Bryce Hodgkinson - Coaching

4 exercises to reduce back tightness:

The lower back is often neglected. It gets tight, and then people go stretch their legs to resolve it. I don't see that working quickly.

A different strategy is required. We can relax our lower back by decompressing it. The breath naturally does this if our diaphragms aren't restricted by too much sitting.

To enable a restricted diaphragm to again relax the lower back, we can block out the front of our abdomen and rib cage. This forces our lower back to expand, instead of our belly and chest moving out and forward.

Your mileage may vary with each of the activities pictured. Pick the activities which seem the most comfortable. Stay in them only while they're comfortable. Breathe silently, and exhale for at least 5 seconds.

The first two activities and the last are easier to understand. The third activity is actually subtly moving the shoulder blades into positions where the back can better decompress. It seems like black magic, but if you find a feeling of relaxation in activities 1 and 2 and now know what to look for, activity 3 will make more sense.

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From my weekly health newsletter (link in bio):

I think one of the most important things we can do is make the mysterious mundane. I find this brings importance to the details in our everyday experience.

Today, let's unpack Souls. What's a Soul? Why is it important?

Souls are funny things. By funny, I'm referring mostly to the confusion around the multitude of meanings for the word.

Is it the part of you that goes on after you die?
Is it something specifically Christian?
Or the part of you that isn't Spirit, is you, but isn't your physical self?

I'm not great at answering the above questions.

Here I'm defining the soul as the experience in consciousness of what's important to us. For our purposes, while you're reading this newsletter, the soul is the collection of emotions, values, and resulting stories about what we want to do. This is admittedly my favourite definition of the soul, borrowed mostly from alchemical work. If you prefer a different one, I bet you'll still find the practice I share at the end useful.

The benefit of labelling the pile of feelings guiding our desires our Soul is that it gives those desires a greater sense of importance.

There's a challenge today that our individual thoughts and wants might be overridden by what social media and news outlets are telling us is proper (this isn't new). I think creating more ego around the importance of our unique desires is helpful for leading a fulfilling life.

In practice, the (daily? weekly?) question becomes, "What does my Soul want?"

I like to ask myself this question often and repeatedly. I also ask myself, "do I really want that?" And "is it really my Soul asking that?".

I find it takes me weeks of reflecting on these questions to get consistent answers.

How about you?

So when you hear about an alchemist or some other fancy esoteric practitioner talking about soul work, it's likely they're doing emotional processing and inspecting their internal thoughts.

I share this not to make doing Soul Work boring, but to bring magnificence to the daily experience of our internal world.

Want more like this? Subscribe to my weekly health newsletter with the link in my bio.

In Health,
Bryce

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Did you know that the fastest way to increase shoulder mobility is to relax on your back with your legs in a specific position?

That the greatest researched determinant of happiness is the size of the person's vocabulary they use to describe their emotions?

That not wearing your glasses or using an out of date prescription will reduce your flexibility immediately?

I'm finding ways for my clients to lift easier, acro stronger, and live happier, and I write short essays on what works every week.

If you want details on the odd but important parts of health, sign up for my wellness newsletter at the link in my bio, or on my website.