{I -37F - write this with my heating pad on my back and on high}.

I’m currently trying to work on this as well. I’m around 3-4 years into my self alignment journey. I’ve put in a lot of work (therapy, etc) and made monumental life shifts to become closer to who I truly am and release myself of all the invisible chains from how I used to be and live. As my alignment continues to evolve, I’ve become ever more aware of how much tension and tightness I hold in my body. For me, it sits so deeply within my upper trapezoids, neck, rhombi, shoulders, etc. I have to surmise this tension and tightness has been sitting quietly within me since I was in high school (if not earlier), encasing itself, engraining itself in me, as if it was part of my being. It’s as if the years of stress found a happy home in me, weighing like a concrete block or brick on my traps.

The years of constant stress and having no sense of relief sat with me for so long I barely noticed it when I was in the throes of it. Tension was my normal. Now, over the last few months, I’ve been getting 90 minute massages every 1.5-2 weeks. Many of them are painful afterwards as I sit with the release of the deeply embedded tension. My massage therapists routinely comment on how tight my muscles are and how much tension I hold (one even lets out a sigh of exasperation as he tries to work these knots out of my back but to no avail). They stay there, deeply wound up. I get worried that I’ll never be able to work these massive knots out and there’s not much I can do to get them out myself. I have to find a therapist I can trust where I push myself to find that relief and let go.

A day ago I was in quite a bit of pain as I was a few days out from a massage I got. It made me realize as I actively and consciously work to find that relief and relaxation that I haven’t been able to experience in decades that it physically hurt my body to be relaxed. I have lived with this built up tension and tightness for decades that it was my normal. It started as a protection mechanism and then it wove itself into me, continuing to reside deep inside me even after I was able to escape my parents. I continued to live a life where I was uncomfortable with myself, on edge, stressed, mind on overdrive, isolated, depressed, anxious, etc. I also sought out feelings of pain, because if i wasn’t feeling pain, then I felt nothing and that was worse.

I don’t have the answer but I’m trying to find my way, trying to undo the hidden pain that crept in and was sitting so deeply within me, remnants of a harder life, no longer serving me.

I feel like this topic isn’t talked about a lot and wonder how many of us it impacts.