Tissue Memory
Let’s go back in time for just a moment. Think about a familiar smell or song of childhood or even adolescence. Then think about a time you smelled that same smell or heard that same song as an adult. What happens for you? For most it’s almost like being transported back to a specific time or even a specific moment.
Now let’s ponder tissue memory. If our bodies hold onto smell and sound so incredibly well wouldn’t you agree that this is the same for the tissue, your fascia, in your body? Now I’d like you to go back to a time, a time when you experienced a traumatic event or injury. This any be anything, so it maybe be something tiny like someone pinching your knee for not doing something or it could be an event that you went through that severely hurt you emotionally and/or physically or an injury like getting hurt in a sports game. Your experience could even be something like slipping outside on a wet ground and you get up and feel perfectly fine, yet the next day you are sore. Whether it’s a simple fall that doesn’t bother you much or an experience where you might have frozen in action or even ran away it all counts. It all counts and should never be discounted as this is your personal experience.
For some reason if we don’t tend to these past events physically, emotionally and spiritually they often get trapped in our bodies. Our body has made an imprint of that experience on a subconscious level and it gets stuck. More often than not these tissue memories are state and/or position dependent. Your experiences, traumas, injuries and patterns can create physical restrictions, pain dysfunction and limit movement as well as feeling like you are unable to access freedom of mobility. Through MFR there is the opportunity to allow yourself to let go enough to access the memories of your tissues and break free of these patterns.
Have you thought about what memories are being carried around in your tissues, in your body, that feel frozen or feel that they need to move?
___
Prompts:
Take ten to twenty minutes to sit and journal about “a time you experienced something you didn’t want.” There are no rules to this writing. Write what flows through you. And afterwards maybe ponder how this might relate to tissue memory and holding tension in your body.
Get outside, it’s summer! Or stay inside and soak up the A/C! The above prompt is words that flow through you, and this prompt is about movement that flows through you. Pick a song, I enjoy songs with a beat especially the drums. Turn it up a little louder than you normally do. Allow the beat to move you. Without thinking where does your body want to move? What areas do you notice feel stuck, even frozen or maybe locked down like something is stored there?
