I think most of us could benefit from slowing down a little, or a lot. Especially on the inside, or in our thought processes.
In my book, clarity and calm trump motivation and inspiration any day.
In fact, I’m going to say clarity and calm are more important than ever, with the world continuing to get more and more complicated, more and more choices and options for things to eat, technology and gadgets to use, or ways to be successful.
How do you know which way to go, with all these overwhelming things being thrown at you?
Lessons in Taiji, Become Lessons in Life and Business
Taiji (Tai Chi) has been and continues to be such a great trainer for my life and business.
It’s one of many things I’ve studied, and one I’ve been studying every week for the last 3 years, driving 70 miles each way, once a week, to go to an advanced class in it.
When my teacher is advancing on me in what we call “push hands” which is the Taiji version of sparring, when he is challenging me and basically kicking my ass, he always used to say these words most every time we faced off:
“Why so tense? Don’t tense.”
“Relax… breathe.”
“Relax…”
Though to be able to execute Taiji well, someone needs both a high level of relaxation, structural precision AND martial skill, I must have learned something.
Because I can’t remember the last time he told me to relax.
I don’t really get stuck there anymore. I get stuck other places that are more structural, but when you can’t fundamentally relax in Taiji, it doesn’t matter how much structural or martial skill you practice.
You will cut off your chance to do Taiji and become “internal” – which means to have a sort of martial power that most arts don’t have.
Why am I telling you this? Because this relates directly to life as well.
When we are stressed out and tense throughout lives whether it be at work or at home, we cut off our ability to respond at higher levels, and to get better results.
So in 3 years of training I have learned the importance of relaxation in Taiji, in life and in business.
The Principle of Relaxation
Relax is one of my mottos for 2015.
It is why things starting clicking for me in a new way in the last 6 months, especially in my business.
I see relaxation tying directly to my results everywhere. I just can’t seem to see any other way now.
Yeah, I still get tense at times for sure. But it’s not the status quo like it used to be.
My default is now set to “relax” when it used to be to think hard or jump into action right away. Which bled off a lot of energy, and was way more inefficient.
It is a wonderful thing to be living and working this way, and it’s not because I’m special or anything like that.
It’s knowing how to leverage the human mind system.
Anywhere you can see where you might want to relax more? To see more possibilities, to turn a seemingly bad situation which only seems to have one path, one or two responses, into a situation where you can benefit from it i.e. turning lemons into lemonade, just by relaxing?
When we relax in our minds, and let them settle, we can access to a natural clarity that is built in that is like a GPS system giving up the next direction. And the next one after that, with far less effort than if we analyzed the situation constantly, trying to determine the best path, and avoid all risks.
What I’ve found is that there needs to be a fundamental mind shift in order to access this relaxation I’m talking about here. Once that accesses the relaxation already built into the mind, it is not something to be developed as much as something to be accessed.
It is more of a process of subtraction than addition to have a “relaxation shift” that spans from within our entire perception.
Like Driving a Car
Learning to be relaxed underneath is like understanding how to drive a car.
When we first learn to drive, there is a lot to pay attention to. As we keep our focus not only on learning how the car works, but also how the driving system in general works, the rules of the road, along with driving itself, the easier it is.
Notice how the car and the driving system are already built when we step in to learn, and all you have to do is to learn how to use it.
The same with our human minds. The more we understand how the mind works, the more control we have over our experience by leveraging the inherently powerful system that the human mind already is. The more we look at what’s true about how the mind works for everybody, the easier it is.
Might you see how you tense up in some recurring life or work situation, that might be affecting not only your quality of life experience, but actually getting in the way of better results?
Maybe you have been like me and needed to relax everywhere, which is the simplest route to go. Maybe it’s just an area or two for you.
Though not necessarily the easiest path, to focus on relaxing everywhere, once it becomes the norm, it is easy.
Therefore relaxing everywhere IS the more direct and easy way, since it is the more clear cut path. It is a “cure-all” so to speak, instead of only focusing on relaxing in specific areas.
Just relax and you might be surprised as to what happens.
With Love,
David
P.S. In truth, Taiji has not been the only thing that has helped me relax so much more. The 3 Principles have been integral to my upgrade. It is also the foundation for how I coach and facilitate, when I help entrepreneurs and high-performing career professionals relax more to get better results in better playing the game of life and business.
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