6 February

I had a teacher in primary school who put a picture like this above the blackboard. We saw it all day, every day. Like most people we came to think of posture as a position of some sort - sitting up versus slouching. It never helped, sitting up hurt as much as slouching, we were up and down like yo-yos. Now I understand that nothing is more important to your health - all of it, right down to the cells, and including for diseases of our hearts, lungs eyes, even cancer - than your ‘posture’. All of it is integrated. But I also understand that ‘bad posture’ is one thing only - trying to fix your position in space. Positions are the bad. All bad posture disappears when you get rid of all positions and instead gently let yourself be poised in every moment, which just means paying attention to what’s happening in each moment. Poise, balanced between forces, making you calm and alert and ready to automatically respond to whatever happens. You will be present to the moment, and because each moment is different, your whole body will be poised in a state of calm readiness, dynamically and effortlessly changing its balance for you every second. It’s not even about your body, your presence to what you’re doing and the changes each moment *is* poise, your ‘body’ will respond accordingly.