Spring Re-Release: Free Your Body from Past Trauma with Myofascial Release

Our Spring Re-Release series is in full swing! Next up, we're revisiting our conversation with Hero Karen about MFR. 

Also, you can connect with Chandler and sign up for the official Healing Heroes monthly newsletter by clicking the links at the bottom of the show notes.

We'll be back with fresh conversations in July!

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Myofascial Release (MFR) is a therapeutic technique designed to alleviate pain and tension by targeting the fascia, a connective tissue that surrounds muscles and organs in the body. This holistic approach addresses not only physical ailments but also emotional and mental trauma, providing comprehensive healing. MFR involves gentle, sustained pressure and stretching to release fascial restrictions, improve mobility, and promote overall well-being. By focusing on the fascia, MFR helps to restore balance and function to the body, facilitating the release of past traumas and supporting a pain-free existence. 

In this episode, Hero Karen Remele discusses MFR and its impact on our ability to heal emotional and physical wounds. Karen's journey began as a modern jazz dancer and instructor until a horrific motorcycle accident changed the course of her life. Now, Karen has over 25 years of experience helping women live pain-free existences and educating them on the benefits of myofascial release. 

What You Will Learn

• [03:02] What Fascia is and its role in the human body  
• [05:24] Why people reach out to Karen for myofascial release 
• [10:12] How our mind and belief system can keep us stuck in the past
• [12:15] How Karen learned about MFR and why she started practicing
• [21:43] MFR in healing mind, body, and spirit 
• [23:48] The most surprising thing Karen has learned in her journey 
• [27:54] Reconnecting with yourself and taking your power back 
• [29:00] Why MFR therapy awareness is not popular despite its effectiveness  
• [32:29] Karen’s advice to listeners contemplating MFR
• [34:14] How to get started stretching your fascia at home 

Let’s Connect!

Chandler Stroud

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Mixing and editing provided by Next Day Podcast.

Transcript

Hey guys, it's Chandler and welcome to The Healing Heroes. I 

Promise you (music)

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 and trusted advisors, the Healing Heroes. 

Hey guys. So excited for this conversation today. You all know I talk a lot about how what we feel dictates how we think, and specifically how trauma and distressing emotion get trapped inside our bodies if never processed. Well, today you're going to hear more from someone who made an enormous difference in my road to recovery. Karen Remley, who joins us today to explain myofascial release and the impact this form of therapy has on people's ability to heal physical and emotional wounds. I found Karen through another healing hero you'll hear more from later this season, who after meeting with me, knew I'd benefit from this treatment approach. Not only have I found an amazing healer in Karen, but I've also found a friend, so I'm so excited that she's here with me today. A little bit more about Karen. Her journey began as a modern jazz dancer and instructor until a horrific motorcycle accident changed the course of her life. She's now dedicated to helping others live pain-free existences, and educating on the benefits of Myofascial Release or MFR. Karen is both a licensed physical therapist assistant and licensed massage therapist. Ultimately though, she became a student and expert instructor of the John F. Barnes MFR therapy, which she's now practiced for over 25 years. So please join me in welcoming Karen to the show. Let's get to it. Karen, I'm so thrilled to have you here and 

I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for inviting 

Me. Oh, anytime. This is such a pleasure. I am really excited to dive in today, but I want to start with just the basics because I don't think many people know that much about myofascial release. So would just love to break it down a little bit more for those who are not as familiar. Before we get into myofascial release or MFR specifically, I think it's important to understand what our fascia is and its role in the human body. Can you talk a little bit more about that 

For us? So fascia is a three dimensional fluid-filled web that is powerful connective tissue, which surrounds, separates, and is integrated into every muscle organ, blood vessel, nerve, everything that's inside of us, and it runs as one continuous sheet throughout our body. So when we have injury or impact to one area, it can affect like taking the threat of a string on a sweater that's handmade and you pull that piece of stringer yarn, it bunches up far away from where you're pulling the string. That's one of the visuals that I can give to help people understand how fascia works. So it's just really important to every structure inside of us, keeping us together and moving in a healthy way. 

Wow, that's amazing. Go to the doctor. You hear about bones and muscles and organs, but fascia is so often overlooked or not talked about, I think in a lot of those physician visits. So it's really interesting to hear more about it. 

Yes, that's very true. Over time, our whole medical system has become very specialized. Everyone has their part that they work with and the difference with myofascia release, the biggest difference in my experience is it's a whole body approach. So no matter what diagnosis or what injury or what purpose you're coming to see a myofascial release therapist for, your whole body is going to be assessed because there are no individual parts. We're not like a car where you can just take things apart and fix them and put them back together. Everything is connected to the next thing, and you can be injured in one area of your body and have pain and symptoms over time in a very distant place in your body, and yet there's no test that can show that. 

That's wild. It's really crazy to think about. I know it's multifaceted and super complex, but thank you for walking us through that. I think that makes it a lot clearer. What would you say is the purpose of myofascial release? Why would somebody reach out to you initially for help? 

When you approach the body using the principles of myofascial release, you're opening up all the systems to work better, to operate in a better, more functioning way. When your fascia starts to tighten down, you could come to feel like you're wearing a straight jacket. If you had fallen, and let's say you fell towards one hip and over time that pain went away, you saw the doctor, you might've had a prescription, so it went to some physical therapy. But then over time, your shoulder on the other side is really not feeling right, but you can't really describe it because it's pain, but it's tight, but it's irritating. But there's no test again when you go to see what the fascia is doing. So it just so happens your line of pull from that initial fall just worked its way up to that side of your body and now it's compensating. 

It's trying to hold you in a place to keep you moving because our body always wants to keep going. We're designed to move. So our healing process is going to maybe compromise some things until it gets to a point where now that compromise becomes microtrauma maybe to a joint or to nerve endings, and then the problem gets bigger and bigger and there's really no particular source that they can find because no one's looking at the whole picture. And sometimes you need to hear a person's history. Sometimes things go back to childhood when you've fallen off the swing or your big brother dragged you by your leg or whatever the situation may be. 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, it affects you spiritually. It's a whole body approach. 

All those parts are integrated and you can't pull them away from one another. So I think that's one of the biggest differences and advantages that we have As MFR therapists, A lot of times we don't realize when an incident has occurred, there is a motion 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. 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. And 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. 

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 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. So there's a lot of links to so many other areas of what we live with every day. 

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 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, talking right 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 she understood, but 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 come see you. 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. 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, but because it's all we know, we stay with it because we think that's what's going to help us. But in the long run, those things have to be uncovered and then it's your own decision whether you want to take 'em back or not. So it's very interesting and depending on what your trauma is, it can get very deep and very interesting as well. I can say without giving any specific examples, it's just every person has their own journey. Every person has their own way of expressing things just because culturally the way what we believe and how we grow up, you have to, in my position as an M FFR therapist, be very open in 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. 

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 going to happen to me? How am I going to be if I don't have this pain? I dunno how to live without this pain. Who am I going to become? And it's my job to help get you to that place of understanding that you're going to 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. I can start to discover who I am because now I'm not living in chronic pain and it's going to give me an opportunity to learn who I am not having to deal with this. How 

Did you first learn about MFR and why did you begin practicing? 

Okay, so I have my own story of how I came into the world of Myofascia release and this journey. And I say journey because that's exactly what it's been. I was, as you mentioned, very physically fit involved. I at the time was teaching 10 aerobic classes a week, dance classes every night. I was riding my bicycle everywhere. I was at the top of my game and my husband and I decided to go for a motorcycle ride. And we had ridden 60 miles that day. And then within a mile and a half of our home, someone on a trike decided to cut in front of us. So we T-boned this person and we were going about 45 miles an hour. And the impact has put me airborne and I am very grateful. I wore a helmet and I flew through the air and never knew that this was true, but I'd heard it that, oh, people see their life's flash before their eyes in these circumstances. 

And that was the case for me while I was still in the air tumbled several times before my body decided it was stopped. And I remember laying on the ground thinking, should I move? I don't know if I'm able to move. And all these thoughts were running through my head. I knew I was still alive. I could hear things, I could see things. But I know in that moment of seeing my life flash before my eyes, I was actually out of my body and that trauma took me out of my body so that I could survive whatever I needed to in that moment, which is a very also important thing to bring up in myofascial release. So time went on being young, I saw a chiropractor, I got some treatment, I felt okay, time went on. Seven years later, I went to do was to take down some heavy drapes over my head lifting and I felt a pop in my neck. 

And I was like, oh, that's not right. And then within hours, I had lost the use of my left hand. I couldn't hold anything in it. I kept dropping things. I knew a chiropractor that I had been to before. I called her. I saw her, she did some tests. She said, you need to see an orthopedic surgeon. I'm not touching you. They were sure that it was a disc issue. They did MRIs, cat scans, you name it. They couldn't see anything abnormal. They knew I was in pain, there was tension. I was getting daily migraines. My whole life just changed after just taking down drapes. And it spiraled into three years of seeing specialist after specialist going through rounds of traditional physical therapy, occupational therapy, you name it. And I got to a point where I was like, I don't want to take these prescriptions. 

I have three small children. I'm not here for that. I want you to figure out what's wrong so we can take care of this. I knew somehow inside of me, I knew that there was something that could change how I was living. And I went from that process to finally re-seeing a neurologist that I hadn't seen since before that accident for migraines. And when he listened, and that's the first and primary thing that was most important, he listened to the whole event of things back from the motorcycle accident. Now during that motorcycle accident, there were some emotional things that occurred as well, which is important for people to understand. Instead of people rushing to me to say, do you need an ambulance? Are you okay? It was said to me, get up. The first thing that was said to me was Get up. And I said, I don't know if I can get up. 

So I kind of shut down in a certain way. So fast forward now, this neurologist is listening to me. He said, you have, and this was the first time I had a diagnosis with the word fascia. In it you have cervical myofascial pain syndrome. And I happen to know two people who are practicing this work from this guy John Barnes. They're just starting, but they're really good at doing this. And I kind of rolled my eyes and said, eh, I've done so many rounds of physical therapy, please don't make me do this again. And he said, no, no, this is different. And I saw these two therapists and they had only at that time, each of them taken the two introductory courses to John Barnes's work, but they were also very manually based therapists to begin with. So they understood the process and the foundation of Myofascia release. 

It took me six months to get to a place where I walked in for an appointment and when the therapist pulled the curtain back, I started to cry and she went, oh no, not another migraine. And I said, no, I haven't had a headache of any kind in two weeks, which was amazing. It was the first time in three and a half years. So all of my grip strength, all of the numbness and tingling, everything that had been my issues resolved over that shorter period of time than I had experienced ever. So part of the emotional part, which I want to talk about is important. Years later now I'm better. I'm feeling okay, but every time I would get in a car as a passenger not having control of the wheel, if we got too close to the car in front of me, my whole body would brace and I would go right back into that physical feeling of I'm waiting for the impact, I'm waiting for the impact. 

And it would just trigger all of this emotion in me. And that's where the myofascia release deals with and works with what comes up on the treatment table. We don't tell you to be quiet, we don't tell you to lay still. We don't rush in with a tissue. It can be messy and the messier the better because you're allowed to move on the table. Your body has its own natural instincts of what it needs and the positions and space that it needs to go into to finally release the emotional components that gets stuck in there. So I continued my journey with myofascial release at that point. I asked the therapist how I can do what she does, and she just laid out to me the options that I had to get licenses to put my hands on people and to just start taking John Barnes courses. And that's what I did. The rest is history. 25 years later, I have never been so satisfied with ever working a job in my life. It's not a job. 

That's such an incredible story, what you went through and how you found your purpose and passion as a result of all of the hardship you faced on the road to recovery. I am certainly grateful that you discovered MFR and that you are operating locally so that I could find you and start working with you because 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, 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. And the crying and the outpouring of that emotion that had been inside me for that long was such a release. And I felt reborn on the other side of that. It was so powerful. And I always say, I know I'm not done yet, but really thank you for that experience and how much that has helped. 

And this is what it is about. It's healing mind, body, spirit because 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 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 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 pressure of someone's touch 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 going to treat your whole body because that's how this works. Low back pain could mean 10 different things, and every person is going to respond differently to what I do because every person's going to get treated individually because it's not always the same. 

What's been the most surprising thing you've learned along the way in your journey about MFR specifically or even just more generally in healing people 

As an MFR therapist and even receiving the treatment? Sometimes less is more, less force. Just letting your body adapt to the new change that has happened. And people will say, well, I don't feel like you're doing anything. Okay, it might feel like that right now, but give it time. And sure enough, things will start to shift and move or they will leave. All of a sudden they'll start to cry or memories will start to come up. So I think I'm always surprised at how differently people react. The other big thing too is watching people let go of things that don't serve them anymore can really, really change their whole perspective of their own lives and forcing themselves to maybe be in a job they just hate, but they go to every day because they're obligated to or because they went to school to do that. 

There's just aspects of the work that once you start to feel better, you become more of who you really are inside because you're not carrying all of that. That's a lot of stuff to carry. A lot of energy goes into not being, well. One example is a woman came in and she was came in on a walker at 42 years old with back pain that no one could figure out. They kept saying they couldn't find anything. She went through six weeks of her physical therapy, the physical therapist. This person I knew called me and said, I need to have this person come to you. Please see her. She came in. Now, this doesn't happen to everyone as quickly, but depending how open you are to your own process, one of the two things she said to me in the evaluation was, the doctor told me I'll never ride my horse again. 

And he told me I'll never run or ride the bike again, and those are things I love. And he just took that away from me and I let her talk and listened to her. And then I said to her, do you believe that? And she said, well, I don't want to. This is your healing journey. Don't let someone else dictate to you what your outcome is going to be. So we had three treatments and the third time she came, so the first time she came with a walker, next time she came with a cane just because she was not sure of herself, third time she walked in the door with nothing. And she had tears in her eyes saying, I have had no pain since our last session. What did you do? And I did what I know how to do, but she allowed herself for the process to happen and she participated in the process. 

So I think that's important for people to know as well, is you have to be willing to participate in your own healing journey. It's easy to take a pill, it's easy to just sit back and let someone else do something to you, but when you come into this work, you're really participating if you want to heal and how far you want to go. Some people only go so far and they get to that fearful part again. You have to know when to push someone through a little bit, nudge them and when to back off because they'll figure it out on their own eventually, and then they'll ask for more. So those are all surprising things that come from this work. 

Thank you. And I would agree. I do think much of what you touched on is so, so surprising, but I do wholly buy into the theory that people need to actively participate in their own healing. I do think it's so important to be open to that kind of work and be wanting to reconnect with yourself on a different level. 

Yes. And I'll use these words, it's helping someone to take their own power back. Don't give that power to the clinician, to the doctor, to the person who said, you can't do something. Take it back and then decide for yourself what's good for you. And then together we find a way to get you there because within four months, this woman was back to riding her horse. She wasn't doing the dressage riding right away, but she was back to riding. She started riding the bicycle again. She started jogging a little bit here and there. And I tell you, it's just been a beautiful journey to watch her come back into being who she fully is. That's the reward for me. 

That's incredible. Thanks for sharing that. I love that story. The results that you referenced are incredible. I'm curious why you think more people aren't talking about this modality as a way to heal again, just given the results you've seen, 

I think, and across the board, even with other myofascia release therapists, no one really understood until now that we have the technology to see it in action and understand it better how the fascia really works and how important it is to every single system in our bodies. I think it comes from the people who have the power to prescribe this type of therapy. I don't feel like they're being educated. And sometimes when, and I've just seen this in my own care, in my own process, when someone is so specialized in, what do they don't look outside of that box? Because there's another specialist that'll look to the other side of where their box ends. The word fascia had become very popular a few years back, and everybody, all of a sudden there were these fascia rollers and there was fascia yoga, and there was all this fascia stuff because I think, I dunno if it was the Chicago Times or one of the big newspapers put out an article and the title was New Organ Found called Fascia. 

And it's like, well, it's not new, it's just that no one talked about it because they didn't understand the importance and the relevance of what it does for us in our bodies. And people who don't even have severe or chronic problems benefit from the treatment because it helps improve your immune system. It helps improve every system in your body. Respiratory, cardiac, I know you experienced something with me the other day. You weren't feeling so well and we did some things and you walked out and your immune system was now boosted, your lymph system gets boosted. All of those chemical reactions that should happen are happening because you're not forcing the body, you're not shutting the body down by forcing it. You're helping it to open in a gentle and sometimes not so gentle way. So that's where the levels of pressures and tensions and the things we do are done over a period of time versus just rolling through everything and making sure everything is done on each side. That's not how it works with fascia because your restrictions may all be on the right upper part of your body, but then they're connected down below your knee. So it's learning how to see what is normal, what is not, how to feel, where the heat is in your body, where there's problems that you may not even realize. 

I love that. Thanks for sharing that. 

Yeah, the awareness is coming. I'm finding it more and more as people come to me or they'll call and say, oh, my doctor referred me. And that's huge. Doctors from Yukon doctors who are in positions where they're teaching young people. So it's starting to shift. But like anything, it takes time and it takes everyone who's had an experience to tell everyone they know. 

Yeah, that's what we're doing. Karen, welcome to the podcast. No, I totally agree. Any advice you'd offer to listeners who are contemplating MFR? 

There are some great things that you could read about now that are accurate. And if you go to John Barnes's website, he has an actual archive of articles he has written, and I refer back to him first because he's the person who I respect and have watched over many years prove this to be a very important part of a person's healing. 

And John personally, right? 

You've worked with him 

For many years. 

I've worked with him personally for many years. He has treated me, he has helped me get through some of those hard places. I have had the honor of working for John teaching and helping instruct at his seminars, doing the hands-on part of the work, which is something I love. And I've also been given permission by him in the state of Connecticut to be the myofascia release study group leaders so that people who are new coming into this work have a mentor and have someone that they could come and ask the hard questions or they're just frustrated. They don't feel like they're getting it or they're not feeling something they think they're supposed to be feeling. So that is a great, awesome part of what I do also is helping other people get it. 

I love that. That's great. Thanks Karen. Okay, well, we're nearing the end of our conversation today, but before we jump, I wanted to ask you, knowing that there are so few practitioners globally, can you offer some simple ideas or stretches our listeners can do at home to try stretching their fascia in absence of having professional help if they wanted to just dabble or get started? 

Well, the answer to that is varied. There are some things that people can do without seeing a person. It's hard to say what they need, but when you're going into any stretch you've been taught traditionally and they tell you to hold something for 10 seconds, hold it for 90 seconds or more. That's the beginning right there. 

And they can even do that on a foam roller. I know you see those all the time at the gym and people are rolling back and forth, but you're saying stagnate stay still for longer than you think. 

That is the perfect example. A lot of people are using a foam roller, like a rolling pin and following the principles of myofascial release, what you would do is you would roll to the point of your most hard, hot or tender place and wait and wait and wait and breathe through the sensation of what it feels like to have that knot or that tough spot there. And it may take three minutes, but that's okay because you're only going to do it once and then it's going to be longer lasting results than just rolling over that. And again, forcing, putting unnecessary pressures into a place that you might just traumatize all over again by doing that and finding a practitioner. John Barnes's website has a therapist directory you can look up and I believe it reaches out even into Canada with the therapists that are available. So you just put in your state and your area and names will come up. 

That's great. We'll make sure to put that in the show resources and notes as well for anyone who's curious. 

Sure. And my suggestion is if you go to someone and you don't feel like you connect with that person, don't be afraid to try a different person because in my opinion, you have to trust the person that you are working with or you're not going to be able to let yourself go do the things that you could potentially do to 

Heal. I can totally vouch for that, and I'm so grateful to have found you, Karen. Thank you for everything, all the work that we've done together. But again, especially today for joining me. I loved our talk, and if you guys liked what you heard, please share it with friends and subscribe. You can also visit healing heroes podcast.com to get resources, meet the heroes, and share your ideas for future episodes. Thanks for listening everyone, and until next time, remember, be curious, be courageous, and be kind to yourself. You've got this.