7 Body Blind Spots
Blind spots
We’ve all got them. Because… we don’t know what we don’t know.
Most of the chronic pain I encounter in clients is due to blind spots. Some overlooked aspect of how they move, that is the equivalent of using a hairpin to fasten a farm gate .
The blind spot was useful in the short term. It created a workaround. It might have been due to an injury, or needing to do more than the body had the strength to do at the time.
We really can do amazing things under pressure.
But…it was supposed to be a temporary measure as far as the brain was concerned.
Blind spots are workarounds that are supposed to be temporary fixes. But when they get used for too long or in the case of many people, forever, they become the problem instead of the solution.
Get my drift here?
Most of this adventure into the body is a way of making sense of my own experiences. You see, I am never content to just accept things are broken, that I need to live in pain for the rest of time. So I’ve spent most of my life studying the human body and how it moves.
Right now, I’ve got one of these exquisite things going on in my body at the moment. Thank you, Covid!
It’s a left sacroiliac joint wowwy. Yes, it hurts. It’s annoying to sit for any length of time.
I’ve been here before.
And I know that when I figure out what the blind spot is, it will quit giving me a pain in the ass.
The real issue is not the pain, it’s the blind spot! And yes the pain gets all the attention.
We drag the pain from doctor to physical therapist to chiropractor. If we get lucky we get some temporary relief.
But there is another approach…
If we get smart and do the work to become aware of where there isn’t movement and where there is too much, then we may find our way out of the rabbit hole of pain. Or at least start to create a different narrative about your body.
Where we take responsibility for our bodies.
But as long as we download the responsibility for getting out of pain onto another person, we’ll still be in pain and blaming it on an incident, an injury, or the most famous one…on getting older!
I don’t blame you for not wanting to go on this adventure.
Unfortunately, this work of discovering our blindspots is messy. It doesn’t just happen and go away like when you have a sugar craving and grab a chocolate bar at the local store.
Blind spots are more likely to send you on a vision quest of epic proportions.
You’ll need to go on an adventure in your body and your mind. It’s not for the faint of heart.
But it’s worth it. You’ll come home from the adventure a different person. Emboldened with the confidence that you can figure things out, for yourself!
Here are some examples of blind spots that I see every day.
PSSST..I’ve dealt with them all in my own body!
#1. Not breathing fully enough into the lower abdomen and back
#2.Clenching the pelvic floor and bum/ all the time
#3. Shoulders and neck masquerading as core stabilizers
#4. Tight back muscles pretending to be abdominals
#5. Feet that don’t grip the ground
#6. Heads that don’t know they belong on top of the spine
#7. Hip flexors stuck in a sitting position
These all contribute to people moving poorly and being uncomfortable or in pain. And most people only practice making them worse in regular exercise or yoga classes!
Unfortunately, blind spots will not respond to boot camp, challenges or anything that thinks it is going to make them go away.
Let’s face it, nobody wants to change. People are allergic to the word change.
Me included. But being in pain is a powerful motivator.
It’s the grist to get us to take a deep dive into ourselves, find our blind spots and sometimes realize they weren’t such a big deal after all.