Real Life Tao - Don't Be Rigidly Flexible

Trey Smith

Two of the concepts we find repeated in the Tao Te Ching are the notions of flexibility and yielding. Like trees in the wind, we often are best served by being able to give ground rather than to fight against something. Most trees will snap in a gale IF they resolved to stand straight and tall. It is the acts of bending and yielding which allows them to take the fury of the wind and live to see another day.

However, we make a big mistake if we take these two notions as dogmatic dictates. There are times in which we need to be flexible enough to be inflexible! There are times when we must learn to drive strongly through the yield sign. Let me provide two examples of what I'm referring to.

I suffer mightily from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). While some folks with IBS must deal with frequent bouts of diarrhea, I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum. My issue is chronic constipation. Along with the constipation, I also have to deal with deep and painful intestinal cramping.

Now, in the case of these deep abdominal cramps, I've learned that flexibility and yielding are quite helpful. By finding a comfortable position and doing deep breathing exercises, it often helps me to relax. When I'm more relaxed overall, it helps my colon relax and this helps to lessen the pain.

However, this strategy does not work at all when I suffer cramps in another portion of my body: my feet. I don't know what it is about the anatomy of my feet, but I tend to get very painful cramps in one or the other from time to time. Last night I was sitting in my easy chair with my dog, Lily, on my lap, watching a dvd. All of a sudden, my right foot seized up and I was howling in agony.

When I was a young lad, my mother's advice was to yield to the muscle spasms and to try to go to my "happy place" in my mind. I followed my mother's suggestion on several occasions and all I got for my troubles was a foot that simply wouldn't un-seize. The pain level would shoot right off the charts!

In time, I learned that yielding to the spasm was the worst strategy possible. In this particular case, I needed to meet force with force.

So last night I didn't dicker around with trying to find my Zen place; I grabbed my foot, located the center point of the spasm and pressed as hard as I could on that spot. The spasm pushed against my hand and my hand pushed against the spasm. We fought each other tooth and nail for a good 60 seconds and then the spasm was gone.

My point here is that how we address life is situational. What works for one circumstance will not necessarily work for the next one. While learning to yield is a great skill to master, it is not always the most appropriate to employ. Sometimes force is called for. True sagacity is the act of discerning which of our many skills and abilities will work best as we encounter a wide variety of situations and variables throughout our lives.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.