> When you try so hard all the time, that level of effort feels familiar and you stop noticing it.

> Put another way, years of overdoing mis-calibrate your senses so effort feels right and ease feels wrong. ...

This is the first time I've seen in writing something I've felt deeply for a long time.

I have a long history of (sub-clinical) stress and anxiety problems and experimenting with mindfulness and embodied exercises etc it hit me so strongly that it feels alien/wrong to be relaxed, and that very fact makes it harder to be so.

It sucks.

Same, though my problem is more about overthinking and "trying too hard" than anxiety. When I manage to relax into something it tends to go well, but getting to that relaxed state is very hard, and my natural inclination is to try harder, which usually doesn't go well.

It's like the thing of "slow is smooth, smooth is quick" when I'm trying to do something in a hurry.