We have an image of what relaxation is like, something we can point to when someone asks us what the word means.

We have an idea of what it means to be relaxed.

Yet this idea is not itself relaxed in feeling, but quite fixed in character.

If we look closely, we might be surprised to find that our notions of relaxation are pre-fabricated, sharply defined, closed up like boxes and frozen in places like poses.

We know we need to relax; we tell ourselves so.

But this recognition of the need to relax has a paradoxical quality; it may be keeping us separate from true relaxation, the union of mind and body that we seek.

Kum Nye Dancing