I currently have a small eye twitch—in my right lower eyelid. Usually these things are related to stress. So, ok, I accept the stress; I don’t like it, but I accept it. And I’ve started to have a little fun with it, and here’s how:

You see, over the years that I’ve been working on meditation and breath-work, I’ve learned that I have A LOT of control over what seems to be involuntary muscle spasms. Whenever my eye twitches, I just accept it, and return to breathing slowly and with a smooth rhythm; I mindfully relax my face, first noticing what parts may be tensed up that I wasn’t aware were tense; then I imagine breathing into the twitch and sending a conscious message of ‘relax’ to the muscle. And POOF it stops—EVERY SINGLE TIME!!

That’s where the fun comes in. . . every single time it just stops in response to me mindfully breathing and mindfully sending an instruction to the eyelid, it amuses me; it makes me laugh that my body can give me this cool little reminder that seems to be involuntary, but upon slowing down and becoming mindful reveals itself to be open to voluntary control! How funny!!

It’s not a big thing, but it is a real thing. And it is so small that it makes it OK to just chuckle at. Major life ‘twitches’ sometimes don’t seem so open to this. I believe that it may be more complicated because we still have egos that try to masquerade as our ‘real’ self, but the same concept of open mindfulness and intentional direction can and DO help when we practice enough.

So, don’t fight the twitches; acknowledge them, breathe, relax, send intentional messages to your body that are healthy. It will respond. I am not talking about magical cures for cancer, overnight resolution of deep depression, etc. but I am, however, talking about the ground work for making progress on those larger things.

Notice, breathe, relax, and be clear on intention.