TYLER TOLMAN BLOG
Cervical Spine | Physical, Mental & Emotional Healing
Cervical Spine | Physical, Mental & Emotional Healing
First thing I would say, I know I say this a lot, when you do a fast you are going to reduce inflammation, but what happens is your body becomes very open to change.
Specifically speaking about the cervical spine, with special mention about C1, and the physical, emotional and spiritual changes that we can implement to help the spine heal.
Fasting for the Spine
I worked with a chiropractor with clinics all over Bali, and she would say (with other chiropractors saying the same thing) that when people were fasting at the time she did spinal adjustments, people would have issues that would move super quickly. So someone with scoliosis, while on my 21 day fasting program, we found that within 10 days the spine is correcting itself.
And the chiropractor would say that normally, treatment for 6 months of 3 times a week, there would be hardly any movement. Yet we’re seeing more movement within 10 days of a fasting program.
So maybe going to an osteopath or chiropractor and fasting while having this work done would be a great approach. But then we also need to realise that the spine is out of place because of lifestyle choices – mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically.
Movement and Strengthening
At least three times a week, I’m online with a group of people going through an advanced process call the Ancient Egyptian Physical Culture. This is a series of movements that moves the lymphatic waste products out of every aspect of my body (ankles, knees, hips, etc.). I’m opening and clearing, essentially cleaning out. During this session, we are playing music, dancing and having fun.
But there is a specific routine that is strengthening my body and it’s making me more flexible. In this process of strengthening, we’ve got two big muscles down our spine… imagine your vertebrae of your spine running down the center of these muscles. When I’m doing these simple exercises that increase the strength of the muscles around my spine, that is what holds my spine in place.
If you’re not doing some form of yoga or pilates, sport, or some simple walking or hiking, the spinal muscles start to get weak and the spine starts to go out of place. It’s a major factor.
We need to make sure physically we are doing all the right things. Then we can look at the energetics. The seven vertebrae of the spine, C1 specifically, I believe is related to the pre-frontal cortex. If you are the type of person who just thinks all the time, drinking coffee and on the go, the spinal column, 33 vertebrae, are the switch boards of the electrical energy that is floating through the body.
So if I am overwhelmingly using some part of the body, too much energy, we want the right balance. You don’t want low energy and you don’t want high energy, you want balanced energy. It’s the whole ying and yang, hot and cold, positive and negative…
If I’m too much in the pre-frontal cortex, then I’m going to be constantly flicking off C1 and probably C2. And develop a level of things going on back there – toxicity can be a factor, mental issues.
The Emotional Connection
In my book [on emotional healing], C1 says, ‘feelings of fear, confusion, fight or flight.’ That’s what I’m talking about – fight or flight and not knowing how to get out. Every time you go for a drive, you’re pissed off and fighting everybody, cutting through traffic or people are just pissing you off.
To get out of the sympathetic nervous system and coming into the parasympathetic nervous system, there are some simple things you can do to be more relaxed. We are either in ‘fight or flight’ or we’re in ‘rest and digest’. When we are resting, our body is digesting food and we are healing, the parasympathetic.
When we are in the sympathetic, we are looking for coffee, Red Bull, cocaine…or just stressed out. That’s when it’s adrenaline and things are taken away from the digestive, healing function.
One way we can get rid of that is simple breathing. Take an in-breath, stop, then in-breath again and relax it out. Repeat for about a minute and you’ll be going into the sympathetic nervous system, relaxation, the body starts to heal.
I like to effectuate my vagus nerve. I do it all the time. It’s just a natural thing that I do… It’s just kind of toning. What I do is I hum while I’m driving, under the music so no one can hear me. It calms my nervous system.
Again, back to the emotional book for spine – fight or flight, wanting to run away from your problems, responsibilities, feeling insecure, not good enough, too focused on other people’s opinions.
The neck also, in general, I believe, is my ability to see. So, every day in the physical culture I’m doing advanced neck mobility exercises. I’m stretching the neck in ALL directions, so I always have really good neck flexibility and mobility. So I can whip my neck around really fast, there’s no knots, no hard spots.
As mentioned, three times a week I’m going through that movement series. I’d recommend you guys join me – it’s a subscription you can join called Morning Rituals. We do it on Australian mornings. It’s available five days a week, but I’m actually doing it live three days a week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
That’s a bit about C1, and like I said, with the neck, it’s the ability to see the perspective. For example, if I have pain in the left side of my neck, I have an inability to see the feminine perspective. When a woman says something to me, I just can’t see her perspective, we have an argument…I have a pain in the left side of my neck. Totally legit. And it might be underlying stuff where it builds up over time.
Right side of the next, inability to see the male perspective. These are also issues, inability to see, from that perspective.
And there is specifics with each one of the vertebrae. The middle spine, thoracic, is more about feeling emotional supported or being stuck in all the shit from the past. All the stuff that is on my back from the past – 10 years ago, 3 years ago, 2 weeks ago, yesterday. Stuck in all the shit back there, carrying the weight of the world on my back.
A lot of times what we shoulder, if you’re shouldering too much responsibility, masculine (right) or feminine (left), then we’ll have shoulder issues – pain and dislocations, etc. I’ve had my share of injuries through the years from extreme sports, and with every injury, every time, it was exactly related to some other emotional stuff that was going on in my life at the time.
There’s all these specific details (emotional connections) for each vertebrae, and my coaches have access to all this information, so they can give you specifics and help you with the remedy of what to go through to clear the emotional stuff.
Lower back, by the way, is typically around fear of not being able to provide financially, constant worry of finance. That is why a lot of men have lower back problems, they are always thinking about money, worried about money and being able to support their family.
It’s all mental – neck, and worry (financial) – lower back.
Thanks for reading!
