I realised that I confused hardness for strength, when there is nothing strong about being "hard".

About five years ago, I was lucky enough to have my heart broken and, with it, the brittleness that had built like plaque over a lifetime also began to break away.

I started a process that changed the way I approach everything from relationships to exercise to eating and understanding the world.

EXERCISE

Exercise used to be a pleasure but also a form of punishment as my body would cop the brunt of whatever was going on externally.  S--- day at work: run, fight with a loved one: thrash it out, feeling fat or unattractive; thrash harder. Harder.

I would flog myself, ignoring tiredness, ebbs and flows of energy, illness, injury.

Even with a theoretically soothing practice like yoga, I would move aggressively between postures, contorting my body into challenging poses, not because they felt good necessarily, but to prove I could do it.

There was hardness in the approach and I treated my body like a barrier: unconsciously cultivating physical strength to protect an emotional vulnerability.

An approach of strength means exploring an edge instead of pushing it. It becomes a practice of pleasure; cultivating awareness of my body in movement rather than an act of aggression or self-protection.

I recently came across Danny Dreyer's​ ChiRunning philosophy.

He works with elite and Olympic athletes and his approach is counter-intuitive.

"Most people approach running like 'I gotta push myself around with my legs all day'," he said earlier this year.

"If you just go out and push, how are you ever going to master it? It comes from learning to relax so there's no resistance to your forward motion."

The hardest part of ChiRunning, Dreyer explains, is learning to relax and let go. It is soft and strong and a practice he uses not just for running but for walking, travelling and living.

EATING

Food, for me, used to be forced.

Like many people, somewhere along the way I lost the ability to read my body's signals and food was about a time of day or an emotion or a craving or a punishment.

"Our relationship to food is a central one that reflects our attitudes toward our environment and ourselves," says the Centre for Mindful Eating. 

"As a practice, mindful eating can bring us awareness of our own actions, thoughts, feelings and motivations, and insight into the roots of health and contentment."

I wouldn't say I consciously practice mindful eating, but it involves some of the principles including developing an awareness about how food affects me and re-learning hunger/satiety cues.

Softening my attitude to my body and to food has been the single most transformative "diet" because it is no longer dogmatic or controlling.

It is peaceful.

I don't do gluten-free, fat-free, dairy-free or completely sugar-free, or subscribe to any other diet rules except for trying to eat mostly whole foods that nourish – no additives, mostly organic and mostly fresh – and listen to how my body feels.

Dropping the hardness and harsh judgments means there is space for some indulgence and, I figure, if I enjoy those moments in moderation, the cascade of pleasure hormones in the body surely counteracts the effects of a bit of sugar or wine?

RELATIONSHIPS

No one wants to come face to face with their gnarly side.

I didn't just as much as the next person. Heartbreak stripped away everything and in the brutal bareness that followed it occurred to me that hardness is not a very effective suit; its tension is fairly good at keeping others out but it does not prevent pain from getting in.

"Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light," researcher and author Brene Brown has said.

So at some point, there was a choice – to harden even more than before, even though I now knew it didn't protect the parts of myself I was trying to protect – or allow the grief to break me open.

The route morphed through agony and anger and a desire to close off, but there was a realisation that it required more strength to soften and open to others.

"Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language – it's from the Latin word 'cor,' meaning 'heart' – and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart," Brown says.

Interestingly, I recently read that – from a physics perspective – hardness is about permanent change, strength is about elastic (non-permanent).

For me at least I had to have the hardness broken (permanent change) before I was able to become soft but unbreakable.

The ability to stay soft and open is one that makes all the difference to our connections with others, Brown says.

"They didn't talk about vulnerability being comfortable, nor did they really talk about it being excruciating," she said of people who have a strong sense of love and belonging.

"They just talked about it being necessary. They talked about the willingness to say, 'I love you' first ... the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees ...

"The willingness to breathe through waiting for the doctor to call after your mammogram. They're willing to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out. They thought this was fundamental."

Or, as Leunig, so perfectly puts it: "Love one another and you will be happy. It is as simple and difficult as that."