Relax for Easy Power

Relax for Easy Power



"EVERY NIGHT in these United States more than six million sleeping tablets are required to put the American people to sleep."


This startling statement was made to me several years ago by a drug manufacturer at a convention of that industry where I was giving a speech. Though his assertion seemed incredible, I have been told by others who are in a position to know that the above estimate is now an understatement.


In fact, I heard another good authority assert that the American people are using about twelve million doses of sleeping tablets per day. That is enough to put every twelfth American to sleep tonight. Statistics show that the use of sleeping tablets has risen 1000 per cent in recent years. But a more recent statement is even more startling. According to the vice-president of a large drug manufacturing concern approximately seven billion one-half-grain tablets are consumed yearly, which works out at about nineteen million tablets per night.


What a pathetic situation. Sleep is a natural restorative process. One would think that any person after a day’s work would be able to sleep peacefully, but apparently Americans have even lost the art of sleeping. In fact, so keyed up are they that I, a minister with ample opportunity to test the matter, must report that the American people are so nervous and high-strung that now it is almost next to impossible to put them to sleep with a sermon. It has been years since I have seen anyone sleep in church. And that is a sad situation.


A Washington official who loves to juggle figures, especially astronomical- figures, told me that last year in the United States there was a total of seven and a half billion headaches. This works itself out at approximately fifty headaches per head per annum. Have you had your quota yet this year? Just how this official arrived at these figures he did not say, but shortly after our conversation I noticed a report that in a recent year the drug industry sold eleven million pounds of aspirin. Perhaps this era might appropriately be termed "The Aspirin Age," as one author has
called it.


An authoritative source declares that every other hospital bed in the United States is occupied by a patient who was put there not because he encountered a germ or had an accident or developed an organic malady, but because of his inability to organize and discipline his emotions.


In a clinic five hundred patients were examined hand running and 386, or 77 per cent, were found to be ill of psychosomatic difficulties—physical illness caused largely by unhealthy mental states. Another clinic made a study of a large number of ulcer cases and reported that nearly half were made ill, not as the result of physical troubles, but because the patients worried too much or hated too much, had too much guilt, or were tension victims.


A doctor from still another clinic made the observation that in his opinion medical men, despite all extraordinary scientific developments, are now able to heal by the means of science alone less than half the maladies brought them. He declares that in many cases patients are sending back into their bodies the diseased thoughts of their minds. Prominent among these diseased thoughts are anxiety and tension.


This unhappy situation has become so serious that in our own Marble Collegiate Church, Fifth Avenue at 29th Street, New York City, we now have twelve psychiatrists on the staff under the supervision of Dr. Smiley Blanton. Why psychiatrists on the staff of a church? The answer is that psychiatry is a science. Its function is the analysis, diagnosis, and treatment of human nature according to certain well-authenticated laws and procedures.


Christianity may also be thought of as a science. It is a philosophy, a system of theology, a system of meta-physics, and a system of worship. It also works itself out in moral and ethical codes. But Christianity also has the characteristics of a science in that it is based upon a book which contains a system of techniques and formulas designed for the understanding and treatment of human nature. The laws are so precise and have been so often demonstrated when proper conditions of understanding, belief, and practice are applied that religion may be said to form an exact science.


When a person comes to our clinic the first counselor is perhaps a psychiatrist who in a kindly and careful manner studies the problem and tells the patient "why he does what he does." This is a most important fact to learn. Why, tor example, have you had an inferiority complex all your life long, or why have you been haunted by fear, or, again, why do you nurse resentment? Why have you always been shy and reticent, or why do you do stupid things or make inept statements? These phenomena of your human nature do not just happen. There is a reason why you do what you do and it is an important day in your life experience when at last you discover the reason. Self-knowledge is the beginning of self-correction.


Following the self-knowledge process the psychiatrist turns the patient over to the pastor who tells him how to do what he ought to do. The pastor applies to the case, in scientific and systematic form, the therapies of prayer, faith, and love. The psychiatrist and the minister pool their knowledge and combine their therapies with the result that many people have found new life and happiness. The minister does not attempt to be a psychiatrist nor the psychiatrist a pastor. Each performs his own function but always in co-operation.


The Christianity utilized in this procedure is the undiluted teachings of Jesus Christ, Lord and Saviour of man’s life. We believe in the practical, absolute workability of the teachings of Jesus. We believe that we can indeed "do all things through Christ." (Php 4:13) The Gospel as we work with it proves to be a literal fulfillment of the astonishing promise, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." (1Co 2:9) Believe (in Christ); believe in His system of thought and practice; believe and you will overcome all fear, hate, inferiority, guilt, and every form and manner of defeat. In other words, no good thing is too good to be true. You have never seen, never heard, never even imagined the things God will give to those who love Him.


In the work of the clinic one frequent problem is that of tension. This, to a very large degree, may be called the prevailing malady of the American people. But not only the American people seem to suffer from tension. The Royal Bank of Canada some time ago devoted its monthly letter to this problem under the title, "Let’s Slow Down," and says in part: "This monthly letter does not set itself up as a counselor of mental and physical health, but it is attempting to break down a problem that bedevils every adult person in Canada," and, I might add, in the United States as
well.


The bank letter goes on to say: "We are victims of a mounting tension; we have difficulty in relaxing. Our high-strung nervous systems are on a perpetual binge. Caught up as we are in the rush all day, every day, and far into the night, we are not living fully. We must remember what Carlyle called ‘the calm supremacy of the spirit over its circumstances.’ "


When a prominent banking institution calls to the attention of its customers the fact that they are failing to derive from life what they really want from it because they have become victims of tension, it is certainly time something was done about the situation.


In St. Petersburg, Florida, I actually saw a machine on the street equipped with a sign, "What is your blood pressure?" You could put a coin in a slot and get the bad news. When you can buy a reading on blood pressure like you buy gum out of a slot machine, it indicates that many people have this problem.


One of the simplest methods for reducing tension is to practice the easy-does-it attitude. Do everything more slowly, less hectically, and without pressure. My friend Branch Rickey, famous baseball man, told me that he would not use a player no matter how well he hits, fields, or runs it he is guilty of "overpressing." To be a successful big-league baseball player there must be a flow of easy power through every action and of course through the mind. The most effective way to hit a ball is by the easy method, where all the muscles are flexible and operating in correlated power. Try to kill the ball and you will slice it or maybe miss it altogether. This is true in golf, in baseball, in every sport.


In a world series game many years ago Ty Cobb, one of the greatest heroes in baseball, hit four home runs, a record so far as I know that has never been surpassed. Ty Cobb presented the bat with which he performed this extraordinary feat to a friend of mine. I was permitted to take this bat in my hand, which I did with considerable awe. In the spirit of the game I struck a pose, as if to bat. Doubtless my batting stance was not in any sense reminiscent of the immortal slugger. In fact, my friend, who was himself at one time a minor league baseball player, chuckled and said, "Ty Cobb would never do it that way. You are too rigid, too tense. You are obviously overtrying. You would probably strike out."


It was beautiful to watch Ty Cobb. The man and the bat were one. It was a study in rhythm, and one marveled at the ease with which he got into the swing. He was a master of easy power. It is the same in all success. Analyze people who are really efficient and they always seem to do things easily, with a minimum of effort. In so doing they release maximum power.


One of my friends, a famous businessman who handles important affairs and varied interests, always seems to be at ease. He does everything efficiently and quickly but is never in a dither. He never has that anxious, frazzled look on his face which marks people who cannot handle either their time or their work. I inquired the secret of his obviously easy power.


He smiled and replied, "Oh, it isn’t much of a secret. I just try to keep myself in tune with God. That’s all. Every morning after breakfast," he explained, "my wife and I go into the living room for a period of quietness. One of us reads aloud some inspirational piece to get us into the mood of meditation. It may be a poem or a few paragraphs of a book. Following that we sit quietly, each praying or meditating according to his own mood and manner, then together we affirm the thought that God is filling us with strength and quiet energy. This is a definite fifteen-minute
ritual and we never miss it. We couldn’t get along without it. We would crack up. As a result I always seem to feel that I have more energy than I need and more power than is required." So said this efficient man who demonstrates easy power. I know a number of men and women who practice this or similar techniques for reducing tension. It is becoming a quite general and popular procedure nowadays. One February morning I was rushing down the long veranda of a Florida hotel with a handful of mail just in from my office in New York. I had come to Florida for a midwinter vacation, but hadn’t seemed to get out of the routine of dealing with my mail the first thing in the morning. As I hurried by, headed for a couple of hours’ work with that mail, a friend from Georgia who was sitting in a rocking chair with his hat partially over his eyes stopped me in my headlong rush and said in his slow and pleasant Southern drawl, "Where are you rushing for, Doctor? That’s no way to do down here in the Florida sunshine. Come over here and ‘set’ in one of these rocking chairs and help me practice one of the greatest of the arts."


Mystified, I said, "Help you practice one of the greatest of the arts!"


"Yes," he replied, "an art that is passing out. Not many people know how to do it any more."


"Well," I asked, "please tell me what it is. I don’t see you practicing any art."


"Oh, yes, I am," he said. "I am practicing the art of just sittin’ in the sun. Sit here and let the sun fall on your face. It is warm-like and it smells good. It makes you feel peaceful inside. Did you ever think about the sun?" he asked. "It never hurries, never gets excited, it just works slowly and makes no noise—doesn’t push any buzzers, doesn’t answer any telephones, doesn’t ring any bells, just goes on a-shining, and the sun does more work in the fraction of an instant than you and I could ever do in a lifetime. Think of what it does. It causes the flowers to bloom, keeps the trees growing, warms the earth, causes the fruit and vegetables to grow and the crops to ripen, lifts water to send back on the earth, and it makes you feel ‘peaceful like.’"


"I find that when I sit in the sun and let the sun work on me it puts some rays into me that give me energy; that is, when I take time to sit in the sun."


"So throw that mail over in the corner," he said, "and sit down here with me."


I did so, and when finally I went to my room and got at my mail I finished it in no time at all. And there was a good part of the day left for vacation activities and for more "sittin’ in the sun."


Of course I know a lot of lazy people who have been sittin’ in the sun all their lives and never amounted to anything. There is a difference between sittin’ and relaxing, and just sittin’. But if you sit and relax and think about God and get yourself in tune with Him and open yourself to the flow of His power, then sittin’ is not laziness; in fact, it is about the best way to renew power. It produces driving energy, the kind of energy you drive, not the kind that drives you. The secret is to keep the mind quiet, avoiding all hectic reactions of haste, and to practice peaceful thinking. The essence of the art is to keep the tempo down; to perform your responsibilities on the basis of the most efficient conservation of energy. It is advisable to adopt one or two workable plans through the use of which you can become expert in the practice of relaxed and easy power.


One of the best such plans was suggested to me by Captain Eddie Rickenbacker. A very busy man, he manages to handle his responsibilities in a manner indicating reserves of power. I found one element of his secret quite by accident. I was filming a program for television with him. We had been assured that the work could be done quickly, leaving him free to go to the many other matters on his daily agenda.


However, the filming was delayed long beyond the time anticipated. I noted, however, that the Captain showed no signs of agitation. He did not become nervous or anxious. He did not pace up and down, putting in frantic calls to his office. Instead, he accepted the situation gracefully. There were a couple of old rocking chairs at the studio, apparently intended for use in a set other than ours. He sat in one rocker in a very relaxed manner.


I have always been a great admirer of Eddie Rickenbacker and I commented on his lack of tension. "I know how busy you are," I said, "and I marvel at the way you sit quiet, composed, and peaceful like."


For myself, I was a bit disturbed largely because I regretted to take so much of Captain Rickenbacker’s time. "How can you be so imperturbable?" I asked. He laughingly replied, "Oh, I just practice what you preach. Come on, easy does it. Sit down here beside me."


I pulled up the other rocking chair and did a little relaxing on my own. Then I said, "Eddie, I know you have some technique to attain this impressive serenity. Tell me about it, please."


He is a modest man, but because of my persistence he gave me a formula which he says he uses frequently. I now use it myself and it is very effective. It may be described as follows:


First, collapse physically. Practice this several times a day. Let go every muscle in the body. Conceive of yourself as a jellyfish, getting your body into complete looseness. Form a mental picture of a huge burlap bag of potatoes. Then mentally cut the bag, allowing the potatoes to roll out. Think of yourself as the bag. What is more relaxed than an empty burlap bag?


The second element in the formula is to "drain the mind." Several times each day drain the mind of all irritation, all resentment, disappointment, frustration, and annoyance. Unless you drain the mind frequently and regularly, these unhappy thoughts will accumulate until a major blasting-out process will be necessary. Keep the mind drained of all factors which would impede the How of relaxed power. Third, think spiritually. To think spiritually means to turn the mind at regular intervals to God. At least three times a day "lift up your eyes unto the hills."


This keeps you in tune with God’s harmony. It refills you with peace.


This three-point program greatly impressed me, and I have been practicing it for some months. It is an excellent method for relaxing and living on the basis of easy does it.


From my friend Dr. Z. Taylor Bercovitz, of New York City, I have learned much of the art of working relaxed. Often when under pressure, with an office full of patients and telephone calls coming .in, he will suddenly stop, lean against his desk, and talk to the Lord in a manner both natural and respectful. I like the style of his prayer. He tells me that it runs something like this:


"Look, Lord, I am pushing myself too hard. I am getting jittery. Here I am counseling people to practice quietness, now I must practice it. Touch me with your healing peace. Give me composure, quietness, strength, and conserve my nervous energy so that I can help these people who come to me."


He stands quietly for a minute or two. Then he thanks the Lord and proceeds with full but easy power to do his work.


Often in making sick calls about the city he finds himself in a traffic jam. He has a most interesting method of using these potentially irritating delays as opportunities to relax. Shutting off his engine, he slumps in his seat, putting his head back, closing his eyes, and has even been known to go to sleep. He says there is no reason to be concerned about going to sleep because the strident honking of horns will awaken him when traffic begins to move.


These interludes of complete relaxation in the midst of traffic last for only a minute or two, but they have energy-renewal value. It is surprising how many minutes or fractions of minutes during the day you can use to rest where you are. If even in such fractional periods you deliberately draw on God’s power, you can maintain adequate relaxation. It isn’t length of relaxation time that produces power; it is the quality of the experience.


I am told that Roger Babson, the famous statistician, frequently goes into an empty church and sits quietly. Perhaps he reads one or two hymns and in so doing finds rest and renewal. Dale Carnegie, under tension, goes to a church near his New York City office to spend a quarter-hour in prayerful meditation. He says he leaves his office for this purpose when busiest. This demonstrates control of time rather than being controlled by it. It also indicates watchfulness lest tension develop beyond a controllable degree.


I encountered a friend on a train from Washington to New York one night. This man is a member of Congress and he explained that he was on his way to his district to speak at a meeting of his constituents. The particular group he was about to address was hostile to him, he said, and would probably try to make things very difficult for him. Although they represented a minority in his district, he was going to face them just the same.


"They are American citizens and I am their representative. They have a right to meet with me if they want to."


"You do not seem to be much worried about it," I commented.


"No," he answered, "if I get worried about it, then I will be upset and will not handle the situation well."


"Do you have any particular method for handling such a tense situation?" I asked.


"Oh, yes," he replied, "they will be a noisy crowd. But I have my own way of meeting such situations without tension. I will breathe deeply, talk quietly, speak sincerely, be friendly and respectful, hold my temper, and trust in God to see me through."


"I have learned one important fact," the Congressman continued, "and that is in any situation be relaxed, keep calm, take a friendly attitude, have faith, do your best. Do this, and usually you can make things come out all right."


I have no doubt about the ability of this Congressman to live and work without tension, and, what is more, successfully to attain his objectives.


When we were doing some construction work at my farm in Pawling, New York, I watched a workman swinging a shovel. He was shoveling a pile of sand. It was a beautiful sight. Stripped to the waist, his lean and muscular body worked with precision and correlation. The shovel rose and fell in perfect rhythm. He would push the shovel into the pile, lean his body against it, and drive it deep into the sand. Then, in a clear, free swing it came up and the sand was deposited without a break in the motion. Again the shovel went back into the sand, again his body leaned against it, again the shovel lifted easily in a perfect arc. One almost had a feeling that he
could sing in rhythm to the motion of this workman. Indeed the man did sing as he worked.


I was not surprised when the foreman told me that he is considered one of his best workmen. The foreman also spoke of him as good-humored, happy, and a pleasant person with whom to work. Here was a relaxed man who lived with joyous power, master of the art of easy does it.


Relaxation results from re-creation, and the process of re-creation should be continuous. The human being is meant to be attached to a continual flow of force that proceeds from God through the individual and back to God for renewal. When one lives in tune with this constantly re-creative process he learns the indispensable quality to relax and work on the basis of easy does it.


Now, how to master this skill. Here are ten rules for taking the hard way out of your job. Try these proven methods for working hard easily. They will help you to relax and have easy power.


1. Don’t get the idea that you are Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. Don’t strain so hard. Don’t take yourself so seriously.


2. Determine to like your work. Then it will become a pleasure, not drudgery. Perhaps you do not need to change your job. Change yourself and your work will seem different.


3. Plan your work—work your plan. Lack of system produces that "I’m swamped" feeling.

4. Don’t try to do everything at once. That is why time is spread out. Heed that wise advice from the Bible, "This one thing I do."


5. Get a correct mental attitude, remembering that ease or difficulty in your work depends upon how you think about it. Think it’s hard and you make it hard. Think it’s easy and it tends to become easy.


6. Become efficient in your work. "Knowledge is power" (over your job). It is always easier to do a thing right.


7. Practice being relaxed. Easy always does it. Don’t press or tug. Take it in your stride.


8. Discipline yourself not to put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Accumulation of undone jobs makes your work harder. Keep your work up to schedule.


9. Pray about your work. You will get relaxed efficiency by so doing.


10. Take on the "unseen partner." It is surprising the load He will take off you.


God is as much at home in offices, factories, stores, kitchens, as in churches. He knows more about your job than you do. His help will make your work easy.

(Source: Power of Positive Thinking by Normal Vincent Peale)