Stressed from a long day of work, I begin my daily ritual in order to rid my stress and leave work at work as opposed to taking it home. I stare at the salt and imagine each grain having a tiny mouth. I can see it eating stress. My stress flows from the center of my being as a dark cloud. It flows up my arm and to my hand. It is cold and I feel the warmth of the loving energy of the sun replace the void that is left as the cold stress is seeping away. The salt is ravenous and eats until I don't have anymore negativeness or stress left to feed it. Good salt. Purifying salt. Warm and relaxed, I smile and toss the salt over my shoulder. “Cough, cough, sputter, sputter. What the fuck are you doing?” I hear behind me. Horrified I turn around to see my very overt Christian boss dusting salt off his face......
Naw hasn't happened, but I can just imagine.... Throwing salt over your shoulder is the first exercise I'm starting in Chaos Magic. Salt in the hand after work is a great tool. You're supposed to hold it in your hand and imagine the salt eating all of your stress. Then you throw it over your left shoulder (yup just like the superstition). As I would probably get negative reactions, and in turn fuel my stress, I use something less conspicuous -- dirt. Being on a civil construction site, dirt is plentiful (to say the least). With people standing around watching me and my reactions all the time, this method isn't practical enough for me to use. The only time I'm stressed is at work. I am very good at leaving my work at work and my home life at home. There isn't any mixing of the two and that makes life easier. The drive to and from work (though I complain that it is a long drive) gives me time to leave home/work at the windshield. The best part – no one can hear me or see me long enough to cause a confrontation....so I can be as big as a retard as I want.
Though the dirt doesn't work well. I may try this with salt and leave my stress at work in the bathroom. I will flush it down the toilet instead of throwing it over my shoulder. I could see how this salt method would be a good leave-the-past-behind spell. Imagine the salt eating the unpleasant history or memory or emotion and throw the salt over your shoulder at a cross roads you don't visit often– walking away and not looking back. (this screams of a hoodoo recipe).
So I've instinctively made my mental space – and it's my Jeep. I've done this for over two years and it is second nature to me. The way to work is spent communing with spirits and self examination. The way home is to unwind and not think or concentrate on anything too hard. I refuse to think of what I have to do tomorrow, or even what I have to do when I get home. No thought of “damn, I need to stop at the store for a gallon of milk” is allowed either. I would say that creating mental space to release stress is accomplished. I like it. It works.
Relax by Deep Breathing
OK....no brainer here. I've been doing this to begin meditation for years and would call this accomplished as well. Breathing is my concentration point in early meditation, then comes the next step (muscle relaxation, slowing of pulse, opening of chakras, working of energy, viewing with third eye, deep examination, symbol search, spirit speak, etc) but breathing always comes first. Counted breaths and pauses are important as well as remembering to let the diaphragm pull in air and push out the bad. Seeing a feather or flame in front of my mouth/nose doesn't work that well for me. The object is to breath shallow enough to not move the feather or flame, but I find that I can't feed my body enough oxygen with this technique and this is why I think I get “happy limbs” – that involuntary jerking of the arms and legs.
The Toilet
This stress releaser is.....interesting. The good news is that it can easily be done at work. The idea of this exercise is to defecate or urinate in the toilet. While doing so, the feces or urine is the stress, the nastiness leaving your body. You feel lighter and stress free. Flushing the nastiness rids it of the area and dissolves the energy to be released elsewhere. I've used it, but I don't think I'll make this a common practice, because I begin to giggle (I find it all humorous – poo-poo-in-the-potty humorous) – see “Laughter as a Cure” below. This may cause a few raised eye-brows and interesting explanations....giggling every time you take a shit.
Standing in the Shower
This exercise I've done & still do with excellent results. Standing in the shower, head down, mouth open, allowing the water to curtain over you and “watch” and feel the stress being rinsed off of you. Eyes closed, breathing deeply through an open mouth and hearing and feeling the water like rain washing away impurities down the drain– very powerful. I find this great to use before a ritual if I don't have time to do a bath justice. After the negative rinse, I envision the water as light washing over me and purifying me. I like it. It works.
Ofnung Technique
I learned it in a pre-Lamaze class while pregnant with Ryan. The technique is simple. During a light meditation, after concentrating on breathing for a few minutes, you concentrate on each muscle in the body and relax it. Starting from the head and working to the tips of the toes, you concentrate on one muscle at a time. You feel a hand massaging it (imagining warmth works better for me). You then tighten the muscle then release it feeling total relaxation It works well and if I have pain (specially back, neck, shoulder tension) I use this with good results.
Laughter as a Cure
I've not purposely tried this one. You just start laughing. It starts as a fake laugh then turns into real, non-stoppable manic laughter begins resulting in the release of tension. I've personally not tried this due to feeling ridiculous. I would try it if alone and will try it within the week (if I can find some alone time – yeah right) – bathroom time does not count as alone time. I bet this would work well as we all know that laughter is “the best medicine” and is contagious. How many times have you been in the room and heard someone start laughing? You start laughing too – even though you have no idea why that person is laughing (could be at you for all you know) but the sound and the energy is contagious.
Next are exercises of breathing. I'm looking forward to that one. I've looked and some of them I have not tried. It should be interesting. I have a rhythm that I like and that works for me and have always had the motto “if not broke, don't fix it”. However if it can be more effective, I'm game. I'm glad that this is in the workbook so that I'm forced to try them – or I wouldn't. Though this may take me a few weeks, I will record my findings in the next section “hee hee hoooo”.
