Bren Danielson Manual Therapy and Injury Rehabilitation Specialist

Bren Danielson Manual Therapy and Injury Rehabilitation Specialist I am here to help people heal from physical injuries, stress, energetic holding patterns with nurtur

This is a great way to describe how I work with fascia.
12/10/2025

This is a great way to describe how I work with fascia.

Confessions of a Myofascial Trigger Point

I was never meant to be permanent. I began as a moment, a response, a slight tightening when holding felt safer than releasing. At first, it was subtle, just a brief pause in the tissue's rhythm. But the body asked me to stay. So I did. I shortened my fibers, thickened my layers, and held the chemistry still. I became a place where the river slowed and gathered its weight.

The body learned to move around me. Fascia stiffened along familiar lines, rerouting tension and sensation elsewhere. Pain drifted outward, tracing old pathways through the shoulder, jaw, back, or breath. I wasn’t creating chaos. I was containing it. I held pressure because something inside wasn’t ready to let go.

Then the hands came, not hurried, not demanding. They rested with warmth and attention, and I felt the first change before I understood it. Compression softened the alarm. The nervous system quieted its vigilance. Hyaluronic layers warmed and began to slide. A gentle current brushed past me as the fascial wave moved through the body, reminding the tissue of motion I thought had been lost.

When the wave reached me, it paused. I was seen. The hands didn’t press me deeper into holding. Instead, they slipped beneath me, lifting me gently toward the bone. The pressure shifted in different directions, changing the shape of everything I had been holding together. My fibers lengthened. Blood returned. Chemistry softened. I felt warmth where there had been tightness and a trembling where there had been certainty.

I tried to stay. Old patterns don’t dissolve easily. But time was offered instead of force. Breath moved. Electrical chatter quieted. The nervous system loosened its grip on the story I had been carrying. Slowly, and with only a little drama on my part, I melted. The dam cracked, and the water I had been holding found its way forward again.

As I released, the river surged outward, carrying the change through the fascial lines that connect the whole body. Where I once stood, there was space, warmth, and movement.

I was never the enemy; I was the pause that kept the body safe until it was ready. And when it was finally met with patience, presence, and understanding of a healer like you, I let go. The river remembered itself, and so did I.

Amazing office Waiting room Two bathroomsKitchen Free parking lotElevator Utilities included
12/06/2025

Amazing office
Waiting room
Two bathrooms
Kitchen
Free parking lot
Elevator
Utilities included

Small office for rent in a office in San Rafael CA $550a month all includes utilizes AC but no Wi-Fi (you can get it on your phone, or get service) Great for massage physiology any quiet business...

View from our parking lot
12/04/2025

View from our parking lot

11/28/2025

The River and the Riverbed: The Lymphatic Myofascial Relationship.

The body is not made of separate parts, no matter how many textbooks try to divide it. It is one continuous conversation. One river system. One woven landscape of structure, fluid, memory, and sensation. Nowhere is this more beautifully seen than in the relationship between the fascia and the lymphatic system.

Fascia is not simply connective tissue. It is the body’s inner forest floor, the soft earth through which everything grows and travels. It holds more sensory nerve endings than the muscles themselves. It houses the interstitium, a vast fluid reservoir now recognized as one of the largest “organs” by volume. It creates the very terrain through which lymph must move.

Lymph is the traveler, the cleansing tide, the quiet river that removes waste, regulates immunity, transports nutrients, and responds instantly to inflammation or injury. But lymph does not move on its own. It depends on movement, breath, pressure changes, and the softness of the tissues it flows through. Its vessels sit embedded inside the fascial layers, anchored to the very fibers that bodyworkers stretch, melt, warm, and free.

This is why these systems cannot be separated. This is why fascial lymphatic flow works. The Long Method is my favorite technique taught by Katrina Gubler Long.

When fascia becomes dense or dehydrated, the interstitial fluid thickens, pressure gradients collapse, and lymphatic capillaries cannot properly open and close. Imagine trying to push water through a dry, compacted sponge. The lymph has nowhere to go. Post-surgical clients feel this acutely. Trauma, inflammation, surgical scarring, or immobility cause the fascial planes to lose their slide, which in turn traps swelling, slows immune function, and increases pain.

But when we touch fascia with slow, intentional, directional work, something extraordinary happens. Mechanotransduction, the cells' response to mechanical pressure, shifts the behavior of fibroblasts and immune cells. Collagen fibers begin to reorganize. Hyaluronic acid changes viscosity. The interstitial fluid becomes less stagnant. The tissue warms, hydrates, and begins to breathe again. And the lymphatic system, finally uncompressed, begins to move with ease.

You cannot restore lymph flow without changing the landscape it flows through. You cannot free swelling without freeing the structures that hold it. You cannot separate the river from the riverbank.

This is not guesswork. It is anatomy.

The superficial lymphatic system lives in the loose areolar fascia, a layer designed to glide. The deep lymphatic system lies within the deep fascia surrounding muscle compartments. When these gliding surfaces stiffen, every lymph vessel tethered to them loses its ability to pump. This is why many clients feel more relief with fascial lymphatic flow than with lymphatic work alone. We are restoring the architecture that lymph depends on.

In post-surgical care, this becomes especially profound. Scar tissue alters glide. Protective guarding increases fascial tension and non-pitting edema forms when fluid becomes trapped in thickened interstitium. Traditional lymph work is essential, but fascia must also be addressed for complete restoration. A gentle fascial approach honors the lymphatic system's delicacy while creating the space it needs to travel.

This is not breaking tradition. This completes the picture.

Some may challenge this perspective, but the body does not argue. It responds. It softens. It drains. It heals. Thousands of therapists have seen swelling reduce, pain decrease, and mobility return when these systems are treated together. Because fascia and lymph are not separate entities. They are partners; two halves of one healing intelligence.

To work the fascia is to prepare the riverbed. To work the lymph is to free the river. Together, they create a landscape where healing becomes possible again.

For the bodyworkers who feel this truth in your hands, keep listening. The body is always teaching us how interconnected it really is.

Still  available I'm hoping to rent it before the New Year.The pictures don't do it justice.We have a great office warm ...
11/27/2025

Still available I'm hoping to rent it before the New Year.
The pictures don't do it justice.
We have a great office warm friendly, 5 rooms everyone does something different.
Great for any quiet business or rent it for storage or just a place to escape.

Small office for rent in a office in San Rafael CA $550a month all includes utilizes AC but no Wi-Fi (you can get it on your phone, or get service) Great for massage physiology any quiet business...

11/25/2025

✨ Holiday Gift Certificates Are Here ✨🌙
BrenGive someone you care about the gift of deep rest, grounding, and real relief.

With everything going on in the world right now, stress is sitting in our bodies more than ever — and a good massage isn’t a luxury, it’s essential care. A thoughtful, meaningful gift that people truly appreciate.

Buy 2 or more gift certificates and receive 20% off your next massage with me.

Perfect for:
• Friends & family
• Employees / clients
• Hard-working partners
• Anyone who could use a moment to exhale

I’ll happily arrange a time to deliver them or meet you — whatever’s easiest for you.

Also, as a gift to all of you, any of you who book with me from now to New Year’s, I will be adding complementary hot stones to each session 🙂

If you’d like to purchase, just message me:-)
Wishing everyone a little more peace and ease this season. 💙

Happy holidays to you all!

11/25/2025
11/19/2025

Where else besides Craigslist can you advertise your rentals and business services?

11/19/2025

Small office for rent in a office in San Rafael CA $550a month all includes utilizes AC but no Wi-Fi (you can get it on your phone, or get service) Great for massage physiology any quiet business...

Price dropped to $550 which includes utilities
11/16/2025

Price dropped to $550 which includes utilities

Small office for rent in a office in San Rafael CA $550a month all includes utilizes AC but no Wi-Fi (you can get it on your phone, or get service) Great for massage physiology any quiet business...

Address

712 D Street, Ste L
San Rafael, CA
94901

Opening Hours

Tuesday 12pm - 8pm
Wednesday 12pm - 8pm
Thursday 12pm - 8pm
Friday 12pm - 8pm
Saturday 12pm - 8pm

Telephone

+14154596799

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