Myofascial Release

6 responses so far ↓

•   Rich Staudt, MOT, OTR/L, LMT // Aug 25th 2008 at 8:45 pm

  I can attest to the “flashback” feeling on a personal basis. During my attendance of one of John’s MFR seminars I was the role of client for a lower extremity technique. My partner simply held my leg in a relaxed flexed position with very mild compression when I was taken back to my knee injury I had experienced in high school. Perspiration and accelerated breathing with all my fears and tears of ending my dreams of playing football flowed over me. My knee hated to be in that “uncomfortable” position. I could smell the grass on the field and feel the helplessness of the present-past. With encouragement my partner with an instructor helped me process through the position of injury. That was such a powerful experience. After that initial and further MFR treatments, I have been able to participate in challenging sports such as martial arts and softball with more confidence and strength in my knees. Thank you John and those who have treated me for allowing the recapture of my power for living.

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•   Sheila Walker // Aug 26th 2008 at 8:26 am

  Sometimes, those feelings and memories I experience as I allow myself to move back into positions where I became locked down from my past traumas, can be very overwhelming. Perhaps it is because I embrace a perspective in which I believe we exist as individuals on the cutting edge of the evolution of the cosmos. There are times, when it feels I sense patterns, greater than me…memories as vibrations held by all which has ever existed and continues to evolve within the time/space continuum as it has evolved for 14 billion years. I feel a immensely satisfying sense of purpose, as this experience of tissue memory has allowed me to appreciate the sensation of how intricately woven that same energy which birthed the cosmos, lives on as the deepest, most authentic part of me.
  Sheila

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•   Sheila Walker // Aug 26th 2008 at 8:57 am

  I was just reflecting on my comment and would like to add, that prior to experiencing MFR, my childhood memories were all but gone. I recognize now, how some of my very early traumas, left me very numb. It has been with this approach, over the years, that I have regained clarity and my sense of passion and purpose.
  Sheila

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•   Barbara Long, PTA/MT // Aug 28th 2008 at 10:34 am

  I have always been intrigued when John talks about tissue memory in seminars and in his book Healing Ancient Wounds. I now, too, have my own dejavu experience!

  I was involved in a serious mva 25 years ago and have always prided myself in how I had always focused on all the positive that came out of the event. However, I was aware that not only could I not remember much of the accident, I had also not felt the emotions, fears, etc. associated with this trauma. Even though I have received and studied MFR for the past 8 years, I have just really started to be able to express myself with regards to this part of my life.

  While assisting at the MFR series in Chicago last month, I experienced some bazaar, uncharacteristic symptoms and tissue memory. As the days of the seminars progressed, I had more than my usual aches and pains. I chalked it up to the stormy, tornado weather we were having. I literally felt like I had been run over by a truck….but I wasn’t doing anything to be so sore!

  Coincidentally, the seminars were held 3 miles from the location where a friend and I were hit head on. Both of us sustained severe injuries including bilateral femur fractures. I was hospitalized for two months with fractured ribs, pelvis, left hip, punctured lungs, and spent 2 weeks in a coma.

  While I was very excited with the opportunity to help at these seminars at this particular location, visit friends and family, I also knew that it may provide an opportunity to do some further ‘healing’. I did have wonderful reunion dinners with my friends–including one who had been in the accident with me. The following day, however, my left hip –and everything attached to it–also became tight and painful. I experienced intense right quad spasming which was painful and limiting of my ROM. My right thigh developed bruising from the location of the pins/scars on my knee up the front and wrapping around the medial aspect. My knee and thigh looked similar to how I remember it 25 years ago! I could not ignore this visual dejavu!

  I am assuming that being back near the location, seeing my friend, and the energy of the Unwinding seminar triggered my body into remembering… I look forward to hearing more of John’s thoughts on what is happening physically and emotionally with tissue memory.

  Thank you John, the Chicago students, and your instructors for assisting me into this long awaited layer!

  I survived!

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•   Mary Ryan NCTMB, CMT, NJ // Sep 2nd 2008 at 10:15 pm

  John,
  As always, your massage mag. blog, books, articles, seminars; a multitude of diverse conversation for all to learn and dwell upon. In the concept of karma and tissue memory, what are your thoughts. A single example: a client is unwinding within a repetitive patterning without any break through towards a full release for a number of sessions. Doesn’t ‘know’ where,why or how this unwinding is coming from but feels something…deep. Frustrating for the client. As if it is way beyond or rather way far back to reconcile with. Client feels a need to reconcile with something in order to let go, deeper. Would or could this possibly clarify as perhaps a karmic reason, based in tissue memory or the mind-body dissassociation from something within the client’s own psyche. Though both could be involved. Your comments, thoughts on this relationship of the two or maybe no relationship. Thank you, John.

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•   Jessica Queller // Sep 3rd 2008 at 9:41 am

  I am young (28) and constant physical pain (head, neck, and shoulder) finally caught up with me several months ago, probably sooner than later due my massage career. MFR for the past 9 months has helped tremendously but the head, neck, shoulder issues seem to be unresolved – with no major traumatic experience/injury attached to it (that I am aware). MFR Unwindings in the Cervical-Thoracic region keep bringing me back to feelings that I can’t breathe and what breaths I can take are just stuck in my chest. I make sounds/jolts from my chest, rapidly tense and move at my occiput, intensely squint my eyes and twitch at my anterior neck. All of these sensations are “habits” that I have actually performed most of my life, including difficulty taking full breaths (which all medical tests have shown nothing). Most of the “habits” I have been able to tame while in public but they are always a part of me when I am alone. My father for as long as I can remember has done the twitching in the anterior neck too. It is rather difficult for me to relax my occiput, of course until I get treated then I find relief. I always fear my neck in extension as I have such a strong feeling that my neck is going to break/snap. Fears of being “closed in” triggered about 2 years ago on a trip to Arizona (of all places!!). I was getting a body wrap at a spa by the Camelback Mountains and went into panic attack mode when wrapped. Luckily the therapist was still in the room so she could unwrap me. The “closed in” feelings have been with me since then – something was triggered on that trip – only in Arizona!!
  I have recently been able to release during treatments and at seminars so that my neck is in extension off the table and it felt good! Still pressure on my chest from my therapist’s hand brings a moment of anxiety, but the trust that I have in my therapist greatly overpowers those fears. A few days ago I awoke in my sleep to the feeling that a fierce “wind” was sweeping from my chest and out to the right. In my dreams or not, it was strong enough to wake me up. With the progress I have made thus far, I am still left with an unresolved feeling that there is something more going on that is beyond my present physical body.
  Yesterday I had an energy work (IET) session. It was quite intense for me and my therapist, especially at my right chest/shoulder, neck, and occiput. The IET practitioner was strongly feeling (at my neck) a sensation of being choked or strangled and that it was “Very Very Old”. So strong she was able to feel it in her neck. The release brought stale coughing deep into my chest and then followed with crying. Still with the all the progress I have made, I feel that there is still something in there that is so strong. It is leading me down a new path in my journey – past life.

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