I read the book, “Come to your senses” recently and am quite impressed with the content and subsequently, the results.
Stanley Block talks about identity systems and the thoughts that are associated with them. Identity systems are crucial in our lives, but they can become overactive and take over our being, causing tension and dis-ease by taking us away from the present moment.
In this book Stanley suggests we bridge to the present moment by mapping then labeling our thought patterns and using them to rest our identity system, thus, bringing us back to the present by focusing on sounds, body sensations, etc.
The material leaves no stone unturned when it comes to real life examples. Basically, thoughts are just thoughts. They are merely options for us to be able to make choices from. When they become requirements, we contract and are cut off from our possibilities and the ever illusive true self.
I am looking forward to continue applying this work to my life and am curious as to the role it will play in my massage practice, helping people to achieve and maintain deeper levels of relaxation and body awareness.
Another piece of the puzzle falls into place….keep ‘em comin’ world…..keep ‘em comin’.
Oh yeah, I highly recommend you read this book and do the mapping exercises, they are simple and surprisingly powerful.
Saw John Veltheim, the found of bodytalk, speak last night. He is an absolutely brilliant man. He explained with great clarity how theoretical physics works and blew me a way with his definition of health……one’s ability to embrace conflict. Think about that one for a bit huh?
More and more I work on people with foot conditions. Over the past year it has become increasingly evident that many many foot conditions can be helped by tracing tension from the feet and lower legs up through the rest of the body, sometimes even up to the forehead.
Often a person with some sort of foot pain, be it a diagnosis of plantar fascitis, neuroma, neuropathy, high arches, flat feet, shin splints, compartment syndrome, hammer toes or the increasingly common “unknown pathology” can be helped with a mixture of bodymapping, myofascial release, bodytalk access, craniosacral therapy, deep tissue release, muscle activations and lymph drainage (and maybe a few others, though not necessarily in that order).
Basically it all comes down to tensegrity again. How to get the entire body balanced from brain to toe, inside and out, across and up an over and down and back and any other combinations you can think of. It can get pretty technical figuring out the pathways, but sometimes it just takes a few releases in the right area to get the body to spring back into tensegral shape.
One of the important keys is to remember that where the pain is, is not necessarily where the problem is, although it can be. When doing a subjective intake, I listen to what a person isn’t saying. When working with people who complain of low back pain I commonly ask about whether they feel neck tension or neck pain. Often a person will say they experience no neck pain, but when I examine and palpate I find the neck is the main contributor to the tension they are feeling in the low back. I have had numerous experiences where constant, chronic back pain and tension is alleviated permanently and swiftly by working on the head and neck musculature. Many of these people had tried many, many approaches and found very little temporary to no permanent relief,…but then sometimes all I have to do is go right to where it hurts and push, so you always gotta be thorough.
Our bodies are fascinating. Each of us is like a universe in and of ourselves, constantly changing, deeply vast and full of extraordinary, largely untapped potential.
There, I did it. I started talking about feet and finished by talking about the stars. It’s all connected. Remember that.
I had a bodytalk session a couple of weeks ago. She linked my subtle vision, subtle hearing and subtle touch and linked it to my heart. What does that mean to me? Better timing while drumming! I sat down at my drums a few days later, set the metronome to 147 and locked into a groove so deep I needed a shovel to get out, but all I had were a couple of sticks….no complaints.
This has led my into a deeper understanding of time and how we manipulate it unconsciously.
Time is like a rubber band, we can pull it one way to slow it down, or push it another to speed it up, but it always snaps back to the present moment.
Don’t know what that means? Join the club….but I understand time a little bit more and am unconsciously manipulating it less….(that’s a fancy way to say I’m present more often) ahhhhhhhh.
Oh today was a good day. A couple of weeks ago I made a simple tetrahedron model using dowels, rubber bands and push pins. Actually, I had help…thanks Carole! The idea was to be able to have a hands on model that would give people the feel for how their body moves and should feel even though gravity is constantly acting on it. We are not constructed like a building. We are a tensegris (if that’s not a word it is now) system. When there is a change in one part, the whole is affected in some way or another…depending on the change.
I worked on a fellow today by beginning with his arms. Somehow his arms were overly connected to his torso, and this is not necessarily the greatest scenario if freedom of movement is the goal. I noticed that he had a habit of tensing his hands with any arm movement. I pointed this out to him and he immediately released his rhomboid muscles a great deal. A person could dig into his rhomboid muscles all day long and never get a lasting change as long as the hand tensing pattern remained.
What was really profound about this session is the effect this little change had on the rest of his torso, breath, hips and calf and hamstring cramping. His body began to lengthen out and let go like I have never seen with him before. He was unable to describe the ease he was feeling in his body as he had never experienced it before.
My point? Our bodies are connected in more ways then we could ever possibly fathom. We are not designed to be weighed down by gravity. Our joints, muscles, ligaments, tendons, fascia, etc. are all highly capable and waiting for the chance to support us and carry us effortlessly through our day….it’s one thing to know this is possible intellectually and it’s quite another to experience it first hand.
Bodytalk Access is a series of 5 techniques that help to reduce and manage stress, improve focus and concentration, strenghten the immune system, balance, align and relax your musculoskeletal system and address minor injuries.
I decided to commit to doing it at least once a day for two weeks, it only takes 10 minutes a day.
It has been about two weeks now and I have really noticed a difference in my perception of where I am in regards to “hitting-the-wall”, to use a popular catch phrase.
The second technique in Access is called “Switching”. It normalizes our stress thresholds. Balancing stress levels so you don’t “hit-the-wall” too early, or in my case lets you know when you are approaching it or already passed it.
Switching is a protective mechanism our bodies use to shut us down when we are overtired, burned out, low on blood glucose and any further work without food or rest will be harmful to us.
I am noticing how often in my life, I have burst right on through the wall and keep going at full speed….in circles. I’ve known intellectually that I do this, but to have my body communicate so clearly is truly a profound feeling…You can’t help but to listen. As a result I am regulating how I use my time much better. I am able to see and feel more clearly what I want to accomplish and prioritize things accordingly. It’s good, real good.
Often times when muscles are hurting we think it’s because they are knotted or locked short, and we want someone to dig out the knot. When digging out the knot doesn’t relieve the pain or feeling of tension it may be because the muscle is actually not shortened, but too long. Using the midback/between the shoulder blades example is good. If the muscles in the front of the body (pectorals, trapezius, scalenes, levators, splenius, etc) are tight then it tends to shorten the chest which makes the shoulder blade muscles hang on for dear life. They are stopping you from falling forward. The reason these muscles in the back are hurting is because they are fatigued. Trying to relax them without addressing the anterior chest muscles can make them work even harder. This a a general example. I worked on someone today where stimulating the hip flexors, balanced the pelvis which then aligned the entire torso all the way up to the head.
Today was a right shoulder day. I worked on a lot of infraspinatus,
supraspinatus, subscapularis, teres major and minors. Of course
lats and traps were thrown into the mix…and levator scapulas
and scalenes and, and, and. It always seems to lead somewhere
else doesn’t it. God bless tensegrity.
They say with energy medicine, less is more. I just performed
all 5 Bodytalk Access techniques on myself in 10 minutes. During
the reciprocal part, my entire body began buzzing….in a good
way. I got up and moved around and had nothing on my mind…
Is that called clarity? hmmmmmmmmmm. I like it.
Finally, I have a blog set up in my website www.advanceinjurycare.com. My intention is to
write about my massage and bodywork experiences, theory’s,
insight, studies, findings and whatever else I happen to find is
relevant at the time. Now I must get ready to go to Wing Chun
so sionara for now. ~Rich~
