Carrie Post: Bodywork, Alexander Technique, Yoga and Holistic Health

10/06/2018

I love my tongue scraper!!!

From daily detoxing to improved digestion, using a tongue scraper could mean major things for your overall well being. Learn why from an ayurvedic pro we trust...

11/17/2017

"PAIN
is the doorway to the here and now. Physical or emotional pain is an ultimate form of ground, saying, to each of us, in effect, there is no other place than this place, no other body than this body, no other limb or joint or pang or sharpness or heartbreak but this searing presence. Pain asks us to heal by focusing not only on the place the pain is felt but also the actual way the pain is felt. Pain is a form of alertness and particularity; pain is a way in.
Through the radical undoing and debilitation of repeated pain we are reacquainted with the essentialities of place and time and existence itself; in deep pain we have energy only for what we can do wholeheartedly and then, only within a narrow range of motion, metaphorically or physically, from tying our shoe-lace to holding the essential core conversations that are reciprocal and reinforcing within the close-in circle of those we love. Pain teaches us a fine economy, in movement, in the heart’s affections, in what we ask of our selves and eventually in what we ask in others.
Pain’s beautiful humiliations make us naturally humble and force us to put aside the guise of pretense. In real pain we have no other choice but to learn to ask for help and on a daily basis. Pain tells us we belong and cannot live forever alone or in isolation. Pain makes us understand reciprocation. In real pain we often have nothing to give back other than our own gratitude, a smile that perhaps looks half like a grimace or the passing friendship of the thankful moment to a helpful stranger, and pain can be an introduction to real friendship, it tests those friends we think we already have but also introduces us to those who newly and surprisingly come to our aid.
Pain is the first proper step to real compassion; it can be a foundation for understanding all those who struggle with their existence. Experiencing real pain ourselves, our moral superiority comes to an end; we stop urging others to get with the program, to get their act together or to sharpen up, and start to look for the particular form of debilitation, visible or invisible that every person struggles to overcome. In pain, we suddenly find our understanding and compassion engaged as to why others may find it hard to fully participate.
Strangely, the narrow focus that is the central difficult invitation of bodily pain, calls for a greater perspective, for a bigger, more generous sense of humor. With the grand perspective real pain is never far from real laughter - at our self or for another watching that self –laughter at our predicament or the absurdity of our daily experience. Pain makes drama of an everyday life with our body and our presence firmly caught on stage and in the spotlight, we are visible to others in a way over which we have no choice, limping here or leaning there.
Lastly, pain is appreciation; for most of all the simple possibility and gift of a pain free life- all the rest is a bonus. Others do not know the gift in simply being healthy, of being unconsciously free to move or walk or run. Pain is a lonely road, no one can know the measure of our particular agonies, but through pain we have the possibility, just the possibility, of coming to know others as we have, with so much difficulty, come to know ourselves."
…
‘PAIN’ From CONSOLATIONS
: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.
© David Whyte: MANY RIVERS PRESS

11/09/2017

Happy Hygge Season!! Trade that night out for a night in snuggled up under your favorite blankey. Your nervous system will thank you!

Turns out, the Danes are serious self-care pros.

10/21/2017

Sciatica has a long (and painful) history! Doug Keller gives you 7 poses to help you soothe your sciatica.

10/12/2017

"It is now recognized that fascial network is one of our richest sensory organs. The surface area of this network is endowed with millions of endomysial sacs and other membranous pockets with a total surface area that by far surpasses that of the skin or any other body tissues. A myriad of tiny unmyelinated 'free' nerve endings are found almost everywhere in fascial tissues, but particularly in periosteum, in endomysial and perimysial layers, and in visceral connective tissues. If we include these smaller fascial nerve endings in our calculation, then the amount of fascial receptors may possibly be equal or even superior to that of the retina, so far considered as the richest sensory human organ. However, for the sensorial relationship with our own body - whether it consists of pure proprioception, nociception or the more visceral interoception – fascia provides definitely our most important perceptual organ." Dr. Robert Schleip from Fascia as an Organ of Communication

Once you realize that fascia acts as a giant mechanoreceptor, you can begin to see why it is so important in addressing chronic pain.

06/14/2017

"One of the most important muscles stretched during a sidebend is the quadratus lumborum (QL). It sits deep in the back of the waist, attaching to the top of the back pelvis and running up to the lowest rib in the back. When it contracts, it pulls the bottom rib and the pelvis closer together. In standing, the left QL hikes the left pelvis and leg up away from the floor. When you do Trikonasana (Triangle Pose) to the right, it is the strength of the left QL contracting to support the weight of your torso (pulling the left ribs and pelvis toward each other, minimizing sidebending to the right and keeping length in the right waist). The QL can become short and stiff if you regularly spend long hours sitting in chairs, and it can become tight and painful, and even go into spasm, with lower-back and sacroiliac injuries."

One of the most important muscles stretched during a sidebend is the quadratus lumborum (QL).

06/12/2017

Some info about the Piriformis. This little muscle can have a really big impact on your life.

Discomfort from too much sitting? Inactive glutes? Buttock and leg pain? Though small in size, the piriformis could have a big impact on keeping the human movement system moving smoothly. Addressing an overactive piriformis may be part of the solution. The piriformis is a tiny muscle that originates...

05/04/2017

New finds that human emotion shapes physical reality!

04/11/2017

"The reality is that we don't have any control; the ego has no control over how reality unfolds and reveals itself. How is it the case that the ego doesn't have control? Simply because ego is merely a thought in your mind. It's an image. It's a way your mind references itself, thinks about itself, and creates a sense of self in the first place. If your whole egoic self is merely a product of imagination, a mechanical result of thoughts linking themselves together, then it's obvious that a thought doesn't have any control. A thought is just something that occurs. It happens and then passes away."
~ Adyashanti
Falling into Grace

08/28/2016

08/11/2016

TOUCH
is what we desire in one form or another, even if we find it through being alone, through the agency of silence or through the felt need to walk at a distance: the meeting with something or someone other than ourselves, the light brush of grass on the skin, the ruffling breeze, the actual touch of another’s hand; even the gentle first touch of an understanding which until now, we were formally afraid to hold.
Whether we touch only what we see or the mystery of what lies beneath the veil of what we see, we are made for unending meeting and exchange, while having to hold a coherent mind and body, physically or imaginatively, which in turn can be found and touched itself. We are something for the world to run up against and rub up against: through the trials of love, through pain, through happiness, through our simple everyday movement through the world.
And the world touches us in many ways, some of which are violations of the body or our hopes for safety: through natural disaster, through heartbreak, through illness, through death itself. In the ancient world the touch of a God was seen as both a blessing and a violation - at one and the same time. Being alive in the world means being found by the world and sometimes touched to the core in ways we would rather not experience. Growing with our bodies, all of us find ourselves at one time violated or wounded by this world in difficult ways, and still we live and breathe in this touchable, sensual world, and through trauma, through grief, through recovery, we heal in order to be touched again in the right way, as the physical consecration of a mutual, trusted invitation.
Nothing stops the body’s arrival in each new present, except death itself, which is intuited in all cultures as another, ultimate, intimate form of meeting. Nothing stops our ageing nor our witness to time, asking us again and again to be present to each different present, to be touchable and findable, to be one who is living up to the very fierce consequences of being bodily present in the world.
To forge an untouchable, invulnerable identity is actually a sign of retreat from this world; of weakness, a sign of fear rather than strength, and betrays a strange misunderstanding of an abiding, foundational and necessary reality: that untouched, we disappear.
…
Excerpted from ‘TOUCH’ From
CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment

06/26/2016

"Your unhappiness ultimately arises not from the circumstances of your life but from the conditioning of your mind."
~Eckhart Tolle
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