This is part three of a series. If you haven't caught up on what I'm doing with Human Garage, see the other posts here!
I will say in this post, that during this series I am not going to be able to remember the names of all the muscles that are worked on each session. I'll talk about general areas of release and focus more on my experience and the effects of the releases.
Today I met with OJ and we did Shoulder Release.
I talked with him about the neck pain I've been having if i turn my head to the right and look down towards my armpit. I think I slept on it wrong after the last tour and it's been sore ever since. He got in and around my arm sockets today, on top, in the front and around the back. He said my subscapula is very tight. A lot of the releases I felt up my neck, up behind my ear and into my jaw. A couple times i'd feel it in my hips, mostly my right hip. I'm not surprised, since I store tension in my neck and feel stress in my neck. Ever since Garry released my jaw I've been more connected to my awareness of tension in my jaw. I know I grind my teeth from when I saw the holistic dentist before I started Chelation. Bruxism or teeth grinding can be a symptom of a number of things including stress and low blood sugar.
i felt stressed. It felt almost like frustration, a sense of urgency for the session to be over, but not painful, impatient. The connection I make is that if you store information in the muscle, when you release it, you have to actually feel it to let it go. I could sense myself trying to avoid the discomfort and my mind would wander. So noticing that, instead, i would really breathe into it and try to relax and allow the discomfort. I was even saying to myself to "relax". Then, when i did that, OJ was like "oh, there you go" (a common theme at Human Garage, and also an inside joke because it's said so much) so it really did seem like the more i could connect my mind to the relaxing the emotion or control, the more the muscle did relax.
My right side is tighter than my left. It could be from being right handed, or OJ suggested that if I hold the mic with that hand while singing I should try to be conscious of not over extending that arm to do so. The following shows I was much more aware of this and tried to either hold the mic less (and just open my eyes so I don't hit myself in the face) or hold it and tuck my arm into its socket.
Look at how long my neck is in the most recent pic!
I'm really enjoying my time at the garage. For one, it's not terrible to have a ton of time getting my body worked on. It may be intense but it really is like the ultimate massage. I do wonder what it's like for people that come in that don't have the experience I have had, spending the last 4 years tuning into my physical and mental state. I don't know if I would have been able to handle this process as easily and as fully, back in 2004. The yoga, meditation, lifestyle and diet practices I have learned and adopted, allow me to be super aware of bodily sensations and to sit in the discomfort and focus on the mind body connection. I wouldn't discourage anyone without that experience from going to Human Garage but I would encourage people to lean into the process, despite previous experience. Open your mind if you think that "health/wellness stuff" is "woo woo" because it really will make realigning easier.
It's also been really fun to get to know everyone working at the garage. So far everyone I've met came in with their own injury and just never left.
I maintained the alignment that I gained after the Core Release session with Alex. I do feel like i'm walking around like a skeleton animation on the Discovery Channel. I have so much swagger and it feels like i'm standing in a power position. It does have an effect on me mentally and emotionally to feel so open and tall.
Human Garage has supplements and other goodies for sale in the lobby area, essential oils to test out, water bottles that double as foam rollers. I've been using the essential oil sampler of the "heart chakra" oil, each time I leave, to help facilitate the release of what i'm holding on to. I was thinking, too, when i went to sleep last night about how the real task is to let go. It's been my goal for years to learn how to do that, to let go of emotional baggage, of judgement, of past transgressions, shame etc. I was thinking about what that really means, and it came up in my Live Awake meditation (one of my favorites is called healing through letting go) and it struck me.
Letting go = forgiveness.
Forgiving myself for feeling the way I do, for being stressed or impatient or bloated or controlling. Forgiving others for being who they are, forgiving myself when I'm annoyed by another. Deciding in the moment what that forgiveness means and looks like is part of the challenge but it's at least a mindset and practice. It's been something I've latched onto. I keep talking about how I want to change, to not feel "this way" (depending on the moment and or feeling) but what have I done to change my situation? Lifestyle and diet aside, how can I expect to change if I don't change my daily habit or re-train myself how to respond to stressful stimuli? It's something I'm adding to my tools. Hopefully less circumstances will lead to an "issue" at all if I can lead from a place forgiveness.