Anyone who imagines this kind of body therapy to be a piece of cake will be sorely disappointed.

After 6 weeks in the practice space, I’ve made progress in big small steps.

The exercises are minimalistic yet very precise and modular, with a single goal in mind: to reveal my weak points and uncover compensatory patterns, so that my body can be guided toward healthier new pathways and then helped to reinforce them.

That also hurts. Both physically and emotionally.

Crawling is essential.

Did you know that crawling is immensely important for developing healthy skeletal alignment and proper muscle activation?

My aunt, who was present during my crawling age, answered the question of whether I had crawled? :

‘Oh no, with all the dirt and animals in the village, we quickly put you in those walking pants, and you started walking straight away without crawling when you weren’t even a year old…’

Of course, this also brings deep emotional wounds from my inner child – who at only a few tender months old was left with my grandparents and that young aunt – to the surface and into my feeling space.

For so many things in our lives, we are not responsible. We often had no influence over them at all. And yet so many of us go around almost feeling ashamed of our poor health. Feeling like failures because of our health challenges.

We cannot always resolve things quickly on a physical level. Also not through shamanic paths. The soul has its own sense of time and space, and this is not always congruent with the physical.

It requires patience and self-awareness. Relaxation and determination. Courage and compassion. Trust and caution.

Fascia and trigger point work repeatedly releases unexpected emotions and physical symptoms such as shaking, which I cannot always connect to experiences from the past. That is okay, I do not necessarily need to. What matters is that calcifications and tension can be released, and that the body is allowed to let go of the trauma it is still holding.

This body therapy is definitely not for people who do not want to confront themselves.

An advantage for me is that I am used to such deep processes from my shamanic path.

A new recipe of layers.

The past few weeks have been, in part, a painful peeling of layers. Layer by layer, something new came to light. My pelvis tilts in the wrong direction, and my torso stacks up in compensation, which has a strong impact on my neck. Addressing and resolving these compensations is currently putting strain on my lumbar spine and sacrum.

For the past two days, I’ve been resting flat and giving my body time to recover and integrate. This is the first longer break from training after 6 weeks.

I’m proud of myself because so far I have mostly taken good care of my body.

Only sometimes, when I feel playful, which I tend to be when I’m feeling better, I become impatient and want to put my newly gained mobility into practice right away, as if trying to make up for what I’ve missed over the past years.

Of course that doesn’t work that easily, and I fall into phases of setbacks, feeling like I’m not making good progress.

Picking moments of happiness.

Fortunately, my husband then likes to point out things like:

• You can finally lie on your back again and sleep
• You recently walked miles again
• You cooked several days in a row
• You went grocery shopping on your own again
• Your vertigo is much better
• You’ve written a few chapters in your book
• You were able to create a few Instagram posts again

Okay. He’s absolutely right. I tend to forget how bad things were before as soon as I start feeling a bit better again.

I take that as something positive. I’m looking at the future with more optimism again & that is a great gift!

I’m currently learning a lot of new things on a physical level, and I’m looking forward to also writing in the future about interesting topics such as the effects of bone torsion on the nervous system or calcification of the plantar fascia.

… and how things continue from here, and how long my lumbar spine will need for this recovery, you’ll find out in the next blog post …