Northwest Healing Hands

While our country is about to celebrate it's 250th Birthday, this month Northwest Healing Hands, PLLC celebrated 5 years. Some of you have been with me since my myofascial practice of 14 years in the Snoqualmie and Issaquah area! No matter how long we have been together, thank you for inviting me into your healing experience and trusting me with your care ❤️

Recently I had someone reach out who was very interested in discussing the benefits of Myofascial Release for his chronic shoulder pain. With some hesitation, he said to me, “Not to get too woo woo, but I can tell that when I’m stressed out, my shoulder feels worse and when I’m on vacation it tends to feel better”

Its sad to me how commonly I hear people say something similar, downplaying the connection we feel between our bodies and our sensations. Despite what we know now about the mind-body connection, he considered his increased sensation of pain with stress to be “woo woo.”

We’ve all experienced digestive distress with activities such as sitting on a turbulent plane ride or preparing to walk to the front to the front of a room before a big speech. Some of us have even had the hair on the back of our neck stand up when we’re walking down a scary alley way or come in contact with someone we instinctually know not to trust. These physiological occurrences to stress are some of the most commonly recognized and therefore unlikely to be dismissed as woo woo.

However, when it comes to pain, I find that many people have a difficult time trusting the connection between how they feel emotionally and how they feel physically. This can be particularly true for people navigating chronic pain because they are so focused on getting through their chores throughout the day that this often requires ignoring or dismissing the pain. To accomplish that, they must also turn off how they feel about having the pain. Pain effectively becomes white noise. Everything needs to be pushed below the surface of awareness. This is an excellent skill but what was meant to be a temporary coping method often becomes a constant state of lack of awareness and the mind-body connection is lost or minimized.

In Myofascial Release, we equate the body to your tangible subconscious. Fascia is your body’s WiFi. It’s what connects everything to everything else, in one never-ending highway of information. When we engage and sustain connection with your fascial network, we are connecting with that master highway without even having to think about it!

No two myofascial sessions are ever the same and so there is no predicting how and what you might feel when you’re on my table. Together, we will not ignore the mind-body connection and as long as we follow another myofascial principle of “Never force, never lead” and give your body permission to express what it’s calling to do, you are in the right place to restore the wisdom of your mind-body connection.

Is stretching right for me??

The real answer is...only sometimes. Some of us are not meant to stretch. I understand this is an odd assessment especially coming from a Myofascial Therapist whose recommendation for stretching is pretty much my bread and butter for self-care.

The truth is, some of us have a superpower of being extra flexible. You can be extra flexible in your body but not your lower body and vice versa. You can be extra flexible on the right side of your body and not your left. Most folks who possess this superpower have little to no idea they have it. After all, you've been living in your body for several years and all you know is what you've been able to do your whole life. A common statement I hear from my extra-flexible patients is, "I went to my (PT, doctor, chiropractor, etc) and they said I have good range of motion but why do I feel so tight?"

If you're extra flexible and doing a typical stretch, you are often pushing past your joint's limit without even knowing it and this can cause more problems instead of making you feel better. It can create more tension around your joints to keep you stable and actually make you feel tighter which is the opposite of what we are trying to create.

In my experience, if you are unique and have some extra flexible joints, you tend to benefit more from using the therapy ball for direct releases to your tissue and/or getting regular myofascial release and combining it with gentle resistance training to create more joint stability. That combo is a recipe for improving your stability and reducing your pain without over-stressing your joints.

If you want to know more or need a second set of eyes to give you feedback on whether or not you have this superpower, reach out!

Wishing you all happy holidays and a peaceful New Year from our family to yours🐾