Megan Rose holistic massage

Fascia Informed Bodywork

Fascia Informed Bodywork is a safe, gentle, person-centred approach to treating physical and emotional tension, longstanding pain, discomfort or restricted movement. It has a reputation for having profoundly effective and long lasting results, as it recognises and works with the connection and interplay between our physical, emotional and mental health. It aims to connect and work with the root cause of any tension you may be experiencing. To find out more about Fascia and this beautiful form of bodywork please click on any of the buttons below that interest you or contact me to book in and experience it for yourself.

So what’s Fascia and how does it become damaged?

Fascia is the most abundant form of connective tissue in the body, literally affecting all its  systems.  Every cell, tissue, tendon, muscle, bone, ligament, blood, lymph and nerve vessel, as well as every organ of the body is infused, surrounded and protected by fascia. One continuous, uninterrupted weblike 3D network that connects head to toe, fascia helps to define, support, connect and disconnect different parts of the body. It simply holds the entirety of our physical beings together. 

Healthy fascia acts to protect us, always responding to the environment we are placed in, enabling us to interact with and move through the world pain free, without restriction and in a very energy efficient way. It is a hugely sensory system, constantly sensing and communicating, helping us to know where we are in space and enabling us to stabilise our body enough to stay upright.  It communicates with and connects different parts of the body together, helping to regulate our physiology.  It also acts as a shock absorber, aiming to protect us from every impact that we encounter throughout life. Every stumble, trip, fall, injury, illness or emotional, or traumatic event or hurt impacts on the fascia and fosters the emergence and development of postural habits and tendencies.

 Healthy fascia is gel like with a high water content (60%), allowing it to stay hydrated, fluid and relaxed. The tissue can then glide freely and move without restriction.  This enables us to use our bodies without pain or restriction, creating space and allowing blood and lymph to move freely and nerves to act appropriately.   

Fascia can however tighten and become damaged, becoming bound down, dehydrated , densified  and hardened. As fascia absorbs the shocks of life it can cause pain, imbalance and discomfort, can impede and compress cardiovascular and lymph flow, put pressure on nerves and slow down the body’s healing capability.  The whole area will experience pressure, malnourishment and ultimately painful restriction in movement and at rest. Habits become reinforced with the laying down of very strong, dense tissue to replicate the pattern.   Restricted fascia and soft tissue leads to often undiagnosed pain, exhaustion and immune system dysfunction, as one restriction in the fascial system can lead to another. 

 Fascial restrictions can be caused by:

• Physical injury

• Inflammatory processes

• Poor posture

• Repetitive movements

• Lack of movement globally, or in a part of your body

• A history of participating in impact sports

• Surgery and scar tissue

• Emotional stress, or overwhelm and traumatic injury, situations, or history.

• Emotional and physical holding patterns

• Burns

• Chronic injuries

• Pain and discomfort

• Reduced mobility

• Deep tissue restrictions

How can Fascia Informed Bodywork help?

Fascia is dynamic in nature, continually responding to the requests and cues being made by the body and the environment.  With appropriate care it has the potential to let go of difficulties within its system and allow the body to reshape itself and express shapes that may have been forgotten.  This is very positive as viewed from a certain angle it gives hope, suggesting that the potential for change in the body is continuous and life-long.  With the right connection, education, guidance and time, fascia can begin to regain its elasticity, hydration and adaptive ability to respond to life, in order to glide and shift to support a more healthy body, enabling more ease and pain free, relaxed and diverse movement.

Fascia Informed Bodywork offers an opportunity to work with the entire fascial system, by connecting with the skin, muscles and bones of the body.  It is used for the release of fascia which has become stuck, hardened and dehydrated. I use a collection of techniques for separating different presentations of fascia, releasing restrictions, restoring elasticity, conductivity and hydration. The ‘right’ touch, gentle and mindful connection and trust, encourages the body to let the treatment in and aims to enable the body to recalibrate and restore movement and health, without excessive force.

Fascia Informed Bodywork is one part of a journey towards pain free movement and confidence in our bodies, reconnecting us with degrees of movement and sensation that we may have temporarily lost.

 By listening and responding to the tissues and encouraging ease within them there are many benefits:-

• An increase in hydration and restoration of elasticity, allowing for further hydration and a decrease in compression around body structures.

• A release of pressure on pain sensitive structures such as nerves and blood vessels, allowing them to flow more freely and thereby reducing pain.

• Increased lymphatic flow.

• As the fascia is a continuous web, affecting every organ and cell, it has the potential to affect you very deeply and generate and increase health throughout the body.

• Scar tissue breakdown

• Letting go of restrictive patterns enables the body to move towards realigning itself, via the muscles and joints and improves ability to move freely.

• It can provide a holding space to allow you to begin to process experiences that have been felt in your body’s history and are at the root of any pain you may be experiencing.

What does a session look like?

A session starts with getting to know you, your history and what you hope to gain from coming for a treatment.  Treatment then begins with taking time to land, by connecting with the space and completing a body scan to encourage a sense of settling, prior to connecting through touch.

Fascia varies in density, so fine and weblike it cannot be seen, while in other places it forms thick, layered sheets, chords or webs that are incredibly strong.  I therefore uses a variety of techniques to meet individual needs: cross-hand stretches, skin rolling, light touch, deep three dimensional stretches, pulls, focused rebounding, shaking or rocking, following the tissue’s release and connection with other parts of the body, as a guide to where the treatment goes.

Fascia requires us to work differently to how we work with muscle and bone in massage.  Fascia needs time to respond to touch, so work is slow and gradual.  No oil, or very little oil is used.  Hands are placed gently in holds on the body to connect with the fascial system, via sustained gentle pressure.  The process cannot be rushed or forced, as the body will resist if too much pressure is applied. Typically a hold will last for three to five minutes, sometimes much longer.  Your unique body dictates the pace. Fascia softens beneath my hands and tissues slowly change.  As a therapist I follow my intuition to move with the tissue or change pressure appropriately to follow where the body is expressing release or need.

As the fascia is continuously connecting disparate parts of the body to each other, we look at the pain you are experiencing in the context of your whole body. We always consider how an area of discomfort relates to body parts that maybe far away from the injury, or pain site. These areas may in fact be at the centre of the difficulty you are experiencing. My work is therefore led by your body.  Due to this, the effects of Fascia Informed Bodywork have the potential to be more profound and longer lasting than just working with muscle and bone.

I will always encourage you to take time to get up after a session to allow you to check in with how you are and begin to process the journey your body and mind have been on during treatment. Your body may feel quite different.

A Holistic Treatment

Each person is unique with fascial patterns particular to their body’s and life’s story. Working fascially is a holistic treatment, connecting with body, mind, emotion and energy.

The body stores your history, it is totally shaped by every one of your experiences, not only in your life, but also in the lives of your ancestors. Your body has been with you through childhood, adolescence and adult hood, experiencing all your achievements, all of your life defining moments and relationships, joys and difficulties, in turn shaping your postural habits, and unique characterful gestures.  It is a tapestry of your life’s formative experiences and events.

Fascia Informed Bodywork offers a pause to listen to the body, but also to discover and grow a different way of being in the body.

The body may have carried an issue for a long time, so the treatment is appropriately respectful.  I work with softness, gentleness and kindness, very much working in partnership with you and following the way your body wants to move and let go.  I aim to create a calm and peaceful space where you can relax and participate in this treatment. The treatment is quietly paced to allow time to process movements and emotions that arise and to meet the experience that you are having with a sense of safety, openness and groundedness from which to explore what is occurring for you. 

Fascial treatment can also offer a way of looking after your body regularly, connecting with where you are at, allowing your body to move further into a position of ease.

What does a treatment session feel like?: Testimonials for Fascia Informed Bodywork

“Megan’s calm presence and delightful dedicated massage space combine to create the perfect environment to switch from everyday body-mind busyness towards an inner attention that allows me to notice how I am on all levels.

Megan’s Fascia Informed Bodywork combines stillness, movement and mobilisation to facilitate the unwinding of held body tensions.

Weaving together her knowledge, skill and intuition with my feedback, the session becomes a co-creative process that leaves me feeling relaxed, centred and grounded and better able to receive and respond to life’s joys and challenges.   Thank you Megan.”

Ali Rose, Yoga Teacher

“A massage with Megan doesn’t begin or end on the massage bed. From the start, she really takes her time to get to know how you’re feeling, what you would like to focus on and how she can support you through the process. She always has considered ideas for ways to complement her work in every day life - whether that be gentle stretches, ways to further investigate connections within the body, or pointers to other resources.

Starting with a guided, deep relaxation helped me to really connect with my body and start letting go before experiencing any physical touch: opening both my body and mind to be more receptive to her fascial work. Her slow, gentle touch and sometimes barely perceptible adjustments create incredibly deep releases in the body. Our work together has allowed me to process emotions and trauma that I have not previously been comfortable or able to access on my own. During this time, she has always been present with support - creating a safe and caring space in which to let go and start healing.

As a result, my body has been able to let go of both short and long term patterns of tension and pain. At the end of my series of treatments, recurrent niggles and ongoing issues in both my shoulders and hips had gone. My body feels more relaxed and it’s given me a better connection between my body and my mind. Thank you Megan”

Anonymous

“I have recently completed a course of six Fascia Informed Bodywork sessions with Megan. This work is truly life changing. Megan is incredibly intuitive and works very gently with the body to allow it to almost untie itself and let it release the tension that has been held, sometimes for many, many years. In each session she worked with a different part of my body, listening and feeling into what it needed. Each time we started with what may have seemed like a very superficial injury or niggle but soon got into the deeper roots of the issue allowing me to let go of past pain and trauma that I had been holding in my body, but also to tap into the wonder and strength that my body holds.

I would highly recommend this work. It is truly holistic and affects every part of you - mind, body and soul. I’m getting emotional just thinking about the difference it has made to how I feel about myself. Thank you Megan from the bottom of my heart - which I think you found in one session.”

Tracy Derrett Yoga Teacher

“The series of treatments I received from Megan was exciting and inspiring. She supported me to make lasting changes both to my posture and body use and to my emotional / energetic balance too.

Megan’s approach seems to support the body and mind into a place where change is available - I felt that everything had been set in motion and my body could gently and thoroughly let go of old patterns and search out new ways of being that were more easeful.

During the actual treatment Megan placed her hands with a clear and light touch, and from that initial connection my body would start to come alive with sensation, stretch, heat, a twitch, an itch, feelings of constriction and release of tension. She would then work for sometime from that place. I felt very deeply relaxed but also stayed present and engaged in the work as Megan guided me to witness my feeling and imaginative self in experiencing her touch. Each connection she made released a whole journey of sensory and imaginative responses which enriched my understanding of where my body / mind was at.

Megan held space for my mind to settle deeply into an attentive place where the body could slowly and beautifully go about the business of listening to her touch and rebalancing itself. The treatment didn’t finish when I got up from the couch - my whole frame was still gently swaying, exploring new ways of balancing itself, letting go of patterns of holding that were no longer helping me or were causing discomfort, opening the way for me to make quite significant postural changes. I left each session feeling as though I was about to go on a new adventure, to see what changes my body would choose to explore / retain from the sessions, how I would approach both movement and other elements of my life in new ways.”

Fran Higginson, Dancer and Massage Therapist