How to Loosen Up
Dear Books,
I have a hard time loosening up. I feel like I’m coiled into a ball of string, with tight movements, short breaths, a fear of dancing freely. I’ve made an effort to loosen up in some areas of my life with reasonably good success (notably: parenting; I don’t want my daughter to bear the ill effects of my inflexibility, so she gets the less uptight version of me. Usually). How do I allow more air in my lungs and more movement in my arms and, I guess, less fear in my overall sense of self?
Thank you,
Uptight As Fuck
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Dear Uptight As Fuck,
There is a well-known book by Bessel van der Klok called The Body Keeps the Score, which is all about how trauma is stored in the body and will find a way to manifest unless it’s healed and released.
My husband and I call this book The Body Can Go Fuck Itself.
Because who in their right mind wants to do that work? Like, I’m sorry, you want me to feel into my body in order to figure out where my trauma is residing, and then work with said feeling/trauma until it loses its grip? Fuck that shit.
I mean, seriously. Yeet that shit into the fucking SUN.
Except.
Except we can’t.
Except there is no way around this truth that our body does, in fact, keep the score, and it is chock full of wisdom if we will just listen.
I HATE typing that. Because I’d love to tell you that there was a way we could all just think our way through all of our problems and not have to ever tune into our bodies ever.
But for whatever reason, our bodies are barometers of truth that refuse to let us out-think and out-dissociate them. Instead, they demand we feel what’s going on. They’re so super annoying that way.
Which means, Uptight AF, your short breaths and tight movements and fear of dancing are all trying to tell you something. I don’t know what that something is. But it IS knowable. It is figure-outable. And it is healable.
You can read The Body Keeps the Score, but an easier way in might be Peter Levine’s slim little tome Healing Trauma: Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body. I like this little book because it has easy-to-follow exercises that might help you, say, breathe into all this tightness and ask the tightness what it’s protecting or what it needs.
I know this space is for recommending books, but I think it’s also worth noting that there are somatic coaches who are trained to help with exactly this kind of thing.
After experiencing debilitating low-back pain, I worked with a somatic coach myself. She was a breathwork expert who actively helped me feel into my body to figure out what it was trying to say about all the tightness. (Spoiler alert: my back was where I was holding onto the idea that I was powerless, and that life was happening to me, victim-style. Fun!). Honestly, I was initially so scared to go and see her. But I knew I had to have someone with me, helping me do the work of feeling into my body to figure out what it was saying. And it helped. It really, really helped. Maybe that’s something worth considering for you too?
Either way, you may be tight AF, but you sound brave AF, too. I love how you’re willing to heal for your daughter. I admire how self-aware you are. I hope you can learn to hear the wisdom your body is speaking. I believe you can.
Much love,
Lara
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