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The Core Paradox
“The force that is forced is not the true force.”
This line from the Tao echoes something I think I’ve known on some level, but that has always eluded me.
It’s not just philosophy—it’s physics. It’s fascia. It’s the lived reality that the harder we push, the more stuck we become.
What if this isn’t just a concept about surrender or flow? What if it’s a literal instruction? A way to move, breathe, rest, respond?
What if all the places we feel stuck, physically, emotionally, behaviorally, aren’t waiting for more pressure, but for less? Not more discipline. Not more motivation. Not more force. But a different relationship to effort entirely.
That’s what I’ve been discovering—not just in my life, but through a new somatic training that’s revealing how pervasive and invisible our pushing can be.
Once you see it there, you start to notice it everywhere.
This isn’t just something I’m noticing in my own body; it’s a rhythm echoed across time and tradition. The spiritual lineages I’ve studied all seem to point to the same truth: “the force that is forced is not the true force.”
Across Traditions — A Shared Wisdom
The Tao never pushes.
It curves, it yields,
it flows where resistance breaks.
To force is to forget the current beneath the current.
Zen invites the same silence:
Let go, or be dragged.
Grasping tightens the knot.
Stillness unties it.
Tantra whispers through the body:
All power begins in the pulse.
You don’t move the Shakti.
You become the listener.
Yoga bows in humility:
Strength isn’t in the stretch.
It’s in the surrender, in the moment that effort dissolves into alignment.
The Gita reminds:
You have the right to act,
but not to control the fruit.
Force is born of fear.
Clarity moves on its own.
Sufi poets laugh at our striving.
They trust the river
and fall into Love
without a map.
Christian mystics knelt in the same knowing:
“Not my will, but thine.” True power arrives when your hands are open.
And Kashmir’s luminous texts speak of the spanda:
the trembling at the heart of being, so subtle, it only moves when you don’t.
Across the lineages, the lesson is the same: That which is most alive cannot be pushed. It can only be met.
Personal Realization. The Body as Teacher
Even in this sensory awareness training I’m doing now – designed to bring attention to subtle movement and sensation -I’m noticing something surprising.
I still push.
Even after years of yoga, somatic work, and mindfulness practice, I see it: the impulse to go just a little further, to override the edge, “finish” the movement, feel something more dramatic. To do it right.
Even in the act of becoming more attuned, the old reflex of force sneaks in.
And it’s not just in the body. That same pushing shows up in how I speak, when I feel the need to clarify one more time, get in the last word, make my point.
It shows up in how I think—especially when I fixate, over-effort, or can’t let something go.
It shows up in how I respond to emotion, especially discomfort: the urge to speed up, manage, solve.
What I’m learning is that forcing isn’t always loud or obvious. Sometimes it’s just a familiar tightening, a patterned insistence, a subtle acceleration.
And when I slow down enough to notice, I find that other areas of the body – places I wasn’t focused on – start to speak up. A held breath. A clenched jaw. A subtle brace in the belly or shoulders.
Not because I was doing anything “wrong,” but because the body was trying to protect me from the very force I didn’t know I was applying.
Fascia, Patterns & Subtle Energy
It’s not just the muscles. It’s not even just the nervous system.
What I’m learning and starting to feel is this: It’s all about fascia – the body’s connective tissue, layered, spiraled, intelligent – where so much of our physical and emotional patterning gets stored.
It’s not a metaphor. It’s biology. Fascia doesn’t just wrap muscles; it weaves through and around every organ, bone, nerve, and vessel. And it responds to how we live, how we brace, how we breathe, and how we move, or don’t.
What’s becoming clearer to me in this work is that fascia holds not just tension, but memory, habit, and even identity.
The way you lift your arm may carry the same subtle contraction as the way you carry responsibility. The way your hip rotates might mirror the way you navigate conflict.
The body doesn’t separate movement from meaning.
And so when we approach this kind of somatic work slowly, without mirrors, without demonstration, without needing to “get it right”, we begin to access something far more profound than stretch or strength.
When a small movement happens with real presence, the fascia begins to shift. Not because we forced it, but because we listened.
And as it shifts, there can be an echo of emotion. Not dramatic release—just a quiet ripple. Maybe adness, relief, tenderness, sometimes joy. Maybe a memory, a sigh, or a deeper breath than before.
This is the energy of spanda—the subtle inner pulse described in Tantric philosophy.
It’s not some esoteric force; it’s the living responsiveness at the heart of everything.
That pulse is always moving, but we’re usually too fast, too forceful, or too distracted to feel it.
When you go slow enough, you don’t have to create change. You just let it emerge.
The Role of Rest + Integration
What surprises me most in this work isn’t just how much changes during movement.
It’s how much changes after.
The short rests between each exploration – the intentional pause – are where everything recalibrates. Not just the muscles, not just the fascia, but the nervous system. The breath. The orientation to space. The internal sense of self.
The pause is where the work lands. And yet, this is the part we’re least likely to give ourselves.
We rush the in-between. We want to move on. But just like sleep is required for memory consolidation, rest between movements is what allows the body and the brain to integrate new patterns.
This isn’t just a yogic idea. Psychologist Ernest Rossi, drawing on the work of Milton Erickson, coined the term ultradian rhythms to describe natural ~90-minute cycles of activity and rest in both brain and body.
He found that after each cycle of focused engagement, the body needs about 10–20 minutes to downshift, reset, and heal. Without that window, stress accumulates,and integration stalls.
Yogic traditions say something similar. They speak of the breath cycling through the two nostrils – ida and pingala – and the subtle moment of transition, when the breath is balanced and the central channel (sushumna nadi) opens.
These are moments of energetic clarity, creative potential, even awakening. But only if we pause long enough to feel them.
This is true on the mat, and it’s true in life.
Change doesn’t happen during the push. It happens during the pause that follows. And if we skip the pause, we miss the moment the shift actually occurs.
Real-Life Changes.From Subtle to Spontaneous
What’s most remarkable is what’s changing off the mat. Little things. Quiet things.Like finding myself interested in something I would’ve dismissed before. Reaching out to someone I hadn’t thought to call. Craving something different—food, movement, rhythm. Saying no, without an internal negotiation. Pausing before reacting.
It’s not that I’m pushing myself to do new things. It’s that new things are occurring to me.
And more than that, I actually have the energy and motivation to follow through.
This feels different than behavior change.
It’s not coming from the top down. It’s not coming from “should.”It’s coming from a subtle reorganization of attention, of availability, of energy. And it all seems to have started with the body.
When a part of the body lets go of tension that’s been held—maybe for years—something else lets go, too. Something internal reorients. A pocket of space opens up where a reflex used to be. A little less bracing. A little more breath. A little more choice.
And when you’re not forcing your way through life, something unexpected happens: You become more spontaneous—not less structured. More responsive, not more reactive. More you, and less of the patterned version of you that was running the show.
Practice Invitation
So here’s something to try:
Lie on the floor. Not to stretch, not to fix—just to feel. Let your body settle.
Choose one small area—a shoulder blade, a hip crease, the base of the skull.
Begin to move it, just slightly. Slow, soft, non-linear.Not to do something, but to feel something.
Stay curious. Stay sweet.
Then stop. Rest. Let everything absorb.
Notice what changes—not just in the body, but in the breath, the mood, the way you get up and move back into your day.
And ask yourself:
• Where else do I force when I could listen?
• What if the pause is where the shift happens?
• What if the strength I’m seeking isn’t something I build—but something I uncover when I stop bracing?
We’re not machines that need fixing. We’re ecosystems that need tending. And sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is to stop trying so hard.
Why This Work, Why Now
This is also why I’ve gradually stepped away from traditional, cognitive-based psychotherapy. Not because it doesn’t help.
But for many of us, it only goes so far.
I spent years helping people gain insight into their patterns—brilliant, complex, self-aware people. But knowing the pattern isn’t the same as dissolving it. And trying to talk or analyze our way through every block can actually reinforce the very tension we’re trying to release.
Real change often starts deeper—beneath words, beneath thought. That’s what drew me back to the body. To energy. To practices that are subtle, slow, and deceptively simple. To the intelligence that doesn’t speak in sentences, but in sensation.
If you’re curious about what this feels like in practice, I’ve created a free 30-minute Yoga Nidra audio—a guided experience in rest, recalibration, and subtle awareness.
Download it here. Give yourself the gift of doing nothing on purpose.
This is the kind of stillness that shifts things. Not by force. But by listening. And letting the next step arise—not from effort, but from alignment.
Where Does Force Live in You?
As you read this, you might be wondering:
Where do I still force things in my own life?
Maybe it’s obvious:
• Pushing through pain at the gym
• Over-efforting in a yoga class
• Plowing through deadlines when your body is asking you to stop
Or maybe it’s more subtle:
• The way you tighten your voice when trying to be heard
• The way you hold your breath while thinking
• The need to make a point, tie it up, get it right
How often do you push through without noticing that the very intensity of the effort is reinforcing the pattern you’re trying to shift?
And what if the thing that feels “stuck” in your life—your energy, your mood, your habits, your voice—isn’t waiting for more pressure?
What if it’s waiting for a pause? For permission to soften? For a new rhythm to emerge that’s based not in force—but in listening?
Just something to sit with. Not to solve. Just to notice.