How Deep is Your... Anxiety

So that title, you're supposed to sing it. It's a little chuckle. Oh, come on; you don't go around all day editing song lyrics to fit your circumstances? Well, you're missing out. 

Yesterday I was at my chiropractor's office for my bi-monthly adjustment, and I mentioned how the most common back soreness I develop seems to come from the way I sleep. He took this rather seriously. I described my typical sleep position, and he said it is a very common problem and is essentially the evolutionary "self- defense" posture. 

Hmm. Habitually curling up into self-defense when at my most vulnerable. Interesting exposé of a lifelong habit. 

He says this keeps my back muscles taut all night long, which they don't like, and he suggested I make a concerted effort to sleep more straight and to tell myself this before going to sleep, and throughout the night. 

So I did. 

And let me tell ya something. I had the very unusual experience of nightmares all night long where I was being hunted down to be killed. I was running through a building trying to escape and outwit the maniac. It was like my body knew I was leaving it unguarded and something in me was hitting a panic button.

It is fascinating to me how deeply the human body will hold on to things that the mind isn't even aware of. 

As I was cooking today, my mind wandered to a conversation I had with a friend, oh about 26 or 27 years ago. At one time I took her into my confidence when I was really struggling with how I was being treated by a married man where the power differential left me, well, quite vulnerable. I remembered that her response was to pray with me out loud to cast out demons. I don't, you know, fault her, though looking back I realized today that was such an inappropriate response. We were youngish GenX and obviously neither of us had any idea of how to react. But I realized that her response made me feel like I was crazy, and obviously the one with the problem in the scenario. 

It's fascinating to me how the mind will burp up things when the body makes changes.

On that note, I'm off to exercise, and I'm looking forward to trying this sleep experiment further.