We all have unresolved emotions.  These emotions, from last week, last year, or twenty to fifty years ago, are carried with us.  If we did not resolve them or release them, it follows logically that we would carry these leftover emotions with us.  We “carry” them… with our muscles.  In our muscle memory.  If our muscles cannot handle the strain, our tendons become involved.  When tendons cannot handle the load, we use our structure, bones and ligaments, to support us.

This defense works quite well when our bones are well aligned, until we accidentally step off a curb, bend down and twist to pick up a pencil, or spend a few late nights in front of the computer, worrying about deadlines.  It is then that our faulty living patterns catch up to us.  We wonder how so simple a movement could have such a profound and detrimental effect.  It is important to realize that injuries do not occur in a vacuum.  The groundwork must have been laid; tension patterns, from our own daily mindset, must have existed for quite some time.  Injurious movements are much more like the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

When we were children and experienced a mild trauma, or a persistent emotional deficit, our bodies, just as they do now, responded to stress with muscle tension.  Some of our parents encouraged us to express and healthily release that tension.  Some did not.  Many of us instinctively developed a protective response that involved a certain posture… one that easily conveyed our lingering emotions to an astute observer.  However, most of us did not have a live-in posture interpreter.  These protective stances and patterns of muscular tension created armor for us… protecting us from any similar future harm.  However, they also prevent us now from responding to the world in a spontaneous, flexible and intimate way.  Our armor, once an excellent adaptation, is often no longer necessary, and is usually problematic or symptomatic, producing dis-ease.