How come my body is sooooooooo tight?

We tend to feel tiiiiiiiiiight and want to "stretch it out." Most of the time, our tightness isn't actually from lacking flexibility, but rather from weakness. When we don't engage muscle, we lose the strength of it and those muscles not only become weak, they also shorten, leaving us feeling really tight. We lose stability, and trust in our bodies. Our nervous systems move to protect mode, resulting in shortening our joint range of motion and diminishing our body's ability for muscles to lengthen and relax. It hurts when we move or stretch which then sets off alarms again through the nervous system to protect. Even within some of our athletic pursuits, we can create muscle imbalances and overuse stress injuries. More protection signals sound.
Enter yoga.

The asana practice of yoga strengthens and lengthens our entire body. It is a patient practice that begins to balance not only our physical bodies, but deeply affects our nervous system, regulating all our body systems. It is a practice highly focused on helping us improve the quality of our breathing, our direct route to better balancing our nervous systems. Instead of "protect!" our breath can signal our bodies toward feeling safe and growing strong.

It feels really good to expand our capacity for movement. It feels really good to stretch wide open arms and deeply breathe. It feels good to be stable, strong and know we are safe. When we feel good, we are more creative and able to make more positive changes in the life we want to live in the bodies we have.

I so enjoy you joining me on the mat as we practice the good care of our soul's earthly house and we do it in community with one another.

Jill 🌱