How the Body Remembers
I lay there on the table being moved about to loosen bone, muscle and fascia. From a bird’s eye view I experienced this repeating flashback of my body sliding upside down on the pavement nearly 10 years ago. As my Osteopath worked the restrictions in my lower thoracic and upper lumbar spine, I could feel the vectors of force from the impact, the tumbling, and skating upside down on my helmet, as I struggled to keep my neck straight and avoid quadriplegia. I could feel in my body of today how my body still held tightly to some of those vectors and how it yearns to let go. To be free of them. And yet, when the treatment releases these vectors and unwinds the fascia, my body doesn’t know how to fully organize itself. Muscles and fascia long held in a different shape find a way to return to old tension patterns.
This has been a journey. An odyssey. I’m always curious how my body will respond when major work is done. How long will I revel in the softness, the spaciousness before the old shape creeps back in? What is the trigger that brings back that old shape? While frustrating to regress a bit, I turn towards my body with love. This beautiful vessel has supported my recovery and again become a safe place for my spirit to inhabit. This body allows me to do nearly everything I want. This body is an incredible teacher.
As I unwind accident trauma, I’m discovering that in the same parts of my body lies core trauma of my inner child. What gets tight and stiffens when I feel I am not enough overlaps with my accident trauma. I wonder if my inner child, fretting about being enough, calls forward a shape that no longer serves. Yet as those old patterns grip my psyche and my body, the accident trauma stiffens to protect. I know the shape of trying too hard all too well. The thrust out chest of a 4 year old trying to prove that he’s big enough, strong enough, capable enough. Shoulders tense from the burden of trying to gain approval. A tight lower back, tensed to push in order to be seen.
As my body releases the accident trauma I can more clearly distinguish between my core trauma and that of my accident. The lesson I continue to find myself learning is trusting myself and putting my heart out there with no expectations or attachment. I continue to learn that my level of effort is my bellwether. The harder it is for me to do something the more cerebral my approach and mindset. When I’m aligned with my heart and the universe, the momentum can sometimes be unnerving. “How could it be so easy?”, my inner child asks. So accustomed to not gaining approval or fitting into expectations, I find I hold myself up almost in suspension. “Is this for real?”, I ask the universe. “Yes,” comes the reply.