Happy Sunday!

Today's follow up is short and sweet: a couple of ideas to practice as the busy and potentially stressful season descends upon us.

This was a huge light bulb for me this week.

My movement teacher listened to me complaining about my gallbladder yet again ( it doesn't hurt anymore, but my movement through gallbladder plane is  - well, actually was - limited). So yes, she listened to me, and listened to me, and listened to me and then she said "Think kind thoughts. Send love to your gallbladder."

Whoa!

How would it ever get better if I am so negative and complainy about it all of the time?

Duh!

I got about 25% range of movement improvement in a second - as soon as I changed my mind from rejecting to accepting to being grateful for what gallbladder does in the body.

Are you willing to accept this challenge?

Since this is our last class I have attached a Pain Management Worksheet for you - the approach we use in class is 3 prong:

~ escape: place your attention somewhere else but pain

~ calm: calm the nervous system down

~ challenge: weave in small but consistent challenges so that you can slowly expand what you do each day, every day.

The attached worksheet can help you factor this approach into your off-the-mat life, and have strategies to lean into and build onto so that YOU FEEL IN CONTROL of your life.

We gotten into the pelvic floor conversation on Saturday.

Holy molly - this could easily turn into an exceptionally long e-mail. Let's not do that before Xmas!

Here are five important points to consider, however:

~ pelvic floor needs to be in a state of dynamic balance - strong enough to handle daily challenges, relaxed enough to not exert unnecessary tension on the joints and bones around it.

~ pelvic floor works in conjunction with respiratory diaphragm. If your breathing patterns are sucky (yes, pun!), it will suck the life out of your PF.

~ sucking the belly in is a really bad habit to have: doing that will change intra abdominal pressure, create more downward pressure on the PF, leading to tension, sneeze - leaks, and all that unpleasant jazz.

~ your sitting habits are immense PF tension contributors: if you are sitting with your pelvis tilted back (posterior tilt), you are shortening and tightening the back of the PF. This will create addition tension around the tailbone and low back.

~ reverse is also true - whenever we have chronic low back pain, we tend to contract buttock muscles and tuck the pelvis back, thus creating tension in the back PF and perpetuating pain.

First stop in changing all of that (and really anything) is awareness:

Feel how you breathe

Relax your belly

Pay attention to how you sit

Do these - and you will be off to a great start in reducing that chronic PF tension and pain.

I might expand on these points for next Wednesday e-news if I have time.