Visualizing your vertical axis supports good health, ease of motion, and flexibility

Use your vertical axis as a guide to grace and healing

One of the single most effective ways to improve range of motion, ease, and alignment in the body is by visualizing your vertical axis. I think of the vertical axis as the central, organizing feature of the energetic template that every human body is created around, beginning in the womb in the very first weeks. It’s my experience that visualizing the vertical axis is one of the absolute best ways for the body to find its way back to comfort and ease, if it’s gotten out of whack somehow.

What is the vertical axis, and when does it develop?

The vertical axis is a current of energy that runs from kidney one, an acupressure point centered between the two balls of the feet, up the central axis of the body, through the sinuses, and out the crown of the head. If you want to be super specific, the vertical axis enters the torso through the perineum, and runs through the discs and vertebral bodies of the spine. When the vertical axis is in great working order, it feels as though we can effortlessly suspend ourselves from it – as though hanging from a puppet string leaving the crown of the head.

As it turns out, there is a real and true vertical axis that develops within the human embryo in our very first weeks. It’s called the notochord, and it’s just about the first organizing structure to appear in the embryo. The notochord doesn’t last – its sole use is to pattern developing tissues. As the embryo develops around it, the notochord eventually disappears. Its origin evolves into the perineum, the bulk of it runs up through the discs and vertebral bodies of the spine, and it ends at the pituitary gland in the center of the skull.

How an energized vertical axis supports terrific health

When we are aligned with our vertical axis, all kinds of healthy processes are enhanced. Fluids such as blood, cerebrospinal fluid, and lymph can flow more easily. This enhances detoxification. Space opens up around all the organs, including the heart, lungs, digestive system, liver, kidneys, and colon. Every organ has a little more room to move, which improves breathing, circulation, digestion, detoxification, and elimination. A well-functioning vertical axis opens the joint spaces, helping synovial fluid to hydrate the joints, and improving flexibility, range of motion, and comfort. There’s even science to suggest we feel better emotionally when we’re in good vertical alignment. Truly, an energetically alive and high-functioning vertical axis affects every single system in the body, supporting ease and healthy function.

Visualizing your vertical axis

It’s especially important for those of us healing from injury or chronic illness to stay tuned into our vertical axis, as it will help the body access its self-healing power on every level. Even if you’re lying down in bed, you still have a vertical axis! It goes along with you, into any position. You can visualize your vertical axis before you fall asleep, when you wake up, when you’re sitting in a meeting or driving, when you’re wandering your neighborhood, or while exercising. It’s always there. Here’s a brief visualization to help you with it.

Tune into the soles of your feet, and locate kidney one in your mind’s eye. Imagine a current of energy flowing into your body, entering you at these two points. Follow the energy up the insides of your legs. Find your perineum in your imagination, and allow the energy to flow into your torso from this point. (In yoga, teachers will often have you contract your perineum just slightly to feel this more clearly.) Visualize the energy moving up through your spine. (The bodies of the vertebra are closer to the center of your torso than to your back.) Follow the energy up through your spine, and feel it flow through your sinuses and into your brain. Allow the energy to flow through your pituitary gland, and exit through the very top of your head. Let your breathing fill out and expand around this current. Let your internal organs relax around it. Let your body easily and effortlessly release into length, using the current as your guide. It should feel easy and right – it’s been with you since you were just a cluster of cells, an organizing principle for health and wellbeing.

To wrap it up

Visualizing your vertical axis is a (free!) powerful way to support health on every level. No matter where you are in your healing process, it can add a layer of ease, comfort, and wellbeing to your journey. Our vertical axis is one of the very first patterns to develop in the human embryo; our bodies are literally designed around it.

Thank you for reading! You are graceful as a tall redwood, touching the sky.

Shona