Suddenly, I became aware of my clinched jaws, my shoulders tensing up and my hands forming into fists. I remember being shocked when my therapist told me to try not to relax. Instead of giving into my urge to relax, she invited me to pay attention. I could then actually get a sense of my tension and there was space for it to develop into a sensation that I could register as a feeling. In other words, I became available to the information my tension was holding, which paradoxically led me to feel relaxed.

When we respond to our tension by trying to relax:

• We are not available to potential information our tensions hold. There can be a myriad of emotional undertones - be it anger, anxiety or loss - embedded in our stiffness. Thinking of our tension as information is not easy, especially when we are in the middle of feeling it. Yet, if we are not able to recognise and give space to our tension, we are left to orientate ourselves based on other people. By gradually becoming desensitised to our own truths, we end up behaving based on pressures - real or imagined - we feel from others.