The Psoas Muscle And It’s Relationship With Your Soul

Psoas Pain

For the past few weeks I have been suffering from psoas muscle pain. The psoas is the muscle that holds us upright, taking us from all fours to standing. It attaches at the spine and comes down through the pelvis and attaches to the inner thigh bone. So it’s a very core muscle, attaching our spine to our legs.

The psoas is much more than your ordinary muscle, it is a messenger for your central nervous system, and it’s where your fear response (fight/flight/freeze) stems from, and trauma is stored in your tissues.

Spirituality

In some spiritual philosophies it is seen as the residing place of your gut intuition, and is the guardian of the Soul.

Liz Koch has spent her life exploring and teaching about the psoas muscle and she says it’s much more than a core stabalising muscle, it’s an organ of perception and “literally embodies our deepest urge for survival, and more profoundly, our elemental desire to flourish.”

Trauma

In our modern, fast paced lifestyle, we are running on adrenaline, which triggers and tightens the psoas making it ever ready to spring into fight or flight. This tension is the cause of a lot of back pain, reproductive issues, leg issues and digestive problems.

I have also found because this muscle flanks your diaphragm, when tense, it also affects your breathing which contributes to anxiety.

I have been doing some deep trauma healing and it’s no wonder that my psoas was strained, trauma is stored in this muscle, and needs to be released. Facing questions and fears about why we are on the planet and what is our purpose, all reside in our psoas, which are Soul questions.

Releasing and Restoring

Relaxing and releasing the tension in the psoas helps grounds us and makes available the energies of the Universe that revitalises our bodies. Our core issues about who we are, our value system, our self esteem, how we feel about ourself, are anchored in this area.

This is the root chakra, sacral chakra area, which is the area of our body that deals with these Earthly energies.

The area below the navel is known as “Hara”. This area is where we aim for “right centre of gravity”, where heaven meets earth, and the psoas’s state of health is a contributor to how we harmonise these energies.

One way to gently release the psoas is to do something called Constructive Rest. This video is one way of doing it that I found really relaxing. It enabled me to deeply let go. I also find myself consciously relaxing this muscle during the day because I notice how much I hold on in this area.

I also shift my focus now when I want to calm myself down, rather than slow my breathing down, I just focus on my psoas in my groin/thigh area, and relax it, and it naturally relaxes my breathing. It’s a very grounding feeling.

What’s your relationship with your psoas?