I recently took up Qi-Gong, a Korean form of martial art that includes elements of yoga and tai-chi. It incorporates breathing, balance, calmness and stillness. It encourages purposeful thinking and mental quietness through meditation by focusing your thoughts on your body and breathing during the exercises. Through it, I have learned what I think of as “relaxing into the pain”.

All exercise must have pain if it is to be transformative. Pain is the part that is currently not natural strength that the exercise is training to become natural by way of “stretching”. This makes pain both progressive and constant for the individual who chooses growth as a lifestyle, be it physical, emotional, mental or spiritual. The pain is a going beyond. The obstacle becomes the way, says Ryan Holiday.

I learned to relax into the physical pain by controlled deep breathing. Purposely relaxing my muscles while stretching is the key to Qi-Gong. Controlled breathing aids the relaxation allowing me to better accept the pain as part of the process, not tensing up in anticipation of it. Letting it happen and controlling it through breathing and thoughtful purpose, not physical exertion alone. It is a form of resistance exercise. Relaxing into the pain. I like that phrase.

Through this physical discipline, I’m learning to translate the same process to other parts of my life. It is good to stretch myself beyond who I am today. Jesus taught that unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it always stays a seed. It only grows if it gets planted, dies and becomes something else – a plant, a flower, a bush, a tree. All of life is about becoming. Physical strength, emotional strength, mental strength and spiritual strength.

In the beginning of any endeavor, not being natural, the pain is greater, the challenge is harder and the temptation to forget the whole thing is at its highest. This is not the place to entertain doubts and quit, but the place from which to commit to purpose and push beyond. By pushing beyond that initial pain point I have experienced increases in strength and flexibility. The pain that I was tempted to avoid has turned out to be the primary path to the growth I’ve attained to. Such pain will also be the path for any future growth I seek.

When I go too far beyond my current limitations in Qi-Gong, I stretch beyond what I am physically capable of. This results in more pain but brings with it potential damage. It can serve as a source of delay toward achieving my goal, because now I have to take time out from growing to heal. It happens because I stop relaxing into the pain, and instead try to force my way through it. I cannot make my body do what it physically cannot do. It cannot give what it does not have to give.

This is true in the emotional, mental and spiritual disciplines as well.

A part of growth is the art of learning when to let go, learning when to recognize the end of myself. I cannot give what I do not have in the emotional, mental and spiritual disciplines either. In relationships, growth is also accepting the limitations of others in these same disciplines. This is also part of relaxing into the pain. Just as physical strength and dexterity take time to build, so it is with the emotional, mental and spiritual. Sometimes it feels like two steps forward, one step back. Sometimes it just feels like three steps back.

I’m having to learn the difference between quitting and resting. I’m not finding it easy. Learning to recognize and accept my physical limitations is a good starting place. Rather than bull my way through, determined to reach the solution or objective, I’m starting to understand the value of rest and pacing myself. I’m learning to not just see the things my instructor is able to do, but I’m coming to understand the value of the 15 years of work they’ve put into their discipline that enables me to see it. I cannot mimic in a few months what’s taken fifteen years for them to master.

Relaxing into the pain can look and feel like quitting sometimes. But it is not quitting when it is done with wisdom. Wisdom knows its limitations, but it also believes in its capabilities. Wisdom knows that if it remains patient and doesn’t quit, it will win. Wisdom understands that taking things slowly in the beginning and perfecting its craft will yield better results later, more often than not more quickly too. Today we might say short term pain, long term gain; playing the long game. Determination and wisdom can and must walk hand in hand.

I see relaxing into the pain as acceptance of what is and working with it, rather than fighting it. I find that a little harder to do in the emotional, mental and spiritual world, but I needn’t. The application is the same. No growth in those areas happens all at once. Resistance is the signal that I am about to go beyond capabilities. It’s true in my body, it’s true in my mind, it’s true in my heart. Relaxing into the pain and accepting my limitations is part of the path. Acceptance is the path to becoming. I don’t know how some of my story is going to end. I’m grateful to be learning tools that help keep it going. I’m still writing.