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Lesson 9 The Unified Relax Technique

This is the most important technique you will learn in Relax. Be sure to learn it well; it will then become the only practice you will need to apply in everyday life. Because this technique will be your best ally in the difficult situations of life, do not work with it until you are certain you can do everything in the previous lessons. Otherwise, you will not be able to apply this procedure automatically, and you will not get effective results. Again review everything you have learned so far; especially study any difficulties you are having, and perfect these practices as much as necessary. When you have mastered the previous lessons, then go on to learn and incorporate this complete relax technique. In Lesson 4 we learned the Experience of Peace; the technique we will now learn is based on the Experience of Peace as follows: Relax completely and begin the Experience of Peace. Then, strongly clench your fist, hold it, and then abruptly release the tension in your hand so that the feeling of calm, peace and expansion increases even more. To summarize what we have explained, tense your fist (always use the same fist) while you are doing the Experience of Peace; then, abruptly release all the tension in your hand. When you release your hand, the Experience of Peace will become stronger and more complete. In order to learn this Well, repeat the exercise many times to strongly associate the Experience of Peace with the gesture of releasing your fist. Only when you have practiced and learned this well and can repeat it quickly should you begin to apply it in everyday life. Do not apply it artificially or uselessly; rather, use it in truly difficult situations where you could easily lose your calm and self-control. Observe that all difficult situations you are in create tension. Use that tension to tighten your fist, displace the tension from the situation into your fist. Then, relax and release your fist, and you will feel complete relaxation. You automatically rechannel the excessive tension and in this way relax immediately. In the Experience of Peace you used the image of a transparent sphere as a support in the beginning. You produced a profound relaxation as you expanded the image from the center of your chest until it illuminated and filled your body completely. If you correctly registered that this image diffused throughout your body, you then had an experience of complete relaxation, that is, of profound peace, calm, and joy. In this technique, once you have practiced and associated the gesture of releasing your fist with the calm and peaceful state, to apply this technique it is no longer necessary to imagine the sphere. All you need to do is keep feeling the peaceful and energetic sensation expanding from the center of your chest throughout your body, leaving you in a state of thorough relaxation from deep inside you to your most external muscles. You will gradually learn to automatically and rapidly tighten your fist whenever you feel tension; this will evoke (after your practice) the Experience of Peace in your chest. Upon relaxing your hand, your chest and emotions will also relax completely, the relaxation in your chest will move throughout the rest of your body, and you will feel calm and peaceful even in difficult situations. Although this mechanism is not hard to understand, it is somewhat difficult to apply efficiently. To be able to use it well, you need to practice it many times in various situations until you incorporate it in a permanent way.

Review 1. Quickly practice external, internal and mental relaxation in a continuous sequence. Repeat this again and perfect any difficulties you found. 2. Quickly practice the Experience of Peace and then perfect any difficulties. 3. Practice the Experience of Peace in everyday situations, always beginning with easy situations and progressing to more complex ones. 4. Review your work on converting tense everyday images and perfect any difficulties you found. 5. Review your work on converting tense biographical images and perfect the difficulties you experienced. 6. Practice the unified or complete relaxation technique beginning with simple or less tense situations, and gradually progress to more complex and tense ones.

PSYCHO-PHYSICAL GYMNASTICS

In Psycho-Physical Gymnastics you learn to control and manage yourself better in the situations of your everyday life. This is a unique system of self-control with integrated theory and development practices, and its primary purpose is to re-establish the balance between mind and body. Health and strength in the truest sense may be defined as balance, as equilibrium. Nothing works better to achieve this balance than to exercise both your mind and body at the same time. Unlike most sports and exercise systems, Psycho-Physical Gymnastics is not intended to produce greater muscular development, greater endurance, or greater physical agility, nor is it intended to improve body shape-it is not a weight-loss program. Rather, in these exercises you will find and understand your weakest or most difficult points of self-control through a system of tests. As you go through these exercises, you will find some quite easy, while others will be much more difficult. Any difficulties with an exercise indicate a lack of self-control in this area of your mind or body. The real point of the course is to practice those exercises that are the most difficult for you until you master them. This balances you and restores equilibrium to all the parts of your mind and body.

Recommendations

1. Go through all these exercises with other people, not alone.
2. Practice and perfect the exercises you find most difficult. Resolve to work on them whenever you find opportunities in your everyday life. Once you learn the exercises, you will be able to find many opportunities in your everyday life to practice them.
3. Keep a neat and orderly notebook with your comments and observations on each lesson and each exercise.