Each of us live with some degree of physical limitations and pains. Few of these are structural. Most are functional; the restrictions are the result of pain memories and muscle tightness rather than actual current time injury.

Somatics is the study or science of the living self – being aware of ones self from the inside out. Rather than learning about the self from observation, testing or measuring; it is the process of gaining knowledge about yourself from investigating how you feel in your body. Moving the body in prescribed, specific ways can access and release gripping, tightness and pain that you find in your body; you yourself identifying the physical relief. Additionally this relief will extend to releasing the emotions and experiences that are causing the physical limitations, imbalance and discomfort.

One of the fathers of Somatics, Thomas Hanna, says “everything we experience in our lives is a bodily experience”. TRE ©, Trauma Relief Exercises, developed by David Berceli is based on this truth. Peter Levine calls these stored memories and pains “frozen residue of energy that has not been resolved and discharged”.  You may have had conscious experience of this yourself: a sprained ankle causes you to limp and this favoring of the one side of the body continues long after the pain has gone away. You simply have forgotten how to move in your pre-injury way. If not attended to this new way of walking can become chronic - adding to other vaguely understood pains and discomforts in the body - ones you might just come to accept as the cost of being on the planet for another cycle of the sun.

“The issues live in our tissues” is the phrase that Nikki Myers (yogi and developer of Y12SR – Yoga and 12 Step Recovery programs) uses to describe the impact of life’s stress on our bodies. Trauma from stress, trauma from injury and trauma from negative life changing events all end up being held in muscle memory. This muscle memory is an unhealthy kind of memory: not the valuable and useful kind such as remembering how to ride a bike, tie a shoe or to tango. It is unhealthy memory that has an impact to our muscle tone, our balance and our posture. This is not a memory that we are aware of in any conscious way.

Our fears and our worries become “somaticized” and internalized in our bodies.  In addition to physical and mobility limitations we may experience constant headache or stomach pain, high blood pressure, constipation or shortness of breath. We may have persistent muscle pain or back pain. We may have no idea where it is coming from and visits to doctors are inconclusive. There is no obvious structural problem or illness. These symptoms are the result of pain being absorbed by tension in muscles and tendons; the nervous system has “unlearned” the signals to relax. This results in the pain and experience becoming locked in the body.

The body responds to pain not only with muscle tension and but with subsequent postural adjustments to compensate for the discomfort. The original pain can be the result of an accident or it can have been the result of a traumatic life: the life of a child living in a dysfunctional house, the life a soldier in the field, the life of a person having made bad choices and living in constant turmoil or the life of an addict. The shoulders hunch, the buttocks tighten, the body curls forward to protect the internal organs, the breath is short, and the lower back is achy. Any and all of these structural alignments can be associated with an insult to the body or the emotions.

There are specific neurological reasons for the body “storing the tensions”. The feedback loop for contracting and relaxing muscles and muscle groups become interrupted. The muscles remain semi contracted when, in a healthier state, they would release completely after use. Moving the body in specific ways can begin to re-establish healthy neural pathways and reinvigorate muscle movement; contraction and relaxation in appropriate coordination.

Yoga is an ideal modality for moving the body, becoming aware of breathing, posture and alignment. This reawakening of body awareness retrains the neurological feedback systems and helps the body remember how to be in a healthy state. Yoga first introduces one to the breath and further to using the breath to support the body in the postures. The postures and the sequencing of the class can loosen tight areas and begin the relaxation of muscle groups that have been in protection mode for long periods of time. Once these muscle groups begin to loosen, the trapped emotions can be released. These discharged feelings can present themselves in a yoga class, causing at times anxiety, sadness or even anger to surface during practice. A skilled teacher can assure the student that these feeling are normal and need only be endured not judged.  Experiencing the emotions helps release the “issues in our tissues”. The story or the event, miraculously, does not have to be known or relayed for the physical impacts to be released. Just feeling the feelings and finding relaxation is all that is needed. Final relaxation, sivansana, allows this new healthier relaxed body to integrate the renewed neural pathways to be incorporated and a healthier chapter of life can begin.

Kyczy Hawk, 200 RYT, CPA (inactive) was a financial accountant who stepped out of the office and onto the mat.  She had been practicing yoga for over ten years and felt the need to bring the benefits of yoga to addicts; people who were already moving down their path of recovery. Teaching for the last 5 years, Kyczy Hawk brings her experience in recovery and understanding of yoga philosophy to people in recovery and to at risk youth.  Follow her activities and class offerings at www.yogarecovery.com. Look for her book “Yoga and The 12 Step Path” due out in May 2012.