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Body Logos2010-07-27 21:49:532017-10-31 20:35:44A Beach Workout that works for the BoardroomWelcome to the BodyLogos blog. Here’s where you’ll get your dose of alignment and balance with grace. (Sign up here to join 1,000 other blog subscribers.)
Redefining Strength
I want to change our perception of strength. Strength is the ability to meet resistance and influence an outcome without compromising ourselves. And we already have it.
Strength is not an attribute; it’s a state of being. Gladiators, bodybuilders, and football players demonstrate strength through brute force, sheer willpower, muscle mass, and relentless pursuit. But we’re also quick to identify dancers and martial artists as strong. Their medium taps into a sense of vulnerability, balance, alignment, controlled power, and grace—but no one can deny their strength. Strength may look different on each of us, but it is an inherent part of who we are.
You are not weak by nature; you are stronger than you think. Your strength is not something you need to kill yourself to gain—it is already within you, waiting to be excavated. The key is to stop chasing something you already have and tap into it, so you can manifest that strength in your everyday life.
Because we don’t think we’re strong, we approach resistance with the idea that we’re not enough. We throw everything we have at it and push past our physical, mental, and emotional limitations. We see strength as domination, but it’s not.
When you learn to listen to your body’s divine wisdom, you cultivate a sense of where your body is developing tension instead of standing in its strength. You end the vicious cycle of unrealistic expectations, injury, and self-criticism and learn how to consciously embrace responsible growth. You stop compartmentalizing your strength into emotional, physical, and mental pieces and operate from the strength of your being at all times.
You learn how to align yourself with gravity—instead of working against it—so you can channel your strength to meet life’s resistance. As you meet resistance with equal parts power and alignment, you transform tension into strength
As in the sword dance above, the power lies in bringing just the right amount of force—not too little and not too much. By meeting the sword’s weight, I meet gravity. I am tapped into a larger source of energy, free of tension, and discover a strength that is wholly and uniquely mine.
About Tammy Wise
NYC Bike Lane Mayhem
by Tammy WiseAs I peddle to the curb to exit the bike lane, I get slammed by a battery operated bicycle. Out of nowhere and at the speed of a motor vehicle, he tries to pass between me and the curb.
I hear the bicycles metallic clank as they crash! The next thing I know, I’m climbing up from the ground, bewildered.
A woman asks if I’m OK?
I’m not even sure what happened, as I check myself for torn cloths or pain points.
The battery bicycle rider spoke little English, but could at least say, I’m sorry.
What strikes me, even more than the mayhem that plagues the NYC bike lanes with battery and motorized bikes making it another (but narrower) car lane, is my lapse of recall between the hit and my fall!
Shock interrupted my timeline.
This interruption has happened to me before in a motorcycle crash, when unexpectedly hit from behind; in sexual abuse, when unexpectedly woken in the night; and, when falling down a staircase, when the woman behind me unexpectedly slipped.
But other car, motorcycle or bicycle crashes, that I have seen coming, have not interrupted time?!
The unexpectedness, not the life threatening consequences, is what interrupted my experience creating a time warp. The unexpected, is what I couldn’t face, recall or feel, then or now.
The unexpected, the out-of-control, the unforeseeable, is what takes us out!
And, we’ve all experienced this phenomenon whether in or out of a shocking time warp. Being out-of-control takes us out of our mind’s comfort zone and we short circuit.
But, there’s more to this story than my mind’s timeline.
In every one of the incidents where time was interrupted, I didn’t get hurt. In fact, I was elevated in some way.
The time warp in every situation knocked out my defenses—my learned strategies—from their habitual patterns. I was unable to discern mentally the right action. Instead, my body’s intelligence took over with a perfect amount of surrender and strength to serve and protect me.
All this makes me wonder why we worry so much about what we cannot yet wrap our minds around? Would our lives be happier, and better served, if we could trust the body’s intelligence—the physical world’s involvement—to help guide us.
Could feeling out-of-control be an invitation to stay out-of-our-minds and into-our-bodies?
Next time I feel out-of-control, rather than continuing to muddle around in mental worry, I intend to consider, and act on, what my body is asking for in lieu of the situation. No time warp necessary!
If mind body alignment is intriguing to you, download my Free Mind Body Blueprint. You’ll discover the story your body’s tension is telling.