Why You Can’t Always Relax on Command

“Just relax” may be one of the least relaxing instructions anyone can give you.

If relaxation worked on command, we would all simply drop our shoulders, stop clenching our jaws and turn our brains off at the end of the day.

Unfortunately, most bodies do not work that way.

You can know that you are perfectly safe and comfortable while your body is still acting like you have three more things to finish before lunch. You can be lying under a blanket in a quiet treatment room while mentally answering email.

That is why I never expect someone to walk into Moonflower Skin Lab, lie down and instantly transform into a completely relaxed person.

Think about what usually happens immediately before a facial. You finish work. You rush out the door. You drive through Austin traffic. You answer one more text in the parking lot. You walk inside while thinking about something you forgot to do.

Then five minutes later, you are supposed to be completely calm.

That is a pretty dramatic transition.

Sometimes your body just needs a minute to catch up.

This is where I find somatic awareness useful. Rather than trying to make yourself relax, you can simply start noticing what is happening.

Are your teeth touching? Are your fingers curled? Are you pushing your tongue against the roof of your mouth? Are your shoulders still slightly elevated even though you are lying down?

There is no need to immediately fix any of it.

Sometimes noticing is enough to change the pattern.

The jaw is one of the places where this becomes really obvious. The masseter is a strong muscle, and a lot of us recruit it whenever we are stressed or concentrating. You may be lying perfectly still while your jaw is still hanging on for dear life.

When I begin working around that area, clients are often surprised by how much tension they feel.

That little “Oooooh” when I find the spot is very common in my treatment room.

There is something useful about suddenly being able to feel something your body has been doing in the background all day.

That is also why I do not rush through massage.

Not every second of a facial needs to look productive.

Sometimes a slower pace is productive.

A little more time around the jaw, scalp or neck gives the body a chance to respond instead of immediately moving on to the next thing. The goal is not to force anything to release. It is to make enough room for it to soften if it wants to.

I think this is especially important because we have started treating self-care like another list of things to accomplish correctly.

Drink the water. Do the meditation. Use the gua sha. Take the supplements. Get eight hours of sleep. Fix your posture.

Even relaxation can start to feel like homework.

I do not want your facial to feel like homework.

I want to be able to talk seriously about your skin and still give you an experience where you can stop managing everything for a while.

We can work on acne, texture or dehydration and still spend extra time on your jaw. We can use professional exfoliation and still slow down. We can make changes to your home routine and acknowledge that you have been looking at a laptop since early this morning.

Those things do not cancel each other out.

Sometimes the visible result is glowing skin. Sometimes the result you notice first is that your face feels softer because your jaw is no longer clenched.

Sometimes it is both.

At Moonflower Skin Lab in South Austin, I want an Austin facial to feel like someone considered the whole person who walked through the door, not just the condition of the skin under the magnifying lamp.

Your skin matters.

So does the rest of you.