Effortless alignment
When you are deeply aligned, you feel very present and really ‘here.’ Alignment is a magical place in which you can feel concurrently grounded, connected, and in your power and strength.
Standing Tall
As you stand tall in yourself, more aligned, the centre of your awareness becomes more global and heart centred. You discover that your awareness is not centred in your head. And as awareness opens up, you can feel very light, free and easy – as if the weight of the world has been lifted from you. This is an embodied state.
A deep sense of alignment is the coherence of your physical, energetic and spiritual ‘bodies’. Coherence is a sense of internal flow rather than resistance or holding. Aches and pains subside and you can feel deeper rhythms and movements inside of you - you are more connected to life. Being aligned is a fabulous place from which to engage with the world – where you can be truly yourself and capable of meeting all the challenges of life.
Alignment is natural and it usually requires healing to be able to come back into a steady relationship with this place inside yourself. The somatic therapeutic touch work I offer can be a profound way to discover and transform your alignment.
yOUR SPINE
Your spine is the organising axis for your physical body – the physical midline. Your spine is the main skeletal structure of your body to which all other bones relate. It’s why your spine is so important for any body-centred practice.
The spine has three segments – lumbar, thoracic and cervical. The spine houses the nerve highway of the body. The spine connects your brain to all aspects of your body, enabling your muscles to be animated and your vital processes to hum along in the background of your consciousness. Within the spinal cord, the nerves are bathed in cerebral spinal fluid, which cleans and revitalises your brain.
Muscles and ligaments weave into and around the spine. This enables you to move and interact physically with people and our environment. The spine is a structure based on tensegrity.
“Fascia is a thin casing of connective tissue that surrounds and holds every organ, blood vessel bone, nerve fibre and muscle in place. The tissues does more than provide internal structure; fascia has nerves that make it almost as sensitive as skin. When stressed, it tightens up.”
ENERGETIC MIDLINE
Your body is also organised (literally from day one) around an energetic core midline. This midline supplies you with the energy you need to form and maintain our body.
Your energetic midline is well understood in practices like yoga, Chi Kung, acupuncture and spiritual development. Meridians and chakras are rivers and organising energy centres within your midline.
When you have injuries and experience trauma these impact your energetic field compromising your relationship to our energetic midline. As a result of impacts in your energetic midline, it becomes less powerful and unconscious to you. Ensuring that this energy is flowing optimally is fundamental to having a deep sense of being centred, supported, and resourced.
Your energetic midline is core to your physical functioning; your health is compromised when this is not flowing optimally. The spine and the core midline are always in relationship to each other. As access to your energetic midline deepens, you can find your posture changes, and your sense of ease in our spine grows.
Impact of Trauma on your Alignment
When you experience overwhelm, shock and trauma, you contract your physical body through your fascial network.
Protective contractions of your fascia becomes body memory. You also compound your holding patterns by not moving your body enough and through poor posture – think about the impact of sitting at computers and desks all day long, year after year.
Since the spine is your physical midline, a vast array of fascial networks weaves through it. Some of these networks are visible; others are microscopic, twisting and turning in response to what is happening to you at any one time – especially if you are in an activated state. Your body literally changes shape depending on what you are sensing and how you are feeling. In health you are responsive, you contract to protect when you need to and then you return to an open and fluid state. In health our trauma is not stuck or held in our tissues, overwhelm gets to move on through.
An approach to healing that recognises both the energetic and physical midlines opens up possibilities and can be powerful.
Felt-sense
It is possible to tune into your spine and sense the state of your alignment. To sense this, you need a quiet mind.
When you first try to sense your alignment, you may feel you are not receiving any information. However, nothingness, numbness, and absence are information which clearly suggests some form of overwhelm is present in your system.
When you have more felt-sense capacity, you might notice inner shapes or textures. Some areas of your spine may seem to crack and creak, and feel dry. Or you might sense thickness or density. You can also discover that your spine feels fluid in places, that it has flow and glide.
Tuning into your spine can also reveal emotions and thoughts. For example, you might become aware of a belief that there isn’t really enough / any support for yourself.
Your body memory has thoughts, beliefs and feelings contained in a holding pattern. It is very powerful to tune into your own felt-sense of your body to explore and release body memory. This attunement takes practice and is part of the healing process.
SELF-REFLECTION QUESTIONS
How your spine moves, how fluid it feels to you, and whether you experience tension and pain here have a significant impact on the health of our whole body.
How does your spine feel to you?
How flexible does your spine feel?
Does your spine feel like a snake or an iron rod?
Do you keep having recurring aches and pains in your back? Are these in the same spot?
Does your spine seem to ‘give out’ on you?
Do you have any sensations within the centre of your spine? What are these sensations?
Coming Back Into Health
Coming back into alignment feels wonderful. Better alignment is both a physical and energetic shift. You can experience yourself really standing evenly on our own two feet, feeling grounded effortlessly. Tensions and holding patterns dissolve and you feel stronger and more supported. And that’s the felt-sense of the expression of more health flowing in your body.
Your physical and energetic alignment changes according to what it most optimal for our body. When you have a high degree of health, change is most likely to happen quicker than if you do not.
As a consequence of greater alignment, your vitality increases and you feel more deeply centred and connected. You may also find that you are recovering from injuries you never thought would change; persistent aches and pains are disappearing; and you have more felt-sensation within yourself. You discover greater levels of health.
Somatic therapeutic touch offers a unique way to work with both our physical and energetic midlines together facilitating optimal change in your system.
