When did you last take some time to reflect on your body’s personal history, the way in which each moment has shaped you layer by layer, like a color on a canvas?
When you go for a massage or any body work treatments, what’s the first thing that they ask you to do? They ask you to fill out a form detailing your past injuries, your surgeries, your concerns. Right. This gives your practitioner insight into your body’s history. But let me ask you, when was the last time that you looked at that kind of inventory just for yourself?
I’m Savannah Alilia and welcome to the latest episode of High Functioning Human podcast where you connect to yourself as a high-functioning human.
Your body is more than just skin and bones. It is a marvellous thing.You’ve had it your entire life and it is a work of art in progress. With each scar and tension pattern, a brushstroke telling part of your story. As you move through life, experiences blend together. It’s a bit like a watercolour paint spreading across the paper, merging into new hues that form bigger pictures of who you are today.
Yet all too often, when you think about the things that happen to you, it is as a singular event. “Here’s the scar from when I fell off the climbing frame,” or “I’ve had a dodgy hip from when I used a horse ride,” or “Oh, one time I had open heart surgery.” You know, small things like that.
The point being, you’re the only person with your exact story and you’re also the only person who’s able to put all of those pieces together. But this can also be a tricky thing for people to do. A study done on Aussie Rules footballers in Australia shows that even after one year, their ability to accurately report their injuries was only 60%. Granted, Australian football is a pretty contact heavy sport and those guys probably get knocked around more than most, so we will give them a bit of a break. But I found it so fascinating how easy it is for us to lose track of our body’s own experiences over time.
So, if you’re capable of being a bit of an unreliable narrator, what do you do? I’ve always believed that you give yourself a helping hand where you can.
And you’ve probably heard me talk about the Face Map once or twice, probably quite a lot considering that you’re here watching this! To me, it’s a gateway for understanding how your face and your body are in communication with each other. And it’s a key part of Your Face Symmetry 1 program. By starting with your face, you begin to see patterns that are reflected in the rest of your body. And it encourages you to think about the bigger picture and what your body’s history is.
It’s one of the reasons it’s so powerful to do it as a process. In my Your Face Symmetry 2, I take it even further, bringing the rest of the body into play. It’s a two way street. It’s a two way conversation, if you like. You can have it with your body and it understands your face and you can have it through your face to understand what’s happening in your body. If you find a gristly spot in your face, it’s time to think, what does that tell you about the rest of your body?
I mentioned earlier to think about your body as a canvas. So picture some watercolor paint. Specifically, imagine something happens, say you have an injury, perhaps it’s a surgery. And let’s say that there’s to show that surgery, there’s a drop of paint in that area. And if you know anything about watercolors, that paint spreads and it blends. In fact, that’s part of the beauty of what happens with a watercolour. And the same is true for your body. The effect of the impact on your body, whatever it is, will rarely, if ever, only be in one place. It will spread like paint, affecting areas that could even be on the opposite end of your body.
An old ankle injury, for example, might start like a drop of blue paint focused on one area, but over time that blue can seep upwards, affecting your knee, twisting through your hip and then into your body through your spine. Now introduce a shoulder issue. Maybe that’s the drop of red paint, and that spreads out and downwards and eventually it meets the blue paint from your ankle somewhere in the middle, mixing to create purple at your centre in your core. Do you see where I’m going with this? If you only look at the purple hue and wonder where that’s coming from, you might think that the problem is specific to your stomach or your central area. But if you can think outside the paint box and ask what made this purple in the first place, you can start to trace it back.
This colour mixing is why a lot of people will find fascial adhesions around their midsection or trunk, which can do things like block your energy. In the long term, without considering the entire body’s history, you’re going to be at risk of chasing that purple patch forever and wondering why it’s always coming back.
If you’re listening to this, it’s likely you’re already working on your face, let’s be honest. And working on your face can help you to figure out the aspects of your body that are in need of your attention. And in the paint example that I just gave you, working the central area of your face and outwards can be a helpful part of figuring out what is stuck and where the issue is coming from.
But taking the time to do a full body history and inventory will give you the bigger picture. Maybe red came from your shoulders tension and blue came from your foot’s old injury. By zooming out, you have an aha moment. Instead of chasing the purple patch at your centre forever, you start to understand the original colours and where they first touched down on your body’s canvas.
And that’s where lasting healing can begin. As I mentioned earlier, your body’s history is a huge part of the Your Face Symmetry 2 and 3 programs. Specifically in 3, we go into where your fascia is holding stress and trauma and emotional memory. These programs build on the Your Face Symmetry 1 program, which is a 7 day program, so it’s really accessible in terms of where to start. This is because even if you’re keen to tackle the deeper stuff, you need to make sure that the foundations are in place. I would love to see you in the program, obviously, if you feel called to do it. We have a large community there, so you get to share and discuss your journey and be supported by other fascia-nating people along the way.
Remember, 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,
