Always afraid

 Gradually I am starting to realize I am always scared. Even though I can pretend to interact normally with people, behind it there is a systemic muscular patter of anxiety.  Most of the time when I am driving my head is nowhere near the headrest. If I attempt to sit straight, I can force the issue, but it does not feel comfortable. Just recently I have been able to partially interrupt my usual flexion pattern and felt my head resting against the head rest. I wasn't trying to sit up but to relax and inhibit my anxiety patter especially around the upper chest clavicle and sternum.  Again, it is not something I can maintain because as soon as I stop paying attention to it, I reactivate my normal way of being.

In this Chinese mini drama  the female lead finds she really loved her poor substitute boyfriend after all.  At minute 38 she feels the loss and her chest hurts and she can't breathe. I know this is a cheap drama but it reflects the muscular pattern of closing down the chest and restricting the lungs from fully expanding.  I believe it's how I lived my whole life. I remember seeing a risqué film were the young females bosom rose and fell and I thought there is no way my chest and ribs could move like that. I was puzzled at the time but now I am actually starting to feel what I am actively doing and can interrupt the pattern at times

Just a Thought

 Gradually it is becoming clearer that any anxiety causes me to begin the flexion pattern systemically throughout my body.  Just a thought of the slightest anxiety and my shoulder raise, the sternum is pulled downward, the scapulas wing and raise, my spine flexes and withdraws, my ribs anteriorly close and pull together and I rotate my pelvis. posteriorly my femurs rotate inward. The movement is slight but varies in intensity to the amount of stress I am feeling.  The cheap dramas give me a vehicle to monitor the movements, but I am constantly surprised how quickly I forget not to initiate the pattern. It is also very difficult for me to feel and assess if I am completely letting the pattern go.  At times I feel I have accomplished a relaxation which manifests as completely erect relax posture and 5 seconds later I revert to some degree my usual pattern.  It is hard for me to determine how much is an activation or physiological modifications to my skeletal system over time.

Get a Back Jack

 I received an email ad today for a Feldenkrais program. It spent some time on talking about breath and listening to your body as you lay on the floor.  I am in agreement that in order to find what you are doing you have to be able feel instead of blindly following advice. What I think happens if I try to stand or sit in my usual way I have the rounded shoulders, and a posterior tilted pelvis but if I try to counteract by standing straight I put myself in opposition what my anxiety is dictating my body to do. This is felt as work and strain and I collapse myself back into my usual posture very quickly.  I have learned to adapt my way of walking, running and living to this faulty posture and in a way that's who I am.

Using the Asian dramas to promote an increase in my anxiety I am actively trying to increase the feeling of peril and sense what I am doing and interfere with my normal process. When I identify with the protagonist and become immersed in the plot it is almost impossible to feel what I am doing. It is not until step out of the frame and examine that I can feel what I am doing. Then I can relax the shoulders and sit with better posture. I am able to move into the chest relax the pressure on my sternum anterior.

There is another element that is appearing.  Not only do I round myself into a ball I move my center of gravity backward by withdrawing from what is front of me.  It seems to bring in a postural balance reaction. I then need extra muscular contractions to keep from falling backward. It is not until that I move my center of gravity forward that it allows my back to a more normal resting position.  There is a saying about having no backbone which is an accurate picture of my life.  My back is constantly under strain because it is an active response to anxiety

Immature Behavior

 I have been bingeing on cheaply made Chinese dramas. There are a few plots that are repeated over and over with some variations. Some of the most painful emotional experiences I have had are related to infidelity of both my lover at the time and my own botched attempt to cheat during my marriage.  Most of the dramas that I am bingeing on are about infidelity of the wife on the husband.  It feels easier for me to identify with husband and I try to monitor my own muscular response to the emotions being played out.

Moshe Feldenkrais wrote a book many years agon entitled Body and Mature Behavior.  In it there is a diagram of four postures I believe labeled A to D with A being the ideal and D being the opposite. I am in the D-  range for my normal activities.   Watching the dramas in their confrontational parts I can actively feel the global muscular contractions that are a very normal part of my life. Almost instantaneously I round the shoulders collapse my chest tightened my anterior intercostals and posteriorly rotate my pelvis. In effect rolling up into a ball.  There is some degree of this global action always present in the way I go through life.  Watching the dramas and playing with the global action I can feel the activity. However, even though there is some control as soon as I divert my attention I revert back to my normal.

Good Good bye

Been watching this video of Korean singer Hwasa lately. My work with the left tongue has been imperceptibly slow. Even if I am right on the theory, it would not have any practical value in all cases from the point of neurological rehab.  It is still very painful at times and once the pain starts it can last more than a day. The whole left side of the face and jaw are involved. It feels more and more like that it is a completely different way or not felt way before of moving this region

But back to the video, besides being a very cute catchy song, I am taken by the way Hwasa makes complicated movements with ease and simplicity. I am a very anxious person and in response to any stressor I immediately react by rounding my shoulders pull my sternum down and posterior tilt my pelvis. It is such an overwhelming response, 99% of the time I am unaware of it.  If someone says stand tall and upright or I give myself the command, most of the time don't let go of my initial muscular movement. I try to be more upright while fighting against myself.  My sense of watching Hwasa moves is that she is able to maintain that upper thoracic freedom due to good spinal posture. She can give a joy to the song because of the freedom she has. The song is poignant because it is about a breakup but being supportive of the partner. There is also a male version of the song which I like but the emphasis is on the words not the movement.

I have been watching Asian dramas. They usually follow a similar plot line of one Cinderella type gal and two guys with first find the guy and then switch to the other one and then back to the original. I find my emotions being pulled between hope and despair.  I have to close the videos often when it is apparent when one of the characters is going to do something stupid and causes distress to the other character.  However, it is a good way for me to check on what I am doing posturally.  If I find anything worth posting about, I may resume the blog.

Last Post

Just had my twitter account 'temporarily suspended' for violating some arcane unspecified rule. Twitter may have legitimate concerns that I am a bot of some sort but I don't feel like jumping through any hoops to get it reinstated.  Groucho Marx said "I wouldn't join any club that would have me".  If tweeting my feelings or retweeting my feelings means I have to jump through whatever filters they have, then it is not worth it.

I think it is time for me to move on from this supposed free information sharing of the internet. I am really not sure I have anything but the most simple of bots reading my posts here. I plan on continuing to work on my left tongue work as it comes. I may be wrong on the whole concept but I don't think so.

Take care

Terry

Are muscles near midline controlled by dominant hemisphere?

Perceptual asymmetries and handedness: a neglected link?

Why the right knee?

which way do you see? (If I read the initial presentation to the right I see rabbit and my brain fills in the ears. If I read it to the left my eyes see duck bill and my brain fills in the head. In any orientation I can see either depending on the direction of read)

Whale of a tale

There is a great deal unsaid in this article and probably a great deal of misunderstanding on my part. In my normal movements I don't think I differentiated the left muscular control of my head, face, tongue and sublingual region but used it in a subordinated way to the right. I think there is a large functional component, that may reinforce the hard-wiring, in that I normally see the persona of others as right sided and relate muscularly in that way.

I think I can use the left side now in a poorly differentiated spastic way and if I work hard enough get a sense of the persona of others in their left side.