How the body is kind of like Pico Mountain
holding much more than the eye can see
Did you know that Pico Mountain on Portugal's Azores Islands only stands 7,713 ft above sea level, but that from its underwater base to the top, the mountain is actually close to the height of Mt. Everest? Pico Mountain is one of the tallest mountains in the world, you just can't see most of that height because it's underwater. Crazy, eh?
And WHAT in the world does this have to do with the body, nervous system, etc.---you know, all the things that Studio A is all about?? Because this serves as such a great example of just how much can be under the surface, not visible but definitely there---life experiences carried by our nervous system, but not at a level detected by our cognitive brain. These things are in the body, and often make themselves known via tension and pain.
Ever notice that the tension in your neck and shoulders gets worse when you've had a really stressful week at work? Or that your "bad hip" is somehow at its worst when there's something really stressing you out? Or how about how that low back pain you always deal with at a mild level, that starts screaming at you the week you receive some bad news?
What's "screaming" at you is not your back, your hip, or your neck/shoulders... it's actually your nervous system. And while the tension/pain may be crazy annoying and may interrupt your life at times, it's one of the few ways your nervous system can communicate with you and get your attention. Nothing gets our attention like pain does, so it's actually quite an effective communication system!
A great question to ask, then, is "What's the nervous system trying to communicate?" Well, it sends out these "alarm signals" when the brain's nociceptors detect threat. And while you may not be aware of any perceived "threat" so to speak, I wonder what we would find below the surface, below the level of that which you are aware of? Similar to the discovery of Pico Mountain having a world-ranking height, once they took stock of just how much is underneath the water's surface, what would we discover if we had access to all of that which you currently can't see?
Chances are high that we would find events and experiences in your life that provoked strong emotions, but that those emotions have not been fully processed. Like a meal that's too big for us to digest properly, when we go through events that cause emotions that are too big / too much / too involved / too complex to handle, our nervous system cannot metabolize it all in the moment. So, we hold it. Hold it for some later point when we can unpack it more fully and process it more completely. This is how the human body is designed, and it's how we get through really hard stuff in life. But if we never unpack it later, then the brain will start to detect these held experiences as "threats" to our holistic well-being. The tension/pain is the body's signal that it's time to finish digesting all that happened earlier. We can't hold it forever.
If we want to end the cycle of chronic tension or pain in the body, we must get curious about what is under the surface, discover what the brain is perceiving as a threat, and learn strategies for disarming the threat-response signaling system and being with those big emotions we previously didn't have capacity to feel.
Learn tons more about all this in our 8-week Feel to Heal Program, where we deep-dive into the neuroscience of pain, the somatic (body) experience of emotions, the nervous system's threat response system, and more. For what comes to less than $19/hr, engage in true mind-body work designed to uncover and deal with the source of your ongoing tension and pain, and find more compassion, ease, and freedom in your body and in your heart. ❤️
This is the 6th round of the Feel to Heal Program, so at this point it's a tried and tested curriculum that gently teaches how to be with our places of pain, physically and emotionally, and how to move through and out of them. It equips people for a life of less overwhelm and rigidity, and of more emotional bandwidth and physical flexibility. You can read what past participants have said about the program on the website.
We meet weekly on Tuesday nights for 8 weeks, 6:45 to 8:45 pm, April 9 to May 28. Check out the website to read more details, see the syllabus and pricing, and to sign up. Let's begin the holistic healing journey!
~Allie