BodyLogos Blog

A Fireside Chat Ignites Old Ways

Gathered around my cousin’s Christmas Eve fire doing needlepoint, we chatted about everything and nothing. I feel relaxed, engaged and productive. She comments on how big my needlepoint project is, when I’m already so busy with work projects.

I had spoken about feeling burnt out. Frustrated, that at my age of 61-years, I was still building my work projects; and, wished that my only job now was to share my work with the world.

While she was correct in thinking that a smaller quicker project would reap a rapid reward.
And, reward is a way out of burnout!
I realized that what I needed wasn’t a bonus or a reward, it was easeful engagement with my creativity!

Her enquiry made me aware of my mindset. I was soothed by the doing. The reward of a finished product was something else. The reward has never been what motivated me to create. I was inspired to create. I learned who I am by creating. Creating has been a need, not a job.

A reward, if or when it would come, was in addition to the easeful engagement I was experiencing while crafting. Self-development was what felt rewarding as I went along.

Easeful engagement feels like engaging with your own unique rhythm.
It’s in flow—in right relationship—with your spirit.
A physical connected-ness that’s truer than anything else I know.

As my Christmas visit continued, my needlepoint and mindset emerged together into a resolution.

My old way of creating—becoming a dancer, writing a book, building an app, crafting a program—wasn’t made on deadlines. I just trained, wrote, built and crafted to the beat of my own drum.

I allowed the process—my creativity—to dictate the speed of my development. I followed my body’s connected-ness.

After multiple business courses I’ve been instructed to create deadlines for accountability. To lead with mental authority. A deadline that I’ve come to realize thwarts my creativity and makes me chase time.

My needlepoint mindset brought me back to my old way of engaging with my Self. A way that is curious about what’s inside me, what interests me, what could support my development.

Tao writings say: “How do you know what is right for the world, by knowing what is right for your own life.”

My resolution this year is to reclaim my creative spirit as the Source of my work. I promise to listen, rather than make demands, to what wants to be expressed and when. And, return to Source timing.

Easeful engagement is what makes me happy, and what makes me happy supports what I create, how I develop, and (I believe) the way the world will respond to it. Even if it takes a little longer.

Happy New Year everyone!
May your relationship with time be a guide and mirror for you throughout 2024!

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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

Tammy Wise is a widely respected mind-body fitness expert based out of New York City, owner of BodyLogos, Inc. author of The Art of Strength: Sculpt the Body ~ Train the Mind. A former Broadway dancer turned Tao minister, Tammy was voted the Best of Fitness by Time Out New York and has appeared in Martha Stewart’s Whole Living magazine, New York Magazine, Natural Health, Shape, and Thrive Global. She’s a Transformational Authors Contest Winner and regular contributor to Honeysuckle magazine and Medium. Visit her at bodylogos.com.