Easing Effects of Injury (part 2 of 3)

Let’s continue to explore a second home practice to assist in recovering from injury. Recall that injury often leads to condensing/ closing off on various levels, and that cellular touch can bring our injured areas into a gentle sense of expansion. (Thank you for the numerous comments about how effective cellular touch [March blog] has been.) How, then, can we move with this felt sense of expansion so that we do not fall into the protective pattern of ‘holding’ or tightening in injured regions? Here is where the practice of spacious movement is valuable. I like to think of this in two complimentary ways: moving as tho’ you are ‘larger than life’, and/or feeling the ‘beckon of space’ around you. In the first scenario, let’s suppose you have broken your index finger playing baseball. After ~4-6 weeks your splint has been removed and now you can begin to move…. It’s somewhat scary as your tissues are a bit stiff and you are worried about re-injury. As you try to clutch a soft ball, rather than thinking and moving on a joint level, try sensing into the idea that your fingers are much longer than ‘normal’ (try ‘Edward Scissorhands’ imagery) and you may well feel a sense of large volume in your whole hand as you grasp the soft ball (technically this, to me, is a proximal ‘influence’ in movement). In the latter scenario (the beckon of space around you), consider that something beyond you is calling you forth into movement, creating a sense of elongating, without tension…(try using the imagery of grasping a beach ball) as you encompass the soft ball (to me, this is a distal ‘influence’ in movement…something ‘outside’ of myself). Let’s explore this also on a whole body level, combining both the proximal and distal influences in a basic stand->squat->stand:

Spacious movement:(10-15 minutes)

• Stand comfortably with your feet hip distance apart, arms hanging freely.
• Tune into your breath, letting gentle voluminous breaths permeate your whole body. (~3 minutes)
• As you sense the space in front of you and behind you, let your body expand forward/backward as you inhale and return to ‘resting’ as you exhale. (~2 minutes)
• Then sense the space on both sides of you, and let your body expand widely as you inhale, and return to ‘resting’ as you exhale. (~2 minutes)
• Add to this, a sense of the space above you and below you, growing longer (both downward and upward) as you inhale, returning to resting as you exhale. (~2 minutes)
• Are you feeling larger than life?
• **Now feel the space behind and to the sides of you calling your pelvis backward… let this beckon bring you into a squat.
• **To return to standing, feel the space above and slightly in front calling you….let yourself rise into space (like a hot air balloon).
• Repeat ** ~ 6 times….What is the quality of your movement?

Apply this practice, along with cellular touch, to areas of injury. Enjoy spacious movement!