Clenching Up for Fun and Profit?

Yoga is described sometimes as the union of effort and surrender. In asana practice (if you’re not familiar, asana is the Sanskrit word that describes all those bendy stretchy balance-y poses), the point isn’t just to break a sweat or stretch your hams, but to have an embodied experience of universal truths. The catch-all underneath these, it seems in my practice, is this: you can only kick ass through your efforts to the extent that you’re willing to lay your own ass down AS you’re doing it. We must soften as we exert ourselves, surrender as we surge, and cultivate contentment even as we strive with enthusiasm.

So often, I (maybe you, too?) do the opposite: I swing between a clenched-up kind of efforting and a collapsed kind of pseudo-relaxation. If I’m honest, I know the actions I take from that clenchy place are as energy-inefficient as a Hummer H3 cruisin’ through a leafy suburb. And that the slumpy place doesn’t really replenish me. But ineffective as they are, this cycle from clenched and frenetic to exhausted and collapsed is really seductive. I’m gonna stick my neck out so far as to say they’re what success looks like in our culture. My clients – corporate leaders and self-employed business owners, usually – have not only set up camp in these two modes, they’ve built permanent structures. This is where we live: you go all out, hardening your solar plexus, your sphincter, and whatever else you’ve gotta clench up to get through. Then, spent and grumpy, you skulk home to watch some tube or to the mall for some “retail therapy,” find a drink or a bowl of ice cream to take your edge off, then fall into bed so you can get up and do it all over again tomorrow. That might be a bit of a grim picture – I don’t mean to imply that we don’t have bright moments of loving our work or our families or the summer sun somewhere in there. But that integration of effort WITH surrender, of soft-bellied productivity, is a delicate balance to strike and is a rare commodity in most professionals’ lives.

That’s why I wanted to invite you to look at your own effort and surrender today. And your enthusiasm, along with your contentment.

Here are a few ways you can do that:

1. When you’re working at something, ask yourself, “What part of me is efforting? What part is surrendering?”
You may find that parts of you are efforting that don’t need to be, and that the most effective resources for the job are off-duty and can now be called into action.

2. Watch those muscles I mentioned earlier: your pelvic floor (or butt!) and your abs (your gut!). Also, watch your forehead (there are brow raisers and brow furrowers and squinters: which are you?) and your jaw. Are any of those muscles acting like they’re doing heavy lifting while you’re answering e-mail, talking on the phone, or waiting at a red light. How cute is that? Your body’s trying to help by squinching all up! Question is: does it help, or just waste energy and send you into an unnecessary state of panic?

3. Experiment with softening while you’re efforting. In asana practice, this looks like “going for it” in the pose, then reducing effort by 10-20%, or allowing our skin to be soft, not hard, even as we’re working hard. In your work, how can you be softer even as you effort?

4. Play with “enough” – not complacency or settling, but seeking contentment. Where do you skimp on giving credit to yourself or to others? Give a little more. What rewards or pleasures do you not let all the way in? What victories do you hurtle past, neglecting to celebrate before embarking toward the next goal? By all means, keep up that awesome enthusiasm. But experiment for yourself: does contentment really dilute your action, or can it fuel and brighten it?

In my experience (and ongoing experimentation!), cultivating contentment brings clarity, sustainability, and joy to my efforts, and that’s when I do the best job. Let me know what you find?