The fascia & creative movement for healing.
When you guide somatic and embodied movement, whether that’s pure somatics or yoga I am always fascinated by how much we want to be told what to do. The idea of moving freely and being witnessed or in community with that is terrifying for so many people. There is a reason that so many people, at least in the UK and the west need to drink before they can dance.
I get it, we have been conditioned to be terrified of our bodies, terrified of our expression, terrified of play and terrified of liberation. We exchanged our freedom for a false security as long as we conform. And yes this is political, the body and movement is always political.
Somatic movement is slowly changing my life. First of all it leaves me in awe of my body. What I have learned about our anatomy and evolution has blown my mind and I feel like I am on the biggest adventure. It’s also been deeply healing as I slowly move my way through reclaiming and liberating myself. It’s also leading me back to the collective, there is no going back.
One part of the body, our bodies that has been deeply supportive in this exploration has been the fascia. I am obsessed with this web of connective tissue that supports our entire body. I am always in practice with my fascia, with me as fascia. And it’s such an important part of us.
This tissue surrounds every organ, every muscle, every bone, blood vessel and nerve fibre. It supports us into place. It’s as sensitive as skin and 70% water. It’s our literal fluid body and a major part of our hydration. When we experience stress or trauma, either physical or emotional our fascia can become stuck as it will tighten to protect us. This can cause dehydration throughout our body and create stiffness and pain, again both physical and emotional.
As we age as well our fascia becomes more and more dehydrated, so tending to this part of us is deeply supportive for our overall wellbeing.
Our fascia is a web of you. It holds our life stories, our emotional and physical traumas, there are some theories that it also holds our consciousness. It’s a wonderfully creative, intelligent and magical part of us. However, when it gets stuck or dry it will impact our entire being. Dry rigidity in the body is mirrored in our thought patterns. Stuckness in the body can become mirrored in our lives which is why creative and dynamic movement can be so beneficial for us.
We need to reclaim our fluidity and water body.
When we do this we can find more ease, more creativity, more joy, a more attuned way of working with our emotions and stress. And while our muscles love patterned movement like we do in strength training, our fascia needs and thrives off of more fluid and creative movement like dance or intuitive and fluid stretching. Drinking more water will have little impact on the hydration of our fascia, we need this nourishing movement as well.
And when we play in the realms of fascia we are also allowing movement of the emotional body. Emotion, literally means to move or move through. Like water, if they are not in motion they can become stagnant and toxic. This isn’t about getting rid of anything, this is about staying in motion, in allowing, so we can create more space and ease.
There is a reason that they say that dance is the number one thing we can practice to support ourselves during depression.
And this is the beauty of somatic play, we are approaching our healing through the body where all this stuff is stuck. Deeply simple but also not easy.
So I have an invitation for you…
Invite more creative and dynamic movement in. Nourish your body through dance or maybe a simple stretch, shake and sigh.
To help you out here is a link to a video on instagram of me demonstrating stretch, shake & sigh https://www.instagram.com/reel/C83wW7wMtHv/?igsh=ZnNqMm1xM3JnOWpk
And here is a 30min playlist to have a dance to https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2OxGAs1zpeI5Cfpd7MO1pd?si=f9rw6Q1lTBGtUdD7edCHvA&pi=5Qw7sG0XR0a1r
I teach regular somatic movement classes both online and in person in folkestone, kent.
All of my upcoming classes, workshops and retreats can be found on the button below.
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