MassageFreek

Stretching for you, self exploration for me

Monday, October 1st, 2007 | healthly living

In the last week or so I have been on the subject of stretching.
I have not written but maybe one post on the subject but the posts are writing t themselves as I think about the subject using my own life and body as my research.

My previous post covered some basics- some of the foundational pieces that I feel are important to the whole idea of stretching.

As I have been thinking about stretching, I have been doing it more in my life. I had mentioned earlier that awareness is one of the first steps to incorporating it into your life.

I think that giving healing advice is something that causes healing to happen.

I use myself as an experiment. My experiences are my teacher
Stretching is a practice not only of the body but also of the mind and emotions. The connection to ones body that is created during any stretch or contortion can be anything from joyous to almost unbearable.

It can be really really hard to get into stretching. But I think that what I have been pondering on this subject, as I have been not writing anything and just thinking and experiencing can be helpful to the person who really wants to get into it but doesn’t really know how to start.

I think the first the thing to really acknowledge is that:

Stretching is a practice
Even if you never nail down a regular time in your schedule to do some stretching but you still do some here and there… that’s still “practicing.” Wanting it in your life and doing the actions that make it be a part of your mind/body experience – is called “bringing the practice of stretching into your life”
The practice of stretching is not a static thing. It’s about life and your body. Life is organic and moving – so too, it seems logical, that stretching would change and morph as a practice does in ones life.

I think the second major thing to really get would be:

Stretching can be easy or it can be very challenging –you get to choose
You really need to “listen” to your body
You need to “get in touch with it” and take stock of what hurts and what feels tight.
You need to listen to how far you can push your body and you need to really act upon those impulses to stop or slow down.
I don’t want to dis the idea of working hard or challenging the body to go further in a stretch, for example.
But I do want to get across that you can choose to do that if you want if you know it will be good for you. But there’s little gain in trying to push yourself past your limits when you may not be mentally, emotional or physically handle the effects of pushing your own limits.
Pushing your limits is a good practice in growth but you must do it with care for your body. Your body will punish you as well as your mind. Sometimes there emotional releases available in stretching that perhaps the situations in our lives cannot support the safe processing of. Take stock in what your personal inner and outer states are before your push your body to limits that are highly challenging or stressful.

I think that may be enough to chew on for now. I think I just want to get into the habit of writing blog posts that are actual useful information.
Balances out the massage freek blog expression.

In later episodes:
I will cover some more basic of incorporating stretching into your life in ways that work and make sense… at least to me.
We will talk about:
Movement and stretching
Breathing
Grounding
And mucho more.
Stay tuned

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