The Middle Way

Imagine you’re looking at a spectrum, a line representing two extremes.

On one end, you have complete austerity, whatever that means to you. On the other, you have complete indulgence.

Or, perhaps, on one end you have deeply blissful highs, and on the other you have crushing, depressing lows.

It’s tempting, is it not, to think of The Middle Way as a kind of compromise between the two.

“Yeah, have a little chocolate cake, just not too much.”

From the perspective of living in the extremes, the middle way can look like a kind of luke-warm, dad-joke, have-it-both-ways compromise you sigh your way into after you get your first real job.

===

But, I am purporting here and have directly experienced: that’s not all it is

And in fact that’s only the most surface layer, the what it looks like, in the same way that a plastic rose can kind of look like a rose, but really they are nothing alike.

Back to our initial image of the spectrum, it’s as if from one perspective yes, this middle way is, indeed, in the middle of two points.

But then the perspective shifts, and this third point is actually on another plane altogether.

From this new perspective, it’s not a “middle point” at all. It is something else entirely.

===

There’s a depth there that you cannot fathom. (I can’t either.)

There’s a holding of opposites — where either/or breaks down, not for lack of intellect but for sudden uselessness of the map of logic itself — that you cannot fathom.

===

So, how to find it, to get to know this depth?

1. Lots of good resources out there these days; thank goodness.

2. For lack of any more detail, try this one on: Follow your heart is step one. Step two is vital: now act. That thing stirring in your guts that you know calls you, perhaps terrifyingly so: that. It’s secret work, and it’s extremely, and only, personal to you.

New Year Experiments

For the new year, at least the next few months, I'll be employing one personal experiment per month. Perhaps you'll join me.

Here are the rules of the game:

1. Only one experiment per month.

You want to do other stuff, fine, but choose one thing that's your real target.

2. Lock onto the target and do not stray.

This is not "we'll see how I feel and re-evaluate every morning." It's set the target for one month. If and when it's difficult, toughen up. To toughen up, you need nothing other than to just, well, toughen up.

I offer this primarily as an antidote to the camp I often spend time in, which is more feel good and listen to your body type rhetoric. Of course don't do violence to yourself, but as anyone who's broken through an addiction will tell you, there will be moments when your body is screaming at you for one more hit of whatever — a drink, a cookie, a random hookup — and the power of staying with your resolve, and emerging out the other side of the addictive craving ... well, what that is is really what these experiments are about, ultimately. Then you have a different body that will make new choices. If the thing was really good for you, i.e. this version of listening to your body, when the month is up: have at it, forever and ever.

3. This is an experiment, of course, so do your best to empty any preconceptions about if this is "good for you" or not. This is, in my mind, the biggest difference between an experiment and a resolution. Both can be great, but this one is really about try this and really observe, see what it's like to do it for a month.

4. Share with people if it's helpful. If it's not, don't.

I've been appreciating lately the dance of when it's time for public transparency, and when it's time to hold something dear to your chest, like a journal entry that you know no one else will read.

5. You may ask yourself: whose voice is this that's asking for this change?

Ask this both when setting the experiment, and throughout the month. You may already get what I'm getting at, and may be surprised. I sure have been.

6. When the month is done, the experiment is done.

Then drop it, entirely. You may, of course, find yourself engaging again. You may find some habits have completely dropped. I've experienced both. (Coffee, for example, I take breaks from every few months, when it's feeling like too much. But it's something I love a lot and usually come back to. I'm getting more and more okay with that.)

Have a great time. Let me know how it goes? LB

Assessment, Treatment and Reverse Engineering

Consider for a moment the difference between what are good tools for assessment, and what are good tools for treatment. And when those two are synonymous, and when they’re not.

(Often, this assessment/treatment schema is a bit of a false dichotomy but, if you would, let’s just play along.)

An example: if you can’t touch your toes, will attempting to touch your toes on a regular basis help you, eventually, touch your toes?

There’s an obviousness, a tried-and-true wisdom feeling to it, that says “of course.” In this case, we call it stretching, or yoga or whatever you happen to be doing. Does it work? There are a trillion variables in answering that but we could say: yeah, to varying degrees, it does*

If you lack strength in your arms, conventional wisdom says you do things that someone with strong arms would do: i.e. you lift weights, or do pushups or whatever.

The basic formula: work backwards from where you want to be, keep leaning that direction and it’ll happen.

But how about: if you’re not a nice person, will attempting to be a nice person on a regular basis help you, eventually, be a nice person? (And in this example, we might add: if so, at what cost to your vitality?)

Will trying to balance on your toes help you balance on your toes? Will trying to teach well help you teach well? If so for either of these, is that the best method, or are there better ways to do this?

Will trying to be a great architect help you be a great architect?

For that last one, most overtly: probably not. Or rather, it is not the most essential ingredient by far. There are innumerable foundational skills that you’ll need first.

These are all examples of reverse engineering.

And it works beautifully sometimes. Sometimes, it misses the mark entirely.

You make a building that looks like a well-built building but isn’t, and it’ll fail sooner.

You’ll miss the unseen.

You “try to act nice” for too long and, god willing, you’ll snap before it gets too far down that road of faked niceties.

You try to help someone who’s nervous by saying “relax,” or someone with low confidence by saying “believe in yourself.”

And sometimes it works well. And sometimes, this reverse engineering decidedly does not work. The raw ingredients aren’t there.

===

So, consider the very tense person. We could tell them to “relax.” We could also 1. assume that this person’s systemic response to reality is right on point, and 2. decide where to go from there, perhaps about changing that “reality” which has nothing to do with “relaxing” or not.

Same with someone who wants strength. Or the architect. Or the rich person. 
Before we start trying to just be something else — yes, it can work, but if it doesn’t — what is the fundamental ground we’re standing on? What’s that like, and how is my current body - mind - whatever else right now actually in perfect response to reality, right now?

Not in theory, but actual you — the person reading this — and me — right now?

===

I have failed at this innumerable times as a teacher. I have said stuff like “just try to feel this” when the building blocks for feeling were not in a person’s system (as best as I could tell). It was too much too soon. I have failed at this innumerable times as a person. I tried to “be nice” or “be happy” when the building blocks for these byproducts of liberation weren’t there. (Please know I’m using “failed” here lightly. I’m not upset about it, so don’t you be either, please. Otherwise I say stuff like this and some of y’all’s very kind hearts start consoling via comments;))

===

Food for our collective convo and good morning.

===

*yes, I’m aware of the current literature which says static stretching doesn’t actually change myofascial length; the focus in those studies has been wonky, I think, ignoring a fundamental fact: YOU DON’T HAVE HAMSTRINGS.

You don’t have a femur. You don’t have a biceps brachii or kidneys or a falx cerebri.

I mean, of course you do, but really, like really outside of cutting up a dead body, there is absolutely nothing in your body, brain, mind, whatever, outside of a concept, that is comprised solely of bundles of muscle fibers in the posterior leg, attaching up high and splitting down low, called "hamstrings." It’s just not there unless we cut it out.

You are an ecosystem immeasurably linked to itself and everything outside of itself. That’s just the facts.

And so, a stretch where someone’s lying on their backs getting stretched, i.e. passive stretching — which is the format for many of these studies — is vastly different in my eyes than someone doing their own “active” (still passive, though) stretch.

Call it intent or or awareness or neurobiology, they’re different acts.

Choosing Wisely What Academic Articles to Read

I heard some words from a colleague* that changed the way I research for my work, and prepare to teach. I want to pass those words on here.

"It takes a lot for me to open up to read something [academic]. So I'm careful about what I choose to do this with."

Over the last few years, as I've seen how this body-mind stuff has two main branches of expression — one research-driven and academic, the other "intuitive" — and therefore how cool it was to be able to speak both languages, to be able to talk intellectual shop with the best of them ...

... I would have ten tabs on my browser open, titles like "Review of myofascial pain studies" and "Cellular basis of mechanotransduction" and "Hamstring muscle length and pelvic tilt range among individuals with and without low back pain."

And I wouldn't close the tab until I'd "read" it.

But I'm putting "read" in quotes here because I was reading it, really, just to get it done, to be able to close that f'ing tab and move on with my life.

I was scanning for information to support what I believed, and maybe learn a factoid or two I could impress my students with.

And in that scanning, also, I would read a difficult section, or a whole difficult paper, and be like yeah, I kinda got that, got the gist of it, without having wrestled with the parts I didn't fully understand.

Of course, I'm kind of hamming up that side of it for the sake of highlighting it in this writing, but it was true all the same.

And for me, that was the main pointer, especially in retrospect: that side of my teaching that wanted students to say "wow; this guy knows a lot!"

And of course, that's an empty game, win or lose.

So, back to reading research more thoroughly, more sparingly, more selectively ...

I'm now experimenting with having what I read be :

a) something I'm interested in, and not just to support an argument (I suppose, honestly, it'd be totally fine to do the latter; just to call a spade a spade there)

b) reading it, and pausing in those places where I can tell I'm skimming, wrestling with it mentally, taking time with pictures and graphs ... "can I really grock what they're saying here?" ... visualizing, reframing in my own words before moving on

It's been an epic change. I love it.

I also love how the intellectual wrestling feels so akin to what I've grown to love about movement training: that is, navigating through autonomic stress, little micro-shifts that make the world of difference inside though might not look like much outside.

Much like teaching to impress or teaching to teach, the shift is very subtle, if not imperceptible, on the inside ...

... but it has a feeling tone any of us can recognize in an instant.

* That colleague is former guest, and soon to be guest again, Mr Michael Hamm. While we were prepping for a course and deciding what materials to include in our handout, I suggested something that he thought was too basic, and added "it takes a lot for me to read papers, so I choose them wisely."

I had always considered him someone of infinite intellectual resource and stamina so that took me by surprise and then, over the course of the months that've followed, has really affected me. I'm really grateful for that moment.

The Heart of Movement, Teaching and Learning's Never Ending Path with Jill Miller — ep 30

Episode 30, with Jill Miller, is live! Our convo revolves around a few central themes that I thought traversed the landscape of "physical" and "emotional" and "mental" in a way that can be really good medicine.

One of these themes: the inevitability of one's dharmic path. As many of you may know, Jill recently had a hip replacement surgery. Was that avoidable? It's a theoretical question of course, but her layers of answering were so powerful, raw, direct and brought us somewhere I wasn't expecting.

38 min 50 sec for the heart of her answer on this topic, though I'd recommend building up to it.

Jill shares some great insight on addiction to movement, meditation, food ... things that aren't inherently "bad" which can make unraveling an addiction all the more complicated.

Another theme is around her surgery. She's been super open about that process — her take on why she got there and what recovery is like — and I respect her a ton for that lack of hiding that is really common, I think, in the world of healer/teacher: to hide one's personal pains from having made mistakes.

Lots on the multi-layered art of teaching, practicing, listening to the heart of one's own experience.

A thousand little nuggets of gold scatter across this landscape. Hope you enjoy the walk.

Love, LB + TBA

¿ So is alignment important or not ?

Aka Ruminations on Alignment, pt 3

Is alignment — the shape of one's body in any particular situation — important?

I'd love offer up: it's really not.

Alignment is not important; tone is.

The funny part is, in many ways they are synonymous — and thus it’s an easy distinction to miss.

It’s like mass and weight. On earth, those two are synonymous. Go to another planet, though, and while your mass remains the same your weight changes.

I’d say, in this analogy, tone — i.e. the dance between what is engaged and what is not — is mass, and alignment is weight. And the planets are positions, movements, traditions.

Alignment, in other words, is entirely circumstantial. It’s important as an indicator, absolutely, but it’s not cause; it’s effect.

If you get to know the tonus of a position, through and through, then it’s yours; you‘ve got it.

If you only come to know the position, ie the alignment, then you know that alignment but it doesn’t translate per se. It’s learning to stand with this particular weight, specific to this planet.

All this, of course, is simplified ...

... but I would contend that getting into good alignment is actually not at all about getting into good alignment, but about all you need to find in your own body in order to get into that good alignment ...

Do you need to make this distinction as a teacher each time? Of course not. You might say the exact same words, do this movement this certain way, i.e. in this certain alignment.

The difference is : you will know you are teaching something that’s about what is happening on the inside — which can indeed refer to all sorts of things but here I am talking about what’s happening on the inside just straight up biomechanically, i.e. what is engaged and what is not, i.e. the tone — which just happens to look like this particular alignment but that’s not the important part ...

... even though, for all intents and purposes on this planet, it is.

____________________________

Before we go, just to offer that another way of saying this is: alignment is very important ... as an indicator.

Embodied Yoga, Movement & Politics with Mark Walsh — Ep 29 — is live

1. "It's all good. Whatever your practice is, as long as you enjoy it, is great."

2. "Nope. Some practices are better than others. There are right ways and wrong ways to do things."

So, which is right: 1 or 2?

If those are two ends of a spectrum — and we're not going to take the easy way out and say "it's both!" or "it's in the middle!" — what do we do with that question?

That is, indeed, where Mark Walsh and I start our conversation — The Body Awake's latest episode — and what he has to say around this really got me thinking.

Listen right here, or on your favorite podcast app, or download this episode directly here.

Ruminations on Alignment, Pt 2

Video 2 in a little series about "alignment" as it relates to a body in posture in movement. Specifically, this series is about putting alignment — and thus concepts like "in alignment," "out of alignment" and even "neutral" — in a context that is useful, i.e. what questions it's asking, and thus answering, and what falls outside of alignment's jurisdiction.

The gist of this one: alignment doesn't speak very well to tone. It does address it somewhat, but only very peripherally. It's not the right tool.

What's tone, and who cares? Consider the difference between hovering above a chair and sitting in it, or of having your arm actively extending overhead, like you're reaching for the ceiling, versus just straightening your arm overhead.

Both examples yield very different experiences for the mover, with very little if any change in "alignment."

This is a concept that — I think — not in enough of our dialogue as movement teachers and practitioners.

Neutral … in relation to what?

A few days ago, I made a video about the beginnings of understanding the context of alignment. And any conversation about alignment has to start with an understanding of neutral. What’s neutral?*

It’s a living process, an ever-moving target.

It is not a position; it is not a particular arrangement of bony parts.

It is only what it is in context. Outside of the context of oppositional forces, there is no valid concept of neutrality.

It is different for you today than it was four seconds ago, much less last week or year.

It is different for you standing than it is sitting, different standing at the bus stop than standing as you wait for a first date to arrive.

Likewise, a "normal" or neutral breath whilst under duress — say at your parents' house for the holidays — is different than a normal breath while on vacation. Your normal breath will be different if you experienced this or that trauma as a child versus if you didn't, and on and on.

Neutral — also called homeostasis — has been with you since you were a zygote: a perfect balance of pressures.

It’s something you can’t escape. That’s the irony.

You are never *not* in neutral in a certain respect. If “part” of you zigs, another “part” of you zags. It’s perfect balance.

And yet, it’s a good conversation to have. “How goes that zigging and zagging? How’s it feeling? How’s it working for you?”

🌔

*You hear it all the time in movement and fitness world type stuff. “Neutral spine” or “neutral pelvis” … as part of the “have good alignment in your shoulders” or whatever conversation.

I, too, say stuff like this a lot! I think it’s very helpful.

I also think it’s very, very important to put these concepts in their place so they — the words pointing to concepts pointing to actual, lived experiences — serve that lived experience, and are not in place so that our lived experience conforms to the idea. That’s a pretty classic recipe for suffering.

Tom Myers on Being in the Body Business, Movement and the Disease of Feeling "Other" — ep 28 — is live

Dearest Friends and Listeners ~

Tom Myers returns to The Body Awake for our third interview. And like the other two but with new territory, Tom's experience and wisdom that came through this chat were really good nutrition for me, and now hopefully for you too.

Tom and I talk, among other things, about:

• making one's living as a bodyworker or movement teacher; the graces and pitfalls of the commercial vs academic spheres
• the full flowering, or "five fingers," of a fully integrated bodywork practice
• the disease of feeling "other," of alienation from ourselves, and what we can do about it

It's a good one.

Listen in on the show page, download here or find The Body Awake on iTunes, Stitcher, etc.

Links for this show: Tom's "Anatomy 101 For Yoga Teachers and Students" / TBA listeners use discount code TMYERS100 to save $100 off tuition

Bringing Aristotle Into the Heart

I think we are being asked, right now in our current politics and daily conversations alike, to bring the Greek revolution of the mind down into the heart.

There is one principal in particular, of Aristotle and the sophists, that we should be able to argue both sides of an argument,* that highlights this radical shift in perspective that's being asked of us.

It seems to me that, over the millennia since the ancient Greeks, we both:

a) in some cases, got quite good at this kind of argumentation

b) more recently, as seen on playgrounds and halls of congress alike, got quite good at just turning an entire argument on its head within moments

Remember that from the playground? Like all of a sudden some kid would say "nope, well now I have an shield that just deflects all your shots back onto you and now I WIN!" and you're like "no man, c'mon, that's not the rules ... !" Doesn't seem much different out there, honestly. And, to bring this in even closer, do you know that temptation? I certainly do. To be right! To win! When it's just a fake rule away, it's so seductive to begin that one-up game.

With so much rule-turning turning an issue on its head, I feel like it's forcing the point:

We must learn to feel being the "other side."

One step deeper than just thinking about it for the sake or argumentation. One step more vulnerable. One step more dangerous, for the waters you can get lost in.

Are we up for it?

This isn't an answer one proclaims — yes or no — but lives her answer to.

See you out there :)

*Aristotle's words, verbatim: "We must be able to employ persuasion, just as strict reasoning can be employed, on opposite sides of a question, not in order that we may in practice employ it in both ways (for we must not make people believe what is wrong), but in order that we may see clearly what the facts are, and that, if another man argues unfairly, we on our part may be able to confute him."

I love that line of "not in order that we may in practice employ it both ways ..." I reckon the same is true of this heart-level awakening, the feeling of both sides ... It's not that you suddenly don't care about what you care about; it's just that you can actually feel the other side "in order that we may see clearly."

Ruminations on Alignment, Pt 1

Learning “good alignment” can be a helpful, liberating teaching. It can also become a cage, reinforcing neuroses and fragility.

These two seemingly opposite truths — that alignment-based work can be both liberating and enslaving — share a common root.

That root is hard to put into words, though even incremental deepening in one’s understanding of that can be quite liberating.

This “alignment conversation” happening within a person is something I’ve been investigating deeply for many years — in my own body and the bodies in my care. It’s an ongoing question for me.

This is the first video of a series, each progressively more refine, nuanced and subtle. So we’ll start here, at the most gross and overt: the meta bony relationships (which is, indeed, what most people think of when they say the word “alignment”).

The gist: When we say “alignment,” we are really referring to a body in relation to itself. This can be a change in thinking because we often use objects outside the body as reference points — i.e. stand up straight, bring your hand up to the ceiling, open your chest forward.**

Emotional flavor: humility (to back off and find what’s being glossed over), and clear seeing / feeling.

** Note: this isn’t about changing your cues per se; it’s about clear seeing. “How to teach” is another topic altogether.

I Held a Handstand Yesterday

For about 15 seconds. I'm sharing because this was a huge deal for me, and not because of why you might think. And it's that "why" that I think might be helpful to you, dear reader, listener, mover, be-er.

This may help you navigate your personal waters of unfolding in a body, especially if you are at all like me and don't vibe with a lot of contemporary fitness models of "just try harder," but also enjoy the joy of effort and like to try things you're not good at.

Why this was amazing for me is all about the backstory.

About 15 years ago, two climbing accidents in the same year, one on a face in Joshua Tree and one on a steep left leaning finger crack in Yosemite, where I was in way over my head ... in both cases, I was super gripped and my feet popped off, and I heard a loud pop in my left shoulder.

On the crack in Yosemite, I felt popping and tearing. It hurt like hell. We rappelled down — didn't finish the route as I couldn't lift my throbbing arm really — and I proceeded to "rehab" my arm by ... ahem: drinking beer and popping ibuprofen.

(I used to take 400 - 1200mg ibuprofen daily just to keep climbing, a momentary route around my extensor-tendons-on-fire forearms. For years.)

This injury, and how I didn't rehab it at all = very limited, loose joint capsule, tenuous, nerve-pain-prone left shoulder, and quite stiff, painful and tendinosis-y elbows.

---

I had a huge life change at age 28, moved out of my van and into a house in Seattle with my girlfriend, was deeply depressed for a year and then signed up for massage school, as I often joke, out of part motivation but mostly desperation for something different.

---

In my "new life" of bodywork — which left massage awhile ago and has taken me on a path I never would've dreamed of, out of sheer dumb luck — I started moving in a new way.

Bits of yoga, feldenkrais, tai chi, acro yoga, crossfit ... lots of dabbling ...

And in some of the more overtly strength and mobility-based stuff, I tried handstands.

I was shaky.

"Engage your core." "Squeeze your glutes."

Didn't work, and mostly, it didn't feel good; it was painful. My left arm.

Pretty much all of it aggravated my shoulder like crazy, as did any pulling like in climbing, or pushing up like in overhead presses.

So, I decided to drop out of that game altogether.

I could see where it was going, which in my mind was: best case scenario, you find a way to "trick" your body into a shape by squeezing tension and making the form fit. Which is really worse case scenario, because now you're "doing it right" only with shitty internal architecture.

(That's how I saw it — and still do in certain contexts.)

I backed way, way off of all my training. I dropped out.

I went on sabbatical. My father had passed away, and I left Seattle after 7 years. I went to Mexico, and was experience a significant shift/break in my psyche, twice, and went through several dark psychological periods.

It was here I met a friend with whom I spent a month, and who introduced me to hanging and finding my scapulae that way via the Ido Portal method, and that was a game changer.

My shoulder began to heal.

---

It's worth noting that bodywork, up until this point, had also played a huge part: many, many layers of pain and tension and fear released in my body thanks to massage, and Structural Integration, craniosacral and visceral manipulation: the latter three which I practice to this day.

---

I could go on and on about the training I've done the past couple years since Mexico but the gist of it is ...

I was done with pain, or most importantly done trying to navigate around myself to try to get somewhere, in training. Even tiny little nagging things: okay, I'm going to do this pose or hold or whatever only to the point where I'm continuing to be really honest in my body.

It's a funny thing to try to explain over written word, but that's my best go.

And so, at long last, back to the handstand ...

I hadn't tried to just kick up into a handstand, more than just in passing (which was always a quick flop-and-fail) for years. Because it always hurt my shoulder, and I hated the "squeeze your glutes" and "engage your core" that seems to be some people's answer to every f'ing movement problem that exists these days ;)

(But really: I didn't like it, philosophically, the squeezing so much; so I didn't take that path.)

Yesterday, the wind blew just right and I thought: hmmmm, I can feel my back in such a different way these days. I wonder what it'd be like to try ...

I kicked up, and suddenly ... Wow. I'm looking at the ground. I am standing on my hands. My body is in a relatively straight line, i.e. I can press length through my lower back (the yin to engage-your-core's yang). I can think. I can breathe.

It seemed like eternity. It was probably 15 seconds.

I came down.

And here we are.

---

Thanks for reading.

If this resonated with you and you'd care to share, I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks, love, LB

Advice On Finding a Movement Teacher

I

I would not trust a teacher

Who is not willing to run 'til exhausted

Through the streets

as if chasing and being chased both,

To make a fool of himself in such a fashion

That his audience may actually find him a fool,

Or a traitor or a blasphemer,

And not, clearly, a deep-thinking poet

Cloaked in the fashionable garment

     of risk.

No, I would not trust anyone for advice

Who has not been lost, and afraid,

In the woods behind her own home.

Who knows a storm — and its passing —

Like either a mad man or

Someone who's bound herself

in some very unlucky predicaments?

(And good luck talking to the former.)

II

A fool will act without consideration.

An intellectual will make guesses with firm foundations.

A spiritual person will disguise her real desires

     and intentions.

A true sage will stand with you in the fire

And not try to talk you out of it

     one inch,

Nor speculate on the nature of ash

     or even the water

     or what will quench what.

=====

#poetry

Inspired very much by a recent interview I heard — and really resonated with, loved — with Ido Portal: http://www.thehumanxp.com/episode-105-ido-portal/

Housekeeping with LB — ep 27 — is live

Episode 27 of The Body Awake is up. Find it here.

This episode, a little fireside chat with yours truly, housekeeping to the tune of ...

💛  a new home for my writing: the written word right here at TBA
💛  notes on my physical training, and follow up from the 50K race
💛  the trajectory of the show, both big picture and a list of future interviewees! weeeeeeee!

Links for this show ...

• download this episode (or as always, listen above or on iTunes or other podcast apps)
• my now-old blog at Dynamic Alignment Bodywork
• my now-new blog right here
• seth godin's phenom daily blog
  
  *Of note: if you're someone on the email list, you're now signed up to get fresh to your inbox each time I post a blog here. I hope you and enjoy and find useful most, if not all, of these posts. If not, please unsubscribe, as is always an option. As of now, there's no option to just get the "when a new show goes up" post without signing onto the whole blog RSS feed. Again, I hope you love it.

Q: “How Do I Stay Motivated?”

A: Don’t.

“But then I will just sit on the couch and nothing will happen.”

Are you sure?

“Well, pretty damn sure because that’s what I was doing before I started exercising and I was so depressed then, nothing could get me up.”

And what did, finally, get you up?

“I saw something really motivational and something inside me just clicked.”

Had you tried to get a self-improvement program going before, to no avail?

“Of course. Many times.”

Me too. So, for you, what was the final straw with this go around? Why this time and not a day before?

“I don’t know.”

That feels like a very honest answer to me.

“So what do I do … Just sit around not knowing and waiting for motivation to strike?”

No. Making a plan like that is a not-knowing imposter, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Now you’re trying to project onto an empty canvas what ‘not knowing’ is going to look like. It’s empty.

“So what do I do?”

You see that the question itself — ‘how do I stay motivated?’ — is already off in a funny direction. You can keep that motivation around just about as well as you conjured it in the first place. Do you have to remind yourself to stay in love with your beloved old dog? Do you have to get motivated to listen to a song you adore?

“But it seems like if I just went off what I want to do all the time, I’d just sit around and smoke weed and eat cupcakes.”

I’m just wanting to bring your attention to this fact: you also want something else. (Otherwise we wouldn’t be talking.)

“So … what do I do?”

Perhaps a better question is: “What do I most want? What do I really, truly love?”

Let that be your guide.

First Post

Hello Dear Friends, Listeners ~

In my best efforts to share what's relevant and useful, I believe I have outgrown my old blog at Dynamic Alignment Bodywork, and am moving my writings here.

This is post one. More to come.

With love, LB