Flexibility, the key to Strength

This topic has been on my mind to write about for a while. And if you are a client of mine, or attended one of my meridian balancing workshops, you’ve learned that I am a big proponent for physical flexibility. 

In 2013, I began training with Bob Cooley, author of the The Genius of Flexibility. Every word that I ever heard come out of Bob’s mouth made me think, in fact, it took me months to process the experience of training with him. Bob speaks often of “becoming more flexible in every way” - physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. His concept of stretching the physical body in order to expanding flexibility of each being (through work with the meridians) is pure brilliance. 

One of the first things, I learned when I started training with Bob is that the amount of strength (contractibility) a muscle has is directly proportional to the amount of flexibility (stretch) within that muscle. Healthy tissues will have much greater flexibility and much greater strength. 

Physically, this concept is rather easy to grasp as the science is there to back it up, but what about the other parts of us? How can being more flexible with our knowledge or emotions or spiritual beliefs help us to gain strength? 

I think it’s really easy for humans in our society to become reliant upon harnessing the power that we create from stress and anxiety which is dependent upon the release of cortisol (stress hormone) in our body. We become dependent on the feeling, the rush of it in order to produce the physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual results we need to achieve X, Y and Z. 

But overtime, this strength that we produce takes a toll on us. We tax our adrenal glands and our bodies begin to get tired and overworked and they don’t provide the same results that they once did. This is because we are using the mechanism within our body that is responsible for survival in order to merely exist. We become more and more depleted and we run on fumes. 

What if we changed our though processes related to creating strength and looked toward our flexibility?

Here are some questions you could journal about as you become more flexible.

• What if we stretched our body more than we physically demanded strength from it?

• What if we allowed our emotions to move freely through us, fully expressing ourselves without constraint? And brought this into our relationships?

• What if we took every opportunity as a chance to learn something new and expand our awareness and consciousness?

• What if we tuned into the subtle energies around us and followed our intuition? What if we trusted this inner wisdom completely?