The Miracle Ball Method
I am always surprised how in everyday life people can tell when something is off balance and intuitively fix it. If your shoelace is tight, it’s a simple oppositional pull and the tension is there. Your laces are tied. We dive into art and music, honing our sense of vision and hearing. We enjoy it. We don’t have to do a lot of thinking because, it just makes sense!
People do a lot of talking. It’s been said, listening is an art. When we talk, most of us are confident we know what we are talking about, and most likely know how you should respond. Listening is a funny thing in a way because it requires us to pause during a conversation. Pauses in life, can cause anxiety, making us uncomfortable. What if I say something wrong? Why are they saying that? Maybe if I keep talking then I don’t have to listen. (more…)
It was great to see everyone. We shared experiences and then went through some of the directions of the method. We spoke about chronic neck and shoulder issues, breathing, arthritis and more. The directions are simple, people are not. We are all unique individuals which is why the experience of one’s own body is essential. Information alone, without giving people that experience does not work. But how do we get that authentic experience? And why does it matter for relieving chronic pain, reducing stress, and even impacting your shape?
I know it sounds self-serving since I developed this method. I don’t feel that way, since its your bodies method. Once you get the tools, and they are very specific, your body then changes. It always goes in the right direction. It knows what to do. I am more of a coach making suggestions giving you tools.
Bodies are habitual. You probably stir your coffee a certain direction, part your hair on a certain side, eat the same foods, or talk in a certain way. We would be very concerned if we woke up and everything had changed. Most of us not only like the routine, but we will also do almost anything to keep it. In some way the habits, routine, become a barricade of sorts, that keeps bad things out. In some ways they create bad things too. It doesn’t always let new things, that could be good for us, in.
I was thinking about muscle memory today. As I was contemplating the topic for my next webinar, I thought about the ways in which we move at different times of our lives. For me, the greatest gift of The Miracle Ball Method, is improving my muscle memory. My next webinar is Miracle Ball Method for an Ageless Body. What’s the difference when you are a child moving about, middle aged or older? You bend over, reach your arms, run, and jump. But as most of us know, movement changes as we become adults and continues to change throughout our lives. It doesn’t seem to get easier to move. We don’t do a lot of pondering as to why, it’s just a given. We may feel we never recovered from an injury, or from a stressful event in our life. Perhaps we have lived with a chronic low back ache or are getting tighter and more inflexible each year. We compensate and adapt. We find ourselves with a limited range of motion, gradually over time. Muscle memory can be of tremendous help and yet most of us don’t improve it, so we lose it.
Do you remember the nursery rhyme, Goldilocks and the Three Bears? When Goldilocks tasted the porridge, she said, “this is too hot, this is too cold, this is just right!” Then she moved on to the furniture, “This is too hard, this is too soft, this is just right!” We make decisions based on what we like. More important to the story, she had choices. These decisions go on all day. Think of how you like your breakfast, or no breakfast? Do you like hot coffee or iced tea? What if you had no options? What I found through my own experience with chronic pain and anxiety, is I didn’t think I had any options to choose from. (more…)
It’s not always logical the way some people can have a tremendous amount of stress and seem to be very at ease with it, whereas others can have a seemingly easy life, with little stress, but feel miserable. Stress for some of us, builds its own momentum. Have you ever said to yourself,” if I just didn’t feel this way, I would be fine”?
How can we make it easier to live with the anxieties and stresses of everyday life, as well as the physical aches and pains that seem to go along with them? If we break it down, it’s not as overwhelming. What we don’t like about stress is the results, things like tight neck and shoulder muscles, anxiety, backaches, sleeplessness. There are probably hundreds of different physical and mental responses to stress, since we are all unique individuals. (more…)
I wanted to share a recent email from someone in the Saturday Workshop Series. It is a diverse group of people from around the world. She signed her email, Saturday Summer Camp of the Method! I think it says it all. For those of you thinking, what could I do to learn more? Here is an email from someone who had used the balls for a while, and just began taking ZOOM classes. The classes are great for taking your body to another level in the most miraculous way! (more…)
I am always amazed at pillow commercials. There is always a new pillow that is going to solve our back and neck problems, and give us a good night’s sleep, all at the same time. I love a good pillow just as much as anyone. I use them to read, watch television. I am not sure why we think they are necessary to keep our spine in correct alignment while we sleep. If the body was meant to have a pillow for sleep, then I think we would have been born with our own little pillow to match our bodies. Our bodies know how to adapt to all kinds of positions. Sleep is one of them. When we try to control our sleeping positions, we are going down the wrong road.
In Part 1 of the blog on the Mind Body Disconnection, we began to make a distinction between the thoughts about the body and feeling your body. In other words, having a personal experience with your body vs simply listening to information about your body. No one feels what you feel. That is why finding long term answers to lower back ache issues, anxiety, chronic injuries, are so difficult. We are all unique with many factors that contribute to how we feel physically. It becomes extremely difficult to say any one thing works for everyone.
Let your body reboot using your kinesthetic sense.
We leave out that little piece when we talk about the mind body connection. Yes, there is a connection between the mind and body. Although, I would describe it more heavily towards how disconnected we are from our bodies. Many of us make the mistake that “thinking” about the body, is the same as “feeling” the body. We “think” about the body in the same way we plan our day. These are all thoughts. Its kind of like “thinking” about what you are going to eat for dinner. That is quite different than having the experience of tasting your dinner.
Thinking about your body without physically experiencing your body, will not allow your body to recover, self-adjust, and recalibrate daily. As a result, we build up years of adaptations to injuries, coping mechanisms for stress and postural issues, that can result in many chronic aches and pains. The disconnect is important to understand because we keep “thinking” about the solutions. But it is the experience of increased “feeling” or “sensing “the physical body that will heal you. (Take a look at my classes that help reconnect your body and brain!) (more…)
I wonder why it is so hard for most of us to believe that the body knows how to make us feel better. It does take a bit of understanding, how to experience the body helping us to recover from our day to day stresses and strains, painlessly and easily. Most of us are driven by information and complicated thoughts related to what it will take to improve how we feel physically and mentally. Having done the method for my entire adult life, I have experimented through many difficult times. When I was sure nothing would help, I would experiment. When the last thing I wanted to do was breathe, I exhaled. When every muscle in my body responded with a resounding “no” just go to bed, nothing will help, I gave my body a chance to recover. It became a curiosity to me, why does this work? And why is it so easy if I step out of the way. (more…)
It’s an interesting thought. It very much applies to our bodies. We don’t feel what we don’t feel. Moving freely, relieving stress, many times requires us to feel our bodies in ways we are not familiar. When we go about it this way, we begin to notice our body actually gives us some clear direction and can give us feedback to take the stress off chronically tight muscles, being emotionally drained and more. Think about it, our bodies know how to do it. But to unlock this wisdom we need to ask the right questions of the body. That in turn will relieve the symptoms, or help you move easily and reshape your body. But for now, most of us, we don’t feel what we don’t feel.
That’s where the Hips on Two Balls move comes in!
A ‘Muffin Top’ is really just a silly way of referring to the muscles around the middle of the body that are somewhat underused.
Many of us exercise and get disappointed when our shape remains the same. We want our core or waist area to slim down, tighten up, or lengthen, yet it stays the same –but– other areas of our body get tighter and tighter.
Very, very irritating.
Let’s move this picture around!
In our first Ask Elaine audio segment, Elaine addresses questions concerning tight hip joints, alignment and SI joints.
Elbow on Ball is a great way to relieve stiffness in your shoulders and tightness in your neck. See page 223 in The Miracle Ball Method™ book for more details — and check out this video to see ball placement. Remember to take it slow and BREATHE…
Gravity. Got it love it! Here’s a Miracle Ball Method student at her desk at Stamford Office Furniture letting the weight of her body do something that another MBM student calls “stretching without stretching.” So easy and your back will feel so great afterwards. Have you done a Must-Do Move today? Yes? We want to see it! Post it on our Facebook page.