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Neck, shoulders and upper back, 3: Negotiating with your body

by | Jun 8, 2025

A Micro Pause where we practice viewing our relationship to our bodies as a negotiating one.

Body Intelligence is about treating your body as an ally, not an obstacle, and with allies we negotiate, we do not demand.

Demanding of your muscles to release their grip and extent into their full length (by applying a hard pull) is not very useful. Negotiating with them to do so is much more efficient.

Why? Because thats how the nervous system works. The muscle need to feel like its safe to extend (in the sense that it won’t cause it to break and/or not being able to contract again) in order to let go of its grip. On the level of the nervous system this can be accomplished by a continuous action of gently pulling and releasing.

Body Intelligence Program,
Free your neck shoulder and upper back
Neck,
Self awareness,
Self knowledge,
Shoulders,
Upper back

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A Micro Pause to train you to become aware of subtle sensation in the body. When we work with the neck, we work with small muscles, and consequently sensations will be less. When we apply a lot of force on these structures, such as pulling them to get a stretch, the result is often more tension. It takes a bit of practice to really become aware of subtle sensations in the body, and the rewards for doing the practice are great.

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