Spiritual Benefits of Relaxation

In relaxation, your brain waves first move to the alpha level, just a peaceful relaxation, the kind you get daydreaming, in a hot bath at the end of the day, enjoying a favorite hobby, listening to peaceful music, meditating. Over 3000 studies have been done proving the benefits of deep relaxation on our health and well-being. But do you know it also affects your spirituality?

Huna is one of the most ancient teachings on the planet, and also, since its teachings were hidden for so long, one of the most pure. I’ve studied psychology, neurolinguistic programming and hypnosis, but I have learned the most about the conscious, subconscious mind and Higher Self from Huna, especially how they communicate together. The Huna understanding of the conscious, subconscious and spiritual selves is deep and practical. In fact, mental health problems were practically non-existent for thousands of years in Hawaii before the arrival of the white man.

In a normal waking state, our conscious and subconscious minds communicate directly with each other and your Higher Self and subconscious communicate directly with each other. Higher Self and conscious self have to communicate through the subconscious. The subconscious communicates with symbols and metaphors and loves ritual. Think about how intuition comes to you through images and hunches during the day. Often a certain song will pop into your head and the lyrics will have a special message for you. Think about how important symbols and ritual has been in all religions and why this would be.

When you are relaxed, at alpha brain wave level, both hemispheres of the brain work together, your conscious and subconscious merge, so your communication with your subconscious mind is stronger. You are in a relaxed wakeful state, still aware of your surroundings, but you are able to learn more easily, your subconscious is more open to suggestion, your imagination is heightened and your spiritual connection is also stronger. You are better able to receive guidance, and you are better able to pray effectively. You can get into alpha state through meditating, daydreaming, doing a favorite hobby, or very quickly using Brain Relaxer (http://beginwithin.org/tools-3/brain-relaxer/), developed by Begin Within (http://www.beginwithin.org). A good guided meditation process will guide you into alpha level first in order to make the suggestions more powerful to the subconscious mind and also to allow the conscious mind to receive guidance more easily.

When you go even deeper, into Theta where you are very drowsy or lightly asleep, and Delta where you are in a very deep dreamless sleep, all three aspects of consciousness begin to merge. There is a more holographic sense of everything and the power of symbols and metaphors are evident. Our dreams can contain glimpses of the future, guidance towards healing, and a good exposure to our complexes and blocks. In Theta, the mind is capable of deep and profound learning, healing, and growth - it is the brain wave where our minds can connect to the Divine and manifest changes in the outer world and there is a sense of everything being connected. This can be accomplished in a waking state in a very advanced state of meditation.
Understanding how your three selves communicate, you can appreciate how important it is to relax as often as possible. Not only does it bring amazing benefits to the physical and emotional bodies, but the more deeply you relax, the stronger your connection with your Spiritual Self. The opposite of relaxation is stress. Stress is resistance to life and pulls you away from your true Self, out of your balance and well-being and, as we all know, creates untold physical and emotional problems, altering our behaviors and wreaking havoc in our lives. Relaxing is allowing life to be. Through relaxing, you can achieve your goals in a more beneficial, powerful way. It is one of the best ways to love yourself. Give yourself time everyday to be a human BE-ing instead of a human DO-ing and just allow life and thoughts to go on without you while you relax.