By in Joints & Muscles, Other Therapies

Is Your Fascia Holding You Back in Life?

From the very beginning of our lives, we organise ourselves in response to our environment. We pull away, with our body and our consciousness, from whatever is painful or overwhelming, and we constrict those parts of ourselves that we are experiencing pain. Our pulling away from abrasive stimuli is not just a mental process. It is an actual constricting against the sensation of pain.

We do this through the medium of fascia, a dimension of fibres that pervade the whole body and that surround every part of the body, no matter how small. We can even constrict ourselves within the internal depth of our body, where this constriction is difficult (although not impossible) for an observer to detect. Since fascia is everywhere in our body as an interconnected substance, it is a dimension of our internal wholeness. This means that when we constrict the fascia in one part of our body, it pulls on other parts of the body. Over time if the same movements into constriction are repeated they become well–worn, unconscious pathways of reaction to any circumstance. For example, we may slightly withdraw our head in a protective, turtle-like movement, whenever we meet someone in authority if that was how we reacted in our childhood to a dominating parent. This habitual echo of our childhood keeps us from experiencing authority figures in the present and impedes our ability to perceive them clearly without feeling intimidated or threatened.

Our repeated movements into a constriction in reaction to childhood trauma may also cause the tissues of the fascia to become glued together. They may harden into a constricted shape, developing areas of chronic rigidity throughout our body. In other words, that slight turtle-like withdrawal of our head into our neck may gel into a way of holding ourselves that seems permanent.

This may sound like a horror story, but in fact, it is simply the ordinary human condition. We all grow up to some extent limited in our human capacities, such as our ability to love, to speak freely or to think clearly, by holding these holding patterns in our fascia. Although we may be aware of feelings of tension in our bodies, most people are generally not aware of the limitations in their ability to receive and respond to life, unless these restrictions become severe. Most of us accept our limitations as being “just who we are”.

If you are interested in finding out the restrictions you are holding in your fascia in your body speak to Louise, the 4oc Wellness Therapist at The Body Matters.

Louise
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