Wouldn’t you agree that your neck, shoulders and head oughta move freely, easily and without pain or discomfort?
Simple, easy head movements done with a certain level of awareness can give you a:
• more comfortable neck,
• ease tension in the shoulders,
• and this can shift good feelings to other parts of yourself too.
Hijacked by tension
If your head or shoulders have been hijacked by tension, there is a natural way to release the build up muscular tension.
However, it might have to do with the fact that an important and vital connection may be “off”.
By lying on the floor, you can find out for yourself if:
a) you can do a particular movement comfortably and
b) if you can feel or sense the connection.
Watch the video below and see if you can feel the connection.
Head movement and connection
Have you checked in with your noggin like that lately?
If you haven’t, it’s never too late to dial in.
You see, if we’ve endured enough head and neck pain, that movement among others can prove to be difficult.
When my years of neck pain felt like a hard sore block that wouldn’t budge or let me move freely. Moving my neck seemed like it was one of the hardest things to do.
Yet when you consciously remind your body of the available movements that you can do, your brain can release neurochemicals of relaxation.
Making the connection – even if it isn’t there initially – will come with a little practice.
Not just 1 muscle
Mobility – the ability to move freely and easily – can be restored by regaining necessary function of a number of muscles involved, not just one specific muscle.
So if we are limiting our movement on account of pain or high tension, then this type of splinting or guarding can actually reinforce it since the brain is subject to programs and will begin to feed in information to keep things held in check.
Counter-intuition
Of course, it might seem counterintuitive to move, if it hurts.
So instead, you can imagine the movement taking place since that way you won’t upset the apple cart, yet the brain and nervous system will get the idea that the possibility to move, still exists.
The brain doesn’t know the difference between an imagined movement and an actual movement. The information and nervous system pathways turn “on”.
You can even go so far as imagining the connections too.
This all helps to prime the pump for eventual successful comfortable movement.
Head movements and the connection to the rest of your body is evident when you play with mindful ways to feel or sense your self as to how it relates with the rest of your body.
We are one piece, last I checked. The more you check-in in a different way, the far easier it is to self-adjust and turn down pain, discomfort and tension naturally.
Somatically speaking
When you move somatically, which is where you fully experience your connections and subtle feelings or sense perceptions.
You can experience the freeing up of pain, stiffness and aches as you fine tune further and deeper into your information highway of the nervous system.
This type of internal exploration is what you naturally did as a baby and child.
You were exploring deep into your sensory and motor system of both movement and the subtle feelings of small probing movement.
And if you recall or watch any baby, there’s a heckuva of a lot of exploration with misfiring, falling over and work to do to get a movement down pat.
Remember how long it took us to snap our fingers? What a triumphant moment that was.
Besides, if you’ve lost your snap, you can get it back.
Of course, as we age it can feel like ages to get it back, but it doesn’t have to be that way when you begin to experiment and tinker again.
What’s It Take
So if you go to the well of stored memory and spend some worthy time to reopen some dusty files and connections, then comfortable feelings in movement can be restored as easily and as effortlessly as it used to be.
It just calls for some quiet internal observation of your present ability.
When done in a specific “slow manner”, the part of the brain which can make the necessary changes of tension, will move the body back towards comfort and control.
To be more comfortable, may take a variety of easy, gentle movements so the connection is clear and you regain the ability to maintain comfort for life.
So have fun and keep that head sliding, gliding, turning and twisting comfortably so by feeling and making the connections.
It’s not a big deal, unit it happens to us, right?
What we might think of as an uninteresting movement where we throw out our back from reaching for something.
Or when we throw out our hip like Devi who experienced agonizing pain from a Bollywood dance class.
Afterwards, she couldn’t walk because of the hip pain and her doctor told her, “Well if you’re like me, you’ll walk through the pain. Assuming the pain would still be there”.
So she got her crutches and decided there might be a better way out of this.
See, I had planned to teach a different somatics exercises class and had to scrap my plans since Devi was in obvious need as I saw her walk from the car to the building with crutches.
While she couldn’t lie on the floor (which is how we normally go about it), she was able to sit on the floor and that too wasn’t easy for her.
Then I found out what she could do and created a set of easy, gentle somatics exercises which are movements which would help release stored trauma in the body.
It was simply modifying a few things and coming up with a couple of patterns where she could initiate the smallest of movements.
As she listened to the guided instructions and followed along, she was able to free herself from her hip pain.
While a number of doctors aren’t aware of this brain processing possibility (some are, of course). Our brains have the ability to reset our nervous system so our body can feel more comfortable.
People who practice conscious Somatics Movements already know how to target the brain or are continuing to refine their ability in a precise way to restore trauma stored in the body so it can let go.
A week later. Devi went dancing again.
When you redevelop your sensory motor system in a unique way which is how somatics exercises are done.
You learn to use the least effort to gain more flexibility.
This shift, of your body experienced form within, is what a practice in Somatics Exercises can lead you towards.
Want to feel, know and experience the moves Devi learned?
These are same of the same types of conscious movements that have helped people who are in bed finding it difficult to move, only to discover that the struggle and holding tension levels and pain ease off.
Moves to Get Back on Track
Feel the Easy, Gentle Way to Help the Hips, Thighs, Waist, and Shoulders Too!
Learn to Use the Least Effort and Feel Flexibility Return in a Delightful Way.
[Click here to Find Out More About this Easy Somatics Exercises Class].
My name is Carol.
I’ve always been a mover and a shaker, and lucky to have actively moved through more than six decades without any chronic stiffness or pain.
Well, okay…there is the one little disc that occasionally and gently reminds me of the unintended back flip when I was body-surfing in South Africa twenty-nine years ago. (I found out the Atlantic’s surf was not like the lapping lake waters in my native Minnesota.)
So, anyway, the moving and shaking part…
I’m a retired teacher and principal, and a part-time freelance writer and yoga instructor—plus a globe-trotter over the years.
Always ‘wanted it all’ and have spent most of my life going after just that.
It’s all been mentally, physically, and spiritually challenging and exciting….and I guess I thought I was just blessed by an absence of physical pains and limited mobility, while many friends and relatives of various ages around me weren’t.
Just the way it was… no reason for me to give it much thought.
Lesson #1: No Pain Until
After all, I wasn’t the one in pain.
But then 2 things happened that got my attention.
And suddenly, pain had just gotten personal…
Three women with fibromyalgia found their way to my gentle yoga class, desperate for:
- Relief from Pain,
- Stiffness,
- and, Scariest of all, Hopelessness.
Secondly, I realized that some intermittent pain in my right leg and hip—originally attributed to a minor fall or maybe heavy snow shoveling–was not going away, and was getting worse over the months.
Stepping into a small corner of the lives of the three multi-gifted and dynamic women–whose lives were on hold—was eye-opening and gut-wrenching.
The dilemma was how to help them rather than hurt them more. So, we talked a lot.
I researched yoga for people with fibromyalgia.
They shared what they’d learned at the Mayo workshops they’d attended.
Alternative Ways to Process Pain
One of the woman, Gayle, mentioned one of the Mayo doctors talking to them about alternative ways to ‘process’ pain—changing the ways the nerves communicate with the muscles.
Suddenly…I remembered something.
A yoga workshop I’d attended a year or so earlier on something called “somatics”.
It was about re-educating the muscles and nervous system to communicate more effectively with each other.
The benefits centered around:
- Maximizing Body Functions,
- Mobility,
- and Reducing Stiffness and Pain.
I’d been impressed with the concept, and a brief internet search led to more information and a couple of especially intriguing videos by Ed Barrera….himself a ‘survivor’ of fibromyalgia turned somatics practitioner.
Ed had also written a book, Move Like an Animal, teaching people the animal concepts of applying conscious pandiculation which had been systematized as somatics exercises
But life was busy, and I’d soon forgotten about somatics….until Gayle’s comment.
The two of us immediately set out on a lively pursuit of current information and materials on somatics, which led us back to Ed Barrera–with lots of questions on how to offer therapeutic movement to three committed fibromyalgia ‘warriors’ in Northern Minnesota.
He quickly, enthusiastically, compassionately, and in detail, responded to emails from both Gayle and myself.
The ’warriors’ and I began some group sessions, but Gayle never does anything half-way….and began an intense daily somatics routine at home.
The result? – Moving Like an Animal
She started seeing and feeling some improvement in movement and mood within a few days.
The progress continued over the weeks, and within a few months, she’d transitioned from some 10 years of dependence on her husband to help her move and do basic activities around the house, to an increasingly active life style…
Plus a a jaw-dropping run up the driveway one day when she got out of a friend’s car.
Gayle was hooked on somatics exercises and what moving like an animal was doing for her.
She and I read, studied, emailed Ed, and then offered a couple of classes introducing somatics to others in pain here in our community.
In the last year, I’ve also have incorporated some somatics movements into both my hatha and gentle yoga classes, and occasionally offer introductory somatics instruction upon request—yes, right up in anything-but-urban Northern Minnesota.
Participants’ comments (20-70 year olds) have been reaffirming of the benefits of somatics…and I celebrated the victories of those who had successfully decided to take charge of their pain and stiffness.
Lesson #2: The Wakeup Call
But all that good news still wasn’t enough to establish and expand my own regular practice of somatics.
Life got busy again. So then came wake-up call #2.
Yes….my right hip and leg—had me in on-and-off discomfort for more than a year.
When I realized that I needed regular Ibuprofen to get through our community theater rehearsals, I had to admit the deterioration of the situation.
So with the natural misconceptions of most 63-year olds, I started to obsess about what it actually was, and what medical/surgical interventions I probably needed to start thinking about.
Arthritis, Old Age, Hip Replacement, Surgery, Drugs
That’s right, I completely disassociated my hip and leg pain from everything I’d learned and been preaching about somatics, and was instead thinking “arthritis,” “old age,” “hip replacement,” “surgery,” and “drugs.”
I was in the midst of internet searches and yellow pages under “doctors,” when I realized what I was doing….or rather, what I wasn’t doing.
What I wasn’t doing.
Somatics.
However, because of the state I’d worked myself into, I also decided I needed Ed’s reassurance to make sure somatics would take care of this. After all this was MY pain now…and not ‘just’ somebody else’s.
A short diagnosis and download of a couple of appropriate somatics movement classes later, I was on my way to relief within 48 hours and in a few weeks, I was pain free again. But slow learner that I am…
Lesson #3: Go Back to the Well
I started taking all that freedom from pain for granted, and gradually slacked off of my few minutes of daily somatics…until I fell into another stiff hips and lower back issue….and one that seemed to be exacerbated by my yoga instruction.
What’s more, ironically, the pain peaked just days before leading another 4-week introductory Somatics session.
Fortunately, the panic I’d again worked myself into, quickly reminded me of my panic of two years earlier. I immediately set into some intense somatics, and got another ‘shot of encouragement,’ from Ed.
So, as it turns out, I’m taking somatics and mobility seriously now—finally.
I don’t want to stop learning or practicing it…for my sake, and for all the people I get to share it with.
More Than Not Having Pain
It’s about a lot more than simply NOT having pain.
It’s the whole feeling of freedom and absolute joy in MOVING and in the awareness of the marvels of human body.
When you feel that way, you get to remember how truly wonderful life can feel, and you almost can’t help but make the world a better place.
Does life get any better than this?
Join Carol and All the Other Happy Movers & Shakers
Take Charge of Pain and Stiffness
Click here to Learn More to [Regain the Freedom to Move with Joy Again!]
The bony parts of our skeleton are usually shown like this:
This framework of bones appears to be supported at the bottom by our feet.
This structure would surely fall to the ground if our tissues, like the muscles, tendons and ligaments, did not connect the bones and keep the framework together.
The tissues of the muscles, tendons and ligaments have many sense receptors so we can feel and sense.
These living tissues resides inside the fascia, which has even more sense receptors than the muscles.
This housing is where our bones float and move under tension in the same way as this depiction of a model of tensegrity.
Tension is what keeps this model together.
And in this video, you’ll see how things move under tension.
As you can see, instead of parts, like a leg or a muscle of the leg like the hamstrings, we are integrated like the model so our various parts if you will, coordinate and are combined to be a living whole system of connective tissues of movement regulated by certain levels of tension.
This information flows in our nervous system and changes as we respond in our daily life.
When our connected parts move, the position and tension changes so the whole system can coordinate its actions.
Even though we can move around or sit, certain parts of the brain can be programmed with too little or too much tension.
Ideally, our tension levels would come back to neutral when things come to rest or when we’re aware enough to let the tension say, drop from our shoulders.
We know when that doesn’t happen to some people like athletes. They feel pain levels or tension levels rising, if they stop moving for instance.
They know if they can just get through the movement part, they’ll be ok enough to finally sit, rest and then deal with any recurring stiffness, tension or pain resurfacing.
Others simply struggle to move comfortably on account of those tension levels which remain in check or at levels we think we can handle .
So if we live with compensations, where things are seen as an elevated shoulder, internally rotated leg and our center of gravity is displaced.
The compromise on the living movement system may be felt as too much tension, too little tension or we’ve even lost our sense in some areas.
The brain will keep going with tension levels held in place or jacked up on account of accruing more throughout the day.
When tension levels are too high, we can find our way into a back cramp or spasm and the stress just grinds on us.
When tension levels stay on for too long, stiffness continues.
Our mobility and flexibility are hampered.
As people struggle to move comfortably or not as well as they used to, it is usually easily noticeable, even though we can learn to live with it and compensate further.
So our movement system may not just be the 600 or 800 muscles that have been identified, rather the muscles are just part of it.
Instead of a cause and effect way of looking at things, like our back muscles being a problem. Our inner relationships of parts moving as a whole is capable of change from within since the one big muscle, the brain, can change tension levels throughout our body.
You see, where we sense pain doesn’t always correlate to where the problem actually lies.
While it’s true that muscle shortness or tightness can distort our postures and we can feel pain, stiffness, stress or tension.
Some distorted postures do not, though most will admit it doesn’t look like they can easily get around.
Our adapted way of movement or being held in certain levels of tension can be compromised to the point where we don’t function as well as we could, even though we can still get by.
When we begin to change tension levels to restore mobility, so that flexibility returns, and we regain control over how our movement functions, then the tissues begin to move more comfortably.
The big muscle, the brain, can certainly amp up pain when things goes haywire.
It can also reverse course as the levels of tension reintegrate so our whole being moves around more effortlessly.
Even as far back as 1680, Herman Boerhaave, the founder of modern day clinical medicine noted…
He knew that the act of pandiculation, which today we know is a brain based event which actually changes tension levels. Helps to regulate tension so the muscles and movement system can come to rest.
Today, he would be able to see how the nervous system can carry the information from the brain through various feedback loops…
…so that the movement system can sustain more optimal levels of tension and has the ability to return everything to its resting place.
When you play with resetting tension levels, then everything returns to its place so that you no longer are tensed over this or that and can easily & comfortably float from within, even as you age.
Stress happens! So what do you do about it?
Some people will say just “relax and breathe”.
Easier said than done, unless you have a set of proven relaxation and meditation techniques at your disposal.
Zen Sensei and life coach, Pompe Strater-Vidal is inviting you to join me and 20+ other experts in meditation, mindfulness, and stress reduction.
Discover simple, surprisingly easy, and relaxing strategies to reduce stress and tension to rejuvenate yourself.
You’ll hear about methods which takes minutes per day to enjoy and finally – relax and breathe.
Register here
This FREE EVENT includes two 30-minute interviews over 11 days with these experts too.
You don’t have to have a lot of experience or extensive knowledge to feel the relief you’ll be able to create.
These people will show you ways to increase your energy and focus too.
Hey, registration is completely FREE when you register here.
I’m always looking for new insights to “experience the body from within” – the definition of Somatics.
In other words, it’s about how you feel, perceive and experience your living being.
These experts will offer a simple solution for you to use to:
• Reduce stress & tension
• Manage anxiety
• Get some good sleep
• Awaken your entire being and the joy you can feel right now
So join us in the Relax and Breathe Summit – sign up today.
Want to discover some of the most powerful scientific and spiritual conscious expansion tools on the planet – doled out in daily nuggets you can do in minutes and it’s 100% free to join in.
The ancient practice of meditation has even gone mainstream with my local NFL football team, the Seattle Seahawks. Go Hawks!
Shucks, my fellow soccer competitors may come out of the closet too and reveal how the mind, body and spirit can be dramatically lifted.
Inner Riches Meditation Experience for All Types of Athletes & Non-Athletes Too
It’s been part of my sports performance and soccer training for some time, although I add in brainwave entrainment that most anyone can do – and this is what you’ll learn about in the Inner Riches Meditation Experience.
So if you’re looking for a way to breakthrough or hop on board to a more empowered and fulfilling life – you gotta join us.
Plus, this event is 100% complimentary.
Please RSVP for the Inner Riches Meditation Experience.
If you’ve never meditated – no worries – this event is for ALL skill levels.
Achieve Quicker Life Results with the Inner Riches Meditation Experience
You’ll be able to overcome any number of blocks or obstacles which can get in the way of what you in life – from your health, fitness, money, relationships, a job or career, and what you want to leave behind for others.
You can do this and achieve an exceptional state of meditation on demand.
Join us today in the Inner Riches Meditation Experience.
Jamie Oliver is at it again with Food Revolution.
If you’ve got to learn the fundamentals of reading and writing so you can support yourself later in life. Doesn’t it make sense to learn about the very thing you put in your mouth everyday ?
The body experienced from within, aka somatics, also has to do with how your body feels.
Food Revolution at school
How your body can be a barometer in what you eat and how it makes you feel wasn’t particularly addressed in any of the schools or university I attended.
OK, that was awhile back when we had real – not REAL – food devoid of many the insidious ingredients that many of us can’t pronounce or actually know what it is.
So Jamie has a petition where you can sign:
https://www.change.org/p/jamie-oliver-needs-your-help-fighting-for-food-education
to help kids know how to simply prepare a meal and find out what ingredients – like tomatoes, asparagus, and apples – are actually about.
Food Revolution Question?
Did you know one of the definition’s of food says this: any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink, or that plants absorb, in order to maintain life and growth.
What is necessary for health and growth is one thing. You probably know or have an idea of what it takes to thrive and feel great when it comes to food or its next level of nutrition.
It’s almost hard to believe in an abundant society, there is a need for a food revolution – but what do your eyes see at schools today?
Do you think a food revolution makes sense today?
Mom & Dad kept telling me to drink milk. There are billboards and commercials telling me to drink this stuff to get enough calcium to help our bones.
Oddly enough, cows don’t drink cows milk according to Jason Vale from Super Juice Me.
He says a bull elephant with those great big tusks drinks no milk, yet maintains their big pearly whites with another source.
They get all their calcium from green leafy vegetables and fruits..
Fruits and vegetables like the ones in the list below – can make a fantastic juice and help supply your calcium needs.
They may even be a better source too.
Here’s the list in case you want to give Jason Vale’s Calcium Refresher juice a try.
1 Apple
1 Pear
1/4 Cucumber
1” or so of Broccoli stem or the tops
1 Lime peeled
1 Handful of Fresh Mint
1 Handful of Spinach Leaves
1/2 Turnip
This cow’s milk alternative juice comes with magnesium, sulfur, iron, vitamins a, b & c.
Plus he says the pear is good to help lower cholesterol and is in rich in pectin.
That cucumber is a natural diuretic and rich in silicon to help your hair, skin and nails too.
Plus when is the last time you juiced a turnip and some mint together?
So happens, Jason’s movie, Super Juice Me is Free to Watch until midnight February 15th, otherwise you can get a copy of it and watch how people go through a 30 day juice fast.
In the meantime, hope you enjoy the bull elephant’s cow milk alternative in a juicy way.
A somatic check-in is how you normally start doing somatics exercises or when you want to simply notice your feelings or sense perceptions right now.
It’s simple, all you have to do is notice yourself in the present moment.
For instance, how or what are you feeling right now throughout your entire body?
Somatic Check-In
So let’s do a somatic check-in.
When you check-in, you can lie on the floor and let your body sink into the surface and then wait.
While your waiting, this is the time to sense or feel what you can right now.
The time can be short and sweet or last up to a couple of minutes or more as you take the time to feel, notice, sense and appreciate what your body is telling you.
As you lie on the floor and check in – How do you make contact with the floor?
How did you choose to arrange yourself on the floor? Knees bent, legs straight, legs crossed?
Do you feel your breath?
Do you feel or notice any aches, pains or stiffness?
Taking an Internal Inventory to Self Sense & Appreciate
Your simply taking an internal inventory to feel what signals, both good and bad arise in the present moment of now.
As you lie there:
Do your legs feel the same?
Does one side feel longer or shorter than the other?
Does one feel heavier or lighter?
How do your hips feel?
Do they feel the same or a little different?
Take the time to linger, compare and contrast.
Notice how you positioned your arms.
Are your arms at your sides?
Do you have them folded in a comfortable or familiar way?
Are your palms facing the same direction?
Are your shoulders lying level on the floor?
Do you feel tilted on one shoulder more than the other?
Now, focus your attention on your spine.
Feel the length of your spine from your tailbone all the way to your head.
Then feel how your entire body makes contact with the surface.
You’ve now checked in somatically speaking. The body experienced from within is available any time you choose. It’s a matter of you giving yourself the precious gift and time to check in now.
So many people do not check in and feel themselves unless there is pain. The more you check-in, the easier it is to take a moment here or there as life speeds busily by.
Watch and listen to this somatic check-in.
Doing Nothing is All Right
If someone were to see you lying there, they wouldn’t necessarily know the flashlight of awareness your shining on or within yourself.
You could have checked in with your 4th toe on your left foot for instance. How often do you that?
Then you might decide to travel up to your right eyebrow and feel its length, width and breadth.
So whether you choose to focus on certain specific parts of yourself or your entire self, this flashlight of awareness uses your brain and body in a more conscious manner.
Leisurely checking in lets you feel any stress, tension, stiffness or tightness. Then you can feel or see if things let go on their own accord.
If not, then you can use your brain-body with some wonderful somatics exercises to change discomforting signals into ones of pleasure.
Then at the end, you can check-in again and feel what changes have taken place or what new sensations or feelings you are now aware of.
So, let me know if you took a moment in now to lie down and check-in.
What did you feel?
How would you describe your sensations, feelings or perceptions now?
A somatic athlete doesn’t rely on ice, ibuprofens, or a hot tub in order to relax and release stiffness or soreness.
The somatic athlete knows how to recover and rejuvenate simply using the brain and body together.
You don’t have to be an athlete. Having the desire to master your body’s signals lets you take care of most any pain, discomfort, and stiffness.
After all, it’s our natural birthright to move well.
Of course, you have to maintain this ability which is afforded through the act of pandiculation or in the ways we’ve systematized somatics exercises.
Not having the range of motion you think you oughta have?
Is the stiffness, lack of mobility getting in the way to feel free again?
Are you’re left limping or struggling to move comfortably?
You see, a somatic athlete knows to pandiculate out stiffness and high tension levels more quickly so she can return to her favorite activity or have less down time recuperating.
A somatic athlete plays the inside game of going into the body and the nervous system where the flow of information can be managed and updated like software.
Starting with your brain’s motor cortex, you can regulate tension levels along feedback loops of information.
You can feel and watch how a certain intention to move is followed by the movement you’re focusing your attention upon.
Much like an advanced athlete who uses visualization, guided imagery and meditates on a particular course or series of purposeful actions or movements which could occur.
The brain is now highly engaged.
Your intention to move sets up the brain’s motor cortex to learn how to move more successfully. You can program better movement by going cortical.
After the learning has occurred, the program shifts to the lower brain so you can use it without as much thought.
A somatic athlete uses her brain to change the output of the negative signals she feels.
She’ll go cortical by using her intention and get out of discomfort and improve her feelings of well-being since she is at the place where you can change and affect the output of information the brain sends down to the muscles and movement system.
In time, you can master life-long comfort and the maintain the ability to use your body wisely and happily.
The opportunity to use using the brain’s cortex so you can feel fully relaxed, recuperated and rejuvenated is available on any moment’s notice when you set the power of intention as your starting point.
This is the realm of the somatic athlete.
Having a quiet confidence in knowing how to reset tension and stress so the hobbling, limping and altered walking after some physical activity doesn’t happen can be yours.
You’ll know what to do and how to take care of negative signals quickly.
Besides, once you begin to incorporate this in your daily life, you return to those childlike feelings of freedom when you could wield your body and do new things even as you age.
Discover the Secrets of a Somatic Athlete in our somatics athlete series.
Then let us know if you are a somatic athlete too?
