In 2020, my life as I knew it changed. Most people could say the same, but for me, it was due to my health.
Having been physically strong all my life, except for the few times I’ve broken things – sacrum, sternum, pinky – two years ago, I found myself feeling stuck in my body, and none of my usual supports were having an impact.
I knew I was dealing with a simple issue because I asked my body if she was ok – I’ve learned from years of practice to trust her – and she said yes, but that she was stuck.
So, I had to go in even deeper and ask: Why, What, and How.
Why was this happening?
What did my body need?
How could I open up again?
The answers to these questions were surprising and unexpected.
So, the first question: Why is this happening? I always like to reframe this; otherwise, it can feel like a downward spiral into victimhood. My reframe is: this is happening FOR me rather than TO me, so what does it mean?
In my case, it meant slowing down, integrating all the things I have learnt over the years and making sure I’m serving in as many ways as possible. I’ve chosen to retire from offering hands-on treatments to focus on these new ways to serve. Over the last eleven years, I have been exploring and creating other ways to serve. The last two years have fast-tracked that exploration.
On to the next question: What did my body need?
She was speaking loud and clear:
The answer was: rest, attention, time, quiet listening, unpacking of wisdoms, release of old toxic ways of being, to be stretched beyond what I had done before and also, more space.
How I usually listen to my body is to move her. The only thing was every time I did move, I would end up in pain, with a three-day migraine. Fun.
Moving my body was no good at this time. So, I tried having others move my body, all the types of massage – and some of this helped. But I was getting 6+ hours a week of massage just to function.
Then I started to look at a number of other alternatives, any of which I recommend, but too many to list here, so if you want to know more, drop me a message.
Everything helped, but something was still wrong. And oddly, what felt good and what helped were the opposite of what would usually work. For example, I needed to be massaged down my body rather than up – up would give me migraines or cause muscles to seize in my back. Or I needed to be massaged out rather than in; mostly, you are trained to always massage towards the heart – it was confusing, but I listened.
This would help, and the muscles would release, but then the tension would return.
This led me to ask the next question: How could I open up again?
I was chatting to a girlfriend and felt compelled to share the issues I’d been having. She told me about an amazing reading she’d had. I was sceptical, but I trust this lady and her radar for BS. So, I booked a reading. Without my prompting, the reader told me about all the issues I was having.
His main comment was, ‘It’s all coming from your mouth.’
Just before lockdown, I was in LA, and I’d been told about a lady who did oral myofunctional release. I had booked to see her, but then I had to unexpectedly fly back to the UK. That appointment got sidelined – until this reading. When he asked me if I had heard of it, I said yes, which surprised him as most people are unaware of it. He told me to explore it and to do some work to get the trauma out of my spine from when I cracked my sacrum and from a yoga injury. This trauma was ricocheting around inside, but struggling to get out due to my twist (hypermobility is a joy sometimes).
After the reading, I booked with an oral myofunctional therapist. When he measured me up, we discovered that although the average woman’s upper palate should be 42mm and vary only by a few mm, mine was 29mm. I was VERY out, and the fascial line in my head was pulling everything up (hence why my body was craving the downward massage!).
It was such a relief to learn what I was dealing with. And if I had ignored my intuition when it told me to share my issues with my friend, I’d still be searching for the answer.
Sometimes guidance comes from the most unexpected places.
Now that I knew the full root of the physical issue, I could get to grips with what I needed to change in my daily-life actions, physically and mentally. This part of the mystery had been solved!
