This section addresses the following questions:

• I felt a lot of anger doing this exercise; anger at myself, which I know is anger I have turned inwards because it couldn’t go outwards. Do I just keep titrating this lesson or do I need to shift to an anger lesson?
• This exercise was very triggering for me. I had to pause a few times and either silent scream, shake, or just orient and come back from intense thoughts or emotions. Fundamentally, the idea of creating space in my joints feels terrifying. I’ve always had hypermobility, have had joint dislocations over time, and then of course the pubic joint birth injury which turned into chronic pubic separation/instability. That is why I’m disabled now. I have this fear of my body not holding together. I feel like this just isn’t a good exercise for me. Can I adapt it somehow? Like feeling into the strength of my ligaments and tendons to hold me together?
• This is the first exercise I haven’t been able to finish. 🙁 I like the idea of visualizing available space in the joints, but the gentle touch didn’t go well for me. It brought up a memory that involved touch on my hands that was unwelcome. I paused the video and tried to orient, but I couldn’t bring myself to finish the exercise. Should I try again? Or maybe try the exercise with a different joint?
• Why does this exercise bring up so many tears, fear and shame for me? I had lots of tears the first time I did it. Today I felt fear even before touching my wrist. The whole idea of being touched seems to feel like its coming so close as to be almost too much. I don’t understand why; the fear and shame comes with no memory. My head was hung when I did the exercise, I felt confused and like I did not deserve the attention, even though some part of me was reacting very positively to it, like a plant receiving water after a very long absence.
• I’ve been looking forward to this exercise, as I suffer from tendinitis and nerve pain in my right wrist/forearm/elbow. After completing the exercise on my left side, my left arm felt lighter as I moved around. After completing the exercise with my right arm, my right arm felt heavier, with the sensation of more blood flow. However, as I continued on with my evening, my tendinitis symptoms worsened. I also noticed an increase in pain in my right arm following the exercise. I felt feelings of frustration and despair, connected thoughts around ‘there is no improvement, no progress, I’m never going to heal.’ I know this mindset is not helpful, but I inevitably get stuck in the downward spiral. I’m holding the intention that this work will help unravel the feelings of negativity and despair over time. Other than holding this intention and being aware of the emotional affect as it arises, are there any other specific actions I could take to assist this process?
• I did my knees this morning and with the left knee it flowed very soft and smooth, but when I moved to my right knee, what I noticed immediately was the amount of heat at the contact between my hands and knee. I don’t have pain there but I did have a big surgery when I was a teenager. It was really hot. A memory also arose of a time my brothers left me at a neighbors farm and a strong sense of confusion arose. I thought the confusion at first was about the exercise and then I realized that must have been how I felt when I realized my brothers had gone home. I was only about 6 years old, and the words, “you left me there” came out so clearly. Could that have been held in my right knee?
• Why might I have found a lovely feeling of support and release in the left elbow but a tight jaw and neck on the right side? Do I need to practise this more on my right side? Any advice?
• I didn’t find this exercise had any obvious effect. Is this normal? I have problems with my joints. There is a lot of tension in them and they ache.

So much can be stored up in the joints! Anger is very common, but it could be any emotion. If we think about the joints, they are the primary things that, in conjunction with our muscles, enable us to act. They are the things that let the legs run, the arms hit, push, hug and hold. So when we have many incomplete survival responses in our system, a lot of that energy can get bound up in the joints. It’s not uncommon to feel rage, grief, fear, hopelessness, or to have random memories arise associated with trauma.

Some of you may have very real physical issues with the joints that make this difficult — things like chronic tension and arthritis are often signs of held anger and other emotions in the joints, while others may have hyper-mobility, so the idea of more space in the joints could be really scary (if you are someone who is hyper-mobile it may be a good idea to slightly adapt this exercise — maybe think about breathing strength, coherence, and organization into the joints instead of space).

And this lesson is a double whammy when it comes to triggers because it is also asking us to touch and hold ourselves in a gentle, caring, and attentive way. Many of us never got this kind of touch from our caregivers, in fact many of us probably got the opposite. The idea that we could care for ourselves in this way can be foreign and off-putting.

Whatever the case, if you find big emotions and sensations arising during this exercise, the approach is the same as with any other exercise. Stop. Pause the recording. Orient — see where you are, feel your butt, or feet, on the floor. Allow the system to settle, then try again. You could try starting with a different joint and see how that goes, or just leave the whole thing for later; this could be a few minutes later, or the next day. If you have a lot of emotions and sensations arising from doing this that is a GOOD thing. It’s the entire point of the exercise: to bring in more space so old, stuck energy can move. So just keep titrating it. If you find that you are filled with rage or grief that can’t seem to settle, then explore how you might express that with your sounds, expressions and body movements, then orient, feel your butt, etc.

Some of you may find that one side or one joint is totally different than another. Again, this is quite normal. It’s pretty common for us to hold our tension in some places and not others, and then as we work with it this may change! We might find a side that was tense is now feeling more flow, but the other side is now achy or tense. That’s all just part of the discovery process. There isn’t a right way, and it’s not about making things ‘even,’ it’s just about exploring the joints, seeing what’s in there, and bringing in more space so things can change.

Some others may find that they feel nothing at all with this exercise! This could be because there is not much there to feel, but if that is the case one would usually feel at least an increased sense of ease, flow, or presence. If it’s a feeling of, “Nope! Nothing at all is happening,” there could actually be quite a lot in there, just very contained and deeply buried. This is probably the case if you have very stiff joints but feel nothing when you do this. Just keep trying!