Living the Whole…
For years, I have been working through a pain in my upper back: the connective tissues of the rhomboids that insert into the scapula. In my inversions, I have noticed my attempt to stay there, to bring my attention to this space and the pain-body that exists there. In downdog, I press into my shoulders more to draw the muscles of the upper back apart, and here, I am able to dig into my hurt. Or, in twists, whenever the shoulder is on the earth, I draw the shoulder joint fanatically into the earth and use gravity to pull the rhomboids apart. Hunching my shoulders up to my ears and rounding the back or a hardy backbend with the scaps depressed into the back and into the belly of the muscle, the heart and throat open, to create the same. This pain comes from a variety of sources that I have been able to pinpoint. In pictures of me at a young age, I have held my shoulders cocked or tightly. I took pictures with my head to one side, shortening the length of the antagonistic muscles