Doubt Your Tension

Hello Shape-Shifters,

I’ve also been asked these questions:

What’s included in the Relaxed Strength Challenge?
You’ll get: Daily Mind-Body Strength WorkOUTS that use Dynabands for resistance, One-Minute WorkINS that keep you in your body between workouts, and Body Journeys that realign you in your body for lasting posture shifts.
In addition, you’ll get: weekly group Coaching Calls, A Facebook Community for support between Coaching Calls, Active Meditations for everyday living, videos and Dynabands for your keeping. And a FREE 6-month BodyLogos App Membership!

When does it start?
On Monday October 19th, 20 Members of the BodyLogos App will kick off their Shape Shifting journey with the Relaxed Strength Challenge, working closely with me for 5-weeks to transform their misaligned tension into aligned strength.

What equipment do I need? 
Body weight and Dynabands, which I will supply for you.

How much time do I need? 
30-45 minutes a day broken into 3-settings––20-30 minute Mind-Body Strength WorkOUTS; 3-minute mid-day WorkINS; 7-10 minute Body Journey.

If you’re ready to schedule a 1:1 call with me to see if this is a Right-For-You Program, grab your space by replying to this email with… Relaxed Strength!

Then I’ll message you back the scheduling details.
You’ve only got 48hrs before application submission closes!

Reply to this email to reserve your space.

Embody Success ~ Tammy

Relaxed Strength Challenge

WATCH VIDEO!

Hello Shape-Shifter,

APPLY NOW:  Relaxed Strength Challenge 

The Challenge follows the BodyLogos Method. BodyLogos applies Tao principles to resistance training and is the how-to for living relaxed and strong. You’ll gain a comprehensive awareness of how energy optimally flows through the body and how tension obscures that flow.  BodyLogos practice offers an understanding of your unique blocks to living the power of your intention and a method to create positive change.

In addition to WorkOUTS, WorkINS, and Body Journeys you’ll get:
Weekly Mind Focus’ that ground everything your body’s learning in Tao philosophy and fitness physiology.
Weekly Group Coaching Calls to personalize your Relaxed Strength action plan.
Private FaceBook Community to ask questions and post video questions between Coaching Calls.
Six Months FREE Access to the BodyLogos App. 
Two FREE Dynabands to support your Challenge!
10 FREE Active Meditations for Everyday Living, to help customize a self-aligned lifestyle.
Surrender Tension in 8-Minutes Video to relax––down to the bone!
Neutral Alignment Video to experience strength as ease––on purpose!

The Relaxed Strength Challenge helps you take effective steps toward aligning your body’s strength with your mind’s ambition, so you stop chasing and can enjoy peace under pressure!

Schedule a 1:1 call with me to see if this is a Right-For-You Program.
Respond to this email with Relaxed Strength and I will personally send you the details to apply.

 “Tammy’s bright positivity and uplifting posts help me stretch as if I were opening the blinds of my body so that I may let the light inside out.”
John Bidwell – Kessler Rehabilitation Center

 

The Discipline of Delight

                        Watch Video!

Hello Shape-Shifter,

Strength is compromised when you’re bound in tension, uncertainty, and overwhelm.

You may ask yourself:
• How do I stop the chase and stay in the game?!
• Am I doing too much or doing too little?
• Is there some relaxation/strength training ratio to follow to live in the sweet spot?
• Is it possible to be relaxed and strong at the same time???

If any, or all, of the above questions run through your head… I can help.

I’ve helped 1,000’s of people in my 40-years in the fitness industry.

As a Broadway dancer turned Tao Minister, my mind-body strength method––BodyLogos––that unites principles from Eastern and Western philosophies, creates a bridge between fitness and wellness.  BodyLogos guides people to release pent-up chronic tension WHILE strength-training. They learn to recognize their strength and influence, so they experience “relaxed strength.”

• Time Out New York voted me and BodyLogos “Best of Fitness” twice!
• Dance Spirit Magazine called BodyLogos, “a zen workout;”
• Shape Magazine described it as, “body sculpting that uses weights to enlighten you;”
• NY Magazine named it, “Mindful Fitness.”

After publishing my book, “The Art of Strength: Sculpt the Body ~ Train the Mind,” I wanted to create something that could implement that foundation into a guided practice, and reach people everywhere.

So here I am building a BodyLogos Fitness App that kick-starts you with the Relaxed Strength Challenge––a step by step plan that shape shifts you from ‘worn out chaser’ to ‘relaxed strength’ in 5-weeks.

Watch for tomorrow’s email with all the details on how to apply for the Relaxed Strength Challenge!

PASS THIS MESSAGE ALONG to FIVE friends who you think want to SHAPE SHIFT too! And we’ll learn the discipline of delight all together!

Embody Success ~ Tammy

 

Shape Shift Your Life!

Coming Soon… The Relaxed Strength Challenge!

A Personal Experience:

“Exercise… The first sign of struggle and I was done.
 
Stress about the world, the country, my work, was overwhelming me and I needed to do something to help myself. My health was suffering and I was having a now or never kind of feeling… I was feeling trapped and had to focus on me, on my health.
 
The BodyLogos Relaxed Strength program were not “exercises” to struggle through, they were ways to connect to yourself and to help your body… There’s no competition; there’s no pushing to do better. It’s a ‘connect to your body’ where you are now and a semi-meditation at the same time. It’s about  how the muscles work, what their function is in a purely physical way; and in “spiritual/emotional” terms, how they help you move through life. I found the talking that Tammy did engaged my brain just enough to distract it from the fact I was “exercising” and gave me something to think about then and later.”

Sherri Kendricks ~ Reference Librarian

Computerized Heads

Delight Steers Strength

Computerized  Heads

A Lesson from On-Line Dating

After hearing on the news that we’d likely be living this Corona-lifestyle for another year. I joined a dating site!

This was a change of heart. It happened after years of nudging friends urged me to try internet dating. And I saying, “No way! I’m not proving my desirability with my resume’. I’m a being, not a doing!

But we’ve all had to pivot in many ways to survive this pandemic. How I meet a fella suddenly felt less important than meeting a fella.

An interesting man and I started messaging back and forth. Every time he’d message me, I’d linger 3-4 days before responding. Because the delight I felt, that someone saw me and liked me, kept growing for that many consecutive days. It was delightful. I didn’t want to interrupt the stretch inside me by responding immediately.

Apparently, a little attention goes a long way, when you’ve been living alone for 6-months in a pandemic–– single! Finally, when the delight leveled off, I’d message him back.

Within a half-day he’d retort. And the same rhythm continued. I’d respond in 3-4 days and he’d respond within a day.

Our banter was enjoyable, for about three or four exchanges. Then I was like, is he gonna ask me out or what? I had no interest to meander along fantasizing about a man I’d never really met. We live in the same city after all.

Believing that a strong man asks a woman out, and I want a strong man, I waited.

But when the ask didn’t come as soon as I wanted it, the delight turned to disappointment. My belief interpreted his reserve as weak.

I suddenly realized, I was misguided.

I wasn’t being me. I wasn’t serving my rhythm when I didn’t, wouldn’t or couldn’t ask him out. I was instead, doing me. I was doing what I had done for years with in-person dating. I was doing my resume’ while running interference with dating.

Shocked that I was hiding behind a belief that kept me powerless to choose what I wanted. I realized I was protecting myself from choosing wrong. A belief that kept me safe and free, but unfulfilled.

I wanted to follow the inner stretch of being delighted.

In my next message, as if my body’s need to get real led my fingers, I gave him my phone number. I could feel my mind hesitating, holding fast to safety, but I carried on and pushed SEND.

In his typical style, in half an hour he called. He asked me out to a museum that afternoon!

What is strength to you?

Does strength have a look or feeling or rule? How do you measure strength beyond the weight of a barbell? Is strength vulnerable or stoic?

In this story, I don’t believe strength lies in who called who or who asked who out. Finally listening for what brought me delight and acting on it, was where strength lied.

Strength was had by living what was feeding my delight. And the level of delight measured my honesty with myself.

Where is your doing misaligned with your being? When or where do you lose the feeling of delight? What beliefs need review to reclaim your delight?

To my surprise, on-line dating opened my eyes to something that in-person dating hadn’t been able to do. Maybe on-line working and socializing has more depth than we realize at first glance?

Please comment below about your view on STRENGTH.

DancerInWhite

Jeffrey Epstein Cohorts

DancerInWhite

How Sex, Dad and Dance Woke Me Up!

There have been many reports regarding sexual misconduct, sexual abuse, sex trafficking and pedophilia. Little commentary from these report’s share the actual experience beyond the victim/perpetrator dynamic.

Jeffrey Epstein’s story is no exception. Even with the stream of young women who bravely confirmed his disgraceful schemes, the high drama was created by the who’s, the how’s, and the outcomes.

An experience is felt. It may be felt all at once or as awakening layers of deadened sensation. An experience exposes feelings not scandalous facts.

My story is an account of my experience, not the facts that could accuse and convict a perpetrator. My perpetrator is dead and I seek no revenge. What I offer in this story is faith building…

Asleep only a few hours, I am awoken night after night by my dad. Hearing him enter my private space curled me up into a ball of tension. My eyes wide open under closed eyelids. Even the first time, at the age of ten, I knew nothing good was going to follow.

Then suddenly, I am plucked out of the terror, from what felt like a hand from the heavens, taking me to a place that I can only describe as nirvana––a place where the soul is free from worldly possessions (including my physical body)––a place where I felt safe, relaxed and strong.

This is referred to as a disassociated state in psychology, where the person experiences a detachment from reality, different from a loss of reality as in psychosis. My experience of this state was not one of mental scrutiny; rather, it was a spiritual awakening.

When in this surreal state I felt plugged into both earth and sky. A relationship with my energy body, separate from my physical body, was woken. My central plumb line––the body’s innermost relationship with gravity––was plugged into a relaxed stretch that carried a current of pure life force. I was infused with a spiritual strength that cursed through my energy centers.

I felt like the channel connecting earth and sky. I felt important. I felt like an integral part of the whole of Creation.

Then suddenly, I would be snapped back into my physical body. Usually dad would be gone by then. Sometime not.

My life was like a Ping Pong game. For the 3-years dad visited my room at night to satisfy his sexual need. Back and forth I would bounce, between feeling the relevance of unifying earth and sky, to feeling unworthy of the most basic parental protection.

I had no control over these disassociated experiences. Just as I had no control over what was happening in my reality. But what I gained from these experiences was twofold:

• I have clear reference points for tension and strength.
• And I can distinguish between energy movement and physical movement.

At this time in my life I started dance classes. I wanted the physical mastery to maintain the energy alignment I experienced in my surreal life in my real life. I knew undoubtedly that spirit lived through me, and the way to connect with it was through my central plumb line––my posture.

I learned to transform the static energy of tension into the fluid energy of strength. I found the quiet balance of energy movement inside the demands of physical challenge, and understood the inner grace of poised posture.

Through years of practice, the tension of my curled up body learned to elongate into a channel of life force. Gaining the mastery, embodied in my surreal life into my real life, landed me in the Broadway cast of A Chorus Line at the age of nineteen!

Posture matters. It has the capacity to break through tensions grip and transform misaligning beliefs. It rescued me from the potential downward spiral of my childhood trauma.
Your plumb line connects the essence of you with gravities force and you plug into a universal belonging that is safe, relaxed and fiercely strong.

Strength is experienced as ease-full, not tough, rough and rugged.

It has become clear to me that many of the ways we are taught to strive, prepare and compete for the lives we want are tension building rather than strength enhancing. And by relating to an end goal, in leu of being on the journey, keeps us detached from our energy body––Spirit–– and exhausts our physical body.

What I have concluded from my experience is, the aligning energy that connects our energy body (or Spirit Self) to our physical body is the energy we each borrow from the greater whole. It took trauma for me to experience the gift of spiritual belonging. Showing me that there is a sacred thread that runs through all our life experiences.

Listen inwardly and trust what feels safe, relaxed and strong.

 

To learn to access the relaxed strength found in your posture check out: The Art of Strength: Sculpt the Body ~ Train the Mind, a Book-3D/Video Learning System that helps you feel relaxed on the inside and strong on the outside.

Behind the Scenes of The Mind Body Adventure App

Tammy Dancing on Broadway!

The pre-launch of The Mind Body Adventure App is happening next week! Here’s a behind the scenes look at how the BodyLogos Method Shape-Shifted my prolonged tension into Relaxed Strength!

I started dance class at 10-years old. It was the great escape from a home life that didn’t feel safe. When teachers would instruct me to use my body in a way that created tension I would cringe inside. My little frame couldn’t carry any more tension. So, I would quietly figure out ways to create what they wanted, but using my own methods. By high school, I was a soloist in North Jersey Ballet Company. But my ways remained my secret.

After a professional career dancing in Broadway musicals, movies and the like, I was looking for what came next. I was fascinated with energy and figured diet would be an interesting focus. So, I enrolled in Anne Marie Colbin’s cooking school: The Natural Gourmet. I took a class called, Cooking with the 5-Elements of Tao. I was startled by what happened next…

The principles they were teaching explained my method of dancing. There were other people like me. A whole philosophy based on my way of being in my body. Taoism offered a coming home, a sense of belonging, and the validation I needed to look beyond my own needs with my method.

I immediately transferred to Tao Seminary. For 4-years I immersed myself in Tao theories and its healing arts. I’d memorize details by thinking, yes that’s how I do a pirouette, or that’s how I do an arabesque. I was delighted; and, I found the way I wanted to spend the rest of my life.

I want to share my mind-body strength training method, BodyLogos, with the world, which means the Body’s Divine Wisdom.

I can’t wait to share the BodyLogos Method and The Mind Body Adventure App details!

Dr. Ruth and me. Steve Friendman photo

How is Hutzpah Learned?

Dr. Ruth and me!

Where does your hutzpah come from?

Dr. Ruth made a documentary about her story last year. Here’s my short-story!

Years of childhood trauma taught me to be tough, and tension was its cohort. I believed strength was the capacity to endure hardship and pain––physical and emotional. And if I was tough enough the tension would subside.

I was wrong.

When the traumatic moments became greater than my capacity, I began spontaneously and unintentionally leaving my physical body. My experience of physical tension and self-denial would suddenly shape-shift. I’d experience my energy body as a flowing current precisely aligned between Earth and Sky. A posture steeped in self-regard that was tension-free and pain-free.

I experienced Relaxed Strength. A posture that is now my foundation for living strong––in my body.

My practice––the BodyLogos Method––is committed to Relaxed Strength. I know, first-hand, that self-acceptance and self-love––the gift of my childhood shape-shifting––inspired the current that aligned my strength with the life I wanted. And, that self-proving and self-betrayal are tensions that exhaust our strength.

Consciously aligning between Earth and Sky, and listening to my body’s tension-cry with interest, has offered me a bridge from fighting to healing, from being fit to being well, and from living tough to living strong.

It is my mission to pass on what I learned from Earth and Sky.

This is the hutzpah that has influenced my NEW BodyLogos Fitness App. It will launch next month! I’m so excited to offer a private experience for BodyLogos teachings.

Keep your eyes open for the launch details and the start-up 5-week Relaxed Strength Challenge!

 

Steve Friedman Photo

Tammy in Motorcycle Gear

A Weird and Wonderful NYC Motorcycle Ride

Tammy in Motorcycle GearLong summer treks out of city congestion balance my need for the open road. I’ve lived on a motorcycle in NYC traffic for 25-years.

How unusual to have open road around me when riding through midtown Manhattan. A summer trek right here on Broadway!

CoronaVirus has completely changed the landscape.

It’s an infectious landscape of silence and sirens. Fear-filled vulnerability has seeped into our soft tissues. The streets are near empty. A world is hiding to stay alive.

This feels weird. I’m used to feeling afraid of the world, even hiding from it at times. But, in this moment, there’s no immediate world to be afraid of. It’s surreal. I actually feel safer riding my motorcycle up Broadway than ever before.

As I continue up Central Park West, I hear sirens. Suddenly, I’m whipped back into the landscape I’m familiar with in NYC—traffic. But this time, I embrace the scene. Instead of people being in my way, I felt in their company.

My body feels like it’s riding into a gathering. My body isn’t fearing or dreading its environment. It’s curious about being together with people—having a shared experience.

This feels wonderful. I want to be in relationship with—in communion with—something real.

This is definitely not how I typically approach a NYC traffic jam!
This is definitely not how we feel approaching each other, masked with eyes down, since hit by this pandemic.

But, I have all my motorcycle gear on. No surgical mask necessary when wearing a full-face helmet!

I rode through familiar neighborhoods that day. Visiting a client’s courtyard who passed away from COVID-19, checking on houses of people out of town, and waving to doormen I used to see regularly. But nothing felt the same.

Usually my gear protects me from the world. On this day, it united me with it.
Usually my fear separates me from the world. On this day, it connected me to it.

How weird and wonderful to separate from my habit to fear. And for a moment, be curios about its impermanence, illusiveness and trickery.

Single-Hood Suddenly Feels Like a Life Sentence!

But, it just as suddenly can change.

My first weeks in isolation were uncharacteristic and dark. I mean, typically I’ve liked alone time.

Thoughts about how long it would be before being touched, or touching another human being, cut like a knife. Hopeless loneliness creeped into every moment.

My body was, and continues to be, starved for touch. But it’s changed.

Being single had been a choice to immerse myself in creating my dreams. But suddenly, single-hood felt like a life sentence.

I’m not single because of Coronavirus. I’m single because I cherish me-time. Coronavirus just took away my buffer. Dance and therapeutic touch satisfied the sensual grace physical connection inspires. But this artistry has distracted me, to the point of replacing, a deeper want for an intimate we.

Isolation brought me face to face with my want, and a face off in the mirror.

As I looked myself in the eye, first the right eye then the left, (Does that have some significance?) I recognized that my ambivalence about relationships has always circled around the same theme: they take more than they give. It’s not worth the effort. I’ve got more important plans!

To no surprise, my history is riddled with touch taking—stealing—what was creative in me. From childhood sexual abuse to nursing a brain-injured lover. My time and body were exhausted by their needs.

I’ve been self-isolating, limiting touch, for years.

Now I’m yearning for it!

The CoronaCrisis has cracked me open. Something in me has shifted.

At first it felt sad. I wanted to punish myself for lost time. But then something wonderful happened.

I realized something when I took in my reflection. I wasn’t running away from my past, I was running toward my future. I HAVE made an effort to be in relationship. With myself. And I’m a good partner.

I’ve given myself quiet space to create in. Uninterrupted time to dream in. Aloneness to explore in. I have given myself time to explore what is important to me. And I have successes to show for it.

My fierce love for me has protected what I’ve cherished in me—my body and creative life force—this alliance is what I live and die for. Single-hood has taught me to be a thoughtful, intuitive and independent partner.

Single-hood is a partnership between the inner and outer worlds of a self. This relationship is a gift, not lost time.

Rather than focusing on wanting touch, now I focus on how I’m available for touch. My chest is relaxed wide open, my arms and palms rotate outward in readiness, and my pelvis feels anchored under me. My availability for touch is settling into my body’s posture. Rooting it’s permission in my expression.

I am finally present with an unfulfilled want. No running away or chasing. Just in its majesty.

For today, I am touched by being open to receive.

It is worth the effort. Relationships are worth your effort, be they inward or outward.

Want can be uncomfortable, but it guides you to your next step in living free and whole. Stay awake in these times and learn what you’re yearning for.