Hey folks, Nicole here. Many of you know me, but for those of you who don’t, I own Skin to Soul and am a Myofascial Release Therapist. I have to confess I’ve been hiding something from you. I suffered with low back pain for almost 6 years and many of you never knew. There were days I would look at something that I dropped on the floor and wonder how I was going to lean over and pick it up. Days I spent crying on the floor, pushing and stretching and prodding my back, asking myself, why can’t I fix this?! Why wont it go away? I would yell at it: “Back Pain, you are making me look like a fraud!!”
You see, as a Massage Therapist there is an unspoken agreement that we don’t share our aches and pains with our clients. There is somehow this idea that because we went to massage school, we are supposed to know how to heal everything ourselves and look pain free and perfect. The thought would haunt me, “How am I supposed to help others, when I can’t even help myself?”
During this painful time in my life, I also started learning Myofascial Release.
Myofascial Release is a hands on bodywork technique where your therapist applies a gentle, sustained pressure or stretch to restricted areas of your body. Over a period of time, these restrictions essentially “melt” away under your therapists hands, releasing the restriction, and releasing you from your pain.
We melt your fascia like buttah!
As I started applying the Myofascial Principles I realized that I also needed to get treated. I started seeing a therapist once a month for 1.5 hours. She works 2 hours from here. When I first started, I was not sure if it was really doing too much. I did know I felt completely wiped out, emotional and exhausted many times after my treatments. Every time I drove the two hours to my treatment there was a fleeting thought that maybe I
should just cancel it and turn around. There was something in me that told me to keep going and I am glad for my little voice, because it turned out to be best thing that ever happened to me. Myofascial Release changed my life. It showed me how to tap into my body and start to listen to my pain signals. It taught me how to soften into the restrictions slowly, to lean into them and feel many times the painful emotions that were stuck inside of me, inside of my fascia. (surprisingly, massage therapists have feelings too!) It taught me how my body braces itself every day against these scary or painful emotions or thoughts and how it was contributing to my physical pain.
It taught me how to have a better relationship with my body, how to treat myself more gently, taking the pressure off and being my own best friend. And in the process of all of this, my back pain started melting away, little by little. It took time, for sure. And as I watched other therapists and my clients start getting better, I realized that everyone has a different timetable for healing.
I can tell you, that my most profound shifts occurred during seminars, or intensives, like retreats, where I was treated multiple times per day, for a few days or up to two weeks, in a row. There is something transformative about setting aside a few days of time just for you to focus on your own body, your own awareness that can really shift you into a new level of healing. Today I can tell you that my back pain is gone. Today, I listen to my body, I treat myself, I continue to get treated, to uncover even deeper layers of restrictions. My life has an inner peace and ease that I read about and never thought would be mine to enjoy.
My story is one of the reasons that I am so passionate about the work, about Myofascial Release and about helping others to dissolve their pain and help themselves, too. If you are interested in getting a jump start on your healing journey, I am partnering with our MFR therapists Katie Brockway and Jessica Kaloutas of North Shore Myofascial Release to offer you an incredible opportunity.
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