The Elephant In The Room

Anyone else out there feeling emotional right now? I feel saddened by what is happening in the Ukraine. A real sense of wanting to help but not really knowing how, other than sending money. 

I have sat on this email for over a week unsure whether it’s the right thing to do - to carry on with life here in NZ amongst all of the suffering and strife on the other side of the world.

Finding cute kitty and puppy videos as a way to balance out all of the scenes of destruction and death I am seeing. To bring a little moment of joy.

The truth is life is always going to have the extremes, Yin Yang, Hot Cold, Birth Death, Joy Sorrow. In Yoga it’s about being able to fully feel into both and not avoiding or clinging to either.

At the moment I find myself living each moment to its fullest, being so fully grateful for everything right now and at the same time allowing myself to cry and feel the sadness without needing to change it, fix it or even understand it

To fully feel ALL of it. 

When we do not allow ourselves to fully feel, when we hold things in or shut the emotion down, we can create physical pain or dis-ease in the body. 

This month’s therapeutic video is addressing one such area that we feel this - the shoulders.

Scroll down for the free video.

Shouldering the Burden

Ever feel like you are literally carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders?

Are the events of the world increasing your tension and anxiety levels?

Tension, pain, restricted movement and even injury to the shoulders is almost guaranteed to affect all of us to varying degrees over our lives.

And it is no surprise given how we live - repetitively reaching overhead all day at work, or perhaps the opposite - sitting hunched in the car…then at a desk…then on the couch.

Hormones can play a big part too, for example frozen shoulder has a strong correlation with the hormonal shifts of menopause. And then of course there is acute trauma such as a fall whilst skiing, or in my case roller skating.

The shoulder is one of the most mobile joints in the body. It is designed this way so that we can grasp things above, beside, in front or behind us and bring them closer. It also allows us to push items (or people) away. As our bodies evolved to stand, we developed the capacity to throw spears and rocks at the animals we were chasing - nowadays we do this more for sport.

But more mobility can often mean less stability as the shoulder relies on the muscles and fascia around it for more support. When these muscles are imbalanced, our range of movement is affected. And if we do not move the shoulder through its full range of motion, the fascia will start to thicken which will make the shoulder feel sticky and less nimble.

All of this can become exacerbated by extreme stress because - you guessed it - how well we breathe affects the movement of the thoracic spine and shoulders. Check out Breathing Matters Course HERE

If the breath is not moving down to the back of the ribs, then the ribs and the thoracic spine (which attaches to the ribs) will not be able to rotate freely, which will bring tension to the shoulders as the accessory breathing muscles in and around the neck and shoulders get overused. Check out this video on 360º breathing.

Getting the breath moving three dimensionally will help to decrease the amount of tension in the neck, and provide a better base of support for the shoulder girdle.

Once we have addressed the breath, then we can start to bring awareness to the muscles that might need strengthening - often the posterior shoulder and middle upper back - as well as decreasing tension held in the muscles through both the front and back of the chest.

This video will take you through a series of movements to help bring more awareness to your shoulders, improve your range of movement and ability to lift your arms overhead, and maybe even release some of that chip on your shoulder. 

Maintaining healthy movement of the joints as we age can be a key way to keep doing the things we love with ease. I think we can all appreciate the importance of living a life full of things that we love in the wake of current world events.

This free Loving Kindness Meditation - part of the free meditations available on my site - is a great one to keep coming back to if you are feeling overwhelmed.