Finding a Fascial Pattern and sending it on vacation

Do the mini-lesson ‘inside and outside’ first and give yourself a break before you launch into this one…

If you have a pattern of muscle engagement that is causing suffering, the first thing to do is love on it. Habits resist, otherwise. And then negotiate and even pander: you have been so good to me, don't you think you deserve a vacation?' Here is how to help that vacation happen. (This assumes you can find fascial patterns from Inside and Outside.)

pick a movement where the pattern--in this case I picked engaged scalenes--is actually superfluous. I picked tucking my chin. I can use the scalenes to do that, but actually letting gravity pull my big heavy brain down is much easier. (If you are having trouble coming up with a superfluous movement pattern, realize that many Body Wisdom movement lesson variations are meant to explose those...)

be sure you are in a less demanding position for this movement; I'm sitting and relatively skeletal

Once you have picked this unnecessary engagement, sample it—do it—and be sure that you can feel when the muscle or system of muscles and fascia engages, feel it from the inside and the outside. Give your mind a chance to absorb and recalibrate that inside-outside mapping.

Now slowly move from imagining dropping your head without the help of yourb scalenes, to dropping almost invisibly to doing barely visibly to doing it more... but always stopping before you actually engage. Become the expert on that pre-leaping-in-to-help sensation, and become a PRO at backing off before the scalene just has to jump in. You may find yourself spending a lot of time in the imagination sector before moving on to the almost-invisible sector—that’s great!

Each time, ask yourself 'how could it be easier?' Easier could come from a way you sequence your breath, or a slight adjustment in your posture or a change in how you use your eyes--a softening of your tongue. The easier the move, the less the scalenes will feel they have to help and the further you can drop your head without them gearing up to help you. (But can you feel the ‘gearing up’?)

This should be applicable for all sorts of chronic contraction patterns, not just the scalenes.