High Time For Your Closest Friend

This book makes extensive use of humorous and informative color cartoons to guide your reading and illustrate the exercises vividly. Please see the Google Preview above for a clear example of the book’s content.

Chapter 1 - 6 follow this structure:

A story to set the scene for the problem area,

Fun-time for the problem area,

Simple exercises for physical relief,

Scanning yourself,

Renewing your thoughts (with breathing and thought exercises)

Excerpts from Chapter 1- Shoulders

(A story to set the scene for the problem area):

Still preparing in his mind for all the meetings and presentations of the day, as usual, Tony rushed his walk through the park to get to work in the morning.  That evening, feeling a heavy weight on his shoulders and exhausted overall, he dragged his body home for food and TV in order to relax.

Having worked in this office for a long time, most of his tasks and the expectations of him could be handled almost routinely.  But Tony did not know why he still found the job very intense. One evening as he watched TV he looked at the photo frame beside it that showed a picture of his father. Tony’s childhood memories of his father were of him working hard and looking stern most of the time. Particularly when his father arrived home, little Tony saw his shoulders hunched up from a back that looked like it carried the world.

Was it the TV or was it his father? … (more)

                                                                           ~~~                                          

Fun Time for the shoulders:

Decades of practice in holding on to set views of how we see the world has led us into fixed ways to handle situations and behaviors that no longer let us relax. All these lead to stiffness piling up within us, and shoulders are the obvious place where it shows. However, we barely notice our patterns because we breathe them in, walk with them and carry them with us, and probably have done since we started to think.

Let us now inject some fun into the shoulders that have been carrying   the burdens and beliefs of our life for too long.

Stand up and open your chest

1. Inhale and raise your shoulders up as high as possible. Tense them
2. Exhale and exclaim the sound “Ha” while relaxing and dropping your shoulders down
3. Let go of your neck, so it goes downwards and really let your shoulders fall without controlling them
4. Repeat this 10 times

… (more)

(Simple exercises for physical relief):

There are indeed some useful movements for the stiff necks and shoulders that come from working in front of a computer, or at a desk or from carrying babies. The following stretches have been successful for many people.   

Lie down:

1. Support your head with a properly sized pillow so that the underside of your chin is perpendicular to the floor, not tilting back.
2. Close your eyes, exhale and relax your neck and shoulders
3. Roll your left ear towards the pillow; move slowly and gently, until your ear is as close to the pillow as possible. Keep your chin from tilting up towards your forehead
4. While moving your neck, strongly and firmly draw your right shoulder and shoulder blade towards your feet, with the arm lifted up slightly off the floor
5. You will feel a strong stretch from below your right ear to the top of your shoulder
6. Increase the stretch by drawing the back of your skull up and the right side of your neck down towards your feet, you can tilt your chin down to the left shoulder
7. Exhale while pulling your neck and shoulders downwards (steps 4-6)
8. Stay only long enough for you to feel that the skin and flesh of the right side of your neck has been lengthened
9. Repeat on the other side

… (more)

Scan yourself deeply:

We can build up an intimate awareness with our shoulders. It is worth checking if our mind is in the right spot in relation to the shoulders. Next time, when facing a challenge, deadline or whatever situation seems to be overwhelming, look past the nervousness and irritation and check if your shoulders have tensed up, or rolled forward, or if your upper back is raised. All these things can happen without our being aware, as they are only small movements. Sometimes only the deep muscles of our shoulders and upper back go up. It may take a while before we notice ourselves as having rounded shoulders or a hunched back at certain times. Also notice what thoughts are in your mind, even if they seem very soft and subtle and in the background.

… (more)

Renew your thoughts:

We can have an immediate thought-led release for the shoulders. Whenever I sense my shoulders are tense, I tell myself: at this very moment I will release my shoulders downwards, and also I release the belief that this challenge is: too huge for me, or that this task is too difficult, or that I don’t know how to get a better result, or that I have no choice, or that I am not sure if I have done it well enough, or that… whatever core belief it is that is causing the tension. Sometimes these beliefs are so deeply rooted that they may seem as natural as breathing; and we do not realize we are breathing most of the time. So it may take time to find that core belief.

“But!” you might say “My way when facing challenges is to be totally absorbed by the stress. I cannot feel myself anymore. I just want to finish the task ahead at any cost. And with the ways I find most familiar and effective. To reduce stress, I can go shopping, or have a massage, or a stretch or ... something.”

… (more)