Every now and then, someone will hint to me that I am a tiny bit intense.

My coach suggested tactfully that perhaps I feed–just a TINY bit, you understand–on drama.

The other day I was telling a friend about ten minutes ago when I was freezing and now I was absolutely roasting  and she pulled down her shades and said,

“And you wonder where your daughter gets her flair for the dramatic???”

So nothing infuriates me more than being told to “just relax.” 

It makes me want to shout that old revolutionary mantra, ‘If you’re not pissed off, you’re not paying attention!’   (Even though I find that paying attention is just as likely to reduce me to melting bliss and gratitude as to fury and grief.)

The worst is when someone uses a yoga voice when they say it: 

a soothing, breathy, I’m-so-enlightened-and-you’re-hysterical  voice.  

“Just relaaaaaax…..”

And if they mention deep breathing, or surrendering, or releasing attachment?  Well that’s truly an act of aggression.

So no, relaaaaaxing doesn’t really work for me.

But we who live life in all its intensity can’t go full throttle all the time without spraining something.  So here is what I do when I feel myself getting worked up, spiraling into a tizzy, or wanting to smother someone in their own yoga mat:

I don’t try to relax.  Or chill.  Or surrender.

I expand.

There’s a subtle but crucial difference here.

Relaxing is all about going soft and fluid.  Which are lovely things, and I do those things verrry well when I’m on the massage table.  Or taking a bath.

Not so much when I’m white-knuckling a phone call about a crisis, or arguing with an unreasonable six-year-old, or handling a banking snafu.

In those cases, I’m verrrry good at clenching, holding my breath, and bugging my eyes out of my head.

Unfortunately, those are the skills of destruction.

So what works better for me is not relaxing into my struggles– I’m not NEARLY enlightened enough for that– but expanding around them.

Less Pema Chodron, more Wonderwoman.  Less yoga, more sky diving.  

Expanding is about acknowledging whatever’s going on.

Acknowledging that you hate it, or you feel devastated, or that you’re furious.

But also acknowledging that those feelings are only one small part of you.

Because the true you is a big beautiful loving force who’s just having a tiny moment.  

Here’s how you do it:

Focus on the thing that makes you feel tight, panicked, furious, or tense.

Notice the physical sensations you’re feeling– clenched jaw, aching throat, burning lungs.

(Yes, they will feel AWFUL.)

Give those sensations room in your body.

Open up a little space for them to be.

Stop fighting them, and give them permission to just be there.

(They will still feel awful.  That’s okay.)

Then continue making that space bigger until you feel yourself expanding into someone much bigger than your physical body.

Breathe into the sky.  Stretch your budding branches out across a continent.  Let your chest contain an ocean.  Taste a constellation.

(If I just lost you, and you think I’ve gone to la-la-land, it’s fine.  Just be a kid and imagine how youmight feel if you were that big.  Pretend.)

You might find that your arms reach out wide.  You might find your breaths going deeper and wider.  You might yawn.  You might laugh, or cry, or feel your vision clear.

You might feel a sense of release.

You might just feel really fucking epic and mighty.

Whatever happens, you just got a little closer to the truth of who you are.