Raising your vibration in this context means one specific thing: moving your body out of a contracted, defended, low energy state and into an open, expanded one. Not mystical. The quality of your energy field feels different depending on the state your body is in. Settled and open is one thing. Braced and defended is another. You can feel the difference long before you have a word for it.
Why the word puts people off
Because it has been used to mean cheerfulness, and it does not mean cheerfulness.
Raising your vibration has nothing to do with being positive about things that are not fine. You are not required to feel good. Plenty of the most open, settled states I have been in have been sad.
What it describes is a quality, not a mood. Dense or spacious. Gripped or loose. You already know the difference, because you have been in both this week.
And if the word is a barrier for you, drop it. Call it opening. Nothing is lost.
Surrender means releasing your grip on the contracted energy you've been holding. Not giving up. Not being passive. The active, intentional act of letting stored energy move rather than holding it down with will.
Where the grip actually is
Usually in 1 of 4 places, and most people have a regular.
The jaw, held very slightly, all day, as though halfway through a sentence you decided not to say. The throat, which feels like swallowing something. The chest, which feels like bracing for impact. The belly, which goes quiet and hard and makes eating feel like an imposition.
You will not find it by looking. You find it by stopping, which is why it is so rarely found. Nobody stops for long enough to notice what they have been doing with their shoulders since March.
Try it now, actually. Where is your tongue. Where are your shoulders. What is your jaw doing. Something will have been holding on, and it will let go a little just from being noticed, which tells you how little it was being asked to do that for.
In the workshop we demonstrate the difference between forcing and surrendering through breath. Forcing: take a breath and pull it in as hard as you can. Force your chest to expand. Grip it. Hold it. Feel your energy field. Dense? Contracted? Now, this time, don't breathe in. Just open. Create space. Let the breath arrive.
Feel the difference. Forcing contracts. Opening expands. An expanded field is a high frequency field. It's that simple. And it's that profound.
Why that small demonstration does so much
Because it settles an argument in about 20 seconds that would otherwise take an hour of explaining.
Most of us have been taught that effort is the answer to everything, including rest. So when somebody says relax, we do the forcing version. We pull the breath in, we try harder at calm, we grip.
The demonstration shows you, in your own body, that the result of trying harder is less space. You do not have to be convinced of it. You felt it.
And once you have felt it once, you can find it again in a queue, in a waiting room, in the 30 seconds before a difficult phone call. That is the part that leaves the room with you.
What people try first, and why it does not hold
The first thing most people try is more effort. A longer session, a stricter routine, a harder version of the practice. Which is forcing, applied to surrender, and it does exactly what the demonstration shows.
The second thing people try is waiting for the feeling. You sit down, nothing happens, you conclude it is not working. But opening is not a sensation to be achieved. It is what is left when you stop doing the other thing.
The third is doing it only when things are bad. Which is understandable and also the hardest possible conditions. A body that has been braced for 3 weeks is not going to open in 4 minutes on the worst evening of the month.
What holds better is small and frequent and boring. 30 seconds, several times a day, mostly when you do not need it. The point is to make the open state familiar enough that your body can find its way back there under pressure.
What to notice
Notice the difference between letting go and collapsing. Letting go has tone in it. You are not slumping, you are not holding.
Notice what happens about 4 breaths in, when the mind usually offers you something urgent to think about instead. That is the grip trying a different route.
Notice whether you can stay open while something is unresolved. That is the real skill, and it is a long way from the cushion.
Notice how you come out of it. Standing up straight into a list of tasks undoes most of it. 1 slow minute at the end is worth more than 5 extra at the beginning.
And notice that nothing about this requires belief in anything at all. You are working with what your own body does. The explanation can come later or never.
What the workshop actually is
The workshop is 60 minutes, lying down throughout. Nothing is asked of you except that you stay and notice.
A recording is available afterwards for people who would rather do it at home, or who want to come back to it.
More like this
How my breath held me through my own reset, and how it can hold you too. https://www.annalouwellness.com/life/breathwork-the-most-underrated-nervous-system-tool-available-to-you-right-now
The Violet Light Technique, the daily visualisation I give every client. https://www.annalouwellness.com/life/the-violet-light-technique-the-daily-visualisation-i-give-every-client
What spiritual hygiene actually is, and why it changes everything. https://www.annalouwellness.com/love-and-relationships/what-spiritual-hygiene-actually-is-and-why-it-changes-everything
If you would like to try it, email me at anna@annalouoflondon.com or message me on WhatsApp at https://wa.me/447738470156 and I will tell you when the next one is running.