Do you approach life and it's challenges with strength or force? This isn't a physics or engineering lesson since I'm talking about the strength and force from within you. This is one of those ongoing paradoxical life balances kind of like the difference between acting out of confidence or arrogance. They are somehow related, but the root of each is entirely different. Both try to achieve the same outcome with a different core.
When I think of strength, I think of my yoga practice. I've been a regular practicing Ashtanga yogi for the last seven years. Over the course of my practice at the Dallas Yoga Center, my strength and flexibility have increased. For example, I have been ale to learn to lift into headstand and scorpion poses that were not natural to me when I started practicing yoga. I could jump around or go against a wall but not hold a balance on my own without support for a long time. Then, I developed the core strength needed to be able to hold the poses on my own.
Lifting into the pose exhibits strength, while kicking up into the poses and flopping around imposes force on something that is very natural. Kicking into a yoga posture may have it's place while you learn, but ultimately you have to distinguish the difference between the core strength of the pose and the forceful kicking that will inhibit the posture over the long-term.
So reflecting on this metaphor of strength versus force, how are you approaching your relationships at home and at work? Do you try to force people into your way of thinking? Do you manipulate or try to control everything around you, or do you accept the things you have no control over? Can you release the unknown around you and have faith in the strength inside of you that the mix of circumstances is meant to be and is for the best?
I was having lunch with my mentor, Rhonda Shasteen, last week and was talking to her about this very thing. I was delighted to see her nodding in this look of "you're finally getting what I've been telling you all this time." I told her the older I get the less I feel the need to control everything around me and the more peace I gain releasing the uncontrollable. I'm really focusing all my energy on being happy now rather than worrying about the future, and that is developing my inner strength and confidence more than kicking around in life trying to push things the way I want them to go.
I encourage you all to explore your true inner strength because you can!
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