When my neck was in pain, I knew that my muscles had tightened up and locked into place. According to Dr. Lou, my chiropractor, the massage had not been effective because my muscles were not the source of misalignment. Rather, the muscles had tightened up in response to the misalignment of my vertebrae.
I continued to see Dr. Lou so he could make adjustments to realign my spine. But, in between visits, my back would become misaligned again and the pain would return. Interestingly, the muscles were so used to being in a tightened, resistance mode, they would fall back into the familiar role by force of habit, pulling my spine out of alignment in the process. The muscles, rather than supporting the adjustments, were working against them.
It was frustrating. When I expressed concern about the continued pain to Dr. Lou, he said, it took a long time for you to become out of alignment so it’s going to take time to get you realigned. That made sense. He also suggested that I supplement visits to him with sessions with a colleague of his, Scott Baker, a structural integration therapist. Scott does deep tissue massage that works on both the muscles and connective tissues in the body. Unlike regular massage, which focuses on the muscles only, structural integration focuses on the soft tis’s work not only helps to relieve pain but also serves to re-align the body.
Because of the interdependence of the muscles and my spine, working on either one alone was not sufficient. They were connected. Harm to one resulted in harm to the other. Restoring them to balance, therefore, required working on both of them at the same time. Until I could get the muscles to relax, it was going to be difficult for my spine to stay in alignment. I needed to have work done on the soft tissues surrounding the muscles that keep them in place for the muscles to relax.
My sessions with Scott were an experiential demonstration to me of how all the pieces of the body are interconnected, impacting each other. I found that as he worked on one area of my body, I could feel the movement of all the tendons and muscles that were attached to it. For example I felt sensations running down my arms when he was working on tendons in my neck.
It was so clear to me why chronic stress is so destructive. Tension in any part of the body has a cascading effect, resulting in tension in other parts of the body. What started out as a slight tension in my shoulder became a misalignment of my spine and tightness elsewhere. By failing for so long to pay attention to the physical and other signs of stress in my life, I was dealing with a much larger and more complicated problem as a result.
During this experience, I also realized that just as the different parts of my body are interconnected with and impact each other, clearly our bodies, minds and emotions are interrelated as well. Muscles sometimes become tense not only because of how we hold our body, or as result of some physical injury or stress. Severe and chronic muscle tension can result from emotional injuries that we have sustained and not yet resolved.
Emotions are basically energy in motion. For emotions to move through us in a healthy way, we need to let them move. We do that by experiencing them rather than shutting them down and stuffing them somewhere. Inevitably they get stuffed into our bodies, often into our muscles.
So, while Scott worked on particularly tense and painful parts of my body, I could literally feel emotions being released. In fact, during one session, I felt such emotional pain, I cried. I was exhausted for a few days afterwards and then felt enormously lighter and freer than before. And, the muscles in my neck that had up until then not responded well to any treatment finally relaxed.
As I thought about that, I realized it was not a coincidence that I was finding myself needing to work on aligning myself physically during a time that I was feeling off-balance mentally and emotionally. They were clearly connected. To rebalance myself mentally and emotionally I had to realign myself physically as well.
For the transition process I was experiencing to prepare me for whatever life stage was coming next, I needed to get myself totally aligned. It was a rebalancing process that needed to include my mind, body, emotions and spirit so I could move to the other side of the transition.
Looking at this experience with the Quilt of Humanity ModelTM as a framework, it is clear that the threads of physical, mental and emotional health are connected and intersecting so that tautness and rigidity in one thread results in tautness and rigidity in the others, leaving the individual cloth uneven, imbalanced and out of alignment. To be healthy, we need to be aligned physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Everything is connected.
When we look at the way that parts of the body are some interconnected, what analogies might be made to the way individuals impact each other? The way communities impact each other? Nations?
Read about Allowing Time for the Process and Letting Go in Part 8 of the Change, Transition, and Transformation Series.
You have a great way of describing what some of us have gone through as a result of too much wieght on our shoulders. The weight may be from work, from family, from self expectation; but none the less, we find our bodies reacting to the ‘weight of the world’. After I spent 6 months trying to relax or decompress from the stress of over-extending myself at a job I ended up leaving; I found that the more focused I was on solving my own stress, the less relief I was able to accept. God has a gentle way of talking to us, often through that small voice or internal nudging. When I did not pay attention, because (of course) I knew I could handle it my own way, the Lord often steps up the ante. I finally figured out that my inability to take deep breaths and my tight chest were physical manifestations to the small voice I had been hearing a year earlier. When we call on God for help, he does send it. He rarely sends it in the manner we expect or visualize as a solutio, or in the time frame we think best. That would be our answer, not his. It is heart warming to keep up with your website, Deb. You are an immeasurable aid to those of us who seek out good, solid wisdom and support.
Thanks Deb,
It is interesting how we need to find a balance between not paying attention to what keeps us distracted while continuing to pay attention to what is truly important.
And, how the universe has ways of helping us realize when our attention has wandered off in the wrong direction. Part of it, as you point out, is learning how to listen.
Deb