Sit on the Floor, Walk Barefoot
Ground your Ass, Plant Your Feet and Traumatic Healing
“It is vital that we understand ourselves completely, then you and I will have quite a different relationship, then we can explore together with a happy, careful and intelligent inquiry.”
j krishnamurti
Many years ago a 2nd year student asked me what two things would I want patients to do for total health.
Wow. I thought what a great question, for total health?
I initially started with good nutrition and thought everyone at least has heard and understands the necessity of this. You are what you eat, really you are. However, to maintain vitality we need mobility. We forward feed through our extra senses and all the substrata of operations under the wires to orient the world around us. With a wealthy optimal fit life we turn the world around us in a healthy dosage of self interest.
So,
Movement practice came to mind.
Sit on the Floor
Walk Barefoot
You can also refer back to an earlier post on being barefoot and naked here:
The more we move, the more calories we burn, the more in touch with gravity and our bodies connecting force. When sitting on the floor we are activating postural muscles all the time. Propping on an arm and we isometrically contracting opposing muscles. Calories. One benefit of being on the floor and off furniture in part of the day.
If we reach and extend our leg we move our body in animal ways to keep our fascial system engaged and limber. Done tens of thousands of times in our lifetime means alot of calories burned in summation and greater flexibility and facility from floor to standing into our elder years.
A Reason for Inflexibility (other than being a couch potato)
I know a PT named Martin. In an inservice in San Francisco where we were doing work on the floor he sat down and noticed his knees were pointing straight up to the sky in cobblers pose ( butterfly) and could not sit long legged toes to front or in splits. I caught his eyes looking around the room at everyone else in states of ease, enjoying the lesson. He was clearly uncomfortable.
After the session we talked and he confided that he had been sexually abused as a young child and pre teen and never wanted to “expose” himself to the world again. Hence he does not get on the floor and stretch. He does it all in standing and when working with his patients he has been able to deftly teach them how to stretch by instruction so he did not have to demonstrate certain stretches. He created work arounds to the natural-ness he lost as a child.
Martin demonstrated that our movement style and our posture is a pattern of our own beliefs and perception about the safety of the world we have encountered.
From the pompous and arrogant erect chest puffer to the quiet and meek rounded and collapsing spine inward of another are patterns we as clinicans recognize to help us navigate sensitively and compassionately-boundaried conversations that help us navigate plans for better healing outcomes with our patients and clients.
It is a reminder that we forget ourselves and our history in our unconscious mind’s programming ( our body). Martin’s body is a mapping of his unique past and it patterns a life of immobility from the mind to the body based on his traumatic experiences.
Change the Energy field, Change the Life Force.
Any action in the world of our lives where we are made to feel less than, neglected, abandoned, unjustly taken advantage of will freeze our life-force in those moments and will manifest in our psyche and in our bodily expressions of movement. It will transpose itself in our personal reality to the world we inhabit.
When we become self aware, acknowledge and begin to find support in healing these insults there is found greater degrees of freedom in movement, in the movement of our life expression. Metabolizing and unfreezing time in traumatic experiencing changes the energy in life.
This is Pain Body Mapping I had spoken about in this essay below. It is real and the greater awareness to how we carry our trauma in our body is the beginning of healing a life of hurt so we can begin to live the life we are destined for.
What Does Fear Have to do With Persistent Pain
December 2023 A major underlying premise of Persistent Pain is Fear…
Healthy Feet—— Happy Life
Go Barefoot walking to get the four layers of muscles in your feet activated.
Listen with great attention to each step you take. Play with cadence and shifting weight in and out fore and aft in Stance phase.
Note your contact patch.
What is it Worth?
Improving overall mobility
Supporting joint mechanics.
Improving joint reaction forces and reaction time through increased sensitivity in our receptors.
Enhancing proprioception.
improving posture
Enhancing immunity through the “awe” effect
Healing old recalcitrant musculoskeletal injuries.
It forms the scaffolding for greater resilience in life through the unfamiliar and sometimes daunting experiences in walking naked.
Start gently and for a short amount of time,
on soft loamy trails, grassy knolls.
Use your edge of non-injurious discomfort as a tool.
Soreness in new places will occur initially.
Take your time to feel every step slowly at first.
This heals foot-ankle maladies including plantar fasciitis, ankle sprains, post fracture, metatarsalgia, neuromas etc… Aligns the skeleton with locomotion.
I have worked patients out of 20 years of custom orthotics and into full on barefoot walking! Some studies have shown shod vs unshod ( in shoes and not) no difference in rates of running injury. Hmmm. Is it even relevant at this stage of your practice?
Check out barefoot shoes. There are many these days. They are minimally designed and will get your pretibials/gastroc-soleus and intrinsics working and in great condition. Not only that the effects on postural muscles is telling. Improved Presence also comes to mind.
All my shoes including my hiking boots and running sandals are all barefoot designed. My red shoes are from this group ( click)
It is not the end all and be all.
It is part of the unique package we help to put together and shepherd folks through into a healthful way to move and practice for the rest of their lives. It is not exercise. These are lessons for the foreseeable future.
Make it a Habit
Practice moderation is key to getting just enough reflexology on your trail walk and come home feeling like you did good work feeling good about it.
Don’t give up because it slows you down or hurts “too “ much. Recalibrate and take the time to consider why life needs to always be wrapped in comfort ( the addiction to comfort)
So walk barefoot,
squat and
sit your ass on the floor
while watching a game or a Hallmark Love story and stretch your legs, feet and back.
Whats in a Pearl?
How do you teach your patients to get up and off the floor?
Try this one technique: Spiral up, Spiral down. In Jiu Jitsu and judo being able to get up off the floor efficiently is a must. If you do not do this in your belt test you may be failed automatically. There is a good reason why it works and why it is important in a fight too.
Play with it and make it your own if it feels right
Blessings and Namaste,
t