From Fascia to Freedom: Reclaiming the Body with Sue Hitzmann

Introduction to fascia and Sue Hitzman 0:00

Most of the time the areas of our bodies that are screaming out for help are the victims. You don't assault the victim. Looking at the cellular components of fascia, the fascial continuum can't rebuild the matrix fast enough. These things stimulate the nervous system and movement in general is just good for our body. It's not tangible, right? But it's so, so powerful. Hello and welcome to another episode of Root to Rise. My name is Dr. Amelie Spickle, your host, and I am extremely excited for today's episode because we are talking about one of my favorite subjects.

And no, it's not feet. It is fascia. I have one the best guests in relation to this topic. So before we bring her on, let me share a little bit about her. So today I am honored to welcome Sue Hitzman, who is the founder of The Melt Method and a true pioneer in the field of fascia, self-care and movement longevity. Sue is an exercise physiologist, educator and best-selling author whose work has helped millions of people around the world reduce pain, restore balance and improve their mobility through simple science-based techniques.

Sue's program, Melt Method, is now used by fitness professionals, therapists, medical practitioners around the world, and she's widely recognized for her focus on hydration, facial hydration. Connective tissue health and nervous system regulation. Sue has a strong talent to bridge the gap between science and self-care, and she's empowering people to take ownership of their bodies. Her approach has been instrumental to shifting how we think about recovery, aging and sustainable movement. Welcome to the show, Sue.

Thank you so much, Dr. Emily. Good to see you. I am so excited to have you on. You were definitely someone on my list to get you onto the show because I see as a leader in the space within fascia. Of course, I love women who are leading the way as well, but you take a very unique approach when it comes to fascial health, fasciol-based programming. So to kick it off, can you share with everyone how you even got into fascio? Yeah, exactly. Thanks for that. So I've actually been in the fitness industry.

My first job was as a group exercise instructor, 16 going on 17. I got introduced to fitness in groups. And I went almost a decade into it and was also a high-performance athlete.

How Sue discovered fascia through pain 2:37

At the peak of my fitness career, I woke up one day with the bottom of feeling painful. And at first I thought I stepped on glass. So I kind of did what most people do, I ignored it, iced it. I started looking at it and poking around with it I was like I don't know I must have stepped in glass there's something in my foot. What started out as foot pain turned into this body wide ache and fatigue. It started to creep up my leg. Kind of felt like my jaw started clicking. Was fatigued. Couldn't sleep.

And I really saw my entire career just dissolving before my eyes. And after about six months of it, not getting better, like an acute trauma would, right? You sprain your ankle. I've done that a bunch of times, so you get better over time. This got worse. and I finally started going out to see doctors and specialists. Then I had one guy tell me that I was depressed and should take an anti-depressant, which I said, no. Yes, I am depressed, but it's because I can't move and am a fitness professional.

But I had one guy tell me that it might be lupus, and they wanted to do more tests. They thought it was an autoimmune issue. And I just thought, they're missing something. The first diagnosis that I actually had was plantar fasciitis. I thought inflamed fascia, what the heck is inflame fascial? Could fascia be causing me all this pain? And if that's the case, there's no exercise for that. Google became a thing. I typed in the word fasci and the search, and about 50 sites came up. And I just started exploring what fascio was and discovered this emerging field of neuroscience and fascial researchers that were trying to uncover not only fascias role in pain, but fascious role and aging and longevity.

That's how I got into where I am today. So then what led to the development of Melt Method? And then for the listeners who may not be familiar with it, what is Melt method? Yeah, so what got me into creating melt was that as I got myself out of pain, and I was taking this science, I basically was trying to decode the science into something that was a self-care way for me to do it to myself. Because most of the research was on structural integration, raw thing, hands-on therapeutic techniques. And I just thought, but you can't just always be reliant on a practitioner.

There's got to be something I can do for myself. And what was interesting was my practice, as I started to learn hands-on therapeutic techniques, my whole practice went from fitness into Wellness and I started seeing a lot of people who had chronic pain and the way that it started was a client of mine who Had chronic TMJ and migraines I would treat her doing cranial sacral therapy and she would go a week to ten days with no migraine And she was like is a miracle But it would just come back and i said it's got to be something in your environment that's causing the disruption and her exact words to me were well if you could invent a way for me to do to myself what you do with your magic hands i'd stay out of your office and Well, I'd be unemployed, but that really sounds like a cool idea.

I mean, could I actually create something that would simulate hands-on therapeutic intervention that was in a light touch way? So Melt actually spawned out of my private practice in trying to give my clients homework that could simulate light-touch therapeutic techniques using soft tools. And there were no soft tools on the market when I first started. So my first makeshift roller was a piece of PVC piping. I wrapped it in bubble wrap. It wrapped in a yoga blanket and then a Yoga mat, and I duct taped the thing together.

And that was the first iteration of the melt roller. Then I went to a big manufacturing company and had them develop this soft roller, so it was very the soft first roller that ever out on market was this development that I had.

Creating the Melt Method and soft tools 6:32

as a tool, and then I started using softballs and started teaching people how to treat their hands and feet because I thought to myself, you know, your hands or feet are like sensory portals. And if you really want to stay grounded, like it all kind of starts from your foot architecture. This is where you and I like, meet on the understanding. The two most used parts of our body, we're so focused on making our butt look more lifted in our jeans, but like what about these sensory portal? We're not doing it.

So the hand and foot therapy actually became really the doorway into helping clients with any type of chronic pain get out of it by boosting stability. And people don't realize how important your grip strength is or the way that your hands propriocept information through sensory awareness. So that's really, the basis of how I develop melt. I love that. So what I want to pull out of that, because I think this is an important distinction. Your tools are soft and I'm sure some listeners, cause I know I am guilty of this.

I m sorry for admitting this, but you go to the gym, you have all the foam rollers, right? And then there's like the softest one, which is the white one. in like a traditional gyms because you don't have the melt one but you're like not the soft one give me the hardest roller like i want just directly on the pvc pipe if i need so why soft It's great question. So first of all, fascia is a soft tissue, and soft tissues like soft tools. And it's kind of the same idea is if you are struggling in pain, the last thing that somebody should do, but it is weird how we do it, is that like if your neck is hurting you, The very first idea that people have is take a blunt object and jam it right into the areas where you have pain.

But I think to myself, you know you have a kid, and it's like if your daughter came up to you screaming out for your help, You wouldn't walk up and assault her. You would punch her in the face to make her calm down. you would get down at her level, first hold her and tell her everything was going to be okay. Make her feel safe. Then you would get information. You would have her take breaths, say, you know, calm down and tell me what's going on. And you take information and then you will take action.

So I have learned what we call the indirect before direct approach. Most of the time the areas of our bodies that are screaming out for help are the victims. We don't assault the victim. you have to understand the messages that your body are saying to you. and decode them to understand that the areas of pain are not the problem. They're the messenger so don't shoot the message here. Yeah, and that's why we do soft tools is to give tissue time to adapt to get the body time too adapt pressure so that you're not causing more tension to I love that, and I've literally never heard that put that way.

But it makes sense, because Sue's quite genius. Because we speak about the nervous system as far as create safety. You don't want to attack the nerve system. So it's just in line with that as well. Exactly. What that said is that I don't think people really understand that even if you look at embryology, the nervous system and the fascial system actually co-evolved. They actually engaged together everything in your body as a relationship, everything, in life as relationship. So when we developed, it wasn't like the nerve system showed up and then it built stuff.

No. The fascia became the roadmap that the nerves system used to then help to develop our form. and the function of the nervous system actually is heavily reliant on the environment it lives in. The environment that your nervous systems lives on a microscopic level is called the extracellular matrix. On a macro level we call it fascia and most people will think of fascial as a tissue. a connective tissue, we call it a connected tissue. But it's actually the tissue of internus. I love Yop van der Waal, who's a premier educator in this field.

It's the infrastructure of us. We could also think of it as a sensory system. It possesses more sensory nerves than our muscles or our organs. And we can even think about it like a system, because the cells of fascia actually function to stabilize things, to organize fibroblasts.

Why gentle pressure works better than hard rolling 10:51

These cells kind of tinker with the collagen matrix to keep it integrated. What we know is that daily living causes a breakdown in the extracellular matrix. This is where this whole fluid flow concept comes into play of understanding fascia from the fluid dynamics of it. I love that. So let's go into that, even though I have many, many other questions. The fluid dynamic of fasciitis, can you talk about that? Because then that would weave into fascial hydration. Absolutely. Okay. Yes. All right. Take a run with that and how can we help the listeners understand that Yeah, so fascia is primarily made up of collagen and this thing called interstitial fluids.

They call it H3O2, right? So it's not like the bulk water you drink. Once you take fluid in, the body then processes that and creates a gel-like substance that is fascial. So if ever any of your listeners are listening to this, and this is just a great analogy, if you've ever woken up feeling like a dried out sponge left out overnight on your kitchen sink, but you get up and you move around and the stiffness goes away, think of fascia like sponge. When a fascias hydrated, it can move and adapt to tension or compression.

It absorbs water very quickly. And when you let tension and compression go, It returns to its ideal shape. A sponge that is dehydrated, not only can't you bend or pull it very quickly, it doesn't adapt to tension or compression. It doesn' absorb water very quick. You actually have to work fluid back into the sponge to make it work. And if you stay in that stiff, dried out state, after a while it kind of breaks down. you could almost crack the sp and in a sense that's what happens to our body. So fascia is actually a neuroelectrochemical substance that is a communication highway.

And the fluids of it create this bioelectrical field that allows cells to communicate. It gives nerves a stimulation. and it's actually what helps our own body frequency, breath. vibration fluid move through the body so that your cells can absorb nutrients so That your nervous system functions with efficiency and so your immune regulation stays balanced. Fascia actually plays a leading role in all of these things whether you have pain or not. So fascia and immune function. Yes. Can you say a little bit on that?

Absolutely your fascia and your lymphatic system actually are actually also a unit your Lymphatic System lives in fasci. So when actually this is something I don't think a lot of people know but if ever when you get older you start feeling like you're gaining body fat like I hear a Lot of women say that yeah, like, I hit 50 and all of a sudden like my abdomen is more fat. My arms feel fat I suddenly have cellulite, you know that is actually a protective response of the superficial fascial the tissue right under your skin and because under your skin is where you have so many of the lymph cells are living in this region and so our superficial fascia really under a microscope really looks like a sponge and So if the fluids in fascial aren't moving these things called pre lymphatic channels which draw the fluid from the interstitial matrix, the extracellular matrix into your lymph to then process it, clean it out, and junk dump waste.

If they're congested, this is what creates the backlog and the exhaustion for your glymphatic system, which is part of your immune regulation. And so now you get symptoms that seem completely unrelated to pain. Again, you have hormone dysregulation. Actually, in your superficial fascia is where all your unused hormones go. They just sit there. So if we're not utilizing them, they pool. And that actually breaks down the superficial tissue, and now you see the dimpling on the surface of your skin.

Fascia, the nervous system, and fluid dynamics 14:51

But it's actually happening in this subcutaneous layer, in the fatty layer that is the superfacial fascia. So, again, if you want to remain healthy as you age, not have all of these hormonal disruptions, metabolic disrupts, fascia and your lymphatic system are working like a unit just like your neurofascial system. We could call it a neuroimmune fascial systems. I mean, you're brilliant, everything that you are saying. And I'm like, where are my notes? I need to, clearly I am going to listen to this episode again.

So what I want the listeners to understand is that everything that you were saying is highly evidence-based. So I just want to share, and I'm familiar with the fascia research society, like Robert Schleip being one of the founders of it, but can you just kind of educate us on the level of education and research and evidence that is going into the power of fasci and that a lot of what you're saying is actually demonstrated through research? Yes, yes. This has actually been what's exciting, right?

In 2004, after maybe five years of me kind of going down this rabbit hole trying to collect research, which there was quite a bit at that time, but it was mostly about myofascia. So when you hear the word myo fascia, this is one layer of fascias relationship to muscle. Myofasia, muscle fascial, so And this is why, again, Rolfing and the structural integration world was really looking at fascia in relationship to movement. But now, because of atomic force microscopy and educators like Dr. Jean-Claude Gomberteau, who took atomic-force microscopies and looked at, on a microscopic level, what's going on in the extracellular matrix, which again is simply the fascial system on the microscopic lab level.

And what we realized was that a lot of histamine response, immune response are happening at the cellular level in the extracellular matrix. So what has been really profound is Dr. Carla Steckow I finally started doing female research on fascia, lipidema, lymphedema hormonal dysregulation. It's all at the level of the extracellular matrix. We have been looking for decades for centuries at this cell. But it's only when you start looking outside of the cell that you realize, and it makes sense, cells can't thrive if the stuff it is living in and supporting its membrane isn't stable.

And that's what's happening to most of us is the way we eat, our emotional regulation, the human experience, actually creates an impact on the cellular level of the extracellular matrix. And what simply happens is that the fluid profusion of fascia slows down. That is what creates the downgrade of neural signaling. Basically, your fibroblasts, the cells of faccia, as we age, not only are there less of them as you age unfortunately, but they're actually producing lower quality collagen. So instead of making the crimpy collagen, it's kind of like you took your crimp hair and you put a straight iron to it.

So you lose the glidability in the substance on a microscopic level. And that is where the newest research over this past decade has really gone, is looking at the cellular components of fascia and This is where we are now understanding that actually Carla Stucco discovered a new cell in fascia. They're calling a fasciocyte, which is creating a substance called hyaluronin. And it's the gooey, glidey stuff that allows collagen to hold its shape. Think about that. It was 2019 when she announced that in 2019 we're still discovering new cells in the human body.

We think we know so much. I call bullshit. Yeah, we have no idea. And I have to tell you like we before we got on we were talking about And I went to my mom's doctor and I said, I'm going to put my Mom on a round of peptides. She goes, oh no, those cause cancer. I looked, and was like, where's your clinical evidence on that lady? You know what I mean? Just because you're a doctor doesn't mean you can call bullshit and just start saying things because maybe you saw it on TikTok. And sorry, that's not clinical research.

So I want today with a stack of research I handed to her and like I wanted you to show me one sighting in any of this research that says anything about

Fascial hydration, lymph, and immune function 19:38

cancer And she was like, OK, I guess you can put your mom on peptide. I know. So we just don't know as much as I think medicine has made us think we know when it comes to the human body longevity. And I. Think that now because, again, of this ability for us to look at the body on a microscopic scale, we are discovering things just like we. Are the universe, you know, where we're seeing the tiniest particles in our bodies for the first time ever. Yeah, absolutely. And it's continuing to be curious on that journey.

So with that, as far as what is demonstrated through this microcellular level, let's say modern lifestyle decisions, Which of those, you had mentioned like diet and stress and sleep and hormones and all of that. But if you could say that these are the things that have been demonstrated to directly affect your facial health or your neurofacial, immunofacial lymphatic fascial, high glucose, whatever it is, what would it be that people are doing that we may be seeing a shift in health on a fascial cellular level because of modern lifestyle decisions.

Yeah, I mean, one of them I think is the stillness of our bodies. We are just too still, too long for most days. And while some clinicians will argue, oh no, people who sit don't necessarily have as much back pain as like a waitress who's on her feet, she might have backpain too. I'm like, no. But if you look at the percentage of humans and how we are moving in our lives, sitting with our phones, with heads down, These repetitive postures and patterns are causing significant changes on a cellular level.

It's actually accelerating our aging process. The other thing is the foods that we're eating, I do think that our soil is not as rich in nutrients as it used to be, unless you are getting your food from a regenerative type of farming. I think our water sources are a mess. I mean, the pipes that we have are hundreds of years old in certain areas. We're not changing them out. And so even, I live here now in Naples, Florida, and there's actually arsenic in our and I'm like, what the hell? You know what I means?

When you actually start looking at the chemical constructs of, now I like getting a whole system in my house so that it filters the water. So I think that there's things that are very hard to get around, but making better food choices, not eating things in packages, eating real food, movement more often in a day. Keith Barr was one of the researchers who has actually demonstrated numerous times now that it's better for the collagen matrix if you moved and got your heart rate up over just 100. For 10 minutes, a whopping 10-minutes, in the first 10 minuets of any type of cardiovascular work, your collagen synthesis, the buildup of collagen increases.

Then it plateaus, and then by 20 minutes it's actually on the way down. What does this mean for those of us who like to do fitness do you only want to 10 minutes not necessarily, but if you go longer you just have to know that you've broken down college and synthesis and now it takes time for the body to now recharge itself to kick itself back up which is why everybody hear me on this. As you get older you might be doing the same routines you always done only now, it's taking you 4, 5, 6 days to feel less stiff right this delayed onset muscle soreness we should call it Dom's we shall call that dust delayed on set facial sores the national continuum can rebuild the matrix fast enough and now you're kind of left with this lethargy more exhaustion your joints hurt nobody ever complains about getting taller as we get older, let's be honest right.

So these are all components of how our daily lives are actually affecting the ability for the fascial system to turn back over and to regenerate. And I think of melt as being like going green in your body. You're helping the regenerator of processes by keeping the fluid state moving. If you can get down on the floor and use the rollers, great. I love your work with the foot and the textured materials.

Research advances and cellular fascia discoveries 24:18

All of these things stimulate the nervous system and movement in general is just good for our bodies. Yeah, no, absolutely. And that is a perfect tie into the newest product that I wanted to speak about, the fascia hydrator. Yes. Tell us a little bit, of course, we spoke about the importance of fascial based hydration, but how the tool works, why it was developed and kind of your vision with it. Yes, so I actually have it right here. This is the Fascia hydrator, and it has different textures on it.

Even the handle has textures so you can work on your face. And the device was actually developed by my colleague Christopher Gordon, who is a physiotherapist, natural path, a physician out in Germany. Both of us together have had this fascination of fascia. The idea is low frequency vibration. So this device has 40, 70, 90 hertz. and an oscillating frequency that goes from 30 to almost 100 hertz. And each frequency stimulates different cells of our body. But what we're finding in the research is, again, superficial fascia.

the stuff right under your skin where we have so much unused hormones. We have tons of lymphocytes and lymphatic cells and just the lymph system is living in the superficial layer that we are helping people through this gentle stimulation in 40 Hertz is kind of like the sweet spot of our body's frequency to help to move fluid perfusion through the body. 70 Hertz is a little bit more for the myofascial layers and the night at the 90 Hertz Is actually based on NASA's research where you know, they bring astronauts up into space and They come back with osteoporosis and cancer and a lot of that is again gravity and The frequency of the earth is no longer available well 90 hertz has a a frequency like the base of earth and and it stimulates the bone pumping mechanisms.

It can help for bone density. I think that's exciting. So now we're looking to yield more research by getting more people to use the device. We just finished an eight week pilot study and people were citing better sleep, a reduction in body fat, their movement was better, they're joints hurt less, the breath was easier. it was kind of remarkable and so I'm more and more excited to teach this because what it does is it amplifies the basic fundamentals of melt, but it also gives a new doorway into the method, especially for people who have things like lymphedema, who are Crohn's disease, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, where their bodies are so exhausted that to get on the floor is really hard for them.

So here, you can do this in your bed. You could do it while you're watching TV. Right? You can it anywhere, sitting on a chair. you don't need to have any athleticism to be able to begin this initiation of stimulating even just the superficial fascial layers to create that fluid perfusion through the body, through really gentle light touch. Don't you need press or scratch or cause bruising on your body which I know there's other programs out there that will tell you to bruise every square inch of your body to change cellulite, which drives me bananas.

But again, we always take a more gentle approach. I think the body is an adaptable, malleable system. So when you give it time to adapt and you gave it easy doorways into adaptation, it will it will change and that's the exciting thing about using the fascia hydrator is it makes these instant changes and the real link here compared to melt which is really more focused on the nervous system is fascial this device is more about the facial system and lymphatic system in boosting the lymphic support.

Got it. I know not all the listeners will be on the video or seeing the videos, but can you go just a little bit more into the technique of it? I mean, you've sent me a couple of the facial hydrators, so I'm familiar with it, But I think sometimes the listener's may think, is this like a vibration foam roller, which is on market? Is it like percussive therapy? So I just, I really want people to understand the difference of how your product works and then Is there a method to the madness? I mean, is it like dry brushing?

Yeah, exactly. So this device, first of all, again, low frequency. It's not like percussion therapy. Percussion is that bouncing stimulation that actually stimulates more the nervous system, right? So that's why people, if you pound on your body, your nervous is getting new information that way. And so you might actually might decrease your pain for like 20 minutes, but it only comes right back. This is actually literally changing fluid dynamics in your fascia. So the basic protocols, we have a lymphatic drainage, just like basic lymph drainage where you stimulate the terminus, the collarbones, your neck, armpits, axillary nodes, and then the deeper region called the cisterna chyla and your abdomen.

Lifestyle factors that affect fascial health 29:28

the inguinal nodes, the populateal nodes behind your knees, and then the iliac nodes back in the abdomen. So it's kind of a flow where you're hitting eight different points going down and up the body. And think of the big lymphatic stations like drains. Before you take a shower, you want to clear your hair out of drain. Because it doesn't matter how much water you push, the drain's still clogged, right? So you open the drains. And then we have basic protocols called gliding, shearing, and rinsing.

So there's actually six different textures on the device. for a technique called gl lightly, you're putting a and you just vibrating it then there's a textured si the tissue rather than s of holding it in place. A edges, either the blue or creating rinsing. So thes vaping strokes to now take the fluids of fascia and drive them toward the lymphatic stations to drain it out. So it's literally like giving the body a push. We also use the handle for a face treatment and the tip for abdominal work. So you can work right around the organs and stimulate the organ with 70 hertz frequency too.

And it just makes these really incredible changes through gentle frequency and that I think is what's so powerful is the research on vibration therapy is nothing new, right? I mean, we've actually been using vibration therapy. You know, traditional people who are using chanting and singing bowls and things like this, that's to create vibration through the extrinsic. And so as those sound waves are coming through us, We're now even using soundwaves to break up cancer tumors, right? So this is not new stuff.

it's just to be able to br at home and to again just into the layers where so transference is happening f just again helping that a you're utilizing those hormones, right? Instead of storing them and then having these big hot flashes where you were like, wow, let me turn up the heat in here. Especially if you can do this when you are in your 30s, you would stimulate that and actually keep the things like estrogen in you blood circulation so that you actually have that balancing out of it. And I think it also helps with our skin.

It keeps the tone of the skin, I've seen my skin change using it, so I Just great opportunities for people who really feel stuck in their bodies, because when we're in pain, that's the problem, is that your body won't change. Here you can make instant changes and actually feel them. And that also the cool thing of Melt is, we treat people like a therapist would treat you. We assess, treat, and then we reassess. In a single session, you could actually feel things change. Your mobility changes, your balance changes and that I think is exciting when you can make an instant change one time.

If you keep doing it, you'll make these lasting results. Yeah, no, I love that. And I think that that's one thing that you're definitely standing behind is a different approach to the facial story, especially in the fitness and the wellness. Your tools are softer. This facial hydrator, talking about the lymphatic system. I mean, the Lymphatic System, is sometimes hard for people to conceptualize, because it's a little abstract. Most people don't know about it. They can't. Yeah. What's my lymph? It's not tangible, right?

But it's so, so powerful. I had surgery right before the holidays and my lymphatic system, I mean, had a extracellular shift where I woke up from surgery and I was like, oh my God, it looked like I'm pregnant, like it was. So much and it freaked me out. I knew what was going on. But my surgeon was like, it's you just have to do lymphatic work. Like I actually commend him for recommending this. So I went to a body worker who had a lymphotic tool and she did a very light based and I mean, it was instantaneous, right?

But when you're in it, you just kind of like, how is this going to do anything? What is the gentle thing she's brushing me with? The fascia hydra, where you are like is, is doing anything. Yeah, but it is. And so, yeah, I think your lymphatic system does not need to be pushed. It actually yields to very light touch and vibration. So if you actually press into your skin, You blast right through the superficial tissue. And even with the melt roller, right, you're gonna compress all those layers. Here, there's no compression.

The Fascia Hydrator and vibration-based lymph support 34:18

So the frequency is doing the work for it. It's penetrating through your body through vibration. That's powerful for the lymphatic system. And I get you, most people don't even know, what fascia is, but they definitely don' know what their lymphotic system is. And I never really thought about superficial fascia until I did dissections with Gil Hadley back in 2004 and I looked at it as a layer and was like, I just always thought of that as being adipose tissue and he's like no way man. That's fascial with fat inside of it.

And that's not only just supporting you and keeping you warm, it's a frequency layer. I get it. And it just made complete sense to me, and it completely has changed my idea of human performance forever. Because again, in 2004, I mean, was still deep into fitness. But as I started to learn about fascia and understood the cellular components of our body, the nervous system, your lymphatic system. It just changed by understanding. I only just wish that when I was in my 20s that there were like longevity degrees or degrees in longevity, that would have been, you know, if I had even had the notion, That would've been what I got in a degree in, science, what a waste.

Yeah. So on that, as far as kind of what you wish you knew back then, What do you think are still some of the most common misconceptions around fascia? It could be fashion fitness or just fashion in general that you still carry that kind drive you bananas. Yeah, that you have to push hard, even in your recovery-based programs. Like, we just are always in this idea you to smash your fascia, crimp your fashia, blast your fascia. Whatever. I'm just like, this is an intuitive aspect of your body. There's actually an emotional component to this.

So I think that we store our beliefs and our stories in our fasci. My friend, Tom Myers, had said that. We store are beliefs in fascial. And I said, yeah, it's like we're store stories and fascias. So I think that people have this idea that really to work on recovery, it has to be hard. And I just think if we just listened to the body for one freaking second of the day, and listened by not, you know, God, my neck hurts, let me take a pain reliever. That's like your fire alarm goes off because your toaster's on fire and you walk over to fire the alarm and kick the batteries out, but the toasters still on fire.

So I'm looking for cause all I want people to understand this tissue is actually highly adaptable it's highly sensory it highly receptive you just have to know how to gently ease information into it and if you resist or it you're feeling pain you already on the wrong side of the the street here you know if your nervous system just like we said at the beginning of this if the nervous and send you a sensitivity response you got to ease back pressure not press harder because the sensory aspect of it if the nervous system doesn't feel safe.

It's it is really you're working against your body, you working so hard to make a change and that was really the turning point also for me when I started working with light touch therapy with my clients my client for like I don't even know what you did but like. I feel great, and I was like yeah, I didn't know I did either I'm not really sure about this cranial stuff, but it seems to work so I going for it, But yeah, I just think that it's a blessing to be in human skin. I think we need to find more compassion for our bodies.

Stop trying to will or force it to change, and just open the door for change. And understand, again, what the messages of the body are trying get through to us, an answer in a way that has a more caring and loving energy to it, rather than like, i hate what I see in the mirror, And I'm going to get on that treadmill for an hour until I look better. It's just a mindset shift that I'm looking for people to change. Yeah. So that leads me to a great next question. As far as the future, I know you spoke a little bit about where research is now as far the microcellular and hormones and things like that.

But what else do you see in the feature of fascial based research and fascia? I think that for where we are right now, I thing we're right at the precipice of understanding fibrotic diseases, cancer, mixed connective tissue disorders, lipedema, lymphedima, as we uncover the cellular components and learn how we can adapt the tissues or why they are that

Common misconceptions and the future of fascia research 38:48

way in certain people. I think that we can help people live better longer and reduce a lot of the living effect that causes these disorders to accumulate as we age. for how we live. I think that we'll actually live better longer because I really believe that people in our age demographic could live until we're 120 if we are smart about it. And I that the research of fascia will be the thing that gets us there. I could not agree more. You touched it very briefly, but my last question has to do with emotion, fascia.

This concept of embodiment, and some people refer to fascias the organ of consciousness. What are your thoughts on that? Well, I guess first you'd have to define consciousness. And I think that, again, our fascia has a high sensory frequency to it. So where do we store our emotions? I don't know. I think of emotions as energy in motion. And so fascia is the substance that lets energy move through the body. And so, kind of in a sense, your brightness can diminish. I think that's one of the origins of depression, right, to depress the light in our bodies.

And we have this bio-photon kind energy in out body, fascia emits a light inside the body. So I there's an aspect of emotions that, you know, when we feel disconnected with the world, we're really feeling disconnected with ourselves, with our identity, our beliefs, and our purpose. And I feel like, again, the method of MELT is really to bring people back home, to get them back in their bodies, create agencies, become a conscious agent in a physical form. I think that gives people some hope and some ability to transform how they feel in the body.

That's where emotions and fascia are inherently linked. Yeah, I love that answer. Love it. So where would someone get the fascial hydrator, learn more about melt method? You have a book, one book? I have two books. I do have a New York Times bestselling author. They can go to MeltMethod.com. That's the best place to really learn about Melt. Find our on-demand platform where there's hundreds of videos in the categories of pain, performance, and lifestyle. You can also find a melt instructor, which are everywhere.

We are in, like, 38 countries around the world. So there might actually be a Melt instructor right in your backyard that you didn't even know was there teaching Melt classes. And you can get the products there. Were also on Amazon if you're an Amazon buyer. But you'll really learn the method by going to the website and learning about everything that we have, because we're not just a product We're really a community of like-minded individuals looking to transform lives. Yeah, I love that. Well, thank you so much for your insights.

So, so, brilliant. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. I'm definitely listening to this again. And I absolutely love, Sue, how you continue to push the boundary, question things. Just I know you're from our New York City days of you could have just left it at what you developed, but you continued to question. There's more to the story. there's so Thank you so much for your work. I really appreciate it. And to everyone, definitely listen again. There were, there were some definitely take, go listen back, take note points.