Wise Effort

My yoga teacher speaks about something called "wise effort." It's that middle ground between a careless, unthinking approach to a given task and the application of sheer (and exhausting) force.

Wise effort pushes up against what she calls your "edge," that point where "sensation" which is positive, shifts over into pain, which is not.

Life and eating are very much about wise effort. It's about eating the right foods in the right amount, neither abstaining nor overindulging. The result is good sensation - as opposed to bad pain.

The history of nutrition is that we have spent little time in this fertile zone. We have pretty much experienced, and been conditioned by, either feast or famine.

But today, for many of us here in the West calories tend to be cheap, abundant, and available. When it comes to eating perhaps we have a unique historical chance to practice wise effort.

The concept of effort we might readily grasp. As for the wise part maybe that's still a stretch.