Growing up is a process of developing responses to avoid pain and experience pleasure.
Have there been moments in your life, where you felt you would have liked to exchange your body with a new one?
Good posture allows the body to return to a relaxed and soft way of being.
As the human body grows from infancy to adulthood it develops mechanisms to avoid pain and experience pleasure. These responses often become habitual and rigid, thus prevent us from facing situations afresh and spontaneously. The earliest of these habits form the core of our resistance.
During the experiences we have from the very beginning of our being – at the moment of conception, shock of birth and than struggle through the oral, anal and genital phases of our infantile growth, by the age of four we have almost fully developed our characteristic posture, our ways of avoiding pain and unwanted change
The rest of our life is usually a reinforcement of this core, years of similarly accumulated protective responses. We make ‘our armor ’even more complex by creating more protection, a veneer placed around the core.
For although the core is the most resistant part of us, it is also the most vulnerable. To intense pain. We maintain this basic division between core and shell in many forms.
Extrinsic and intrinsic muscles
On a physical level the body develops the “extrinsic” (outer) muscles; these are the large and powerful muscles of locomotion, which power the movements in running lifting throwing. The “intrinsic” muscles initiate and coordinate our outer movements.
A very common body type overdevelops the extrinsic muscles as a method of coping through sheer power and strength, but in the process it overpowers the intrinsic muscles in its extreme form. This can generate a “hard shell” and a soft core and leaves the bod clumsy and muscle bound.
On the emotional level occurs a form of “bracing”. A muscle corset is established to protect the ‘vulnerable inner’. People than often demonstrate a tendency to become over-active as an emotional defense-mechanism.
Bringing balance to the muscles
To solve this imbalance it is necessary to soften the outside muscle groups and simultaneously to work on a strengthening the inner core. This works both on the physical level as well as the mental emotional levels.
The muscles of the human body are wrapped in fascia, a pliable tissue that envelops the muscle strains and bundles. This material organizes and guides our muscles by forming a system made of layers of tissue.
The outside of the body is held together by a large all encompassing layer. Internally individual sheaths surround each muscle. Rigid physical patterns, I e. limited restricted movements or mental patterns create a hardened fascia system that will gradually restrict free movement and over all attitude.
Techniques like Yoga posture, controlled Body Building and Deep Tissue massage can transform the quality of the body’s fascia. Deep breathing supports this process of removing old rigid fascia. This is extremely beneficial since it brings flexibility and openness to the body and calms nervous system and mind.