Since we all teach what we need to learn (in my opinion), I’m going to start this new year talking about something I need to remember on this and every page of the year. I’ve learned it; I lose it; when I’m lucky and I pursue it I find it again. Yesterday and the day before I realized how lost I was, then I found my way back with the above title words. Let me explain what I think I’ve rediscovered; I hope it helps you with whatever aches and pains another year brings or deepens, in your reality.
Most who know me know I damaged my body pretty badly years ago when a small plane went down hard and fast, minus any gas. I gained a compression fracture in my low back at the first lumbar bone (a pretty fragile bone in terms of nerve function), a broken sacrum, a deep gash in my forehead from the dashboard impact, and some paralysis of my left leg. These days, most of that is truly behind me. And yet….
I have back and left leg problems from time to time, and sometimes, all the time. I’ve been sitting in one of those funks where nothing I do or anyone else offers can make that pain diminish to what I consider an easily tolerable level. I know stress of any kind enhances my awareness of the tension/pain/something’s-not-right-in-my-body, or in my mind. So for about a month I’ve felt like my body won’t work for me, but the realization and attitude bring me some success. The stretches from the last two days seem to have brought me back into the bodymindcore, and I’m feeling very acceptable to myself. So what did I do? The above….as the title says.
First, I found a warm and sunny place; our east-facing sun room. Then I got into very comfortable and minimal clothes and lay on my sit up bench, which has been avoided for the last two months, and just allowed myself to hang backwards to open the spine in an extended, stomach forward and shoulders/arms/head dropped to the floor. I stayed in this position perhaps a minute and a half, allowing myself to stretch and breathe and try to allow the individual spinal bones all the way up and down, to relax. (you may know I have a fusion from T10—L3, so it’s hard to get the spine to open and relax. It’s also marvelous when places you thought were fused make satisfying individual noises). After a bit of time here, breathing, stretching, and trying to find each segment and give it breath and awareness, I move on to my next place. So I’ll lie on my back on the floor and use the first of two pieces of equipment I like; pieces take up little space when not in use.
I may start with a roller for neck, back, spine—wherever you want to work. I like moving all the way up and down the spine: I may use it specifically to get neck to relax, or open the shoulder girdles, or heart hinge, or low back. There are several tools we can use for this opening. Mine is rather hard and has little ‘goose bumps’ all around the two humps that can push up or make the spine long, according to what you’re trying to find and restore. One could simply put two tennis balls in some stocking that would keep them fairly close together, then use them the same way. Sometimes instead I use what I call a ‘dog bone’ pillow; about 12—14 inches long and shaped like a dog bone. Whichever I’m using, I focus on breath and stretch.
BUT I also focus on the title’s words, and they truly enhance what I’m exploring and releasing in or from the bodymindcore: Thoughts Out. This means, don’t think about any other stuff. Think only about your body and the task at hand, and if you must think, think how much you want to feel. Call it meditation if you want. I feel it’s a strong focus away from that which won’t let you find your own body. If we really concentrate on letting go of all thoughts except for those that calmly ask the condition of our body vessel, we learn so much more, and are ready to act! So whether I’m using double bump tool or this next one, I also work to find focus on that internal I am instead of the external one. That’s where Awareness In happens. That’s what must be the ‘in the zone’ feeling we hear athletes talking about, and happily I’ve experience short and slow-motion bits of that euphoria/internal awareness when swimming in a reasonably calm sea.
Another favorite tool is a stretching strap with a stirrup on each end and a good stretchable but strong cord with a soft covering. I’m lying on my back on the floor with feet in the stirrups and the middle of the cord behind my neck. Now, the strap I have treats me well; I like deep work and this lets me stretch the deep unconscious places and ask them to wake again. If one can’t find a strap with stirrups, any strap will do as long as you hold ends at a tension that lets you stretch and explore. I imagine each of us has to find the appropriate length to get the tension they can work with; but explore the tension as well as the position, with movements, while you’re in that Awareness In mode. And I’ve literally brought us to what we’re already trying to do: Reach, Rest and Explore.
This is a hard world in which to rest, and either we feel safer if we don’t explore, or we get caught in one of the several realities people inhabit, losing both our identity but also our ability to rest and re-find. Or maybe it’s finding for the first time, our deeper self. I found for myself and am trying to share with others because it’s helped me so much, the idea that when we can channel our thought away from the external world, into the internal world, and examine whatever we find, without judgment, as we move and explore our personal, nobody-knows-me-body and its tensions and freedoms. May we stay in those areas, with breath, and with movement until we find something that suggest we want and need to hold it, stretch it, breathe it, and let it talk to you/me/us.
We don’t do this. We don’t know how to do this. I believe we need to learn how to do this, as we learn to adapt to a changing world that causes us to hold our breath tighter and tighter. Obviously we all have to live in the uncertain world we now inhabit, but the more we can learn to leave the outside outside, go inside and rest, stretch and explore, and think and feel how to bring breath and awareness into all the places: the happy ones and the troubled ones.
What I think I know: When I let myself really pay attention to who I am, what I’m doing or not doing, and go inside myself fairly fearlessly, I find the places that want to remain shut. I try to find my way in, even when I’m scared of what I’ll find or do. But I believe, with all my heart, that growth happens when we go look at that old ugly pain and face it, feel it, and guide your prayers and thoughts so as to free it.
I hope this new year brings you, and me, and everyone including those I dislike, the opportunities to go deeply inside, try to heal the hurts with breath, stretch, thought and feeling, and acceptance. Let’s all go forth, trying to remember to go inside sometimes instead of getting sucked out of our soul and too deep into the world’s problems. Don’t lose the outer world; just don’t let yourself either believe in it or get sucked into it totally…The same goes for the inner world; don’t live there exclusively either! But learn to live comfortably in both. Think about that title…
.Happy New Year from Noah and CORE Fascial Release