#21 THE SEA - Stress & Pain Relief (Jason Newland)

Hello, welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Stress and Pain Relief Podcast. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. I hope you're well and we're going to do an exercise not exercise as in press-ups and sit-ups because I'm very much against such activity.

Anything that may cause my body to look better. No, no, no, no, no. So what I thought I'd do today is I'd like you to close your eyes.

I'd like you to imagine this, looking at the sea, standing on a beach or sitting on a beach, you know, whatever you would normally do if you was on a beach and you're safe. And if you don't like the sea, I'm not really a big fan of being near water. But I do like the sea.

You're nice and safe. You're not really anywhere near the sea, but you can see it. You can see how choppy it is, how wavy it is.

Okay. Now, the waves of the sea are going to represent the levels of your stress or physical discomfort or even emotional discomfort at this time. So as you look at the sea, again, if you wanted, you can imagine looking at it from above, maybe in a helicopter or something, whatever you want to do.

I'm just going to keep my feet firmly on the ground and sit on the beach on a deck chair from a distance and see that. Yes, I guess it's very choppy, very, very wavy, very, you know, not you wouldn't want to go swimming in it. Surfing maybe.

I'm not a surfboard person. I don't do that thing. But also I don't really swim.

So the way, you know, you want to compare how you're feeling inside to the waves of the sea. So, you know, for example, completely relaxed and the sea would be completely calm. Hardly a movement, hardly a ripple or tension, stress, pain, whatever physical or emotional discomfort that you may be experiencing in this moment represented by the sea in front of you.

This big ocean, huge amount to see huge amounts of water. You got all the waves, big old waves splashing onto the beach. Very, very chaotic, very powerful, huge amounts of energy.

More energy, pretty much created by the sea than we could ever get from a millions of oil wells and coal mines and all that stuff. The sea is just so powerful as is nature. But as you look at the waves splashing, and as you compare those feelings that you're having inside you, physically and mentally connecting with the sea.

And then, of course, you realize that there's a huge similarity really between us and the sea based on the fact that we are predominantly water and energy. And so is the sea. So there's a lot of similarities, really.

We just don't have fish swimming around inside us, because that would be weird. So as you focus on the sea, splashing, the waves hitting the sand or the pebbles, depending on what kind of beach you're sitting on. Something you might start to notice is, first of all, you know, one million percent that no matter how much of chaos is going inside the sea at the moment, how much, how big the waves are, how much it's thrashing against the beach.

You know that that will change, because it always does. It has to. That's the law.

So those waves hitting the beach now, you know, that power of the sea. Well, first of all, the tide comes in and tides goes out. So that's, again, another law, another rule of nature.

So that won't change, that rule won't change, which means the sea will always continuously be moving, will be changing, will be going through a process. Again, like our bodies. No feeling stays the same.

And I know it's very easy in the past to have almost tricked ourselves to believe that the feelings we have are always there. We even sometimes, I know I have used those particular words such as always, I always feel this way. No, I don't.

It's not so much a lie. It is untrue, but it's not a lie in a sense of me telling an untruth purposely, because in that moment, I believe it. I would pass a lie detector test because I believe it in that moment.

But it's not true. It's not true at all. Our feelings, physical, emotional, are always changing.

Our bodies are always changing. Our cells, millions of cells are dying and millions of cells are being created all the time. Our body is regenerating itself continuously.

The healing process is always in activities, we're always, parts of our body are healing. Skin cells constantly dying and new skin cells growing. New pathways in our brain, brain cells dying, new brain cells being, you know, created.

So we're always in change, always in that process of movement. Even if you're sitting still, there's still movement happening within your body at all lots of different levels. It's just like the sea, always changing.

So it's kind of interesting, maybe, when you think about the way that perhaps we sometimes talk about how we feel when it's not true. Yet, when we say things like, oh, I always feel this way, we believe it at the time, but it's not true. And once you realize that actually it's not true, it's really hard to say it anymore.

And when you don't say it, you stop thinking it. Because it's been broken. It's almost like it's a plate, you know, bring out that plate, and it's on it's written is, I always have this pain in my back, for an example.

When you realize that when I realized that it's not true, I believed it when I said it. But actually, the reality is that it's not true. And maybe the the mild shock of that reality, fact is I dropped that plate on the floor, and it breaks into many pieces.

No longer useful to me. Not that it ever was, but it felt useful at the time. It was trying to help me by giving me what I thought, what I thought I wanted, because that's what I was focusing on.

I was focusing on my back being painful, and therefore my back was always painful. And because I was always focusing on my back, being painful, my body, my brain, my unconscious mind gave me more of that pain, gave me more of those feelings, because it didn't realize that I wasn't asking for more of it. But that's what I was focusing on.

And you get more of what you focus on. Another law. Not my law, not my rule.

It's just a law. It is just fact. You get more, we all get more of what we focus on.

We focus on negativity, we get more negativity. You focus on positivity, you feel more positive. You start to notice nice things, if that's what you're focusing on.

So that plate that I would pull out and saying, I forget what it says now, because I can't read it, because the plate's broken. I can't pull it out anymore. And I can't say it out loud, because I know it's not true.

And I'm not a liar. When I said it before, I meant it, I really believed it. Because I'm not a liar, and there's no point lying to ourselves.

What's the point in that? It's just, it's like asking yourself out for a date, isn't it? It's just pointless. No point. So, that focusing on the sea, comparing how you feel with the sea.

Just notice how it is now. What kind of, how choppy is it? How busy is the sea? How wavy is the sea? Or is it calmer? And when you look at the sea, what do you expect to happen? Are you expecting it to become calmer? Are you expecting your body to feel more relaxed? Are you expecting your mind to feel more relaxed whilst listening to this recording?

Because when you expect something, really expect it, it's more likely to happen. In fact, the more you expect it, the more you want it, it almost becomes reality.

If you're convinced that there are gonna, there's a lot of red cars on the road, and you're about to go on a long journey, long car ride, and maybe someone tells you there's a lot of red cars around at the moment, and you believe them, like okay, you start to notice more and more red cars on the road. Now, you believe in that there's more red cars on the road than yellow cars, for example, or blue cars.

It's not a fact.

It may or may not be true. But what do you notice? Red cars. You may also notice yellow cars as well, if that's something that you're always focused, almost, you know, also focusing on.

But if you believe that there's more red cars than yellow cars, you're going to notice more red cars than yellow cars. You'll find a way to support your belief. There's a scientific, technical, psychological name or term for that, but I don't care what it is.

I don't know. There is a term. There's a term for everything.

So, how do you expect your body to feel? What are your expectations, listening to this recording? How do you expect the sea to start behaving? Each time you focus back on the sea in your mind, is it still as wavy as what it was? Maybe you could hear it. Maybe you could even smell the sea in your mind or feel the breeze against your face or the splashes of water.

You know, those little tiny splashes that you get from the sea, but then you go to wipe your face and your face isn't wet.

They're almost, the sprays, almost so minute, but you feel it. It can actually feel quite nice. And as you look at the sea and it is calming down, how much of that calming down is because you expected it to calm down? And then as you focus on your own body, your mind, and you'd notice that that also is calming down.

Did you expect your mind to calm, to slow down? Did you expect your body to relax more? And how much of that expectation of an outcome has affected your experience of focusing on the sea as it calms down and then noticing your body really relaxing? And it's almost like letting the air out of a tyre. All the stress just leaves and any physical discomfort just disappears. Apart from the fact that it's not needed.

It's of no use to you in this moment. But there's also a big part of you that just not interested. There's no interest to you right now.

You're just enjoying, feeling calm. And as you focus back on the sea, as the sea really calms down, you may even wonder, which is affecting which? Is the sea affecting your body? Or is your body affecting the sea to calm down? Or are they both affecting each other equally? Or if they just come together as one? And then as you ask these random questions by me, there's probably a big part of you that really doesn't care what the answers are.

You know, not interested in answering questions right now.

Doesn't bother you that I'm asking questions, but you don't feel any interest in answering, because you can just enjoy feeling how you feel. Relaxed and calm, safe, and just enjoying the moment peacefully. And even now, as I might ask you to focus on the sea again, you might just not be bothered.

Can't be bothered to really focus on anything. You may just feel so relaxed that you're not even bothered to listen to me talking. And it feels really nice to let go of everything, to feel so peaceful, so peaceful, calm.

It's almost as if the whole world has just stopped. The whole world has come to a standstill. And nothing exists except peace and comfort.

Peace and comfort. Deep feelings of relaxation and healing. Spreading even deeper into your body and mind.

So deep. So peaceful. Feeling so safe.

And there's a count from 10 down to 1. Each number sends you even deeper, even deeper into relaxation. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.