Today’s topic is relaxation. In the last class, I started by asking if anyone was tense. This time I will ask if anyone is relaxed.

If you are relaxed, how do you know when you are relaxed? For me, it’s a feeling like my being is somehow elastic, and the rubber band has been allowed to snap back.

For me, it’s if I don’t feel like I’m holding anything back, fully relaxed into the environment.

Last night I had a strange feeling in my chest. I think it was a relaxation I wasn’t familiar with.

Being at ease in any situation does seem to accompany relaxation. Being accepted in any situation, too. But do people usually know reliably when they are accepted?

My own personal opinion is, Oh God no. The sense of being accepted doesn’t always mean you are. But the sense of being accepted will make acceptance easier, for yourself and others. So it can’t hurt. But do you function any better or worse by knowing whether or not you are accepted?

Definitely better. We’re social animals. We like to be liked.

Feeling accepted can quell that braking mechanism of evaluating each action before taking it.

In my experience, knowing that “you are not accepted” just makes people ready to stress more than it gives them any real choices to make. What if we functioned as if we were accepted by default? What would that do to us?

Free to act the way we feel right. Are we not free to act that way regardless? Not if we want to be accepted more. Why is that? If we want to be accepted, we compromise. We compromise with what? The opinion of others. Can we succeed in any real way in compromising with someone else’s opinion? Can you really accommodate someone else’s opinion of you?

I think there are also situations where acting “too comfortable” can be a turnoff for others. Isn’t acting “too comfortable” just another style of being uncomfortable? There are situations where acting “too comfortable” can be a sign of discomfort.

Why do we have to compromise? I can learn a view of another person, but I do not have to accept it. Exactly, and that’s an important question to ask yourself.

In social circles, I have seen that the people most loved by others are those who care the least what others think about them.

The primary reason for tension is memory, and the primary reason for social tension is just our personal memory of social encounters we have had, which the other person does not necessarily share in common with us.

I am fond of saying that “other people’s opinion of me is none of my business.” That’s a good saying. Each person does have the right to their view, yes. To the degree that they will have it anyway, and exist in this place and time at the same time you do. But we have tensions regarding people. As a matter of fact, does anyone have tensions regarding milk or the color of the sky? Nope. Why not? Why would I? I accept it as it is. Excellent.

I sniff milk first. Yes, and that’s just a useful skill, not in and of itself a tension. Why don’t we have these skills with people, rather than prejudices?

It’s good not to be overly concerned with other people’s opinions of us, but how we’re perceived is part of who we are and we all experience some frustration trying to match who we know ourselves to be with who the world sees. The effort to match self awareness to public image will inevitably fail. I promise you that this is true of everyone, without exception. Outer tensions arise as our mind tries to bend our body to fit a false image.

I have a different idea. I consider others as mirrors. What I see in them, especially when I see things I do not like in them, I know I have also in me. It is always a helpful tool to find the things I need to change in me. That’s actually a good strategy, very advanced, but many people need to start earlier. It’s a deep realization that there is something factually connecting us to other people, before then we have only assumptions.

People may have a notion of what they want from the world, and how the world sees them can directly influence their getting those things.

It is simple, but we do not like to see bad things in ourselves.

There’s an idea I picked up from someone in the Fourth Way stuff. Whatever qualities a person has that bother you are things you’re working on in yourself.

These are true and people have trouble practicing these things, because they instead project their tensions into other people. They see a mask rather than real spiritual states, because every tension you have is masking something else. The mask isn’t very helpful at all.

It is easier to point faults in others. Many like to do it, but if they only knew that finger pointing to others is in reality pinpointing their own faults. Yes.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~