Staying Power

It is so incredibly easy to begin to lift out of our bodies and allow them to become automatons without our conscious awareness to steer and observe them. The body has to scream from muscles and organs and symptoms to capture our attention and often like a beaten dog it cringes in our accusatory response. It is essential for our first step to be the realization that it was our mind and our decisions that brought our body to this point, and it was our absence from our personal temple that created such a disconnect.
It is not always easy to get back in touch with the body, especially as a lifestyle choice instead of simply "checking in" from time to time. There are multiple obstacles to get through and over and crumble in the presence of before feeling comfortable in one's own skin. The most obvious to me is the Negative Mind.
The Negative Mind is defined in The Aquarian Teacher textbook for Kundalini Yoga instructors as follows: "The Negative Mind is given for survival. It is reactive, protective, and searches for potential danger. It is sensitive to pain, and it shields you from the forces that may disrupt or destroy." The Negative Mind can be used productively and is indeed crucial for our discernment in life. But. I believe that the Negative Mind often runs rampant inside of people, turning against the very person who keeps it alive when it grows bored or is allowed to have the drivers seat in life. This particular aspect of the mind gloms onto the Egoic part of ourselves that doesn't like change. These two can become good buddies and prevent the individual from escaping a horrible cycle of self-hatred, constant judgement and a strong sense of separation.
Here's the kicker: all that we can't deal with; all that we hold onto that isn't actually true but we are unwilling to let go of sinks down into our bodies as we slowly disintegrate out of our being and become talking heads. In my opinion the antidote to this horrifying phenomenon is to get back into the body and put it in the drivers seat of our lives. The body speaks the truth. It doesn't have an analytical mind that interprets pain and suffering, it simply calls for observation, awareness and care. The body speaks the truth because it exists in the present moment; the present moment is the only truth there is. No stories, no excuses and no fear the body "show's up and see's what happens." This is something the Negative Mind refuses to do.
Everyone has different ways of getting into their body; yoga, exercise, outdoor activities, martial arts, dancing, meditation and so on. There is no one way and there is no wrong way so long as it's serving the union of one's consciousness and the body. Personally, I meditate regularly and practice yoga routinely. I attend a weekly group exercise class which is fun and so I enjoy going. I stretch all the time, whether it's at the office or home or in line at the grocery store. Most importantly I listen to my body as a way of life. If it has a strain or discomfort I deal with it immediately. If it's asking for certain nutrition I deal with that too. I must also state here that when I "deal" with my body it is always with a positive, same-side mentality that I approach it; never blaming or angry I work as a partner to my body.
Beloved, sit somewhere quiet today for three minutes. Close your eyes and focus them just between the eyebrows so they're almost crossed but not quite. Breathe in through your nose deeply filling the belly slowly and then the ribs and finally the upper chest. Take a short pause before exhaling and reversing the order when emptying the thoracic cavity. Touch your first finger lightly to the tip of your thumb and allow your wrists to rest gently on your knees as you tune in. Once you've settled into this pattern, breathing in and out with intention, check in with your body and ask it how it's feeling. Then just listen. It's not always a language that comes back. It's not always words that fill your head, in fact it is rarely words that have answers. Just feel. What is it like in your skin? Now pay attention, beloved, this is important! DO NOT listen to the Negative Mind in this moment, even just for this moment. It will want to say all kinds of negative things, whether they be about you or this experiment, and your job is to simply observe it. DO NOT attach to the words, simply watch the river flow in front of you without trying to impede its path. Start here, start somewhere. Your body is waiting.

Same Team

There I was sitting in the podiatrists office waiting to have a nagging and disruptive wart removed from the underside of my pinkie toe. I wasn't nervous or frightened about the procedure, partly because I would be numb for the whole thing but also because it had been causing me so much agony that I simply couldn't wait to be rid of it no matter what the cost. By allowing it to get to the point that it had - that being a small iceberg upon which I stepped with every pace - it had taken over half of my little toe pad and bore down on the nerve. This had created a cascading effect up the right side of my body from the awkward way that I had to walk. It seemed as though all the issues in my body could be traced to this problem, and by god we were going to fix it here and now!
There were two small injections in the top of the toe to numb it up for surgery and the good doctor left the room to attend to another patient while it did so. I sat in consciousness with my toe going over the procedure in my head and directing that calming energy into the area that was rapidly dissolving into numbness. "We are getting rid of that wart that has been giving us such trouble. It won't hurt at all now and I'm going to watch the whole thing so we know exactly what happened. This is a good thing, we'll feel much better after this." Now, I realize that this seems a little out there. Here I am, talking to my toe and walking it through the steps of the surgery and recovery, and reassuring it that it will be better. Sure, it sounds a bit crazy, but my body and I are on the same team. When it is forcibly removed from the consciousness of an event like foot surgery I want some kind of record that it can access to know what happened when it comes to. That is why I insisted on watching the procedure, so that my body could understand. Think it's silly?
This is the same concept that I draw from when working with a motor vehicle accident client. One of the first questions I ask relevant cases is "did you see the accident coming?" If the answer is yes then there is a good chance the individual had a moment to tense up and resist the crash, which can cause more damage in some cases because the body tried to fight against a force that it can't overcome, but at least it has a record of the event. If the answer is no then the body might have been loose and had the opportunity to ride through the momentum of the crash. Unfortunately, in the latter situation the body doesn't have a recollection as to what happened and is most likely operating from a fear based position, wondering when another accident will hit. It can be nerve wracking walking around with our adrenal glands functioning that high all the time, anticipating another event to be scared of but not knowing when it will happen. By witnessing the accident the mind and body store the memory to learn from; therefore, they are less likely to be so reactionary to everything, perhaps only to a similar situation that mimics the original cause.
In either event, whether it be having a wart removed or getting into a car accident or the thousand and one things in between remember that you and your body are on the same team. When the mind is unconscious the body covers for it: it remembers to breathe and keep the heart beating, it engages muscles at precise timing to get you from point A to point B, it reminds you of your limits with indicators like pain, strain and weaknesses, and it holds onto the memories and stress that you don't want to deal with at the moment. When the body needs to be unconscious for surgeries and the like it's the minds turn to cover it. Be present with your body and honor the things it does so willingly for you, beloved, and it will carry you through every time.
Three days after surgery now, I have had almost no pain during recovery and I can feel my body getting ready to move forward like that little wart never slowed us down in the first place. It pays to be strange!

Referring to...

As a massage therapist I am constantly explaining that just because someone feels the pain in one area of their body doesn't mean that the pain is originating there. A chiropractor I once worked with would break it down like this: a ceiling light comes on in the middle of the room but it's coming from a switch on the wall. This is what pain can be like in the body. Yes, it can be confusing when a therapist is pressing into your gluteus after complaining that your lower back hurts, but there is a good reason for it. 

There are light switches all over the body called trigger points. They are infamous for collecting the trauma, inflammation and strain in our muscles and eventually when that all converts to pain they radiate out into the muscle, and at times into other muscles. There are a handful of muscles that are mysterious in their dealings often referring pain to seemingly random places and making it difficult to track down the root cause of the issue. In addition to this challenge these tricky muscles are rarely stretched and usually not worked on during general massage sessions. There are more muscles than the three I mention that share these characteristics but they are the most common areas I encounter in my practice so we will just start there.

Let's begin with the infraspinatus, the muscle that lays on top of the scapula or the shoulder blade. My client will come in complaining of tingly and/or numb sensations that run down the back of their arms and into the pinkie and ring fingers. It's usually worse at night and if it progresses the condition could turn into frozen shoulder. We'll refer to the infraspinatus as I.S., or izzy if we happen to be in a cute mood this evening. Izzy is difficult, if not impossible, to stretch on ones own and yet it gets tighter the more we utilize our arms out in the front of our body. Most people feel the ramifications of a too-tight I.S. radiating into the upper thoracic rib set, the cervical rib set, down the arm and into the hand. Translated that is referring to the upper mid-back and the base of the neck where it intercepts the top of the shoulder. I can't tell you how often I've had someone wanting me to work on their hand because it's been tingly and achy, and I throw them off entirely by working on the shoulder, base of the neck and pec muscles. Just like the light switch! 

The second popular choice in our line up is a slight antagonist to the infraspinatus, pectoralis minor. There is a major and although it plays a major part in the referral game it is nothing compared to what I've seen of pec minor. Pec minor moves the shoulder blade forward when we use it to push or pull something. Extended computer work or paperwork begins to exhaust the body forcing it into a lazy and therefore strained posture. One of the victims of a slouched form is pec minor who is trying to beat the odds and keep your arms up and moving. Think of it this way, the top of your shoulder to the tips of your extended fingers should be like a slide, sloping on a slight curve away from your raised sternum and underneath your chin which is delicately held parallel to the floor. The wrists should be resting in front of the keyboard or paperwork at waist level and the monitor of the computer should be just a hair under your eye level. When we slump because we have "hit the zone and just want to get through this" all of that energy the arms are spending is being generated by pec minor, and coincidentally, the infraspinatus. Additionally both create numb, tingly sensations down the arms and reduce range of motion. Similarly to the consequences of a tight infraspinatus pec minor produces numb and tingly sensations to occur most commonly down the arm and into the thumb and first two fingers. Left untreated it can progress into thoracic outlet syndrome. It is also common to feel both muscles agitation right in the shoulder joint itself, especially if one is a side sleeper. This occurrence comes about because both muscles attach at the shoulder joint and pull on it when they're tense. In my self-care I use tennis balls, Miracle Balls and self-massage to get into these areas since it can be a difficult treatment to take when done correctly.

Last one for the night, the psoas muscle! This is where the "dun dun dun" music chimes in and lightning and thunder crash through the window because anyone who has had their psoas worked on remembers for life. It is a deep strong muscle that originates on the spine in the front of the lower thoracic vertebrae, runs parallel with the spine on either side and attaches to the lower pubic bone on the inside of the hip joint. This muscle makes it so we don't simply fold in half and crack our head on the sidewalk; it keeps us erect. And I know you're all aware of the emphasis out there on core strengthening in exercise. Well here's the secret, you need to know the difference between when the abs are engaged and when the psoas is engaged, because it is always be one or the other thats working. Too many people do not know the difference between the two. The most common area of pain due to a spasmed psoas is the lower back. Ever had that pain that made it so you could either stand completely straight or have to be practically fetal but nothing in between would do? Psoas. Lower back ever been so bad you have to keep your knees bent when you're laying down? Psoas. Constant dull pain in the lower back that you can't stretch out and it seems to be bad when you first wake up but gets a little better as the day goes on? Psoas. When the psoas tightens it pulls the spine together and creates compression. When it's that tight inflammation isn't far behind creating radiating pain down the legs and across the lower back. I would venture a guess and say that 80% of the lower back pain cases we see in the clinic are caused by the psoas muscle. And we have found the most effective way of releasing this muscle to allow it some rest is to work on it through the stomach. What i mean is we manipulate the muscle as we would do any other but we have to work around the layers of organs and tissue that makes it a less than comfortable process. This should not be preformed by anyone without a valid degree and license to do so, such as a chiropractor or massage therapist. It isn't the most pleasant experience but it is very effective. Educating oneself on stretching the psoas and how to recognize the difference between using the abs and using the psoas in exercise, lifting or in daily routines is highly recommended if you want to avoid that embarrassing moment when you mysteriously throw out your back reaching for a pencil one day. 

Well, I think that's enough stodgy information to process for one sitting. My point, beloved, is to be open to another possibility. Perhaps the pain in your wrists is coming from your shoulder which is coming from your persistence at work which is coming from... Possibly your body just wants one on one time with its provider. Is that really so bad?