Sanctuary for Heart Magic

TIME, URGENCY & THE TOP OF YOUR SPINE

Trying to be somewhere else

Time. What is it? It rules our days, nights and everything in between, yet it remains elusive. Things come and go inside of our awareness, the sun rises and sets, people say hi and goodbye, we wake and sleep, and all of it gives rise to a sense of progression. This happens, then that happens, then something next. We see this thing we call life moving forward from past to present to future. Here linear time is born into our experience. It seems as though there is nothing we can do except allow it. It’s as though we have no power over this elusive temporal dimension, but rather can only be inside of it, subjected to its flow, its rhythm and its direction. 

For some it feels like there is never enough of it and for others it feels as though there is way too much. This leaves us with a sense of urgency that we will run out of time or the fear that we will never escape its grasp. Like a time trap that decides, having its own will that may or may not be in agreement with ours. How do we find agency within that which seems to have its own agenda? How do we navigate the waves of our desires, hopes and dreams all while not knowing what we will be able to accomplish and without a restless impatience to get it all over with?

Let’s start with urgency. 

Urgency is rooted in the thought or belief that there is “not enough time”. This usually translates as not enough time to do whatever it is we think we want to do. Urgency also comes with wanting to be somewhere other than where we are. We attempt to do something quickly so that we can be somewhere else and do other things. That might mean we want to physically be in a different location or environment, or even just a different inner state of being. We hurry up so that we can relax. We try to get it all finished before this thing we call time runs out. As if it could. But to us it seems like it can, the shortage feels real. And what about the opposite? When we feel like time will never end. When we are bored or deeply want to have an experience other than what we are having. We desire something more stimulating, engaging or alive. It is the other side of the coin, but the energetics of it are the same. Somewhere else seems more desirable than here. There is either urgency with not enough time or urgency with too much of it.

What is missing in both expressions of urgency is presence. Sometimes we are in the past, but mostly we are in the future. A future that we keep thinking will arrive, but always seems to be just a little further out. We hope to find that place of temporal harmony, but only briefly does the tempo of time seem to align with our preferred pace. So we speed ourselves up thinking we can get somewhere faster if we do. It doesn’t dawn on us that we can never be anywhere other than where we are. While we are speeding through this and that thing, we create a sense of urgency that we experience as the present moment rather than experiencing the present moment itself. This is a life missed.

SPINAL CORRELATIONS TO TIME SCARCITY

C1 atlas & C2 axis spinal bones

Let’s move into the physiology of urgency. While it might seem obvious, living inside of the idea that there is not enough time creates a body chemistry and physiology that feels anxious. What does this look like? Muscular or structural tightness or rigidity. A sense of pulling or pushing in the body. Shallow, quick breathing. Moving more quickly than your body can coordinate. Forcing or strenuous effort to do things that don’t really need that much effort. Bowel or bladder urgency or incontinence. A nervous system that is not regulated and an endocrine/hormonal system that is not communicating well. Often there is little sitting down throughout the day. There is trouble unwinding or relaxing in general. Relationally it might look like not looking at people when talking to them because you just want to hurry up. You might avoid conversations altogether. You might also do the opposite and talk a lot, not allowing pauses in your conversation because the rest or pause is to uncomfortable for you. You force words rather than wait for the arising. You might drive extra fast, rush through the grocery store, hurry through your to do list and you definitely aren’t stopping to smell the flowers. Not when you are in urgency consciousness.

Now to the spine. 

The first bone of your spinal column that sits right below the base of your skull is called C1 for the first cervical vertebrae. It has a special name, the atlas. It holds the ball of your head on top of it. Not just the physical weight of the head, but also the weight of the contents of your mind. This first bone, along with the second cervical bone called C2 or the axis, enable most of the rotation and movement of your neck. When tension is held in this area, physical range of motion and emotional range of emotion, become significantly limited. This area of the spine specifically pertains to how we perceive and relate to time. Scarcity that is generated from the thought form “there is not enough time” is connected to these top two bones. What this means is that when we feel hurried, rushed, and are trying to get somewhere else, we are creating tension in this area of neck. 

Why does that matter? While outside of the obvious discomfort of tension and often resultant headaches that arise out of this area, there are also some really important neurological structures that reside deep below the area of the C1 bone. The most important being the bottom of your brainstem. Your brainstem is your autonomic control center. It is that area of the brain that regulates and coordinates many of your unconscious body functions like breathing, digesting, heart rate and toxin elimination. Clearly some important processes for life in a body.

Let’s put that altogether. 

When we operate from urgency we create tension and often headaches that stem from our upper neck region. Some people fancily call this the suboccipital region. Tension in this area creates pressure, and over time constriction on the upper spinal cord and lower brainstem, which impairs fluid communication across our nervous system and into various parts of our body. Those are just the physical effects. The emotional, psychological and spiritual effects are that we don’t get to experience the present moment of our lives. This is a more painful pain then the tension we feel in our muscles. It is the feeling that we are missing out on something and longing for the desire to be somewhere other than where we are. 

Our current human approach is to try to numb out, rub, stretch, massage, or strengthen the physical area of the body that hurts. While none of that is bad and sometimes needed, it is only part of the fix, which is why the tension always comes back. In order to resolve the tension in the top of our neck, we have to resolve our urgency. This is where consciousness meets and influences our body. Just taking care of the physical is not sufficient despite our persistent hope that it will be. We have to change our relationship to time in order for our body to appropriately respond with relaxation into its natural muscular state of being. 

When we come into right relationship with time we find our agency and stop feeling trapped, limited or confined by it. We come into harmony by no longer trying to fight time. We realize that as with work with it, it works with us. It is a symbiotic and reciprocal relationship where we get to experience fluidity with the temporal dimension of our human experience rather than be in opposition and resistance to it.

Dr. Amanda Lalita Love, DC, MSAc, L.Ac

Network Spinal Chiropractor & Somatic Healer at the Sanctuary for Heart Magic, a Mentor for Heart-Led Healers at Soul Luminaries & the Writer of The Everyday Divine.