releasing more than muscles

What if I told you that Hanna Somatics was as good for addressing anxiety as it is for releasing a tight neck muscles? Or that it could resolve nervous breakdowns as quickly as a back cramp? Would you call bullsh#t on me? I’m nervous to make such comments and in fact as the words stumble off my fingers I feel my internal monologue laughing a bit at the absurdity. But maybe it’s not so absurd…

This is where all the theory comes face to face with reality. The theory is that as somas, we are integrated; meaning what happens to one part of us happens to all parts of us. An injury is not just to your hand. It’s to your whole self. Although the pain may be localized on one of your fingers it travels to your spine and brain, and the response from your nervous system travels from your center out to draw your arm into your center. So the whole body experiences and reacts to it. Similarly, the theory is that there is no separation between the emotional and physical. Events in our lives are sensed and responded to and then we tag them with corresponding emotions.

Thomas Hanna, in the developing of clinical somatic techniques, focused around three innate movement patterns and they’re corresponding emotional experience. The red light "withdrawal" reflex corresponds to negative fear, anxiety and grief with a powerful contraction of the anterior muscles of the body. The green light "landau" reflex, alternately, typified by a contraction of the paravertebrals and corresponding posterior muscles to joy, excitement, and effort. The trauma response, a side cringing away from pain corresponds with trauma and aversion to pain by tightening everything on that side of the body.

For example, when something scary or sad happens, we instinctively curl a bit contracting our stomachs and chest muscles, bringing the head forward, tucking the pelvis and turning the legs and arms inwards. If we are continually confronted with fear and sadness we will begin to become “permanently” frozen in this position and people will say “stand up, straight, cheer up!” to no avail. On the other hand, if we actively and continually bring ourselves into this position, we will begin to feel the same emotions of fear or grief. Try it! Go ahead and walk around for three minutes with your head hanging, shoulders rounded forward, spine slumped and feet turned in and try saying “it’s a beautiful day and I feel great!” You’ll probably find that the exclamation at the end of that sentence doesn’t feel all that honest.

In the western medical world of divide, isolate and treat, we curiously already see lots of correlations between emotional and physical challenges. True Story I used to have pretty severe IBS, irritable bowel syndrome. I went through all sorts of tests, ultrasounds and the like and was recommended various things, including… Anti-anxiety medication! To my 16 year old mind, this made no sense, Why would they be giving me medication for a emotional problem to deal with what was clearly a physical issue?

Well, it’s clear to me now that they did this because relieving anxiety tends to ease IBS. I no longer take anything for my IBS and in fact have fairly normal bowels now, thank you very much, largely to the introduction of somatic movements into my life.  The anxiety medication never helped much anyway and I was getting tired of taking Imodium every day. I also no longer use my asthma inhaler as the wheezing and chronic inablitiy to breathe deeply has disappeared. These two largely stress related conditions have been simultaneously taken care of primarily by learning how to control and relax the muscles in the center of my body; strong powerful muscles that flex the spine and bring the ribs and pelvis closer together. This strong and persistent contraction makes deep inhales difficult, impedes the peristaltic movement of the digestive system and triggers a sympathetic stress response similar to what might happen if a pterodactyl flew in my apartment window right now. Robert Sapolsky wrote a great book called, “why Zebras don’t Get Ulcers” catalogs all the effects of a chronic stress response so I will abstain from going into too much here, but suffice it to say, IBS and Asthma were likely the least of my troubles had the chronic tension and stress response continued.

As I began practicing somatics, feeling the relief of my asthma and digestive issues, I came to understand how all of this had happened. I started to regret the sucking in of my gut that I’d picked up as a teenager. This innocent attempt to strengthen my abs and self-consciously hide my belly had inadvertently created a perfect storm for IBS, Chronic Asthma and an undiagnosed Anxiety disorder. Through this discovery process, I was also able to really consider the effect of losing my father at a young age; a strong experience of grief during my major developmental years.

 So although I initially got into this work to deal with “physical” pain in my arms, neck and shoulders, I’ve been greatly surprised by how much benefit I’ve gotten for the emotional problems I didn’t even realize that I had! And while in my practice I primarily see people for physical pain, I hear all the time about the changes they feel emotionally, the subtlety people begin to experience, the old traumas that rear up and finally move on, how much more easily they breath, sleep, and deal with the spontaneous dips and curves that life brings.

It makes me wonder, a lot of things. If we are treating emotional problems, what exactly do they look and feel like? If someone has a back spasm, is there a common emotional experience around that? If someone in in the midst of a psychotic break, has schizophrenia, agoraphobia, bi-polar disease, how does that manifest in terms of their muscles and functional organization? Maybe instead of asking someone how their neck is feeling, I should ask them how their social anxiety is doing? It also forces me to consider, to what extent are there really genetic triggers that “cause” anxiety and how can one maximize most effectively the work they do with a psychologist or psychiatrist to heal all aspects of their troubles. I certainly think that integrating multiple approaches is a really helpful way to address these problems and by no means want to insinuate that there aren’t other things involved. It’s just that, as a somatic educator, I think people should be free from dependance on drugs, therapy and any other outside remedy, including me! I'd also like to know just how much can be avoided and resolved simply through movement and awareness.

As I progress with my practice and with this blog I imagine I'll be exploring this more, so please feel free to message me with any thoughts or feedback you have on the matter.

May we all get better together ☺