When you were young did you have a lot of energy? Did you run around the house and in the yard, out in the fields and through the woods? Were you a bit of a wild kid? How was that ok and not ok in your family? Was it easy for you to listen to the directions of your caregivers your parents, your teachers, your guardians? Were they gentle, stern, overbearing, angry, kind, patient, receptive, dictators, democratic, were you in charge, did you have a lack of control? Did you get scared easily, did you worry too much, was it easy for you to make friends, were you shy anxious and nervous? Did you get hurt, was it easy to tell the people who were supposed to protect you that you had needs, when something didn’t feel right, when you needed help. Were there situations that influenced your ability to trust, to feel free, to feel yourself, to understand and know yourself better? How was it when you were young? How did this shape you, tame you, support or shame you. Did you create strategies that could help to protect you? Did you change the way you walked, dressed, laughed, rested or didn’t rest, slept or didn’t sleep. How were you supported and how did you establish your own sense of self. Did you say no, did you rebel, did you get angry, did it make you sad? Was it easy to ask, was it ok to have needs? Was it safe to be you?

I have a client who doesn’t like to do exercise, she has the idea and it sounds good in theory, and then everything else becomes more important. Really anything, she just can’t get motivated. She is avoiding like the plague and doesn’t understand where the source of the issue is coming from. And so during Myofascial Release sessions I gently guide her back to the first time she remembers feeling this way. And she remembers her grandfather telling her, actually yelling at her, girls weren’t supposed to run. SO, every time her body had a natural urge to run, play frolic, she had the good sense built into her psyche to understand that running was a potential threat to those around her and stopping that impulse might be more important than the natural urge to run. At a young age she was conditioned to restrain herself.

A woman has come in with a significant scoliosis pattern, and her knees seem to move very close together, knock knees they used to call em. And so as we are doing sessions of bodywork and I am laying hands on her knees I asked… Did you go to church when you were young? Did you wear dresses to church and were you asked to close your legs? The answer was yes, yes and yes. I was familiar with the pattern, because I had experienced this exact thing. It was like my body had remembered the reactions of others when I swung on the monkey bars upside down. I was proud of my physical accomplishments when my guardians around me were scared of something else. I remember not knowing why and I didn’t like people looking at me that way. So I remember my knees coming together to hide in a way. To make whatever look was coming my way to go way. So I altered myself, to get an external outcome and my body began to posture to preserve, to protect, and I began to feel ashamed of a part of myself. This of course was all wrapped up in the protective layers of the subconscious, physically my connective tissue layers. It took me being still and noticing the sensations in my body, in seeing the thought patterns by observing the memories and in my heart that surfaced when someone therapeutically touched my knees, and could also hold space for my body, mind and heart.

If my little innocent brain had to change my body to be accepted, welcomed, loved… What else had I altered for others, and at what cost? The tremendous impact of this discovery with this client is that her knees are visibly physically different now. We acknowledged her feelings, her memories and she felt freed from those invisible shackles. Now her adult mind can understand she doesn’t need to harbor those unprocessed feelings in her knees. The actual position of her knees, the tension in the joint, has all changed and shifted, because she took the time to be present in her body, and Presence Centered Awareness Therapy techniques help her to really see. From the eyes of compassion, love and reverence she is able to make peace with the past, and to release the beliefs that have been holding her body in this pattern.

I have a client who is navigating a nervous system that is wired in a way that her brain is very active. She notices everything. She has a diligence or vigilance to the details, and then her mind in it’s best attempts crawls all over the details trying to make sense of every sensation and she is on hyper alert. We have talked about the possibility of a connective tissue disorder. She has injuries that have continued to be painful many years later. When we have started to dig, to unearth, to root around in her childhood, she talks about her mom being a helicopter mom. She was always telling her to be safe, to watch out, and her little nervous system learned how to keep her mother safe, by altering her behavior and really at her core, by being on guard, by not feeling safe.

She now doesn’t feel safe quite often. Her nervous system is anticipating the next injury, by protecting before something happens. She has all the symptoms of hyper-mobility, the connective tissue disorder is a condition where there is a looser structure in the collagen fibers that give tissue strength, they are arranged differently, making the fascia stretchier and less stiff. Because loose fascia cannot passively hold joints stable, the nervous system forces nearby muscles to work constantly like tight splints, causing secondary pain and stiffness this is compensatory tightness.

I have a client who has Parkinson’s disease. We are seeing success in reducing tremors. Our focus on gratitude, on remembering to breathe deep, and on loving the body even as it changes.

We can treat the fascia and the consciousness.

Myofascial Release can treat connective tissue disorders. MFR releases restrictions in the muscular fascial system. The pressure can be up to 2000 lbs of pressure per square inch. MFR is a safe, gentle specialized form of bodywork that effectively releases these restrictions restoring function, health, circulation, mobility, balance, coordination and brings lasting pain relief. With MFR we can get you out of pain and back to the activities that bring you joy.

Angela Rose is a Myofascial Release Therapist and an Injury Specialist she treats clients at Sol Bodyworks. She is an expert in her field and offers Presence Centered Awareness Therapy during Myofascial Release Therapy so we can treat your symptoms at their source and get to the heart of the matter.