How to Live in Your Body: Finding skeletal support
One trauma specialist writes that, “while we are supposed to live in our bodies and use our minds as a tool, we live in our minds and use our bodies as tools.”
Humans are at base feeling beings who think instead of thinking beings who feel. Nevertheless, we resort to dismissing our emotions for all kinds of justifiably good reasons. Thinking solves some problems, but it does not create connection to ourselves or others. The question is, how do we live in our bodies?
The first step is support. Think about it: would you hang out with a bunch of friends who didn't support you? Maybe you would, for a while, okay, but would it be healthy, nourishing, and positive? No, it would wear you down. You'd feel exhausted, stressed, and eventually it would impinge on your quality of life. It is exactly the same with how you move.
Finding support within yourself is like befriending yourself so you make better decisions for your life. Imagine if you had that supportive group of friends inside yourself! Consider that:
When we feel supported, then we can let go.
This is true on all levels, emotional, physical, financial, and more. We need support for where we grip and tighten and overwork more than we need working out, stretching, pills, or needles. To start living in your body, find ways to support yourself.
First you have to admit you feel tension or strain or imbalance, and then begin to prioritize and honor your own comfort. This sounds simple, but do you need more pillows on the couch? Different support for how you sit at the office, in a chair, in the car? When you lie on the floor, is your back only twenty percent on the floor? You need more support. In Feldenkrais we say, if we don't reach the floor, raise the floor.
The second step is creating adaptability, but this first step is so vital and shocking in its necessity and simplicity that people often think they can skip it. You cannot. You cannot uncover new possibilities for movement from a state of tension because all you will feel is tension. (FYI Stretching is, by definition, not support.) The first thing we are taught in Feldenkrais is how to honor our own sensations and make ourselves comfortable and safe, and then how to make others comfortable and safe. Otherwise, we're just yanking on a tight, balled up, anxious, over-strained nervous system. That never works.
Here's my suggestion: do the movements listed below. Then do the two audio lessons in this month's newsletter as they are all about support through the bones. Don't think for a second that your muscles can do the work of the bones forever. It's a net loss of possibilities for movement. Support. Support. Support.
Five simple things to help your hips and low back right now
Each of these will take five minutes of your time.
1. Rolling
On the floor, bend your knees. Lift the left foot off the floor, reach between the legs with the left hand to hold the sole with the left palm, thumb and fingers together. (If you can't reach the foot, hold the calf or ankle.) Don't strain, life is too short!
Roll around holding the foot. Go side to side, unbend the knee a little to the left, the right, and to the ceiling. As you unbend the knees, what is the shape of your back? Can you accentuate that? Don't lift the head, just do what you can do to roll across the back.
Rest flat, then do the movement with the right leg and hand. Then rest flat. What do you notice?
2. Arms behind the back
Rest on your back and feel the shape of your low back. Then stand the feet and lift the pelvis and slide your arms behind the low back, one closer to the head, one closer to the pelvis. If this is not comfortable, don't push it. Just put a rolled towel under your low back and rest your hands on your belly. Tilt your knees side to side over the arms, many times. Observe if your head would like to move. Soften your jaw. Swap the hands over so the other one is above and continue. Do this many times, easily and lightly. Then rest on your back. What does it feel like? How do you feel your belly?
3. Lie in a boat
I often tell my clients about this lovely option to let the back rest. You must have at least two rolled towels or blankets and a very firm pillow or a couple folded towels for your head. To get situated, lie on your back with your lower legs on the furniture, such as a couch, chair, or ottoman. Put one rolled towel under the sacrum, the flat part of the pelvis, and another across your back at the shoulders. Then put the folded towels under your head so that it's at least parallel to the floor. Can you feel how your spine is in the shape of a boat with both ends tipped up?
Rest here for five or ten minutes. Feel your hip joints soften and your back settle. If this is not comfortable, this is not for you. Don't force it. Test it and discover for yourself. It can be lovely to rest the spine, shoulders, hips, and chest all at once!
4. Scoochie move
On your back with the legs long, flex the left ankle and push through the heel to elongate the leg.
Of course, the leg won't grow longer, so how does it lengthen? Check the back, ribs, and pelvis. Do this many times, sensing the ribs left and right. Then sense the right hip. What happens?
Do the right leg many times, with the flexed ankle. Then alternate, pushing through one heel and then the other. Note if you are lifting the knees or lifting the pelvis. That means you are compensating for some lack of movement in the ribs. Focus for a moment on the displacement of the ribs as you lengthen through one heel and then the other. Can you feel the ribs moving like an accordion? Notice if you clench the teeth or the jaw. Can you free up the head?
Rest a moment, then do the movement smaller and lighter, feeling the shift side to side in your center. What shape does your waist make? (It is the folding of the ribs that lengthens and shortens the legs, FYI.) Can you get so clear on what the ribs are doing that you can initiate the movement from there? Make sure your head is free and has not acquired magic super glue. Let everything be soft and mobile.
If you feel stiff in the mornings, I recommend doing this on the floor first thing out of bed.
5. Rotate the spine to loosen the low back
In standing, test sliding your hands down your legs. How far do you go before you bump into the low back or the hamstrings? Stop and stand up. Bend your knees and lean your elbows on the knees. Turn your torso left and right as if to see over one shoulder and then the other. Feel how your pelvis shifts a little left and right, and the weight shifts from foot to foot. You are really rotating the spine. Do a number of movements like this, then stand up again and feel how you stand. Then test sliding the hands down the legs. Is it different?
“As long as superfluous effort is invested in any action, we must throw up defenses and brace ourselves to exert a great effort that is neither comfortable, pleasurable, nor desirable. The lack of choice of whether to make an effort or not turns an action into a habit. Then nothing appears more natural than that, even if it is opposed to all reason or necessity.”
— Moshe Feldenkrais
“If your ceiling should fall down, then you have lost a room, but gained a courtyard. Think of it that way.”
― Alexander McCall Smith