Softening For Balance & Strength/Somatic Movement Practice

In this session, you explore a softening of the spine & rib cage; a yielding that can offer balance, power, and resilience to all your other activities. These mindful movements support you in ways of moving that do not perpetuate aggression toward yourself. There’s an invitation here to discern between yielding and collapsing. Softening is not collapsing—it is rediscovering the path of least resistance.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Meg Rinaldi and welcome to Body Centered Inquiry and this Somatic Movement session softening for strength and balance.

Have a padded or carpeted surface on the floor.

You may also do this session on a firm bed.

Have firm head support that's either a rolled up yoga blanket or bath towel.

Bed pillows are too soft for this kind of work and particularly for this session.

Wear clothing that allows for warmth,

Ease of movement,

Have sock or bare feet,

Remove your glasses,

Jewelry,

Belt,

Anything that might interfere with you moving freely.

And when you're ready,

Please come to lie on your back.

And as you settle in and begin to turn your awareness inward,

Notice how the back of your body comes to the ground right now.

Notice the places that touch and their shapes and the places that don't touch as clearly and their shapes.

You may have your legs long or feet standing,

Have your arms long by your sides or resting in a simple way on your body.

Be aware of your breathing.

Be aware of your state of mind.

Is it slow or fast?

Open or distracted?

Where are you right now?

And have your eyes open in a soft gaze or closed as you wish.

And take an inner snapshot,

So to speak,

Of how you're connecting with the ground right now and your quality of mind and your quality of breathing.

Walk it away so you can have something to compare it to at the end of the session.

Bring both feet to standing if they're not already.

Notice the distance between your feet and your buttocks and how wide a stance between your feet is comfortable for you today.

Pay attention to how you've chosen to arrange your head support,

Knowing you may be rearranging it as you go through the session.

Now place your right hand beneath your head.

Cradle your head in your right hand.

Draw your right elbow up close to your head.

And slowly begin to lift your head just a small amount with your right hand and the support of your right arm.

The head doesn't have to come off the ground.

It could just be the initial impulse of movement.

So lift your head whatever amount you can and then gently return it to where you began.

Continue to explore this movement of lifting your head with your right hand and arm.

Do it perhaps two or three or four more times as is comfortable for you today.

And experiment with breathing out when you initiate the movement and breathing in when you've completed the movement.

Each time you complete the movement,

Take a breath or two before you resume.

Take your time here.

The temptation is to turn this movement into crunches or powering through muscularly.

And that's not what we're about here.

There's nothing wrong with that,

But that's not what we're looking for.

We're actually looking for softening and yielding and opening.

So breathing out when you lift your head whatever amount that is.

And then inhaling when you return.

Pausing a breath or two.

And then returning.

And when you're ready,

Rest your head and rest your arm.

And again,

You can have your feet standing or legs long as you wish.

Again notice your contact with the ground beneath you and your breathing and your quality of mind.

You'll hear me say that often.

Now resume the movement with your right arm organized in a way that is safe and comfortable for you so that you can cradle your head with your right hand.

If you can only do this session on one side,

Then do that.

We'll be working with both sides in this session.

When we make changes in one plane of movement,

It changes movement in all planes of the body.

And it's better to do what we can with ease than nothing at all or pushing through in pain.

So right there you see the difference between either yielding,

Collapsing or pushing through.

As you begin to lift your head,

Begin to observe that your breastbone or sternum slides down toward your pubic bone,

Toward your feet.

Bring your other hand to the sternum and listen with that hand as you lift and lower your head slowly and gently to whatever degree you can.

Explore this movement a few more times in your own time.

You can pause the audio.

The most important thing is to monitor the ease you can do the movement.

If a movement is difficult,

Don't do it right now.

Don't make it more difficult for yourself by pushing through.

Taking your time,

Breathing,

Pausing.

And whenever you're ready,

Please take a rest.

Rest your arm,

Rest your head.

What we want to discover is where is the path of least resistance in this movement for you right now,

Knowing it could be different next week,

Next month,

Next year or 10 minutes from now.

As you give yourself over to that inquiry,

You can discover many things about how you do what you do.

Notice the ground beneath you,

Your breathing,

Your quality of mind.

Once again,

Place your right hand behind your head,

Have both feet standing and draw the right leg up over you and place your left hand in the crease of the right knee,

Behind the right knee.

So your right hand cradles your head with the right arm close to your head.

You draw up your right leg and tuck the left hand in the crease behind your right knee.

The lower right leg just hangs down in a simple way.

There's no work necessary there.

And configured like this,

Gently bring your right elbow and your right knee towards one another,

Breathing out as you draw them together and then breathing in when you return your foot and your upper body to the ground.

So you're folding through the middle of yourself.

The elbow and knee do not have to touch.

It's a direction,

It's not a destination.

The movements could be so small that someone walking in a room wouldn't even know you're moving.

It could be simply the intent to move.

Continue in a simple,

Gentle way.

Draw the right knee and the right elbow toward one another and then away.

As you do that,

Your ribcage has to fold to some degree.

Imagine it being made out of bamboo,

The ribcage being made out of bamboo,

Held together with silk cloth,

Folding and then returning to where you started.

Exhale when you initiate,

Inhale when you return the weight of your head and your foot to the floor.

Play with these movements in your own time and pause the audio as needed.

Notice how your shape changes on the floor and be aware that your ribcage wraps around you.

It articulates with the breastbone in the front and the ribcage articulates with the spinal column in the back.

It wraps all the way around you and it folds and expands as you fold and open on the ground.

There is a yielding and a softening that happens.

Safe,

Easy,

Simple.

Your face is soft,

Jaw is soft,

Eyes closed during a soft gaze.

Breathing out when you initiate,

Breathing in when you return.

And notice any tendency to want to push your power through.

And when you're ready,

Take a rest.

Rest your arm,

Rest your head.

You may have your legs long or feet standing as you wish.

And again,

Know that you can pause the audio at any point to pace this to match your timing.

This session is for you.

As you rest,

Be aware of your breathing,

Your shape on the ground,

Your quality of mind.

What else is present for you right now?

Bring your feet to standing.

And now bring your left hand to cradle the back of your head.

Take time to allow the back of your head to settle fully into your open palm.

Draw up your left arm close to your head for clear support of your head.

And again,

If you can only do this session on one side today,

Then respect that.

Respect your limits.

A few times in your own time,

Initiate lifting and lowering your head with your left arm.

Adjust your head support so you don't have to lift your head too high.

Explore what's right for you right now.

You're simply lifting and lowering the head in a range that's safe and easy for you right now.

And when you're ready,

Let it go and rest.

Rest your arm,

Rest your head.

And be aware that the support of the hand and arm is there to take over the work of the neck as much as possible.

One of the ways we can come to the place of yielding is understanding that we have support.

And we can generate that support for ourselves.

Once again,

Bring your feet to standing.

Tuck your right hand behind the crease of your left knee.

Draw the left knee up over you.

Allow your lower left leg to be at ease.

Place your left hand behind your head in a way that feels safe and easy for you right now.

And begin to draw the left elbow and the left knee toward one another.

Again,

It's a destination,

Excuse me,

It's a direction,

It's not a destination.

They don't have to touch.

And notice you might organize on this side very differently from the other.

There's no need to change it or make them match.

We're not symmetrical.

Explore these movements of drawing the left knee and the left elbow toward one another.

Adjust your head support if you need to make this easier for you.

Breathe out as you bring the left knee and left elbow toward one another and exhale as you return everything to the ground.

Take a pause,

Breathe in,

Breathe out,

And then slowly resume.

Pause the audio if needed.

It's not how many times or how far you can go in this kind of work.

It's the quality of attention that you bring to each movement.

That is actually what expands the neural networks in the brain.

That's where brain training actually happens.

Take your time.

Respect your limits.

Yield to those limits.

Having limits doesn't mean we have to collapse and it also doesn't mean we have to push through.

This means we have to respect our limits.

And when you're ready,

Take a rest.

Rest your arm.

Rest your head.

Be aware of your shape on the floor now.

Can you describe to yourself what may be different from when you began the session?

Allow whatever is present there for you to just be there.

There's no need to make anything up or explore.

Just see what's there.

Sometimes it's many hours or even a day or two after these sessions when we realize something has shifted.

Our nervous system has its own timing.

And continue to rest or continue to explore in your own time.

Again,

Pause the audio.

And whenever the right timing is for you,

Go slowly as you return from your back to your side and up to sitting and then standing.

Always in your own time.

Thank you.

And that's the end of this session.

Reviews

Another awesome class Thankyou will definitely explore somatic movement more

Thank you, it has helped me regulate quite an agitated state 🙏

Thank you🎇I am so grateful for your sessions. Could you please clarify if you breathe in as you release back in the movement or after you release back. I think I heard both. More thanks✨✨✨

Thank you so much for your reply. Of course that would be true! So much to learn and realize💫

Perfect, exactly what my body was craving ❤

Like somatic movement. Thank you x🙏

This was a lovely session. I teach gentle somatic yoga and what a treat to be guided by you. Thank you so very much. I am constantly amazed at what this kind of listening, yielding, observing our inner self brings to awareness.
Again, thank you so very much.

Excellent practice. Had strong resonance with my Tai chi/Qigong practice in terms of the slow, gentle movements and awareness of organization/position/how I feel as I move. Bookmarked and downloaded. Thank you for sharing this gift. I see the light in you. 🤲🏻❤️🤲🏻

Thank you 🌼🌼🌼for this wonderful movement 🗺like magic I could laying down relaxed with no pain🙏Namaste