Patterns & Balance

SUNDAY THOUGHTS WITH KIM - ON MONDAY...

This week, I have been guided to think about patterns and consequently how to balance the patterns we live with simply because we believe them to be true. As I mentioned in past weeks, I’ve been taking some continuing education classes with Tom Myers (Anatomy Trains) as well as reading Bruce Lipton’s new book, ‘Beyond Darwin - How Epigenetics, Quantum Science and Cooperation Shape Humanity’s Future’. Both talk about patterns - patterns in our body or patterns in our emotional world and patterns in our beliefs. It seems that each relates to the other because we live in these bodies and feed them with our emotions and beliefs.

Tom Myers discusses the body not only from the in-depth research he has done in myofascial work but also from years of dissecting anatomy trains of muscle and fascia. These trains help us to understand and unfold a story that lives in the body through lines of tension and how we carry ourselves into the world. Although Tom’s work has been based in connective tissue, he is very deliberate in sharing that all bodywork affects the nervous system, muscular system and fascial system regardless of the type of work we do because it is all interwoven. Studies have shown that fascia has nearly 10x more sensory nerve endings than muscle tissue, so even just a simple touch cannot help but affect the entire body. 

To take this even further, when reading body tension patterns, Tom takes this to a more profound level in that there are emotional and behavioral patterns that show up in how we carry our bodies. For instance, our superficial front line, composed of muscles and fascia that connect from our feet to our head on the front of our body, relates to the “startle response”. When startled, we protect the front of our body. For animals, that line would be the ventral (or belly) line and they would obviously want to protect that very vulnerable area - where predators tear into first. 

Tom demonstrated how humans, now standing upright, have placed our front line right out there to meet the world head on. In the western world, that can be taken to an extreme. The more our emotional patterns dictate our need to stick our chest out and “be tough” or lead with our minds (head stuck out front) the more we must contrive our bodies and all our other fascial lines to compensate. The entire body, even when it appears fit and strong, is often not balanced when we look at the relationship of how the feet, lower legs, knees, hips, ribcage, spine, arms, neck and head are to one another. This imbalance often results in pain and dysfunction at some point in life.

In Tom’s work, his approach is to help ease the tension in the neuromyofascial lines with the intention of helping the human learn what it might feel like to live in a more balanced body. If the body becomes more balanced, can the person allow their emotional patterns to also balance out?

Bruce Lipton, PhD spent his earlier career as a cell biologist. He has explored how our beliefs can change our biology. His book, “The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, & Miracles was published in 2005 and he has been touring and teaching these concepts ever since. One of his most famous quotes is, “"The character of our lives is determined not by our genes, but by our responses to the environmental signals that propel life." 

He has recently been on tour with his new book and really honing in on the fact that it is the patterns of our beliefs that shape our lives and manifest what shows up. I’ve been deep diving into the patterns of my own beliefs a lot more. It is crazy how hard I hold onto some of them, thinking they are true - but they simply are not. I’ve made them true, even deep within the tissues of my body and definitely how my life shows up for me. 

In recent interviews, Bruce gets very adamant in describing how we can absolutely change our world by telling ourselves a different story - even if we think it is not true or possible. He suggests the “fake it until we make it” scenario and gives the example of “being happy” as something someone wants, even if they are depressed, anxious and sad. He says to say, “I am happy” over and over again all day long from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed. Over time, our cells will begin to believe it and we begin to notice a little more happiness and that grows and grows. 

Some patterns are so ingrained in our subconscious that we don’t even know we have them. If we know what we want instead of our current situation, we can begin by using our conscious mind to create that feeling; love, peace, safety, abundance, health, success, freedom, joy and allow those thoughts and words to begin balancing out those unwanted patterns that just don’t serve us. 

I find it crazy sometimes how hard I make it to do something so simple! It can be far too easy to fall back into the trap of an old belief pattern as soon as one little event happens to trigger me back in. It’s definitely a work in progress, but one that gives me hope. So, here is to recognizing our patterns and allowing ourselves an easy transition into finding balance. 

Have a great week,

Kim