BodyLogos Blog

Create Me-Space Throughout Your Day

A joyful young woman

Do you like your job?

Well it turns out a staggering 70% of employees either, hate or are completely disengaged from their jobs.

This Gallup poll also said that even alluring workplace perks like nap rooms, free lunches, and massages did nothing to improve engagement.

It makes sense. Perks don’t address how we connect with our jobs. They distract us from our jobs.

Flex-time––personal time––offered workers the highest sense of well-being with a 44% satisfaction rate!

People want personal time and me-space throughout their days.

Flexibility to create our own hours, work from home, or take time outs whenever needed, gives us perspective. We are given the freedom to decide if the job we are doing rocks our world or doesn’t.

When we decide that we are where we want to be in our lives we get busy living it!

Disengagement, on the other hand, is a symptom of being uninspired. More often than not, this disconnect is with ourselves; the job is secondary. This can happen when responsibilities override our genuine interest. Once lost in a state of restraint, we become oblivious to our own authority and hunger. What is blaring, is the needs of the job, not our interest in the job.

Tao te Ching states:

The Tao is called the Great Mother:

Empty yet inexhaustible,

It gives birth to infinite worlds.

It is always present within you.

You can use it any way you want.

Lao Tsu

You can “use it anyway you want,” if you are still engaged with it.

Here’s the thing… your relationship with your job changes task by task. The need for connecting with your inner-authority––your need for me-space––is a revolving door that is always in motion. To extend yourself beyond the restraint of responsibilities, with interest rather than obligation, engage inwardly as deeply as you engage outwardly––STRETCH!

The more work that piles up the less effective it is to pull job responsibilities onto your already full plate. This overflows your comfort zone and contracts your stance––you feel inundated. Rather, when inundated, expand your self toward your work instead of your full plate. This distinction is crucial!

Stretch your world, your job and yourself.

Give birth to interest.

T. Wise

How do we give ourselves me-space when work piles up?

Posture is a simple way to create me-space so you never get so disengaged from your personal wants that you’re lost. To deflect the habit of pulling work inward, address your biceps muscles. Rather than contracting them, like when folded into a computer screen or hauling heavy objects, relax them.

Relaxed biceps open you in the direction of your attention, as if inviting an exchange. This changes the direction of your attention from inward to outward.

Try this…

When at the computer:

  • Sit with forearms resting on each side of your computer with palms up.
  • Relax your shoulder blades down through your bent elbows. This will open your chest and drop your shoulders.
    • Feel how the biceps muscles, that pass through the inside fold of your elbows, are relaxed even though they’re still folded
  • To type rotate your palms down without disturbing the elbows downward direction of weight.
    • Feel how the biceps muscles relaxed state allows your chest to stay open to receive. You stop grasping for what you need and instead invite what you need in.
  • If your elbows start to splay outward, notice how the biceps and chest start to grab and so does your attention. Self correct until your elbows learn a new habit.

When standing or walking:

  • Stand with arms down at your sides; relax your shoulder blades down through arms.
  • Rotate biceps and palms forward. This will open your chest and drop your shoulders.
    • Feel the biceps muscles open toward what you’re facing.
  • Walk with this rotation and feel how this outward attention opens you to receive what you pass by. A light exchange of energy happens with everything that’s alive.

Your body, mind and Spirit constantly need to integrate into its surroundings. If you’re too busy doing your job to be able to feel interested in it, release your biceps for a moment and breathe. You will be surprised how quickly you are inspired back into action.

To learn more about the BodyLogos technique, here’s a quick relaxation trick to Surrender Tension in 8-Minutes.

A Thanksgiving Blessing Rose Out of a Thanksgiving Rejection.

/
One year and nine months after my sister Sherry’s death,…

The Cages We Live In

/
Like Noah’s Arch, I’ve always found it helpful to care…

Am I Pretty Enough?

/
My job was to sit quietly and let the potions do their magic,…

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

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.