“Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect.”—E. M. Forster
Did we have good connections in our using days? Well, the answer is probably “Yes, no, maybe.” Our connections might best be described as The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. We connected all too well to the bottle, the spike, the rail, the spliff, the pipe, the bong, the… whatever our preference. But we connected not so well, perhaps, to our relatives, friends, colleagues, loved ones and the like.
Our relationship with the world was fractured—because the relationship with our own self was fractured. We were creatures broken to fragments on the wheel of our addiction…
Connection implies and requires other-centeredness. Connection implies balance, flexibility and open channels. Before recovery, we tended toward supreme self-centeredness. We were preoccupied by our own pain and our never-ending quest to medicate ourselves out of discomfort. We were just way out of whack—to use a technical phrase.
Now, our lack of connection to others did not show up just on the emotional, social and mental planes. Our addiction’s excesses afflicted our body too. The neural pathways got blocked. Blood flow compromised. Muscles got taut and tight and bunched and knotted. Shoulders got hunched. Foot, knee, hip and back pain asserted their angry voices. Fascia twisted and wound up. Our joints could sound like grinding gears…
And from lack of use or from imbalance in our structure, many of our muscles would simply cease to fire on demand. They’d given up the ghost on helping us through the day in an efficient manner. Sensory-motor amnesia had dulled our once finely tuned machines to sputtering inefficiency.
In recovery, if we choose to disregard our physical dysfunctions and not work to fix them, we may be putting our serenity and sobriety at risk.
Today, we will practice a simple exercise to loosen up our almost certainly tight hip flexors. Also known technically as the psoas, the hip flexors are THE great connectors between our upper and lower bodies. If our psoas is out of balance, constricted or tight, we will for sure be affected on every level of health, be it emotional, spiritual or brutely physical. We are following the Spark Your Day formula here. Protect your vulnerabilities, by addressing the physical—that this in turn helps heal your heart, mind and spirit.
Ready to release and connect? Here we go:
Sit upright on the edge of a hard chair. Place the blade of your left hand in the crease between your right thigh and your torso—AKA the inguinal crease. Place your right palm gently on the top of your right knee. The right hand helps to maintain focus on the correct alignment—keep the touch light. Keep your foot, knee and hip in alignment as you raise your leg up, around nine inches. Repeat for 20 repetitions and then switch to the left leg. You’re done. However, your hips will be thankful if you make time twice more in your day to perform the same routine. Continue to do this every day forward and you will be thrilled at how much better you feel.
It feels great to gently reawaken the dormant connections in my body.