Mind Games

I always look forward to things like massages, facial treatments and mani/pedis. Outside of the external benefits, opportunities like this are relaxing.. or at least are supposed to be.

I realize that while I may be physically resting from running around, time to "relax" has allowed my mind to run amuck. The funniest thing is that I always catch myself. Then begins this mental battle where I force myself to think about things that are supposed to be relaxing.. green meadows, blue skies.. heck I even try to count sheep. This either drifts back to something I'm worrying about or to the other inevitable; I fall asleep. Nothing wrong with snoozing I suppose, but I always feel that when I fall asleep, I'm being cheated out of peronal relaxation time. Lol.

It's like the mind DOESN'T know how to relax when given the opportunity to do so. So how DO you relax your mind?

Strangely, doing things that need my focus and ONLY my focus are mind relaxing for me. Activities like filing papers, fixing my files on my computer, editing photos and painting have all won gold stars in my book. Perhaps a level up would be things that require minimal / indulgent things for the mind such as de-cluttering and reading. Some people call these activities mind numbing but dare I say that mind numbing is akin, if not the same as relaxing?

Not that I'll be stopping massages and the like. But it was something I was mulling over recently while.. well you guessed it, while trying to relax.