Fix Your Frozen Shoulder 4-The Stress Connection

Of all of the common musculoskeletal conditions I’ve worked with, frozen shoulder seems to be the most stress-related one. I say this because as soon as it gets fixed on one side, it almost always moves to the other shoulder. So, to make sure we’re looking at all aspects of how a shoulder impingement happens, we also need to consider the emotional aspect.

I’m not inherently a woo person, but the chakra system has had some interesting overlap with common themes I’ve seen with frozen shoulder over the last decade+. Nearly everyone I’ve worked with who has frozen shoulder, has a lot of tension at the throat and jaw—like they’ve spent time experiencing a situation where they felt stifled from expressing their voice. This could be growing up, a relationship or a work environment. Moving down the chakra system, I see the arms as an extension of the heart with little energy centers in the hands. You may feel this as you hug someone or even pet an animal or touch something soft. And then we have the yellow portion, the solar plexus, which is represented as the career center and center of power/agency/volition. The way I’ve seen this all interplay in frozen shoulder is that there’s an incongruency between what someone feels like they should be doing with their life, their power being taken away, and what their heart knows it wants. The throat area then locks down in a must-do fashion and erego we have a arm/shoulder girdle that gets frozen as stuck as the person feels trapped.

Frozen shoulder is a breath issue. The third chakra area is the diaphragm. The heart and the throat are bisected by the collar bone, which is how the shoulders attach to the body—crazy, right? The shoulders on your back literally float on the back of your ribs (or, they’re supposed to) and the only place they attach in a fixed way to the rest of the skeleton is at the sternum, or heart area. When you breathe, muscles should be lowering and lifting your collar bone to make room so that your rib cage and expand all around, kind of like the opposite of pushing an umbrella open. As this happens, your shoulders should gently move up and to the sides of your back and then settle back down. When this can’t happen, the shoulder girdle gets stuck, and then we have frozen shoulder. So, to help unfreeze the shoulders, we have to open up the breathing muscles.

This video contains 3 opportunities for opening the breath and diaphgram. I offer several variations depending on how much pain you have in shoulder shoulders. Since I love that cupping set, another option you have is cupping along the ribs, stomach and sternum to help open the breath in a way that should be frozen shoulder-friendly.

As you do these exercises, see if any feelings, thoughts or memories come to mind. They may offer an entryway to seeing what you’re holding in this area or things in your life that need to change to make the pain move its way out of you. Don’t forget to breathe. ;)

Carpal Tunnel & Wrist Pain 6-Emotional Connection

In this short video, I talk about connections between Chinese Medicine as well as the typical personality types that have come to me over the last decade for help with wrist pain and carpal tunnel.

The wrists and ankles represent the 4 gates in Chinese Medicine where chi circulates through these areas to create flow. If someone is blocked at one or more of these gates, it can lead to feelings of being trapped. To me this connects to feelings of control via the arms. As in being a doer-type—someone who is constantly in a get-er-done place.

Correspondingly, it has seemed over the years that these are also folks who have a harder time receiving since they’re so accustomed to doing. A healing practice for this would be to focus and feel what it feels like to receive love with open hands in a hug or even snuggles with a pet. Another option is to do something creative with your hands and feel that nurturing come through your hands. On a daily basis this could even be something like cooking or gardening, not just artistic pursuits.

Give this video a watch and see what speaks to you to incorporate in your own life…

Loosen Your Pelvic Floor, Open Your Root Chakra!

When we hear "pelvic floor" it's usually with regard to women who have had children and how their pelvic floors become weak or distended. Years go by and then there's a new wave of pelvic floor awareness with prostate issues or pelvic organ prolapse. Based on my work with clients, I find tight pelvic floors to be super common due to stress and prolonged hours of sitting which contribute to lower back and hip pain/tightness.

What is the pelvic floor, exactly?

I see it as more than just our elimination muscles. If you were wearing brief underwear as in the photo, your pelvic muscles are in contact with fabric. So, there's three main sections:

• Front-lower abs, the little triangle between your hip sockets and pubic bone
• Undercarriage-elimination muscles and connective tissue
• Back-hip rotational muscles, gluteals

How does the pelvic floor tighten?

Sitting, feeling stressed and holding our breath. I wrote more about this in detail here. If you're prone to sucking in your stomach or have suffered from digestive issues, these muscles would also become chronically tense.

In addition to stress-holding, we can also have some unresolved emotional issues that can cause these muscles to restrict and hold.

What the heck is a 'root chakra'?

You can look at chakras as being areas of the body that emotionally (energetically) represent certain things we all face in life. In the case of the root chakra, it correlates to things that are foundational to our being--safety, security (including financial), family/clan identity and physical health. Issues here can come from not just our personal experience, but from the experiences of our family members. SO, pretty much everyone has crap to work through in this chakra.

Fear is a big factor in holding patterns here including, pelvic floor tightness. If we're constantly bracing for something to happen or afraid that there won't be enough, the muscles of the pelvis respond to that emotional outlook. Origins of that fear can include:

• Abuse, including abandonment or neglect
• Poverty, war
• Major personal illness or in your family
• Not having good personal boundaries so we're constantly at the whim of others' actions
• Inherited trauama and issues from our families

How can you shift these patterns?

Physically, you can practice relaxing these muscles.

In my one-on-one sessions with clients we discover where you're holding physically and emotionally and then intentionally create space there. I construct a series of exercise sequences to reinforce a new pattern in your body that doesn't involve bracing or restriction. With repetition, your body generates a new neurological pattern via flow instead of holding. To reconnect with your root chakra and maintain a relaxed pelvic floor day-to-day, try these tips.

• Breathe and feel the breath connect down to your pelvic floor. I wrote more about that here.
• Do things that honor your body and its health.
• Celebrate what you already have in your life--these things may not be material or tangible.
• Find and connect with a community to feel a sense of belonging.
• Go outside and put your bare feet in the ground. Feel how you are a living being!

Tips to Improve Forward Head Posture

Forward head posture is pretty ubiquitous in the 21st century. There's plenty of resources online about how to fix it from a purely physical approach, but I think the long-term solution is much more of a personal one.

Some common suggestions for correcting forward head posture include simply moving the head backward, which I feel does more immediate harm than good. If the head is forward, the shoulders are usually rounded as well (aka kyphosis). So, shifting the head back with this type of body shape collapses the breath by cutting off air flow through the throat. Another 'fix' is bringing the shoulder blades together, which most people find by arching their mid back in a way that the spine is not shaped, generating a lot of unnecessary tension and/or pain in their back and neck. I find that apporaching alignment from an energetic perspective brings faster change without ticking off another part of the body.

How does forward head posture have an energetic connection?

As the head drops forward, there's also a fold at the diaphragm or solar plexus (where the rib cage splits). From an Eastern perspective, this is where the third chakra is located. This area represents our personal power and autonomy, our sense that we have volition and agency in our life.

What causes restriction at the third chakra?

Pretty much anything that compromises our ability to truly be ourselves and love ourselves. This can be events in our past and it can also be aspects of our present life. You may have not have grown up in a family culture of complete love and acceptance for your true self. Maybe you now feel burdened by responsibility and you're unhappy in your job/relationship/life. If this rings true, you may not feel like you have personal power or ability to change the parts of your life you're dissastisfied with.

Shame shuts off flow through the third chakra and limits our ability to fully embody our power. It wasn't until coming across Brene Brown's work several years ago that I realized how much shame I've held onto--I don't think I fully understood what that word meant before reading her book. Shame=all of the ways you don't feel like you're enough. For me this came in sneaky ways....maybe I didn't say 'I'm not attractive,' when looking in the mirror, but I did hold myself to a super high standard and compared myself to my percpetion of others. Shame lies on the other side of all of that because I could never be or do enough. Finding self-love has been a beautiful thing!

Some of us self-sabotage as a part of being constricted in this area. Maybe we put too many things on our plate and have a tough time saying 'no' to commitments. Others procrastinate and feel shame for doing so. Regardless of our personal habits, we can find ourselves in the midst of a big ol' shame snowball.

So how does all this connect to posture again?

Basically, forward head posture, just like everything else in the body, is more than just you looking at your phone too much. It's also a relfection of feeling burdened and not enough.

What helps?

The third chakra is located at the diaphragm, so doing more things to connect with your breath and lift through that space will help. Here's a video to help explain that in a seated position.

In addition to connecting with your breath, start noticing how you treat yourself. Do you belittle yourself or have a harsh inner critic? Do you take on more than you can reasonably accomplish without feeling stressed? How do you approach your responsibilities? Is there a way to visualize the best possible outcome over feeling overwhelmed?

Allow yourself to feel more over thinking. We value thought over feeling as a culture and that contributes to the head falling forward--we decapitate ourselves from the rest of the body. Taking a moment to feel and appreciate something in your day can show you how much power you already have.

And that's always a good place to start. :)

Are you a tightass?

Most of us are, and the funny part is, we're completely unaware.

Ki Hara Active Hip Stretch

What is a tightass?

I define it as one who perpetually grips in their pelvis, specifically in the urinary and anal sphincters. Clenching here tightens muscles in the pelvic floor, which pull on the hips, which pull on the lower back.

How does one become a tightass?

Stress
Our bodies (nervous systems) are wired to process stress with fight or flight. Evolutionarily, if something threatened our survival, we fought or we ran. In the 21st century reality, it's usually not possible to discharge stress at the moment we're feeling it. Plus, we usually have multiple stressors hitting us simultaneously. We are then left with a freeze response, so the body goes on lockdown, as do our bums.

Breath
Building on the above, shortening our breath is a top physical holding response when we freeze. Unfortunately, this is where we spend the bulk of our time--barely breathing, which, only keeps our nervous system in a hightened state of stress. So the stress/breath cycle snowballs. Right now, take an inventory of your breath. Can you even out your inhalation and exhalation time? How many seconds does it take you to do an inhale/exhale? Can you increase that duration by 1 second, or maybe even 2 seconds? Does your body (pay attention to your pelvis, in particular) relax a little bit with this slightly longer breath cycle? Now pause and hold your breath...do you feel your sphincters tighten again?

Digestive Issues There's a greater awareness now about food sensitivities and allergies. When our digestive system is upset on a regular basis, it can lead to chronic clenching of the digestive sphincters. I also think sitting for long periods and the subsequent slowing of our metabolism can let things feel stuck in our digestive tract.

Sucking in the Stomach/Wearing Restrictive Clothing This usually applies more to women than men. Wearing restrictive clothing or sucking the stomach in, once again means the breath is affected so the tightass tendency follows.

Energetic/Emotional Component The area we're talking about in the body corresponds to the root chakra. This chakra, or energy center, represents our foundation, sense of safety, financial stability and tribal (family of origin) identity. Pretty much everyone has some emotional crap involving at least one of these issues. Emotional holding patterns surrounding fear, in particular, contribute to chronic clenching in the pelvis.

Why does it matter?

Tightening your holes pulls on your hip rotation muscles (especially the obterator internus), locking your femur (thigh bone) in a shortened range of motion. Chronic holding in this area of the pelvis directly affects not just hip rotation but also low back pain. The femur is a ball and socket, a super mobile joint. When we restrict its full range of motion (most of us don't even work the hips in their full range of motion on a regular basis, that will be another blog post) the sacral area of the low back gets pissed off because it's having to do the work that the ball and socket should be doing. Then we have low back pain. I'm not saying this is the exclusive reason for lower back pain, but it is a significant one.

What should you do about it?

Wear clothing that doesn't restrict your breathing and try to relax these muscles with your breath. For more information, check here on how to do that:

Pay attention to which foods your body is happy and nourished by and try to eat more of those. One of my favorite go-tos for eating more vegetables is eating 5 different vegetables each day. I find that the goal becomes the center-point of my meal planning because the focus is how I give my body nutrients rather than a thou-shalt-not-eat __ approach.

Do something for you throughout each day...even if it's just 5 minutes. As a movement person, let me suggest this be something movement-related. Not just because you're taking care of your body, it will also help aid your digestion and kick in your parasympathetic (calming) nevous system. Maybe it's taking a timer-motivated break for 5 mintues in which you just focus on your breathing or on your favorite cup of tea. Maybe it's repeating a favorite mantra each time you look in the mirror or take a bathroom break.

Start looking at your fear patterns and letting those fears go. We often hold onto fears that took root in our childhood that are no longer relevant and necessary in adulthood. A good place to start is noticing when you're triggered by something someone says or does and ask yourself why you had a reaction at all. Did it highlight a fear you have? Was it a way your parents/sibling/family member spoke to you growing up? Are you reacting to that trigger now the same as when you were younger? How does your body feel? Where do you feel tightness or restriction?

Trying a multi-faceted approach, meaning looking at your back pain (or maybe just your tight ass) from a physical as well as emotional perspective can lead to greater and longer-lasting pain relief...and help you grow as a person.