Discover Your Superpowers of Healing with Myofascial Release
You may not know this about me but, when I was twenty-one, I broke my back in a car accident. I had a can-do attitude and when they told me I would have trouble walking my go-to was "Watch Me!" and I pushed through it and got back to walking!
I had a great doc who left out the hardware and decided I was young and we would just see how my body and back would heal on their own. I'm so grateful and what I was left with was pain. I was determined to figure it out and had no idea where to start. What I did know though was....
It says what you can and can't do and erupts without rhyme or reason...or so I thought at the time. I tried traditional physical therapy and all the things...and it got bad...like horizontal for a week or two at a time bad.
I wanted to know more...like how come one week I start to feel better ala less pain and then seem to backtrack with the inevitable flare-up?
The world is so often focused on strengthening. Be strong! Work it! We've even made our push-past-it mentality into fun and glamour...WORK IT! Way to Push Through!! High fiving each other on our way out of the gym. (Remember the gym...hmmm)
Here's a little data about bodies and pain
When your shoulder is tight or your back hurts the most common treatment before surgery and the like, is to strengthen it. Yes, oh so important, but you can't strengthen (for you data peeps...ie: push against resistance from a lengthened position and contract) if it's tight, dense, and bracing.
You can't tighten something that won't even open in the first place. Not to mention your nervous system will do all the things to try and keep you out of "danger".
I don't know about you, but I was getting tired. I was also losing faith in my superhero, "do whatever I want body". It still hurt AND my pain was getting worse! On top of a body that hurt, I seemed to be able to handle less and less of a normal, everyday sort of world aka my nervous system was losing its ability to self-regulate.
Here's the next phase I call getting my first massage.
I had a friend going through massage school and she wanted to practice her new therapy skills on my janky back. Needless to say, the massage was life-changing and my twenty-something-year-old self was left with the thought..."I'm just gonna eat Ramen noodles and get bodywork all the time!"
And my back...not so loud. The pain had softened.
I began to get bodywork as often as I could. Soon after, the stars aligned and I found what I wanted to do...go to massage therapy school! Why does my back hurt one day and not the next?
This new therapist was on a mission to understand pain and how we heal!
So life rolls along and I'm working at a pain management clinic, doing all of the manual therapy in their PT clinic. I'm learning so much about how the body heals, and yet I am still in pain. I was working a very physical job and I was kind of small and had this back thing, thinking maybe I should go back to school and do something else.
This is where I was at and the part that I call get a new career or figure it out.
How fun is it that I learned about myofascial release classes at this stage? The stars aligned and I hopped on a plane and went to my first myofascial release seminar. (Life-changing chimes in the background)
This is the place where I started. I was in pain and beginning to accept that being in constant pain was just how it was. Maybe you are in a similar place? Scratching off things on your love-to-do list. Don't worry...my superpower is to help you find your superpower.
There is Another Way!
Discovering myofascial release and the art of working with the fascia is life-changing for me and many others out there and it can be for you too!
Get Back your Body and Heal!
Gentle, sustained compression and elongation help to regulate your nervous system so you can do more life and have fewer flare-ups!
Not sure where to start? Join me for my Myofascial Stretch Method class, which is offered online every Saturday.
Learn More Here!
Just like those tulip bulbs, you planted back in the fall, you are setting yourself up for a lovely Spring!
Fascia is the Way!
Melissa
P.S. Want more Myofascial Stretching? Join me on Saturday for class...LIVE or get the Replay
MYOFASCIAL STRETCHING
Saturday at 1 PM Central
ZOOM + 3 Day Replay!
Sign Up Here!