The Psoas Muscle Health

I just started reading "The Psoas Book" by Liz Koch and I am learning so much.  I remember in massage school learning about this muscle and learning to identify its locations, but I there is so much I did not know about this muscle.

Here is one quote from the book that says so much.

As a psoatic shelf, the psoas muscle provides support for the organs and viscera.  the health, length and vitality of the psoas muscle affects organ functioning.  Whether or not there is room within the pelvic bowel for the organs to rest comfortably and function normally is determined by the length and tone of the psoas muscle. (page 27)

As you can see from this quote in the book, the psoas muscle does a tremendous amount.  There are many other functions as well, but I'll let you read the book to discover them.  If we all focused on helping our psoas muscle become healthy, I have a feeling many health conditions could be lessened.  Don't take my word for it, read the book.

To read "The Psoas Book", click this link.

The Body In The Shutdown Process, Part 3

For Part 2, Click Here - June 25, 2009

At the end of the session, Dr. Canali did some major adjustments on my neck because there were still some stiffness and alignment issues. You see, as our bodies become overwhelmed with fear and as they repeat the stories of old, our bodies change biologically and physically. So as these things are released, the body then has the ability to come back into balance and alignment. The neck adjustments don’t always feel good and often my body tries to hold itself back from these but again, if the fear part of my brain allows my body to let go, the outcomes are unimaginable.

When we left Dr. Canali’s office, I felt so much different than when I came in a few hours earlier. Yes, I did have two sessions that day because my body had so many mountains to cross through. I still remember one patient there looking at me and telling me that I looked much different than I came in. He said he could tell that I was in a lot of pain. And yet now, I was walking out of there without hardly any pain. My legs were moving like they had never moved before. The stiffness in my neck and shoulder were basically gone. I felt a little out of it as if time had quickly passed by that day and I needed to catch up. So we went to a park off of the bay and just enjoyed some down time in the sunshine and in nature while I was able to process more of what had gone on. It was a beautiful time to just be there and take it all in.

The plan was to make the 270 mile trip back that night but it was getting late and I really felt that my body needed rest instead of the stress of driving the distance. We stayed overnight and it felt good just to relax in the hot tub at the hotel and enjoy a peaceful night of sleep.

As I went into the night, I noticed that I was holding my body as I was before my sessions just as if it was full of pain and stiffness. Noticing that, I told myself why am I doing this? For my body doesn’t feel bad and there is nothing wrong. I no longer needed to hold my body in this way. Then it would release. Of course as Dr. Canali explained to me, that the pattern I was holding before was now in my conscious mind and it allowed me to make different choices and to do something about it.

I also shared with Dr. Canali that I believed this was the most acute physical situation I had been in since I had known him. Seeing how my body was in such a state of shutting down, even beyond that which I was able to pick up before the session and then seeing that allowing my body to heal and the results that followed were eye opening. It was not like I needed anyone to tell me this was or was not possible. It was something that was proven to me through my own body. I knew from firsthand experience that this truth was not what someone told me but it came out of my own body where I could see it, touch it and feel it.

I’m reminded that there is no greater truth than which you can connect with in your own body, mind and soul. There is so much more out there than what we are currently aware of and although the fears may be strong and although we may feel overwhelmed as if there is no hope, this is the moment being given to us so that we may truly discover another part of ourselves. It is a gift that we can either open or ignore. If we choose NOT to open it, we may trick ourselves into thinking it has gone away. It will continue attempting to get our attention. At some point we will either continue to ignore it or we will begin to listen to it. Through listening and opening to all that it is, we give ourselves one of the greatest gifts any human could have. That gift is truly knowing ourselves and how we impact the rest of the world by becoming more human.

The Body In The Shutdown Process, Part 2

For Part 1, Click Here - June 24, 2009

Oh please let me hide. I wonder if I can withdraw myself enough into the table so that no one will notice I’m here. Maybe this will all go away. Maybe everyone will go away. Do I really want to be here? I’m scared. I’m not sure there is a way out.

That’s how I felt walking in the door of Dr. Canali’s office. My body was overwhelmed with fear and while it wanted to be held, reassured and validated; any perceived touch felt like a nuclear bomb going on inside. It was such conflicting thoughts and desires that confused my mind into an endless stream of thoughts.

I could feel the heaviness in my chest preventing my body from really breathing. The breath was in lock step with wanting to hide for if I barely breathed, no one would see me. I felt the stiffness of my body not wanting to move and being in pain when I did. Outside of the pain and stiffness in my body, I felt very little. The trembling and shaking in my body were present and very annoying to me. They remind me of the early days of the paralysis when I would shake and have seizures while feeling all alone. Everyone would watch me from a distance feeling helpless while my body went through all these violent movements being afraid and alone. While I now know that the trembling and shaking is the nervous system letting go, I am still frightened by it as a trigger to a very scary moment in my past.

A lot of the session is a blur to me. There are little bits and pieces that I remember but not enough to draw a complete picture. I do remember some of those moments. Most things early in the session would startle me. And it is still imprinted in my mind that Dr. Canali told me “he and Quayny believed in me”. That’s something that I never got growing up and often I struggle to have the confidence in myself because no one was there for me. Those appropriate timed words were priceless and they brought tears to my eyes.

One such moment was when I could feel my hands and arms in an almost rigid form where they would not move. Quayny kept working with me to just focus on moving my fingers which was difficult beyond rationale. But as we went and she kept me focusing on what I felt, I stated that it was as if I wanted to take a baseball bat and hit someone. Of course, I’m still not sure who that “someone” was but it had so much power to those words. Quayny suggested that I take an imaginary baseball bat in my hand and make the motion as if I was doing that. To just feel the energy of it and the motion of it. As I did this, the tension in my hand and my body began to change. It began to let go and allow someone to begin the physical touch with me.

Another moment in the session, I told Dr. Canali that I really wanted to get up off the table and run as fast as I could and as far as I could. That’s the response that I get when confronted by fear. It is also known as “fight or flight”. So Dr. Canali told me that we were going to use that energy to bring about a change in my body without going into the fear part of the brain. He put the flat part of my feet together and had me lift the pelvic area of my body to help stretch the psoas muscle. When I did this, the pains that shot down through my legs were so intense that I screamed several curse words out. It was not so much a physical pain, although it was showing up that way. It was the connection to the fears locked within me.

At that moment, I felt the pain that connected me to a time many years earlier where I had felt the same thing. Actually I had buried this one pretty deep because until this current connection was made, I was not consciously aware of it. That pain was the same thing I felt in my legs early on in the paralysis when it was just hitting me. It was the pain that took my body by surprise and was so intense, that after that I could not feel a thing in my legs. They were numb and nearly dead. So when we hit this moment in the session, all of that came flooding back to me.

We pushed this reaction further in the session which then caused a shaking and trembling in my legs but as I allowed myself to connect with this and allowed it to take place, the pain and tension released. The tears started to form much as they are doing while I’m writing this because it allowed me to truly feel my legs for the first time in my ENTIRE life. Let me repeat that because this is a very big thing for me. I began to really feel my legs for the first in my ENTIRE life in a way I had NEVER felt them before. It was electrifying, pulsing, and warm and my legs felt alive. I could feel the touch around them. They felt like they were part of me instead of just being a body part that held me up as I moved around in a day. It was truly a moment in joy for me.

The specifics of the rest of the session are ones that I just don’t recall. So much was happening and taking place. I was going into the fears and not letting the fear part of my brain (amygdala) take over. I was finding my power as I released these things and went deep into the pain. The desire to freeze was there but the more I went and allowed my body to heal in the way it needed to, the more freedom I had.

For our bodies do know what is needed to heal and yet we stay in a state of “survival” locked into our fears. This prevents us from healing and growing in ways that are essential to our becoming more and more human every day. Often the fears are unconscious like they were in me before I went to the session but they are there. It is through the touch of a skilled person who can be there through all of this with someone that we are truly able to go from survival fear into being connected intimately between our mind and body. I had to be reminded of this even though I know it to be true and I work with it. The fear part of our brain is strong but when we empower ourselves from the inside out, we are the ones who are strong.

--- come back tomorrow for Part 3 ---