Is EVERYTHING just “the nervous system” now?
Good afternoon, sunshine!
Wow, are we lucky with the weather we had this past weekend for New Day Fest (especially now knowing THIS dreariness is what would soon be upon us 🌧️😂)
I’ve noticed that when many of us hear the word “spine”, our thoughts immediately go to bones 🩻🦴💀.
This association has many drawbacks.
First, most people don’t associate their “bones” or the feeling of their bones as a source of energy, aliveness, and connection.
(You’ve heard the term “old bag of bones” but there’s no “fresh new bag of bones” 😂😂😂)
But what do we think of, what do we picture, when we hear the words “nervous system”?
Now more than ever “nervous system” is being used by many different types of practitioners and is being understood by professionals and lay-people alike.
Going back over the last 10 years and gaining steam through to today, social media has been chock full of coaches, somatic practitioners, trainers, therapists, yoga and meditation teachers, doctors, and many more talking about the nervous system.
Overall, I think this is a good thing.
It sure has made it a lot easier for me to explain Network Spinal care to people! 😄
But back to the question I asked a few lines up: What do you think of when you hear “nervous system.”
❓Where is it?
❓ What does it look like?
❓ What does it feel like?
❓ Or do you feel it at all? Maybe “it” “feels you”??
❓ Is it causing your problems? Or is it also being affected by them?
“Nervous system” is starting to remind me of the word “culture.”
We think we know what it is, but when it comes to defining it, now it’s suddenly amorphous; it’s everywhere, and nowhere. And doing everything 😂 #nothelpful
But there’s another problem with how I’m seeing “nervous system” used that seems to go in the opposite direction of the problem I’ve described above.
The other unhelpful current tendency I’m noticing is an over medicalization of how we consider the nervous system.
The thought process goes like this: “You’ve tried fixing your knee. You’ve tried fixing your shoulders. You’ve tried fixing your thoughts. You’ve tried fixing your digestion.”
“But have you thought about fixing YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM? (Because we’ve got something to sell you for that!)”
Now the “nervous system” is beginning to exist in the popular consciousness as yet another of a seemingly infinite number of “parts” and “problems” to address. It’s a new frontier for fixing, management, and your constant concern and surveillance 😰😰😰
Just another place to apply our limited, mechanistic, parts-based understandings and stress-based, past-based, fear-based tendencies. A place for marketers to cater to your anxiety and neuroses while simultaneously purporting to present a more holistic solution.
⭐️⭐️I’ve been going on and on for a long time, but here’s what I want you to know⭐️⭐️:
Any understanding of the nervous system that has the potential to help heal you is going to have you feeling and knowing yourself as bigger, brighter, more connected, more alive, more at choice, and more in a sense of awe, wonder, and trust (or at least start to move you in that direction!)
Any understanding of the nervous system that has the potential to help heal you will leave you with a sense of 1) which tools, tricks, and modalities are part of a management strategy– where fight-or-flight tendencies and states are momentarily interrupted– and 2) which tools, strategies, and modalities are meant to help lay a structural groundwork for a new, more sustainable way of being in your nervous system and body (this is where the SPINE comes in!! I’m finally coming back to this) 💥💥💥
In some ways the nervous system and it’s effects may feel diffuse and like they’re “everywhere” (The breath? The thoughts? The muscle tension?)
But there is a large chunk of your nervous system that has a physical location that lives in your spine and around your spine ⚡️📡⚡️
And by “spine” I’m not primarily talking about the bones of the spine 🚫
I’m talking about the continuous system of bungee-cord like nerve tissue from your brain and brain stem, through your spine cord, and then branching out into your body ✨💥🌀💗
Network Spinal focuses on the central role of the SPINE in expressing, modulating, and limiting energy and information and how it moves through your nervous system (ie for you to be able to move, have emotion, feel, think, and function).
When we impact the spine and create change in the posture and alignment, we are sending the effects of our work into structures of the body that can provide a more sustainable basis for change.
This is not just another “management strategy” or momentary interruption.
Now, big picture. Big BIG picture. Your nervous system, and your spine as a huge part of that, are busy at all times playing the “program” that is YOU (without you even having to know it or understand it for that to be the case) 🛜🤯
Through Network Spinal you are meant to know yourself better.
NOT to know your trauma better 😮
But to actually know yourself increasingly as someone who shines brightly, who contributes more energy than they take, who has empathy, and who’s being-ness improves life on this planet ☀️💓🌍
Thank you for reading and engaging, spine friends 😆
I look forward to hearing from you and seeing you tomorrow, Saturday, and beyond 💖
