So what does having ease in your body looks like? On the physical level, it is the state of peace when there a sense of silence and lack of tension in the body, no pressure or high frequency buzz that most of us know so well. On the intellectual level (the brain), we notice calm and even when thoughts are coming, they are not rushed and there is no sense of urgency to resolve things. On emotional level, ease presents as a lack of anxiety or fear about the present or the future. On the spiritual level, ease showes up as presence of faith that things will work out and we can deal with challenges present and future because we have the ability to face them. On sexual level, ease presents as willingness to connect and engage with a loved one at any time.
When we look at other primates, especially the great apes (gorillas, oranghutans, chimpanzees to all of which we are the closest) we notice that most of their time is spent in non-action. They seem to be lounging around all of the time. Most of their social interactions happen when they are static. Compare that to a 40 hour work week and you will see a huge discrepancy. Our modern culture has grown to celebrate action and look down on being quiet as if it means “being lazy”.
Our world is immersed in Yang culture – the culture of “better, faster, bigger”. It is quite common to hear people say things like: “look at that guy, he never stops” as if anything in nature could ever do that. We are conditioned to keep going when we wish to slow down and it is deeply ingrained, from a very young age. Modern empires are build on that culture of “shut up and put up”. We are raised to throw our bodies under the bus in the name of progress and success and postpone our calm and ease until retirement that may or may never come. So how do we find that fine line that will allow us have a “full life” while keeping access to ease?
There is lots of good news here and the answer to our question is really multi prong. We could focus on changing our priorities so our body’s wellbeing is brought to the top of the list, where it belongs. We could look into optimizing our work load to trim our work hours to a more manageable load (read: 4 Hour Workweek). We could turn to stress minimizing techniques such as having a plan B, creating more cash (or credit) reserves and using spirituality to give us access to the big picture and take away some of the stressors that may not be relative to our long term journey. We could utilize all of these while making our body stronger and healthier so we can produce more energy to be more resilient and perform better and longer.