Learning the art of destressing

Feb 10, 2023

By Mercy Almeida
The Church of St Jude played host to some 34 participants of The Art of Destressing And Letting Go on January 28 and 29. The two-day session on destressing was conducted by Fr Charles Chin.

The session began on Saturday morning with a brief introduction on the various techniques used by people to de-stress. Fr Chin emphasised that the techniques he would be teaching were methods which were logical, understandable and verifiable once there was evidence of success. In order for these methods to work, he said “one would need to practise it daily”.

His first session was on Observing Our Breath. He said “once you learn to focus on your breathing with no craving nor aversion, the sensation of stress and inner trauma will emerge to pass away and eventually you will be stress free”.

The second day began with a quick recap of what was learnt the previous day. Fr Charles introduced another technique called Body Scanning 1. He asked the participants to scan their own bodies with the ray of mindfulness, moving systematically from top to bottom and vice versa. They were told not to jump from one sensation to another. After being aware of a sensation, they had to stay with it a little longer and then move on. If a certain part of the body was hurting, then look at it in your mind with tender loving care. Healing will be the final by-product.

In Body Scanning 2, the participants were asked to be mindful of their breathing. When they breathe in, they recognise their bodies, and when they breath out, they smile at the body, looking at it with tender loving care and reassuring the body that it will be taken care of.

The next technique taught was The Power of Look. Masaru Emoto, author and pseudoscientist, studied the crystalline form of water and photographed the changes brought to it from various human influences.

Water with positive message made beautiful crystals while the water with negative message made deformed crystals.

Masaru concluded that people’s thoughts, feelings and words directly affected the crystal structure of water, which seems to react like a living entity. Using this theory, Fr Charles said that since the body was made up of 60 -70 per cent of water, we must look at our body with love, thus healing it from within.

Finally, we learned about The Power of the Present Moment. We are to look at our breath from moment to moment with awareness. Breathing anchors us to the present moment because each breath takes place only in the present moment, thus gradually the sensation of stress and inner trauma will emerge to go away.

“I have heard about meditation and inner healing, but the technique I learned today is easily understood and practised,” said participant Chetna Jeyakant.

The only youth representative, Jeshua Raphael, added that it was his very first experience. To him, the methods taught were easy to comprehend and follow.

Angel Innasi, one of the organisers of the event, said she was looking forward to the next session with Fr Charles. The organising team then presented Fr Charles with a small token of appreciation.