Release - Episode 32

Candice shares a fitness lesson about letting go that may benefit your relationship, too.

The psoas release exercise she talks about is part of the Restore Your Core program created by Lauren Ohayon. You can find Lauren on Instagram.

You found me! If what you heard on the No Empty Chairs podcast gives you hope for more help, please schedule a free Conversation with Candice. You can also visit candiceclarkcoaching.com for more information about how coaching tools can help you keep your relationship with your children and your faith. While you're there, be sure to pull up a chair and sign up with your email to be the first to know about news and events for moms whose kids don't come to church.

It's going to be okay, and even better!

Transcript

Hi everyone! Thanks for being here. Recently I’ve been thinking about release. Two and a half years ago I got frozen shoulder. Several months later it was finally diagnosed. The pain of that condition, and my limited range of motion, changed how I moved my body. I wasn’t able to exercise as I had been, and I went from being in the best shape of my life to not being able to exercise the way I had been used to. I lost my core strength.

I got medical treatment and physical therapy, which was mostly about maintaining my existing range of motion while my shoulder healed over about a year. I am so thankful that my shoulder is great now, but my mobility issues impacted the whole kinetic chain, so I have been dealing with hip pain ever since. I even did several months of hip PT that helped some, but didn’t resolve all the issues.

A few weeks ago I started a new exercise program designed for core strengthening that takes the whole body into account. Four days per week I do a work out, a psoas release, and a 10-minute walk. I walk more if I can, even on the rest days, and I make sure to do the psoas release every day because it’s working! Things are loosening up and moving more freely. I have less pain, and it feels like things are starting to work together in the way that they should. It’s awesome.

And it’s the psoas release I want to talk to you about today. The psoas is a muscle that connects your femur to your spine. It’s deep in the body and is the main hip flexor. I remember getting a Facebook ad for a tool that releases the psoas. Since my massage therapist is always noting my tight hips, I asked her about giving my psoas some attention to see if that would help. She explained to me that the psoas is deep in the body and hard to reach, but she happily worked on other thigh muscles closer to the surface to try to bring me some relief. So I’ve been vaguely aware of my psoas muscle for a long time, but haven’t known what to do about getting it to relax, until now.

My new program has me lying on the floor with my upper back on a bolster pillow from the bottom of my ribs up. I add another small cushion for my head, and then I just lie there. That’s it. I lie there and let my back hammock toward the earth. I don’t push. I just lie there. After a few minutes I scoot down and get rid of the extra pillow. In another minute, I scoot again, and then again, and again, until it’s time to remove the bolster from under my head entirely and my entire body is resting on the floor in the final resting position, sometimes called corpse pose in yoga. And I don’t feel anything in my psoas, my hip flexors, the entire time. I just lie there and feel my lower back move toward the earth, and after 8 minutes or so, I’m done. I get up and go about my day. As far as I can tell in that moment, nothing has happened with my psoas.

But going about my day is when the magic happens. After doing this resting exercise for a few days, I noticed that my hips were loosening up in a way they never did before, even when I was doing hip physical therapy after my shoulder physical therapy ended. When I do the exercise, I’m not actively doing anything with my psoas muscles. I’m just lying on the floor in a certain position, breathing, resting, letting things be as they are. But there’s something about this particular posture that lets the psoas relax in a way it has not been able to in recent memory.

I think sometimes our relationships are like this. We try lots of things, and they remain tense. And then we come to a posture of holding space for them to relax whenever they will, at their own pace. We aren’t trying to do something or make something happen. We’re just settling into an intentional, gentle rest that allows them to do what they will.

This experience makes me think of the account of creation in Abraham 4. After dividing the light from the darkness, verse 18 says, “And the Gods watched those things which they had ordered until they obeyed.” This has been one of my favorite scriptures to wonder about for years now. The Gods organized a bunch of things, but at some point they simply “watched.” And I don’t think They did it impatiently. I don’t think They do it impatiently. I think They know that They are in relentless pursuit of us. They’re intent is, as Elder Patrick Kearon has said, to bring us home, and to bring our children home.

I wonder whether sometimes we’re doing things that tighten us up and get in the way. I wonder whether we aren’t better served more often than we like to believe by being still, and letting God be God, so Christ can heal us and our relationships.

That’s what I have for you today. When nothing else is working, try release. 

Remember, there are no empty chairs.