The Body Artisans

11/16/2025

Fascial Line Archetypes.
(A passion project we are working on.)

The fascial lines are more than anatomy. They are archetypes woven through the body, each carrying a different emotional instinct and pattern of movement. They guide how we walk through the world, how we defend ourselves, how we open, how we spiral, and how we rise. When we understand their intelligence, we begin to understand ourselves far more deeply. Here are a few of them to explore.

The Superficial Back Line is the Guardian. It is the ancient protector that holds us upright, stabilizes our spine, and keeps us braced when the world feels uncertain. It carries fear, vigilance, and the instinct to survive. When this line unwinds, the body remembers what it is like to stand without armor.

The Superficial Front Line is the Vulnerable Heart. This line expresses our tenderness, our breath, our openness, and the part of us that risks being seen. It carries worry, self-doubt, and emotional exposure. When it softens, the chest lifts, the breath deepens, and the heart finds space again.

The Lateral Line is the Boundary Keeper. It defines the edges of who we are. It stabilizes the body's sides and supports balance, both physically and emotionally. It holds frustration, overstretching, and the exhaustion that comes from giving too much. When it releases, we reclaim our sense of space and self.

The Spiral Line is the Story Weaver. It wraps around the body like a ribbon, connecting opposite shoulders and hips, guiding rotation and expression. Emotionally, it carries confusion, resentment, and the twisting patterns we create when life feels complicated. When this line unwinds, clarity emerges, and the body finds its natural rhythm again.

The Deep Front Line is the Inner Flame. This is a cornerstone of our being, the deep emotional channel that holds identity, instinct, willpower, and truth. It houses the psoas, the diaphragm, the pelvic floor, and the organs that govern survival and emotional regulation. This line carries shame, numbness, fear of instability, and the stories we have hidden in the deepest parts of ourselves. When it opens, something profound awakens. The body remembers its center. The soul remembers its voice.

Tell us what you think. Should we continue to create more?

11/15/2025

The human body holds its stories in layers, each one woven through a different depth of fascia. The superficial fascia, the deep fascia, and the visceral fascia form a trilogy of emotional memory, nervous system response, and structural intelligence. Together they shape how we feel, how we move, and how we heal. In the Body Artisan approach, we honor each layer with its own language of touch, because each one carries its own form of truth.

The superficial fascia is the most expressive layer, rich in sensation, lymphatic flow, temperature shifts, and emotional reactivity. This is where we feel social emotions, fears, overstimulation, and the subtle “weather” of the nervous system. It responds instantly to the world. Myofascial Flow is the perfect modality for this layer, because its slow, wave-like movement speaks the language of safety. It invites the skin, the lymph, and the surface nervous system to soften their grip and settle. When we work here, we aren’t just treating tissue; we are calming the emotional atmosphere of the body.

The deep fascia carries a different kind of story. Dense, fibrous, and linked to the musculoskeletal system, it houses compensations, postural patterns, protective contractions, and the emotional imprints formed through repetition, stress, and survival. This is where responsibility, pressure, identity, bracing, and long-held fears often live. Myofascial Trigger Point Therapy is the medicine for this layer. It listens for the hyperactive points where the nervous system has built its strongest defenses. With sustained pressure and clear intention, these points release not only pain but old patterns, the ones the body created when it didn’t know another option.

Then there is the visceral fascia, the deepest layer, wrapping the organs like silk. Here we find the emotional roots that run through the autonomic nervous system. Grief in the lungs, worry in the stomach, fear in the kidneys, anger in the liver, and the quiet survival instincts stored in the gut. This layer controls breath, digestion, circulation, immunity, and the deepest rhythms of life. Myofascial Release is the gateway here, because its stillness and depth allow the body to unravel from the inside out. Working with the visceral fascia is less about pressure and more about presence —a listening so deep that the organs respond with ease, warmth, and restored mobility.

When these three layers are understood and treated with intention, the body becomes coherent again. The superficial layer calms, the deep layer reorganizes, and the visceral layer unwinds. The emotional body stabilizes, the physical body finds balance, and the inner systems return to their natural harmony. This is the art of fascia, the art of emotion, and the art of healing woven together. This is the essence of what it means to be a Body Artisan.

11/14/2025

How many of you have taken a Myofascial Flow training with us?

There is a language beneath the skin that most people never learn to hear. It lives in the fascia, the quiet web that holds the entire body together, and it speaks in long, uninterrupted lines. When we follow those lines with intention, when we lock into the tissue and guide a slow wave through the entire chain, the body responds in a way no single muscle technique ever could. This is the art of full-body connecting strokes.

So many therapists today rush past this. They move muscle to muscle, segment to segment, never realizing they’re leaving the body’s deeper intelligence behind. Fascia doesn’t think in pieces. It feels in rivers. The superficial back line. The front line. The spirals. The lateral tides. These are the pathways the body trusts. And when we follow them, the nervous system softens, the breath deepens, and the whole body begins to reorganize in real time.

In this video, I’m demonstrating the patterning of these strokes. It is intentionally faster than how I actually work. Myofascial flow is a slow, melt-within-the-melt process, allowing the collagen fibers time to unwind and the ground substance to transition from solid to fluid. But even at this demonstration speed, you’ll see the blueprint. Palm twist. Fascial lock. Traction. Wave. Continuity. No breaks. No interruptions. One line connecting the entire body.

When you honor the fascial lines, something extraordinary happens beneath your hands. Tissues communicate. Layers cooperate. The client drops into a state of deep parasympathetic release. This is where the real magic of bodywork lives —not in isolated pressure, but in connection. Not in force, but in listening. Not in speed, but in presence.

Follow the lines. Slow down. Let the fascia show you where it wants to go. And watch how your work transforms from technique into art.

11/12/2025

Our intra oral training is so much more than learning how to work inside the mouth. It is a full unwinding of the head and neck, a gentle softening of the places where stress and emotion settle. It is lymphatic facial cupping to help the face feel lighter and less congested by moving stagnant lymph, red light therapy to support cellular healing, and gua sha to ease inflammation and melt tension patterns with slow, intentional strokes. This is whole-body support, whole-heart education, and a reminder that when we treat the face, jaw, and neck with presence, we transform the entire system.

11/11/2025

Who has or works with a teen who is an empath?

There is a tender brilliance inside our teenagers, especially the empaths, the feelers, the ones who sense the world before they ever speak it. Their nervous systems are like open instruments. They vibrate with every shift in the room, every breath of tension in a parent’s voice, every unspoken worry floating through the halls at school. And when the body doesn’t understand how to sort “mine” from “theirs,” the emotional load becomes confusing, heavy, and overwhelming.

This is why so many teenagers sit across from me and whisper, “I don’t know why I’m angry… I don’t know why I snapped at my mom… I don’t know why I’m so sad.”

It isn’t weakness.

It isn’t instability.

It is nervous system syncing —something their body is doing beautifully, automatically, and without conscious intention.

In trauma science, we call this co-regulation. Humans are biologically designed to match the emotional states of the people around them. The vagus nerve, our great wandering river, constantly reads the environment. It listens for safety or threat in micro-expressions, tone, posture, and energy.

Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory describes this as neuroception, the subconscious surveillance system that determines whether we soften or brace, open or withdraw. Teenagers, whose brains are still developing emotional boundaries and identity, experience this syncing even more intensely.

Research in affective neuroscience also shows that emotional contagion —the automatic absorption of another person’s mood —is especially heightened in adolescence. Their mirror-neuron systems are more reactive. Their limbic brain is more sensitive. Their bodies are wired for belonging, attunement, and reading social cues with exquisite accuracy.

This is not a flaw.

It is an evolutionary gift.

But gifts often feel like burdens when no one has taught you how to manage them.

This is where Parasympathetic Reset and nervous system synchronization work becomes life-changing. When I guide teens into this work with slow exhalations, weighted grounding, gentle fascial unwinding, and the soft melting of jaw and diaphragm, something incredible happens. Their system shifts out of borrowed emotion and back into their own body. They feel themselves again.

The noise clears.

The overwhelm quiets.

The self returns.

And then I teach them what no one may have told them growing up:
You’re not “too sensitive.” You’re incredibly attuned. Your nervous system is powerful. You just need tools to understand it.

When we validate their experience —when we say, “It makes sense you felt that, your body was syncing with someone who was overwhelmed” —something inside them unclenches. Shame dissolves. Confusion becomes clarity.

And suddenly, what felt like chaos transforms into a superpower.

Teenagers don’t need us to fix them. They need us to teach them the language of their own body, the body that has been listening so deeply, for so long, to everyone but itself.

11/08/2025

Which Activity Would You Like To Experience?

When you come to one of our Body Artisan CE classes or retreats, it’s never just about learning. It’s about slowing down, reconnecting with yourself, and remembering how good life can feel. These experiences are designed to fill your cup while deepening your craft, a space where education and restoration flow together.

Here are a few of the local experiences we’re dreaming up for you:

🐮 Cuddling the sweetest Highland cows
🕯️ Candlelight Hot Yin Yoga
💃 Pole Dancing
💦 Aqua Yoga Boarding and Aqua Fitness
🎶 Aerial Sound Bath
🍎 Apple Cider Slushies and fresh produce at our local Red Barn
🔥 Tin Foil Dinners up the canyon
🛶 Kayaking
🚵 Electric Bikes to a Waterfall
🏔️ Snow Tubing
🎢 Alpine Mountain Coaster
🧗 Rock Climbing
🍺 Strap Tank Brewery hangouts
🍕 Pizza and Movie Night

So tell me, if you came to learn, play, and recharge with us, which of these experiences would you look forward to the most?l

11/07/2025

Tucked against the mountains in a peaceful Utah farm town, our Body Artisan Education Studio is a space where the pace slows, the air feels cleaner, and learning becomes something you feel with your whole being. This isn’t just a classroom, it’s a retreat for the bodyworker’s body, a place to breathe deeply, rest entirely, and rediscover the joy of healing.

Every detail was created with care. The massage tables are electric, heated, and memory foam, draped in soft, luxurious sheets with neck pillows that cradle you in comfort.

You’ll have access to hot towel cabbies, nod pods for your eyes, and all the little touches that make long training days feel nurturing instead of draining.

Between classes, you can relax in our cozy theater room, complete with reclining chairs and a large screen projector, perfect for watching learning videos or evening movies. Step out onto the porch to watch the light shift across the mountains, or share laughter over a game of pool. Our kitchen is always open, and warm meals can be included for those who need them. Laundry is also available for extended stays.

We’ve filled the space with tools to restore your own body while you learn to care for others, including an infrared sauna blanket, a vibroacoustic sound therapy table, a massage chair, a chi machine, a vibration plate, and a full gym for both movement and strength. Aerial hammocks invite balance, stretch, and gentle play. The spa bathroom features a hydrotherapy shower and deep soaking tub for the ultimate unwind after class.

For those traveling from out of town, we offer full lodging and accommodations, quiet rooms, cozy beds, and even airport pickup if needed. It’s all part of the experience we want you to have here: ease, care, and connection.

Because this work asks so much of us as healers, and we believe you deserve to receive the same level of care you give.

11/06/2025

Trauma Therapy Bodywork

I often get asked how I found my way into trauma therapy work. The truth is, it found me.

For two years, I lived inside the walls of Walter Reed Hospital. My spouse, a soldier, had suffered a traumatic brain injury while serving overseas. Those were years filled with courage, heartbreak, and healing. I watched him relearn how to walk, to talk, and to navigate the most basic rhythms of daily life.

In the middle of all that pain, something extraordinary happened: he found his voice again through music. Even when words failed him, his heart remembered the melody. And as I listened, surrounded by other soldiers and their own battles, I began to see the language of trauma in new ways; the small ticks, the subtle patterns, the body’s quiet attempts to protect itself.

The doctors and therapists there were incredible. I absorbed everything I could; how touch, tone, and safety could help someone reconnect to their body. That experience changed the entire trajectory of my life. It taught me that healing is never just physical; it’s emotional, spiritual, and profoundly human.

That is where The Body Artisans was born. From the rawness of trauma. From love. From learning to listen when the body speaks what words cannot.

Andrew Bell has made me a believer in Music Therapy. In February he was on a run with his unit in Vicenza Italy when a car ran a red light and hit him in the...

11/05/2025

The Diaphragm - Inhale The Rising Sun

The diaphragm is the threshold between worlds, a soft muscular horizon where breath becomes emotion, where instinct meets awareness, where the body decides whether it will open or guard, rise or collapse, receive or brace.

We often think of breath as something automatic. Yet, the diaphragm is a sacred participant in every inhale, every release, every moment the body whispers, “I am safe enough to expand” or “I must hold the world together.”

This dome of tissue and fascia is not just a respiratory muscle; it is the emotional gatekeeper of the human story, tethered to the psoas, the heart, the ribs, the liver, the vagus nerve, and the ancient protective patterns carved into our fascia over a lifetime.

For the bodyworker, the diaphragm is a holy landscape to approach with reverence. When we place our hands below the ribs and listen with our palms, we are not simply working a muscle; we are meeting the place where grief hides in shallow breath, where tension wraps itself around the solar plexus, where unspoken fear clings to the underside of the heart, and where the body curls inward as if protecting a flame.

Gentle myofascial release here is an invitation: an unwinding of the emotional armor, a softening of the bracing, a return to the natural wave that breath once was before stress taught the body to shrink. To free the diaphragm is to free the lungs, to free the heart, to let the gut exhale, and to restore movement in the rivers of lymph and energy that pass through this center of being.

In this space, healing is not a force; it is permission. We lengthen the fascia that has learned to hold too tightly. We melt the tension that once kept someone alive through trauma. We remind the body that expansion is safe, that breath is nourishment, and that the softest place can also be the strongest.

Beneath our hands, the diaphragm remembers its original purpose: to rise like a sunrise and fall like a tide, to give rhythm to life, and to make space for emotion without being overwhelmed by it.

In that gentle release, the body returns to itself, breath deepens, the heart loosens, and a quiet, powerful truth emerges: healing begins the moment we remember how to breathe again.