Compensatory Torque – Rehab For Your Mind, Body & Soul

   

heartattack

This month has been all about my body. It’s been rehab for my body, and all along I’ve been totally aware that it’s rehab for my mind, heart, spirit and soul, too.

Body wise, I may have looked strong, I may have acted strong, I may have been able to walk and stretch and dance, but actually I wasn’t strong at all. I was a house of cards waiting to be blown away.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t in shape, it’s that the shape I was in was all out of balance. So out of balance that it easily fell apart.

And because I love to follow the trail of things, the train of how things work together and fit together and affect one another and how they happen and in what order, I spent most of this month trying to understand how it all fell apart and in what order, and how to put it back together again in the correct order.

One person led me to another person (this is how I find the amazing interviewees for my monthly CD interview series and all the practitioners that I recommend to you).

And here’s what I found:

Some of my muscles got weak. The smaller muscles, the deeper ones that are meant for specialized jobs got sidelined (for lots of reasons). These smaller, specialized muscles are underneath the bigger muscles that we know about — the quads, the glutes, the abs.

But these smaller muscles are responsible for doing certain things, and if they get weak what happens is other muscles that are really not supposed to be doing that job takeover anyway. So of course you want to find out how those small muscles got weak — and it can mean many things. It can be stress and tension and illness and bruises and scrapes and sprains that happened long ago that caused certain areas of your body to stop functioning the way they’re supposed to. It can be what you eat. It can be the kind of repetitive actions you do all the time. For me, I’m sure it was a combination of all these things.

So, not only do the bigger muscle groups start to take over for the small muscle groups — one side of your body starts to take over for the other side.

So a week glut on my right side causes all muscles on that side of my body to change the way they operate and then the left side of my body takes up the slack and before you know it you’re twisted, you’re turned and you are torqued.

This is how “compensatory torque” works:

Compensatory is the part where one muscle group takes over for another. Torque is how when the wrong muscles take over for the right muscles you get all twisted.

So when you’re torqued, you have to start strengthening the weak muscles and really focus your attention on changing the patterns of your posture, the way you walk and stand, and the way you do things. It’s a super exercise in body awareness.

So how does this work for the soul? For your heart? For your mental state?

Imagine a tree is growing and its leafing and one side doesn’t get sun and some of it’s branches wither and get cut off, or the tree gets pruned on one side. What the life force of the tree wants is to keep growing — and so it grows the other side of the tree. And now you have a lopsided tree. Just like a tree, our bodies, our hearts, our minds want to be balanced.

We want to be full on all sides and feel symmetrical. But you’ve seen how most trees achieve this — with a lot of twisted branches. Every tree looks different — like a completely different sculpture.

Well, the same with us.

We are who and how we are largely because of how we have compensated. And how we have torqued.

And what we’re doing here with all my work is tracing back the train of how all this occurred and reworking it, re-strengthening the weak parts, re-straightening the torqued parts, through awareness and using my tools.

The one thing we are not doing and the one thing I am not doing with my body either is dwelling on searching for or trying to dig up the moments in my life that caused parts of me to stop functioning the way they should.

I’m not going to blame myself or anyone else for what I did and didn’t do – the situps, the stretches, the yoga classes I passed on. I’m not going to blame myself for doing situps when I should’ve been doing leg raises. Not going to blame myself for wearing those awful shoes or eating what I ate or anything else. I’m taking it from here. Starting from here.

The same with my insides. The same with your insides.

The same with your love life.

Start from where you are. Use my Tools like Riffing and Channelling to undo the torque and rewire the compensation.

I’m going to be using this metaphor of compensatory torque and rehab for a bunch of new tools around this.

For now let’s start with just a basic awareness — We are all torqued. We have all compensated. We all have weaknesses and strengths. Just like I’m learning to differentiate between the different muscles in my abs and the different muscles in my butt, and just how I’m trying to learn to walk without using my shoulders to hold me up, I want you to start noticing how you’re holding your self up.

But start with the body. Are you holding itself up with your shoulders? Are you holding yourself up without breathing? Are you pulling yourself along with the front of your body, with your quads or are you pushing yourself along with the back of your body and your glutes? Or have you found a nice swingy sort of balance?

Have you noticed how you get emotionally triggered in certain situations? Are you giving yourself a chance to experience that? And giving yourself a chance to love and embrace all of those triggered feelings? Because those triggered feelings are your emotional system letting you know where your emotional torque is.

Your strong reactions to things are letting you know how your body has handled pain.

How your mind and your heart and the cells of your body have handled pain.

We always torque away from pain.

So now is the time to get aware of the pain when it shows up in a strong triggered reaction. And now’s the time to not run away from it.

Don’t ask yourself where it came from, or what happened to you that got you triggered. Just notice the pain, the compensation, the tension and the torque, embrace it, feel thrilled that you have unearthed it, and use my Tools to work through it and come out the other side.

So if you haven’t already — go to the “Power and Self-Esteem” category here, start from the oldest post and learn how to do Riffing from the “Problem” all the way through to “Channeling.”

Let me know what you discovered about your compensatory torque — physical, mental, psychological, emotional, spiritual — and what happens as you work through it. Let me know how it feels as you uncover your compensation for your pain. Let me know how it all shows up for you. And we’ll take it from there.

Love, Rori

written by Rori Raye • Permalink • Leave a Comment »

Wednesday, 22 July 2009 @ 10:14pm

29 Comments to “Compensatory Torque – Rehab For Your Mind, Body & Soul”

  1. 1: DocKNo Gravatar says:

    Rori, thank you for this post – very beautiful. As my discipline is Performance Psychology – it is all about the interconnectedness of the mind, body and spirit but also, how amazing that what is going on with our bodies can teach us so much about our lives – love, relationships, gratitude…

    With my body – having done bodybuilding competitions, I had to learn not to be angry with those parts of my body that were not “good” in terms of symmetry or development. I had to learn to love my entire body and simply, work with what I have and present myself as I am.

    Through your programs, I am learning to do this with my emotional make-up as well. the parts of me that are insecure, mistrustful – I just hated and didn’t know how to love myself through them. I feel joyous that I am getting better with this and it is playing out as less drama for me, internally, and less drama for those around me.

    I also wanted to share this clip for those who didn’t see it. Dance is my passion even more than fitness/working out and it is so powerful in its ability to move and touch people – to make us FEEL!

    It is from the show So You Think You Can Dance – a tribute by the choreographer to a friend that has breast cancer. It touched me so much as well, because I lost a beautiful friend to this disease. She was a fitness competitor and dancer herself. I felt this also a tribute to my dear, sexy goddess friend Ursula – a woman that had the most beautiful smile, was always positive, and loved and accepted her sexy self – always.

    I hope you feel touched by it.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_TCK5OCgss&feature=related

    Love, DocK

    Thursday, 23 July 2009 @ 7:17am

  2. 2: DRCNo Gravatar says:

    Wow DocK! Thank you for sharing that. That was one of the more touching and heart achingly beautiful things I have seen in a long time.

    I am a breast cancer researcher coordinating clincal trials, working desperately to help cure this disease. Things like this help bring home how important it is to keeping pushing and fighting for a cure.

    If any of you are interested in running a marathon (or a half) in support of raising funds for breast cancer research this is a fantastic one to run.
    http://www.breastcancermarathon.com/

    It takes place in Jacksonville Florida in February and the proceeds go directly to supporting our work at the Mayo Clinic.

    Thursday, 23 July 2009 @ 8:23am

  3. 3: MercedesNo Gravatar says:

    DocK: You are truly an amazing woman. Your post was beautiful.

    DRC: I personally recognize your work as important and powerful. Thank you for doing what you do.

    Much Love,
    Mercedes

    Thursday, 23 July 2009 @ 8:35am

  4. 4: DariaNo Gravatar says:

    I want to reccommend a type of exercise that really works to get our little inner muscles going. It feels really good and is emotionally balancing as well (check out the forum for amazing information on anything about life including EFT, nutrition (amazing amazing info) etc)

    its called t-tapp

    at http://www.t-tapp.com

    ok i just read my paragraph and realized I sound like a bot doing a commercial.

    This exercise has really changed the way I view exercise and really helped me get in tune with my body. There are 2 minute exercised that I can do once or twice A WEEK and still feel strengthened.

    I’ve also learned so much about natural health that this is now my passion.

    I would say if anyone wants to try the exercises in the Try-Before you buy section, the way they feel will speak for itself.

    Thursday, 23 July 2009 @ 11:07am

  5. 5: Rori RayeNo Gravatar says:

    Dock, I saw this last night and it’s amazing…thank you for sending the link for all of us…Love, rori

    Thursday, 23 July 2009 @ 11:18am

  6. 6: tinqueNo Gravatar says:

    I don’t even know where to start with this one. Rori you know very well my battle with physical torque (a word I used many times with you in our conversations) from not only my serious physical traumas as in life altering car accidents but also all the layers and layers of emotional torque (read hurts, pain) that twisted me so tight I could barely breathe.
    You know how much I have undone, unwound to transform and become ANGEL GOD DDESS though she was always in there. The physical torque in me was so pronounced, quite visible, yet I have drastically and dramatically changed all of that, so much so that I gained two inches in height, yes two inches, but none of that would have happened without all the deeply intense and profound inner work. They cannot be separated.
    It’s not been easy, for old instincts and habits scream even louder when you go in there to dig them out. It’s not easy becoming so attuned to one’s every move down to how one sits, stands, even lies down in order to reprogram, realign over and over again, and it continues. It’s not easy for any of us, but it is doable. It you can imagine it, you CAN create it.
    For me it’s been about deep desire and a fierce determination, for had I not done this work on ME, and this is what kept me going, I would have missed out on what to me is what life is all about LOVE and the deep, intense connection that brings to life, to a lover, to the entire universe, but most importantly to YOURSELF.

    Thursday, 23 July 2009 @ 2:58pm

  7. 7: tinqueNo Gravatar says:

    My silly injured hand is making terrible typos and with the most important word. ANGEL GODDESS.

    Thursday, 23 July 2009 @ 2:59pm

  8. 8: TinaNo Gravatar says:

    I feel yes, that’s it! Thanks Tinque “deep desire and fierce determination. I just love that, I’m starting at ‘problems” right now I have a list of 8, its a process I know, Im taking my time. I just finished working out a bit and cleaning my house, my dj friend/cousin and I are going out to where he works tonight, yeah gonna do the bump and grind. I felt sad for a minute lol yup a minute, instead of the long grueling 1hr or longer lol. I settled my phone bill and now I just feel a bit of mischievousness coming on.

    Thursday, 23 July 2009 @ 3:08pm

  9. 9: How I Lost 30 Pounds in 30 Days Without DietNo Gravatar says:

    Thanks for posting about this, I would love to read more about this topic.

    Thursday, 23 July 2009 @ 4:30pm

  10. 10: Linda GNo Gravatar says:

    I just watched the dance clip. I feel awestruck. I never watch these programs on Tv as I find them so contrite.
    I feel impressed with the magnitude of feeling expressed by teh dancers and choreographers as well as teh goddesses on this site who display teh compassion and appreciation for life.

    I picked an opportune time to rejoin this site.

    Thursday, 23 July 2009 @ 5:32pm

  11. 11: AnnNo Gravatar says:

    I just found this post. I will be getting off the computer in a few minutes. I hope to read this better tomorrow.

    Thursday, 23 July 2009 @ 8:49pm

  12. 12: TinaNo Gravatar says:

    I moved and now I’m stuck on dialup,takes forever to watch videos. I’m adding that to my list of problems.

    Thursday, 23 July 2009 @ 11:44pm

  13. 13: TracyNo Gravatar says:

    Dock,
    I only managed to watch part of your link and its beautiful…will download the rest later as my internet is very slow at the moment…Thanks for sharing.
    I was listening to a local radio program today where women call in and talk about their relationship problems.
    I am not married and my experience in relationships is not enough to warrant any judgments to anyone.However i felt that for myself i have in the past made it a man’s responsibility to make me happy and blamed the lack of this happiness sorely on him….It has always been if only he was this way,or that way….or he did this or that…….
    I feel that happiness is something that only i can truly create for myself and share it with others…..
    I feel less strained and more at peace when i focus on creating my own happiness as opposed to looking for it out there….
    I really feel that this blog has helped me learn to be more happy with myself and i am grateful for all the sirens in this blog as i have learnt so much from all of you….

    Friday, 24 July 2009 @ 5:36am

  14. 14: Linda GNo Gravatar says:

    Tracy, it’s funny you say that. My last boyfriend, who I was mad for, of course, told me I couldn’t make him happy, only he could make himself happy, but I could bring him joy. At the time I felt slighted. Now I see he is right.

    Friday, 24 July 2009 @ 5:39am

  15. 15: TinaNo Gravatar says:

    OMG! I feel really excited about my date tonight with Pierre. I saw his pic, we chatted online, he booked a hotel close to where I live, he asked for my number and is making plans for us to have a campfire and wiennies lol after karaoke.

    Friday, 24 July 2009 @ 8:25am

  16. 16: TinaNo Gravatar says:

    I meet a 24 yr old the other night, he said he has his own house and he talked about his 200 dollar flipflops lol. we kissed but his breath smelled like beer yuck!.

    Friday, 24 July 2009 @ 8:30am

  17. 17: tinqueNo Gravatar says:

    This has nothing to do with anything. I received it in an e-mail today, and it touched a chord. I hope it resonates with some of you beautiful women too. :)

    ‘May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.’

    Friday, 24 July 2009 @ 9:44am

  18. 18: DocKNo Gravatar says:

    Tinque, thank you for sharing. So beautiful!

    Friday, 24 July 2009 @ 10:13am

  19. 19: TinaNo Gravatar says:

    I have another problem for my “problems” list, it’s “loving my uglies” I love all my good stuff, somehow have trouble loving my uglies. I’m adding this to my list.

    Friday, 24 July 2009 @ 10:25am

  20. 20: TinaNo Gravatar says:

    I know it’s there, I feel them, I woke up from my nap feeling I dont love them enough or at all really.I mean actually truly love them, I shun my uglies. Rather than focus on the parts of me that I love and giving them all my attention, I will focus on and accept/love my uglies, Im not sure why I feel to call them ugly but ok.

    Friday, 24 July 2009 @ 10:29am

  21. 21: TinaNo Gravatar says:

    I have placed them in a nice little box somewhere, I just cant seem to locate in my body lol. I stay away from them because they dont make me feel good.

    Friday, 24 July 2009 @ 10:31am

  22. 22: searchingwithinNo Gravatar says:

    I am one of those people that has to know the ins, outs, wherefores, and whereartthous. My toxic emotional garbage bin was full to the brim, and the toxin was spilling out. I tried other avenues, and found they were only short term, until I went back and pieced together where the torgueing began. I remembered things I had not only forgotten, but had forcefully denied my whole life, and with that came great understanding. And, instead of stuffing it all down into my subconscious without facing those things, I grieved, and was able to throw them out of the toxin bin. When I did that, I did not find I wanted to blame, but rather to forgive. Forgive not only the other participants, but also to forgive myself. I now know why I later compensated, and why, so now it no longer has such a strong hold on me, and the exercises here, are so much easier.

    So, what I’m trying to say is, I went about the whole healing process differently than you teach here. But, it is working for me.

    Friday, 24 July 2009 @ 10:34am

  23. 23: DocKNo Gravatar says:

    Tina – I remember a saying I saw in a church when I was very young and it said “I am me and I am good cuz God don’t make junk.”

    I have the issues you describe – loving and accepting my “uglies” too. I have come so far and I feel so much more peace with myself because I know that there is a presence (that we all call by different names) that loves me just as I am.

    I know that I love relatives and friends in spite of certain, uh, “traits” they have and I feel so much gratitude for those that love me in spite of mine. I guess I finally figured it’s time for me to love myself in spite of these things and slowly but surely….

    Friday, 24 July 2009 @ 10:39am

  24. 24: Simply ShannonNo Gravatar says:

    Wow Dock – very well said! “…time for me to love myself in spite of these things…” So true!

    Friday, 24 July 2009 @ 10:57am

  25. 25: MercedesNo Gravatar says:

    Tina: I think I need a list! I’m having a LOT of trouble loving my uglies right now. Starting today though I’m going to work on that (I’m either going to learn to love them or I’m going to kick some ugly ass until they’re gone…). Your post came at the perfect time in my life…

    Tinque: You know how amazing I think you are and your post was a beautiful example of that. Thank you.

    Much Love,
    Mercedes

    Friday, 24 July 2009 @ 11:37am

  26. 26: alias girlNo Gravatar says:

    dock i just watched that dance video. i feel so moved. thank you for sharing that. i feel curious how i can feel so strongly moved.

    and thank you tinque for sharing that email.

    i feel very grateful. i feel hopeful. i feel stronger than i was before.

    also i feel excited about STARTING TO EXERCISE MORE AGAIN and doing my new hobbie!!!!! i was pulled away from it with all this work dramaz. but now i feel i can go back to it and feel good again!

    i feel grateful. oh. so. grateful.

    Friday, 24 July 2009 @ 7:33pm

  27. 27: Rori RayeNo Gravatar says:

    Welcome – searchingwithin – I’m so happy you were able to work through your torques and compensations, and just to let you know…I’m not against working our way through experiences — no matter how old…and each therapist and practitioner has different skills and healing gifts – I like to know the whys, whats and hows, too…it’s the way the search is conducted, what the goals are, how the digging happens that fascinates me. And I find most “talking” to be more superficial than what you’ve shared here…so thank you so much for letting us know how you processed and healed. Love, Rori

    Friday, 24 July 2009 @ 9:53pm

  28. 28: TinaNo Gravatar says:

    No problem Mercedes, I have scraps of paper laying around listed as “problems” I was on my way to the store to get a note/workbook. I’ll gather them up later and do the flip thing, nap then store then problems.

    Saturday, 25 July 2009 @ 9:53am

  29. 29: SusanNo Gravatar says:

    I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

    Susan

    Thursday, 30 July 2009 @ 6:43am

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