Let’s feel stress

I remember something my best friend said to me when she came to visit me with her then five-year-old twin sons a couple of years ago. She told me how it might be comfortable for me to live alone because I can spend my days revolved around my own schedule, but at the same time it is necessary for me to be thrown off my schedule by visitors like her once in a while. I thought that was very wise advice because that kind of “stress” challenges me to be adaptable, patient, and be stimulated with new experiences, perspectives, and self-exploration.

Whether it’s in our daily lives or in the tissues of our body, of course we don’t want TOO MUCH stress but…

“Stress is good! We need some stress in life, and in our tissues. Stress (to a certain point) makes you stronger, not weaker. Comfort is the opposite of stress. Modern living tends to seek stress-free conditions, where we are comfortable, but this comes at a terrible cost: fragility. Said another way, comfort is fragilizing!”
- Excerpt from the book “Yin Yoga” by Bernie Clark

The way I put and feel stress in my body is very different when I do more of a muscular Yang Yoga pose or movement versus when I hold passively for minutes in a Yin pose.

Whether it’s Yang or Yin, we don’t want to ignore the signs of pain that we must avoid, but definitely try to find that good amount of STRESS for our bodies to find optimal health.