Doing less. Receiving more.
Devon Hornby LMT
In the last two installments of Biodynamic Living, we explored slowness and rhythm, and then turned toward a different way of understanding health: rather than organizing our lives primarily around deficiency—what is wrong, what needs to be fixed, what needs to be removed—we can learn to orient toward the health that is already present.
This leads naturally to another question:
If health is already present, how much do we actually need to do?
We are accustomed to believing that wellbeing requires effort.
We exercise.
We meditate.
We eat carefully.
We stretch.
We breathe.
We take supplements.
We go to therapy.
We practice.
We optimize.
We work on ourselves.
Much of this can be beneficial. The problem isn’t effort itself.
The question is whether we have become so accustomed to doing something to ourselves that we have forgotten how to receive.
There is another possibility.
Instead of continually trying to make ourselves well, we can begin to create the conditions in which health is allowed to express itself.
This is the movement from effort toward allowing.
The Paradox of Effort
There is a strange paradox in healing.
Sometimes effort is exactly what is required.
If we are weak, we may need to exercise.
If we are injured, we may need to rehabilitate.
If we have a destructive habit, we may need to make a deliberate change.
If we want to learn an instrument, a language, or a movement practice, we need to practice.
Effort has its place.
But effort can also become a habit that continues long after it is useful.
We can become identified with trying.
Trying to relax.
Trying to heal.
Trying to meditate.
Trying to be present.
Trying to let go.
Trying to surrender.
And eventually we encounter the absurdity of trying to relax.
The harder we try to relax, the more effort we introduce into the system.
The harder we try to “let go,” the more tightly we hold onto the idea of letting go.
At some point, healing asks for something different.
Not more effort.
Less interference.
Active Relaxation
This is beautifully expressed in classical Qigong.
Some of the deepest Qigong practices aren’t about producing more energy or accomplishing more with the body.
They are about learning how to actively relax.
This is not collapse.
It is not sleepiness.
It is not simply doing nothing.
Active relaxation is a highly refined form of participation.
We remain present.
We remain aware.
We remain receptive.
But we stop imposing unnecessary effort.
The body is allowed to settle.
The breath is allowed to breathe.
The joints are allowed to release.
The mind is allowed to become spacious.
Rather than manufacturing a particular state, we create the conditions for the body’s own intelligence to emerge.
In this sense, relaxation becomes an activity—not because we are doing more, but because we are actively releasing what does not need to be done.
There is a tremendous amount of effort hidden inside the body.
Effort to hold ourselves together.
Effort to maintain posture.
Effort to anticipate.
Effort to protect.
Effort to control.
Effort to remain vigilant.
Often we don’t even recognize it as effort because we have been doing it for so long.
Active relaxation begins by noticing.
And then allowing.
The Body Knows How to Breathe
Consider breathing.
We can consciously control our breathing. We can deepen it, slow it, count it, shape it, and use it therapeutically.
But we can also notice something remarkable:
We don’t actually have to breathe ourselves.
The body knows how to breathe.
When we fall asleep, breathing continues.
When we stop paying attention, breathing continues.
When we are distracted, breathing continues.
There is intelligence operating that does not require our constant supervision.
This is an important doorway into allowing.
What else might be happening within us that doesn’t require our management?
The heart doesn’t wait for instructions.
Digestion doesn’t require our conscious control.
Wounds begin repairing themselves.
Bones remodel.
The immune system continually monitors and responds.
The nervous system constantly adjusts our relationship with the environment.
We are not machines waiting for conscious direction.
We are living systems.
And living systems have their own intelligence.
Allowing Is Not Passivity
This distinction is important.
Allowing does not mean neglect.
It does not mean refusing medical care.
It does not mean ignoring symptoms.
It does not mean sitting on the couch and waiting for life to fix everything.
Sometimes appropriate action is precisely what health requires.
Allowing means something subtler:
We act when action is needed, and we stop acting when action is no longer needed.
We learn to distinguish effort that supports life from effort that interferes with it.
A farmer prepares the soil, plants the seed, waters it, and protects it.
But the farmer does not pull on the plant to make it grow.
A cook prepares the ingredients and provides heat.
But they don’t force the transformation inside the pot.
A therapist creates conditions for healing.
But they cannot heal another person.
The living system does the actual work.
Sahaja: The Naturally Arising
This brings us to a beautiful idea found in the Mahamudra tradition: sahaja.
Often translated as “innate,” “co-emergent,” or “naturally present,” sahaja points toward something that does not have to be manufactured.
It is not something we create through spiritual accomplishment.
It is something we learn to recognize.
This is particularly important when thinking about practice.
We can spend years trying to become peaceful.
Trying to become compassionate.
Trying to become present.
Trying to become awakened.
But what if some of what we are seeking is already present beneath the activity of trying?
The practice then changes.
We aren’t manufacturing a natural state.
We are learning to recognize and rest in what is already there.
This is closely related to the Mahamudra instruction to rest in the natural state.
Rather than continually manipulating experience, we allow body, mind, and awareness to settle.
Thoughts arise.
Sensations arise.
Emotions arise.
They don’t necessarily need to be fixed.
We notice.
We remain present.
We allow.
And in that allowing, something begins to reveal itself.
Resting in the Natural State
This doesn’t mean that the natural state is some special trance in which nothing happens.
Life continues.
Thoughts come.
Feelings come.
The body moves.
The environment changes.
Pain may still be present.
Pleasure may still be present.
The difference is our relationship to what is happening.
Instead of constantly trying to manufacture a better experience, we learn to rest with experience as it is.
This is one of the profound paradoxes of contemplative practice:
Sometimes the path forward is to stop trying to get somewhere.
We sit.
We breathe.
We listen.
We allow.
And gradually we discover that presence doesn’t have to be manufactured.
It was here before we started trying to achieve it.
Biodynamic Healing
This is also at the heart of the biodynamic orientation.
In Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, we don’t primarily attempt to impose a correction on the body.
We orient toward health.
We listen.
We become still.
We create a relational field in which the organism can begin to reorganize itself.
The practitioner isn’t the source of healing.
The practitioner participates in creating the conditions in which the client’s own resources can become more available.
This is very different from a mechanical model of treatment.
The mechanical model asks:
What should I do to this body?
The biodynamic question is closer to:
What happens when I become quiet enough to listen to what this body is already doing?
That doesn’t make the practitioner passive.
Quite the opposite.
It requires tremendous presence.
But the activity is primarily receptive rather than controlling.
From Doing to Receiving
Perhaps this is one of the most difficult transitions in modern life.
We are very good at doing.
We are much less practiced at receiving.
Receiving nourishment.
Receiving support.
Receiving another person’s attention.
Receiving the natural world.
Receiving silence.
Receiving rest.
Receiving our own experience.
Even when we are resting, we often consume something.
A podcast.
A show.
A book.
A phone.
Music.
Information.
Stimulation.
True rest can be surprisingly unfamiliar.
To simply sit beneath a tree.
To walk without listening to anything.
To eat without looking at a screen.
To lie down and feel the body.
To breathe without trying to improve the breath.
To allow the mind to be exactly as it is.
These may seem like very small things.
But they are practices in receiving.
The Intelligence of Not Doing
There is an intelligence in knowing what to do.
There is another intelligence in knowing what not to do.
A good physician knows when intervention is necessary—and when observation is wiser.
A good gardener knows when to prune—and when to leave the plant alone.
A good parent knows when to guide—and when to allow a child to discover.
A good teacher knows when to explain—and when to let the student experience.
A good practitioner knows when to touch—and when to become still.
And perhaps a mature human being learns the same thing about their own life.
There are moments for action.
There are moments for effort.
And there are moments when the wisest thing we can do is get out of the way.
A Simple Experiment
Try this today.
Lie down or sit comfortably.
Rather than trying to relax, notice how much effort you are already using.
Can you feel the effort in your face?
Your jaw?
Your shoulders?
Your abdomen?
Your hands?
Your eyes?
Your breath?
Don’t try to make these areas relax.
Simply notice them.
Then ask:
What happens if I don’t have to hold this?
Perhaps something releases.
Perhaps nothing happens.
Either is fine.
Then notice the breath.
You don’t have to breathe.
Let the body breathe you.
Notice the subtle movement of life happening without your direction.
For a few minutes, simply rest.
Nothing to accomplish.
Nothing to improve.
Nothing to fix.
Just notice what is already happening.
The Effort to Allow
Eventually, even allowing can become another project.
We can become very serious about surrender.
We can work hard at being effortless.
So perhaps the final instruction is even simpler:
Don’t try to be effortless.
Notice.
Listen.
Feel.
And when you notice yourself trying to make something happen, see if there is an opportunity to soften the effort.
Sometimes the deepest form of practice is not learning how to do something better.
It is learning how to stop interfering with something that already knows how to happen.
The body knows how to breathe.
A wound knows something about repair.
A seed knows something about becoming a plant.
The seasons know how to change.
And somewhere beneath all of our striving, there may be a similar intelligence within us.
We don’t have to manufacture it.
We can learn to recognize it.
And then, perhaps, we can begin to trust it.
Doing less. Receiving more. Allowing health to arise.