She had been repressing the memories and the emotions, but the body kept crying for her. She had pain when she was young, things hurt in her body, her ankles, feet, knees, back, hips, shoulders,& neck. As we work together, she starts to feel safe. Safe enough to talk about the abuse from a time that she couldn’t remember until she was old enough to face what happened. She was little, she has memories as little as four years old. It was her grandfather who held her down, and forced her, threatened her and made her keep quiet. She was quiet for her safety. She didn’t know who to tell, she was unsure that they would listen. So she kept it to herself until she could really remember. She had been to therapy. It seemed to help her mind to rationalize and compartmentalize, to make sense of it. But she often saw herself outside of her body, and her body developed ways of protecting and coping.

Her body speaks in a language of visuals, so she will see things, sometimes she’s visited by animals and they offer her protection. Her body doesn’t use words as much. And as we visit her inner child, this little girl who was left alone to manage these complex emotions and memories is quiet. It is her body that is loud.

Her body tells the story and she sits as I guide her to rest into her awareness to witness and hold loving space. Simultaneously she softens to allow the feelings to arise and to feel them as much as she feels able. With all of her capacity she and I hold her in loving compassion. As she visits the memories that have shaped her. He didn't do this just to her. There were others in her family that had to cope and strategize through the years and in their ways. These destructive ways further impacted her as she watched family members unravel, drinking themselves to death, and others unable to speak out and others who did not believe her.

And so we hold the space to love these parts that have been almost locked away, repressed, held. Again and again session after session her body is moving, unwinding. She works to give her body permission to release and although her mind has been exercising diligent tracking to keep her safe, she needed to soften the focus and allow the built up movements she had stored in her fascial memories to surface. And to let them have life in her body. As she lets her body move and she encourages herself and offers the freedom to herself to express, her body is gently, rhythmically thrusting her bones back into center.

Her body is extremely intelligent. She is vigilant in her mental figurings. She tries to figure out her body and all of its parts cerebrally and gets frustrated frequently because she's still in pain after so much trying to figure it out. She has learned to pay close attention to her sensations and to make sense of her anatomy, she has done years of strength training. She is strong and has an able body, and needs to address her fascia in order to feel better. Her human experience is valuable, and she is making the time and making the investment to show her body the reverence and support it deserves as she heals these deep patterns. With each session she begins to see how much energy is pent up inside of her and she allows more of her body to move, different parts are shaking and moving on the table. Her body is trying to get out from under something. She remembers being held down and forced, and also holding herself back from reacting from the inside and the fear frozen in her to keep quiet. She learned to subdue herself, and the prison she felt outside became internal and self perpetuated.

As her body moves her, the deep repressed memories and sensations staccato their way to the surface and to her conscious mind. A ripple from the middle to the outside, waves of movement and of release. It's deep in her culture, deep in her lineage to stay quiet. She feels she lost her voice because she wasn't able to cry for help, to say what was wrong when she needed to. She wasn't able to tell him to stop when he wouldn’t, or to make it stop by telling someone. Because he threatened her life, her mother’s life, she kept quiet for good reason. Throughout her life she sees all these times that she wasn't able to speak up for herself. She has felt trapped and pinned down, her body reflecting the pain and suffering, fear and anger that she experienced when she was young. She was so little that maybe it became woven into the fabric of her being as this tightness, as this quietness as this freeze.

The more movement she lets herself have during MFR sessions, the more pain free she becomes. She notices now what is coming to the forefront of her consciousness as her sensations, thoughts and feelings and she’s able to let herself take the time to be with these feelings. Feelings are meant to be felt and released, it’s energy in motion - emotion. Most often if you allow a feeling to be 100% felt, a feeling will last about 3-5 minutes max, and it will begin to change. Change is freedom, the same is stagnant.

In my practice when people allow themselves to feel a difficulty or what we would term as negative emotion, these deep seeded memories bring up these feelings, in order to process and heal them. It is essential to move through these stuck emotions, to experience what’s underneath. Usually after the feelings are felt the body comes to resolution & there is a deeper sense of calm, ease and of relaxation in the body. Because once we feel, we heal. Once our loving awareness moves the energy, it is no longer holding in the body, the energy can move and it can release.

I offer Presence Centered Awareness Therapy during sessions in order to support all of you. If you have trauma that may still be alive in your body, and if talk therapy hasn’t been enough… you could benefit with PCAT paired with MFR. Myofascial Release MFR and and PCAT help to release the restrictions in your body that may come from trauma, abuse, accidents, injuries, surgeries and physical symptoms that may still be occurring in the body. The body has a way of reliving experiences and holding tension that happened in the past. Reset the body with MFR.

Myofascial Release can release fascial restrictions, Presence Centered Awareness Therapy is practiced during sessions to support your greater understanding and knowing, to resolve what we call unfinished business. To regulate your nervous system and heal your past so you can live more fully in this moment. Sense and feel the space and freedom in your body that comes from true healing with MFR and PCAT.

Angela Rose is a Myofascial Release Therapist and Injury Specialist at Sol Bodyworks in Grass Valley.