, is not enough to make a long-term impact. To cultivate more equanimity in life you have to commit to the bit, so to speak. Only by repeatedly returning to a state of harmony can you begin to create new neural pathways, leading to real, lasting change.