Best of Hero & Myofascial Release Therapist Karen

Our Hero Highlight series continues with Myofascial Release Therapist Karen Remele. We've pulled the most powerful and insightful moments from Chandler’s conversations with Karen. From uncovering how physical pain holds emotional trauma to the role of fascia in healing, Karen brings a compassionate, full-body approach to recovery. This episode explores the emotional and energetic layers of physical tension, the body's deep wisdom, and how healing begins when we stop pushing through and start tuning in. 

If you’ve ever felt stuck in your body, disconnected from your intuition, or unsure how to release what you’ve been holding, these bite-sized clips are for you.

What You Will Learn

• [00:07:43] How fascia restrictions can create emotional and physical imbalances.
• [00:09:05] Why true healing involves addressing the full body, not just the site of pain.
• [00:10:49] The link between chronic pain, belief systems, and stored emotion.
• [00:12:18] How unprocessed emotions stay in the tissue until they’re safely released.
• [00:15:26] Why people often fear healing when pain becomes part of their identity.
• [00:16:55] How stored emotion can rise to the surface through subtle bodywork.
• [00:19:57] How myofascial release can relieve exhaustion and restore energy.
• [00:21:49] Why women often carry unrecognized emotional weight in their fascia.
• [00:27:00] How body image wounds often stem from small, early-life comments.
• [00:30:09] The power of reclaiming agency in your healing journey.

Want to Hear More from Hero Karen? Check Out These Episodes!

• Free Your Body from Past Trauma with Myofascial Release
• The Power of Myofascial Release for Women's Wellbeing
• Relieve Menopause & Perimenopause Symptoms with MFR
• Physical and Mental Benefits of Immersing Yourself in Nature

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Chandler Stroud

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Mixing and editing provided by Next Day Podcast.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Chandler Stroud: Hey guys, it's Chandler and welcome to The Healing Heroes. 

[00:00:04] I'm Chandler Stroud, an executive wife and busy mom of two who after years of living with anxiety. Health struggles and an unshakeable feeling like I should be happier, made a profound discovery that changed everything. Join me on a journey where unexpected paths lead to healing and more happiness. On this show, we will explore unconventional ways to unlock more joy in your own life with the help of my very own healers.

[00:00:36] And trusted advisors, the healing heroes.

[00:00:43] Hey everyone, and welcome back to the show. I'm your host Chandler, and I am so excited to be here with you all today for our special series, the Hero Highlight series where we are launching a new episode every week. That is a curated collection of our favorite moments from. Each hero week to week.

[00:01:04] Today's episode features our hero, Karen Remley, our myofascial release therapist. And for those that are unfamiliar with fascia, you can think of it as a connective tissue, a web that surrounds all of your bones, your muscles, your organs, holding everything in place structurally and enabling the mobility of your body.

[00:01:29] And so myofascial release. Is a practice that basically helps massage that fascia and release tension and pain so that you do get increased mobility in those areas. And I think one thing that I talk about a lot with Karen is this isn't just physical injury that myofascial release can address. It is also.

[00:01:54] Emotional wounding. I know I talk a lot about this on the show, but yes, you absolutely store your past experiences, your emotions, and your traumas in physical tissue, specifically your fascia. And so myofascial release is a very powerful and effective modality that allows you to really work through those pain points and those woundings in.

[00:02:20] Partnership with your therapist. In my case, hero Karen. She has been an invaluable mentor and supporter of mine throughout my healing journey, and I love the analogy she uses for this work. She often talks about myofascia release being similar to knitting a sweater where if you're knitting a sweater and you pull a thread in one area, maybe in the shoulder, you see it bunch up really far away.

[00:02:49] From that spot, and I think that's exactly what myofascial release is. I could have pain in my left hip and by working on my right shoulder, somehow that releases because everything is interconnected within your body, and it is such an intuitive practice. It's been so beneficial for me to start releasing that tension that I had been holding onto for so long in my physical tissue, and I first met Karen and sought her guidance coming out of.

[00:03:17] Therapy with my other hero, my psychotherapist, Jen Baum Gold. We had been embarking in Talk Therapy and EMDR, which we'll get to at a later episode, but emdr, r's, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It's a type of, that I had been engaging in for many months and I remember sitting on Jen's couch and looking at her and saying, I feel like I've made so much progress mentally, like we've been talking through a lot of these.

[00:03:44] Incidents and experiences, and I feel like I am so far ahead of where I was when I started this work. However, my body doesn't feel like it's keeping up with these mental leaps that I'm making. I feel physically still triggered by my anxiety. Or tense when I think someone's mad at me, or a number of other circumstances that just made me tense up where I'd find my shoulders by my ears or my palms would maybe sweat a little bit, or my heart would race.

[00:04:19] Even though mentally I understood what was happening and I knew how to calm myself down. I was ready for my body to find the kind of peace that I was starting to unearth in my mind. So I am thrilled to introduce our myofascial released. Therapist and hero, Karen Remley,

[00:04:42] since we always have new listeners tuning in. Karen, can you briefly explain what our fascia is and then share a little bit more about Myo Fascia release and why it's so beneficial? 

[00:04:54] Karen Remele: Sure. Fascia is what I call it, organizes our interior architecture. It's a three dimensional, tough connective tissue making up of collagen, elastin, and fibrous network that runs throughout our body, from our head to our toes in one continuous sheet, but it's also this beautiful.

[00:05:16] Fluid filled ground substance of, of a crystal matrix that just helps. Everything keeps sliding and gliding on each other, keeps our organs in place. It's all integrated into our muscle and all of our tissues, and it just helps all of our cells in our bodies communicate with one another. As far as the, the work of mild fascial release.

[00:05:36] Just focusing on fascia. It helps every system in your body, no matter what you come in for. Working with the fascial system is just different than anything else. There's time components to what we do. There's different pressures. There's a serious energy exchange, which we'll talk more about as we talk about nature as well, because nature's all energy and so are we.

[00:05:58] So it's, it's a beautiful thing to combine the two. In this conversation. 

[00:06:04] Chandler Stroud: I love that, Karen, thank you. That was really well articulated and one analogy that I love that you always give to help listeners just really visualize the practice of MFR is the Saran wrap and the sweater I think are both excellent.

[00:06:20] Can you share that just. Briefly to really bring it to life for everyone. 

[00:06:23] Karen Remele: Yes, for sure. If you don't understand the science behind it, there is just a very simple visual of taking a sweater that's been knitted. And if you are to pull one of those threads, you're gonna see how it, it's woven throughout that whole sweater.

[00:06:40] It's all one piece. But when you pull it down by the waistline, you might get a line of pull that comes all the way up to the neckline, and that's kind of how fascial restrictions are. You can have an injury in one point in your body and then it's just going to flood through your system. Wherever you have maybe a weakened area.

[00:07:00] It's just gonna kind of tighten down, and over time it actually becomes restrictive to your movement. It can affect joints health in other ways, your lymph system. Your cardiac system, your heart, everything. So that's one visual. The other visual is if you took a piece of Saran wrap and tightly put it around the top of a bowl and you gently press your finger into the top of it, you're gonna see that.

[00:07:26] Line of pull we out to the edges, and then when you release your finger, there is still a divot in that Saran wrap, but now there's all creases distant from where your finger was. So that's, that's another way, as you can see how fashion may work.

[00:07:43] Chandler Stroud: How do you think MFR is a unique solution for women experiencing menopausal symptoms versus other treatment options that they might consider? 

[00:07:53] Karen Remele: Okay, this is a great question because when you come in for a Myas release treatment, either with me or another therapist, anywhere across the country, we are trained to look at your whole body, your whole person.

[00:08:08] So that's including physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, everything, family unit. You are treated individually, and that in itself. Oftentimes with women more so than men, it's a sense of taking your power back because now you're here, you've, you're taking the time, you're going to, you know, put yourself in this situation so you can get better, and you open yourself up to really exposing yourself for healing.

[00:08:43] Is the best way I can put it. So we're not just gonna touch the part that hurts. We're gonna have some dialogue. We're, we're gonna maybe be quiet the whole time. But the point is that every part of you is going to benefit from what we do. And that goes back to all the emotional things that can come up.

[00:09:05] We talk about those things. We go through those things. There's no stone. Left unturned in some of my sessions, and it's a safe place for people to come to heal because healing is more than one system. Everything is integrated and through myofascial release in the way we are trained. That's what we're here to do, is to help all of your systems work in harmony.

[00:09:33] The person who is placing their hands on you. If there is an energetic connection that's undeniable, that really makes a difference than sitting across from a table sitting on telehealth or sitting across the room from each other. When you have physical contact with a person, it just opens different doors.

[00:10:01] It's a way in getting into those places that have been injured or hurt, or are just out of place. Structural work is obviously part of what we're doing, but the soft tissue is what's helping the structure change. We're not going in there and moving the bones on purpose so that everything around it has to adjust.

[00:10:24] It's going in and working with the soft parts of you, the, the tissue, the muscles, the organs, and when they open up, the bones will go back where they need to go. There's also a mindset, the things that, like we're talking about, that things we're holding on in our head. Sometimes belief systems will prevent us from getting well until someone is taking the time.

[00:10:49] To help you realize that what might be stuck here is coming from something that keeps playing in your head, some old tape recording of you're not good enough, you're whatever the, the, the voice is saying to you. There's so many ways to take this, this context. And work with it with the physical body. So MFR differs from massage therapy in general because the effects are last longer because we're affecting the ground substance in the fluid of the fascial system.

[00:11:28] So it's really important to look at the big picture because Myofascia release not only affects you physically, but it affects you emotionally. It affects you mentally if it affects you spiritually. It's a whole body approach. All those parts are integrated and you can't pull 'em away from one another. So I think that's one of the biggest differences and advantages that we have as MFR therapists.

[00:11:58] A lot of times we don't realize when an incident has occurred. There is emotion that gets trapped inside. When we're training people, we teach them, don't rush in. If someone starts to have an emotion on the treatment table, don't rush in with a tissue. Don't rush in and coddle because their body needs to express that.

[00:12:18] That emotion needs to come out of the tissue, come out of the body. Otherwise, we just at a low level, keep living in that trauma. I can't tell you how many times people have said to me, but I've had talk therapy for 30 years and nothing has helped like this. Sometimes it's a matter of touching the person in the right place with either the right dialogue or no dialogue at all, and complete silence in the treatment room and things will come up.

[00:12:46] And I tell people when they first come in, you may experience. Great emotion. When you leave, you may not feel anything. You might feel angry. Things may come up, but you don't understand. Let them come up. Let it process out because now we've hit upon something that's been stored in your tissues from whatever the traumatic event, or it might not have felt so traumatic at the time, but if you were injured after saying, being in a big argument with someone you really care about that stuff stays in there and it'll have a way of coming back and you may not understand why.

[00:13:23] So there's a lot of links to so many other areas of what we live with every day. 

[00:13:28] Chandler Stroud: I'm so glad you said that. It reminds me of something else I had said to my therapist, which was, I think a key impetus in reaching out to you was that I felt like, you know, I turned to her after a session and I said, Jen, I feel like I'm making so much progress with the EMDR and the therapy we've been doing.

[00:13:50] Talking right in. In my mind, I've made so much progress leaps and bounds, but I still feel like my body is not recovered. I still felt like something was trapped in there, and I. She understood, but I, I don't even think Jen at the time knew to refer me to you. Right. It was through another mechanism, pushed me to look you up and, and come see you.

[00:14:21] But I really felt that, I really felt like you can make progress mentally, but your body is still very much stuck in the past. Yes. 

[00:14:30] Karen Remele: And sometimes it's our belief systems that help us hold those things in place. And oftentimes they're belief systems that no longer serve us. Because it's all we know. We stay with it because we think that's what's gonna help us.

[00:14:45] But in the long run, those things have to be uncovered. And then it's your own decision whether you wanna take 'em back or not. So it's very interesting. And depending on what your trauma is it, it can get very deep. Very interesting as well, I can say, without giving any specific examples it's just every person has their own journey.

[00:15:04] Every person has their own way of expressing things just because culturally the way we're, we're, what we believe and how we grow up, you have to, in my position as an MFR therapist, be very. Open and understanding of what other people's ways are so that you don't shut them down from getting to the place they need to get to when they are going through their process.

[00:15:26] 'cause it is a process. Healing is a process. A lot of times I find that people actually have a fear when they've held on to a certain. Way of being in pain, chronic, their belief systems are wrapped around a certain thing. There's fear that comes up. What's gonna happen to me? How am I gonna be if I don't have this pain?

[00:15:44] Like I don't know how to live without this pain. Who am I gonna become? And it's my job to help get you to that place of understanding that. You're gonna be okay. And to watch people unfold from these situations, watching a person become more authentic to who they are versus what they think society feels they should be, or how they should act, or the doctor said, all of those things start to dissipate, and they just realize, wow, I don't have to be afraid of who I am under this pain.

[00:16:16] I can start to discover who I am because now I'm not living in chronic pain and it's gonna give me an opportunity. To learn who I am not having to deal with this.

[00:16:29] Chandler Stroud: I too have really felt the impact of the treatment. I can vouch that that absolutely started to change. As soon as I started working with you, I really felt like. I started to relax. I felt like I was able to release tension in places. I didn't know that I was tense. And I think the most impactful thing was we had been working together a couple months, I believe, and it was right before the holidays.

[00:16:55] I. And I came home after one of our sessions and no one was in the house. And I started making lunch and put on music and emotion just poured from me. I mean tears and sorrow and fear. And it all came out. And if you'd stumbled upon me that day, you would've been like, she's lost her mind. But I felt so in touch and connected with myself in that moment.

[00:17:25] And the crying and the outpouring of that emotion that had been inside me for that long was such a release and I felt like reborn on the other side of that. It was so powerful. And you know, I always say, I know I'm not done yet, but. Really thank you for that experience and how much that has helped. 

[00:17:48] Karen Remele: Yeah, and this is, this is what it is about.

[00:17:52] It's healing mind, body, spirit. It's 'cause you can't separate them. And I'm so grateful. I know how important that moment was for you and just allowing ourselves and giving ourselves that permission. Is really important. And I think a lot of times we have to, or we feel, again, back to belief systems or society, has kind of put these little phrases into our head that we have to be strong, we have to push through and, and I think we become good at those things at a cost and learning to let go of those things and knowing that being soft and.

[00:18:37] Being patient can be more impactful than pushing through and being hard about something. Which brings me back to the way this works is sometimes I have to start with my hands off of a person's body. And then gently sink in because they are just still so on hyperdrive internally that they can't even tolerate the the pressure of someone's touch.

[00:19:10] I. On their skin. Myofascia release treats any diagnosis that's given to a person, it doesn't matter what, you walk through my door with your paper saying, I'm gonna treat your whole body because that's how this works. Low back pain could mean 10 different things. Every person is gonna respond differently to what I do because every person's gonna get treated individually because it's not always the same.

[00:19:43] Chandler Stroud: What about the woman who just feels exhausted all the time and incredibly stressed out and tense in her own body? Do you think Myofascia release could be a good. Solve for that sort of distress or Yes. Condition? 

[00:19:57] Karen Remele: Yes, absolutely. Because there's somewhere in your system that there are restrictions which are taking your energy from you.

[00:20:06] Depression sometimes can be helped just by working through different parts, literally of the back of of your head, different parts of your body, increasing sleep. Just there's, it's again, it affects all systems, respiratory, lymph. So when you start getting the work done, everything starts to shift so you feel better in general, and then you wanna keep feeling better.

[00:20:36] So then you start to walk a little more, whereas you didn't have the energy to, or you start getting back to an activity that you were really enjoying. There's so many people who are under so much stress now, and this work can help with just that. Just coming in because you're stressed. I. And then there's this, you know, a process during the evaluation that we'll figure out, okay, where is this coming from?

[00:21:02] Chandler Stroud: Even if you're not having a fertility issue or some other form of physical ailment that's specific to the female body, we carry a lot. In our fascia is what I've learned from you. And I think even if you haven't experienced that trauma, whether physical or emotional, and you just feel exhausted at the end of every day, you maybe have a difficult time accessing meditation, for example, or yoga or dropping back into your body.

[00:21:33] I think similar to. Acupuncture and some of those other practices. Myofascial release can be really effective for that because you are starting to open up blockages and restricted areas in the body that maybe you didn't know were there. 

[00:21:49] Karen Remele: Most people will have a place in their body, they hold their stress, whether it be shoulders, stomach, low back.

[00:21:58] There's a place, headaches, it will eventually become a physicality.

[00:22:08] Your mind can make you feel sick, and your mind can make you feel well. 

[00:22:13] Chandler Stroud: Mm-hmm. That's so true, Karen. 

[00:22:15] Karen Remele: Yeah, it's a big part of myofascial release and, and why? I just, I love this work because of the health that it restored me to when all I was being offered was pills, after pills, after pills. And I would just look at these prescriptions and throw them away when I got home.

[00:22:32] Knowing in my heart that I know that's not what's gonna help me, there's something else out there, and I stuck with it long enough to find the right provider. Who said, oh, you have cervical myofascial pain syndrome, and I was like, oh, three years into this, you have a name for me. 

[00:22:50] Chandler Stroud: Yeah, 

[00:22:51] Karen Remele: they, they know.

[00:22:53] Because I actually had a professional say to me, you need to see a psychiatrist. And I went, because you can't figure out what's going on. Wow. That's like a cop out to me. 

[00:23:04] Chandler Stroud: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:23:05] Karen Remele: So I'm so glad that I had whatever it is in me, that voice that screamed, no. That's not the, the answer. Just like when they, I was diagnosed with a hyperthyroid and a year into being incorrectly medicated by a physician.

[00:23:28] He said, well, we'll just radioactively burn it out. Crying. I was like, I don't think so. And I'm walking to the car and I literally heard this voice in my head saying, don't do that. No, that's not what you should be doing. And I sought out another professional, and then I sought out holistic people. 

[00:23:51] Chandler Stroud: Well, I think it's a really important lesson in the power of listening to your intuition and that inner knowing and where it can take you.

[00:24:00] And obviously nobody's is the same, but there is a lot of power that comes with being able to hear that deepest part of yourself again. 

[00:24:11] Karen Remele: Yes. And that's where coming into nature and being in nature can help you hear those little things that are happening. Your body knows, your brain can express it so that you'll understand it and get it.

[00:24:26] If you listen to yourself, give yourself the credit that's due for being an intelligent being. 

[00:24:34] Chandler Stroud: Yeah. 

[00:24:35] Karen Remele: You know, we all have it. Everyone has it. We just soul 

[00:24:39] Chandler Stroud: intelligence, not mind intelligence. Yes. Different. 

[00:24:42] Karen Remele: Yes. 

[00:24:42] Chandler Stroud: Both important. We're not knocking one or the other, both important. No, 

[00:24:46] Karen Remele: that's correct. Therefore, into the woods, I go to lose my mind and find my soul.

[00:24:52] Because there's an impact that nature has that just keeps giving. Yeah. And. You know, our earth has been taking so many hits from us, and she'll keep finding a way to heal herself. And if it means knocking us off, she will. 

[00:25:11] Chandler Stroud: Okay. On that note, great episode. Thanks for this, Karen. This has been very uplifting.

[00:25:17] Kidding, 

[00:25:19] Karen Remele: kidding. I know. But, but you know, I'm just saying she'll take care of herself and I think we need to be more like the earth because she gives us everything we need to thrive and people just need to respect that and give back to her. There's another saying that I love. Never take more than you need.

[00:25:38] And always give back more than you take.

[00:25:44] Chandler Stroud: But I think a lot of people hear trauma and they think, oh, well, what I experienced wasn't really trauma, or it's not as serious as somebody else's trauma. Yes, but just a reminder, yes, there are physical traumas that happen to your body, but the emotional trauma can be oftentimes something seemingly innocuous.

[00:26:04] It's not what happens to you, it's how your body interprets what happens to you. 

[00:26:08] Karen Remele: Correct. 

[00:26:09] Chandler Stroud: And that can be, you know, dealing with a very distressing emotional circumstance like again, loss. Grief, abuse, abandonment, all of those things. But you can also experience trauma from things that you didn't get and needed as a young child.

[00:26:26] Right? One of the reasons we talk about reconnecting with yourself and dropping back into your body is to go back and examine if there are stored emotions or microtraumas or macro traumas that you maybe thought you had processed. Gotten away from, weren't impacting you and encourage you to go back and revisit because if there's something there, I guarantee it's still holding you back from achieving the levels of happiness, good health, and just general wonder that you want in your life day to day.

[00:27:00] Karen Remele: Yes. And I find that across the board, men or women, children of any age. Someone could have just made a comment to you about how you look a body part. Your nose, whatever. Mm-hmm. It may be, and whatever else you might be going through at the time. It just stings and then you blow it off. But then somehow you're always walking around or looking in the mirror or trying to fix that part, or you know you are now uncomfortable with yourself.

[00:27:33] Your self-confidence starts to change. So you're right. There's many ways that we can become affected. By how our body feels. And as far as like women's health goes, it's amazing to me when we are in seminar and the therapists work on each other because we need to know if. How to experience what we are now going to be performing on a person.

[00:28:03] And there's no better way to be able to absorb that and be able to share that than experiencing it yourself. And it's amazing to me that when it comes to the female body, having been 25 years now of, of doing this work when it comes to breast tissue. And we start to work on and talk about the breast tissue.

[00:28:29] There are so many women who are just so traumatized by the look of their breasts because of whether society has given us this picture of the Barbie doll or whatever got setting your mind, a sibling could have teased you for having a flat chest or whatever the circumstance might have been. It sticks.

[00:28:56] And then again, we walk around either covering ourselves up, we're embarrassed, or some people it's the opposite. They go another direction and they're like just showing everything they can because they're gonna prove that to be wrong. So we carry these emotional baggages. With us about our body. From little examples and things we hear messages through TV or on the playground or wherever it may be in a workplace, or just even out having fun with a group of friends.

[00:29:31] Sometimes those things that we think we're teasing about are really hitting a sore spot with someone. It's interesting to me to see that that particular part of a woman's body brings up so much emotion

[00:29:49] just in general in our society. We've become so used to. Go to the doctor, do what the doctor says, don't question the doctor, take the medicine. It's a process that we give our power away when we don't ask questions, when we aren't curious about, well, why would I have to take that medicine if I can do this instead?

[00:30:09] I mean, it's, it's, it is, it's just helping people come to that realization that you have more healing ability inside of you than you're giving yourself credit for. We all have, the potential people have healed cancers in themselves. I have helped people to get through those situations that were just big mountains and they had the willingness and the openness to receiving whatever it took to get to where, where their endpoint was.

[00:30:42] We all need encouragement for that. We all need, you know, someone to help bring that awareness to our, our own being. That's what we're 

[00:30:48] Chandler Stroud: doing here, Karen. That's what we are doing on this show, guys. You are, we are here to help bring awareness. 

[00:30:53] Karen Remele: Yes. But you're bringing awareness to your own self that you are, this is your journey.

[00:30:59] Don't give it to anyone else. Yeah. Don't let them say, no, you can't do that, or, oh, what's that about? You don't need those types of energies in your life. You don't need those types of messages coming to you because you can do amazing things when you are all in to change. 

[00:31:16] Chandler Stroud: You guys heard it from Karen here first.

[00:31:19] You guys could do hard things when you, especially when you set your mind to it. So I think that's the perfect note to end on. There's so much more we could talk about. So very highly, very possible. We come back and do a part two on this since I have so many questions that I didn't get to ask, but we are at time and I'm so grateful for you, Karen, and the work you continue to do.

[00:31:42] And also just for being here today and sharing your wisdom and experiences with all of our listeners. I know I certainly appreciate it and I'm sure so many women listening also appreciate knowing you and hearing more from you and your experiences. So thank you for being with us today, Karen. Really appreciate it.

[00:32:00] Karen Remele: You're welcome. It's always my pleasure to help anyone seeking how to manage their healing journey. It's, it's a blessing to me to do this work and I appreciate you and you are efforts to put all of this out there.