[PODCAST TRANSCRIPT]
Are you being nice enough to your body? Did you know that studies have shown many receptors in your body can serve multiple different purposes? This basically means that these receptors can detect both pain and pleasure depending on, yes, the stimulus, the experience itself, but more importantly, depending on what you’re expecting to feel. Think about that for a moment. Imagine this. If you expect an experience to be painful, your body will tense up and you might actually feel like there’s more pain when the experience occurs. On the other hand, if you anticipate that there’s going to be pleasure, the same stimulus, the same touch can actually feel enjoyable.
I’m Savannah Alalia, and I welcome you to the latest episode of High Functioning Human podcast, where you connect to yourself as a high-functioning human. I’ve spoken before about “The Language of Pain” as a signal from your body, and today I want to go into the idea of the intent behind this language and how that intention can alter your experience. We know this, right? If you tense your arm before, for example, you have blood taken, it can hurt more telling someone to rip off a band aid when they’re least expecting it.
There are plenty of situations where overthinking or expectation of pain causes more pain. This concept is touched on by research from the University of Michigan, which found that the brain’s dopamine system is highly active during both pain and pleasure experiences. But the actual sensation you experience is influenced by how you perceive the action or what you’re prepared for. I always say “Your Body Talks” in many different ways, and the language that your body uses to communicate is made up of signals to convey whether something is beneficial or harmful. And these signals are designed to help you move forward and keep you safe. Pleasure signals are a bit like a green light, indicating that something is good for you and should be pursued, while pain signals are more like a red light suggesting something should be avoided, altered, or stopped. That sounds easy, right?
This response comes from your body, which is designed to help you to navigate the world and ensure your survival. And when you trust that you’re safe, you can relax and things feel good. So that’s like green, green, green.
It comes back to the idea that you’re getting a lot of information about what’s good for you and what’s bad for you, maybe what you need to be changing and what you need to be doing more of all from your body itself and those pains and pleasure responses. But when it comes to fascia, the connective tissue in your body, this principle is especially important. So when I say “Your Body Talks”, it is a conversation that you’re in, you are also talking back to your body with your intentions, and your fascia responds to the intentions behind your actions. If you approach fascia release with kindness and the intention of opening up your fascia, it will relax and it will become more supple and it will respond positively.
On the other hand, if you approach it with aggression or a negative self-talk, you become an aggressor or a threat to your fascia and it will tense up, leading to more pain and less effective results. For instance, what are the different ways you can approach face massage? If you perform it with a sense of love and care towards your body, your brain will send the right signals to relax your fascia and reduce inflammation, and create a more harmonious response.
This positive feedback loop reinforces the benefits of the practice, making it more effective over time. If you’re doing the work, but you’re doing it harshly or unkindly, you may unknowingly be doing more harm than good, actually freezing your fascia rather than releasing it. Intention really is the key. So let’s look at some small steps that you can take to harness this power of intention and improve your fascia health.
Remember, your body is always communicating with you. By creating positive intentions and listening to your body’s signals, you will have a more harmonious and effective fascia release practice. I’ve written Your Face Symmetry program with this as a guiding principle and I want to help you to connect to the part of your body and your face that need your attention, and to help you to move through any thoughts or emotions that are held or stuck in your fascia. So take a look at the program. And please feel free to ask any questions that you have about how it might work for you.
Trust your instincts and follow your intuition, because the world needs your voice and the magic it brings to us all.
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I look forward to chatting with you next time on High Functioning Human podcasts. Take care and talk soon.
As always, I remain a cheerleader for your inner self-worth,
