January 1st Is a Doorway
There is something quietly powerful about the first day of a new year. Not the noise of resolutions and before-and-after promises — but the stillness underneath that. The moment before the year begins when anything still feels possible. When the body you have been meaning to take care of, the pain you have been managing rather than addressing, the version of yourself you have been postponing — all of it feels within reach.
We believe in that moment. We also believe it deserves more than a gym membership that gets forgotten by February.
What we are inviting you into this year is not a resolution. It is a relationship — with your body, with your health, and with the honest understanding of what your body has been trying to tell you. That relationship, once begun in earnest, changes everything.
What Your Body Has Been Carrying
Most people who live with chronic back or neck pain have been carrying it for longer than they realize. Not just the physical pain — though that is real and significant — but the accommodations that have accumulated around it. The movements you have stopped making. The activities you have quietly stepped back from. The things you tell yourself you'll get back to when the pain improves, while suspecting somewhere underneath that it might not.
The body carries all of it. The structural deficits — undertrained spinal stabilizers, restricted fascia, compressed discs — that are the physical root of the pain. And sometimes something more than that. The psoas muscle, the deepest hip flexor in the body, sits at the intersection of the structural and the somatic. Because of its proximity to the diaphragm and the autonomic nervous system, it responds to stress, threat, and unresolved tension as surely as it responds to prolonged sitting and poor posture. What we carry emotionally and what we carry physically are not as separate as we have been taught to believe.
This is not mysticism. It is anatomy and neuroscience. And understanding it opens a door to healing that purely mechanical approaches — stretch this, strengthen that, take this medication — consistently fail to open.
The Commitment That Changes Everything
We have been doing this work for over 35 years. In that time, one pattern has emerged more clearly than any other: the single most reliable predictor of a good outcome is not the severity of the structural problem, not the duration of the pain, not the age of the client. It is the quality of their commitment.
Commitment in this context does not mean gritting your teeth and pushing through. It means deciding — genuinely deciding — that your health is worth the investment of attention, time, and honest self-examination that lasting change requires. It means showing up for sessions when it would be easier not to. It means doing the home care work between appointments. It means being curious about what your body is telling you rather than just trying to make it stop.
That commitment, combined with the right clinical approach, produces outcomes that feel remarkable to people who have tried everything else. We see it regularly. We believe it is available to you.
Still living around your pain?
Let's change that. Call us and describe what you're dealing with — we'll tell you honestly if we can help.
Call 425-758-4619
What Structural Rehabilitation Actually Offers
When we talk about MedX spinal strengthening, myofascial release, spinal traction, and the other modalities we use, we are talking about something more than symptom management. We are talking about structural change — building the muscular foundation that the spine needs to function without pain, releasing the fascial restrictions that limit movement and perpetuate tension, decompressing the structures that have been under chronic load.
These are not temporary fixes. When the deep lumbar extensors are properly strengthened, the protection they provide does not disappear when you stop coming to sessions — it stays, because you built it. When fascial restrictions are genuinely released rather than temporarily relieved, the tissue stays more mobile. When the psoas is addressed — its physical tightness and its held tension — many clients report not only reduced pain but a quality of ease and lightness they had not felt in years.
This is what is available on the other side of a committed course of care. Not management. Resolution.
The Somatic Dimension — What the Body Holds Beyond the Physical
For some of our clients, the journey into physical healing opens a door they weren't expecting. The psoas work, the fascial release, the deep nervous system regulation that careful manual therapy can produce — these sometimes surface feelings, memories, or a quality of release that goes beyond the purely physical. A sudden breath. A sense of something letting go. Tears, occasionally, without obvious cause.
This is recognized within somatic rehabilitation — the body stores patterns of tension that are connected to emotional and nervous system history, and when the right conditions of safety and skilled touch are present, those patterns can begin to release. We hold space for this with care and professionalism. We are not psychotherapists and we do not work in that domain. But we do acknowledge the whole person who comes through our door — not just the spine and the disc and the tight muscle, but the human being carrying all of it.
For those who want to explore this dimension of healing more intentionally, Trent's book — You're Carrying Something That Isn't Yours — and the Viveka.Life platform he has built around it offer a structured, thoughtful framework for understanding what the body holds and how to begin setting it down. The two approaches — clinical rehabilitation and somatic healing — are not separate. They are different expressions of the same truth.
How We Are Here for You in 2026
This year, we are more equipped to support you than ever before. Here is what is available:
In person at 2447 152nd Ave NE, Redmond WA. Our new clinical home is open and ready. One-on-one sessions with Trent — comprehensive assessment, MedX spinal strengthening, manual therapy, fascial release, Piezowave shockwave therapy, hydrogen gas, and full-body LED red light therapy. No shortcuts, no group sessions, no compromises on the quality of attention you receive. Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm, Saturday 9am to 2pm.
Through clinical membership. For those who want ongoing access to the facility, equipment, and community — clinical membership at $75 per month gives you everything you need to maintain and build on the progress from your sessions. Current members at the legacy $55 rate are locked in permanently.
Online, from anywhere. The online clinical membership at $47 per month brings the practice's expertise to you wherever you are — full protocol library by condition, weekly clinical insights, monthly live Q&A calls with Trent, downloadable home care guides, and personal 48-hour response to your clinical questions. If you are outside the Redmond area and have been wondering whether there is a way to access this work — there is.
Through education. This blog publishes weekly — honest, evidence-informed writing on back pain, neck pain, manual therapy, athletic performance, spinal rehabilitation, and the emerging science of how the body holds and releases tension. Every post is designed to give you information that helps you make better decisions about your health. No filler, no generic wellness content, no affiliate links — just clinical knowledge made accessible.
Through the deeper work. For those who are ready to explore what the body carries beyond the physical — Viveka.Life offers a structured platform for that journey, built on Trent's 35 years of clinical and somatic experience. Start free or join at $12 per month. The bridge between physical healing and whole-person healing is there when you are ready to cross it.
You've tried other things.
This is different. Our approach addresses the structural deficit most treatments miss entirely.
Call 425-758-4619
One Question for January 1st
Here is the only question that matters today: What would your life look like if the pain that has been limiting it was genuinely resolved — not managed, not accommodated, but resolved?
Hold that image for a moment. The activities you would return to. The energy you would reclaim. The version of yourself that has been waiting on the other side of this.
That is what we are in the business of helping people reach. It does not happen overnight, and it does not happen without commitment. But it happens — more often than people expect, more completely than they dare to hope at the beginning.
This is your year. We are here when you are ready.
How to Begin
Call us at 425-758-4619 and describe what you are dealing with. We will tell you honestly whether we think we can help and what a realistic course of care looks like. No obligation, no pressure, no sales pitch — just an honest clinical conversation about where you are and where you could be.
Or book online at fixbackneckpain.janeapp.com. Or email us at info@fixbackneckpain.com. Or explore membership at fixbackneckpain.com/membership. Or read more at viveka.life.
However you find your way to us — we are glad you did.
Happy New Year. Here's to a 2026 where your body finally gets what it deserves.
— Trent Shuford, LMT, Cert. MedX Tech.
Fix Back & Neck Pain · Redmond, WA
Trent Shuford, LMT, Cert. MedX Tech.
