10/14/2024
Transforming Trauma: Understanding Fascia as the Body’s Sensory Network
With over 250,000,000 sensory neurons, fascia is now seen as the body's largest receptor of sensory information. Fun fact: the human retina only has about 126,000,000.
Small wonder that highly sensitive people like empaths and those with a history of trauma, auto-immune and hyper-mobility issues cringe at the thought of 'awakening' more sensation in the body.
To find homeostasis, they may resort to shaking, stretching or even compressing the body against a wooden block to find relief. I understand. There are so many different types and degrees of trauma and numerous approaches to dealing with it. It helps to know what you are dealing with when seeking relief. I suggest clients take the ACE test before working with me. (link in comments)
Knowing that your fascial network always seeks a balance of tension and compression is important. Stretching can make you tighter and when blocking creates more compression in one area, the body finds balance by creating more tension in another.
Fascia has many different types of sensory receptors that respond to many types of sensations besides pain or information about where the body is in space. Interoceptive receptors in the viscera and intramuscular fascia act like reservoirs of subconscious memory capable of holding all sorts of traumatic memories.
Whether we accept it or not, we are all walking archives of the pain and suffering endured and perpetrated by humanity.
So how do we work with our fascia to help dissolve trauma held in this archive? Well, understanding how the different receptors perform and adapting our methods to a constantly adapting fascial network is one way. This includes slowing down, going in softly, decompressing when there is pain, and wavy and non-repetitive movements is a good place to start.
However, the real key to transforming trauma is not to try to do, fix, or get rid of anything. The real key is in the relationship you develop with your body as the living, responsive field of the moment-by-moment self-creation that is you. Witness your relationship to feeling supported in life. Find pleasure and flow, even for 5 minutes daily, and make it a habit. Bear witness to what arises without judging it as bad. Receive enhanced sensory information with a compassionate heart and without judgment.
We have been conditioned to have a cognitive bias toward negativity. What was once an evolutionary advantage has now become a way to bypass the creativity, connection, pleasure, and joy of our bio-intelligence and keep us stuck.
Be patient and curious. This is not an instant fix. Fascial healing yields instant benefits like more energy, increased blood flow and a sense of well-being. But to remodel your tissue takes more time. Transforming trauma is an organic process of regenerating aliveness at the cellular level. As you become fluent in the language of your bio-intelligent body, your perception of space, time and events undergo a paradigm shift. You unfold your canopy and become more of who you really are. You reroot yourself in more presence, aliveness, and coherence.
To understand fascia's role in transforming trauma is to see fascia as the mother of our central nervous system (c.n.s.). She is earth feeding the c.n.s. tree with a network of mycelial connections. The sensory network of our fascia feeds into our heart before reaching the brain. The heart perceives very differently from the brain. Where the brain divides, the heart unites.
If you're looking for help recovering from trauma, you feel like you've tried everything and you just want a gentle way to embody your soul's wisdom and form a deeper alliance with life, I am happy to help you decide if this is the right path for you. Respond to this post to find out more. I have openings for three new clients.
photos: 1. an internet grab. 2. biointelligent networks- mycelium- threads of living vegetation. 3. biointelligent networks-human myofibrils- threads of living fascia, courtesy of Dr. J-C Guimbarteau
