As a psychotherapist, one of my most important tasks is to give clients tools to take with them into their daily lives. We all have gaps in our knowledge of how to best approach and live life. For thousands of years different traditions have taught people how to relax and thus experience life more fully, make better decisions and get in touch with innate wisdom. Yoga, meditation, tai chi, and visualization come to mind immediately.
A year ago I discovered an excellent tool for learning the skill of relaxation that I now use personally and offer to clients. It is called The Journey to Wild Divine-a biofeedback program for the computer that guides the user through a virtual realm where he or she is prompted to engage in various exercises using breath and mindfulness to complete tasks. Sensors are placed on three fingers of one hand to monitor the variation between heartbeats and something called SCL (skin conductance levels), which in short is the measure of activity of the sweat glands on your fingers. These two different kinds of sensors together measure how relaxed a person is.
The program is set up like a game but offers direct feedback on the user’s level of relaxation through visual cues. Tasks vary from using laughter to juggle balls in the air, to entering into a deep state of relaxation to make rain fall. While the visuals are stunningly beautiful and the tasks challenging and fun, the tool the user is learning is to become more conscious of how breath and state of mind effect our ability to approach each moment of life with greater awareness. As we begin to know this and remember it when we’re going through the day, we can use the breathing techniques to make ourselves calmer and more present when we might otherwise feel anxious and overwhelmed.
Obviously this is just one of many resources out there for learning and practicing mindfulness and relaxation. The reason I love it and offer it as a tool for clients is because it’s fun and can be used by anyone, regardless of how coordinated or limber they are. It does involve spending some money and having a computer in your home. For those in Boulder, Colorado curious about it, please feel free to contact me regarding the use of my program and office space for a small fee.
Happy Journeys!
