Fortify Your Health with Fascia Knowledge

Introduction to Fascia and Female Health 0:00

All right, everyone, welcome back. We are joined today by Deanna Hansen. Welcome and thank you for being here. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. It's awesome because we're going to take a look at this nuance that is a big thing that isn't given up attention. And you've dove in deep into it. And we're now going to, you know, explore this with everybody. But how does our feature, you know, people don't even know what that means sometimes interact with everything else that women are trying to deal with.

You know, and it's a really awesome subject because I find that so often there are people that do show work and there's people that talk about it online. And, you know, there's there's clinics you can go to. We can get deep, painful work done, you know, and all of a sudden that's the one thing that's like, wow, this changed my life. And I didn't know it was this one thing that I would never think it was this one thing. So amazing to have you here. So let's start with, first of all, for the people that don't know, what are we even talking about here?

What what is this fascia based on? How is it involved in female health and why and why does it matter? Well, it's it's such a cool topic because like the skin to the body, fascia, is the skin to each and every cell which interconnects every single cell in the body. So it becomes the systems communication system as well as it provides stability and the ability for the body. And the ultimate goal is that we keep all of our hundreds or trillions of cells incorrect alignment. It's when it's when our cells start migrating away from proper alignment that we start having issues in the body.

The first thing that will happen is we'll get a pain signal, because what happens from compression is gravity's constantly pulling us down toward the earth. So from unconscious posture and unconscious breathing, we literally wind down over time. And because the fascia is here to support proper cellular alignment as we start tipping off balance, it's almost like the fastest spins a web, a web of adhesion to connect to everything in its path, including bone. To stop us from tipping over. But this is where the challenge lies.

Because this web, it blocks blood and oxygen flow to cells. It also blocks the body's ability, ability to remove waste effectively. So understanding how to keep this system healthy and aligned is the focus of my work. And when you say a web, is it a literal? What would it look like if I were to hold it in my hand? Is it like more like a college and type of material? What does it look like? Yes, it's essentially a scar tissue. It is collagen. So just like scar tissue. And the difference is scar tissue will form from an injury in the moment or a surgery in the moment where adhesions are like a slow developing scar that is created throughout the layers of fascia over time.

So this is the challenge with it, because it's not this immediate insult. It happens through unconscious posture and breath. And that's why people suddenly can have chronic pain, because it's this slow moving process within the body and we're so highly adaptable. But then we get to this point where suddenly we don't have any more space to adapt. And that's when chronic pain conditions really arise. Yeah. So your body's constantly responding by expanding the fascia. The fascia. And then it over time becomes too much, depending where.

And also that can trigger anything. I kind of picture the last of us with this mushroom cloud expanding and you know. Okay, metaphorically, right? Yes. So so is there foundationally, is there an innate fascia that is the healthy version in amount? And then all of a sudden we exceed that or is it even are we starting from scratch and it's going from there? It's fascia is literally what we see as being part of this human body. It is the connective. So it's not that we make more or we have less. It's that if it's properly aligned, everything sits where it's supposed to be positioned.

And then again, there's optimal flow. What happens, though, is we compress, so the compression creates a squeezing

How Fascia Creates Compression and Chronic Pain 4:07

out of the life and we magnetically seal in these negative alignment. So if we're sitting in front of a computer, say, for decades, which most people are and we're not sitting with correct alignment, we fall in and we compress. And then over time again, that fascia slowly communicates magnetically and seals together. So it squishes out the life force, the cell life, essentially. And it just becomes this container to stop us from tipping over. It basically builds false walls and false floors in the body.

If we don't support proper postural foundations within the body. So you take some functional material and turn it into literally just structure the empty structure. And so you're removing life from a location in your body, essentially? Yes, that's exactly it. That's a great way of explaining it. Thank you. Well, you. Just explained it. I'm just trying to understand it. So. Yeah. That I never thought of it that way. So that essentially. So then whatever cellular processes, delivery of nutrition and all that stuff is probably just dies on that location. Yes.

It essentially becomes like concrete. It's wow, two. Thousand pound per square inch force is what the fascia would grip and adhere to anything in its path including bone. So think of that pressure within and we don't even recognize it because it's continual and gradual and constant. So this is what we're dealing with. And so when somebody says Sit up straight and breathe properly, this is what we're dealing with where, you know, you try to sit up. If you've been slumped over for years and you try to sit up straight, you're going to start to feel that tension and pain because your muscles in the back are you're going to be fighting this incredible force that's occurring in the front.

Wow. So if we take, like an extreme Quasimodo, I think there's a name in Hunchback of Notre Dame type example. That's where you could end up if you truly, you know, have the wrong posture and treat your body poorly. And that fascia builds up and becomes as permanent concrete that forces you into that position. Well, of course, fortunately, it's not permanent with understanding how to decompress it. But for the most part, yes, for most people it is. And that's what creates that dowagers hump. For example, if we're compressed all the time in this forward alignment, the body's always adjusting and adapting to the forces of life to counterbalance where we're tipping from.

So if we're falling forward, we get this displacement of fascia in the back, which becomes the hump. So whether we're doing that or whether we're twisting, which creates things like scoliosis, like all of these things are ultimately impacted by the fascia. And if we understand how to address and support the fascia, then we can make massive changes to our alignment and our structure and our health overall. And just because you're talking about how the body forms I've heard you say before that it speaks to body shape, let's say, because of the those those four pressure points are caused by fascia.

Does it also speak to sort of body type like, you know, I'm up here shape, I'm with this and that. Like how what to what extremes can we go? Well, we can go to the fullest extremes. The way I see how we're born is we are attached to the mother breasts when we're born and when we get a little bit deeper into this discussion, we're going to be talking about diaphragmatic breathing in the significance of what this muscle does for our body. So we're born into the breasts of the mother, and then from that point, going forward, our body responds against to where whatever forces is put into our system and we age from that point.

Moving forward in yoga, they say we're born with a signature posture and the goal of this lifetime is to break through that signature posture. So I see it as we're born into this lifetime with a signature breath, because whatever part of the diaphragm is compromised, it's the diaphragm that's going to be sending the fuel, the fluids to all of the cells in the body, the oxygen, the most important nutrient. So if we're only if we're compressed and we're only breathing with part of this muscle, certain parts of our body aren't getting that proper inflation from the oxygen and that will dictate body type.

So we can absolutely change that with this process. Wow. Because I know that a lot of what we see in our research is, you know, hormones drive, body type, there's estrogen dominance, androgen dominance. And you can kind of see you can predict someone's hormones by looking at their jaw line and their shoulders, etc.. But then there's this whole other layer and this is why you have these anomalies of things that don't add up. There's lifestyle, breath choices, you know, movement choices that then alter the body because of the fascia or factor, I should say.

Sorry. So that's really an awesome insight. So the does it work? The other way, too? So on one end, we're saying that your body will change because there's this innate structure and this web, as you described it, that's moving parts of you around. And so it goes beyond things like hormones and food and muscle. Does it also go the other way around? It could also affect your hormones and your muscle. Yeah. So how does that work? So, for example, if you were ten years old and you sprained your ankle, I have a very different approach to healing acute injury, but the traditional approach is to ice for the first 48 to 72 hours to limit that inflammation.

Second law of thermodynamics is nature abhors a gradient. So whenever there's a gap in the system, nature's going to fill it in. So a tear in a tendon or a ligament or a bone break, those are gaps. So the initial response of the body is to send blood flows and inflammation to actually rebuild the tissue. However, if we don't approach the inflammation in the proper way, what happens? It's like baking a cake if you take oil and flour and and eggs and

Posture, Body Shape, and Diaphragmatic Breathing 9:49

sugar. Sure. And you whip it up, it becomes batter. But if you put batter in the freezer, it's frozen batter. If you put it in the oven, it bakes cake. So we need to add energy into the system. We need to add heat to assist the inflammation in its process of rebuilding. We don't need to know all of the specifics of the physiology of what gets sent. We simply need to understand how to support the body's innate method of healing. So why would the body respond to stress and injury in that immediate way if that wasn't God's way of handling things?

So we've actually slowed this process down and actually even created a challenge because now if you've addressed it without icing, what's going to happen is that scar tissue is going to get filled in which just like adhesions block blood and oxygen flow, it also alters our movement because now we have this area, let's say it's an ankle joint and now you've got all the scar tissue every time you take a step that is going to impact everything up the chain. So even injuries from again like years ago can impact how our body functions.

Because if I'm getting compressed and and pulled down, that will affect the glands because the alignment in general is getting pulled from where it should be. So even the glands are innervated by fascia. Every single cell in the body is innervated by this tissue. So to squeeze one area of the body is going to have a net result through the entire body. So that, again, if you're looking at what are the specific glands that are being impacted and how does this determined body type that can absolutely have a direct impact?

And I know you've worked with a lot of people around this. You know, around fascia work. So are you at the point now where you can kind of call it diagnose or recognize, you know, someone saying, I have fibromyalgia, I have migraines, I have like whatever. And you're like, no, you have a posture problem and I can see it clearly. Or is it that everybody has a fascia problem and we all need work? Both. Everybody has a fascia issue because again, we are all being pummeled with this force of gravity and none of us are 100% conscious of breath and posture, lifelong.

So as a result of that, we start tipping off balance and the fascia is always responding to the forces of life, even relationships, you know, even the negative emotional states that people get. And that causes us to reactively hold the breath, which, if not released, will impact how we feed the cells and where we go from there. So we all have issues with fascia. And so that's essentially what aging is. It's how is your how is your fascia system getting compressed over time and what are we doing about that?

So that's the outer expression of what we look like as we get older is really the inner result of how fascia's responding to these life forces. So if somebody comes to you are what are they typically complaining about? Is that like a chronic pain issue? Is it a hormone issue? It's all of it. So I see people coming with issues with their size and shape. You know, I I'm over 40 now. I haven't changed my diet or my exercise, but now I'm getting a spare tire. I think I've accumulated fat. It's really not fat. It's really compression and ballooning.

We can talk a lot about that. That's a fun conversation. Chronic pain, because again, if what I do when I look at people's bodies is I look at the whole being and the first thing I'm going to do is look at what's happening in the carbs, in the feet. So I'm just going to jump back a little bit and talk a bit about the diaphragm first before I get into the cause sites. So I'm just going to bring my camera down a bit. So the diaphragm rests here. It's the foundation of the rib cage and everything above.

When it's working properly, when we inhale, it moves down. When we exhale, it moves up. It's this pump that's continually creating an internal massage to the abdominal organs, the heart and the lungs. If we're not conscious breathers. And unless you are, you're not. So most people aren't. This foundation becomes weak and we start to fall in. So now the tissue is going to go somewhere. It's not going to go inside. So as I start falling in now, I got this bloated ballooning belly. So this is really where the issues come from, because as I also start to fall in, I'm displacing those organs.

I'm not giving those organs that continual massage. So they become full of adhesions. They don't have that proper blood and oxygen flow. We don't absorb nutrients effectively. We also don't eliminate because we get cold in the space. So we start attracting other parasites, bacteria. They create waste. We keep expanding so people again, they think it's this layer of fat that's being accumulated, but really it's compression, ballooning and the resultant toxic fixation as a result of systems that aren't flowing as they should be.

So coming back to the question on cause sites versus pain sites, where was I going with that? Oh, yes. So what I'm look at when I'm looking at bodies, I'm always looking at what's going on at the calves in the feet because this is where the fascia will freeze with the greatest intensity because it's the furthest away from the diaphragm. So let's say you have a frozen shoulder or a migraine and you go to a therapist and they work in this area. You might have an immediate sense of improvement because they've just created blood flow to that space.

But as soon as you start walking again, that fascia pattern in the calves and the feet are going to pull you right back into that alignment that created the issue in the first place. So we need to look at the whole body because everything connects to everything else. And the calves and the feet and the forms and the hands actually being also the furthest from the engine, they're the most impactful in regards to how that creates adhesions and blockages throughout the entire body. So then what? Where do you start?

Because first of all, when you're working with someone, we may be jumping ahead a little bit, but as a treatment, more hands on work or is or is it breathing? Is it is it yoga stretching? What are we talking about? So fascia, decompression is the general science around this. We can use a tool. So I have the block body. This is the tool that we use for self-care, two different sizes. And we can also teach body workers the technique which I call fluid isometrics, which was the very beginning of my journey.

I started tapping into my own body with my hands. I was a body worker, and then I started applying what I was learning to my clients because I was having these incredible results. So the very first thing that we want to do is we want to we want to optimize the breath because even if you have a sprained ankle, if you come to me as a patient and I work on your ankle and you aren't breathing properly, you're not really turning on that healing opportunity within your body. So whenever we start, we always start in the core of the body and we always start every single position with block therapy.

We start directly on the belly because we train people first how to learn how to breathe from that right space. If you've been breathing for decades with the muscles of the upper chest,

Injury, Scar Tissue, and Whole-Body Effects 16:58

you won't just be able to start breathing. Diaphragmatic We need a little bit of assistance, so we provide that as feedback. We also by spending a minimum of 3 minutes in each position, we literally melt through those adhesions that are locking us out of alignment. So that initial position turns on that diaphragmatic breath and it creates this opportunity for your body to start moving the fluids more effectively. If you think of a balloon fully blown up, it's round, it glows. It almost defies gravity.

And that's really what our cells can have the potential for lifelong. If we keep this breath nice and strong. Now, if you take half of that air out of the balloon, it's going to become not round. It's going to become a little wrinkly. Dust will accumulate in the creases and it becomes heavy and sticky and dense. So that's what happens as we get older, because if we're not conscious breathers, slowly we start diminishing the amount of oxygen in all of the cells. And again, it's the first and foremost nutrient required for every cell to thrive.

And the thing about diaphragmatic breathing that makes it so powerful at the base of the lungs is where the majority of the oxygen receptor sites reside. So if we're breathing through the muscles of the upper chest, we're not even pulling the air deeply enough into the lungs for this optimal absorption. And and in Steven Copes, Yoga and the Quest for the True Self He mentions that we can feed the body up to six times the oxygen from diaphragmatic breathing and in 2014, they did a study showing that 84% of weight loss comes through full, proper exhalation.

So we have this incredible muscle with this opportunity to truly direct how we move through time, how our bodies look, how they function, how they feel. Yet most people simply aren't conscious breathers. And I think one of the main reasons is because this amazing muscle is inside. We go to the gym and we'll work out our our biceps or our chest or backs or legs. But the diaphragm is the most important muscle to spend time and focus your attention on. It even changes the brain frequency to one of a relaxed state, as opposed to upper chest breathing, which keeps you in fight or flight mode.

You know, it's funny that we're talking with us today because just a week ago I was at an event and we did a breathwork exercise. And I'm telling you, I don't know if somebody slipped mushrooms into their air conditioning or something, but it was like a psychedelic experience. Would you do it properly? Because this body that we walk around in is so much more miraculous and complex than we think it has the capacity and capabilities. But yeah, so we went through this deep breathing and I learned I've been conscious about my breathing somewhat, you know, while I'm talking to you, I'm trying really hard.

You know, I feel a little guilty right now during that time, it was an intense, you know, it was a good 40 minutes straight. But things happened where I literally felt a sense of relief in some sort of muscle tissue. I felt stress kind of go away. I felt that my gait kind of changed when I got up and walked away. Right. So that one session changed me. It was it was an intense, acute 40 minutes, but it changed me. And it's just speaks to if you do this as an ongoing part of your routine and regimen, how much different you could be.

And so how long do you what do you do? You see, when people start working with you, what's the change? Are they spending days, months, years. In honestly one class? Because that initial class, that we always share with people focuses on the rib cage. In the core, it is a game changer for people. Immediately they sense I'm taller, I can breathe more deeply. So what's interesting and what's different about block therapy and the approach to the breath work as opposed to all of the other breathing exercises and of course any breathing exercises we do are going to be beneficial.

But because again, when we've been in this collapsed position for decades, this muscle now gets folded over and adhered and acts like a frozen shoulder. So even if we start doing breathing exercises, we only have the ability of what the diaphragm is free to do. As we strengthen that. But with what we're doing with block therapy and fascia decompression, we're releasing those adhesions that have locked the diaphragm out of our full use and creating more space for it to start working. And then right away, because as soon as that happens, we start pulling that air more deeply into the lungs.

There's that additional absorption of oxygen. We immediately feel lighter. And I love that you said it was almost like a mushroom experience because in that car, tools book The Power of now, he mentioned that we're when we're breathing diaphragmatic early we're living in the moment where God lives, when we're breathing through the muscles of the upper chest, we're connected to thoughts of past and future where the ego lives. So we want the ego and our highest self to be working in conjunction. But when we're breathing up here, we're disconnected from our hearts.

Highest pass because we're not even bringing that oxygen as deeply as we can into the body. So it's profound and it's just exciting because people have access to this. It's the muscle we were born to breathe with. And I love it when I see somebody finally connecting to that breath, because I know now you're in control of your health, you know how to self care and really hear what your cells are saying. It's this beautiful communication that occurs when you really tap into this breath. Yeah, what you just said explains a lot, because if you haven't done it, it may sound kind of woo woo, but when you do it, you'll understand.

And I that's the exact experience that I had that after it was all done, I went from in time, you know, dealing with the current problems, whatever, to like this purpose, you know, like a high sense of purpose. I was by the end of it, I was the world didn't matter, right? I could be burning around me and I'd still be on my mission forging forward. And so I really changed in one session, elevated consciousness. I don't know how else to say it, but I felt this huge sense of purpose.

Diagnosing Fascia Issues and Common Symptoms 22:58

So this exactly. We just said it wasn't the past. It wasn't the president was like, I got to make a difference in this world, you know? And I wasn't even trying to go there. It just was just an outcome that came out of that. So really cool. So now what if you're all this work you're doing and you're saying it affects certain hormonal pathways, etc.? I've also some of what you put out there in that I read you said that you can actually because you're moving parts like for example, your jaw, your mouth, your tongue, for example, you're going to change the function of other organs.

And there's a connection as an example between the tongue and the thyroid, right? So how does that all workers do? I've never heard that before. So I'm going to back up and just explain the three different pillars that create the whole understanding of fascia decompression. Okay. So the first one is creating space. So as we get older, we become shorter and wider. We are decreasing in our internal space. And it's the adhesions again that are locking us out of alignment, locking some of those cells from our understanding of connection.

So with the process of simply lying on the tool or a practitioner using their hands in their body in the way that we teach, we, we melt through those adhesions and we create space. And then the second pillar is inflating that space through the act of proper diaphragmatic breathing. The third pillar is maintaining that space through understanding proper postural foundations. And even the tongue muscle is a foundational muscle to support the weight of the head. People just think that it's just for talking and chewing, but yet when it's properly aligned, it keeps the head in correct alignment as opposed to letting the head fall in tip.

So the tongue sits right on top of this thyroid gland. And so many people have thyroid issues because if you look at how most people sit and stand, most often we have our head hanging over to one side and imagine this big butterfly, beautiful gland here getting compressed and ballooned. So wherever there's compression, there's no blood and oxygen are not. No, but there's limited blood and oxygen flow getting to that area. And there's also that ballooning, creating that toxicity on the other side.

So understanding how to keep every cell in position in the body is what's required in order to have that optimal flow as soon and as soon as we don't in one area, the entire body's responding because again, everything is connected. So we're never just dealing with one area of the body that needs attention again. It's all of it that needs attention. But even by strengthening the tongue, muscle and understanding where it should be positioned and working toward that alignment will lift all this tension off of the tongue area and support also proper blood flow to the brain because of course, the hypothalamus, it is important in producing, releasing and inhibiting hormones so that we can feed the pituitary, the master gland of the body.

So if any of these glands are impacted, which all of them will be to some degree from compression and adhesion, they're not working as fully and optimally as they can. And often we see challenges and changes in the body as we get older. However, these things are happening younger all the time now because if you look at kids and they're on their cell phones, 24/7, they're literally squishing their bodies and as they're developing, their breath is completely compromised in a different way than when we were kids because well, I'm not sure how old you are, but I didn't grow up in front of a computer or technology at all.

So, you know, to to see what's happening in the posture of the uses is scary, in my opinion, because they're going to see issues with everything, hormonal issues included from a much younger age than what we're seeing today in the older population. However, this is a solution, so I'm very excited to be getting this out there. And since you're talking about devices, is there a connection? I don't even know if you've gone there yet in your research between like EMF and all the pollution we have, like electronic electrically, I should say. Yes.

Affecting the fascia. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, yeah. I mean, I can't even put a cell phone up to my ears. I can actually feel it and I can I can feel that happening. Putting it on your body, it's putting in this negative energy and the cells want to be in their harmonious state. So any time we're inflicting the body with I had a I had a speaker on one of my podcasts that said from the fifties, we have 144,000 more toxins in the world today than 70 years ago. I mean, that's incredible to even think that we're still alive and walking around because I mean, we are literally a sponge.

The fascia is a sponge. In fact, if you look at a sponge that's moist and new, you know, you can squeeze it, you can twist it, and you let it go and it comes back to its full, you know, alignment. That's what our fascia system should be like. You have a sponge that's been sitting in the corner of a cupboard that didn't get fully cleaned before. When you get to it, it's all twisted and it's hard and you try to bend it and it's going to break and you'll see dust come out as opposed to bending a wet new sponge that has the capacity to be able to move all around and then resume its function and shape.

And that's what we want. We want a fluid body that has, again, all the space. So we've got full range of motion. And I love Greg Brady. His work is fantastic. And one of the things that he shared in one of his books is that on the surface membrane of every single one of our cells is the message encoded, God lies within. So when we compress and we get pulled away from alignment, we're not hearing what those cells are saying. So as again, you mentioned, you had sort of this like moments of OC,

Block Therapy, Decompression, and Breath Training 28:38

like my my purpose when we connect to those deeper cells than what we're consciously aware of, we become more connected to our life purpose. And then we can move forward from that place of creativity because God lives in the space. And if we decrease in our internal space, then we're pulling ourselves away from that highest version of our self. And then we get caught up in the ego in these processes of thinking that are repetitive, as opposed to seeing every moment as a unique expression and something that we can move forward from.

Yeah, I think when it comes to physical, we take for granted that our body will just do whatever we're making it do. And your simple example of well, lean your head like this and half your thyroid is compressed and half of it is stretched and ballooning. It's not supposed to do that. And both of those cause their own unique problems and go head to toe. There's a whole slew of problems you can come up with if you understood how you're abusing your body physically, even the most minute like head tilt, whatever, but that chronically for over a number of years or this chronically or over a number of years or this, you know, with your phone and you see it with kids, there's new evidence of these new bones being developed in the back of kids necks to compensate.

The body's changing to to make up for that, you know, if the bone is changing, imagine what's happening with the fascia. So do you find that there's more and more young people that you're working with that need support? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, even babies. Because back in my day, babies were born breathing, die dramatically. That's how we are designed to breathe. However, now, because the generation has come where the mothers today grew up in front of the technology, they're coming from this space of huge collapse.

So now you're trying to grow this baby in a space that's already compromised and collapsed. And I'm seeing babies that aren't breathing diaphragmatic as a start. So the thing about proper breathing, pain, fear and stress causes to reactively hold the breath. If you see a deer survive an attack, they shake, they release that negative energy and then they go on with their day where we as humans, we get locked in this freezing mode. So if 20 years ago I saw some traumatic event in front of my face or had something awful happen to me if I don't release that in the moment now, again, here I am in this position and now I age from here as opposed to from here.

And so again, like thinking that the diaphragm is what's responsible for feeding all of the cells in the body. If I pull in because I'm afraid now I've locked that muscles ability to function. So we're designed to survive. We're still going to start breathing through the muscles of the upper chest. But again, we're going to be completely depleted from this most important life giving nutrient. And so we become these cold, twisted, heavy bodies and we're magnetic. So if I'm pulling in from a state of fear and or guilt or shame or whatever the emotion that we get trapped and stuck in, now we're actually putting out that vibration to the world.

And that's what we're going to pull back into our lives, where if I'm coming at life from a place of openness and love and compassion, that's the experiences that we're going to have and we're going to see. So it's kind of fascinating when you think of this brain body connection. The heart is the muscle to pump all of the fluids to all of the cells. And if we have every cell receiving that information, then we have direct communication with the brain so that we can navigate the moment. However, if we have a whole bunch of adhesions riddled throughout the body, again, there's going to be so many cells not communicating.

So there's going to be gaps in the system, and that's where we get caught into patterns of memory. And it was really amazing because years ago I took yoga, I and our yoga teacher training and one of the things we had to do was really observe our own bodies through this process of understanding how to open things up. And I remember I was walking through a mall and I was in a really good mood. I felt really light and I was I was having a good day. And then this gentleman walks by me. We lock eyes for a brief moment, and he scowls and my gut immediately churned, and I just felt sick inside.

And so now I'm awake to what just happened. And then as I'm thinking about this, I was able to rationalize this. I thought, well, I mean, I don't know this person. Maybe he didn't like me, whatever, but maybe he just looked at me and in that moment got a shot of pain in his knee. And maybe the scowl was his own personal response. And we just happened to see each other at that time. But I took that information and I made it about me. So that's where we get caught up in these patterns of thinking where we have some kind of a stimulus.

And it takes us back to a memory where we were traumatized, where if we can understand, okay, I'm going to exhale and I'm going to see that there are a myriad of opportunities why that may have happened and likely it had nothing to do with me. Then you go on with your day in that in that calm, peaceful state that we were currently in. So does that explain maybe this is a stretch, but why there's some body work that can release trauma, pain, etc.? Because at the time of that moment is when you went into that weird position, maybe held that for a few days or whatever, and created that flash of.

BLOCK. Yes, actually, in just just last fall, I did a 90 day trauma program in my membership. And it was fascinating to see people going through this process because people were making these connections like one woman shared that, you know, when she was ten years old and sprained her ankle, she recognized that was the moment when she stopped being able to stand up for herself. So it's neat how the physical, the emotional, the mental, the spiritual, they're all tied in again through this beautiful social system.

So when things become entangled, there's the emotion trapped in there, that negative collapse affects that brain pattern and what we're thinking. So that's how we get caught into the remembering and pulled back into that emotional state. If we're triggered. But then what's the physical component of that? Because everything is interconnected. So to be able to look at the body as a whole and see this system as truly the interconnection of all parts of our being and to have an actual approach, then we don't look at the body as having disease.

We simply see the body. And this goes back to your initial question. We simply see the body as having blocks to flow to certain cells. And initially that cell is going to give you a pain signal because pain is like the baby crying. It's not a bad thing. It's your body saying, Hey, mom or Dad, I need a little bit of attention and energy because you're asking me to do this crazy job to let you thrive. Yet you're starving me and I'm hungry, so I can't work as fully as I want. So cells giving us signals of pain, anxiety, whatever that is, it's just them letting you know that they need more attention and but if we ignore that and we keep ignoring that, eventually we don't even hear them because those cells are pulled so far away from our conscious awareness.

And that's when I see we can really get in trouble with disease states because that's letting us know that that tissue, whatever it may be, is pretty much blocked from life. So that's when other things can take over, because I mean, even even cancer is as an example, it requires a certain

Tongue, Thyroid, and Hormonal Connections 35:48

environment and a acidic environment to thrive if there's oxygen and there's optimal flow, everything gets cleaned away as it comes in. It's when things become stagnant and chronic and congested. That's when that's when things can happen that go wrong in the body. Yeah. And to your point, there's so much more knowledge around bio energetic type medicine now and energy being a root need to maintain health and the solutions are all around providing energy. Well, what you're saying is, before we go there, you know, you have a location in your body that's dead and not ready to receive it.

Let's get the terrain healthy. And that means getting this back to the state it used to be. And as opposed to this clunky concrete block that's now become, which is unbelievable. Exactly. So it in terms of movement, just a thought comes to mind where, you know, I understand that breathing is a very big tool, right? If you learn how to do it, it's going to help you support the fascia sort of repair and movement seems to be another really important tool. And is there movement? For example, I go to the gym regularly and I'm training and I'm lifting weights.

I enjoy doing it. Is there certain movement that is problematic that would be that you think may be beneficial? Like when I'm doing my bench presses by causing myself a problem. There's there's a yes or no answer to pretty much every question because I remember years ago, I heard sitting is the new smoking. So everybody goes and they buy these stand up desks. Well, whether you're sitting correctly or incorrectly, it's it's the new smoking. If you're sitting incorrectly, if you're sitting partially where it's fine.

Same as if you're standing if you're standing in correct alignment compared to falling out of alignment, the falling out of alignment is equally as bad as the sitting. So it's all in how you approach what we do. So mechanics when you're doing it are key. And I mean, I look at elite athletes that say play tennis or I was a provincial player when I was a teenager. So the number of times that I had my hand up and I rotated over only in one direction, I created this huge asymmetry in my body. I was also a highland dancer.

So also part of that is creating a turnout which shortens the hip flexor. So as I'm growing, I'm doing these sports and then you end up riddled with these compressed, compressed areas as you're aging. So same. I used to also go to the gym and do weights. And when we are doing that repetitive concentric work, we're creating dense tissue that does eventually cause problems because it's pulling you down. The marathon runner that can run 26 miles but then dies at 50 like our body is not necessarily designed to be forced all the time to do what we want it to do.

Persuasion versus force is the approach I like to take, because it's not that we shouldn't be doing the activities that we really love and enjoy and that might make us feel good. But just understanding what they're doing to us and our alignment and having an approach to undo the damage but still be able to get the gains and the benefits from the activities that we're doing is the key. So it's understanding that restoration piece and that's where blocking is so effective because you can do your run or do your weights, but then you can come home and you can move out all of the exhaust.

So if you're going in the gym and you're pumping those weights just like the car has exhaust, so to the cells that lactic acid build up that stiffness the next day. But if you have the ability to put the space back and move it out really effectively, then you don't have to go through that next day pain as well as you put that space back, my nephew, who's my business partner, when he started with me, he was a bodybuilder and he was he was big, but he was round and sick and he wanted to join me on this journey.

So I said, Well, let's make some changes to what you're doing. So first of all, get rid of all those supplements because all that powder stuff, it's not working on your behalf. What we want to do, though, is instead of just making the cells you have available as big as they can be, let's release the cells that are blocked from life to integrate into your work. So now you are not only have more cells for strength, but you're also properly aligned. And first and foremost, the cell needs oxygen because the ATP in the cell is driven by oxygen.

So if we're not breathing properly and we're doing all of this work in the body, we're going to compress a lot faster and go through aging at a faster pace. Hmm. So, you know, for someone like myself that's doing what I do. Well, one key thing with fitness is like, if you don't like it, you may not stick to it. And then when you find the thing you like, you know, you keep doing it. At least you're doing something. So what you're saying is, yeah, you can do that, but make sure you add this recovery layer to your routine, which has to do with the block work and the breathing.

And, and then it kind of like lets that reverse some of the damage being done and you can maintain and keep up and then somebody that hasn't been doing it for myself, I'll be open. I haven't been working on my fascia at all. Right. I did a little bit of breathing here and there, but I have been training for years. So what do I do to catch up? You know, because I think most people are going to be in that boat. This is fairly although ancestral wisdom. And we should have known, you know, it's most people don't know they haven't done it. So what how do you catch up?

And that's the lovely thing about melting. So when we're dealing with the fish, it's all about melting adhesions. When we're breathing through the muscles of the upper chest, it's like having a space heater. I live in a three storey building in my two room apartment. If it's -30 in Winnipeg, which it is every winter, if I only have a space heater, I'm only heating one of my two rooms where if you turn on the building's furnace, you're heating the entire building. The diaphragm is the body's furnace.

The muscles of the upper chest are the space heater. So we're all approaching this work from a place of freeze to whatever degree we're in. But if you have an ice cube in the freezer from yesterday

Trauma, Emotion, and the Body's Memory Patterns 41:48

or from two decades ago, when you take it out, they both melt. So it doesn't matter how old the injury is, how old the body is, how frozen you are. When you start turning on this muscle and you start becoming a conscious breather because it's not just about using your diaphragm when you're blocking, it's about using your diaphragm all the time. That's how God designed us to breathe. We've just gone through this fallout mechanism and again, so now most people are in survival mode rather than thriving because they're not feeding enough oxygen in the body.

So no matter when you're starting, as soon as you start, you're going to feel it right away and you're going to start moving in the direction of continual improvement. And that's what I really like, because once we know we're on the right path, we don't have to go from A to Z overnight. We just want to know that we're taking the right steps because gravity's pulling us in one direction. But we don't have to let it. In fact, when we're exhaling fully, that's the counterforce to gravity, and every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

So gravity's counter force. Is that full exhalation. So when we understand how to work this mechanism properly, we can go through time without our body decreasing in that space. And more importantly, we can put the space back in there by taking the time out. Okay, so I have to put you on the spot a little bit. So an intention for a lot of people now is to maintain muscle mass because of what we know it does for healthy aging and longevity, you know, in terms of glucose levels and frailty and all the things that you want to think about when you're getting older.

And so people are doing, you know, training and eating a lot of protein, etc.. What would you say knowing what you know? But there's so much more to body movement than just idea to maintain this fascia, which is the foundation of so many other things. What's the best sort of training movement exercise to adopt that will allow you to maintain that muscle, but also do this? Like for example, you may say yoga. I don't know. Well, what would you say if there's one thing that you would do and that's all you're doing because it's all you have time for?

What's that number one choice? Well, the lovely thing is block therapy and of course, I'm going to toot my own horn a little bit because I know how beneficial it is, but it's a therapy and exercise and meditation all built into one practice. And you can lie over the block and you can be really passive, but you can also become quite active with it. So we integrate isometric resistance training while you're on the block and I certified as an athletic therapist back in 1995 in Canada. So working with elite athletes and one of the things we learned is isometric resistance is the healthiest way to rehab a muscle.

And essentially we're always in rehab mode because we're always being afflicted with negative forces pulling us into negative alignment. So that would be I mean, I have people always sharing their increase in their muscle mass. Their metabolism is increasing because as soon as you release those adhesions, now you've got more cells needing energy. So that increases that metabolism. But I'm a big fan of anything that creates symmetry and balance in the body. I love yoga, Pilates, any kind of martial arts where you're using both sides of your body symmetrically.

It's when we start really winding up in one direction or another. I worked on a woman who was a high level tennis player, and her forearm was her one forearm was three times the size of the other, and that creates a ton of twisting in the body. So again, it's understanding what we're doing and it's not to say don't play tennis if you love the sport, but take those steps to look at your body and be symmetrical as much as you can be. And actually, I just had a 30 day posture reset in my membership where one of the actions I had everybody do every day was I would give you one thing to change one, one simple habit.

So if you always pick up that glass you drink with the one hand just today, pick it up with the other hand. See how that feels. If you're always using one hand to vacuum or to do any repetitive task, change it up so that we don't get caught in these grooves of movement. It's these grooves of movement that really, again, they cause us to age the way that do. So if we can start using our body in a more symmetrical, balanced way, we're not only balancing the body, we're also balancing the mind. And that has a huge impact on how we age.

Yeah. So so your answer makes sense because when you think about when you picture someone who is 100 or 90 or whatever, it's typically not the weight lifter who's retired. They don't age well now. Right. You don't often see elite athletes that reach the age of 100. You know, the oxidative stress they put themselves through, the overtraining, the what they've had do with food to maintain, you know, that metabolic health they've got to go through. But you do see the yogi, the jujitsu pro, you know the you know that type of movement where it's constant full body and it's, it's, yeah.

So it adds up and makes sense and then that comes back down to your training, your muscles, but you're also elevating fascia, you know, compression at the same time. And it's this double whammy benefit, which is awesome. So you can actually build muscle with block work. Yes, you're feeding the muscle cells because muscle also is innervated by fascia.

Movement, Exercise, and Symmetry for Longevity 47:08

So we want to keep that muscle as connected and open as possible. So again, like if you're doing a bicep curl and over time, you know, you're you're always lifting heavier weight, but you're you're getting caught in this groove. You might only have a certain range where you have the greatest amount of strength. I remember I was watching something years ago and it was Bruce Lee and this big, huge, like, you know, guy and Bruce Lee, like, you could put him in any position and he's got strength in every possible range of motion where you put someone else in, you lock them.

They don't have strength to get out of that. So now they're impacted. And then there was this huge big monster guy. And if you happened to be under his hammer fists. You know, you might be able to crush you, but Bruce Lee can move way faster than that guy can. And that guy only has the range because he's slow and big and burly. So you want to have that combination of the strength and that mobility and the understanding of how to keep, again, all parts of those muscles strong, not just what you focus on.

So like, for example, if you're doing your bench press, I mean, I used to be able to bench press. I mean, you know, I'm a girl and I had like two 45 pounds plates on and I was able to wow, you know, bench press ten reps that way. But again, like, I was just riddled with pain unless I was doing that specific action, I couldn't move very well otherwise. So we want to be able to see like there's a whole bunch of different direction that the fibers allow us to have movement. And so if we go and we're doing, you know, a certain routine or strengthening parts, we're not strengthening the whole and we move in a fluid, continuous way.

So these linear movements, again, they're going to create a shift in alignment that won't be positive long term as the adhesions continue to add up. And one last thought, I mean, you've taught us a lot about breathing and movement. Is there anything to consider when it comes to nutrition and support of the fascia? Absolutely. We definitely want to understand that when the fascia is hydrated, I mean, that's the key because when it becomes frozen, it's basically dehydrated. So we want to make sure we're eating that good quality food that's full of hydration, the vegetables, the fruits.

We also want those good fats because we those fats to be able to get into the body, every single nerve is myelinated with that. The brain is largely fat based. But the thing is, fatty liver disease is like massively on the rise. It's impacting people's health. So if you think of the liver organ and you think of butter at room temperature, fatty liver disease is basically club fats in the liver. So the liver can't do its myriad of functions, which are many. So we need to heat those fats up so that they can melt and they can get out of the way.

And then the liver can start to function. So one of the blocking positions we have as you lie right where the liver is and you connect to the breast. So the combination of being in position for a minimum of 3 minutes, which we always instruct because we need time to create heat combined with that breast, which of course the liver is right underneath the diaphragm. Now you're getting this internal and external heating mechanism to melt through these fats. So for people who aren't moving, even eating good fats can be a problem because everything is getting all clogged up.

So, I mean, definitely changing your diet to good fats is important, but also understanding that in order for those good fats to do their job properly, we need a certain tissue temperature and that's a function of how you breathe. So in my view, those are the most important nutrients. And I mean, like there's a whole bunch of different variations of diets and stuff and that is not my space whatsoever.

Nutrition, Hydration, and Working with Block Therapy 50:48

But eat clean, be hydrated and get those good fats in your body. This is fascinating stuff, by the way. Thank you. You know, and especially your depth of knowledge in terms of something that is passed off for so simple, like go work on it or faster. They get some Rolfing done people get that massage you know versus the implications are so some so far beyond that so I wanted to thank you for taking the time this is very valuable. And in terms of your membership, how do people work with you if they do actually work with you people or you're.

Yeah, okay. So how does that work? So actually so block therapy, basically, you get the blocks delivered to you and we have a starter program. So we take people through the basics of understanding. We teach you how to breathe, how to connect to pain, because we're going to use pain as the roadmap. But the lovely part is pressure overrides pain and you're also in control of the amount. So we give everybody the empowering ability to navigate their own bodies through the process that we teach. We have a membership filled with a number of different programs, so all you need is the block, and then you get access to the membership online.

So you can do work yourself or themselves. We also have a university program, so I have teachers all over the world teaching this to their communities. People can do one on one sessions, they can have a yoga style class. Now the whole world is on Zoom, so you can even do live classes on Zoom. So there's a lot of different opportunities in how to connect, I've had people join my university program after doing just this starter program or the sampler program because you understand right away what is going on.

be the lift in the rib cage, the flow into the limbs, how that impacts, just like you said, like you feel like you're on a mushroom trip. It's this beautiful, this beautiful lightning in the body. And immediately you sense what's going on so people can dove into that. And if this makes sense and is something that you're wanting to follow through with, then you already have an understanding of what the process is about. very valuable because I think this is a foundational thing just like, hey, what do I eat, what do I exercise, how do I sleep?

Fascia Maintenance another foundational thing that we just don't think about, you know, but so important. So thank you for joining us as truly fascinating. Like I said Thank you so much, Kashif It's been a pleasure to be communicating with you and your audience.