Heart Before Head

Posture has always been an issue with me. Well, let's say lack of good posture. I don't know if it is because I got tall fast as a teenager or what but I have always been aware of the fact that I slouch and I used to worry about it. Lately I have been going to yoga about four times a week at a studio here in Tulsa called Tulsa Yoga Therapy. I started going mid-January and have seem amazing results in just over a month.

Before going to yoga class this year, I had been going to the chiropractor on a regular basis. I also had a handful of supplements to take every day. My old job had me driving an average of 5 hours per day and I am sure being hunched over a steering wheel for that long contributed or exacerbated the posture issue. I now find out that hours in front of a computer can do the same thing!

After two or three classes, I started to feel really good within myself. My neck and shoulder tension, that I had accepted as normal, started to fade. And so I thought I would try an experiment. I would see how long I could go without going to the chiropractor. Remember, I was in there once a week at this point.

It has been over a month and I have not had my back cracked once. Ok, professionally cracked... There would be days where I would wake up with the familiar tension and it clouded my brain. I would panic, thinking I had to get in to get a treatment, wanting to feel 'normal' again. But instead I would go to class, and find out that on this particular day we were working on the neck and shoulders! No coincidences, right?

Now it would seem that the 'side-effects' of doing this much yoga all of a sudden are amazing and frequent releases of emotion. Some days I leave class elated. Actually that is most days. Some days I wake up the next day and feel really cranky or sad, seemingly for no reason. The yoga instructor mentions that this is part of the release that goes along with the practice and as I am releasing old physical pains, old emotional pains stored in the body on a cellular level are also releasing.

I find all this fascinating. I have always felt that we (humans) have everything we require to live long, healthy, balanced lives. I also always felt that we have within us the intelligence and knowledge of how to heal ourselves. I have gone to many many practitioners over the years, mostly out of curiosity, and have found most of them quite useful. But it still was always in the back of my mind that I should not have to rely on another person for my health. (I also believe this on a spiritual level - that this is within and I am not required to go to another person to connect with god, source energy, higher self, or whatever label makes you more comfortable).

And so here I am, five weeks later, supplements all gone, and I am free of pain. Pain that in all honesty I had accepted as normal and some of it I didn't even notice until it went away. And my posture has improved! My shoulder are actually level with my ears! But it requires constant reminding on my part to maintain this posture.

Last night I noticed as I walked through the kitchen that my shoulders were starting to slouch and I stopped, lifted my heart and pulled my chin back. I noticed that if I remembered to lead with my heart and not with my head, that my shoulders naturally moved back and down and my spine straightened. That thought suddenly made me stop and smile, because I had not thought of it in a literal sense as well.

Lead with your heart, and everything else falls into place!