July 20, 2023
Today I went for the first intentional walk alone in a very long time. It’s been a whole trip around the sun since I started the journey into this journey of learning to relax.
The coffee supplies at the hospital had been depleted and it’s my job to keep them stocked. Normally I would drive to the co-op and pick up what we need but today I decided to walk.
It was cloudy with dappled patches of blue sky. The scent of the breeze changed with the scenery as I walked closer to town. For a moment I could smell the salt and seaweed of the ocean, then the clover flowers blooming in the grass at the side of the road.
Dandelion imposters bloomed in the browning grass. Brown grass is a rare site here on Haida Gwaii and one I find concerning. For most of the summers we’ve lived here the the ground has gone squish when you walked on it. This year there’s more of a crunch.
My goal this week was to unwind the tension I had allowed to collect within me before I start a more focused fitness program next week. Yesterday I had found my shoulders had climbed up my neck and were residing beside my ears. Consciously through the day I took breaths and asked them nicely to return to their natural habitat closer to my breasts. It was difficult at first but eventually we got the hang of it and by the end of the day my neck was feeling freed from its prison of tension.
Taking that one step further today I moved my body while I continued to relax.
Letting my eyes go soft I absorbed the view. My gaze wandered out towards the water in hopes that the black fins of the killer whales would return again today. They didn’t but the calmness of the water helped me feel even more at peace.
Taking another deep breath I dropped the tension from my shoulders and let the tissues of my body release the motion of my movement. I could feel them relax and stretch out. They stretched like they had never stretched before. Not the kind of stretching that I had warped myself into attempting yoga or trying to develop more flexibility, this was so much deeper. I could almost feel the individual muscle bundles relax and stretch out. It was a more cellular feeling one that felt like they had finally gotten to put down a weight that they had been carrying for far too long.
My limbs felt longer and my gait lengthened.
Losing weight has been important to me for the primary reason that I would like my joints to last as long as possible. It seems only reasonable that the less weight they would carry the longer they would last. Today I found myself contemplating how much damage I was doing to my poor joints by asking them to work under this much tension. Most of life I’ve been a massive ball of stress hurling at ridiculous speeds into whatever stimulating adventure has grabbed my attention.
Pondering this I continued to move and breath. I realized that this is what the horses must feel like when we work on moving out relaxed. For many years as an equine sport therapist I talked to people about the importance of relaxed movement. This thought made me feel like I had treated myself to something precious, I had unconsciously taken as good a care of myself as I do my horses.
The walk carried on for most of my lunch hour with breaks to stop and snack on the various berries that grow in abundance on the islands.
After work I made my way out to the paddock and let the horses into their dinner field. Punkin cantered off into the field and I watched to see how much tension she was holding as she trotted around tossing her head in true Andalusian style I noticed a little tension in her gait. Just enough to protect herself from another embarrassing wipeout in the field. Knowing she was keeping herself safe I took another deep breath and enjoyed the new state of relaxation and connection with my horses.
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