As I hesitated before beginning to write this post about all the tension we carry in our bodies, I noticed that my jaw was clenched. It is now unclenched, but I bet it won’t stay that way for long. I hold about fifty tons of tension in my body at any given time, and although I’m trying to notice it more and let it go, I don’t succeed at doing so most of the time.

I bet all the tension I hold in my body could power a small city. Clenched jaw, tight shoulders, clamped stomach–an untapped gold mine! I wish I really could offload my tension for a good cause, because I’ve increasingly come to realize that it’s not as benign as it might seem. I can’t even see what it’s doing to the inside of my body, but I know it makes me more exhausted and anxious on the outside. When my body is so tense, it takes very little to push my anxiety level over into panic territory. And then I have all kinds of other fun symptoms to go along with my tension. More on those later. I have to stop for now, because a little talk about tension goes a long way, and I want to go do something to relax a bit. Don’t forget to breathe, y’all!