The neck connects the brain to the body. This is the freeway, the pathway.
When the neck is closed, the communication between the brain and the body shuts down. So it’s crucial that we keep this area free and open. So therefore the psychology behind neck problem is that feeling I cannot speak or if I speak, I’m not being heard. That is psychology behind the issues that manifest in the neck.
The shoulders area represents psychologically the nature of burden. That’s is why we say “ shouldering the burden”. So when you feel overburdened, this area starts to cramp up, clam up and tighten up. You become rounded and start to shut down your heart. This area on your body has interesting duality, the reason being that the arms hanging in bipeds. That`s is why you have constantly be tightening to pull the arms in place. In fact, so many shoulder injuries are from the shoulders being too loose.
The other reason of understanding the shoulders and the upper back and neck is the nature of fear. Psychologically, when there is fear, the kidneys move backwards. So if you feel like you being attacked, our body naturally doing a movement backwards. Fear creates a collapse of the kidneys. As the kidneys collapse as you see in your body as they collapse the shoulders rise. So the lift of the upper back and the rounding of the shoulders come partly from the kidneys moving back in fear and shoulders becoming round.
The work of yoga is to move away from letting things happen to making things happen, but knowing that there is a higher wisdom that controls stuff if you will let go at deeper level. So the whole nature of yoga is conundrum. If you feel uncomfortable living in conundrums, the yoga is a path for you. Because everything in yoga is about this being right this is how we work with the psychology in the shoulders and neck.
There is an inner wisdom that knows to do, and we have to trust it. We have to be in control of our life and make decisions that affect our physiology and our psychology, because we are connecting with that inner wisdom.
A practice to Relief Neck and Shoulders Pain
Garudasana – Eagle pose
Garuda named after the great eagle or the great bird.
Take a 3 times deep breath each side.
Gomukhasana- Cow face
Go means cow and mukha is face.
Shoulders rollers
Doing 9 rolls forwards and 9 rolls back. Each arms rolling into the clockwise and counterclockwise.
Shoulders up and down
Now lift your shoulders up near to your ears and relax down.
Confuse rolling.
When you do something that you can do, you are reemphasizing
a neural pathway between the area and the brain. When you do something that you
haven`t done before or what you cannot do, then you’re
creating a new neural pathway between that particular set of muscles and brain.
For now you moving the right arm clockwise and the left counterclockwise.
