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She dims the lights and tells me to sit back in my chair. “For each muscle group, you’ll tense as you breathe in for five seconds, hard but not to the point of pain. Then as you exhale, you’ll relax all at once, letting go of the tension.”
I shake out my limbs, settling further into the seat.
“Close your eyes,” she murmurs in a soft tone, “and be aware of any sensations you experience during today’s session.”
The hesitant girl from earlier is gone, something hypnotic about her voice as my eyelids drift shut, listening to her tell me to bring my eyebrows high and tense my forehead and scalp, hold, and relax.
I do as she says, the exaggerated motions ridiculous. “This feels kind of silly,” I mutter.
“Don’t worry how you look. It’s only me in here.”
Yeah, I know.
“I want you to notice how relaxed you are as you let go of those muscles. The way your body feels light and loose in the immediate moments afterward.”
We repeat the movement, then move on to the face next.
“Here, you’ll need to tense the middle of your face by squeezing your eyes tight and wrinkling your nose like this.”
I open my eyes, finding her face adorably scrunched.
Whoa… adorable? Where’d that come from?
I quickly shut my eyes before she catches me staring at her and copy her expression, ignoring how stupid I must look.
We move on to the jaw and then the neck, the strangeness of the actions gradually fading the longer we go.
“Now bring your shoulders up,” she says, “as if you’re trying to touch your ears with the tops of them. Good.”
I peek at her, not realizing she was doing the movements along with me.
“And exhale, relaxing. One more time now, tense up… and let all the tension drain away. Pay attention to how it feels when the muscles soften.”
I focus on her words, conscious of doing what she says, noting the weightlessness of my shoulders. If I’m going to be here, I might as well go all in.
My chest is next, then my back as I squeeze my shoulder blades behind me.
“All right, now rest your arms on your thighs, bending them at the elbow, hands facing up. Tighten your biceps, making sure not to clench your fists.”
This time, she doesn’t perform the action along with me, staring instead at my upper arms.
I let go of the tension after five seconds, even though she doesn’t instruct me to, and wait the normal ten seconds before doing it again like we’ve done for the other muscle groups.
“Am I doing it right?” I ask, unsure since her gaze is still transfixed on me.
She glances up. “What? Oh, yeah.” She clears her throat. “Good job. Um, fists now.” She holds her hands out in front of her to demonstrate. “Clench them as tightly as you can, taking note if there’s any tingling in your palms. And then let the tension flow from your hands and out your fingertips, replaced with a sense of relaxation.”
She’s back to her calm, soothing voice as we continue to the stomach, where we draw our belly buttons tightly toward our spines, then our backs as we arch like there’s a pillow behind us.
“Allow the relaxation to spread to all the muscles of your back, going deeper and deeper. Then we’ll move on to the… the…”
Her words trail off and I look over, finding her cheeks as pink as they were when she discovered it was me in the waiting area.
“The…?” I ask, confused as to why she’s flustered again.
“The butt,” she whispers, more a breath than a sound.
Oh, that’s why.
