Friction

Movement causes friction. Always. 

—Jon Maxwell.

I walked into the physical therapist’s office after four weeks of traveling, four weeks of dallying, four weeks of tallying up exactly ZERO of my normal range of motion exercises that I had been so diligent about doing multiple times a day before I left. 

And I was stiff. To put it mildly. 

More accurately, I was the Tin Man in desperate need of oil—ANY OIL—and a strong set of hands to loosen my knee’s unwillingness to move or to bend my neglect away. I wanted someone else to take the uncomfortable heat that friction from new movement had generated. 

As I sat there, trying desperately to distract myself from the pain of stagnant edema, and lethargic blood flow, it struck me, profoundly, that my brand new knee was a microcosm of life; a microcosm for change, for rebirth, for transformation. There is no movement without friction; such are the laws of our earth and gravitationally based solar system. There is no movement without friction. Whenever we choose to act, to do, to move, we inevitably feel the heat generated by the gathering momentum. And the longer we let ourselves sit in the stagnancy of our unfulfilled ideas, our derelict dreams, our abandoned desires, the more ignition, spark, acceleration is always needed to overcome the paralysis. The longer your period of paralysis, the bigger discrepancy between your formerly sedentary self and the new, free-flowing transformed self you want to begin, the larger a catalyst is needed to initiate movement…and the more discomfort, heat, or outright fire is produced. 

As difficult as our exercises may seem in the anticipatory dawn of our awakening, while our head lays still on our pillow, they will be far easier to do today than if you were to wait a week…or FOUR. Gathering momentum every day in the direction of your dreams radically quells the friction caused by utter listlessness, stagnancy of doubt, or the cellular sedation of unworthiness that our self esteem threatens to bolster. For, we are SO worthy of going full throttle on the vector towards our dreams…In fact, it is why we are here:  To expand ourselves, and the universe by proxy.

Take a step in the direction of what you most desire as scary as it may seem. You may feel the heat of friction with the new movement. You may get slightly burned by the change in momentum, but keep going. Each day, move a little more. Gather that velocity on your baptismal path to a new you. If you feel called, DO IT.

I may take Sundays off from exercising, but I will never ignore the progress that my new knee yearns to make for four whole weeks again. Ever. The glide that I have been able to get going feels too good to give up on…and, if life is about the journey, then the glide we can get going in the direction of what we most desire will feel even better. I guarantee that the freedom you will find beyond the friction of initial change is exponentially worth it.

Just like YOU.