In Lord of the Rings, the forming and ultimately the breaking of the fellowship happens in the first volume – I hope that isn’t a spoiler for anyone – and our heroes spend the next two volumes, most of the story, separately battling to ensure the One Ring is destroyed in the depths of Mount Doom. The fellowship didn’t reunite until after the Ring was destroyed; nonetheless, they kept going.

On the retreat, a treasure trove of amazing and awakening things happen. Escape the dark riders at Buckleberry Ferry, met the eternal elves in Rivendell and Mirkwood, battled free of ruined dwarven halls, … . Similarly on a retreat, your mission and fellowship of like-minded souls crystallize, but ultimately the fellowship is broken in the last hours, maybe you share a train ride with some of them a bit further, most of the your quest will be without the fellowship.

It can be so profoundly easy to change – to perform – on a retreat, because the space is ripe for it; everyone there believes. They want to witness heroism – even just to tell tales of it afterwards, and they want to be heroic themselves. But later, after the fellowship was broken, trudging through the desolate wastes of Mordor, that vision, crystallized in your Rivendell, can you keep bearing it to Mount Doom?

The everything-is-possible rush after a heroic journey – a retreat – is fleeting. When you come home, you are likely to fallback, the journey becoming a hazy dream. It takes great honesty and persistence to truly impact your life. It can feel like the desolation of Mordor, the entire environment working against you; not in even in a villainous way, they are just used to the way you were.

Your step will falter – Frodo failed to cast the ring into the Fires of Doom.

How important is the change you want to have, and how does the alternative feel? Like Gollum disappearing into a cave for a few hundred years?

You will have so many daily struggles that don’t require heroic effort — a single stellar feat, but that need persistent and consistent hobbit’s effort. It’s not slaying dragons, it’s in every meal, every laugh, every cry, every disagreement, every chance to take initiative.

Can you fit the retreat into a larger framework - your greater story? Just as the forming of the fellowship and fits into the larger tale of the One Ring? How can you use the heroic momentum of the retreat to carry on through your daily life?

David Goggins is - and I say this all judgementally - known for abusing his body by overtraining and doing extreme endurance feats with minimal preparation and maximal will-power (former record holder for most pull ups in 24h; completing 100 mile ultras). It’s left him with a ruined body and strong following that conflates masochistic abuse with meaning. I think there is something admirable in sacrificing yourself to save and protect, but ruining your body to finish some marathon that your body wasn’t prepared for doesn’t cut it.

There are healthy and sustainable ways to train and grow; for marathons and endurance, take the time to build your capacity; let the tendons, ligaments, bones, muscles and the mitochondria in the cells adapt over months and often even years. Unless you’re trying to run across a country to get medicine to someone because all other forms of transport are unavailable (maybe it’s the apocalypse), and time is of the essence, what’s the rush?

This short-sighted – “my body doesn’t deserve care or respect” – attitude is what I mean by “Gogginsing” something. There are less obvious risks in meditation; instead of damaging a ligament, it could impact your mental well-being, creating chronic stress, obsessive behaviours, low moods - even depression, increased irritation, and difficulty socialising with others. These are things I’ve experienced and I’ve seen in some of my students and clients.

When you do meditation, is it because you want more control?

I probably talk to a hundred people a year about meditation that are just starting or have not started yet. 99% of the time they see meditation as an act of control - controlling how we feel, how we think and where our attention and time goes. I think the appeal of Gogginsing things is how it fits into this concept of control and self-domination. But I think it’s a fools game, there are profound limitations in how much we control ourselves. It breeds tension and pressure - it’s extremely likely that something will give eventually, and at the worst moment.

Even if you don’t agree with it, I invite you to entertain the idea: treat meditation as a way to free yourself of physical tension and limiting beliefs. It will take time to transform the concept of meditation from controlling to freeing, so we need to build in some guardrails to help it grow a healthy practice, that you get the most of longer sessions.

Start small. Give yourself a minute, or ten. Even foregoing a timer - I love sitting until I feel a big sigh come free. I love using a central questions and listening to how my mind and body respond: What are you holding? Where do you feel rigid? Where do you feel collapsed? I pick one of the questions and play with variations of it. Maybe asking what am I holding down, or up; what am I holding in my hands, or my feet, my chest, … . How specific can you be, does it help you to be vague with the question?

Reflect about how you approached it afterwards, was there something rigid in it? Did you feel closer to yourself? That might not make sense right now, but reflect on it after your next meditation and see if it resonates. How did the experience affect you - your outlook, your energy levels, … ? How did you emerge from it? Was there too much tension in you? Too much “must” or “I know how it is supposed to be”?

Talk about it to peers and mentors about your experience.

Remember these things when you are about to start your next meditation session. Or pick one thing that feels important or easy for you to grasp that you could do differently.

You won’t necessarily feel amazing after every meditation session, some things that come up will be raw and intense. But I see it as a part of processing, helping things move through you instead of getting stuck. Instead of Gogginsing through things you are ashamed of or the needs you have, you notice them, make space for them. And maybe they let go of you.

(My own attempt at the fable)

There was a scorpion stuck on the side of a torrential river, unable to pass.

She saw a frog swimming by comfortably and called him over.

As the frog came up to the bank, she asked him:”Could you help me get to the other side? I cannot swim, and the water scares me.”

The frog shifts uncomfortably:”I’m scared that you’ll sting me, and we’ll drown.”

The scorpion stood earnestly, on its many legs, casting its pincers as she swore:”I promise, that I would not do such a thing as you helping me.”

Still reluctantly, the frog allowed the scorpion to crawl onto his back, and he started to paddle across. The river, in full flood, was swelling and splashing around them. Each smack of water making the scorpion flinch.

As they passed the halfway point, they get pulled under for an instant, and the stinger of the scorpion darts into the frogs neck in shock.

It feels like the whole world freezes for a moment, as they realize what happens.

“You have doomed us both.”

“I am a scorpion. It is in my nature so sting”

They sink out of sight under the surface.

Since the end of my first serious relationship and all the heartbreak and anger and hurt that I held with that, this fable has been a balm on the wounds. Within fables, I like to consider - similar to Jung’s idea in dreams - that the different characters in the tale are parts of me, they can be someone else as well.

The scorpion knows it can’t sting the frog and get across the river. And it yet cannot help itself.

How we are at our worst is still part of our nature.

This tale has helped me have more compassion for people I think have hurt me, and for myself. I’d recommend reading it. Sitting with it. Reading it again. Have a dreamwalk with it.

We started with a lying exercise from Alexander Technique. The key part is having the intention of lengthening the spine. It can feel like the head and the pelvis are floating in opposite directions.

Afterwards we sat up to kneeling and I invited him to recreate that feeling of extension and release while being upright. This soft lengthening of his torso was an exciting new feeling for him. Being the diligent student that he is, he asked me afterwards, ”should I always try to be like this when walking and standing?”

15 years ago – even ten – I’d have nodded enthusiastically saying, ”it can be tough, but it’s worth it!” Now I’m wiser – or lazier. Back then, I did think it was worth it. I didn’t realise how much my neuroticism about practice weighed on me, taking away from the benefit of doing something that is technically healthy.

Not seeing the forest for the trees

Instead, I sagely told him to pick time to practice, and enjoy it when the posture emerges spontaneously.

Let it be like a weed that sprouts untended

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The inspiration for the article came from this one I read today here. Also full disclosure it’s a re-edit of a post I made in 2020 in Medium.

For more than 5 years, a focus of my teaching has been deep relaxation as response to stress. My online offerings especially have been focused on the individual. That’s not unusual. In American culture – which twists much of the developed world – there is an almost overwhelming expectation that “ you should be able to manage your stress alone, and if you can’t you must be doing it wrong, but here’s how you can do it right.”

We’re not jungle cats, nor bears. We’re primates – social animals. As I mentioned in a previous post (Emotional Ergonomics) as much of 18% of other primates’ time is put into grooming each other. Since Covid, in my own life, I’ve gotten better at turning outwards finding calm and peace, but I have not been teaching co-regulation in balance with self-regulation.

“Doing things”

Enter and his Sachen Machen (“Doing Things”). 1This November, I was invited back to teach with him again. Previously, I had focused a lot on individual stress management: lying to settle, heavy de-armouring massage, and more as an afterthought some paired “ co-regulation” exercises. This time, I really felt like emphasizing the power of connection while we are stressed. Simon was really enthusiastic about it. But I had not expected him to build on the reductive idea in such a beautiful and profound way.

My idea had been purely around stress management, mainly using breathwork to induce stress – based on ladder breathing that I learned via Systema.2 Firstly trying to figure out how to manage the stress internally, not adding to it with thoughts and fears of too much/too little and foreboding. Then, buddying up, one stretching their breath, the other’s arm around their shoulders breathing comfortably. It went as I expected, people were able to find more ease in stretching their breath because of the support, and were able to trust themselves to open up more to the challenge. A lovely little snippet and insight, to maybe encourage them in the future to outside of the container of the seminar to ask for help and simply a relaxed presence.

Simon’s background in wilderness practices includes a wealth of rich exercises to interact individually, but more importantly collectively with the environment. And he crafted an epic thread of co-regulation – attunement – in the exercises and explorations, that went far beyond stress management into seeding a fundamental shared experience.

Tribes, chocolate and the leopard

It really started to take off on day 3 of 5, when we had a game of 3 tribes and the leopard.

In the beginning, our tribes wandered through the meadows and copses in silence – finding our place in the worldlet. One person — “the Chief” — led and the rest of the tribe followed, echoing how they crept, scurried, lay and watched. It felt simply beautiful. Stress-free.

After forging this connection, we came back together for the final stage: protect our food, try to take the others’, and watch out for the stalking leopard (Simon in leopard print spandex shorts). Alas our chocolate and fruit were won from us in battle. I was even “struck blind” a couple of times by the wily and relentless leopard. Each time, my tribeswomen guided me gently and caringly by hand to the healing well. It was stressful, exciting, and immersive. But I felt safe because of the connection we forged in the beginning. Even when I was “blind,” being led through gnarled ground and slippery slopes.

The coda of this primal experience was the whole group standing in awed silence together, watching the sun set behind the mountains in Bavaria. It felt timeless, like a dolly-zoom to 500,000 years ago; our ancestors did the same thing in groups before there was written word, before there was spoken word.

There were exclamations of “it felt so real!” and enthusiastic nodding in agreement whenever we were sharing and talking about the moments that happened. It felt so meaningful and significant to us, and it was play.

Co-regulation to co-existence

My past group explorations were not this powerful. I kept a self-conscious distance. Here that distance collapsed with the peaceful wandering of my little tribe. On my own, I have had this sense of being unmoored-from-time during lying meditation, and once in a psychedelic trance, a connection to the past, an unbroken red thread through generations. Feeling this harmony with several people was incredibly precious. More so than anything I’ve ever done in the last 15 years exploring somatic practices, it’s affected me profoundly enough for me to think that it touched my soul.

It’s triggered a huge shift in my perspective in co-regulation from “just” stress management to a deep, shared experience of the world. As if we were a single nervous system, a single organism. Unlike my initial, limited and stress-oriented idea of co-regulation, the bond is the focus, and the resilience is the cherry on top.

Simon crafted a naked space for the group, without any hacks or techniques, where this shared existence could emerge spontaneously, for us to resonate together.

Tinkering with simpler ways to let state changes happen organically has been a big thing for me the last few years, and I’ve mentioned in previous writings (see Forget it’s an exercise for example) how practices and circumstances can be gateways to new states. I have become comfortable guiding individuals and pairs, but this was my first time feeling the collective version of it. It’s going to transform how I teach in groups. Not that I will copy Simon’s masterpiece – I couldn’t – but now that I know what is possible, it’s given me a North Star.

First, I wrote about the rehab of my achilles tendon, where I learned to differentiate sensations of tendon damage and rehab, and to count the time in months, not weeks. Then, my leap to apply the insights in my standing practice, which boosted my confidence and curiosity on that journey.

Now, we’ll look at a completely different timescale and type of pain - the “my knee hurts when I’m running” type and seeing it as a niggle to nourish instead.

To set the scene, this year, I bumped up my running mileage, going from a casual 10k a week to +20k a week. It was ticking along easily enough, until the end of May; I had notions of running a 60k loop around Antwerp that friends of mine were going to walk. One fine Saturday, I ran 30ish km to “kick the tires.” My reasoning being that if 30k was pain-free, then 60k should be doable. It was too much in one go.1 Alas, my left knee, she doth protest it strongly, and I decided to walk the 60k with my friends.

The ache in the knee didn’t disappear overnight, I assumed it was an overuse injury on one tendon or other… I took a break from running. Even walking up and down stairs was painful (a notional 5 to 7/10). I still had similar reactions to my tendinopathy in my Achilles; some shame and worry, perceiving it as a burden or a failing.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade they say … I took each pulse of pain as a reminder to nourish it with loving and optimistic attention; I imagined more blood and warmth bathing the area, encouraging it to become stronger and healthier, instead of lamenting its weakness.

More practically, I cast the “soft tissue rehab” spell on my knee, using the power of loaded isos and slow movements I had learned in the previous quest. And still, doing the isos was wonderfully illuminating, because my knee jerk response to avoid the discomfort was still there, and it took deliberate attention to sit on top of it. It’s still a strange thing with tendons that the low and moderate pain needs to be embraced.

After six weeks the pain became less chronic and I went back to running. At first, the knee would grow grumpy after a few kilometres, but it never became acute. I felt shame coming up with it, and noticed my thigh and hip muscles bracing against my knee; like cutting it off from me. They were like the reactions I had during my rehab and standing practice, only over a split second instead of minutes and days. I could be curious about pain and more confident that there was time to explore it. With each stride, I wondered:

The questions helped the bracing disappear, and I realized that it was pulling my knee inwards, where it was getting banged by each stride. When I relaxed, the knee found its place a few centimetres outwards, and much of the pain disappeared immediately. More lightness and springiness emerged. I took the niggling knee as a sign for nourishment and attention, instead of getting stuck on it as a failing, then I asked it how I could help.

The tendinopathy and the standing practice taught me acceptance and taking a long view, but the running taught me to be discerning in the moment, recognising what are inevitable and avoidable sensations.

I always encourage my students to ask: “what are you adding?” Even though I teach the stuff, it still surprises me when these concepts work.

If I hadn’t explored what was happening and noticed how my reaction was making things worse, I would have saddled myself with a way of running and holding my knee that would have kept hurting. The sheer precision in the harmony of the body is wonderful, but try taking a step back from tight control and let the feedback from the joints shape the motion.

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Parteth twoth in the tale of shift in my relationship with pain…

The previous piece looked at my tendinopathy rehab. A daily little pain – whether I wanted it or not – and the enlightening experience of finding the right amount of discomfort, and “right “ perception of time, to heal it. Taking some action on what I was feeling instead of avoiding it, or blithely ignoring it.

This time, we have something more optional – some would argue masochistic: Chinese standing practice. I think it is especially of interest for martial arts and body development nerds and enthusiasts.

For the last ten years, my attention has been on introducing people to standing practice – helping them lay the groundwork to entering standing, helping them develop what I think of as their “starter pack” to establish a nourishing and low-risk practice. And explicitly in this, is keeping the standing short and avoiding too much discomfort in it, at least until they learn not to tense up in response to discomfort.

In retrospect, I realise it’s led to me shortening my own standing for the most part as well. It has helped my shortened bouts become richer and more affecting, like getting intimately familiar with the shallows. But I have been missing out on bigger developmental changes that consistent longer sessions bring.

Longer sessions are like diving into the ocean; the deeper you go, the wilder – more alien – it becomes; things no amount of shallow paddling will give you. With that in mind, one of my 2025 projects is extending my time in one of my favourite poses standing shapes (the “Vitruvian” – lacking a formal Chinese name).

In the beginning, I usually stopped because of the intense discomfort in the tissues on the front of my left shoulder and chest. It built and built until it was unbearable. I still had more of a “discomfort avoidance” mentality in the standing, trying to find ways to alleviate my discomfort through joint positions and relaxation, and eventually stopping when I couldn’t find the relief.

In a fascinating turn of events, I began to recognise the similarity between my shoulder discomfort and what I felt during my tendinopathy rehab. Albeit in a more drawn out way, because the isometrics I did for the rehab were 60 - 90s compared to the 10+ minutes I was doing for standing.

Just like with the tuning process with the rehab, I paid attention to how I felt straight after, and the days after; making sure my quality of life wasn’t suffering from it. Since the pain wasn’t persisting after I finished standing, I continued to practice (the downside heuristic strikes again).

Once I made the link, I had a much more positive – almost excited – reaction to the feeling instead of fear because it was a sign the tissues were being changed, and it wasn’t just me being blindly sado-machochistic [sic].

The first 100ish days had been a grind from 10 minutes of standing to 20 minutes – I guess as the weaker tissues were being reorganised. And then after that the sensation in the shoulder almost disappeared overnight. Which is similar in duration and qualitative change that I noticed when my tendinopathy rehab completed. Then. Twenty-eight days later, I passed 30 minutes.1

When I was telling one of my students about this 100 day change he pointed out it mirrors the classic “do something for 100 days” concept that comes up regularly in Chinese Martial Arts. For example iron palm conditioning, or doing a specific developmental form daily for 100 days. It’s plausible that past masters observed a similar shift after the period.

This was a lovely breakthrough about my perception of the pains of standing. Firstly, I made a leap from my experience with the tendinopathy rehab to: differentiate the “cooking” sensation in the connective tissues from real pain. This is different to the tendinopathy experience, which was necessary for quality of life, because it adds shades to developmental – i.e. optional – practices. Secondly, it’s given me more trust in my standing work, because I can see plateaus as latency periods while something is cooking. For my peace of mind this has been very powerful.

Again, eye-opening for me to have this differentiation in the intense sensations during training and it gives me ideas for guiding my students from the shallows to the deeps.

And from a kung nerd perspective, making this anecdotal link between “internal development” from taichi/standing practices and the more well-studied tendon rehab work is kind of validating. In the past, I think I was lucky in how my standing developed, it wasn’t by dint of guidance or cuing that I came to something valuable, and it’s important to me to pass on something that’s reliable and less random.

Additionally, there are so many layers to what is happening as I stand over time. As the “bottleneck” tissues have their first cycle of change, the bottleneck moves and the 100-day timer starts again. Waves of 100 days of development rolling over each other. For example, after my left shoulder changed, my lower back and pelvis became a consistent limitation.

It’s been a treat learning new things about standing, the developmental elements for the tissues; and even the concept of where my arm begins in my torso has been changing, and how the pelvic floor and the muscles around the groin help support the arms. If I had not been doing the tendinopathy rehab and the deeper standing together, I never would have made these connections. Such serendipity!

In the next piece, I’ll talk about “my runner’s knee” and how I learned not to look at the pain as a failure, but as a cry for support from my knee; not something to turn a deaf ear to.

1

Full disclosure, I’m still bouncing around between 20 and 30 minutes at the moment, the last few months, my mood has been lower, and it’s made sitting with the discomfort of the pose more challenging than in the first half of the year:

This year, I had a wonderful shift in my relationship with pain, one that feels wiser, less reactive and almost enjoyable, and a big part to giving me confidence in being able to age gracefully for the rest of my life.

I hate to disappoint, but there were no quick fixes or hacks about it.

The shift took months of consistency, cultivation, and setbacks and restarts. I was regularly confronted with my previous beliefs about pain. Slowly, sporadically, the meaning of pain changed. I started seeing chronic pains more as calls for attention and nourishment, instead of a sign of frailty that triggers either avoidance or machochistic1 denial.

Secondly, I learned to better interpret what I judged as pain, finding a third place between “pain free” and “painful” where my tissues could develop and change, I like the term “cooking” for that space. This in turn helped me be more curious instead being fearful about I felt, and more explorative and attentive in how I responded to the sensations.

Thirdly, while I have done plenty of therapy and meditation and other long term training formats over the decades, learning not to get sucked into the sense of urgency and rush that pain and discomfort can drive was still a new lesson for me. Accepting it takes time for a change, and committing to a process for months without seeing short term benefit in it, that the pain is there doesn’t change it.

It’s been an enriching journey, and I’ll regale you with a connected set of three anecdotes – stepping stones – that stuck with me: exploring my tendinopathy; the aches and barriers in deeper standing practice; culminating in my new reaction to knee pain while running … really the Pulp Fiction of pain, in my unbiased and humble opinion.

Tendinopathy (Achilles)

Much of the last three years, my left Achilles tendon has borne a dull ache. I went from trying to ignore it – just “getting on with it all” – to having a mounting worry that it could snap with a haphazard movement. It’s cliché, but I struggled with admitting it was there, and having it looked at, and I’d consider myself a fairly progressive man for what that’s worth. I eventually convinced myself to see if there was anything to be done about it, and I went to my physio, Rob.

In his usual gentle and practical manner, he put my concerns to rest. Yes, there was an issue – tendinopathy. But it was reversible.

The solution was simple, but necessarily uncomfortable; progressively heavier single leg isometrics and calf raises (by the end I’d gotten up to carrying 50kg, or +/- 60% of my bodyweight).

What does “necessarily” uncomfortable mean, though?

Rob told me to aim for a notional 4/10 on the sensation scale. I tinkered with how much extra weight I could carry while doing the routine; gauging how much pain was “4/10.” It took trial and error the first month and a half, and I had a few missteps. Initially I was anxious about the whole process; I was worried I had no margin for error and that the mistakes I could make are severe and irreversible.

The first time that I overdid it, I felt a sudden and sharp pain — definitely more than “4/10”, and my Achilles was angry for a day or two. I had catastrophic thoughts along the lines of “my career as a high jumper is over now.” Once my Achilles calmed down, I saw that I had more margin than I thought, which calmed me a good deal, and I followed the “always leave them wanting more” heuristic. I was more measured with the weight and effort I put in. I carefully sidled up to the mysterious “4/10” and it started to clarify and become more granular to me. It became a bundle of sensations of heat, stretching and shifting instead of strictly being a “pain.” This was a really powerful, probably my favourite insight. Before I had binary categories: pain or no pain as the sensations in my connective tissues. After this, I had a third one: “cooking.” I’m smiling even now thinking about this new detail in how I feel my body.

The other thing that sticks with me is after almost 3 months of no change, it felt like the tendinopathy disappeared overnight. Such a long period without clear improvement, would have been demotivating for me — it has been demotivating for me. Two things helped me persist, the “downside” heuristic (It’s correct name is probably something else). I would look over the weeks if my quality of life wasn’t suffering for doing it, and in the absence of an alternative, there was no downside to continuing to do it. The second thing, repeating myself, I was fascinated by the feeling I was discovering in my Achilles, I was curious about what was coming next.

Day in day out, the ache in my Achilles was a reminder that things weren’t changing. It was only when I realised that the pain had disappeared that something clicked in me. It really drove home the timescale for meaningful and lasting change more so than anything else. It was something so concrete, tangible. And it took months of engagement to get to a new plateau. In retrospect this experience helped me in zooming out and looking at these things at a weekly and monthly level instead of hourly and daily. Again it was an experience that I’ve had elsewhere, but it felt like a fresh lesson here, highlighting my own blindspots and ability to generalise.

I really treasured this experience, recognising that my Achilles needed attention. If I had avoided discomfort, at best, nothing would have changed and at worst some wrong step would have harmed me seriously; if gone on as if nothing was wrong, I would have probably harmed myself seriously as well, only faster. Also known as “the Max Power Way.”

I had had a fatalistic, powerless reaction to the pain; something that I could at best manage or at worst see it chip away at my quality of life. Instead I’d been empowered to see the feeling as a need that I could answer in time. This opened up a whole new world to me. It changed my evaluation of pain, gave me a really pro-active and constructive attitude to it, and reinforced the power of tinkering and looking at things at the right timescale depending on the context.

In the next part, I’ll talk about how this foundational experience with the tendinopathy influenced my standing practice approach and perspective on internal martial arts work — I think the somatics and training nerds among my readership will enjoy this, as it is a switch from repair to development.

Last Wednesday during my in-person class, I was guiding the students through a lying exercise, hopefully towards more relaxation and awareness. In the silence between two of my suggestions – I was wondering how much of their tension was coming from “doing” the lying.

It reminded me of a saying and a joke I’ve read.

“The fish are the last to discover water”

—(no clear origin)

“Imagine one day you’re at work or out for a drink or doing the shopping and someone shouts “CUT” and it turns out you were Gary Oldman all along.

That’s how good an actor he is.”

—(Reddit, apparently)

These practices – even something as simple as deliberately lying down – are intended to transform us in some way, but they are flawed. The meditations, yoga, qigong, etc., have their blind spots.

Paradoxically, the blind spots — the constraints — create the exercises; they would not exist without them; focusing, directing the awareness and the body down a path across an otherwise wild forest.

Like the water the fish swims through, unnoticed, yet completely essential for the fish to move, live and “breathe.”

Like Gary Oldman so deeply buried and committed to playing his role — you, that he only emerges after the director shouts “Cut!”

The act of doing the exercise can withhold us; a barrier to more directly, more immediately, more freely and organically experiencing our lives. They are immensely powerful things, yet bound in their power, like Genie in Aladdin.

I wondered, what if we could forget we are doing an exercise?

Obviously we couldn’t forget the exercise completely, otherwise we’d be doing nothing, and not in the Zen-way of “doing nothing.”

But how lightly can we hold the exercise? How gossamer thin-light could the exercise be in our intention?

When I was sitting watching my students do the meditation, I wondered about forgetting that I was sitting there watching my students. I felt my body soften, expand like a loaf of sourdough bread in the oven. And I felt a sadness rise up. I think because as much as I’m trying to share mindfulness, that there is still something restrictive in how I teach it. Which is the heart of why I am writing this peace. Sharing a cautionary tale.

Next time you are doing your meditation, your yoga, your qigong, ask yourself if you could forget it is an exercise? Could you treat the moment of the exercise like Schrödinger’s Cat Meditation, both alive and dead at the same time? I will invite my students to forget they are doing an exercise too.

Metaphor that I ultimately cut out:

A dog holding its own leash and walking obediently

We say it more usually for an emotion or a situation that we ever do for a physical weight. The piece that follows is from one of my online classes that I did 4 years ago. I got the idea because I was going through a difficult period of isolation and depression; and I was working on how to physically accept and manage the emotional burden I was holding onto.

I was reminded of it again after watching Thunderbolts and on the cinema therapy Youtube channel exploring how the film looks at depression and support. One of the main thrusts of it being that we can’t guarantee feeling better, but there are things we can do for ourselves and in community that can help it feel lighter.

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Stand for a moment to settle and rise

If you are feeling at ease: remember a heavy emotion, how it might weigh or pull on you. Much like how a physical weight might affect you.

Where does it feel like the weight is? Above, below, inside, outside of you?

Once the weight (the shadow of the emotion) has clarified for you, begin to walk for a few breaths, and take note of how your balance and pace is affected; maybe there’s a heavy plodding or reel to your stride.

Shake yourself out, skip, maybe sing a few bars of a song - to help dispel the shadow.

Once you feel unencumbered again, take up the emotion again. Instead of collapsing under it: can you reorganise yourself so that the emotional weight is more ergonomically placed? So that the pressure is not focussed on a single part of you. Much like you would adjust a backpack or a weight you have to carry; lift with your back as they say…

When the emotional weight feels better supported, walk around again for a few breaths. How does the walking feel this time? How does your awareness feel inside and around yourself?

Some of the things that came up in the class when we did this:

• The emotion could feel like a weight upon a shoulder (lop-sided), or pulling down and swinging pendulously

• When we organised ourselves to spread the weight around, there was a sense of lightness or rising despite the emotion, even a sense of playfulness or levity while it is happening

• This is probably one of the most practical albeit abstract and esoteric exercises that we did during the year; imagining emotions as something massive — i.e. something with mass — something with inertia. A part of us outside of our skin, and by doing so it helps be less judgemental about the emotion, no more than you might be judgemental of an awkward weight you have to bring upstairs.

• It can help unstick an emotion, see it less as part of your identity and more as a thing that is happening to you. Kind of a physical process of accepting how we are feeling. It might help when you are having a difficult conversation or moment.

Four years on, the only other thing that I could add to this is, that it is a bandaid. It’ll help in the short term, for some difficult nights when you can’t sleep because of the weight of anxiety. But it is not something to be done for extended periods of time. Find your community, rely on them, if needs be work with therapist. We aren’t meant to be alone in our pain, we are social animals. Our primate relatives spend huge almost 20% of their day grooming each other and co-regulating (Javaeggi et al 2017 - it’s a metaanalysis comparing human socialising and grooming with other primates), imagine if you could spend 20% of your day cuddling and massaging…

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I’m trying to relax in a little green 50m away from where I will shortly meet my driving instructor to drive to my second attempt at my driving exam.

I’m freaking out more than I have about anything in years.

My diaphragm is blocked, my liver is in a death grip.

A thought as big as house in my mind: “What the hell gives me the right to teach relaxation and stress management to anyone?!”

I’ve avoided getting a driving license for 23 years.

I had a moment when I was learning to drive at 18 years, turning across on-coming traffic that scared me off of it.

In the last 5 years it’s become a — half-hearted — project of mine to get the licence; I felt shame in leaving all the driving to my ex-partners when we travelled by car. Additionally, it’s one of those things that I see as a modern rite of passage to adulthood. In addition to the responsibility of being part of traffic with very practical risks to myself, other drivers and pedestrians, it has become a symbolic burden; a man-child still. I dragged my heels through the whole process, the tension between recognising it as important and my lizard brain in uproarious protest.

First time through the exam, I was not driving enough beforehand and didn’t ensure I had clear feedback to practice on from my instructor. During the exam, I couldn’t think straight. I spastically pointed to the the cooling oil cap, instead of the braking fluid, when the examiner asked. I wondered if I had had a stroke, my thinking was compromised. After a slew of errors, the instructor stopped the exam half way through and had my drive back to the exam centre.

Agonising over failing to adult, and not seeing myself as ready enough enough to pass the exam, I wasn’t in the flow of the driving. Despite my decades of relaxation practices, and positioning myself as a teacher, I didn’t have a solution.

That can happen and it’s OK. I still have work to accept that myself.

The tools I offer have their limits; I liken them to cues and techniques for squatting weight; throw 500kg on your back and all the alignment in the world won’t make a difference. To compound it — paradoxically, a need for these techniques to work, a sense that the alternative is unbearable, enfeebles whatever hack you are trying to use.

I’d been hoisted by the petard of that unrealistic expectation several years ago, and it had put a crack in me for a long time.

Since then I’ve made a point of telling my students to accept that sometimes you will not be able to relax at all, you will not be able to overcome what is happening, but maybe make peace with it.

Since the first attempt, I’d put a lot more effort into driving: back-to-back lessons with my instructor to get really clear on what I needed to work on; then driving 10 - 12h a week for the following three weeks; and capping it off with another lesson with my instructor the day before. I don’t think I could have been more prepared with the time that I had. Still had a paroxysm of doubt in my chest — worried about the significance of the failure. During the last lesson, it was bad enough that I had little meltdown after a botched parking maneuver, and needed to stop completely for 15s to settle myself,

There I was, once-failed at the exam, doubting that I’d done enough, worrying what a second failure means as identifying as an adult, and the hoops I’d have to jump through to arrange another exam attempt. Trying to manage, to dispel the tension and stress. I did some standing, some squatting. The whole time, judging myself as a fraud for not getting it under control.

I checked my phone. Three minutes until I needed to go to my instructor. Still no relief. I wracked my brain, trying to think of a solution. I started thinking about my back, becoming more aware of it. All the tension and dread had pooled in my organs. I felt my back, the space behind my back, the tension seeped back into it, and disappeared.

Either that, or I came to peace with what was happening.

The drive out to the exam centre, and the exam itself, I felt calm and clear.

I passed.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough. I didn’t even have a since of relief or elation with it.

I don’t know if there’s a lesson in this. Maybe do the work that is needed, when it is needed and the stress management stuff is the icing on the cake. Maybe I’m not a fraud… I luckily rarely have moments of acute anxiety to work through.

So we’ll see what happens the next time.

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I feel hunted by something just out of sight. That doesn't make sense, it’s only a couple of meetings and points on a to-do list for goodness sake…In reality, I am in a very lucky position to be able to take a few minutes stillness; and if you're reading this, you probably have some margin to do nothing for a spell. As the years pass, I keep getting better at hearing the canary in the coal-mine, noticing the choking of my peripheral vision, my mind foggy and scattered, and putting down my “tools.”

I was reminded of this recently during my weekly class. We start by having tea and catching up for a while, then move over to some settling time; usually lying down for 15 to 30 minutes depending on how the room feels. Afterwards, I invite them to share what they experienced. One of the students was shocked to realise that it was his first time giving himself permission to lie down and settle in weeks, between work and house chores, his had been constantly occupied or preoccupied. He was shocked by the realization. But this realization only came after he deliberately allowed himself to do nothing, to go against his instinct whipping him onwards.

I suppose it is why people come to such classes; it is easier to go against instinct in groups, and with guidance; they trust me and give themselves permission to follow, and do what I say. What do I do with all that power? I invite them to do some kind of nothing - lying like a dog more often than not.

Especially over the last 5 years, more and more, I value finding the stillness in between activities, coming to a rest. I’m deeply nourished by it; this deeply inactive state of rest; a state of wuji. I feel like I’m born again, or returning to myself, remembering so many things about myself. I’m more than just the next thing I have to do; I can relish life. I see these lovely experiences reflected in people’s faces in person and online.

Get used to giving yourself permission to do nothing when you feel too busy and unsettled.

If it helps, I give you permission to do nothing for a few minutes, to lie down; with my PhD in Engineering you could justify the stillness by saying “scientists say that I need to be still more.”

You will have to accept the discomfort in the beginning – ignoring that stalking pressure at the back of your mind, the one insisting stillness is dangerous.

Sit with it.

Trust that, after a few minutes, there will be a downshift; you begin to let go, you begin to sink and float, a deep breath will bloom as your ribs and diaphragm unbind, the quality of your perception will change; and you’ll be confused why you ever thought you didn’t have enough time.

But it all starts with giving yourself permission to be still like an animal at rest; to be still like a tree.

A couple of years ago I was visiting friends and their ever industrious two year old was playing with pots and pans on the kitchen floor. My friends are hardcore chefs, meaning that every pot has a lid that fits; a unique opportunity for a curious kid in the kitchen. The little fella was immersed in placing the lids seemingly at random on pots. As far as I could tell he didn't care about pairing them “correctly.” Each time he would consider the lid, pick a pot to place it on — over or in depending on the size differences. After taking in the result, he would put aside that lid and choose another one to place.

He showed this wonderful indifference to whether or not the lid fit properly. Every now and again, I had the impression he would deliberately take one, look around and drop it onto the correct one. But when I was watching he never did it repeatedly, just on a whim. His father would get excited; insisting and pointing out which pot is the right one for the lid, but he was very much ignored. He was playing a very different game to how us adults were looking at it.

The contrast with the little one’s experience really stuck with me; it still has me reflecting on the arbitrary nature of picking the “correct” one; he wasn’t about to go make a souflet or something — that a lid fit didn’t matter. I guess he was learning about “bigger,” “smaller” and “similar.” Each lid and pot pairing a little insight. If that’s what you are playing at, the “similar” sizing is only one of three valuable outcomes. He didn’t care about the purpose of the pans. In fancy terms, if the outcome has no real consequence, then why does it matter if it is correct?

Peruse the possibilities instead of picking the “right” one

As a recovering perfectionist, I wish I’d been ecouraged more in this direction — or reminded that it was an option. Formal education is steeped in doing things properly, in not failing. Sometimes, I still notice an almost eldritch dread when I consider doing something “wrong.”

Even in writing for my substack here, ironically, I’m between laughing and gritting my teeth in frustration because I’m still thinking so much in the frame of writing down what’s on my mind “correctly”, in a way that garners interest and reaction; which is an unpleasant and stifling intention for me to have.

I like using verbs like explore, tinker, study, map; maybe I’ll start trying out “peruse the possibilities.” Filling my understanding of the world a bit more.

The people that come to meditation, yoga, martial arts and even the general movement culture practices are often seeking a validation, a desire to do something impressive and to be told they are doing it “right.”

Thinking back over the last 30 years or so of practice there are a lot of things that I thought were right, and I told my students with confidence that they were so, and at least some of these things have changed, a great example being knees going beyond the toes. I feel much better in finding a way to open up the options to explore within a low risk space, there’s a wonder that comes from discovering something new. And as time goes by, if you are going to make a souflet, you’ll know when to pick the right lid for yourself.

Practicalities

One of the ways I’ve been approaching this in the body structure work in my Wednesday classes — and previously in my online classes and book, subtle plug — is starting with moving and feeling, then eventually asking them to settle into a position that feels most nourishing at the moment. For example, with the ankles, as you are standing, moving them inwards and outwards repeatedly, iteratively, feeling how the feet, the knees and even the torso and the head are affected by the ankle position; recognising where it feels more or less pleasant; when it feels more or less athletic; where it feels more or less grounded; pick any adjective that pops into your head and try it out. Can you smile to yourself if you notice a desire to do it correctly or optimally?

Eventually, once you’ve satisfied your curiosity, where would you like your ankles to be based on your feeling and what you are going to do next? How does it feel to walk afterwards?

Rigid postures

The information and narrative about our posture is rigid and directive. I’m going to be lazy and outsource my canvassing of posture recommendations to ChatGPT,1 I think it’s reasonable because the LLMs default to the common or average response. Solid material from GPT, very concrete, but not a single mention about judging a posture by how it makes you feel and what sensations to notice. Instead it says to adopt a posture, using external references, and it’s very stagnant. It’s directive instead of explorative, as if there is a one size fits all universal answer. Some expert is coming along and telling you what position to force your body into so that you have a “good” posture, implicitly and often explicitly saying you don’t know anything about your body. The approach undermines and numbs any curiousity and intuition that you have about yourself. But worry not, I just so happen to have an alternative… what are the odds.

Fluid

The last few weeks in class, we’ve been focusing on how the pelvis position helps with this shift, especially in standing and sitting. The classic space of “correct” posture. We roll through pelvis as we lie and sit, and noticing how the different positions feel and affect our whole, our breath, our mood, our sense of connectivity, even sensations of circulation and energy flowing through the body. I was using a physical cue of finding where the spine is longest due to the pelvis.2 Over time as the mapping fills out, we settle on the position that feels the nourishing to us.

Finding a smile

Learning to explore your body and how your posture can bring a smile to you is my favourite way to practice. It empowers you to judge how a posture can help you. The input from experts is really useful, but no need rely on it blindly.

Both for myself and my students, in the beginning, it takes some patience for the switch to happen from wondering if it is “correct” to noticing how it feels. In class, it usually takes 10 to 15 minutes for it to happen. But after that, the smiles start to bloom.3

If you are you someone that seeks external validation about what you are doing; how does it feel?

When it comes to me, I have this anxious feeling, like a baby trying to see if my parents approve of what I am doing. This outside focus, seeking the approval, locks me up and completely overshadows the other sensations I might be having; I can’t hear my intuition, my proprioception, and gentler signs of tone and tension in me; these senses are constantly telling me how my shape and my environment are affecting me.

This type of postural explorations, not seeking the external reference points, are a wonderful space to strengthen your intuition, and build your trust in what you are telling yourself. As time goes, by I think it can help you recognise your intuition guiding you in other areas of your life.

I’ve spent the last five years focusing on meditating according to inner timing; especially when to stop or when to go from settling to a more active meditation technique. Then in the last twelve months, I’ve been appreciating more the cycles that my awareness goes through, depending on the phases in the meditation, and how similar this is to cycles in sleep. The parallel being between the natural end of a cycle of meditation and the dawning of wakefulness as sleep ends.

More and more frequently I have this sense of returning I get. As if I'm waking up even though I was never asleep; like a blanket lifting from my mind; a sense of dawning in my consciousness. If you have the wherewithal tomorrow morning, notice how the lights come as as you sleep – especially if you are able to wake up naturally.

It got me thinking about other similarities that meditation might have with the cycles of sleep going; the shallow sleep, REM, deep sleep, … . Ideally we sleep according to the cycles, and not according to the timer; it's generally a horrible feeling to wake up in between those cycles – which is what an alarm clock can be rather harrowing. It really robs the safety of our sleeping space. How do you feel going to sleep on nights where you have to set the alarm?

Like the sleeping cycles, I feel something happening in my meditation; a series of phases in the texture of my awareness. It starts with a first release of tension as I slip into a restful state, and my awareness softens and becomes less tunnelled. I notice more and more of what my senses are telling me. Next, it's like I begin to go on a journey — a sober trip, if you like. I’m carried away with the experience, immersed in it, for brief periods there’s no “me.” Instead there is this undifferentiation: what I feel in my body, what I sense in my thoughts and what I notice in my surroundings; it’s all the same. But eventually, I slip out of this and come back to a “me” that feels clearer.

For longer sessions, greater than one 40 minutes at the moment, I could go through this cycle of restlessness, to restful, to undifferentiated (“I am absent”), to awakened, a couple of times. I’ve found that I could jump between any of these, and depening on what comes up, I might get tossed out entirely and feel myself restless, which is why it’s important to have a relaxing and safe place to do you practice… I’ve had some longer standing meditations that went for two hours in the park, where I came out of it feeling really vulnerable and exposed, and walking back through the city to get home was not pleasant.

It’s likely that I went through this pattern in my meditation sessions always to varying degrees – but I didn’t appreciate them as they were happening. This really has only come to me in the last couple of years as I’ve started to emphasise to my students to allow the tone of their awareness to judge when they end their meditation instead of using a timer. It has helped reinforce my own experience and reflect on it more as I want to share and express it better.

Next time you meditate, or lie for a while doing nothing, leave a few hours space so you don’t have to use a timer, and see if you notice how the texture of you awareness changes.

Let me know what you find.

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I cried a few times on the last leg of my flight returning from Australia.

I cried because I was sitting beside a mother and her son 10 to 12 years old. Her son needed support, I guess, because he was somewhere on the autistic spectrum.1 He had a lot of different verbal tics – clicking his tongue, whoops, hoots, repetitive phrases, and whistles – and even physical tics – snapping his fingers, clapping his hands, tapping his mom’s tummy or the armrests.

I was overwhelmed, sitting beside them; I felt a lovely sense of warmth, love and support from his mother. I marvelled at her equanimity because I can imagine travelling with a child that needs so much attention and care alone would be demanding.

She was calm for an 11 hour flight.

She wasn’t frustrated with him.

She was unerringly calm.

Every time one of his ticks happened, which everyone around us noticed, she was there to calm him, not to quieten him. To calm him to offer a supportive touch or.words. She never once told him to be quiet, or try to control his behaviour.

How they were, brought me to tears.

I think I was extra tender because my brother, whoI had been visiting, was on my mind. He’s a wonderful loving father, but I'm still a few stages from fatherhood; even though I hope to be.

It was a powerful trip for that, and an emotional coda on the way back.

I treasure having a practice that allows me to notice what I’m feeling and allow it to express. A soft, full body and unshaped, responsive awareness. Although even in the last few months, there’s been plenty of times where, I’ve been hard and empty, with rigid awareness.

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Poetic references

It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined,

who went to see the elephant (Though all of them were blind),

that each by observation, might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the elephant, and, happening to fall,

against his broad and sturdy side, at once began to bawl:

"God bless me! But the elephant is nothing but a wall!"

The second feeling of the tusk, cried: "Ho! what have we here,

so very round and smooth and sharp? To me tis mighty clear,

this wonder of an elephant, is very like a spear!

[...]

- John Godfrey Saxe, "The Blind Men and the Elephant"

“The code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.”

Barbossa, Pirates of the Caribbean

[These are excerpts from companion notes to the live online sessions I teach. A post from Samantha Emmanuele triggered sharing it]

The contents of the class notes might come across differently and feel different for so many reasons, for one - I am writing from memory; so some topics I might have overlooked in your session, or I might use different phrasing.

Think of the poem by Saxe above, it’s elephants and blind men all around!

Take that to heart in reading the notes, and your own experience of the practices and how they evolve. Keep in mind not to treat what I say as law or dogma, even if I might claim it to be. Entertain that I am wrong for whatever reason. You could treat what I share as experiments and hypotheses for yourself to perform and prove/disprove. I am confident you will feel the differences between your habit and the alternatives that we tinker with here.

Figure 1: Teaching this stuff is like a blindman describing an elephant one touch at a time (Underlying image: https://www.batimes.com/articles/blind-men-and-the-elephant.html)

We are living creatures, and the beauty of a living creature is that it moves, it changes. And in important ways, we are blind to ourselves.

The blind men can’t perceive all that the elephant is, and at any given moment, they can only perceive a sliver of it. With enough touches maybe they can create a mosaic, something that offers an intuitive leap to “elephant!”

If the blind man were to reach out to exactly the same point in space, what are the odds he would touch the same spot on the elephant? How close was he to touching the tusk instead of the trunk, or the ear?

What if he leaves his hand on the elephant on the same spot for 20 years?

What if he put his hand on the same spot of each ancestor of the elephant going back 100 million years?

All of my teachers, in my 30+ years of practice, have somehow contradicted themselves. But were they talking about spears one time and, another time, walls… ? Or maybe they had found a new elephant?

Each medium; written, visual, audio+visual, touch, … , could be a different blind man from Indastan. So consider your teacher an unreliable narrator, and reflect on the mosaic they are building with each lesson and nugget they share.

I’ve been playing with the metaphor in my classes recently. Consider yourself as the boulder and Sisphyus. This idea of the effort against “natural forces,” driving the boulder up. A lot of the habits we have are pushing ourselves up a hill, increasing tension.

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So in my meditation classes, I’ve asked, how we can stop pushing and beyond that allow ourselves to sink more deeply into relaxation. Let the boulder roll down the hill. Appreciate the forces pulling it down the hill.

Absolute relaxation doesn’t exist. But the process of relaxation - becoming more relaxed than you were, feeling the steady roll of muscles relaxing more and more is something to appreciate.

But if you are at a loss to relaxing — not doing — you can probably try tensing yourself up first, since doing is something much more familiar to us.

Years ago, I was doing an online class outdoors — audio only. And one of the students got overpowered by a sense of hypervigilance and felt stuck in it; had no control in it. I took an idea from Systema, playing with tension, and encouraged them to become 10% more hypervigilant. Feeling all the different ways that that affected them - the tightness around the eyes, the tunnel vision, the darting gaze …, the rigidity, the shallow breath, … , and making them all 10% more. Feeling how that is, getting familiar with the sense. Then ramping it back by 5%, feeling the slight lessening of it. Getting familiar with that intensity. And then another 5%, etc. Eventually, by the end of a few iterations, they felt wonderfully relaxed and opened, especially their peripheral vision opened up and their breath smoothened. It was a big relief for me, and I guess themself as well.

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So when you feel a bit frustrated by not being able to relax yourself, consider taking stock of what frustration — tension — is for you, and make it a bit more. You’re empowering yourself instead of feeling powerful about how you feel … even if it doesn’t feel better. And from there reduce it a tiny bit, feeling that change happen. And reduce it another tiny bit. And another. Any time you lose your bearings and aren’t sure how to relax more, tense yourself up a smidge again and repeat. Push that boulder up the hill to see it roll back down again.

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https://mythopedia.com/topics/sisyphus

Foreword

This piece was inspired by a conversation I had with a friend of mine. He was telling me about how the teacher he did the standing work with talked about ignoring urges to move, forcing yourself to be absolutely still. Which I found appallingly short-sighted. I think it is much more nourishing to allow some movement in your stillness.

Even a tree moves

The meditation and stillness practices (lying, kneeling, seated, zhan zhuang), in my opinion, is not about forcing yourselves to be a statue. Treating standing purely as a practice of discipline and will-power is a limiting disservice to it. This might feel like resilience, but it’s a rigid and fragile thing, that relies on you pushing and fighting the tensions and urges to move that you feel. These habits can lead to a numbing or dissociation, that mean you could miss early signs of illness, unease and exhaustion.

Instead, it's about [eventually] [at some indeterminate point in the future] arriving at a state of quasi-stillness. There’s always some motion. Nothing living is truly still. Even in stillness, there is movement if you watch closely. These organic processes unfolding and emerging over time. Like motions of an oak; its branches shifting in the breeze, lifting as the sun rises, drooping as it sets,1 as the seasons change — leaves coming and going.

In my standing practice and classes, instead of ignoring, fighting, suppressing the spontaneous movements, we ask: how can we respond to them — these impulses to shift and adjust? How can we move in centimeters, even millimeters, that help remove tension?

This adds a critical depth to stillness practice, which might seem counter-intuitive at first, but it is something that will allow your stillness to evolve; as you interpret the tension in your body as a sign to move and soften, instead of fighting it. The shape and tone of your body can change, instead of being stagnant and fixed.

Anecdotal evidence

I had client doing their first session with me and we began with some lying work, as they were relaxing and settling, they began to cry. They were holding onto something that hurt them earlier in the week. It had been there underneath the busyness of the week. It shocked her, that she had held on to it for so much time and hadn’t realised it. I’ve had similar experiences.

Earlier this year, I had an issue at work that I let fester for a couple of days, and it was only when I made time to lie down and reflect on what I was holding and my anxiety about it came up. As I acknowledged it and accepted that the anxiety was there, it softened and lessened. It was a weight off of my chest when it happened, but I did feel exhausted by it, because I had been in a low level in fight-flight the days I had been ignoring it.

I only just heard a wonderful voice note from a friend of mine marvelling at how much energy he has after working a string of 8 to 12 hour shifts at his work because he’s made a habit of noticing for the tension during his day and then softening or lessening it as in the first exerise. He sounded overjoyed with this breakthrough because he used to be exhausted from his work, especially the longer shifts and it took him a lot of effort to mentally prepare for his work and to do other things afterwards.

These are some examples about why it is so powerful to permit yourself to let go and to use the “stillness” practices to allow these things to come loose and pass through. These little motions are reorganising, re-distributing or releasing strains and tensions.

This is why I encourage people to honor their need for movement, to avoid feeling trapped or stuck. Over time—whether within a single session or across months and years—as you move imperceptibly and increase your sensitivity, you can arrive at a state of stillness. I believe this is a fascinating journey: teasing apart the spectrum of sensations you experience. Which sensations are calling for release? As you stand, you might find deep-seated tension tied to a difficult memory or pain that needs to be processed and released. How do you respond the sensations, the pressures, the pulls and pushes inside of you?

If you’re looking for guidance on recognizing your body’s subtle signals for movement and release, here are some exercises I recommend:

Exercise 1: inquiry

I’ve mentioned this before in previous posts, but I’ll gladly repeat myself about it. It’s most useful to start this in lying, because it is minimal effort, but once the process is clear you can do it while sitting, standing, walking, etc.

1. Allow your mind to wander for a bit, undirected, unconstrained, like a dog nosing around the room before it settles down to sleep

2. When you remember, ask one of this questions:

   1. What are you holding?

   2. What are you holding up, that wants to sink into the ground?

   3. What are you holding down that wants to rise into the air?

   4. What are you holding in that wants to expand outwards?

   5. What are you holding out that wants to condense inwards?

3. Let the question hang there and notice where your attention goes in your body.

4. Can you soften your hold, or even let go of it completely?

5. When you remember ask on of the questions again and allow the process to go again. Repeat until you’ve had your fill of it.

Emotions can come up — sorrow, anger, fear, … . It can happen that you’re eyes water and weep, not even emotionally, but almost like a purging. Also this isn’t like a strict meditation practice where you are constantly trying to maintain your focus or concentration. It’s unforced and organic. I like to use the cue of “when you remember to, then … .” Allow your mind to wander. Ask a question when you feel like it. Appreciate where your awareness is drawn.

Exercise 2: Body Breathing

This is a fundamental qigong/neigong exercise that fits wonderfully into stillness practices (lying, kneeling, standing whichever way). It can be like a wonderful massage for the body. Check me out modelling it below.2

1. Stand in any pose you like. Begin by focusing on your center of gravity, located beneath your navel.

2. Imagine a sense of fullness expanding outward from there, creating space between your bones and joints.

3. Feel this expansion traveling upward through your organs, chest, and shoulders. Visualize your shoulder blades sliding outward, your shoulder joints opening, and the space in your pelvis expanding; in time with this your hands being pushed open.

4. Let this expansion flow all the way to your toes, fingertips, neck, jaw, and the crown of your head.

5. When the expansion reaches its endpoint, allow it to gently rest and return to your center; your hand in time compressing into a fist.

6. Repeat this process for a few minutes, expanding and condensing, while noticing any areas of tension or difficulty in your body.

7. After 5–10 minutes, ask yourself: How could I do this with 5% less mental effort? The goal is to learn how to communicate with your body gently and silently, almost like a soft whisper.

There shouldn’t be any strain in the expansion or condensation. Imagine the tissues, muscles, swelling/expanding and notice how the tissues respond to it. It can help to do it together with your breathing in the beginning - expanding as you inhale and condensing as you exhale. In my experience there’s quite an intuitive response in the body to imagining it expanding. You can try it with a specific part of your body initially, like your palm or your stomach. Also remember that there is a back to you as well, remember to allow the expansion and spreading of the tissues back there. Like you were a ball - everywhere feeling equal, no corners or parts of you sticking out. If it’s still confusing, leave a comment :)

Exercise 3: Fitting the Glove

This is a personal exercise I created, though it may overlap with ideas from other practitioners. This exercise is a gradual, organic journey through your body. The goal is to imagine how you can fit better within yourself—exploring subtle, spontaneous movements that help you release tension and feel more at ease.

1. Starting with your hands, hanging naturally at your sides or whatever position your pose requires.

2. Think of getting your hand inside a glove that has become wrinkled, twisted, and balled up in your pocket.

3. Consider the small adjustments your hand would make to smooth out the glove and fit yourself inside of it.

4. Imagine your hand is inside a glove—this glove represents your skin and fascia.

5. What small movements would your hand need to make to smooth out the wrinkles in this imaginary glove? Picture yourself gently spreading and untwisting the “fabric” of the glove, adjusting each joint and tissue in your hand until the glove fits perfectly.

6. Once this process feels settled in your hand, apply the same concept to your wrist, elbow, shoulder, chest, back, pelvis, and so on; If you can’t figure out how to apply it to a specific area, return to one you have already done.

Closing

Having tension and working against the tension consumes a lot of energy — parasitic tensions. Further you are building a habit of ignoring what you feel. It strikes me as disempowering. At it’s worst, it encourages you stay in difficult situations in your life without thinking you have power to change them, or at least to make them easier for yourself. You might be more likely to “do what you are told” even when it does not feel right for you, which has led to mass instances of abuse in yoga and martial arts schools, where the teachers insist on you pushing yourself and listening to them over yourself.

Permitting little changes, and releasing these parasitic tensions gives more and more energy and sensitivity; offering a more sustainable way of being. It helps strengthen your awareness, and better interpret what you can do to make your life easier. It builds you intuition and your trust in yourself.

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This is so cool: https://www.science.org/content/article/drooping-trees-may-actually-be-sleeping (the idea that the trees might be relaxing blows my mind… I think the lack of water pressure due to the no photosynthesis happening seems more plausible to me).

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The time inside

Instead of focusing on minutes or formal measures, I’m much more interested in internal rhythms – ticks and tocks. For example, one of the ways I love to practice is to sit or stand until a certain feeling arises, or count the thoughts I notice; or how my internal sensations shift. Sometimes I’ll meditate until I feel a change in my perspective or my sense of the world around me.

When I teach others, I might suggest they hold a meditation pose until they feel their practice has settled them more deeply; or achieved its purpose – whatever that might mean; until they’ve yawned ten times. I really emphasize using meditation to recognize your own rhythms and deciding when you've meditated "enough" based on what you are feeling inside.

My own work on the relationship between internal and external time started with my standing practice 20 years ago.

I used a timer at first.

But over time, it felt like I was giving up responsibility for paying attention to myself.

Eventually, I made a game or challenge of guessing how much time was passing; “That feels like one minute… that feels like two.” Over time, I let go of the need for exactness. This shift released some of the pressure and the “need” to know the passage of time. Some days, I would count incredibly slowly—perhaps taking 15 minutes to count to three.

Over the years, this practice developed a life of its own.

Sometimes I deliberately avoid counting. When I feel the urge to count, I’ll say “one” in my mind repeatedly, resisting the temptation to count up.

You might also use counting as a way to navigate difficult moments in your practice. When things get tough, it can be helpful to count breaths or sensations as a way to stay engaged. Play with what breath feels like it counts, and which does not.

Counting can become mechanical, but if you’re intentional about what you count—moments of significance or challenges—it can be meaningful and reflective.

Consider counting inwards like watching birds fly by: you can’t control when they appear, but you can observe them and count the experiences. This approach allows you to see your body as a natural environment, with its days, seasons, and years; but independent of your identity and awareness. It’s a powerful way to develop mindfulness, especially in a world full of external pressures that often disrupt our internal rhythms.

Counting coups on myself

Counting can become mechanical, but if you’re intentional about what you count—moments of significance or challenges—it can be meaningful, reflective and appreciative.

Here’s an example of how you could do it:

In a recent standing session, I stood for an hour and 10 minutes, and counted to 10.

The reason for each count was different; the first was a deep sigh and a feeling of settling into my feet. The second count first irritation or a sense of boredom about doing the session, an urge to stop. The third was an opening sensation, as though my torso bloomed outwards in all directions - filling up, the arms sliding outwards, the pelvis sinking downwards. The fourth was strong sexual energy, and thoughts of a woman that I look forward to seeing. Five felt like a ferocious wind rolling outwards from my stomach, billowing my arms away from my sides and filling the space around me. Number the sixth was a sense of deep strength and rooting, a desire to wrestle. Seventh was a warm sense of contentment in my chest. Number eight was a breathless yawn that seemed to go on forever, convulsing through my tissues. The ninth was a sense of sorrow, missing my father, and the gaps in my life. Tenth was a sense of awakening, something dawning within my mind and my body; as if I had been asleep before that moment, or my eyes being able to see another wavelength. The last year, it’s become a more frequent experience marking when I’ve had my fill of my meditation. As time goes by, it will become a new starting point, I guess.

I understand this can be difficult for people with busy lives. But I encourage you to make at least part of your practice about learning how to tune into their own needs at the moment. Maybe five minutes is enough, maybe ten or fifteen minutes works better. The key is learning to stop when you feel satiated. As if meditation was a meal.

Call to inaction

The next time you meditate, try playing with counting. Make it a game, exploring your internal cycles. Ask yourself: When does it feel right to count? When does it feel right to stop?

You can still use a timer if you need it, but don’t let it dictate your practice – notice when you think in terms of how many minutes left. Instead, use it to protect your time. Start the time and forget about it. Over time use it as a reference point to better understand yourself and your stress levels. For example, if you struggle to stand for five minutes one day, when you normally stand for an hour, it’s a signal that you may need more rest or self-care.

Look at meditation as exploring, honoring, rediscovering your internal rhythms. Trust them. They’ll guide you.

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