Have you ever been in a yoga class where the teacher announces hip openers are the focus and not to be surprised should it trigger an emotional release while moving through the poses? *Spoiler alert* It’s pretty much exactly how I start this video…
But why would that happen?
Come on, let’s yoga nerd out! It’s really truly fascinating.
Somatic Cycle : Mind informs breath. Breath informs body. Body informs mind.
The muscles, tissues, and fascia store small tensions and great traumas. They are the record keepers of our experience so much as the mind is. Sometimes caught in a somatic cycle, it’s difficult to pin point the cause of distress.
Are the reoccurring holding patterns of tension in our breath and body perpetuating messages to an anxious mind that it’s not safe?
Is the nervous system responding to a stressed-out mind with a fight or flight physical reaction?
In a perceived moment of stress, whether sitting at our desk attempting a mountain of work or in a real life emergency situation, our body contracts. Naturally, we hold the breath and grip the muscles in freeze mode. In fight and flight mode, the breath quickens and muscles activate. The sympathetic system is triggered. With repetition the cycle is in over-drive and conditions become chronic.
The key is understanding it’s all connected. Shift your awareness of any one of these components, you shift your relationship to the whole. You can choose your own healing pathway; body, breath, or mind.
Yoga Magic: Body to Breath. Breath to Body.
Release the Psoas.
The autonomic nervous system innervates at the pelvic floor and iliopsoas complex. Because the psoas is in charge of both stability and mobility, it’s a primary muscle in the “fight and flight” reaction system. While in charge of hip flexion, it gets us ready to run. A tight psoas is compounded by a sedentary lifestyle. Too many hours of sitting causes the muscles to shorten resulting in low back pain and movement imbalances.
Relax the Pelvic Floor.
The pelvic floor is a physically and emotionally sensitive place. While different for everyone, it’s the root of many issues relating to child birth, sexual trauma, digestive troubles, and incontinence. When we bring awareness into this part of the body, it’s often complicated by culturally influenced shame, guilt, and embarrassment. It can be the source of many uncomfortable topics and conversations causing a disconnection and disassociation.
Let the Body be Breathed.
The psoas also creates a “muscular shelf” for the adrenals and kidneys, which are both gently massaged as you take those deeper breaths. With the gentle stimulation of these organs, function improves as an increase of circulation cleanses and releases the stress hormones that lead to chronic inflammation.
This is the remedy of intentionally working the diaphragmatic breath, it exercises the release of the psoas and a slow letting go of tension in the pelvic floor. As we deliberately practice a more expanded capacity of breath, we can fine-tune an accessibility to these muscles and mechanisms.
The muscles of the pelvic floor and the psoas benefit from a suppleness. This gives the freedom of both activation and relaxation and the ability to consciously move between the two. For optimal health, it’s necessary to maintain a balance of tone and release.
Mind-Body Energetics, Charged E-motion
What most of us consider the hips include; the glutes, hip flexors, psoas, and pelvis floor. Within these spaces of the body, we can map the first and second chakras. The psoas also extends through the solar plexus, meaning it intertwines the first three chakras.
We won’t delve too deep into the world of the yogic energy field today, but as a point of interest you can see they are related to earthy stability, fluid emotions, and radiant will. They are the processing centers that transform, distribute, and circulate our vital life force through the subtle body.
Chakras, psychic centers of consciousness.
Root Chakra: Muladhara; Earthy Foundations; Security, Grounding
Location- Base of Spine (above anus), Pelvic Floor
Sacral Chakra: Svadhisthana Watery Emotions; Pleasure, Creativity
Location- Lower Spine (front facing), Pelvis, Sacrum, Genitals
Solar Plexus: Manipura Fiery Will; Courage, Power
Location - Solar Plexus (centered around naval), Union of Diaphragm, Psoas, Organs
If you want another resource, check out this episode of Brett Larkin’s podcast on pelvic health. It’s so good I listened twice. (Another *spoiler alert*…one cue I just can’t see myself ever giving in any yoga class is “blossom your anus,” 😳even though..it kind of works?)
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