Hello, and thanks for joining Your Body Advocate podcast. I am Ruth Cummings, your host, and today I’m talking about neck, all things about the neck. How can it get hurt? What emotion can it possibly hold, how to get it better. And it has a partner YouTube video where I show you how to do it because some of these are hard to explain on audio during a podcast.

All right, you guys, let’s take a deep breath to relax. Ready?

All right, here we go. You’re listening to your body advocate, telling your body’s side of the story, the podcast dedicated to supporting and improving your body mind connection so you can live a pain-free, passion filled life, dissolving one body tension at a time, discover the healing properties of your own body language, and together let’s explore ways to support and improve essential self.

Now here’s your host, master of Encouragement and Body Mind, life Coach Ruth Cummings,

that today I’m gonna talk about my neck, one of my favorite subjects because the neck is a bottleneck of communication. What we need to say and what we need to hear, what we need to process, what we need to digest, what we need to assimilate, and then what we need to. Saying, telling people you love them, telling people you’re angry, telling people you’re upset with them, different types of things you need to say, things you need to hear, and then where it gets stuck in the middle, it’s kind of interesting and uh, it’s one of my favorite places to work on, on somebody.

And so I wanted to really discuss this today in our podcast, but I also wanted to tell you that there is, A, a YouTube video that also goes with this. So I’m going to talk through some, uh, ways to massage your own neck and how to just work with it a little bit. And also there’ll be, th this actual podcast will be on the, my YouTube channel, Ruth Cummings Coaching and.

So you can also watch it there, but I’m going to try to explain it. Thank you to my brother who mentions that I, I really need to act as if no one can see what I’m saying. So sorry about that. For other, other past podcasts. So the neck, so the neck. Has many people have neck pain. It’s one of the highest problems in the body and in our society, and especially in America, where we miss a lot of work because of neck pain.

Neck pain can go into the head and cause headaches. It can also move into the jaw, call it jaw pain. It can help you. Keep you from sleeping. Because it’s aching so badly, it’s hard to put your shoulders down because it feels like it has to protect the neck. And then in the front of the neck, there’s a lot of sore throats.

There’s a lot of, um, uh, strep throat and different types of throat conditions that make it hard to swallow or you’re constantly having. Infections in your throat. There’s throat cancer, there’s cancer of the larynx and not being able to speak. So there’s a lot of issues with the, the neck in general. And so I just wanted to discuss some things where the neck is part of what I work on and is the, uh, a triad of places to work that have to do with, um, earth.

So this is the earth triad and it has to do with the neck. Gut torso. The bottom torso under your ribcage, above your hips. So the, that area and your knees. So, knees, gut, neck. Okay. And. When there is an issue with one of the areas, almost a hundred percent, I can say, I would say about 98%. There’s going to be a, an issue with one of the other three.

So if I see someone or someone comes in for neck issues, neck pain, tension, headaches, that type of thing over here, around your neck, I will look at pain in their knees or even ask them before we even start, ask ’em if they have pain in their knees or if they have issues with their gut. Do they have painful periods?

Do they have uh, gas? Do they have constipation? Do they have any type of issue with, um, kidneys, with, uh, liver, that whole area? It’s a big area. And are there any issues in that gut area? Low back, you know, um, kind of right, right above your belt where your belt is there, is there pain under your belt or right above it?

That’s kind of the area I’m looking at. So if you have neck pain and you have knee issues or you have gut issues, isn’t that interesting? And so can you help your neck pain? If it’s so chronic that it won’t go away, can you help it by supporting these other areas? Can you bring ice and heat to your knees?

Can you stretch them a little bit? Can you do some massage for them? What can you do for your knees to support them and see if that helps your neck? on the other way. So if you have gut issues, you’re constipated or gas or whatever you have, whatever, there’s some issues in that area of your body and you give that the support it needs, will that help your neck?

And if you give your neck support, will it help your gut? Will it help your knee issues? That’s the whole thing. So sometimes people have all three, right? Sometimes you have issues with all three of those areas, and then we try to see if they affect one. And I think that’s very fascinating. So that’s one thing to think about.

So how does your neck affect your gut, affect your knees? How is it affected by those two areas? So let’s look at some parts of communication and some areas that I’ve seen stop people from having a flow through their neck. So what I mean that by that is like your voice will change. So for me, I’ve used the example of my husband having, um, an illness that is very, very scary for me and very, um, it’s, it’s just hard and it’s been hard for me to assimilate it.

So it’s hard for me to swallow sometimes and my voice would crack. It would get even deeper than it is now. And, um, some other issues around. Um, being able to swallow and being able to communicate, like talk in a way that, um, didn’t hurt my throat. Didn’t hurt my voice. So I would talk and it would be like, Um, uh, cumbersome.

It would, it would take more energy in the normal, or I’m not, so not just swallowing, but being able to breathe. So, you know, the air coming through here, it felt like I was being choked. So those types of feelings. In your throat, um, can happen if something in your life is really hard to swallow. Hard to swallow is something that’s been in our communication for centuries, that word those, that wording.

So another thing is that you have neck tension. So if it’s not hurting in the front, you know it’s not your voice, it’s not your swallowing, it’s not air. Then you have like this neck tension behind. . And so that that tension just in this area, you know, you know from the, from like the bottom of your skull to your, uh, to where your shoulders start, just in that area, you know, whatever that is, six inches, eight inches, something like that.

If it’s, if you have tension right there, it is going to affect either above that, you know, into the head, into the oxy putt, into the jaw, or it will affect lower, it’ll go into your shoulders, into your upper back there, like between your shoulder blades. So it’s not like it stays right there. Right? It’s like a, like a watercolor.

So if the watercolor of the throat was blue and your and your head was purple and white, it would become this. This really cool bluish purple color right with some white in there a little bit. Maybe make it a little lilac and if it, if the, let’s say that the chest was green. , right? So it’ll make this turquoise type of color, right?

Be below the, um, the bottom of your neck, where your shoulder blades are, and where in the front, like where the sternum is, where the, the breast bone in the middle of your, of your body. And so if you saw it at a, in a color, like a watercolor, uh, version, so you would see blue, a nice, like royal blue in the middle of your.

And then going up into your head, it goes into purple and going down, it goes into green. So, okay. So just wanna give you that visual so it doesn’t always just stay like a big, you know, square and it just stays in that square. It does. There’s some flow and even if your throat is stuck, there’s going to be flow and it, but it can get stopped by things.

If your, you know, your spouse is having an issue or you’re not able to communicate your love, you’re not able to communicate your anger, you’re not able to communicate your lack of trust, your resentment, or any betrayal, those types of things start to start to, um, build up. Just like I talk about having a trash can, the neck has trash both directions.

And though a lot of places in our body, especially in the torso, have them in both directions, the throat is like the bottleneck just because of, you know, how it, how it looks. It doesn’t have, it has to go through this smaller area and so it gets stuck. I also used to have chronic strep throat, and when I had to get my tonsils out as a later, later as an adult boy was that, was that painful?

And they were so inflamed. Plus it was really gross. My body never would’ve been able to get in there and clean that out. It was actually used in a book. It was so bad. It’s kind of gross. But, um, so you can see it’s physically, things get stuck emotionally, things get stuck. And I would say spiritually things get stuck.

How does that happen? So let’s say you’re really angry with God, I’m, you know, mad right now a little bit and you. You stop taking the, the, the support and the love from God, like, you stop it and like you start being, you know, uh, defiant against it. Or, you know, if you are gonna do this to my husband, then it’s really funny how we poison other people.

We poison ourselves. Sorry. Let’s say that better. We poison ourselves, but hope that it hurts someone else. That, you know, a common theme for many of us and. . Um, so not listening, not absorb. The love from God, the love from others, the love from anything divine around me. Just stopping it. And then at the same time, that also stops.

The love giving. The love giving to God. Giving to God’s people, giving to people around me. All the the love and support from our family, neighbors. Just kind of not able to really express my gratitude because there’s this bottleneck and if I am not allowing it. It’s really hard to also allow it out. So you have to have a balance so that you can do both.

When we’re not listening to what’s real right in front of us. It can hurt right here if you’re not, um, not just listening, but you completely. This also includes our eyesight. We were talking about rose colored glasses. Seeing the world the way you wanna see it, not really how it is, and when you notice how it.

Then it’s like this, you know, like a punch in the face. And the same thing about listening. I, that’s hard to swallow, you know? Um, no, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m actually not gonna assimilate that and swallow that. I’m just gonna act like that’s not so and so the body’s like, Wait a minute. Um, what do I do here? And so like right now, there’s some phlegm building in my throat, , because I’m in the midst of this second moment.

So it’s this interesting way that our neck deals with that. So I want to go over some really easy things that you can do for your neck. First of all, anything. I use if, if you notice, I’m always covered and I have, uh, talked even before in my podcast and other places. I have some severe neck injuries, and so I have to keep my neck warm.

If my neck gets cold. Even in the, even in the summer, I am sore for hours. It’s so I don’t allow it to get cold. I wear scarves almost every day and I have like, , these tall, uh, I have tall sweatshirts and, and um, when I wear, uh, dress clothes, I have, uh, something to wrap around my neck and I keep the back of my neck really warm and I try to keep the front of it warm as well.

So if you have one of those, those like rice or barley, um, I, I use one that someone in our church made. It’s lovely. I have some, if you want some there, like 10 bucks I can send you one. , um, and you just put it in a microwave, you get it warm, and then I put it on my neck. I also use that for different areas.

So interestingly enough, I have gut issues and knee issues, and so. I also use that, then I take that heated pad and I put it on my knees and I also put it either on my, the front of my, front of my stomach, right there, or on my back. So that area, that area of the torso. And that really, really helps. It’s interesting cuz it does help my neck personally and it does help my knees.

And so I don’t have five, uh, heating, you know, that would take forever, I guess, to put ’em in the microwave too. But I do have three, so I will usually put one on my. One on either front or the back of my gut and then one on one knee. And so sometimes I put my knees together and put it on both knees, and sometimes I put all three on my gut.

Just kind of depends. But personally, I have had great success getting my body to feel better by getting these three areas to be warm and feel supported and uh, trusted. And I think those are the words I would use. So the first thing is, And so for your, you can’t pour hot water. I guess you could sit in a, in a bathtub for your knees and your back and your gut.

But I drink a lot of hot tea. And not only hot tea, I will drink hot water and hot water with lemon. I also make, uh, some, uh, Turmeric tea, like it’s called golden milk. And I have that on my Instagram if you want that, uh, that recipe, I, it’s not exact cuz I, I put, you know, a little teaspoon here. I don’t really, I don’t measure it.

I tap it in. And so I have that, it has a coconut milk, um, with full fat coconut milk that I use, uh, I think an eighth pet teaspoon of, uh, turmeric and then some pepper and some cinnamon. And just a dash of salt. And then I put in some honey and it’s so good. No caffeine. It really helps. It helps me with a lot of things.

So we can talk about that more. But my point is, keep your neck warm with fluids. That will really help. And then that goes down into your gut and that gets your gut warm a little bit. So for me, that really helps both. So that’s one way to help your neck. Another way is to, so the heating pads. Tea. Okay.

Another way, if you’re going to use ice, you know, there’s this big argument in the, in the world of ice and heat at the moment and not the moment. It’s been like a decade and I was in the ice camp for a long time. That’s how I was raised. Rice, you know, rest, ice compression elevation is no longer valid.

And so if you’re still in that camp, just do a little bit of research and you’ll see that, uh, we don’t wanna do the rice anymore. What we do is other, other options. And so using more small micro movements, using some treatment right away, using, um, there’s one, uh, meat. So it’s, uh, movement, um, elevation, uh, meat, um, I forget what the ACE stands for, I should notice.

And then, um, and treatment at the end. So, uh, I will get that. So there’s other ways to deal with your, So you can do stretches. So the stretches that I do is I, I start with facing forward, and then I’m going to turn my neck to the right all the way as far as I can over my shoulder. So I’m gonna try to get it all the way, and I take a deep breath when I go in.

So I take a deep breath in through my nose when I’m about to move, and then I breathe out once I’m over my shoulder. So it’s a breathe in, move over the shoulder, and then breathe out. And then come back to the center. And then I do the same thing on both sides. So I move my neck with those types of just stretches for the neck.

And the next thing I do is I massage it. And how do I do that? So I’m gonna take my hands and I wrap my hands like I’m trying to, um, um, I would say, Roll my shoulder blades over, up into the front of my body. So like, um, my elbows are in the air, like towards the ceiling, and I’m going to pull with pressure down on my, um, the top of my shoulders up through.

To the front so that my hands are on my chest. So that’s one way to get some really nice pressure on the back of your neck and shoulders, cuz they work together right there. It’s very easy to calm tension down with that move. So again, I’m putting my, my hands almost together. The pinkies are touching behind my neck right at the, at the.

Top of the shoulders, and I’m going to with my elbows way in the air, and then I’m gonna put pressure down and pull forward. Of course you could do this one handed, so if you’re driving, you could do it one hand at a time. And, um, but don’t do two hands at a time, right? If you’re driving. So that’s one way.

Another way is to, to put your, um, is to put your hands on top of your shoulders and cup the area, and then you would push, you would, um, massage or need your hands together with that tissue in between. So you’re going to need. Like it’s taffy, some parts, the top parts of your shoulder between your fingers and the pad of your hand, and just nice and gently needing that together, mainly making it warm again.

It’s very, very helpful. And then another one I would suggest is if you, you could put your fingers together. Like you were opening a screen door, kind of. They’re all together and you’re going to press behind your. On either side of the spine so that you’re in the meaty area, and then from that meaty area, you’re going to press straight in.

And I use different pressure from each finger. This is how I’m able to do hours and hours and hours of massage, is I utilize each finger. So that’s one thing I hear is that, oh, my hands just aren’t strong enough and I can’t do it for very long. So just use your pinkies and then use. Just for a second. So you just press down a let go, and then the, the ring finger, press down, let go, middle finger, press down, et cetera.

And so when you do that, it makes your hand a little bit more, uh, it can last a little longer. I mean, even 30 seconds longer. It’s quite a long time. It’s really all you need, like 10 to 30 seconds. So you just kind of press in and go up and down. The neck, the back of your neck there. So you’re gonna go to the skull and then all the way to your, your shoulders, and just do that a little bit.

Also, you can lean your neck back a little bit and it’s even better. If you’re laying down. So sometimes I do this before I even sit up in bed. I’m doing this in bed while I will turn my head to my shoulder while I’m on my pillow and, and then I sit up and then I do it again like that. So, move. Okay. Heat and, um, I would really, really recommend more and more hot water if you’re having any issues with your throat, with your neck at all.

If you’re having headaches or if you’re having any type of pain around your neck on any level, like any in the front or in the back, besides any level of your neck. Heat and hot water are very, very helpful. So this is my, my short discussion and little theories about the neck today. And I’m going to have, um, a, a, a partner video on YouTube that I’m going to show you these massages specifically.

So if you want more. It’s hard for me to actually talk about. So go to that YouTube video and then I will show you specifically how to massage and stretch and do some mild fascia release and to just do some other things on your neck. And so just go to that YouTube channel. Thank you so much for listening, guys.

Um, watch your communication. And see how it affects your neck when you don’t communicate something, you can, you can always call me and talk to me about it. I’ve worked with this for so many people, it’s a fascinating, fascinating, um, part of our body and, um, I just love it. Thanks for listening, guys, and I will see you next time.

Bye-bye.

Thank you for listening to Your Body Advocate with Ruth Cummings. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today, and truly believe you can live a pain-free, passion filled life. To connect with Ruth, work with Ruth, or to grab your free e-book, go to ruth cummings.com. We’d love to hear from you. Don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe so you don’t miss our next.

Until next time friends be open. Include the unincluded, think outside the box, and spread love and kindness. One smile at a time.