Rooting Down

"Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don’t fight them. Just find a new way to stand.” -Oprah Winfrey

The back body holds much of our stored personal history; we literally store past stress and anxiety behind us and as a result we end up with a back body full of tension: tight, unresponsive lower calves, hamstrings, lower back, shoulder blade area, and neck. In Yoga, asanas helps to elongate and break apart the accumulated tension in the back body, making available an abundance of previously held up energy. So to begin to open your back body start at your feet: if the sole of the foot is soft and open, it can initiate a free flow of energy up the back of the legs, down the spine, and out the back of the head. Think of the soles of the feet as the beginning of the back of the body.

Open yourself to observing your feet. As we become more intimate with our feet, they also become stronger and more mobile. Sometimes we have very little idea how confined and restrained our feet have become over the years. Distorted feet can have a negative emotional impact on the body; as Ida Rolf observed, "The psychological effect of foot problems of all kinds is remarkably consistent: a deep, unconscious feeling of insecurity." But healthy feet have just the opposite effect. Enhanced poise through the feet leads to a sense of stability and rootedness, so important in the unforgiving pace of today's culture.

As we free up our feet, we tap into a reservoir of potential energy. By building new awareness of the feet you can eventually uncover new sources of energy that can keep you vital and fluid.

🙏🏼 Namaste, K.