Yesterday “Constance” sent me an email saying that she would have to skip one of our regular sessions. Then she sweetened the cancellation with this report:
“Last night at a concert I used your sitting position (both feet flat on the floor, head above spine and hands on legs) and had not one iota of back pain.”
I thought this was great because Constance has been living with a lot of pain and in our sessions so far we hadn’t worked that much on sitting.
Constance has been coming to see me privately for a little while because of pain in various places that is sometimes nagging and sometimes debilitating. It often surprises her with new manifestations.
During much of each session Constance lies on my padded table. At the end I ask her to sit and notice, briefly, how she feels.
She often reports that she sits upright more easily.
During one of our early sessions, I took out a notebook and showed her several photos of seated Egyptian pharaohs. From these sculptures, I call this way of sitting “Egyptian Pharaoh Pose.”
As you can see in the photo above, the posture is very upright and full of right angles.
Maybe it looks stiff to you. It’s not casual. It’s definitely regal.
It demonstrates “weight bearing through the skeleton.”
It has the advantage of efficiency. Once you feel comfortable like that, you can sit for a long time.
If you are in a lot of pain and try to sit like that, you probably won’t be comfortable. But if you do movements that bring you to a deeper state of relaxation, then sitting like that comes very naturally.
“Last night at a concert I used your sitting position (both feet flat on the floor, head above spine and hands on legs) and had not one iota of back pain.”
I thought this was great because Constance has been living with a lot of pain and in our sessions so far we hadn’t worked that much on sitting.
Constance has been coming to see me privately for a little while because of pain in various places that is sometimes nagging and sometimes debilitating. It often surprises her with new manifestations.
During much of each session Constance lies on my padded table. At the end I ask her to sit and notice, briefly, how she feels.
She often reports that she sits upright more easily.
During one of our early sessions, I took out a notebook and showed her several photos of seated Egyptian pharaohs. From these sculptures, I call this way of sitting “Egyptian Pharaoh Pose.”
As you can see in the photo above, the posture is very upright and full of right angles.
Maybe it looks stiff to you. It’s not casual. It’s definitely regal.
It demonstrates “weight bearing through the skeleton.”
It has the advantage of efficiency. Once you feel comfortable like that, you can sit for a long time.
If you are in a lot of pain and try to sit like that, you probably won’t be comfortable. But if you do movements that bring you to a deeper state of relaxation, then sitting like that comes very naturally.
When I asked Constance if I could talk about her experience in this post, she said, “Yes, of course, you may use my experience. It was truly wonderful for me.“
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