BodyLogos Blog
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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
Love: from a concept to a feeling
by Tammy WiseFred with cone and bandaged left talon.
Have you ever experienced love as a concept?
You know you’re loved. You feel gratitude, inclusion, even safety, by being in the inner circle of people’s lives.
But you feel like you don’t really belong anywhere specific. You’re a free spirit who dances with the wind.
As a single, solopreneur, woman who rides a motorcycle, I’m alone a lot. My family are four-legged and winged-ones. Even the wild NYC birds congregate and nest on my terrace.
It’s no wonder that when my 25-year-old conure––the smallest of the parrot world––got badly hurt, my free spirit crumbled to the ground in a heap of uncontrollable tears. We have shared a life for 20-years.
O my Goodness, life without my little man––Fred––felt too barren to bear. Please stop bleeding! Please don’t leave me! Please LIVE!!
My heart felt like it was being squeezed in a fist. My mind couldn’t wrap itself around how to text the vet tech (as instructed) when I arrived at the hospital doors. And, having to pass him over to a stranger on the sidewalk, because Covid prevented me from going inside, left me standing in the rain with tears streaming down my cheeks.
I tried to busy myself with work, but could hardly speak. Tears were all I had to share. My heart ached with a depth of love I hadn’t let myself fully know… until it was breaking open.
I didn’t see him again for nine hours. At 8pm I picked him up with his head in a plastic cone and his talon bandaged up making him lopsided and toppling over.
Manic, he went from spinning on the floor of his cage wrestling with the cone––unable to climb to his perches or food bowls––to collapsing with his head leaning sideways on the cone passed out.
There were times that the vet’s words, “It’s pretty bad,” echoed in my head, as I desperately tried to will him well.
Between my tasks he’d scramble to the edge of his cage to be held. Our cuddle time eased both our hearts. We’d take deep breaths together and purr like the kitties at my feet watching with wide-eyed concern.
Fred is my little man. A bird-man who has taught me of trust, loyalty, commitment, play, and most of all, love. He has melted a frozen part of my heart. The part of my heart that has been petrified to let love in again.
Well, I finally FEEL love again. It’s not a mental concept, it’s an emotional fierceness. It tugs relentlessly at my insides, until it’s quenched with touch on the outside.
Fred lives and love prevails.
Never get too busy for cuddle time. It offers belonging. Love your animal.
(Perhaps now, there’s even room for a trustworthy, loyal, committed, playful, tall, dark and handsome two-legged?!)
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