23/12/2025
Our default facial posture is the unguarded expression our face holds when no one is watching.
When we are distracted and not performing or consciously communicating with the world, our resting facial expression reveals the deeper place we are inhabiting in our lives and in ourselves.
This baseline is shaped over time by the feelings and thought patterns we deny, suppress or hold down.
Emotional holding becomes physical holding.
Habitual tension settles into the face, revealing us in the present moment while, over time, gently shaping the face with more permanence around the contours of our inner world.
In practice, barred emotions can be seen to etch themselves into the face with words and feelings seemingly kept inside by the deep vertical lines of pursed lips, for example.
The SMAS, facial muscles and connective tissues, fat and neurovascular all work together to shape the face and form expressions. Often, it is the quietest emotions that can be visually the loudest.
This is the tissue landscape fascia-focused facial work speaks to: Not by forcing change, but instead by meeting what is already there with clarity, precision and compassion we are able to invite a shift in state.
The relief felt in that moment of ease can be tremendous. Even if fleeting, it matters, and can be magical, laying down vital groundwork for long term change.
Popular understandings of how the face can change are often unrealistic, superficial and impatient.
On the other hand, fascia anatomy and massage give us the most beautiful and compassionate touch whilst offering something far more honest - a way of working that supports continuity between soft and hard tissue and the nervous system.
This is why fascia-focused facial work speaks so powerfully to the emotional face.
❤️
