Blog

A Message From Pain and Grief ….and the Wisdom of our Body

“There is healing on the other side of pain’
My Yamuna Body School Healing Experience
February 22, 2021
Ruth Neil Stover

This is a story that could be anyone’s story…It could be your story, your sister’s story, your best friend’s story, or your spouse’s story.

I know we can all relate to unexplained pain in our body showing up suddenly and without any reasonable explanation for its cause. We make excuses for why it’s there…and often ignore it or push thru it.
(It’s always inconvenient when it shows up, isn’t it?)

And it limits or restricts our life, and we just want to get beyond it!
So we take a pain pill, or do something else to ease the pain; we wear a brace, stretch, take a hot bath, or get a massage. Our hope is that it just goes away soon. And then we push on.

Maybe it subsides, or maybe it gets worse. But mostly it’s an inconvenience in our lives we wish would just go away.

But what if…what if your body was trying to tell you something?
Something important that you need to address before it gets worse?

I have a story to share and I hope that you can see a piece of yourself in, or at least let it be cause for reflection in healing your own life and body.

My Story-
Last fall out of the blue, I developed a restriction in my right hip that just came out of nowhere. It started in the fall of 2020 and progressively got worse until I could not move my right leg in a lateral rotation. (Picture sitting “criss cross applesauce”) that is lateral rotation of the femur, the thigh bone in the hip socket. Normally I have a wide range of movement in my joints, but over the course of a couple of months, suddenly I could not sit this way without extreme pain. My leg would not even move that way! And there was no trauma or injury that could have caused this. My chiropractor diagnosed it as “hip capsulitis” Basically a frozen hip. (Like frozen shoulder…only of the hip) There is no explanation for it, and it often comes on suddenly causing acute pain and restricted movement.

I have been faithfully doing exercises over recent months to increase my range of movement and getting adjustments regularly…with some improvement, but not anywhere near my normal. And still the pain is there.

If you know me, you know that I don’t take ”I’m just getting old” as a reasonable explanation for these sort of things happening to my body, even though most people around me want to tell me that’s the reason……
that it’s my age. (Including my husband….Really?!!)

I don’t accept that, and my story will shed some light on what I learned this weekend. Maybe it will help you too!

I know there is an energetic, mental and emotional component to all things we experience here in the physical body. I have studied energetic healing and use it, and I understand how it works. Many of you may have had the experience of having emotion well up when you release a tight area in your body…maybe in a yoga class, or on a massage table. Suddenly tears well up and it’s not physical pain that causes it, but an emotional release related to this area of the body.

There is a real connection to the emotions we store, or deny, and how it shows up in the body. We all know that stress can cause illness…this is the same thing.

My healing school teacher used to say
”the last place it shows up is in the physical”

In other words, if we don’t address our emotional pain, if we stuff it down, and deny it, push through it, eventually it will manifest in a way that we cannot ignore….in our physical body. Usually through physical pain, restriction or disease.

And it takes work; emotional work and physical work, and a willingness to focus on it in order to release it.

Another saying my teacher had was…
”The only way out is through”

And it’s true. Some of the body work I am trained in allows me to explore more deeply how to do this. We have to face it and move through the pain on all levels, in order to heal it.

My Healing Work-the practice

One of my favorite modalities of body work is Yamuna Body Rolling. I have been a practitioner for years and have taught many students this method and seen some life changing transformations with this work.
Most of the Yamuna Body Rolling work focuses on the use of small balls of different size and density that we roll on following the bone and muscle fiber direction of each area of the body we work. It is meant to stimulate the bone, release the muscles and the patterns we hold- the areas that are tight or out of alignment. This takes focus. It takes awareness of what is happening in our body, and patience; going slowly to really sink in and listen to what the body is telling us. It’s different from foam rolling or any other modality you may have tried. It is very specific work that has the intent to work with the bone and allow you to get into areas that a roller or harder ball will not. And it can realign the body.

Well…..I just finished and amazing 4 days focusing on my body and doing this work in Yamuna Body School. It’s an annual event put on by Yamuna Body Rolling, taught by its founder Yamuna Zake. Usually it is held in a warm sunny tropical destination as a retreat. Well….this year everything is different, and so she offered it as a virtual retreat over 4 days. I have always wanted to attend, but with running a business, it was hard to take the time or find the resources to do so. And so, I was thrilled for the opportunity to finally attend online, and even more so at seeing the schedule focusing on body parts I needed help with!

I signed up and we began on Friday morning…early. Eastern time was 9:30 am, but here on the West
Coast where I live, we started at 6:30. (No problem, ….my only commute was to my living room, so I got
out of bed, dressed and went down to make my morning tea, let the dogs out and feed them in the 30
min before class began.) Ready to go on my mat at 6:30am!

(My Remi waiting for his food)

Yamuna Body School- Healing the body by Rolling on Balls!

We started each morning with an hour of focused expansive breath work. This is one of Yamuna’s signature offerings and she held many free morning breath classes via social media at the
start of the pandemic. I have to be honest, it is difficult for me. I get restless. I feel pain in my ribs
on the back of my left side, and it’s hard sometimes to expand fully and hold the breath in.
Hard to really focus on filling my lungs. Even after teaching decades of yoga, I find it a challenge to
really breathe deeply, completely filling my lungs and holding my breath in for a time. After 4 days I seemed to have had a bit of a breakthrough, and the morning on our last day was easier, I was more aware of where I held stuck patterns. More on this in a minute…..

(My Teacher Yamuna Zake)

The 2nd hour of each morning focused on foot work. Her new work focuses on prop-less foot training, which means anyone can do it any time anywhere! I had taken the initial training when she offered it last fall, but this daily practice was a nice dive into more focused work. Really feeling the outside line of the foot, stimulating the heel, being aware of how we stand on our feet and where we collapse. I found myself walking and standing more solidly on my feet the rest of the day after our morning classes.

Once we completed the morning breath work and foot work and after a short morning break the work began. Each day we spent 2- 2 1/2 hours of focused work on a specific area of the body. The first day was building from the feet up the legs to the hips. Finding the areas we hold tension and learning to use the various Yamuna Balls to release those areas. Day 2 was a focus on the hips and pelvis. This was the work I was most interested in.

The chronic pain I had been feeling in my right hip I hoped to find some relief for. I have to say it was amazing. It was hard, there was a lot of restriction, but by the end of the day I felt an ease in the joint that I had not felt in months. It’s not completely gone, but improved by 80% at least. I do not feel the constant restriction I have had for the past 5-6 months. WOW!! But…there was an even more important breakthrough on day 3 when we worked the spine.

My Healing Breakthrough-

As I mentioned, I have regular pain in the back on the left side of my rib cage. It’s pain I don’t think about or focus on, but I usually feel it at the end of the day when I am laying down in bed. It feels painful and restricted on my left side when I breathe, as if the rib cage on that side can’t expand without pain for me to take a deep breath. I had not thought about this connection before this weekend.

On day 3, the day after I had relief in my hip, we rolled the spine specifically focusing on releasing out from the spine across to the lateral side of the body. (Across the ribs to the side of the body.)

While I worked on my left side, rolling across the part of my ribs that hurt when I lay down, I suddenly felt a wave of emotion come over me, and tears welled up in my eyes. It wasn’t from physical pain that the tears came. It was from deep inside…and emotional wounding. As I completed the work, it was physically painful as I worked through my restrictions on the ribs on the left, but I did it. And when I finished I collapsed face down in my living room and sobbed. I cried not from the physical pain I was experiencing, but from some place deep inside…an emotional pain that I had been holding. I let it well up and flow out to be released….letting it sink into the floor under me as I cried.

I have had these kinds of emotional releases in the past doing this work, so it was not unfamiliar to me. But it has been a very long time since I have experienced it. I recognized part of this was because I have pushed these emotions down….stuffed them so that I could keep functioning. For a long time now.

Connecting the Dots…When Emotional Pain becomes Physical

I did some writing about it that night and began to put the pieces together. In Chinese medicine grief is stored in the lungs. Feeling restricted in my breathing…..relates to my holding on to, or denying my grief.

I have in the last decade experienced more than my share of loss and grief. And in the last 5 years it came to a head with the loss of both of my parents. My father passed first and then I took on being a caretaker for my mother with dementia. The pain and stress of watching it slowly take her, where she at times did not know me, was agonizing and emotionally draining. Her passing at the end of 2019 after 3 years of the stress of being her caretaker, questioning and doubting myself if I had done enough, well……it nearly broke me.

Then in early 2020, only 4 months after my mother passed, and after 12 years of being in business, I was forced to close my brick and mortar Pilates studio due to the Covid pandemic and the subsequent financial losses I sustained. It emotionally gutted me. My studio was a place that was my 2nd home, a place I had built with love in the community to serve others and share my work with the world. It was my mark on the world… something significant I had created that was a positive impact on the lives of the people I served.

And it was gone…all of it…..just gone.

***(And a side note…the pain in my hip showed up around the same time my adult daughter was very sick with Covid in early October of 2020. I was an emotional wreck, and the fear of losing her was real for a couple of weeks….more grief and fear- perhaps it was the final trigger??)

The Healing Power of Acknowledging Our Grief

Grief is not just about the death of a loved one; a person or a pet. We can feel deep grief over the loss of
a relationship, a home, a job, a business.

Grief can apply to the loss of anything that we love; if something has been meaningful in our life and we feel deeply emotional over its loss from our life, that is grief. I have experienced all of these losses. And it
seemed that the grief of the past 5 years was something I had not fully processed through. I have not fully acknowledged the pain and how it has changed me. I have stuffed down, and held it together so that I could function. Trying to keep doing my work…as if it was something I could ignore, and just move on.

But I can’t ignore it. It has changed me. I am not the same. And it’s ok.

We will be different from our losses. And that is ok. We will always feel them, but they become a part of us and we can still continue to grow and build on the love they brought into our lives. And it is from this point of recognition, that we can begin the healing process.

And I know that many of us are dealing with our own versions of grief now.
As a nation we are grieving the loss of of half a million of our fellow Americans from Covid. You may have lost a loved one. Many of us have lost jobs, homes or businesses. Grief comes in many forms and takes its
toll on us in many different ways. Let yourself honor your grief and give yourself grace…allow yourself the time to heal in the way you need to.

I learned on the last day of Body School in the morning breath work, that my grief is directly related to my recent hip pain. As I worked on breathing in to my left side, I saw and felt it, both physically and energetically, the connection from the back side of my left rib cage to my right hip. (My lungs- not being able to take a deep breath) Hmmm…well isn’t that interesting??? It makes sense to me now!!

Energy Healing and the Messages of the Body

In energy medicine, the left side of the body is the feminine; receptivity, the ability to take in and acceptance. And the right side represents the masculine; giving out, letting go, grounded strength. The insight I have. gained is that I have distorted the masculine…(something I have a tendency to do) in my need to push through my grief rather than fully acknowledge it. And the hip represents moving forward….or a problem there represents a fear of moving forward, as Louise Hay’s amazing work
defines. This pain in my right hip is from not honoring myself and my process to grieve and heal while standing in my own strength and power, instead it has become “frozen”, rigid, immovable. The pain is caused by me pushing through because I think I have to. The healing will come by allowing myself time to grow from this grief and then moving forward in the right time for me. It is then I can change this pattern and begin to heal.

“Just do it” is not a motto to follow in healing work.
And there is no time limit on healing.
We evolve as we need to.
In our own time.

This is just one insight into how healing works.
We don’t have to accept that every pain in our body means we are
permanently changing and we will never be the same because “we are
old” now.

If there is an imbalance, there is a way to bring balance back.
And if we are willing to listen, to take our time and honor where we are
both physically and emotionally, we can get there, and be better on the
other side.

Sending you love and light for your own healing journey.
Be gentle with yourself.

Much Love,
Ruth

Do you have back pain? Or shoulder, knee or hip pain? You know, the kind of pain that maybe isn’t keeping you from doing your daily tasks, but it is always there, and a constant reminder when you move in a certain way and there is…….OUCH! ….flaring up and making you feel restricted. Well…me too. I have had pain in my low back for years. (Well, it’s been decades actually!) You learn to live with it, push beyond it when you can, and pay for it later. Sound familiar?

Those of you that know me may know I am always intrigued to learn new things about the body and how it works. (I jokingly call myself the “queen of continuing education”!) I have recently found a new system that I personally have gotten amazing results from! It is called The Rossiter System®, or Rossiter Stretching® and its focus is to release tight connective tissue. (Also known as Fascia….you may have heard of it recently, it’s a common “buzz word” in the fitness industry now.)

What is Facia?
What fascia does essentially is act as a casing for our muscles. It “connects all connective tissue”…. that means muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones. Because it encases the muscles, it reduces friction as the muscles move against each other. It is a supportive and movable wrapping for our nerves and blood vessels as they pass between the muscles. It holds things in place!
Have you seen what is called “silver skin” on the outside of a piece of meat? This is the animal’s fascia…or connective tissue. Our muscles are the same; each individual muscle is covered with this casing or fascia. Often when this casing gets tight, or there has been an injury that causes scar tissue to develop, the tension in the injured area begins pulling things out of place in the body. The end result then is a body that feels constricted and tight. And this can result in pain in our body, or pain with movement.
This tightness and resulting pain can be caused by many things. It might be a muscle tear from over use, or tension caused by repetitive movements that result in wearing down of a joint. The body then responds by building up the area with more tissue in an attempt to protect itself. The constriction in the fascia might be the result of over stretched tissue…or what my PT used to call “going beyond yourself”.  Either way, whatever the source is, the result is usually pain in our body and restriction in our movement. But now with Rossiter®, we have a way to release tightness and regain movement!

How does Rossiter work?
The concept of Rossiter Stretching® is that you are the “person in charge” of the workout. (You are the PIC) After filling out the appropriate health history forms, and informing your coach about any injuries, we will target a workout for you. The Rossiter workouts consist of upper body or lower body workouts. For example if you have shoulder issues, we would focus on stretching the arms, chest and shoulder areas to release tight connective tissue. For the lower body, (Back, hip, knee, foot or ankle pain/tightness) we would focus on a lower body workout.
The workout consists of the coach pinning a muscle (pin and stretch technique) by applying weight with the foot, and you as the PIC are in control of how much weight is applied. From there, you will “lock” or flex the feet and arms/hands to create a maximum stretch in the tissue and then begin stretching the area of focus as directed by your coach. The entire stretching routine is only a few seconds, and it is repeated 2-3x. We most often stretch several areas (a group of muscles nearby to each other- say lower on the arm, the biceps/and then chest muscles.) We stretch on one side of the body, and then focus on the opposite side to create balance. It is something that is lasting, (usually beyond just a few hours- often days or weeks and beyond the session. And once we get the tissue re-aligned to its new home in the body, it can potentially last much longer. I find that you will really get results if you work to your full potential, and do regular maintenance sessions.

Pain relief made easy!
I want to share my personal experience with you because I am living proof that this is really works! As I mentioned, I have had chronic back pain for many years due to herniated discs in my lumbar spine. (low back) Pilates helps me to keep the supporting muscles strong, and Yamuna Body Rolling® has been a life saver to help release tight muscles and stimulate bone, to help regain some balance to the skeletal structure. But I do have to keep up with regular Chiropractic adjustments and have done numerous rounds of spinal decompression to relieve pressure on the discs (to relieve pain in my back). I often have what I humorously refer to as “sleeping injuries”…you know the kind where you wake up in the morning and getting out of bed you feel like you were hit by a truck in your sleep!!? I sleep on my side, which does not help in the least with keeping my pelvis in a good neutral alignment, and my low back suffers. I’m sure you get the picture, and perhaps can relate it to your own life.

Well…..on a recent weekend I did my level 2 training for Rossiter. Getting up early to drive rush hour traffic thru Seattle isn’t my favorite when I wake up in pain. (Well. To be honest, it is NEVER my favorite! But we won’t digress here to the state of traffic in our city.) Upon my arrival to the training, my body felt tight and fairly miserable after being in the car for 2 hours to get there on a Friday morning in rush hour traffic. (Believe me, there was NO RUSHING involved in this drive!)
During my training, part of the practice of learning is to observe the practice, then exchange with a partner; to both receive as the client, and then practice as the coach to take the client thru the stretches. I was amazed by one of the routines we did for the low back!! During the stretch my back gave a gentle self-adjustment (popped back in to place).  And when I stood up, I could feel that my pelvis had shifted back to a more neutral alignment. My whole body felt more freedom, less restriction- more open, and it was easier to move. And the pain was gone!! This was just from a simple, fairly quick, guided stretching session that my coach took me thru. WOW!! The best part is that upon waking the next morning, rolling out of bed was not the same. I had been in a significant amount of pain for at least 2 months, every day, with every move, due to my stubborn insistence that I dig holes for my roses in a new garden all by myself!! And the strain on my back using a pick and shovel to dig these holes, resulted in 2 months of back pain. (Don’t try this yourself at home…recruit a strong young man to do the job for you!) I had actually tried spinal decompression again at my chiropractor, but only 2 sessions was not enough to really get me out of pain. THIS ROSSITER HAD DONE IT!!! In the days and weeks after this session at my training, I continue to have a significant reduction in the amount of pain I had been experiencing for months previous! Just from just a couple of sessions of Rossiter Stretching® over the weekend! (And it has lasted!) I am so pleased to experience this pain free state of being for so long after the initial session, that I am excitedly here to share it with all of you!!

Private Sessions now available!
I am now offering these Rossiter sessions at the studio. If you have any tightness, or pain in your body, (or even if you don’t- it still feels great!) Please reach out to me to ask about scheduling a session to experience this great new system to relieve pain, and facilitate better movement in your body. I believe the body is always working to heal itself, and this wonderful Rossiter System® is one of the non-invasive tools we can use to help our body do that!
You can choose from a single session or: I recommend a pack of multiple sessions so that you can really benefit from repeated stretching: A pack of 4 sessions or 8 sessions that can be used over time as you desire. See our website for details Corestar Pilates & Wellness and to purchase and schedule your Rossiter appointment!

You can reach me here….. ruth@corestarpilates.com to schedule a session.

Dreams do come true……..
Our Thanksgiving Day Sampler started as a small class that I decided to teach on Thanksgiving morning, the first year I opened the studio in Auburn Washington. From my days of teaching at the gym, I remembered how much fun it was to have class the morning of Thanksgiving, teaching alongside other teachers and everyone getting a good workout in before the big meal! I came up with the idea of making it a fundraiser for the Food Bank and everyone was on board. The first year I offered it we had about 15 people attend and raised under $100. Thru the years, this idea grew, and became something beyond my first inspiration. And here we are now….at year 10!

Around my 4th year of doing this, my dear friend and colleague Clarissa Ruston, who works at the Auburn Parks & Recreation Dept., offered to help find us a larger space to teach our Sampler in, and hopefully reach a larger audience with our mission. We moved into the Truitt Building for a few years and our classes expanded.

Clarissa invited me each year to the annual Food Bank Breakfast, (which if you haven’t attended…you need to!) It is a testimony to the wonderful work that Debbie Christian and her staff do to help people in need in our community. You hear directly from the people whose lives have been changed with the help of the Auburn Food Bank. One year I sat in the audience listening to the speakers and felt so moved and inspired by their stories. I looked up and realized I was sitting in a gymnasium. I leaned over to Clarissa and said….”What if we could get this space to use for our class? Imagine how many more people we could have attend if we had a gymnasium this size to teach in?” In that moment it was as if I saw a window open and clearly envisioned us being in a gym this size, with a large audience of students attending our annual event. It was inspiring!

Well….it was only a few years later, that vision I had on the morning of our Food Bank Breakfast was manifest into reality! In the past 5 years we have had the honor of being able to host our classes in the Auburn Washington Community Center Gym. And a couple of years ago, we had over 40 people attend and raised $1200 in donations and over 100lbs of food to donate! WOW!!

Our amazing teachers at Corestar have joined in the cause and willingly donate not only their time to teach on the morning of Thanksgiving , some driving long distances to participate….but they spend the months prior gearing up our promotion to get the word out to our community. We teach a 30 minute blend of the classes they offer at the studio; Pilates, Yoga, Barre, and some fun Cardio Fitness. I am grateful to each of them and to my friend and cohort in this mission, Clarissa, for helping me make this dream a reality.

I am here to say, that dreams DO come true. It only takes dedication, a little hard work, and lots of help from your friends.

If you would like to join us tomorrow morning, you can drop in or register here to save a spot for you and your friends!

From all of us at Corestar to all of you: Happy Thanksgiving and a wish for the coming holiday season to be filled with blessings for each of you!

With love and gratitude,
Ruth and the Corestar Staff

Our Thanksgiving Day Sampler Class in the Auburn Community Gym

Our Corestar Teachers:
Lisa, Erin, Ruth, Paige & Angie

The Auburn Art Walk fills downtown businesses with music, local artists, art, and fine wines. Auburn, Washington’s Historic Downtown will come alive with artists displaying and selling their original handmade, quality paintings, mosaics, and wearable art work in contemporary galleries through the Main Street businesses.

Corestar Pilates will again host artists, musicians and wine in our upcoming Art Walk on May 11th 5:30-8:30pm. This is a free event that showcases local artists in local businesses. In addition to wine tasting, this year the Art walk will host some of our fine local breweries for tasting. Wine and beer tasting tickets are available for advance purchase in the studio now.

Join us for the fun!

Wine Tasting Tickets can be purchased in advance at the information booths along Main St. at Plaza Park and AVCA Gallery, Corestar Pilates and Zola’s Cafe. Cost is $20 for 8 one oz. tastes, wine glass and bottle bag, add’l tastes available for $2 each.

If you’ve already bought your tickets: The day of the event, please check in at one of the information booths to receive your walking map and your wine tasting ticket, glass, and information.

Check out a few photos from our space last year. We can’t wait to host again!

If you would like to learn more about Corestar Pilates and what we do, please contact us!