28 Days of Asking
Day 1: Where do I feel tension right now?
I woke up this morning with my jaw already clenched.
Before coffee. Before looking at my phone. Before I even remembered what day it was.
Shoulders slightly lifted. Like I was already bracing for something.
This is how my February started.
The January energy has burned off. The resolutions have either taken root or they haven’t. And now we’re in that middle space, the one that’s easy to just get through.
I don’t want to just get through it.
So I’m trying something different this month. Not a challenge in the usual sense. No tracking. No before-and-after. No optimization.
Just 28 questions.
One each day.
The kind I’ve been circling for a while now. The ones that don’t have clean answers but are worth sitting with anyway.
At 47, I’ve noticed the questions have changed.
They used to be about *more*. More speed. More accomplishment. More proof that I was doing it right.
Now they’re quieter. Slower. Less about adding and more about noticing.
I’m calling it 28 Days of Asking.
Day 1: Where do I feel tension right now?
This is the question I keep coming back to when I’m not sure what’s going on underneath the surface.
Because the body keeps telling us before the mind catches up.
Stephen Porges talks about this…how the nervous system is always scanning, always evaluating safety. It doesn’t wait for you to think about it. It just responds.
And tension is data.
Not a problem to fix. Not something wrong. Just information about what I’m carrying that I haven’t put down yet.
So I’m asking: where do I feel tension right now?
For me this morning, it’s jaw and shoulders. Which usually means I’m holding something I haven’t named yet. Some low-grade anticipation. Maybe excitement about this month. Maybe pressure I’m putting on myself to show up every day.
Probably both.
The practice isn’t to make the tension go away.
It’s just to notice it. To get curious instead of tight.
Here’s what I’m sitting with today:
Where do I feel tension right now…not the obvious stress, but the quiet holding? The places my body is bracing without being asked?
And what might it be trying to tell me?
If you’re following along, you don’t need to journal. You don’t need to answer out loud.
Just pause for ten seconds and scan.
Jaw. Shoulders. Chest. Gut. Hands.
What’s there?
I’ll be here every day in February, asking out loud.
You’re welcome to ask alongside me—or just watch what surfaces.
Either way, I’d love the company.
