Source https://zenhabits.net/soften/
By Leo Babauta
The holidays can be stressful, with shopping, travel, family gatherings, extra busyness, winter storms, and more. The chaos of our lives plays out in sometimes heightened form over the season.
In this post, I’m going to share the practice I’ve been using to deal with whatever stress has been arising in my life. I call it Tightening and Softening.
This practice of Tightening and Softening is about letting in more and more of life, just as it is. It’s about relaxing with the flow of life, so we can expand our capacity to be with everything.
To start with, notice when you’re tightening against whatever is making you feel stressed, anxious, resistant, frustrated, overwhelmed. The body tightens — you might notice it in your jaw and face, in your throat or chest, in your stomach or clenched fists or legs. We tighten against the world, when someone is being frustrating or we’re feeling …