Category: Stress

[spacer height=”10px”]Nearing the end of a long, arduous Winter and with intense longing for the Spring, my people have been coming in to my studio and inbox and telling me:

[blockquote]I need to get stronger.[/blockquote]

And I can help, but it’s rarely by throwing all kinds of strenuous exercises and activities at you. In fact, strenuous exercise when your body’s not ready for it and your mind doesn’t know how to engage in it is more likely to deplete your strength than build it. Especially if you already have a pattern of chronic pain that’s probably stopping you from being as active as you like in the first place…

How many of you have felt the “I need to do something NOW” panic ring through your body and taken action by going for that run, jumping into that crazy yoga class or lifting some insane weights, only to find yourself in pain, exhausted and not feeling like doing much of anything for the next couple of days or weeks? Or even worse, (re)injured and convinced that you need to forget the venture altogether because you’re likely to end up in even more pain?

Here are three questions worth taking the time to meditate on – not only can they help you avoid that whole circus, they may show you the way towards the kind of strength that you can cultivate and maintain easily and with pleasure. Yes, strength, easily and with pleasure.

[blockquote]1. What do you need strength for?[/blockquote]

Start here. You think about your work and your relationships with great subtlety and nuance, but when it comes to your own body – i.e. the most intimate relationship you have and the vehicle that makes all your other work possible – maybe you’re still thinking in cliches: no pain, no gain; hard muscles = strong body; and so on… Yet I can assure you that pumping your muscles isn’t necessarily going to keep you strong on your feet or comfortable in your chair for hours at a time, and insisting on working through the pain can ending up costing you more hours of relaxed productivity than any other approach.

But knowing that you need the strength to be able to carry your baby and your groceries, for example, gives you a much better sense of the quality and quantity of strength that you’re looking for.

It also helps you hone your intention on something practical and meaningful: “I need the strength to _____” is going to get you a lot farther than “I need to get strong”. Your reflexive mind (i.e. body mind) isn’t stupid, it’s actually a much smarter, faster processor than your conscious mind – just imagine if you had to keep your heart beating, lungs pumping and weight balanced with your conscious mind for even five minutes and you’ll understand what I mean.

When the two minds work together, you get alchemy. If your conscious mind can communicate a clear direction in relationship to the realistic demands that your body faces on a daily basis, your body will respond. Communicate clearly often enough and watch your body increasingly respond quickly, effectively, even effortlessly.

[blockquote]2. How are you measuring your strength?[/blockquote]

Tight muscles are often the most vulnerable to injury, and building your muscles to hold and accentuate an imbalanced skeletal alignment is a great way to set yourself up for chronic pain. So I hope you’re not measuring strength by poking at yourself to see how rigid your abs or biceps feel.

Having a clear intention for how you want to use your strength gives you a much better set of parameters to measure your progress. If you need the strength to make it through a strenuous period of time at work or at home, you can measure the extent to which your current activities are helping you to cultivate the stamina and mindset you need in order to stay healthy, focused and agile. Then you can adjust accordingly.

For example, if you’re needing to spend extra hours sitting at your desk but the pain in your back is destroying your efforts at creativity and focus, then it’s time to connect to your core and strengthen an alignment that will give you more support. And if being relaxed in the face of demanding clients and colleagues is key to your success right now, then meditative techniques like Qi Gong and restorative Yoga ARE a form of strength training.

The key is for the parameters you set and against which you measure your strength to be ones that:

1. Arise from the reality of your needs
2. Consider your current state (i.e. start from where you are), and
3. Are linked to an intention that your body, mind and heart can all get behind.

If you insist on measuring yourself against some kind of ideal body or state that has nothing to do with where you are and with what you actually need right now, you can expect slow and emotionally taxing progress.

[blockquote]3. Are you crafting your engagement?[/blockquote]

That’s right, engaging with your body is a creative venture, and that means that there’s constant change in the process and endless discovery to be had. Crafting your engagement means making active and mindful choices not only about what you’re doing, but how you’re doing it, because how you engage in strengthening your own organism has everything to do with how you end up engaging your strength in your social and natural environments.

If you plan to get strong by working up a sweat on a treadmill while watching a sitcom, then you can expect to strengthen your capacity for mindless exertion of energy and force. If you’re pumping weights without any awareness of alignment and breath, then you can expect to develop misaligned, unsupported strength. If you’re forcing yourself to go to yoga class even though it’s making your hip scream in pain, then you’re cultivating your powers of intimidation and unsustainable strength. Get the gist?

There’s really no lack of intimidating, misaligned, unsupported and unsustainable strength in the world. And we’re destroying the planet with our insistence on mindless exertion of energy. In our minds we know how wrong it is, in our hearts we’re aching to change these patterns, but in our bodies we continue to strengthen them without realizing what we’re doing.

So for strength training that goes beyond muscle strength to give you the strength to reach your highest potential and help make the changes you want to see in the world happen, mindfulness is key. And engaging in whatever tiny (i.e. climbing subway stairs) or huge (i.e. training for a marathon) strengthening activity with a flexible, balanced, curious and analytical mindset will likely to lead you to quick and effective progress.

That’s my mission here at Force & Flow, folks, not just to help you get strong, but to help you discover and connect to the kind of strength that will support you in using your unique and magical talents for making this world a better place.

If you know you’re ready to get smart about how you get strong and want to learn how to consistently navigate towards your body’s own ideal sweet spot, check out the upcoming semi-private group session, Connecting to Core. This award-winning 90-day package is geared to your individual needs and promises to give you a wealth of tools to find dynamic core strength and fluid breath connection to support you in every aspect of your life. There are only a few spots left, so if you feel like this kind of supremely crafted engagement can help you to cultivate the strength and energy you need to not only experience less pain, but more pleasurable and effective use of your efforts, make sure to reserve your spot ASAP.

If you want to start off with a focused conversation on your specific needs, sign up below for a complimentary consultation. I do a limited number of these every month, so go on and fill the form out sooner rather than later.

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