Network Spinal helps your body and Nervous System learn to release stress and tension. These strategies develop and evolve over time. One way the body learns to release stress is by large muscle movements. During entrainments, you become aware of an area of your body and then you have the urge to move or reposition to release the stress. Usually this starts as large movements and then refines to smaller more specific movements or re positioning. These strategies cross over to life automictically. You might find yourself stretching, correcting your posture or otherwise moving or depositing your body automatically during life. You can also consciously tap into these strategies by allowing yourself to do so while doing self care. Things like body scan meditations are perfect for this as they bring awareness and also help to turn off your mind. This combination plus giving yourself permission to do so, allows you to connect to and release stress/tension. This can also come up during other body work such as massage or breathing exercises. We invite you to play with this as an addition to your self care. The specific meditation we used is https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=9B_NSBWGYCw.
Mutiple perspectives
Having different or multiple perspectives can help us have more energy and to see the bright side of things.
I’ll use my fall a couple of weeks ago as an example. My first perspective was that it sucked that I fell and that I was experiencing pain. If this was my only perspective, I wouldn’t get much else other than pain from the fall. After being on the ground for a few seconds, I was able to get up and added the perspective of gratitude that I could get up and that nothing seemed broken. Gratitude is almost always good to add. Shortly after this came the thought flash that I need to slow down or not rush- I was driving Max to College Station later that night after working a breakout entrainment session in Flower Mound until 6pm. We left much later than I would have wanted and I would have been tempted to rush getting there to get him to bed. I took the message of my fall (I only fell because I was rushing) to slow down and be careful on the drive. This brought more gratitude and appreciation(more energy). The fall also inspired me to ask Sarah to entrain me throughout the week which also added energy and growth. Ultimately, the fall added a lot of energy to my system and contributed to my growth. It still sucked physically with pain where I hit the driveway, some back pain and headaches, but these additional perspectives helped me have an overall better and richer experience.
Sometimes the universe gives us more energy in interesting ways, its up to us to add perspectives to get the benefit of the energy. Network Spinal helps us grow to where we can see multiple perspectives.
Spread the mayo analogy for Network Spinal
I’ve been having some fun recently with a sandwich analogy to describe part of Network care. It can apply to any food where it’s better to have to have a condiment or topping spread out rather than all bunched up. It goes like this
Have you ever had a sandwich where the mayo or mustard was all in one spot and not spread out? If you have, you know that this is not the ideal set up for taste, and there is also a high likelihood of a mess when you get the bite with all of the mayo/mustard. Its far better to have your condiment of choice evenly spread out.
The same is true for energy in your body. People often lay down on the table with too much energy in one part of their body and too little energy in other parts of their bodies, Here is an example.
If you have a large unexpected emotional stress, you might present with an excessive amount of energy in your emotional system. This could lead to tight muscles and tendons as well as a lack of energy in other systems such as your mental, bioenergetic or awaken systems.
The same example can be applied to physical and mental stresses as well. If your body is forced to adapt to a large stress or smaller amounts of stress over time,, it can end up storing too much energy in the system that the stress was experienced in. If this happens, another part or system will respond by having lower energy. This can lead to breakdown of both the system with too much energy and the system or part with too little energy.
In this example, one goal of an entrainment would be to help the body process the extra emotional energy in order to spread the mayo or energy back throughout the whole body, This makes for a healthier body just like spreading the mayo makes for a tastier sandwich.
Turn your head- why?
Have you ever turned your head the wrong way when we ask you to turn left or right?This happens pretty often, and it’s not a big deal at all. Just turn your head the other way when we say to turn your head.
Turning your head is part of our phase pattern analysis in Network Spinal. Tapping your feet is a quick and easy way to ask you to turn to that side. This also makes things simpler since you just turn your head to the side we tap. If we tap both feet, we are asking you to turn to the middle. We might also ask you to tuck your chin or even lift your head up as part of this analysis. Please only turn your head through pain free motion. Stop turning your head if it hurts and be sure pay attention how this might change during your entrainment.
When certain phases are present, uneven legs will even when you turn your head. Sometimes this happens quickly and sometimes it takes a few seconds depending on what part of the phase is showing up. Please keep your head turned until we either ask you to turn to the other side or back to the middle.
The phase that deals with legs that even when you turn your head is called phase 2. It deals with how your upper or lower neck act as primary points of critical tension . These primary points then affect the rest of your body. Energetically, this phase deals with trust when there is enough energy and fear when energy is lacking.
Levels of stability
In Network care, we talk about reaching new levels of stability with levels of instability in-between. Levels of stability are periods where life is going well and not much is changing. Periods of instability refer to periods with lots of change from what you are used to. Last week, someone helped me see this concept as layers and I wanted to share my experience.
I recently restarted meditating and doing breathe work from the Art of Living. I am doing this with the intention of upgrading myself before our new kiddo arrives Earth side in July. The only issue was that I was waking up extremely grumpy and even angry after doing this work. This happened consistently for the first 5-6 days of doing the work. This was concerning to me, and it was causing instability in my life. I know that meditation and breath work are supposed to be good for me, but being a grump gus all day is not great. I consulted a practice member and friend who is a master yogi and his answer was simple and profound. He said it sounded like I was running up against a layer of something (anger) and he suggested I do more of the breath work and meditation in order to push through.
I realized that the anger after meditating was the reason I had stopped meditating many years ago. Meditation used to be extremely enjoyable and productive for me until something changed and I simply quit the practice. Anytime I tried to start again, I never made it through the angry layer.
I am happy to report that I stayed with the practice and am seemingly through the layer of anger and on to the next level of stability. Meditation and breath work are once again enjoyable and productive, I just had to push through the anger layer/level of instability. It took about 5 days until I noticed a wonderful shift. I was no longer grumpy and instead was laughing and playing with our kiddos more. My goal is to continue to do these practices daily for at least until the baby comes- I’ll try to continue then, but there will definitely be some instability to deal with.
Are there any unpleasant layers/levels of instability that you have been avoiding? if so, maybe its time for you too to push through the next layer.
Celebrate small wins!
Something important in Network care, and in life, is to celebrate the small wins. These are the ones that will add up over time to create sustainable change. We are in the habit of wanting the home run every time, myself included. Some small wins that inspired this weeks newsletter were someone having a small but noticeable improvement in their neck pain and tightness after their first visit and someone who has trouble sleeping having noises agate them a bit less. Both of these are reasons to celebrate, and no one is going to celebrate for you- you get to do it. The added bonus is that anytime you have less of something, you open room for more of something else. In these examples, I encouraged them to celebrate both less of the bad but also what they have more of. Less pain and more mobility. Less agitation and more peace.
I hope you find lots of reasons to celebrate this week.
Contribution vs blame part 2
Overall, taking blame out of the equation lowers defense and judgement, and this helps conversation and energy flow openly.
When we sense that we are being blamed, we tend to get defensive, and this stops the open flow of conversation. The same thing happens when we judge our situation or blame someone for the way it is, it stops the flow of energy. When we accept how things are without judgement, we let the energy flow, and this opens the possibility for change.
Here is a recap of AAA in case you have forgotten or have not heard this yet.
AAA stands for being Aware, Acknowledge and Accept. This formula can be applied to any situation that we don’t like the way it is.
Aware – you first need to be aware of the thing you don’t like or want to change.
Acknowledge – you have to admit or acknowledge the situation. Donny states this is best done out loud and its even better if you say it out loud to another person.
Accept- accept that it is what it is without judgement, blame or wishing it was different. Accept that it hasn’t changed yet.
Doing all 3 steps allows the energy to flow and opens the possibility for easier change. The last step can be the hardest. Here is an old newsletter about acceptance in layers. Link https://nextlevelchirodallas.com/acceptance-in-layers/
Contribution vs blame
I am listening to an audio book called “Difficult Conversations”- How to discuss what matters most. It’s a bit dry, but it makes some great points that relate to life and Network care. One point that stuck so far was to acknowledge how we and others contribute to a situation rather than blaming anyone including ourselves. This is one of the key gifts/components of Discover care. In Discover, we become aware of how we are contributing to our problems or situation. Once we are aware how we contribute, we can begin to make changes. As a quick recap, Seasons of Wellbeing is a model Donny Epistein created for human healing and growth. Discover is all about the problem, Transform is about the solution, Awaken is about finding the gift in the wound and the ultimate perfection of life, and Integrate is where we mix the seasons for the best experience. Discover care and integrate is where we start the journey of Network care. It’s done face down and the contacts are relatively quick and light. You can read more about this is previous blog posts https://nextlevelchirodallas.com/the-season-of-discover-into-the-season-of-transform/
In Network, these light contacts help to process stored stress and to take your Nervous System out of fight, flight, or freeze. As stored stress is released, the body can unwind and our thinking and feelings shift from survival based to growth based. This lets us have increased connection to our bodies and intuitions so that we can notice where we are contributing to our problems or pains.
Expectations
Expectations reduce the joy in life-Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
This is such a great life quote that I was reminded of last week. I believe it can also apply to Network Spinal entrainments. What it means to me as far as entrainments go is that it’s important to be open to your experience on the table. Try to not have expectations as to what will happen or what your body needs. Our bodies are made with perfect intelligence, and when they are working properly, they know just what they need and when they need it. Network entrainments help reconnect your body to its own innate intelligence, and this intelligence uses the energy liberated during your entrainments to help your body unwind, grow, heal and evolve.
Limiting your expectations can help you have new awarenesses, help you enjoy your entrainments more and to get more out go your care
Where do you play in life?
Where in your life do you play? Play or being playful adds energy to your life and to what you are doing.
Play is crucial for childhood development, and it’s also important for adult development and health. Play helps to activate the neocorectx or new/ human brain (including the frontal lobe which is activated in Network). It also reduces stress hormones and promotes neural flexibility and growth.
You might hear me making sound effects while entraining. This is one of the ways I stay playful at work. It does nothing for the actual entrainment, but it’s fun for me and adds free energy to our interaction. I also play at home with our kiddos (A LOT) and I am playful at jujitsu.
Play can be different for everyone, but in general it involves letting go of being serious even for a few moments. Andrew Huberman has this to say about play”…how it changes our feelings, thoughts and actions and indeed, how it can rewire our brain to function better in all contexts.” You can watch his podcast about play here https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/using-play-to-rewire-and-improve-your-brain