I have received SO MUCH wonderful feedback from those of you who are podcast listeners ever since I started posting the ghost stories! I have one more Andrea episode just about ready to go, but it has been a teeny bit delayed because:

The last two Thursdays which are usually podcast days / days off for me, I’ve been busy doing sessions. This has been absolutely wonderful and I have talked to old friends and new friends alike, however, when you do one thing instead of another thing, that other thing doesn’t get done.

Yesterday, Monday, I could have powered through and gotten the new episode up, but after two weeks of working longer than usual hours, and doing many more sessions than usual, I needed to spend the day doing something that was relaxing which I *wanted* to do. That meant finishing a flower box project I started a couple of weeks ago, and today my friend Carla, who promises me she will be a guest on the podcast one day, is providing me with lettuce and strawberries, and lots and lots of free gardening advice!

So part of the reason the episode is delayed is because I’ve been legitimately busy, and the other part is, it just didn’t take priority over my outdoor projects this week. I only get to play outdoors for entire days at a time in the summer. I can’t take these lovely summer days for granted!

If you’re interested in SEEING those flower boxes, scroll down a bit to see my Instagram / facebook posts documenting the progress! Feel free to follow / friend me, I’m always happy to friend back!

Now, in other news, I have found a particular youtube video to be incredibly helpful for me, and I’m going to share it with y’all right now. If you take a birds eye view of my posts in the past two years, you’ll find I’ve had a lot of back pain, and some knee issues. Losing weight is going to help this, but when I sustained that back injury shortly after visiting my Mom in October 2014, my back just hasn’t been the same. My incredible recliner has made the biggest difference, so has the physical therapy and my daily yoga stretches, but honestly, it’s never gone away… until this week. I’m so happy about this I almost don’t want to talk about it too much and jinx it!

But you all know that’s not how I operate, right? I find a good thing, I share it.

Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVnLFtEkH38

I did this one first, since it’s my lower back that generally expresses pain. Not all the time, and not enough that it really interferes with my life anymore (for about a year I couldn’t go for beach walks, I can now.) But it’s enough that it restricts what I can do in a day.

I did this video after Sweetie had been doing it every night for two weeks, and kept asking me to look at her back, so see if I could tell the vertebrae looked different, since she felt so much better.

I did this video ONCE and it blew me away. It’s such small, gentle movements. I wouldn’t even call it stretches. Just motions. I’m shocked at how big a difference this made for me.

I did the low back video for a week, adding it to my physio routine and I have felt so much better, but I could now notice how locked up my shoulders and neck were. I’m always stretching those out too, but they lock up again so quickly.

Then I added this video to my evening routine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki4T7n5-MrQ

Holy cow. I feel like a teenager again. I’m sure this isn’t the magic cure all for my back that it feels like right now, but nothing, not chiro, not accupunture, not physiotherapy has restored so much range of motion for me so quickly, and with what feels like such little effort.

I have done all of the motions in the upper back and neck video before. I can not explain why the twist worked when I did this video, as opposed to other videos. It really works for me.

For those of you who have chronic back pain / stiffness, if you give these videos a try, let me know if they help you. As always be gentle and careful with yourself. This isn’t a push it or even a stretch it video. You can stay well within your comfort zone here. Let me know.

I’m wondering if this is just the magic piece *I* was missing on my own, to add on to everything else I’ve been doing to regain the physical health and strength I had when I moved out to the west coast, or if I just hit some sort of tipping point with the addition of this practice to the rest of my heath practices.

Let me know what you think of these videos, you guys. If you love them, share them around. If yoga classes in general made me feel like this, I would be taking ALL of the yoga classes! This is what yoga SHOULD do. It should restore balance first.

I’m very optimistic.

This discovery was a part of the reason I spent my day off yesterday building things instead of sitting in front of a computer doing the final Andrea episode. I could move freely and fully, and I was going to enjoy it. Today I feel strong, not sore. I hope this will continue!

So much of what I do is about the spirit world and the afterlife, helping people navigate what happens when someone you love leaves their body. Meanwhile, here we are, LIVING in bodies and coping with the maintenance!

I hope this helps you too!