Before We Rise

Awareness Before Action

Opening Dharma:

Every upward force begins by first meeting the ground.

We tend to think of rising as something that happens away from things. Away from heaviness. Away from discomfort. Away from effort.

When we imagine ourselves rising, we think of it as moving away from what’s below. Away from any weight, discomfort, effort. Rising makes me think of lightness, floating, ascending. Almost synonymous with “ease”.

But nothing just rises on its own. Take an airplane for instance! Flight isn’t magic, it’s governed by interactions. Lift works with gravity and weight. Thrust works with drag. One without the other results in no flight.

This same symbiotic system exists in our own bodies.

Awareness Before Action

So often, we rush straight to effort. The common phrase “You say jump, I ask how high?”

But that’s the wrong question.

What should be asked is “how hard do I need to push against the ground?”

We focus so much on that end goal, the height of the jump, that we forget the only thing that really matters is what comes just before. That force that meets the ground.

This gets me thinking of how much I love to create my mood boards on Pinterest.

“Where’s she going with this one?” Just stay with me here.

Visualizing that end goal is powerful, it gives us direction. But it does not take away the effort that must be done in order to reach that goal. That discomfort I must feel in order to change, that resistance I must feel in order to grow, that weight I must feel in order to rise.

So let’s bring it back to the jump.

Feel your feet beneath you. Notice force already pushing into them, it’s the same force that keeps you from falling through the ground. That energy is always there, ready to be used. Feel it. Acknowledge what is present – physically and emotionally.

When we skip this part of awareness, effort becomes disconnected. It becomes inefficient. We are pushing without direction and wondering why we feel burnt out.

Our bodies work through exchange. When you press into the ground, the ground presses back. This relationship allows movement to happen.

The same goes for our emotions.

We often try to ignore discomfort, we tell ourselves to “rise above it”. We are bypassing grief, tension, fear, fatigue hoping that our productivity will lift us out. But, as we’ve just learned, that won’t work.

You cannot use unacknowledged weight, it will continue to weigh you down.

Imagine walking up to a dumbbell without knowing how much it weighs. No matter how strong you are, if you don’t acknowledge the weight you are trying to lift, you could end up putting all your energy behind lifting a singular pound, or worse, you could try to lift something too heavy and get hurt.

But when you pause, letting yourself feel what’s heavy without judgment, without rushing to fix it, something shifts. Energy stops being wasted on resistance. It becomes available. And right in that moment, you can finally use it to rise.