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I finished the first summer semester of Physics with an A. I’ve decided to take the rest of summer off from school so I can focus on some business ideas, movement, and most importantly… myself.

My mom was in town last week. It was a really good visit… and a challenging week overall. Anyone who knows my history… understands that these visits are ripe and fruitful for introspection and big feelings. This visit, combined with parenting and relationship challenges, was not a disappointment.

Whenever I get into the big feels, it is easy to take the focus away from other aspects of myself… breathing, meditating, journaling, and moving my body. When this happens I tend to feel stuck. The practice of moving internally and externally is so important to keeping the emotional energy flowing. When this happens I need to recalibrate. Today is restoring focus on moving, feeling, flowing, surrendering, and just being. It opens me up to trust and gratitude… and that I am right where I need to be.

My heart stirs.
The deeper I dive…
the older the wounds I find buried within.
My heart has been locked up tight…
Prison for a lifetime…
I don’t want to hold onto this any longer.

Movement is healing…
Movement is relief…
Movement pushes me deeper,
exposing older wounds.

To move exposes pain,
I am forced to feel and left with the choice…
bury it, lock it up tighter, and stop movement…
or surrender…
dive deeper…
and free my Self.
I will always choose freedom over confinement.

I went camping over the weekend at a lovely property east of Austin along the river. I spent most of two days completely barefoot, exploring grass, rock, and soft sticky dirt. I slept on a Thai massage mat, which is significantly firmer than my bed at home. It made of a rough sleeping experience simply because my body isn’t conditioned to it. I was expecting to wake up in pain. Surprisingly, my body felt pretty good overall. The only discomfort was the soreness in my legs from playing on the slackline the previous day.

I did feel physically tired. Sleeping in a different environment meant that I didn’t get as much deep sleep as normal. With a 6 am appointment on Monday, I was feeling the need for recovery.

In this session, I explore the edges of my movement joint by joint with a good bit of focus on wringing out my spine. My lower back was a bit stiff and the extra spinal mobility movements really helped. I finished with some full body self-massage using the foam roller.

I woke up Monday morning tired, but not exhausted. Overall, it was a fantastic weekend. Now to reintegrate back into life again.

My movement practice connects me to my body, but more importantly, it connects me to my Self… my heart, the very feeling being of me.

Why is it that when I feel most closed off internally to my heart, I am most likely to be lazy with my movement practice? The human body is a giant sensory organ. We are made to feel… to feel the full spectrum of what it means to be a human… externally (physical world) and internally (emotional world). It’s ok to feel deeply sometimes… even when it hurts. It’s a sign that I am real, authentic, and healthy.

This week I’ve had a huge emotional process. Lots of feelings swirling from just the simple daily adulting of life. It has also been a week with too little movement. When I don’t move my body enough, it is a sign that I am not feeling the depths of my heart enough. I tend to hold emotional tension and stress both physically and emotionally. By the end of a week, it can feel like I’m carrying an extra load on my shoulders. I’ve got enough on my plate… I don’t need to carry anything that doesn’t serve me.

Tonight’s movement session helped with a bit of a reset. My knee has actually been feeling better the past couple days. It’s almost as if the pop I felt last week was beneficial. My theory is that I had a cyst forming in the medial capsule from the surgery and the pop was the cyst being squeezed out and reabsorbed by my body. I’m guessing there is still some cyst (or whatever it is in the joint space). The knee still feels unstable at full extension. I can balance on the 2×4 and 2-inch bar, but I don’t dare get on the slackline yet. I’ve also had a bit of left side neck tension. Probably a secondary issue due to gait issues related to the knee pain.

In this session, I focused on rehab for the knee and neck, which really meant moving joint by joint through the entire body with a focus on the feet, knees, hips, spine, and breath. At the same time, I felt deeply into my heart. I allowed all the feelings from the week to move. I allowed myself to feel, surrender, and let go… As if someone was physically taking a weight off my shoulder. There is still more underneath, but it feels good being a little lighter for the moment.

On Wednesday, I hurt my left knee more. The medial compartment has been problematic for the past 3-4 months. It feels like either the meniscus wasn’t cleared out well or that a cyst has formed in the capsule space. Wednesday afternoon, I was clearing out some rocks in my backyard. I was tossing them out into the greenbelt. As I threw one, I stepped onto my left knee, it popped, immediately hurt, felt unstable, and felt my nervous system shift.

Once the initial pain wave was over, I was able to walk… with a limp and minimal pain. There was instability mostly in the last 10-20 degrees of extension. I was able to move with arm support into a deep squat position without pain.

I went into knee therapy movement restoration mode for the next two days. I went for a swim, continued to move, and did very light movement exploration. Over the next couple days the pain, range of motion, and feeling of instability improved. This session is the first dedicated movement session focused on restoring as much knee function as possible.

This is a listening and feeling session. I have no plan or no focus on an outcome. I’m just feeling and allowing my body to tell me where it needs to go.

The first part of the session was all Movement Exploration, where I seek out the non-painful edges of my movement. Lots of hip, spine, and shoulder opening. As my body started opening up, it felt more playful, and I transitioned to stability focused work.

I did vestibular and proprioceptive challenges on the left knee on the 2×4. This felt super beneficial. The left knee was much more challenged than my right. However, as I explored, I felt the left knee become more controlled.

All in all, it was a really good session. It felt like just what my body needed.

The tightness and restriction in my neck are still present. Mobility has not gotten worse, which I contribute to last night’s movement session. However, pain has set in at the end range of motion for both neck left rotation and extension. Now I have to work on moving with neck pain.

It is not a major pain, not at the point of calling it a crick in my neck. I don’t even notice it with most movements… only at the end range. At this point, this is a good thing. Normally, when I feel neck tightness/restrictions, it turns to a major crick in the neck that affects all movements. So again, I’m thankful I made the effort to move last night, and need to be extra mindful to move the next few days to continue to work this issue out.

This session is a short five-minute movement session. I don’t want to get overly focused on the “where I’m feeling pain”. Instead, I’m paying attention to other areas of my body that are also tight/restricted.

I’m noticing the pain in my neck moves down into either the left shoulder or beneath the scapula. I feel movement restriction in my right low back with rotation and lateral extension. And my left knee has been a bit more painful in deep flexion than usual (level 3 or 4 on a scale of 10).

I finish with deep squat combined with neck mobility. This was a good start to the day.

Moving with a Neck Pain-

The neck discomfort is still present but has actually improved since the morning. I still have pain at the end ranges of left rotation and extension.

In this evening session, I’m connecting the tightness/restriction/pain on the left side of my neck to the larger kinetic chain. I start with a little soft foam roller work through the spine. I noticed a tender spot on the right side mid back erectors (T11-L2) area.

I worked this area out a small amount. The purpose is not to get a full release, but to just soften up the neurological connection to the tissue.

I then go into movement exploration focusing on moving through my spine, with extra focus on connecting it to the neck. I like to think of this as wringing out the spine. Towards the end, I felt restrictions of movement in the neck and got the foam roller out again. I finished up with shoulder mobility with the staff.

I feel pretty good about how I’ve worked through this recent neck issue. In the past, this is the kind of thing that would really affect my life negatively. It would affect driving; any kind of focused time like reading or studying; my emotional state… my fuse would be super short (especially with my son); I would have nasty headaches, and overall I would just feel tired and depleted.

I started feeling some restrictions in my neck mobility. It isn’t at the point of pain just yet, but my experience knows this as a pain precursor.

In this session, I’m focusing on feeling where the restrictions connect throughout my body. Just because the restriction/tightness is felt in the neck, doesn’t mean that is where the problem is located.

Working Out Kinks in my Neck

I started with a little foam roller and Thera-cane around the neck and shoulders to feel around for muscle/fascial tissue that feels unwilling/unable to lengthen.

Next, I went into Movement Exploration, again with the same purpose. During the movement, I noticed the base of my neck wasn’t moving. I got out the massage balls and worked around the base of my skull.

I finished with some deep breathing check-in, feeling with each inhale and exhale whether I can expand into each quadrant of the body.

The neck stiffness feels a little better, but is still present, The rest of my body feels well moved and oiled. We’ll see how it feels tomorrow.