I had a new client yesterday. She knew nothing about fascia and I never tire of talking about fascia, so we were a good match! She patiently nodded her head and listened while I made large hand gestures and spoke on and on about how amazing fascia work is for the body.
You know. Rehydrated fascia gives the joints more room to move and you’ll have less pain and better mobility. Your skin has better tone and less cellulite. You get better sleep and your digestion improves too. I told her all that stuff and more.
But you don’t really understand the benefits of fascia work until you feel it in your own body.
I learned that she’s been having a ton of neck, shoulder and back pain. She just had an MRI on her low back but her insurance didn’t approve an MRI for her neck. Go figure. She’ll have a follow-up appointment to go over the MRI with her doctor next week. In the meantime, she’s living with chronic pain.
She had an appointment with a PT last week but the benefits of that appointment wore off quickly. She’ll have to wait another week to see him again. Another week in pain for a moment of relief.
I could see the pain in her face. She looked tired and strained with a little wrinkle across her forehead. I could also see the pain in the way she held her body. Her head was tipped to the left. As we talked, she was massaging her chronically painful left arm and shoulder. I noticed the hyperextension in her back too. She told me about living with Crohn's disease, numerous stomach surgeries, poor sleep and daily stress. She lives with lots of stress.
Whenever we want to get to the root of pain, we need to de-stress, I explained. We need the nervous system to relax. We can’t heal when we’re in stress mode. When we’re living with chronic stress we can’t
- digest food
- sleep
- regenerate healthy new cells
- get out of pain
Chronic stress creates all kinds of seemingly unrelated problems until you understand how the nervous system works.
Constantly living with physical and emotional stress keeps the body pumping with chemicals that support the fight or flight mechanism. It keeps blood pumping to your arms and legs so you can be ready to RUN. There's no way your body can relax. Forget about sleep.
Being in stress mode all the time turns off your digestion and messes up your metabolism and bathroom routine. Stress pumps you full of cortisol, the stress hormone. Excess cortisol loves to live on your belly fat. Perfect. Right? Stress and belly fat on top of pain and digestive issues.
That’s no way to live.
I gently guided her through the MELT soft ball foot treatment and the rebalance sequence.
I was careful to support her emotionally and physically to allow her to get out of stress mode and gain access to the restore system within her nervous system. I used my indoor voice and kept my hand gestures to a minimum. Our goal throughout was to not create any more pain.
We can’t get rid of pain by adding more pain.
We found surprising areas of tenderness on her left foot. We eased off the pressure to ease the pain and we continued cautiously. During the rebalance sequence, we used the ½ roller with a pad under that supported her throbbing left arm. I quietly coaxed her to relax. Together, we nurtured that tired, aching, and traumatized body.
She slithered off her roller and onto her mat for the final rest assess. I could see her face soften, her eyes widened and the little wrinkle across her forehead was gone.
So was her pain.
This is a process I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of time. Fascia work is the key to a happy, healthy, stress-free body. It's a whole-body approach to wellness. Use fascia work to reactively care for your pain or proactively to keep you out of pain.