Sound like Greek? It was to me when my acupuncturist told me back in 1983 that my psoas was spasmed. I literally couldn’t walk, the pain in my groin was so bad. Here’s an oil painting that I made of the pain:

 With a cane, I got to a few places, one being the acupuncturist. John Cole was no ordinary healer. Every day when I arrived, a line of people waited for treatment and more showed up hourly. His prescription for me was 3″ needles that he placed strategically all over my body for acupuncture three times a week, a series of martial arts moves I was to do daily, and walks to and from work daily, a half mile each way, toes pointing straight ahead.

Why was my psoas spasmed?  I hadn’t a clue. I just knew that I had to get better, and Doc Cole had the practical answers. Thirty years later, I understand why my psoas muscle was out and why Doc Cole’s treatment worked.

A friend recently sent me a video of Dr. David Berceli’s work* with TRE, Trauma Release Exercises, which absolutely explained everything: http://www.4shared.com/video/lir1J5Jc/david_berceli_-_trauma_releasi.htm. It’s a 45 minute or so video, the last 10 minutes of which did not work for me. But at beginning, Dr. Berceli explains what the psoas muscle is,  how it’s the main muscle affected by trauma, and what effect releasing it has. He discusses the fact that a psoas muscle tense with unreleased trauma causes hip, low back, neck, and shoulder pain. Then he takes a group through the exercises step by step. Ultimately, the participants tremble and quake, thus releasing tension and relieving traumatic stress. The video is powerful. Give yourself a half hour or so in viewing it because you can’t stop the video and rewind it to a place you’d like to see again; if you pause the video before it finishes, it will simply go back to the beginning.

My psoas was spasmed because of the early trauma of infant surgery for pyloric stenosis at 26 days old. When my belly was cut open without anesthesia or pain relief, I curled forward to protect myself. Trouble is, since I was tied down and paralyzed to boot, I couldn’t go anywhere, but the muscles tensed and strained just the same. Think airline pre-flight video in which a flight attendant shows passengers to curl forward and tuck their heads into their chests in case of an emergency. This movement is a natural reflex to potential danger. If the danger is real, the psoas will tense. If not released after the danger, a post-traumatic stressed psoas causes any number of problems.

In 1983, thirty years after my trauma, my stressed psoas said ENOUGH and spasmed 24/7. Little did I know that Doc Cole had assigned me martial-arts-style TRE (Trauma Release Exercise) for my recuperation. At that time, I had no idea why my psoas had spasmed, crippling me. I chalked it up to my having walked incorrectly all my life, one foot pointing left-ish and the other right-ish, and got back to walking with my feet pointed straight ahead. All along though it was my psoas, infant trauma at the root. It was tension that could have been released early on by David Berceli’s TREs. So check out the video. Spread the word. Let’s change our lives in 2014. Let us live in peace.

*Dr. David Berceli is a trauma expert who travels internationally to treat victims of disasters who inevitably have traumatic stress after happenings such as typhoons, wars, and earthquakes.