Finding a Fascial Pattern and Sending It on Vacation

Do the mini-lesson 'Inside and Outside' first, and give yourself a break before you launch into this one….

If you have a pattern of muscle engagement that is causing suffering, the first thing to do is love on it. Habits resist, otherwise. And then negotiate, and even pander: 'you have been so good to me, don't you think you deserve a vacation?' Here is how to help that vacation happen. (This assumes you can find fascial patterns from ‘Inside and Outside.’)

- Pick an effort you habitually make that is useless – Moshé would say ‘parasitic.’ For instance, pulling your chin down with your muscles when you are standing upright is inefficient – you could just let gravity do its thing: pull.

- Be sure you are in a less demanding position for this movement – I'm sitting and relatively skeletal.

- Once you have focused on this unnecessary effort, sample it – do it – and be sure that you can feel when the muscle or system of muscles and fascia engage. Feel the engagement from the inside, interoceptively, and the outside, with your fingers. Give your mind a chance to absorb and recalibrate that inside-outside mapping.

- Now try: instead of using your neck and throat muscles to bring your chin down, let it just let it come down by the force of gravity. But at first, do it in your imagination! Go from dropping your chin almost invisibly, to doing it barely visibly, to doing it more, but always stopping before you actually engage the superfluous muscles. Become the expert on that pre-leaping-in-to-help sensation, and become a PRO at backing off before the neck muscles just have to jump in. You may find yourself spending a lot of time in the imagination sector, before moving on to the almost-invisible sector. That’s fine.

- Each time, ask yourself 'how could it be easier?' Easier could come from a way you sequence your breath, or a slight adjustment in your posture, or a change in how you use your eyes. It could come from a softening of your tongue. The easier the move, the less the neck muscles will feel they have to help, and the further you can drop your head without having them leap into action.

This should be applicable for all sorts of chronic contraction patterns, not just the neck and throat muscles.

But note: to scold the neck and throat muscles is counter-productive. They think it is their job and they are eager to take care of you. This is more about coaxing than about forcing.