become unstoppable

"try a little tenderness" – Otis Redding

It’s pretty sweet when you get hit with bad news and the first phrase that comes to mind is, “I am unstoppable.”

I’ve been teaching in the body-mind-wellness world since 2006. This type of response to adversity is a newish development. Mostly I’ve just pushed through. Now I’ve got an inner environment that can downshift to take a sharp turn more gracefully.

You can do this. The thing is, you have to practice all the time, when it’s easy, when it feels like you could just go ahead and start the day without generating the feeling you want to drive your life with, because right now things are pretty smooth. 

I have very dark days. I will be tested again. This is life, and so we simply must practice not just building bodies, but injecting resilience into the bodies we build.

We become the selves we create.

Most of my life, unwelcome news has burned from my center to my hands as a red wave of toxic heat. I made a commitment as a kid not to let anyone close see that I could be angry. I had seen enough rage, felt enough fear.

The worst thing I could become was someone who scared the people I love.

If alone, I might indulge in anger. I smashed a glass table with my right hand in my office in France in 2013. This was years into being a Yoga guy and respected teacher. A staff member ran from the kitchen and I instantly pretended I had dropped a large urn, hiding my hand so she wouldn’t see the blood.

In a crowd, or with someone I love, I might secretly ball a fist. The red wave, rather than finding the beach and returning to sea, would erode me. I would crumble, my insides a landslide of confidence.

We become the selves we create.

I learned to cope by crushing feelings to create a placid cover to present to the world – a cool, chill, well-adjusted guy. This is common, and maybe resonates for you; creating the exterior you think you need to present without truly building the facade from an inner architecture no one sees. I thought stoic meant accepting what cannot be changed – and to a degree that is correct – but we can change ourselves.

We change the way we experience the challenges life presents by changing ourselves. Stress is relative to the individual. A muscle only tears when load exceeds capacity, and we don’t expect ligaments and tendons to strengthen without training.

So we must train ourselves also with compassion, gratitude, love, and joy. These give us stamina. 

For the last ten years, from the outside, I was all in, practicing consistently and putting in work. Truth is, I’d abandoned the most important part – the practice of becoming the self I want to be by bringing the feelings I was missing into physical practice. 

Of course training the body enriches life by optimizing health, but ultimately, the body is a home. No matter how nice the exterior, the house is empty if you don’t fill it with love.

As of this fall, I will have been in the Yoga/wellness space for 20 years.  Wellness culture can be infuriating. I got so annoyed with the cotton candy philosophy that without admitting it to myself, I stopped believing that I could change my own dominant way of feeling.

I was pulling a trickle of water from a stone and making things work well enough. At the same time, I was missing the most important part of practice – not new physical skills, but appreciation for life, and embodying of the energy I needed beyond physical practice.

From the outside, it probably looked like I never missed a beat. In a way, I didn’t. I had a certain discipline. I found ways to keep moving when injured, sick, or traveling.

Over the last fifteen years, most of my practice has been just me, alone. Many people wouldn’t have stuck with that. I was consistently, physically doing the thing no matter the circumstances.

So from the outside, I was all in, but on the inside, I took a long and largely unconscious break from the most important part – the practice of becoming the self that would best contribute to my own well being and the greater good. 

I practiced –  but I practiced touching the floor without feeling it against my hands. I practiced Yoga without always putting my heart into it. I practiced getting stronger without  gratitude for the body that continued to gain strength into my mid-forties and after many miles. I practiced teaching but often without learning my own lessons.  

I allowed my frustration with the quick fix wellness, and the cultural devaluation of expertise, to diminish how I valued the central thread that ties all the practices together.

I was coming up with excuses not to do the work. Judgement is a tricky devil.

The big irony is that the work I was avoiding was the part that feels the best, the part that doesn’t judge you or me based on any physical ability or progress. That part of practice prioritizes an upgrade of the inner experience through attention and intention, and allows us to drive with gratitude, love, and joy. 

I don’t want this to come off as now I am perfect forever and have THE ONE TRUE ANSWER™️.  I am temporarily confident in my current perception and I have motion.

Motion is how the young-folk these days refer to momentum, inspiration, etc.

Motion needs to be generated.

So get going – and I don’t mean grind out another day of work with a grudge and a chip on your shoulder. Get going at weaving the fabric of the self you will become by taking the space and time to drive forward with the fuel of gratitude, love, and joy.

These are the threads. You have them already. Make something – make yourself.

With love,
Benjamin

P.S. Did the idea of becoming unstoppable by giving yourself a break land well with you? This self-making work is what I do, and if you want a kickstart, join us July 19-24 for the annual Yellowstone Soul Alignment Retreat, a complete immersion in mind-body-soul integration and optimization on a 3000 acre ranch with Montana’s best chef and elk chilling on the ridge at sunset.)