By Kimine Mayuzumi
The other night, before going to bed, I was reading You Are Here by Thich Nhat Hanh. He writes about the 24 brand-new hours we receive every day and the opportunity to begin again with a fresh mind, ready to embrace the present moment.
It’s not a new idea. We’ve heard it talked about again and again.
Yet, when we think about all the projects, responsibilities, roles, obligations, and deadlines waiting for us, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and stressed.
When everything seems urgent, it can become difficult to know where to begin. We make plans, but the work takes longer than expected. New tasks keep coming, and the unfinished ones follow us from one day to the next.
Before long, we may find ourselves constantly feeling behind, with little energy left to enjoy what we’re doing or look forward to the day ahead.
I understand that there are times when the demands of our roles are genuinely urgent. We can’t always change our circumstances or set aside our responsibilities. But I also believe there are often possibilities for changing how we relate to those demands, and how we experience our own being in the process.
Who decides whether you’re behind?
For much of my life, I experienced the feeling of being behind. There was always something more to do, something unfinished, or something I should have done sooner.
Then, at some point, I began to question this feeling.
Who the heck has the power to judge whether I’m behind, ahead, or whatever?
And behind WHAT or WHOM, anyway?
The answer, I realized, wasn’t always someone else. Often, it was me.
Of course, we have real deadlines, commitments, and responsibilities. Sometimes, we genuinely cannot get everything done within the time available. Questioning our expectations doesn’t magically change our circumstances.
But I began to notice how often I added another layer of pressure by judging myself for not doing enough, not moving fast enough, or not being where I thought I should be.
What if we could distinguish between having a lot to do and judging ourselves for not having done enough?
What if we could acknowledge the reality of our responsibilities without turning every unfinished task into evidence that we’re falling behind?
I don’t think these questions make the pressure disappear. But they might give us a little more room to breathe, to see our circumstances more clearly, and to consider how we want to move forward.
The power of yurumi
One concept that has become increasingly meaningful to me is yurumi, a Japanese word that conveys softening, loosening, or releasing tension.
I’ve been experiencing the power of yurumi more deeply through practicing and teaching Tai Chi. I’ve also written about its connection to writing and the Tai Chi mindset here.
In Tai Chi, I often remind my students that yurumi is essential to their practice. When we hold tension in our bodies, our movements become stiff, and it becomes harder to maintain our balance and move with ease.
One of the important principles in Tai Chi is shang xu xia shi (上虚下実), often expressed as “light above, solid below.” It points to a quality of being in which the upper body is relaxed and the lower body is grounded and stable.
When our minds are full of noise and tension, we can lose that sense of groundedness. But when we allow our bodies to soften and settle, we can experience a different quality of movement: the joints become freer, our weight settles, and we can move with greater ease and balance.
For me, yurumi is not simply about relaxing. It’s about releasing unnecessary tension and allowing qi to flow and sink into the lower dantian, so that we can feel grounded, settled, and available to the moment.
And I wonder: What might happen if we brought this same quality of yurumi into the way we approach our work and our lives?
What can you put down?
When external demands create pressure and stress, we may need to work on two levels: what we can change in our circumstances and how we relate to those circumstances internally.
Externally, what can you put down?
- Which tasks or commitments can you let go of, postpone, or do less of?
- What would actually happen if you did? Would it really be the end of the world?
- Are you taking on responsibilities that aren’t necessarily yours to carry?
- Is there someone else who could help or take on part of the work?
- Is that deadline truly absolute, or is there room to negotiate?
- Where could you ask for support rather than trying to manage everything yourself?
Sometimes, we do have limited choices. But even a small adjustment can create a little more room to breathe.
Internally, what can you loosen your grip on?
- What makes you feel so attached to completing a task or achieving a particular outcome?
- What are you telling yourself will happen if you don’t get everything done?
- Are those fears necessarily true, or are you imagining the worst?
- Are you really behind, or are you measuring yourself against expectations you’ve placed on yourself?
- Can you allow yourself to be where you are right now, without constantly judging how far you still have to go?
These questions aren’t about dismissing our responsibilities or pretending that deadlines don’t matter. They’re invitations to notice where we might be adding pressure that doesn’t serve us, and where we might have more room to move than we realize.
Making room for yurumi
We can’t always change the demands placed on us. And we won’t necessarily be able to drop every ball we are holding.
But perhaps we can stop gripping every ball quite so tightly.
We could question the timelines and expectations we use to measure ourselves, and recognize that our worth isn’t determined by how much we’ve accomplished or how quickly we’ve done it.
We could also give ourselves permission to move through our days with a little more softness, a little more groundedness, and a little more ease.
After all, every morning brings us another 24 hours. We don’t have to carry yesterday’s unfinished tasks into today as evidence that we are falling behind.
We can begin again, with a fresh mind, meeting this moment as it is.
Is what you’re pushing yourself to do right now worth the yurumi it’s taking away from your life?
Maybe that’s a question worth sitting with today.
Photo by Ryunosuke Kikuno on Unsplash