Relax While Moving Forward
What if it’s possible that you can relax AND move forward at the same time?
Hello Courageous Thrivers,
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this crazy paradox of relaxing while moving forward. Did you know that you can do both at the same time?
For me I’ve mostly done one or the other. I relax/collapse. Or I move forward/push.
What I’m exploring now, in my business and in my body especially, is the possibility that relaxing and moving forward go together.
Especially for those of us who want to feel fully alive, purposeful, and joyful.
Especially for those of us who don’t want to choose between joy and justice. Not for ourselves. Not for the world.
I’ve been practicing this way of being on my morning walks using the Chi-walking/Chi-running method, created by Danny Dreyer, it’s a method that applies the principles of Tai Chi to running. When I practice it feels very much like an embodied prayer or meditation.
Every day, I come away with a sense, in my body, of what it might be like to relax and move forward in other areas of my life.
It’s very different from just working with my mind. Telling myself to relax. Choose new thoughts etc.
I do that too, but usually it doesn’t get me as far as practicing with my whole body.
If you were hanging out with me in 2024 when I first started practicing Chiwalking/running, you’ve heard me make some of these observations before. Feel free to skip it the rest of this if you have the whole relaxing-while-moving-forward thing down.
But if you’re like me and you forget on a regular basis and fall back into pushing, perfectionism or procrastination. Or all of the above. Then I invite you to join me on my morning walk/meditation and see what soul-nourishment you find as we journey together.
Still with me?
Okay, let’s start.
In Chiwalking/Running Step #1 is to get into alignment.
Literal alignment. Head and shoulders over hips, over ankles. When you do it you’re fully supported by your body’s bone structure and your core muscles and your body can relax into the supports.
This is not as easy as it sounds. My chin, for example, very much likes to jut out and up in front of the rest of my body, taking my head and shoulders with it. I even notice this pattern in bed when I’m overthinking or worrying! Sure enough, my chin-head combo is stretching and straining right there on the pillow.
What I’ve been noticing on my walks lately is that when I attempt to tuck my chin down and pull up the crown of my head to get into alignment my neck, my shoulders decide this is very hard to do and that they should help.
So they contract and hike up towards my ears, as if this will help my chin do the very hard task of tipping slightly down and back towards my chest.
You may already have guessed, correctly, that tensed-up shoulders are not part of the ideal Chirunning form.
Because the goal is to let my arms and shoulders relax while I maintain the head-over-shoulders-over-hips-over-ankle alignment.
When I first started learning the method my instructor would say, “Do you feel how when you tuck in your chin, your core muscles contract just a little?”
“Maybe?” I’d say, but to be honest the answer was no. No, I didn’t feel my core muscles contract. I just felt confused and awkward.
Lately I have been able to feel my abs contract, just a little, but only after I intentionally relax my shoulders and arms, focus on keeping my chin down and my torso pointing forward while letting my hips and pelvis swivel while I walk.
I get into the flow of the movement for a couple seconds then lose it, but I have an embodied sense of what moving forward while staying in alignment feels like now.
So I’ll keep practicing.
Life Lesson/Invitation: If you want to move forward with purpose (making the world a better place for others as you do) and you also want to relax and enjoy your life . . .
Get into alignment.
Relax into the supports that are already available to you.
Recognize that it will probably feel awkward for a while (i.e. you won’t always know if you’re getting it “right” until you experience the results)
Keep practicing.
What does this look like in daily life?
Well, let’s start with the term “alignment” which gets thrown around in spiritualish/wellness spaces a lot, along with its partner “centered.”
I think these are both powerful words and concepts, but they can seem rather vague when applied to daily life.
I’m not sure it’s possible to know what they mean for you individually without some embodied practice, like meditation or Centering Prayer, or Chiwalking, or just paying attention to how your body feels when you choose one action over another.
That’s why I like working with them in the context of my body and then seeing how they apply to my life.
But I bet you’ve had some experiences where you said something and then wished you hadn’t because it didn’t feel like what you said came from the truest part of you.
I suspect that’s where that phrase “I wasn’t myself” comes from, this very human experience of acting from a place that feels off-center, or, one could say, out of alignment with who you are at your core.
Just like it is for me when I’m walk/running, it’s incredibly easy for us to get pulled out of alignment in other areas of life. And it takes a lot of intentionality return.
But with some practice and persistence we can get to the place where we experience that getting into alignment actually uses less energy and allows us to relax while moving forward.
For me getting into alignment in my life it looks like a lot of experimenting and noticing. I wonder, is that true for you too?
Here’s an example:
Like many women who grew up in diet culture, I’ve had challenges in getting to an aligned relationship with food. And my unaligned choices — hating on my body and using food to manage emotions are at the root of most of them — have had mental and physical health consequences I’m working to heal.
Getting into alignment requires experimenting and seeing how my body responds. Eating a high protein breakfast felt awkward at first, but I felt more energized and emotionally stable after doing so for a few days, which indicated to me that it was a habit in alignment with what’s true. Now that I’m used to the pattern, it feels supportive. I can relax into the structure of this daily habit and move forward.
There are many more I could share. Especially from my business and in my primary relationships, but in service of getting this out to you today, I’m going to pause here and invite you to play with this idea of relaxing while moving forward.
What makes relaxing while moving forward possible for you?
What supports do you need so you can relax while still moving towards what matters?
What supports are already available to you,that you could lean into with a little more intention?
If it seems impossible that you could ever relax while moving forward and you want to punch me in the face for suggesting such a ridiculous possibility, I get it. I’ve been there.
In which case I invite you to stomp around your room, dance to an angry song, and say all the curse words you want to in my direction. Then, get curious and ask:
What if it’s possible that you can relax AND move forward at the same time?
You don’t have to believe it to be true. But what if . . .?
Until next time. Here’s to thriving AND equity. Relaxing AND moving forward.