What’s wild (but not surprising) is that as I’ve shared about each of the quadrants they have become my own ground of study for my personal healing process. So naturally, this past week has been ALL ABOUT my front quadrant. Last week I became aware of deep numbness and a lack of the ability to connect and sense anything there. Like an old school dead phone line. So this week I have taken a full plunge into my front space, with internal and external work, lots of prayer, and expanded my breathing.
TODAY I got the missing link for maintaining health in the anterior quadrant! I am so excited to share!
Before we get into it, I just want to say aaaaaaaaagain that this information is not meant to tell YOU what your body is or isn’t telling you. It is intended to help grow and encourage you to open up and engage in deep and sincere communication with your own self! Bam!
Okay. So now, information from THE ANTERIOR or FRONT QUADRANT!
The front quadrant says:
YES.
I AM HERE.
HERE WE GO.
I take up space and I matter.
I impact my life and the world.
This quadrant is about your impact and effect on your life. A collapsed or tangled front side may show up as anxiety, extreme or subtle fear, or lack of self expression. You may find that you’re awesome at responding to things like quickly problem solving during a crisis, or showing up for someone else when they need something. You can do a good job if someone else tells you YOU NEED to do it. What’s hard for you to do is what YOU WANT. You may have a hard time acting on your own ideas or desires, like that dream project you’ve always wanted to make happen. And, if you do act on your dream/desire, you may have a hard time seeing it through (embodying it) to completion or to it’s fullest expression. (This past week has been about just allowing myself to see and feel that dream with clarity!)
This quadrant is about vulnerability. Intimacy. Your own Power. It’s the landscape of being seen, visible, and recognized, and enjoying it! It’s a powerful place to work with intimacy issues, and that good old (ancestral) wound of witch burning and/or being hunted because of your awesome valuable knowledge.
When I first discovered the potential of the front of my pelvic bowl, I was learning and experiencing vulva healing, a healing practice from Tantra yoga that addresses the interior of the vaginal walls and the potent energy centers therein. The practice is similar yet not exactly like HPC™ and thousands of years older. I was astounded at how aware and how much sensation and sensitivity I could have in the front and in front of my body, both physically and energetically. I was amazed at how long I had lived without even knowing I was missing awareness there; I didn’t know there was anything there to be noticing!
If you want to stop just reacting or responding to life, and instead you want to bring forth your dreams, wishes, wisdom, gifts, and joy into the world, the front of your pelvis is a very good place to explore and inhabit.
NOW….
Both the adventure and challenging part of the anterior is that it often holds the pain of our fear, as well as the feeling of fear itself. You may find that just bringing your focus to the front of your body can be a hazy or anxiety producing experience.
Before we switch automatically into either fight, flight, or freeze, we can get caught in a haze as we slowly or quickly disconnect, slipping into functioning unconsciously from our autonomic nervous system. Slipping from the front of our brain (mindful choice place) down to the bottom (habit reaction automatic place), fear produces this response:
1) Feel fear
2) Feel hazy or disoriented
3) Experience fight, flight or freeze
Either in milliseconds or over the course of days, without being interrupted it leads us to functioning from our unconscious coping mechanisms.
(I am a perfect example- when I’m scared I often experience ‘freeze.’ My unconscious patterns running recently exhibited mental freeze as well as action freeze, i.e I couldn’t get clear and I couldn’t get much done.)
Behind this fear, however, is FLOW!
Awesome, synchronistic, easeful flow- an energy to meet and greet the world! Meaning an energy that flows outward from you. Reaching out and engaging, not just responding or reacting.
The breath is especially important when exploring the front pelvis. It is the only thing we need to carry us consciously through feeling fear to connecting with flow, instead of disassociating and abandoning ship.
Here’s the key ingredient and BodyWisdom key to working with the front quadrant of the pelvis:
Your lungs, intercostals (muscles in between the rib cage), and diaphragm are the essential body partners to this zone.
See here’s the thing about working with areas of body and their wisdom, they are still always in deep connection, interconnection, and relationship with the rest of you. Isolation is in many ways an educational endeavor and the healing comes in the unification of self with self. Body part with body part, soul with body, mind with action, heart with words, etc.
So to truly support you with your anterior quadrant we need to take a brief visit over to BREATHING HEADQUARTERS….
One of the biggest “dangers” to bodywork and yoga and most healing practices is halting the breath. If you are not breathing with and through the journey you compress and split (further usually) yourself. Which is literally counter productive to the expansive and space-making goals of building strength, engagement, and flexibility.
So let’s talk about breathing and how to’s:
(Please pardon my gross over simplification of these ancient, complex, and awesome practices)
Hatha yoga= the yoga of posture and structure
Vinyasa= the yoga of flow, movement
Kundalini= the yoga of energy
Pranayama= the yoga of breath
The point of this is to say that the study of breath is as complex, full, and rich as any hatha or vinyasa class you’ve ever heard of.
In massage school they taught us that the diaphragm and use of breath is long known to be the FASTEST way to access the unconscious, or connect the unconscious with the conscious.
Breath is Important, so how do we use it in a healing, helpful way? Watch the video for STEP 3 in which I guide you through some tips for breathing while engaging.
We’ll start with some breath awareness building exercises, and then guide you through how to apply that while you do this or any healing/restorative/transformational work.
And as always, don’t use this as a way to beat yourself up on how “wrong” you’ve been doing anything! First of all – what is “wrong” anyway? And second, blaming yourself doesn’t help you relax and breathe deeper. Say thank you to the path that brought you here and use this to build yourself a step along your way.
Today’s next step is great way to get into a space that can be a little elusive (We’re still working from the outside though, not internally)
Step 3: Engagement
When we do this simple exercise (a variation on the Tantra practice I was given) we are moving our hips, engaging the muscles, partnering our breath with our awareness and movement. We move slow enough to breathe, witness and love ourselves.
Learn about the Left Quadrant – Intuition & Nurturing – Step 1
Learn about the Right Quadrant – Manifestation and Protection – Step 2
Learn about the Posterior/Back Quadrant – Trust and Support – Step 4
Foundational concepts inspired by certification and training in Holistic Pelvic Care™ by Tami Lynn Kent and her written work, specifically Wild Feminine: Finding Power, Spirit & Joy in the Female Body.
