What is actually released in Myofascial Release? There is a lot of discussion around this kind of thing… For me, I am not sure the technicalities of it particularly matter. What does, is how people feel; THEIR experience of what changes or moves or shifts or releases or shows up. So what does that mean?
Well, people can experience this idea of release in many different ways during (and often after) a myofascial release session.
Sometimes it is a very visceral sensation of tension reducing and a sense of elongation or relaxation being felt in the tissues of the body… As if the tissues are melting like butter beneath the hands of the therapist, or prying themselves apart like a long, slow yawn. Sometimes there can be pain as the body releases the sensations it has held onto – sometimes people call this “good pain”. Other times it feels delightful. There is no right or wrong.
Sometimes it’s emotional and there may be different feelings experienced, perhaps even tears as they body lets go of stuff it no longer needs. This can be joy or anger or sadness or laughter. We have such a vast range or emotions that sometimes we don’t know the words for them or have any need to name them or analyse them. Sometimes they just move through as we work with the tissues and we don’t really know what’s changed – just that something has.
Sometimes it can be loud.. Some people find the energy that moves through them during a myofascial release session has a sound to it and they need to let it out. This may be as a guttural kind of noise, or a scream or a shout, or toning, or whatever sound the body feels it needs to make. This can sometimes be scary for the person receiving the treatment (and sometimes for people walking by the treatment room outside!) but it is very natural and very cathartic. Especially in our English culture, we are taught to be very quiet and non-expressive, so to have the opportunity and permission to take up space and make noise and to just let it out can be amazingly healing. Sometimes things can almost feel like they explode out and there isn’t even a choice.
Other times it is so silent and so subtle, both recipient and therapist can almost be left wondering if anything released at all, and yet at the same time, they both know something has shifted, something has rearranged, whatever needed to happen has happened.
Sometimes what’s released is expectations.
Sometimes it’s the idea of what treatment should look like.
Sometimes it’s the idea of how we are meant to show up in life.
Sometimes it’s the idea that we have to do or know or be anything.
Sometimes it’s the tiredness and the mask that is released.
Sometimes (I would hope most/all of the time) the treatment room is the place where you can release the façade you may feel you need in the everyday world, and it is the place where it is safe to just be however you are.
Perhaps it is energy that is released.
Perhaps it is belief systems.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter.
What does, is that the treatment room is a safe space to show up as and how you are, and to be received with love and grace. In that space you are the most important person. You are the one who is listened to. You are the one who is held.
There are no expectations of you.
You do not need to do or be anything.
In this space, you are welcome, you are safe, and you are seen.