The Past in the Present

When we get injured the body contracts in a certain way. It will/can hold that contraction for a long, long time.

Look in the mirror. Look carefully. Is one shoulder lower than the other?

In my last trip to Calgary for 56 hours of advanced Clinical Somatics classes, I got a deeper understanding of how to show the brain that it can let that contraction go, release it. It’s very important. Persistent reflexive contractions are the source of most of the musculoskeletal pain I help with. It’s a feedback loop. So, let’s solve the problem at its source.

I had some of that “trauma reflex” contraction. It creates pains that are not symmetrical through the body. Earlier that morning I had been thinking I never had a major injury. Then it released, it was gone. I felt my breath go into space in my chest that hadn’t been used in a long time.

the-trip-begins.L

Oh yeah, I remember, that time in France, 1983, riding my motorcycle in the foothills of the Alpes, 65mph, driver didn’t see me. I broadsided a car. I still remember thinking, real slow….” This, is, kinda, cool. I’m, getting, a, ride, in, a, French, ambulance”.

You don’t have to re-live the trauma to begin to free your body. If you have some of this type of contraction, there’s parts of the contraction you can’t feel.
 
It’s a very liberating experience to shed this type of one sided contraction.  I opened up.

This can be really good for you. You might feel a new kind of freedom.

-Eric Cooper, InspireSomatics.com

Leave a Reply