You might think that feeling stuck and stagnant is primarily an emotional problem. As a body-worker, I have had clients come to me seeking help with their emotions and feelings of stagnation, and I have found that what they really needed help with was their physical restriction and muscle tension that was manifesting in emotional behavior.
Rather than seeing it as psychosomatic in the traditional sense, I saw it as the somatic restricting the psyche.
Because I approach the breath first, instead of looking at the issue as purely emotional, I have students experience what actual physical freedom feels like. When one experiences release, breath, expansion, and flow, physically, a reference point is established that can then be related to an emotional state of more openness, greater heart field, softening of attitudes, and releasing of old mind patterns.
One startling example was a student who came to me in a very physically uptight, constriction over how to make a decision. With a little probing by me and asking her the right questions she noticed that every time she had to make a decision, whether it was large or small, she could feel her breath constrain, her neck muscles getting tight, and she experienced shoulder tension.
She wondered if there was any way to change that behavior. She did notice that when she was on vacation, decisions didn’t seem to have quite the level of impact on her body, but she couldn’t translate that experience into her daily life.
That provided me with a jumping-off point, working slowly, deliberately, and quietly with her inhale and her exhale. She began to track the thoughts in her mind and could release the thoughts that were creating restrictions in her body. By focusing her on sensations in her body with release, lightness, and less effort, her mind began to open up and she began to approach decision making through a physical practice instead of being in war with her lack of mental clarity and her inability to be proactive.
