Fascia- The living Web

Picture Credit: Lakshmi Ambady

Have you ever wondered why every documentary about the human body begins with something like- “the human body is the most complex machine created by the creator?” The human body is NOT a machine. It is complex for sure, no denying that but the body is also a biodynamic, self- regulating organism. As much as the body is substance and matter, it is made up of processes that unfold from a single cell to an adult. One of these processes that the body is capable of executing is self- regulation. For this the body needs to deploy one of its systems into action- the fascial web. The fascia is soft tissue that weaves around the entire body. It is a vast 3- dimensional network of a spider like web that wraps around muscles, bones, organs and nerves. It interweaves into a continuous matrix around cells too. It is one of the most intelligent and the most mysterious substances of the human body. More than structural, its emotional and sensory and it is the tissue that remembers what your mind forgets.

Fascia is densely packed with interoceptive nerves. It is a highly active tissue that helps the body to maintain posture and transfer the energy of force across the body. A healthy fascia is well- hydrated and hence will allow muscles and organs to glide smoothly over each other. It also plays a huge role in body awareness and felt sense as it is sensitive to psychological states. The fascia can literally change its density in response to prolonged emotional states. Therefore, when you are under chronic stress or have trauma, the fascia responds by tightening, dehydrating, losing its elasticity, thickening, or getting inflamed. Physically it is perceived as physical pain (back ache, joint pain, migraine, all body pains), postural imbalances, restricted breath, emotional numbness or hypervigilance. The fascia is really trying to adapt itself to the body’s environment and its emotional history. It wants to hold the body together, so the body stays alive. But because trauma is stored in the body, not just as energy or memory but also tissue behaviour, the fascia becomes both the guardian and prisoner of your life history. This is called chronic armouring. Armouring is intelligent. It is the fascia saying- “I am not ready to feel this as yet.” But over time this repeated pattern (trauma) causes disconnection, pain, emotional repression, anxiety, fear, depression, unexplained aggression and anger. Trauma with the help of the fascia weaves into your physical personality- the way you walk, sit, breathe, talk, connect, avoid and sense the world around you.

But fascia can heal. It responds to presence, safety and attention. It responds to movement. It responds to unpretentious natural body releases (a burp, a fart, a yawn). When the fascia softens, a story begins to surface from the body. A held breath. A tear. A spontaneous movement. Even anger. This is the body finishing what it once could not. Healing the fascia is not about just stretching it. It is about inviting it back into the relationship with the nervous system. Fascia wraps itself around your pain, your burdens and your boundaries only to protect you. But when trauma is released – movement becomes freer, breath becomes deeper, emotions flow, memory changes from reactive to narrative and the body becomes trustworthy again. When you breathe deeply, the life force flows freely throughout the fascial matrix. When you move unrestricted, the fascia conducts bio-electrical signals to induce intercellular communication. Fascia remembers the body’s arc of motion and when allowed, the fascia completes it. Fascia releases trauma through relational safety.

Somatic Experiencing® is a way to help you listen to your fascia. To make it aware of its own existence in your body. Fascia is the place where trauma meets tissue. The route where stillness becomes movement. Where the fabric of the felt sense reveals stories. Somatic Experiencing® is a way to meet these stories with safety and presence. Not to fix the stories but to feel them in the body. Our bodies have no moral codes. We have only patterns, rhythms and responses. These are just survival techniques conducted by the fascial matrix for survival. Somatic Experiencing® helps you meet both your fascia and the trauma it holds without judgement. It is simply learning to feel safe. To feel alive. To finally become a living web.