6. Sit on Your P-hole, Not Your B-hole ;)

Hey Everyone,

You know how it feels to straddle a chair? Or ride a horse? That way of sitting is great for your entire body. 

Now, sure, maybe sitting is the new smoking, because we didn’t evolve to work at desks and have such comfy couches, but it IS possible to sit in a functionally good way, and that is what I am here to share with you.

This week’s episode builds upon Part 1 of “Counter-Poses for the Daily Grind.” In the name of Yoga, this is about becoming more aware of how we move our bodies day-to-day, and the interconnections present in how we operate and how we perceive the world. 

If you’re in a position to sit down, join me for a little body-sensing. If you’re not, then try this out next time you have a seat.

Become aware of your physical body, and notice where you’re making contact with your seat.

Now, where do you feel the most pressure between your body and the chair?

Do you feel the weight in your lower back? Or your tailbone? Perhaps on the bony sitz bones, or even the pubic bone? Notice what you notice.

Et voilá, you just did a form of Yoga. 

It’s called asana, yes like the poses, and it’s whenever you bring awareness into your body. 

So if you’re wondering, “when’s the last time I did Yoga?” Yeah. Just now :)

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Welcome to Yoga for Mom-life. I’m your host Susana Jones, and I help women raising young young kids who have a hard time replenishing because everyone else’s needs come first. With therapeutic Yoga and the wisdom of the ages, I help Moms make good use of limited time so they can live full, vibrant lives.

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So, while body-sensing If you noticed pressure in your lower-back, you’re basically lying down. Enjoy that!

If you notice the pressure of sitting in your tailbone, or the boney sitz bones, do you also notice that your core feels kind of mushy? Are your shoulders rolling in? Is your head reaching forward? 

… You’re doing great. Just keep noticing things.

If you feel the pressure more on your public bone, how’s your energy right now? ‘Cause when I sit like that, I feel alert in a mellow way. My core feels toned, and my mood is a little brighter. I also notice fewer aches in my back, shoulders, and hips after sitting this way for a while.

And that’s because our sitting posture directly affects our nervous system and how quickly our bodies show our age. 

Now, I’m sure that you’ve been told since you were a child to “sit up straight.” I’m not going to say that to you.

But I will say, that when you’re sitting down, the weight of gravity should be closer to your pubic bone than your tailbone, more on your pee-hole, than your b-hole.

Now, for the record, I wasn’t a person who talked about “pee holes” before having a child. But something about giving birth erased all sense of TMI about the human body. For the kids cracking up in the backseat because I said “pee-hole”, you’re welcome. 

But there is a bigger picture for Moms, of which this physical alignment is a tiny part. The load Moms carry in our country is ginormous. The women I know carry it with a ton of grace, but admit it’s unsustainable. 

So, I have to preface this next bit by saying that a yoga program that addresses maternal burnout is not a substitute for a caring, responsive society. But self-supporting recommendations like mine are one way we can stay in the game long enough to change it for the better.

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So onto how sitting can either help, or hurt, our cause for human and planetary flourishing.

While joining some friends on an outdoor couch over the weekend, yes, it was nice, I noticed myself in a certain posture my body assumes when I’m kicking back, that starts to work against me after a while.

It’s anytime I sit with my pelvis forward relative to the space in front of me. Some call it slouching. If you look down and see your pelvic area, you’re doing it! It’s how we sit on the couch with our feet on an ottoman. It’s how we recline on a lounge chair in the sun. It’s how we relax, which is crucial. 

On it’s own, sitting this way isn’t all bad. 

It’s when we move from spot to spot, sitting the same way in each one that can mess us up. A healthy spine moves in all directions: Flexion, extension, rotation, lateral bending. It’s all good. But from this logic, it follows that in order for the spine to be healthy, it needs to move in all directions. Similarly with the hips, which connect to the spine by way of the pelvis and some extraordinary ligaments, more kinds of movement patterns are the goal and the panacea.

It’s worth noting here that how people sit can vary by culture. A beloved teacher of mine, Indu Arora grew up in India, where she was taught as a child to sit such that her center of gravity pulled her forward toward the pubic bone, rather than back, toward the tailbone.

In this alignment, the pelvis is slightly behind you. When she was young, she told our class, her teacher would instruct her to sit on the corner of a folded blanket. This elevates the tailbone and sitz bones such that muscle memory can develop around this positioning of the pelvis.

This way of sitting, whether you’re 

Working at a desk, 

sitting on the grass,

or enjoying a meal at the dinner table

lends itself to sustained energy, core strength, and a calm, awake state of mind. That’s why this way of sitting, usually cross-legged, is traditionally associated with meditation.

Structurally, it supports the natural curves of the spine, which makes for a less achy, less injury-prone back. It also decompresses the hip and knee joints, and helps us keep our heads on straight, which is vital for shaping the world we want to pass onto our kids.

In terms of our muscles, it activates the abdominals and the back, as well as the diaphragm, which sits right beneath the heart and lungs, and helps us breathe. 

Now, if sitting cross-legged on a floor sounds like torture to you, it’s probably because you’re used to sitting with your pelvis forward, and your hips, core and spine have learned to keep you that way. 

But don’t worry, there is hope in gentle movement coordinated with your breathing. That’s how even short yoga practices are super valuable, not to please the people who admonished you to “sit up straight’ when you were a kid, necessarily, but to hold yourself up in a way that nobody or nothing else can. 

The beauty, and the benefit of getting off your b-hole is that it’s energizing. It helps you get more life-force out of each breath. It carries you through the afternoon slump, tones your lady organs, and might even help you reconnect with your partner in a way you haven’t done in a while.

When we slump, the diaphragm has little space in which to move the breath in and out of us, so we breathe more shallowly, and fatigue more quickly. So if lethargy is an issue for you, you can immediately revitalize yourself by shifting your seat off your tailbone. As with all things in Yoga, the impact can be immediate, and the benefits accrue over time with regular practice.

So next time you sit down, lift your heart a touch, and lean your center of gravity forward a little. If you’re in the right kind of chair, you can even widen your stance. Like how you’d sit on a yoga ball. 

I learned from Sherry Zak Morris of Yoga Vista, an amazing online yoga program for adults over 50, to “sit like a man.” Yep. Manspread. It helps you get your tail back behind you rather than under you, and gives our hips the kind of variety we need to enjoy an active life with our kids when they’re older.

There seems to be so much about everyday caretaking, work, and leisure that brings us back to the same exact shape, in which

The head is forward, and eyes are cast down.

The neck protrudes.

The shoulders roll-in.

The chest is sunken.

The core is asleep

And the pelvis is what you see when you look down.

The vibe of this posture is unmotivated, a little down, a little weary, and pretty tired. We feel those things for good reason. 

Unlike systemic change, which will take time to accomplish, but may one day alleviate some of the pressure on Moms in our country, sitting on your Pee-hole pays you up front. 

To hear me talk about more body parts, join the waitlist for my next online seasonal yoga cohort, which begins in August, at yogaformomlife.com 

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Until next Suzday, it’s Yoga for Mom-Life, and it's about time.