When animals are injured, or face harm, they will instinctively go into a flight, fight, or freeze response. They will run to avoid a predator like a gazelle running from a lion. Some creatures hide or freeze, and even change colors to avoid detection, like a chameleon. A ram will enter head first into a fight when threatened. These hardwired neurological responses require loads of energy.
Humans are similar. We spend a lot of energy engaging the flight or fight response, or avoiding it, and so we freeze. We literally disassociate from the pain of trauma or perceived threat. This response is positionally dependent at the point of traumatic impact and our mind body makes a mental note of our exact position in space. We are many times not aware of this, and it becomes subconscious. During the suppression of this trauma, its force, its feeling, and our tissue’s inherent response, we literally wear ourselves out trying to hold it in. We try “not to cry”. We are told “don’t cry”! We keep it all submerged, and the trauma and all the painful experiences surrounding it stay trapped in our fascia. We then develop holding and bracing pattens that affect our mobility, determine our activity choices, and may induce emotional triggers if the trauma also included psychological factors.
John Barnes, PT says “Myofascial Release frees these powerful, structural restrictions that place enormous pressure upon sensitive structures that produce pain, headaches, and restrictions of motion. Myofascial Unwinding ( the motion facilitation component of the JFB Myofascial Release Approach) guides the patient into significant positions of past trauma called still points.”
As an MFR practitioner, we safely hold the patient in the past positions of trauma in space during unwinding, and allow the tissue to release. The patients mind body “remembers” the exact still point at which the freeze response and subsequent dissociation first occurred. The mind body moves into finally processing the trauma, the tissue releases the trapped energy, and the associated physical symptoms dissolve.
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