08.02.2023

Fad-scia

Don't be a system-ist. Don't get me wrong, fascia is super cool and it has captured the spotlight and continues to do so as the "undiscovered, unknown, underappreciated" anatomical system. Back in my day (old lady voice), when I started in 1998, fascia wasn't classified as a system yet. Fascia has been trending for awhile.

Fascial connective tissue (bindevæv in DK) is cool, in part because as a three dimensional web it DOES connect everything and confirms what many experience somatically.

It is inherently a holistic system that incorporates everything from skin to cell. Many people are  moving towards anatomical inculsion as opposed to western medicine’s anatomical classification of tissues which is based on excluding everything that isn't ________ (muscle, nerve, cardiovascular etc...). 

Fascia is also a marketing buzzword (think “paleo,” “mindfulness,” “organic” or "rewilding.")  It gets thrown around, a lot, willy-nilly. Since my short 25 yrs in the field, we've also seen other anatomical systems take their turn in the sun. Thhe nervous system - particularly the vagus nerve, the lymph system had its day. I suspect the cool "in" anatomical trends will keep cycling around to keep our attention, keep us on the edge of truth. We also see this with, fitness, diets, parenting styles and even trending  diagnoses. I mean, when will they discover the fourth nutrient beyond protein, fats and carbs… and then pummel us with “information” about it until we are all brain dead? 

Just be aware of the tsunami of marketing because it is exquisitely designed to make you feel inadequate, stupid, inferior and incapable of listening and trusting your body, faster than your hand flies off a hot stove. Which, thanks to our nervous system’s reflex arc, is pretty fast. That marketing didn’t just see you before you woke up - it sees you before you were born.

How can you possibly heal, rest, let go, experience inner peace or develop self acceptance if you don't get the better therapy with the better person who has the better training and hack your way, in the hipper fitness class, with the least possible amount of time, effort and money, into perfect health somehow, inevitably with the underlying desire to please someone else? Run-on sentence intended. It’s exhausting. It's nuts.

Healing has its own time frame - and if you've got the magic smartwatch to capitalize on it, you can probably seduce me into taking your course and buying your product. I've done it countless times and will likely do it again. Then I dutifully go through the process of pulling out the gems, and abandoning the rest, so as not to get sucked into the Borg. I aim to have something genuine to offer.

If you're uncomfortable, that's normal. If you have pain - also, normal. Health is relative - to EVERYTHING! Do you know how to seek comfort, health and take care of yourself, on a daily basis? I don't always - and that's when, on a good day, I ask a trusted person for help after a few moments of quiet reflection.

‘Getting quiet’ with another person whose sole focus is to help me hear and trust what I am feeling is a power move. The healing dynamic between me and the other person is profound, every time, and inevitably slides into the realm of the Unexplainable despite all the knowing, learning, and explaining of things. As I naively said to Marion Rosen in 1999, “it’s the moment where anything can happen.” At which point she told me I didn’t need to take her courses. So, I went off to learn WATSU® instead.

I always thought it was kind of funny that as spiritual beings we have these bodies that we can't manage ourselves, though we walk around looking like independent creatures. I can't feed myself without farmers, I can't diagnose myself without objective opinion, and I can't treat myself as effectively as when I turn my care over to others once in a while.

I see us more as aspens in a grove, nurturing each other through nature's cycles and making sure each one has enough sun, water and soil to enliven the whole. The shared root system, reminding us that an individual's good health is better for everybody.

So where does that leave us with human anatomical systems and fascia, manual treatment, things that trend, holistic-ness, education, capitalism, the wellness "knot," and getting through the day? Suffice it to say, you are not a robot. I am not a mechanic. The joy of breaking things down to parts and names and systems, is like grammar to a language, like a palette to the painter, maps to the treasure. It is impossible for me to touch you without affecting all of you. The anatomical systems relate, there are conversations, love affairs, wars, karma, growth and death - and many of these are happening at the same time.

We are snowflakes that meet, merge, dissolve and crystalize again and again. Whether surfing or becoming an expert in the trends doesn't guarantee a solution. Experience is fleeting and we are constantly evolving, devolving, dissolving and resolving to see - and believe- that the Indescribable journey experienced in the loving hands of another, is real.

Sarah Reynolds 

Registreret Alternativ Behandler 

Myofascial Specialist 

Aquatic Bodyworker

Fascial Fitness Trainer 

Registered Healing Dance® Instructor 

Registered Healing Dance® Practitioner 

Registered Watsu®Practitioner 

Natural Therapeutics Specialist

Healer

Myofascial Trigger Point Therapist 

Rosen Method

Certified Pregnancy Massage Therapist 

Energy Worker

Certified Infant Massage Instructor

Reflexologist

Breath Therapist

Massage Therapist 

Massage Therapy Instructor