BodyLogos Blog
Welcome 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
This Holiday Taught Me that Less is More
by Tammy WiseCreativity and kitchen traditions kept me on track as the holiday neared. But when the holiday countdown started, the absence of grounding human contact triggered my deepest wounds around belonging.
Shadows crept in. No holiday gatherings to distract my attention. Alone with my feelings, entrapped in long dark lonely nights, the winter solstice haunts my hopes with self-doubt.
In this moment it feels like he’s saying: less distractions lead to more unresolved emotions?
Great! *%!?^¥!
But I believe his sentiment was: do less and more will take care of itself.
My feelings and Lao Tzu’s sentiment were miles apart.
So, I did less.
Rather than distracting, convincing or devaluing my unpleasant feelings, I stop fighting them and let my haunting emotions express themselves. I allow hopelessness to surface. Experience the emotional upheaval and physical wail of disappointment to be amplified at the mic of my life.
O My God, I even broke down crying during a client session. In between tears I pleaded, “I just need some Christmas Magic!” Very unprofessional!
The beliefs that haunt me are given a voice. Beliefs that need my attention insist that they be witnessed. An under the surface posture that needs realigning feels like it’s resurrecting itself. Change is a choice that is starting to be visible on the horizon.
But really, did my haunting beliefs have to use my client’s time to amplify! I’m hired to amplify Relaxed Strength—yikes, my reputation is sunk!
Hopelessness was my over-riding emotion through five-days of tears. I might define this experience as believing in my deepest, most crippling, fears. But in an odd way, fully experiencing it felt like scratching an itch that had been there for as long as I could recall.
I don’t know how to feel differently in these days of decompression. Accumulated disappointments are unleashed and unharnessed. Yet, I continue to reflect on
I continue to non-do. Deliberately listening to my fears, and doing nothing to defend or embellish them. I just allow them to surface: words made me teary; silence or music made me cry out loud; flowers delivered made me wail.
Christmas Day was a Zooming whirlwind. Distractions filled with delight were the perfect respite. I’m bathed in gratitude.
The following morning I learn a client died Christmas Day. The outward spin of Christmas quickly returned to an inward reflection.
I wonder where the Christmas Magic really is?
A text came in from the client I cried uncontrollably with, “I just emailed you a special Christmas card!”
What followed was the Magic I pleaded for!
A video of loving sentiments from three generations, from three states, and the family dog, were edited together to give voice to their love for me. Not just what I do for them; but who I am and what I represent in the world as a being was seen, expressed and appreciated.
An ensemble of hope-filled messages challenge my haunting beliefs.
This wasn’t a card, this was Christmas Magic.
Magic that recalibrated my beliefs. Reminding me that I am lovable, I am relevant, and even in my times of need, I am respected.
I share this story to remind you to ride the turning tides of hope. Rest on rays of light, be they delightful distractions or gracious sentiment, as you let hopelessness teach you what your deepest fears are.
Stop fighting, relax and see your shadow clearly; feel it wholly. Without this clarity, creating the change you want to see in your life is like playing darts blindfolded.
I am grateful to be in a safe enough place to let my greatest fears surface, knowing that I have the support and tools to regain my sense of wellbeing. There are so many people who live in unsafe places, that have no freedom to dive deeper into their suffering, so they can learn to realign with and reclaim their own unique Magic.
I recognize how privileged I am to explore the shadow’s in my life. Privilege, however is, by no means, without struggle! But, I am delighted that my struggle is being lived out with the people I now surround myself with.
May we relax with Less to realize what More means.
Happy New Year ~ Tammy