What does one do? I was shuffling like a 90 year old and couldn't dress myself or get to the toilet. And the pain took my breath away and brought me to tears, which made the muscles spasm even more. While much of this was humorous to observe, I couldn’t laugh (or cry) without creating intense shooting pain.
What I realized was, the only way to get some relief was to relax the muscles and let absolutely every bit of tension leave my body. Or the muscles would tense up and charlie horse my whole lumbar region. How does one, me, let every bit of tension leave my body?
This got me thinking. How much tension is normal to hold? Have I been holding too much? Does everyone do this? Should I be doing a body scan meditation daily to manage this tension? Is this a build up of tension over years or sitting wrong on 30 hours of flights and running through airports pulling roller bags?
And it wasn’t working to just let it go, so I “shuffled” into a physio/chiro/doctor’s office in Bali where they checked for subluxation, tension, and tightness, photographed my posture to discern how I carry my weight, and checked my strength and resistance to discern where the weakness is. And then they start using words like unstable, out of alignment, putting too much pressure on the spine, holding myself incorrectly, and blah blah blah.
90 minutes later, I’ve been stretched to China and back, every vertebrae tapped and vibrated on, I’ve had a fascia massage, and a lecture about doing more yoga and breathing into my diaphragm. They gave me instructions to walk in the pool and float, light swimming, an ‘ice the back’ routine, rest and take an anti-inflammatory.
A couple hours later I am no longer shuffling around, but floating in a pool, feeling 80% better. I’m amazed, relieved, and so thankful and grateful. I have one more week in Bali, 3 pools to choose from, the ocean across the street, and lots of time to rest.
But I’m left wondering about a few things. Could this happen again? Are the exercises enough? What about my poor posture and how I carry tension in my neck and lumbar? I realize in this reflection that I’m not paying enough attention to my actual physical body, down to how I stand with my weight too far back. I need to lean forward. Who knew?
I’m also left wondering about my current pattern and attempts to tame tension. I obviously let it in and don’t know how to release it on the regular. It builds up. Is this part of why I was unstable? Out of alignment? What is the root of this problem?
Why am I writing about this?
Because I am interested in the intersection of inner healing, trauma clearing, and overall health of the physical body. When we do emotional healing work, the body doesn’t automatically upgrade itself to that new healthy place; we actually need to address the patterns and habits that are mostly physical.
Years of bad posture catches up to us, even if we heal the emotional root to why we shrink back and play small.
We are one. Our body reflects our inner world. We get to heal on every level. Healing emotionally opens a way to heal physically. Some of us were spiritually harmed, some emotionally crushed, some sexually and physically violated. This is all trauma that lives within us. Even neglect and injustice is a form of trauma. And this all lives in our muscles, fascia, cells, affecting organs, messing with alignment, immunity, posture, which cause subluxation and squeezed nerves, that then limit our mobility, freedom, health and life. We heal one part and we open a way for healing our whole being.
It’s time to heal…on every level.
I have a new breathing and exercise routine from my new Bali Physio. And I will continue to do my deepest inner healing work, and reflect on how it all connects. And what it means to be whole. I can’t leave my body and physicality behind. I actually have to start physically leaning forward!
What about you?
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