Six Parts Of The Spine & Six Themes Along The Path To Healing
The pain and problems that we experience in our bodies and lives, like the ubiquitous back pain for example, can be traced back to our spine.
In this article I want to show you how the healing process, sometimes called ascension, is related to the spine.
Also, we will take a look at how life is nudging us through that process of spiritual healing and evolution.
Throughout our lives, during the healing journey, certain themes show up.
And since our spines are the conduit of consciousness, those themes will show up in our bodies, and particularly in our spines.
I’ll discuss the spiritual significance of our spine, and the six themes that show up on the healing journey.
Before I dive into the different themes and the different parts of the spine, I want to share with you the bigger picture of how we are connected to the spiritual world via our spine.
The Bigger Picture
The bigger picture is that, if you’re alive, you’re in a process of embodying your soul’s essence whether you know it or not.
Our nervous system is the interface between our bodies and the spirit world—our bodies and our souls.
How Does The Nervous System Connect Us To The Spiritual Domain?
People are familiar with the physical nervous system, which consists of your spinal cord and the nerves that travel throughout the body into virtually every cell, system and organ.
However, there’s also a part of our nervous systems that are energetic.
It’s this energetic part of the nervous system that is the interface between your body and your soul.
When we were conceived, and before our physical bodies started forming, those energetic fields and our energetic nervous systems were present.
Conception And Downloading Our Soul’s Essence
From my experience, having worked with thousands of people in the way that I do (BioSoul Integration) over the course of the last twenty years, the following is my sense regarding the connection between our bodies and souls.
When we are conceived there’s a window in the space-time continuum that gets opened up, and it’s there that the different consciousness fields involved in making you converge.
These fields form a container (an energetic matrix), and this energetic matrix is responsible for telling the cells which part of the body to turn into.
The intelligence of this energetic matrix tells the cells whether to turn into your hand, or your head, or your nose, or your foot, or your heart, etc.
When you are conceived, the first thing that comes into the physical is your spinal cord, your brain stem and primitive gut and heart.
This lays down the roadway for all this energetic soul information to come into your body, and turn into you, to manifest your soul in the physical world.
Our spinal cord is the conduit of consciousness, and those different consciousness fields that are running in the background support our continued physical, mental/emotional and spiritual development.
My Personal Experience
When I turned 40 some years back, I could feel how I had crossed some threshold.
Life became more about giving my soul gifts on the planet— focusing more on spirit than it had been about the body previously.
There are developmental stages that unfold in a person’s life, and life is nudging us through those developmental stages.
Through the work I do, my job is to help smooth out that process.
Because along the way, resistance gets baked into our nevous system.
We learn to resist the process of growth.
The difference between our resistance and the force of life nudging us along creates a tension in our body and being.
That tension can be uncomfortable in a variety of ways: physically, psychologically or spiritually.
That discomfort is designed to catch our attention—to get us to stop and reassess as life is calling us to something.
This can show up in a variety of ways in our bodies and lives.
6 Spiritual Themes And Six Parts Of The Spine
Here’s a video I made about six secrets that the spine reveals:
Also you can listen to the podcast version below, or look for the BioSoul Integration Podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts:
When I’m doing my work, it becomes apparent as people are embodying certain parts of this energetic field.
There are different themes that show up in people’s lives.
The details of what is happening, also known as the content, are not so important, who they’re dealing with or the situation they’re dealing with, for example.
It’s the context that’s important.
And by context, I mean:
What’s the theme behind what’s going on?
Is it about trust, is it about being challenged to express your truth, is it about safety, is it about control, is it about being challenged to draw healthy boundaries, etc.?
There are many different themes that come up along the healing journey.
The content just keeps us wrapped up in our ego, and creates resistance.
But if we can bring our attention to the context (the theme), that’s very useful.
So, I want to take you through some of these themes, how they’re related, and what parts of the spine that they’re related to.
The following information was taught to me by Donald Epstein.
Donald Epstein developed Network Spinal Analysis, the technique that is the foundation for my work.
From the top of the spinal cord to the area of your pelvis, then from the two sides, your pelvis down a little to the end is this little bone which is known as the coccyx, also known as your tail-bone at the end of your sacrum.
And your tail-bone is important, it kind of anchors your spine on one end and there’s a lot of information, a lot of connections happening with your coccyx.
It’s about you being connected to the planet as well as you being able to receive energy from the planet, and if you’re able to let that circulate through your body especially through your heart you’ll have a sense of intrinsic self-worth.
Also, you will have a sense of being valuable here because you certainly are valuable here.
The earth needs all seven billion of us to do our thing.
I need you to do your thing, and you need me to do my thing, so, the earth wants you to do your thing.
That is why you came here, and it needs that for the overall evolution of the planet itself, the consciousness of the planet, and the consciousness of everyone on it.
So, you are very valuable, and your unique gifts and skills are very needed.
The function of your coccyx is to receive information from the planet, and if we’re connected with that, we have a sense that we are valuable.
But if along the way there’s a lack of oxygen, a lack of love, a lack of food, maybe you’re in the womb and your mother scared or she’s not sure she wants to have a baby, we embody that and we along the way afterward sense a lack of something, that we are not wanted here again.
If we get any sense that there’s a lack of anything, we embody the sense that maybe we’re not wanted here.
What happens when we do that is, we grip at the life force energy at the tail-bone there.
So, what we’re doing is we’re just holding on the life force energy because we’re like well, ” I don’t know if there’s going to be any more life force energy behind that, So I’m going to hold on to this little packet of life force energy and keep it because I don’t know if there’s going to be any more,” and of course, that’s not the way things work, there’s an abundant supply of resources.
But we might embody some lack and a sense of doubting our intrinsic self-worth, and as you’re unwinding that. that theme might come into play somehow in your life.
By the way, here’s an in-depth blog post, complete with video, about life force energy.
2. The Sacrum Connects Us To Who We Are And Why We’re Here
The next theme has to do with the sacrum.
The sacrum is a triangular-shaped bone leading to the coccyx.
Along the way, we might learn and if we’re connected with that part of our body and if the energy from the sacrum can flow through our body and especially our heart, we get the feel of sense like who I am, and why I’m here.
Furthermore, we might learn subtly through our parents or the culture at large that; who I am and why I’m here is not okay.
And so, since we rely on them for our survival, we will push that part of ourselves away; we will sequester it or we’ll sidestep it that might involve tension or involve ways that we hold tension in our sacrum.
To sidestep feeling that or pinch it off from our heart, it is when we decide we have to adopt someone else’s version of who we are. and why we’re supposed to be here.
I think a lot of people can relate to that.
There’s a certain age which is somewhere around the age of 28 to 35, where we start to differentiate from that.
We can differentiate from our parents, and differentiate from all those old identities like who am I really and why am I here.
And when we start to unravel that, then that’s the theme that we might come into in the relationship with her.
We might start to notice in our lives who we are, and why we are here and all that. So it has a lot to do with identities, a lot to do with shoulds that we’ve adopted like this is who I should be.
3. Lumbar: Safety, and Vulnerability
The next part of the spine we’ll take a look at is the lumbar, the lower portion of your back.
Energetically, the lumbar region is all about safety and vulnerability.
It’s often connected with the crown of the head as part of a larger circuit of embodiment—how life energy moves between our grounded humanness and our higher awareness.
When we first come into this world and sense that others are uncomfortable with their own vulnerability, we learn to push ours away too.
We instinctively grip at the life-force energy in the gut, tightening around it to keep from feeling the rawness of being human.
That grip becomes a kind of energetic armor, a survival strategy meant to protect us from feeling unsafe.
As that armor begins to soften—often through healing, awareness, or spiritual awakening—the life force that was once locked down starts to move again.
In this process, we can feel lumbar back pain, not because something is wrong, but because something deep within us is opening.
The body is adjusting to the reintroduction of vulnerability and the flow of life where there was once tension and control.
Until we grow comfortable honoring this new level of openness, the transition can feel tender or unstable.
But this is part of the healing. The ache is the armor melting.
If you’d like to explore more about this theme of safety, vulnerability, and how it shows up in the lower back, I go deeper in my in-depth blog article and video on the spiritual meaning of lower back pain.
4. The Heart: Bridge Between Worlds
Then there’s the heart—the bridge between our physical and spiritual selves.
It serves as the meeting point where the dense reality of the body and the subtle realm of the spirit intertwine.
When we’ve learned to push parts of ourselves away—to disconnect from the sensations in the coccyx, sacrum, low back, or belly—we’re often trying to keep their intensity from reaching the heart.
The heart is where all of those energies want to be felt, integrated, and transformed.
To avoid that vulnerability, we unconsciously build armor around the heart.
That armor once kept us safe, but it also limits our capacity to fully feel and connect.
As it begins to soften and unravel, the life force that was trapped below starts to rise again.
You may begin to feel more of your natural power returning from your base—and along with it, old fears that surface as that energy moves through the heart.
This stage can feel tender, sometimes even disorienting, because the heart is relearning how to stay open while feeling everything.
But it’s through this very process that our humanity and our divinity begin to move as one.
Each of these pieces expands on how reconnecting with your truth and honoring your natural expression allows life force energy to move more freely through your system—helping you live from what feels authentic rather than what simply makes sense.
6. The Base of the Skull: The Center of Control
There’s an important place where the spine meets the skull, right at the base of the neck.
Energetically, this area relates to control.
From early on, we sense how those around us push away their own vulnerability.
To stay safe, we do the same—gripping the life-force energy in the brainstem and upper neck to keep from feeling too much.
This part of the spine sits at the crossroads between thought and direct experience.
It’s where beliefs and expectations can override our felt sense of life.
Instead of being present with what’s real, we start managing, categorizing, and controlling what we think we should feel.
We take on inherited ideas about who we’re supposed to be and how life should look, and in doing so, separate from the spontaneous flow of life’s intelligence.
But life has a much larger plan than the one our mind can conceive.
When we try to control our experience, we limit the range and depth of emotion our system can feel and keep our life force locked up.
That control requires enormous energy, creating a constant background vigilance—a readiness to manage or prevent what might go wrong.
This vigilance can show up as deep fatigue or as anxiety centered around the top of the neck, where the body holds the impulse to stay in control.
It can also reflect an energetic interaction between the bottom of the neck, which connects us to inner truth, and the top of the neck, where that truth meets old control patterns.
When these two areas begin to reconnect, the tension between them can surface as headaches, migraines, or jaw pain.
These sensations aren’t signs of failure—they’re signs of healing, revealing how your nervous system has been working to manage life’s intensity and keep you safe.
If you’d like to explore how these patterns of control and vigilance show up in specific ways in our bodies and lives, I’ve written more in-depth posts here:
Each of these expressions carries its own intelligence, showing you where your system is learning to surrender control and trust life more deeply.
The Embodied Path Online Course
Since it relates directly to the subject of this blog post, I want to tell you about the online course I’ve created: The Embodied Path Online Course: 8 Steps To Expressing Your Soul’s Essence, Purpose And Calling.
If you’re experiencing stuckness in your body and life and want to transform that stuckness and express your soul’s purpose, this course is for you.
In the course I show you how to connect with each of the levels of the spine that we discussed in the article above, in order to catalyze the wisdom of the energy bound there.
Through a series of video lessons and worksheets, you will gain knowledge and understanding of how life uses pain, problems, stuckness and challenges to reveal our unique gifts and encourage us to share them.
Then you’ll learn a simple, but powerful, set of practices you can use to have a direct, felt experience of the process of soul embodiment… direct experience being the best teacher.
And if that weren’t enough, the course includes bonus opportunities that make it possible for you to get live, personal help from me, so I can help you have that direct experience.
Gain Valuable Insight Into How These Themes Have Manifested In Your Body And Life
Throughout this exploration, we’ve looked at how different parts of the spine and the body as a whole carry distinct themes that reflect our spiritual and emotional evolution.
When these areas hold tension, the body communicates through sensation and symptoms.
You might feel tightness or pain, or notice parts of your body not working quite like they used to.
These sensations are the body’s language—signals that certain themes are active in your healing journey right now.
For example, tension in the lumbar region often relates to safety and vulnerability, while holding in the sacrum or coccyx may touch themes around creativity, sexuality, or grounding.
Tightness in the neck and base of the skull can point to issues with control, and tension in the lower neck and shoulders might be tied to speaking your truth, suppressed anger, or ignoring what truly lights you up.
You might even notice patterns like fatigue, anxiety, headaches, migraines, or jaw tension—each a reflection of how your system has been managing life’s intensity.
All of these expressions are not random problems; they’re intelligent communications from your body’s deeper wisdom—signs that something is ready to integrate and come home.
If you’d like to discover which of the life themes related to the spine is active in your life right now, I’ve created an interactive BioSoul Integration Guide that will generate a personalized report for you.
You’ll answer one simple question, and the guide will reveal which theme—such as safety, control, vulnerability, expression, or trust—is currently shaping your body and your life experience.
You’ll then receive a six-page personalized report that explains how that theme is showing up for you and how you can work with it consciously to support your healing, growth, and evolution.
Dr. Jay Uecker is the founder of the BioSoul Integration Center near Boulder, Colorado where he's been practicing for over 20 years. He’s an author, chiropractor, healer, and online soul integration coach who weaves Network Spinal Analysis, intuitive Parts Work, Brainspotting, SomatoRespiratory Integration, and body-centered awareness practices into his own technique, which he calls BioSoul Integration. His work helps people release unconscious resistance stored in the nervous system so they can embody their soul’s gifts and express their purpose more fully. Dr. Jay offers group healing sessions and one-on-one care, both in-person and online. He also offers a self-paced online course and a growing collection of transformational books. For a limited time, claim your FREE copy of If It Didn't Hurt: How to Resolve Your Pain and Discover Your Life Purpose.
H Dr Jay
thank you for all your time and dedication to this cause and for yet another great vlog – super interesting as a chld Idamaged my cocyx annd about 6 years ago I had a nasty fall landing on my Sacrum and cocyx as well as concussion
Safety and boundaries were of the order of the ay as well as self expression or failure to do so…
Big big thankyou
Joe Boggs
ps: we would love to have you come talk at our Anual Kinesiology Federation KA Day for CPD
Hey Joe,
Nice of you to thank me for the time and dedication I put into these. They call it the body-mind for a reason. The physical world is not seperate from the mental/emotional or spiritual world. I’d love to speak at your Kinesiology event. Thanks so much for the invitation. Wish you were a liiiiiiitttle closer to me. I actually looked it up. Looks like it is an in-person event and I wouldn’t be able to make that this time. Keep me in mind for next year or other things. If they’re online or if I’m going to be in the UK, maybe it’d work out somehow.
