THE PSOAS

A MUSCULAR CONNECTION TO YOUR AUTHENTIC TRUTH

Without knowing, the first time I worked with my psoas was after being attacked by a man about 15 years ago.

I didn’t know anything about trauma release or trauma healing. The only thing I knew back then was that victims of attacks made therapy to “work” with their trauma.

I never was the kind of person to work with something I actually wanted to get rid of. The only thing I was interested in was to get this experience out of my primary awareness and consciousness. I didn’t want to suppress it, nor did I want to deal with it for longer than necessary. I tried to get my life back and my mental health. So, I started to research for myself and came across a book called “Trauma Heilung” (trauma healing) by Peter Levine – and that was what I wanted to do.

MECHANISMS OF TRAUMA

Peter Levine explains the mechanisms of trauma in somatic ways what is very close to what feels remarkably aligned to what I practice until today – and had always been drawn to:

Understanding the natural mechanisms, intertwined actions, and innate alignments of the immense intelligence of the human body-mind-sense complex.

„…, we are self-correcting systems profoundly capable of self-healing.
[…]
We simply need to stop interfering with our natural capabilities.“

— Liz Koch

By studying the instinctive behaviour of animals during and especially after traumatic experiences, the author showed how this knowledge could be transferred to us humans too.

Imagine a prey animal being chased by a lion. That prey is experiencing a traumatic situation, and therefore, the automatic fight or flight mechanism takes the lead.

The triggering moment is the attack by the lion. That causes a kind of auto-response of the prey’s organism by drastically increasing hormones which initiate the muscular activation and contractions to help propel it forward and out of the danger zone – if it can run fast enough. So, the instinctive impulse is translated into action, thereby releasing the hormonal peak to regulate back into a balanced and normal state.

In case the animal can not flee fast enough, it may instinctively fall into a pretended death pose to make the lion lose its interest. If it succeeds and the lion disappears, sudden waves of shivers and shakings start to come over the prey’s body to release the hormonal peak and again regulate them back into a normal state. This instinctive behaviour has been recognised with animals to complete a fight or flight – or freeze – activation.

Wild animals don’t experience something like post-traumatic dysfunction.

REDUNDANT ENERGY AND THE PSOAS

In the book trauma healing, the author explained that humans might experience a post-traumatic dysfunction because of the missing last step of that instinctive hormone-driven activation of a fight, flight or freeze situation in the presence of danger – be it physical or emotional. Humans do not start to shake and release that muscular activation to soften them again. But instead, the muscular impulse and with it the energy stays in the body without finding its way out.

Unnecessary, redundant energy circling in the body eventually settles – preferably around the muscle it was there to activate initially – the psoas. Energy starts to crystalise and cause hypertension, and over time stiffness and pain. Being part of a warning system and responsible for keeping harmony in the body, both physically and mentally, the psoas is accountable for your overall well-being.

Social conditioning may cause unnecessary tension by suppressing the bio-intelligent impulses initiated by the psoas (please read more about that in the according booklet). The suppression of those natural instinctive mechanisms to prevent your health (again physical and mental) may lead to a miscommunication of the signals the muscles of the psoas group send to the brain. A dissociation occurs and, as its consequence, numbness. Therefore, addressing the psoas and bringing them back to their natural function not only leads to a new balance within your muscular skeleton but also greater mental and emotional harmony.

PSOAS AWAKENING BY ACCIDENT

That phenomenon I explained above is something I experienced in extended ways when I intensively worked with my psoas was after my injury in 2017 when I fell backwards into a bathtub and seriously hurt my tailbone.

The following deep work of my muscular structure around my tailbone got me into contact with my psoas not only from a physical but also from an emotional up to a spiritual level.

„As our perception expands
it becomes increasingly difficult
to maintain an artificial separation
between what we define as the spiritual, emotional, physical, or mental aspects of movement.“

— Liz Koch

The muscular task of the psoas is to allow your legs to swing freely front and back (but also rotate) to enable you to stand and walk in an upright position. The importance of that role of the psoas became very obvious to me after my accident, as moving without pain was almost impossible. Whether walking, stepping stairs or sitting, I felt constant pain in my hips.

When I was stretching and mobilising my muscles in my hips and glutes to find my way back to moving without pain, countless former traumatic experiences of my whole life sequentially resurfaced into my consciousness – to be released finally. This, however, was one of the most challenging processes I ever have ever gone through…

CONDITIONING through physical correction

When I was a teenage girl, I had to wear a medical corset that forced my whole body into an unnatural alignment of my spine. It was suggested that my natural spine curve was too extreme, and so I was pushed into a posture of constantly pressing my hips forward to straighten my spine. This unnatural position of my bones caused a tremendous disbalance of numerous muscles of my whole body.

The human body is intertwined in complex ways; you can not influence one thing without causing a ripple effect on the rest of the system. With me being forcefully re-aligned utilizing a medical corset, my bones, muscles, and psyche had been programmed in a way that wasn’t honest for me as a holistic being.

By working on releasing the pain in my hips after the accident, I unintentionally addressed that misaligned structure caused by the corset. And so - REALLY - my whole life gradually reappeared to the surface of my consciousness. Especially, all that went wrong, and that was a lot…

During my self-therapeutic work, I understood my own personal history more and more profoundly.

I was never about to blame anyone. My main goal was to understand why I was like I was and why I constantly felt so wrong. The relation between my misaligned physical structure and the correlated psychological feeling of being “misaligned” became more and more apparent.

„For a self-determined authentic life
fully aligned with your core values
and your physical truth,
a cognisant interaction with
your body’s innate wisdom
is inevitable.“

— Indra Leibig

Natural alignment to harmonize my soul

Gradually getting my natural pelvis-tilt back directly infused my understanding of who I am. The more I released the muscles, the more I felt myself, my true nature, my innate authentic Self.

These were the most precious transformations of my life.

I will share one intimate experience to tell you how deeply the body’s physical intertwined alignment and relationship with your psychological understanding of yourself is. A transformative experience that shifted the whole relationship I had with my sexuality:

By forcefully pushing my hips forward and squeezing my butt to do so, and staying in this position to reduce my “extreme” lordosis influenced how my genitals were “located”. Instead of being inside and hidden, my vulva was pushed out.

My labia verbatim hang out. Sometimes, this caused a smacking sound when I moved. And I don’t need to tell you how tremendously ashamed I was about that.

My most intimate parts being so exposed and making sounds other people might hear, e.g. in the supermarket…!? I felt naked and highly vulnerable. I felt as though I was at other people’s mercy. Shame and insecurity accompanied me in numerous situations… How could I have been able to be relaxed and fully me when I was guided by so many feelings of shame and embarrassment?

Since I released the tuck of my pelvis and the unnatural tension in my psoas and got my natural pelvis-tilt back, simultaneously, my genitals repositioned themselves where they actually were meant to be, inside, hidden and protected. This brought me newfound security through natural physical boundaries, which allowed my relationship with my sexual organs to transform and release the strange belief that my sexuality didn’t truly belong to me.

I could continue for many more pages to tell you all the things I discovered, but this isn’t my intention in this article. The theme of today is to look more curiously at your psoas, get to know them from a holistic point of view and maybe understand the evolution of your physical body, your current physical issues and their emotional and mental equivalent more clearly.

deep understanding versus blaming

My ever-present priority is to understand as profoundly as possible to see more clearly what and how to change the things that don’t feel right and aligned with my inner truth. In the end, this is what enables you to truly become liberated and free. Not to numb you out or to become a master in suppressing discomfort.

When you get to healing – and especially self-healing – you may have asked yourself what it is that needs to be healed, and the answer is: Your body.

Your body is carrying those old, traumatic experiences within. And so, if you start to heal your body, this leads to mental and emotional healing simultaneously.

Redundant energy from former traumatic experiences stacking in the psoas needs to be released through gentle movement and relaxation techniques rather than invasive methods and forceful stretchings.

Therefore, I created a few specific classes to feel into your psoas and a booklet to show you more about this fascinating, intelligent muscle group.

The booklet is there to help you see the many points of the interconnectedness of your physical body and the quality of the mental and even spiritual aspects of your life explained by a muscle deep within your core: YOU PSOAS.

After reading, I hope you will understand your whole being and existence from a new, holistic point of view.