Monthly Archives: February 2012

The Hurt Bird Posture

In the wild, a mother bird will protect her young by pretending to be hurt when a predator gets too close to her nest.  When the predator is interested in her, she moves away a little at a time, leading the danger far away from her babies.

Curl the back of your wrist into your chest.  Cock your head to the side. To me this looks like a hurt bird.  “I’m already hurt. You wouldn’t hurt me, again, would you?”  (Batting lashes…)

The reasoning being, that if I’m already hurt, your job is done for you and you can move along… sort of like playing dead… or possum for those passive-aggressive types.

I see this as playing the victim, a manipulation posture against those using the Hissing Cat or Bulldog postures from previous posts.

I have seen this in shoulder, arm, and rotator cuff issues. There are a couple of deviations that I have found in a couple of client’s energy patterns.

One with the hands are up like a defensive posture (like “Back up, I don’t want to fight with you.”) and are creating a force field that is trying to buffer the whole aura from attack, but is draining the arm in question.  Therefore, there is no energy to keep the arm healthy and it gets injured from being weak.

I have also seen people who are over-achievers and “put their shoulder into it”. Going the extra mile to make things work, leaning into a project with too much intensity or anticipation, therefore wearing out the shoulder with too much force, shorting out the energy of the arm.  This one goes back having to the Bulldog posture.

Are you going to keep hiding or are you going to step up and fight the bully?

 

The “Quasimodo” Posture

This posture looks much like the lead character from the Hunchback of Notre Dame, with one shoulder up and one leg shortened, leading to a hobble of a walk.

Many women by mid-life experience scoliosis, sciatica, plantar fasciitis; it also leads to knee, hip and feet issues.  I’ve see men leaning back and sitting on one buttock.  This could pinch off nerves going down the legs over time.  There can also be issues with the shoulders.  Women can stick out their “sassy” hip, and put their hand on it.

As caretakers, it becomes easy to loose yourself in all the “Mommy, do this for me…” A young mother’s Baby on hip syndrome, where the hip juts out for a baby to ride, usually on the left hip (so you can work with the right hand) over time can lead to this.

I have heard Chiropractors admonish that if you sleep on your side, you need shift to sleeping flat on your back to prevent the torque on your spine.  I have figured out, upon questioning, that many of these “twisted” people are sitting in a contorted posture like sitting on your foot/feet with knees to the side, that eventually the posture compensates.

Life can get complicated as you go on through time.  I think mentally, this could be an aversion to dealing with things as they truly are, instead of standing in your own truth, and squarely standing on your own two feet, stacking the joints above evenly.

In dealing with the Quasimodo posture, I’ve seen that working the whole body has helped straighten out the whole posture.  So even if you only have a hurt leg or shoulder, getting a massage for the whole body structure will help straighten things out.

The Dog With Its Tail Between Its Legs or The Turtle

Our family has recently adopted a set of puppies.  Have you seen a puppy that has gotten in trouble?  Their ears go down and back.  Their shoulders roll forward, and their chest collapses.   At the extreme, the abdominal muscles pull in just like the proverbial “dog putting its tail between its legs”… and their bladder can let go.

I could also see this as a turtle, face down with hard shell to protect their back.  I have seen professional appearing people walking around in almost a fetal position by what I find in their tight muscles. It can be a war zone in the corporate world!  The wars are waged with manipulation and shows of force.

This posture gets extreme when they couldn’t slow down and just kept going until they were falling apart, or when someone has had a severely unsettling experience and now have  “post traumatic stress disorder”.   Many shoulder issues and low back problems can be related to this emotional state.  I have heard that the two weeks after severe stress time is prime time for back injuries and slipped discs.

When people are very tired and run down, there is no energy to stand up straight.  A hump in the neck or mid-back bears testimony to this.  I have seen this “old man’s dowager hump” already forming on many people under severe stress, even for someone in their teens.

Is what you are killing yourself for worth it?  What has taken your energy?

This is the effect of stress playing out in our complex modern world.

If this is happening for you, find those things that are supportive and healthy in your life, and take it easy for a couple of weeks or how ever long it takes to find normalcy.

It’s time to take care of you!  : – )

The Bulldog Posture

This is a close relative to the cat hissing posture, but looks more like a body builder flexing their upper body.  Instead of just the shoulders, the arms are held up and curled forward for extended lengths of time.  I could see a boxer or martial artist with their hands up, ready for a fight.  They can be leaning forward or up on their toes, too.

In nature, this looks like the defensive posturing of an animal protecting it’s turf, which is exactly what is happening subconsciously for us, too. 

This can also like be a puffer fish, which instantly expands to look bigger than they are to scare predators away from attacking. 

I see people whose faces are forward as another way to keep people back, even if it seems this person is happy and outgoing.  It’s like the overwhelm of their big personality keeps people out of their personal space.

I also see people trying to stick their chest out and pulling their shoulders back, especially when they are tired.  This makes for very tight armpits, somewhere that people never realize that they are carrying stress.  They just feel tension in the neck and shoulders, or maybe in between the shoulder blades.

A quick way to feel relief in the neck and shoulders is to let the arms fall to the sides and slide the shoulder blades down the back and flex in between the shoulder blades.   

Another great remedy for tight shoulders is to really push your head back into a car headrest, then rolling you chest forward, but chin back.  I like to drop the shoulders back to the car seat then pulling on the steering wheel.

Pulling up your shoulder blades really high and rubbing them against the base of the skull is another way to break up tension. 

With you arms hanging down to your sides, roll your thumbs outward and look up, letting your chest arch up with a deep breath all the way from your lap to your chin.  This is so good for the heart and mental balance!

This is the opposite of the bulldog posture.  Opposite muscles should be worked for stability and posture.  So if you are in one posture often, the opposite posture needs to be used to counter-act it. 

Here’s food for thought:  Let down your guard once in a while bulldog!  You need it.