When we go through a really tough experience, whether it’s something physical or emotional, and we don’t get closure on it, our body stores that memory in a way that keeps it locked up in the fascia.
For example, let’s say you sprain your ankle but don’t get proper treatment and rehab. Your body might start feeling unsafe and create a different way of moving to avoid using the injured ankle. The autonomic nervous system which is responsible to help us deal with any challenges, takes over and tighten up or ‘freeze’ the fascia around the ankle to provide stability.
This change then affects your whole body as you now need to find a new way of moving, to compensate for the immobility around the ankle. This results in imbalance and non-alignment, which leads inflammation and wear and tear in the areas that now need to work harder or carry more weight. Over time, and especially if you increase your activities, this will eventually lead to chronic injuries and chronic pain.
The same goes for intense emotional events that make you freeze instead of fight or flee. Just like with physical trauma, if you can’t resolve the emotional trauma, your body stores the memory of it in its tissues. Your autonomic nervous system activates the freezing response which cause the fascia to contract or ‘freeze’ in specific areas, again causing immobility and dysfunction of the muscles and other structures in that area of fascia restriction. This again leads compensation patterns, overload and eventually chronic symptoms.
According to Dr. Stephen Porges and his Polyvagal theory, 80% of trauma is experienced through the body and not the mind. This theory suggests that the body has a big role in how trauma happens and how it affects us.
So according to this theory, unresolved trauma can show up mostly as physical sensations and reactions in the body, even if the mind doesn’t fully realize what’s going on.
Therefore, if a person has a chronic injury or pain in a specific area, it is crucial to assess their overall mobility. This means checking how the whole body moves, not just the problem area.
By doing a thorough assessment of the body’s mobility, we can see how different parts of the body work together and compensate for each other. The goal is to find out if there are any unresolved traumas affecting other parts of the body that may be contributing to the chronic issues.
It is only when we have dealt with the source of the chronic symptoms, that we can expect to get the results that we are looking for.
