You're (Still) Working Too Hard
A few months ago, I wrote a piece titled You’re Working Too Hard, introducing a series of online lessons designed to teach you the fundamentals of the transformative Rolfing & Mindful Movement work I’ve shared with hundreds of clients over the last 12 years.
Thanks Gary Larson. I love you man.
I didn’t plan it this way, of course, but I launched this series just as the COVID-19 pandemic was unfolding. It ended up being an even more timely bit of education for those of you experiencing the challenges of chronic pain.
In my work with clients, I see the same patterns repeating themselves over and over: chronic pain that won’t resolve despite throwing the kitchen sink at it; challenges flaring up that people thought they resolved long ago; and even just overall lack of energy. Our bodies are literally working overtime – for some it’s because of long hours balancing their own remote work with their kids attending school at home, and for others it’s just the basics of trying to regulate their Systems during a stressful time.
Most people don’t know it’s their own habits that often create their physical challenges, and it’s my job as a Rolfer and mindfulness coach to empower them to break out of the cyclical patterns they’re in, which can wreak havoc in the body.
In my “You’re Working Too Hard” Mindful Movement Beginner Series, I offer five simple, short attention span-friendly tools to rest and reset your body when you need it the most:
Mindful Awareness
Active Rest
Inside-Out Breathing
Eye Work
Pre-Movement
Months later, with things even more intense and stressful than they were earlier this year, and with the holidays upon us, it’s a good time to re-examine these five practices while offering additional tips and insights to help you go deeper.
Each of these strategies can be done in short amounts (minutes!) of dedicated time in the comfort of your own home. These skills all build upon each other, so I encourage you to start with Mindful Awareness and progress according to the order outlined below.
Mindful Awareness. The practice of Mindful Awareness helps you learn to track your body and what it’s doing in the moment. You can’t do what you want with your body until you know what you’re doing automatically, without even thinking about it. When you practice Mindful Awareness, you begin to create more ease, comfort, and flow in the body. This skill lays the foundation for unraveling bad habits – the subconscious "programs" that create our movement – and building a new set of healthier, easier habits for a lifetime. Check out the Mindful Awareness preview video here.
Active Rest. You likely know the difference between action and rest, but there’s also a whole lot in-between. The Active Rest practice – the ability to skillfully rest your body into the support of your environment – is a great exercise for those times when you don’t need to explode into action (which is most of the time!). When done well, you’ll be able to unravel baseline physical habits of tension you’ve been carrying around and using to operate your day-to-day, sometimes for years. Preview the Active Rest practice here.
Inside-Out Breathing. Using your breath as a tool to bring more ease to your movement is a skill that most never learn. But it’s critical to start there, and we have 20,000 opportunities a day to practice. In the Inside-Out Breathing practice, you’ll learn how to create micro-habits with your breathing and set the foundation for easy movement throughout your body. Access the preview for my Inside-Out Breathing practice here.
Eye Work. It may seem obvious in these days of constant Zoom-ing that your eyes can get overworked. But you may not know that they’re an incredible gateway to body-wide stress or ease, depending on the level of awareness you bring to how you’re using them. Your eyes have an incredibly important job as the first stop for the information coming in from our data-centric world, and our entire bodies organize around how much work they’re doing in this role. Learn more in my Eye Work preview here.
Pre-Movement. To bring more ease into your body and movement, you need to bring awareness to what you do before you do something. When we change our posture, for example, our bodies need to orient, create tension, and prepare to shift into what’s next. If we aren’t mindful, we can add an extraordinary amount of extra effort into these moments. It starts with understanding your patterns and habits, and how you start to move. Pre-Movement is where the rubber hits the road with these practices, and collects everything you’ve learned in these videos so far into a final, global skillset. Check out the final video in this preview series here.
These five simple practices, when understood and practiced on a regular basis, immediately help your body stop working so hard, and give you a huge head start on your journey to resolve your chronic aches and pains. Give ‘em a shot and let me know how it goes!