Knees: be flexible . . . there's no other choice!

So excited to write my first blog and had several topics to choose from. The massive amounts of stress everyone is having about school year 2020-2021, however, made it easy. The knees!

The knees? Yes. First up, a confession and a promise. I will never 'preach' to you about what you might want to try in my blog post if it isn't something I should try or have tried before myself.

Next, I don't have a single pain in my knees. However, the week before schools shut down this March, I finally put together why so many of my Reiki clients, friends, colleagues, and family had been complaining about knee pain in the last year.

I mean, it was starting to get absurd and it could not be ignored. It was like the universe was trying to tell me something. Knees, knees, knees.

I read in Reiki manuals and books that one might attract clients with issues the practitioner themself had, but for the life of me, I could not figure out what knees had to do with me. I had zero knee pain.

Finally, I started Googling Reiki and knees and even after reading the article many times for weeks, I was only thinking about what advice I'd give my clients about their knees, their lives. Knees have to do with flexibility . . . you know, be flexible, go with the flow, that feel good, sound good but hard to practice thing. Yeah, my clients (most in their 60's) must just be 'stuck in their ways' and don't want to look at that, I'm thinking to myself. Heh.

When life becomes challenging, one of our first lines of defense can be closing down and becoming rigid. This internal rigidity affects energy flow in the body, which has physical impacts on inflammation, hormones, and toxicity, from 5 Ways to Heal Your Knee Chakras by Jennifer White.

A minor chakra, the knees correspond to the root chakra, which is about our sense of grounded-ness. The colors brown and red are mentioned in White's Tip 3: Visualize.

Now I know why I also instinctively bought a red carnelian stone to hold in April and am now wearing a carnelian ring . . .

Other great suggestions for feeling more grounded are the mountain pose and journaling. I'd add gentle massage of your knees with your favorite oil/salve and Reiki, of course, to the knees. Also, EzDean Fassassi, from Holistic Health Consulting, just came out with a great blog post about sitting: How the Way you Sit Affects Your Health

But getting back to my lack of knee pain. Well, I didn't have physical knee pain, but upon reflection, I certainly had gotten pretty 'rigid' in my day to day life. I had changed jobs three times in the last four years, had to move twenty plus years of teaching stuff with me each time, so I was pretty exhausted, too. I wanted predictability in my life, but nooooooo! Looking back, I realized all the difficulty - culminating in an ulcer - was putting in front of me, in no uncertain terms, a big sign: Stop trying to control everything. Go with the flow.

It started dawning on me how inflexible I had become and that was hard to swallow. I had prided myself on being flexible, actually! Little by little, I put it all together and had that 'aha' moment. Rather than get all defensive, I decided to just loosen up. Did I have a choice?

I'm so grateful I did, right before the pandemic shut things down. It gave me just a wee bit of time to reflect and practice this new 'go with the flow' mentality right as literal chaos had just been thrust upon all of us in practically every aspect of life. No, pandemic hasn't been smooth sailing for me by any means but learning that bit about knees and flexibility has helped me navigate the day to day with a bit more grace. That's an improvement.

I so wish I could've written this blog back then at the beginning of the pandemic. I certainly wanted to. Maybe nobody would have been ready for it. What about now? How is this hitting you? If you can relate to any of this, please give the cited article and blog a read. Start a little action plan; it will surely help. Anything done with intention and habit makes a change.

There are a many things one can do to help loosen stiff knees. Don't get stuck on one or two things. Diet is also key so please stay tuned to my blog. Hope to have a post about foods that can help with inflammation and joint pain soon. Subscribe today.

And back to the topic of returning to school. If you have school age children, you're by now somewhat relieved that most schools are going to distance learning. You may be fretting that you don't know what you're going to do with children at home or that you can't work and have children at home at the same time; yikes. Understandable!! I just can't fathom that. But . . . . as best you can, be flexible, go with the flow, move with, dance with what life is bringing us. If you do, solutions will come your way.

Lastly, be alive . . and check out tip 5 from the article. (A lot!)

Tip 5: Genuflect.

"Genuflection is the act of bending one's right and left knee to the ground in reverence or worship."

Upcoming Blog Posts: Diet to Help Reduce Inflammation, Creative Ways to Deal with Schooling (I'm a National Board Certified Teacher, 20+ years, mid and high school) Sign up!

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Be well, Paula