Kanda School

Moving & Breathing for Healing

"Change before you have to."

– Jack Welch

Here's the good news: you're not stuck because you're lazy, unmotivated, or lacking willpower.

Here's the bad news: Your brain is wired to resist change. And that keeps you in the cycle of stuck. It goes something like this:

The Cycle of Stuck:

• You try to change.
• Your brain sounds the alarm: “We are in uncharted territory! With no map! Evacuate, abandon ship, get out immediately!”
• Your mind/ego jumps in. Justifying old behaviors. Denying benefits of new. All to help you avoid the friction of change. "Help" sounds like:
  • I don't like the gym vibe. (as if that's the only place to build strength...)
  • My current movement practices are fine. (even though your body tells a different story...)
  • I don't have time to meditate in the mornings. (but I spend 20 minutes scrolling social media...)
• Your nervous system reverts to the familiar (even if it's miserable) because your body knows how to metabolize that.

How to break free:

• Train your nervous system to tolerate uncertainty and embrace challenge. (Become antifragile)
• Develop a new identity through your actions. (This makes the change lasting)

Change is not a small thing. You're wrestling with your lizard-brain-survival-programming and your mammalian-comfort-seeking strategies. When you know what you're up against, you can prepare and train for the terrain. Then the change-game becomes fun. Imagine that.

To get hyped on self-generating change (and how to manage your nervous system during it) watch How Movement Heals: Rewire Your Nervous System through the Body.

And, yes, in Asana Strong you build bone and grow muscle but you also fortify your mind, spirit, and nervous system too.

May your practice change,

Alison