Each week, I do yoga in a semi-private environment with three other women, one of whom is my yogi, Lark Paulson. Each week, Lark starts the routine with some asanas to warm our muscles and get the blood flowing. After the warm up, we sit for a few moments on our mats and are each given an opportunity to tell Lark what areas of our body are especially “tight,” so she can spontaneously design a yoga practice that day to specifically address those trouble spots. This week, the constricted corner of my body that I wanted to address was my shoulders. They were taut, I was carrying the tips of them near my earlobes, and I felt like I was about to sprout wings out of my scapulas and fly away.
Lark’s comment to me after I shared this fact:
Typically, when we feel extreme tightness in our shoulders, it’s because we’re carrying too much. Too much responsibility. Too much activity. Too much, too much, too much.
Last Sunday, my mother moved in with us. The holidays are upon us. And my to-do list for the launch of Chariti’s Good Vibe Tribe is incredibly long. No wonder my shoulders are so damn tight!
So, here’s what I know and what I learned (and took away from the mat) this week:
- One of the best ways to stretch out your shoulders is to stretch out your breast muscles. These two sets of muscles work together to hold your upper spine in alignment. When your shoulders feel waaaaaaay too tight and heavy, you need to stop and stretch out the muscles of the chest. I’m not qualified to tell you how to do this gently and effectively. For that, you’ll need to contact Lark (http://www.pranaflowlark.com) or your local favorite yogi and schedule yourself for a session or class. What I can tell you is that IT WORKS if you do it!
- One of the best ways to relieve tight shoulders is acknowledge the tightness. Don’t fight it. Allow it to be there. During the course of my yoga practice this week, I learned to work WITH the tautness, accept it for what it is, and allow my body to move, as it must, because of it. When I try and fight the tautness, my muscles tense more; when I breathe into the tightness and let it just “be” there, it softens and relaxes. Off the mat, this means that I learn to say to myself “my life is tightly wound at the moment, there is a lot going on, and I will allow it to be so.” The gift here is a reminder not to fight myself; instead, I will accept where I’m at and allow it to be so.
- I need to “let go” more. I need to go through my to-do list and delegate what I can’t handle. I need to siphon off those things that aren’t really important and relinquish them to the universe. I need to allow the load to lessen—and be okay with that. I’m gonna work on that this week.
Where do you feel tight and, more importantly, what can you do to relieve it?
Namaste,
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