I was dreaming of the transformation and metamorphosis of a butterfly. I woke up and the words felt planted in my mouth. A caterpillar forms her crystallis and as she enters her cocoon she begins to transform from the familiar to the new. Inside, she changes into something unrecognizable, she is liquified like a soup. Held in the safe container of her crystallis she breaks down, naturally, her own body unravels as an enzyme breaks down all the nutrients she spent the first part of her life consuming. Within this liquified state there are imaginal discs, these are like skeleton parts that help her to form her new butterfly body inside of the crystallis. As she transforms into a completely different shape these imaginal discs are like blue prints, the bones as she holds the keys, the directions, the maps. Her nutrient rich “soup” knows how to coagulate, to form, take shape, to change, to grow and develop into her full new beautiful butterfly self. 

I have a woman who’s been having a hard time standing on her feet for the long hours she works. She finds that after her days of working she just wants to rest, she’s been wanting to be able to get out and be active, and she just doesn’t feel like she has energy. Her legs, back, hips, shoulders and neck give her consistent feedback. She gets twinges in her back when she stands and sometimes when she least expects it with a very simple movement she can tweek her back. She can be in bed for a couple days with ice packs, she doesn’t want to keep having the pain. She feels like it may be sciatic nerve pain, or lumbar spinal compression. She is tense throughout her body and as we do a body read I can see the front line of her body, she has all her weight stacked at the balls of her feet, almost tippy toes. In a supine position her feet look like ballerina feet. The bottoms of her feet are so tight. This line runs through her body from head to toe and is creating lower and upper leg pain, the spinal compression, the back, neck and shoulders to be taut. The fascial planes are linked and affect the function of each of these areas.

She responds well to Myofascial Release treatments and she’s very psychosomatic. So her emotions and thoughts have a direct link to how she feels in her body. She feels connected to her body and notices changes sensationally when she feels different mental and emotional states. She tends to feel sad, melancholy, frustrated and angry, and her body at times feels tense, painful, trapped and bound up. When her body feels, she feels; when she feels, her body feels. This can feel like a loop cycle for her, and she wants to work on choosing more of her reality rather than feeling trapped in her familiar neurological pathways and at her body’s whim. And so we get to work.

As a fascia farmer, I get to sail on the seas of these. We work together to find her relief, she relaxes deeper each time into the treatments and she finds her back pain is no longer there, her calves are what’s really tight. We do a couple movement sequences that I cater to her. One of the hours we work on her psoas and hip flexors and the other on specific exercises that help her develop articulation in her ankles and give her more dorsi-flexion on the top side of her feet. With each session she feels her whole system getting rebooted, she’s feeling her vitality and energy coming back and the pain is gone.

I have two women who’ve come in with pain in their neck and shoulders. The pain runs down the arms and into the elbow, hands, wrists and fingers. Each woman does fine detailed work. One is an artist and one handles needles, she does transfusions and nurses, as she is a caregiver. The artist is a mother, she is a giver and she’s made sure she can give to her children what she lost, which is time with her mother. She gives so much to others and has a more difficult time receiving and giving to herself. It’s been big for her to give to herself in the form of receiving bodywork. My second client has neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist and hand numbness, pain and immobility. She goes a mile a minute. She is talking and bouncing from one topic to another, to another. Her brain is on hyper drive and it is challenging for her to keep up with all the things she wants to do. She has a hard time relaxing, she wants to and doesn’t feel like she can rest or relax, it’s like she always on the go, so she’s expressed she has a hard time staying present.

Many of these tensions that build up in the body are from habits and patterns, from injuries and traumas that needed tending and mending. In each woman they are not the same, and they stem from something similar. When we find ourselves in a chronic reaction to the world and ultimately bound up and tense trying to hold it all together, it’s time for transformation and metamorphosis. I am here to help you. I can help you feel connected to your roots, how to learn to relax your body with body language. I can help you feel safe to express what’s been holding you back. I can help you to find a better relationship with gravity, to space, to feel connected again to yourself, to the voices of your body and to your healing.

When we are giving from our hearts through our hands it’s extra important to root into the energy of the earth. This is how I am able to sustain my energy, by drawing it from the great mother beneath me and the heavenly father above me. I squat down and make sure my legs are active, and that my body and stance can sustain what I am asking from it, through the postures that I hold. I am able to give because I am conscious of my body and its mechanics. Or else I couldn’t keep giving. I say this because when we are working too hard with only a few dainty fingers this does not sustain us, we have to remember to run the energy from our mighty sources (which are external). We are not alone.

I feel grateful I get to help people every day get out of pain and back to doing what they love. I help people who have been struggling with chronic and acute conditions get out of their pain cycles, reduce their swelling and inflammation and improve their mobility so they can get back to their active lifestyle. I practice Myofascial Release Therapy, I am an Injury Specialist and I help people recover from chronic pain so they can enjoy their rich wonderful lives. I practice at Sol Bodyworks in Grass Valley and have over 20 years working with the muscular fascial systems to create positive structural change.