Renegade Yogi

Do we even know how tense we are?

I just finished my Tai Chi for the day.

And I do feel much more relaxed. But I was asking myself a funny question: if we never relax completely, do we really know how tense we are?

Your nerves stop sending the signals after a while. You don’t notice how tight your shoulders are, or how tight your brows are, or how tight your back is. Not until you try to relax.

It’s so easy for us to forget how to get back in touch with our bodies. We tend to abuse them in subtle ways. They may not hurt at first, but over time, those little ways of standing or sitting mold your body into tight ball of tension.

And it’s not just your muscles. Yes, your muscles can get tight. But the connective tissue around your muscles (fascia) tightens up, too. So even if your muscle is entirely relaxed, your fascia will still restrict your movement. It will lengthen over time, if you stretch it regularly.

And I could feel that today. I was pretty relaxed in my muscles after a few minutes of warmup and going through the form a few times. But my fascia was like a thick rubber band.

When I was standing in meditation, my arms were hanging there, often completely relaxed. And they were stretching the fascia, which hurt a little. A nice stretching feeling. You should try it: stand relaxed for 15 minutes. It’s really hard and will tell you so much about your body.

Our body is sending us messages constantly, and we are not listening. Those messages might not seem important if your job involves sitting all day. But those messages are about your health, about your emotional state, about how you are responding to your environment. And when we don’t listen, not only do the messages get more alien and foreign over time, we fail to respond to them appropriately. Sometimes your body is telling you to stand up out of your chair. Or to stop holding your shoulder too far forward. It’s trying to help you and you’re not listening.

I hear people all the time wanting to develop their intuition. Well, this is it! It’s your body telling you things. Every muscle in your body has a beautiful story to tell and you’re not listening. Tune in and you’ll be amazed.