Video Transcript

This is a short video about fascia and why is it such an important mediator between our physical and our emotional environment. Fascia is spelled F-A-S-C-I-A and it’s a Latin word that we use in anatomy, in order to describe the different forms of connective tissue we find in the body. A Tissue is a collection of cells that has similar structure and physiology and we have four different types of tissue in the body:

A) We have muscular tissue, which forms our muscles.

B) We have nervous tissue, which forms our nervous system and conducts signals from

the body to the brain and vice versa.

C) We have epithelial tissue, that creates special structures like glands and the inner lining of our organs and it has the ability to secrete mucus and

D) We have connective tissue, which first and foremost what it does is, it connects everything to each other as as the term implies. We’ve all seen it at some point. Ιf you take a piece of raw meat and you try to cut it, you see that surrounding the meat and also inside the different layers of the meat there is this semi-transparent, grayish, whitish gelatinous substance. That’s fascia. That’s connective tissue. And depending on the different parts of the body that we find it in, we give it different names.

So the fascia that surrounds the bone we call it Periosteum. The connective tissue that surrounds the muscle of the heart and that allows it to be connected to the sternum and to the spine and to the bags that hold the lungs, we call it Pericardium. We also have sheaths of connective tissue that divide the different parts of the brain and we call these Meninges. So Meningitis is basically an inflammation of these sheaths of connective tissue that we have in our brain.

And we also get special types of connective tissue. So blood, for instance, is at its most part connective tissue. The cartilage in our joints is connective tissue. Fat is connective tissue that is responsible for the thermal regulation in our body. Skin is connective tissue. Bones is a special type of connective tissue.

So as you can see it’s ever present, it’s everywhere and it has mechanical properties. It gives the shape of the body and it absorbs forces and tension in the body. Picture, for instance, a spider web and wherever you push or pull at that web, the whole web reacts at the same time. That’s exactly the way fascia acts inside the body. So you’re pulling apart on your right shoulder let’s say and it’s going to have implications on your left hip, for instance.

And it has many functions, apart from connecting everything together as we said. It supports every structure, it divides them and allows them to to move independently of each other sliding against each other. It also facilitates the exchange of fluids inside the body, cellular metabolism, it facilitates the expression of the immune system and it’s the largest sensory organ that we have. There’s a huge number of free nerve endings swimming in fascia inside the space of our body. So this makes it our largest sensory organ and at the same time it allows us to have a constant feel of our internal environment. Of what goes on inside us.

So fascia provides not only an anatomical cohesion, binding everything and relating everything together, but perceptual cohesion as well. It’s very important as a tool for our Consciousness. How does that link to emotions now, right?

We know that emotions are waves of energy that run through the body. We have been able to measure that. Now science is advanced enough to know that we’re not just physical matter. We’re also energetic beings, like quantum physics talks about all the time and we have instruments that measure the electromagnetic reality that goes on in and around our bodies. So imagine you have a negative emotion, you have a negative event. Your body is going to react. Most often what it will do is it will contract in a certain part, in order to protect itself.

So, for instance, you get stressed about something and many people have their stomach getting tight, right? At the time that this happens – maybe for a good reason – it’s a protective mechanism, it’s a defense mechanism. And this contraction doesn’t allow for movement in that area for the blood to flow as easily and in general, it creates a tension that protects us from feeling the pain that might be involved with this emotion.

If that situation is resolved and everything gets back to normal, everything is fine. Very often we’re not able to deal with it and we just keep it stored there and leave it for another time. If this happens repeatedly, it starts creating a pattern and a chronic condition. And that condition is a chronic contraction and that chronic contraction, as we said, doesn’t allow for the energy to flow there properly, for the blood to flow there and for the sensory input to reach us.

Also, we don’t feel this area as much and when something happens that is related to this area, it doesn’t penetrate our awareness. So it stays below our conscious level. It becomes unconscious. And if this, as we said, keeps happening for a long time, then we have a pattern. An unconscious pattern that is starting to control our behavior, our relationship with our environment and the other people around us, and it starts to define us in a way. It starts shaping our state of being.

That’s why, often times, when people receive deep body work from an expert that is able to – in a safe environment – release this tension that we have in our bodies – because we’re also able to let go in that safe environment – you have memories and feelings that come up to the surface and hopefully, because we are in a safe environment, outside of the danger zone, then we’re able to feel it, see it and start all the processes that we need in order to resolve it.

So fascia basically is the bridge between our physical world and our emotional world. Between our physicality and our energetic reality. We are constantly exposed to waves of energy and frequencies that run from the environment to the self and from the self to the environment. And from our own thoughts and emotions to our body.

So fascia as a substance is this mediator between these different environments. The inner and the outer world. We are constantly exposed to these frequencies and it’s like fascia is the sounding board of our personal universe. That’s what it is. It’s the sounding board of our personal universe.