BE YOUR OWN BODYWORKER

The following excerpt is from the personal growth
psychology book, Be Your Own Therapist.

While I know of no "official" bodywork that talks of doing it by and for yourself, there is one body-changing possibility that could well prove as successful as hiring a professional bodyworker. Instead of having to continue to go back to a bodyworker to cement the gains of the bodywork, this method teaches you to do that process yourself.

The method I suggest is described in Egoscue's The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion. By following his directions for self-diagnosis of dysfunction followed by exercises designed for that dysfunction, you can realign and shape your body into its optimal form and function. He emphasizes that our bodies usually get dysfunctional through disuse of our muscular-skeletal system, whose design craves much more motion than we give it in today's technological society. He suggests very strongly that many sports-related and work-related injuries such as shin splints, carpal-tunnel syndrome and tennis elbow are caused by poor alignment of our bodies before and during those activities not by the activities themselves. If you have any pain anywhere in your muscular-skeletal system, I recommend that you find and read this book, as it shatters popular myths about our bodies. (Also, if your toes are not directly in front of your ankles when walking or if your shoulders and head tend to droop forward, read Egoscue's book. For you are a prime candidate for significant avoidable future bodily pain.)

Success Tip: You will be more likely to succeed if you give yourself concrete praise every time you perform a behavior you are trying to acquire.

The one significant ingredient likely to be missing from such a self-help method is the emotion associated with bodily trauma. For some, such an omission is not that important, because many bodily dysfunctions are just habits and may not have a significant emotional trauma component.

If emotional trauma is present, changing the body to its proper form by way of Egoscue's exercises will make the emotions more accessible. Unraveling and straightening the dysfunctional body is the same as loosening a strand of a trauma knot. The emotions and words (the other usual strands in the trauma knot that also need unraveling) can then be more readily expressed while doing the exercises or during some talk therapy with a therapist.

Next Excerpt  

For most of us, reasonable fitness can be accomplished in 30 minutes a week.

More Excerpts This Chapter
   IGNORE YOUR BODY, SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES
   BODYWORK THERAPY
   BE YOUR OWN BODYWORKER
   TOUCHING AND BEING TOUCHED
   AVOIDING TOXINS
   COUCH POTATO BENEFITS
   PSYCHOLOGICAL REASONS WHY WE DON'T EXERCISE
   FITNESS IN 30 MINUTES A WEEK?
   AN EXERCISE PROGRAM FOR THOSE WHO HATE TO EXERCISE
   AWAKENING AND REVITALIZING THE BODILY SENSES

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