Speaker 1 0:43

Hello , hello everybody , welcome to another Beauty of Breathing podcast . We are over here today with John McLaughlin . I'm going to introduce him to you guys , trusting in the body's innate ability to heal , as God intended . With a background as a critical care nurse , john now focuses on hands-on therapy that supports both physical and emotional well-being , all while honoring the great physician . I love that you said that thorough mid-coast facial therapy . He provides compassionate care that reflects his

Welcome and Introduction

Speaker 1 1:24

extensive experience and deep calling to serve others through faith-inspired CFD . I'm actually so excited that you said that because I'm going to have something to share a little bit later and as soon as the call started , I was like I wonder if I should share this , and that just gave me confirmation that I should say it Good good .

Speaker 1 1:42

But tell us a little bit about you . How did you end up doing what you're doing today ?

Speaker 2 1:47

Yeah , I mean it's like you said . I've been a critical care nurse for over a decade . I was working in the ICUs and my youngest son has some oral dysfunction . You know he's got tongue ties , he's got lip ties , but he was fortunate enough to be able to eat and gain weight . So me and my wife weren't in any rush to like have surgery or have anything released , because I really value like myofunctional therapy and , you know , kind of opening up the body . But at the time we didn't have anybody up here that could help with like the fascial side of things . So my wife had found craniosacral fascial therapy . There was one woman down in Massachusetts that was doing it but she had like a three-month waiting list .

John's Journey to Craniosacral Fascial Therapy

Speaker 2 2:28

So I decided I was going to go down to Pennsylvania and take foundations so that I could just come home and kind of work on my family , which is pretty much the story of every CFT practitioner . It's usually a kid that gets you into it and then you find out that there's so much more to it and it just takes over your life . And that's exactly what happened . I went down to Pennsylvania in day one of the class . I said this is what I want to do . This is true root cause healing and what I was seeing happen for people in that class . In just a short amount of time I was sold . I was like , yes , this is where I belong . So I came back home and started kind of like putting it all together , looking in how do I start the business ? You know marketing . I've been a nurse my whole life . I have known nothing about business . So I started diving into it and really , you know , focusing on building things and networking and marketing .

Speaker 2 3:18

And then at the end of that year so I went down in November . In December I was laid off from the job that I was in . They could no longer financially support me as a care manager . So I said , well , there's the sign right , there's God's nudge to say , if you're going to do this , now's the time to do it . So I didn't look back , I dove headfirst into the deep end and I've been doing it ever since . I've been able to grow and I work all over the state of Maine , I travel all over New England and I've even ventured into Canada and around the country . So my goal is to always bring this to as many people as possible , because there's practitioners kind of all over the place , but there are so many pockets in the United States and internationally where there's just nobody , and I've seen firsthand what this therapy can do , so I truly believe that , like , everyone should have access to it . But yeah , that's kind of how I got into it and , like I said , I haven't looked back . It's been nonstop enjoyment ever since .

Speaker 1 4:10

That is incredible . Today's topic , guys , is beyond the release why fascia matters in orthodontic and taught outcomes . I met another fascia practitioner recently when I was in Orlando in a networking event , and she is the one that was telling me what I'm going to share in a little bit . But she also said that fascia is actually where we hold the memory . What is that all about ?

Speaker 2 4:37

Yeah , absolutely so . The fascial system is . I mean , there's so much to it that we still don't understand and I mean it's getting bigger and bigger and we're talking more about it . But your fascial system is this pervasive kind of godlike , you know , it's everywhere and everything all at once , you know

Understanding Fascia and Body Memory

Speaker 2 4:58

, and it wraps around every muscle , bone , organ , ligament , tendon , right down to the nucleus of your cells and it's one all-encompassing piece of tissue . It's uninterrupted . So it's kind of like a wetsuit right .

Speaker 2 5:14

It's like the second skin under our skin and we start to accrue these stress and these restrictions in that fascial system while we're in utero . And you really start to accrue those when your mother was in utero with your grandmother , because you were an egg in your mother while she was in your grandmother . You know , when you really break it down , you were part of your mother's fascial system when she was developing in your grandmother . So there's this long line of like potential to kind of build things up . So when we start looking at like infants in birth trauma , they not only get the trauma and everything of like developing in their mother and whatever happens during the birth process , no matter how peaceful it is , it's still kind of this big event coming into the world . So we have these restrictions at birth and then , whatever kind of went on with your birth or your grandmother's birth , you start to see how like we can really pack onto that foundation that we build our body on .

Speaker 2 6:12

But as far as like , retaining memory , that's what they're talking about . This fascial system is so protective and it remembers everything . It's kind of like the way I describe it to clients is it remembers these alarms , right ? So the best scenario is , when you get rear-ended in a car accident , your brain is going to have this coup , counter-coup . You're going to have all this whiplash , you're going to have trauma to the body and the fascia is going to remember that . It's going to tighten up . When you think of a concussion , you think of that brain , you think of the cranial bones , all your cranial nerves . That fascia is going to wrap around that brain and hold it still , because it doesn't want it to shake around anymore , it doesn't want any more trauma . So what happens with these concussions is you have upwards of 2000 pounds per square inch of force pressing down on all those structures and because it's one big piece of tissue , that pressure is kind of distributed out throughout the whole body . So then your body remembers this thing .

Speaker 2 7:07

So now you've recovered and you're three months out and you're driving up to a stop sign and you see somebody speeding up behind you in your rearview mirror . Your fascia , your body's going to remember . The last time this happened , we got rear-ended and you're going to have this . Everything's going to tighten up again and why ? My shoulders sore , you may even have some residual concussive symptoms come back and I tell people it's because your fascia remembers , it's trying to protect you and it's always going to try to protect you .

Speaker 2 7:32

So what I do with CFT is we get in there and we unwind all that trauma . We kind of bring the body out of that stressed , restricted posture and we put it into this open posture and this open pattern where we have good flow of the cerebral spinal fluid up and down that spinal cord , kind of going out through the nervous system to nourish and detox the body . And we get the body to a point where it doesn't set off those alarms as quickly and it starts to let go of that past trauma and say , okay , every time a car pulls up behind us , we don't have to brace for impact . And that goes for all other things too .

Speaker 1 8:09

Can somebody find relief in their systems if they are not addressing past emotional trauma that maybe is keeping them locked into that ?

Speaker 2 8:22

Yeah , I mean absolutely , absolutely . So a big part of like what I go after is I've really found that these emotional releases and these stored emotions in the body sit really deep and sometimes they're really hard to release when you work with a baby . Babies are great . They're not hesitant . They don't have any . You know , they're not embarrassed about anything . They'll fart , they'll burp , they'll puke , they'll cry , they'll do the things to let it out . As we start to get older and we've learned , oh , maybe I shouldn't or I feel uncomfortable . It's a little bit harder to kind of open up that , you know , emotional release and allow it to express itself . So absolutely what happens is we hold on to that because , say , it's a really traumatic experience . Nobody wants to relive that experience . The body doesn't want to re-traumatize you . So we tend to lock those things away behind closed doors and what I can do is I can go in and I can draw awareness to parts of the body . You know I'm guided by God and everything I do and I ask him to , you know , lead me to where you need me most . And that also means with my tongue right . So part of a lot of this therapy is talking . A lot of times people just need to talk about it and I find that you know they teach in the class to really just follow the yes . You'll hear that a lot with CFT , follow the yes . But I have really found that sometimes a no isn't a hard no , it's a very scared no , it's an anxious no , it's a , you know , a hesitant no . So really spending some time in those parts of the body where you know maybe you're not ready to release or you hit some restriction and it doesn't seem like the body wants to unwind , but creating this safe space , creating this environment where not only you feel safe but that consent with the body and the body says okay , like I can let this go , and you find that those no's will sometimes turn into a yes and you'll get into these massive unwinds . And you see these amazing things happen for people Because , again , this uninterrupted , all-encompassing piece of tissue if it's emotional stuff , say , stored in your hips , it could be causing all the jaw pain .

Speaker 2 10:22

You know things that I say my knee is really locked up and I have decreased range of motion . Well , that could be related to something in your liver or your diaphragm . Because if we , you know , if you twist your shirt , you start to look where all the wrinkles are . That's kind of like how fascia works . Right , if we put a restriction here , oh , it's pulling on my shoulder . So the problem is here , but it's causing pain up here . Those emotions are doing the same things and emotions tend to sit in the hips , you know , in our lower back , in our shoulders , in our neck . We start to see things like grinding and clenching as we , you know . Those muscles start to relax , especially at night , and we start to express all the things that we kind of paralyzed ourselves during the day .

Speaker 1 11:05

That's incredible . Anybody listening to this live please send us your messages . I see a few things coming in on Instagram here , People saying I love this and , yes , I love this talk . You know , even though I'm practicing myofunctional therapy right now , there is so much more involved and so much more extra training that I'm getting , especially in the emotional release side of things . I absolutely love it and I know that there are different ways that you can help people have these insane

Emotional Releases and Trauma Storage

Speaker 1 11:38

, incredible emotional releases . What does it look like when you do it with a baby versus I am child versus an adult .

Speaker 2 11:49

So with babies it's really that you know it's craniosacral , fascial therapy , right ?

Speaker 2 11:54

So it's a combination of that . Craniosacral work was a very light touch , working on the cranial bones , the nervous system , the spinal cord , all the way down to the sacrum , but also incorporating the fascial web which is kind of out in the body . So with babies I tend to see , especially in the way I do it , that it's a lot of that craniosacral work . It is just a lot of holding and kind of letting the body and the baby unwind the way you want it to . I see a lot of times we have these , you know , big arches in babies as they start to release that deep frontal line of fascia . A lot of times babies will come in because of feeding issues or latch issues or digestive problems . Torticollis is a big one that will bring a baby in . So addressing those things it's really . I mean , babies are so easy to work on . I love working on them because you get instant validation that what you're doing is helping . It doesn't typically take long for them to unwind and you'll see these massive gains in a short period of time . A lot of intraoral work with babies really working around that palate , under the tongue .

Speaker 2 12:56

You see a lot of times babies coming in for tongue ties , right . So I've been told my baby has a tongue tie and they said I should come see you . This work isn't going to release the tongue tie but it will definitely help loosen up the fascia and cut out the differential diagnosis of is it a true tie or is it just really tight baby , because a lot of the times your baby's just tight right and if we can get in there and loosen everything up and we kind of wipe their slate clean , which they don't have much , so it's pretty easy to kind of clean things out you can really differentiate whether this is a true tongue tie or a lip tie or is it just something where the baby was tight and tense and I've seen it happen a lot . Babies come in and oh , he's got a tongue tie , he's not latching , he can't flange All these things . A couple sessions and everything's fine . The baby's nursing , fine , there's no issues . Ibclc now says I don't think they have a tongue tie . So it's very interesting .

Speaker 2 13:53

As far as , like little kids and toddlers , it's a little bit trickier . You know , it's really meeting them on their field . You're dealing with all the things that come with like growth and development in a toddler . So those are the sessions that tend to look like playing or upside down we're chasing each other around the table , there's a lot of toys involved or games . Those sessions tend to take a little bit and I tell parents that you know it might not look like much is going on , but I promise you there's a lot happening behind the scenes that you might not be aware of , because it is a lot of like maybe 10 minutes of hands on and then we're going to go do some things and then they get back on the table or working on the floor . Those sessions tend to look a little bit different than any other session , but they're a lot of fun and it really is just making that connection first , getting consent with them and making sure that you always kind of honor their voice and their autonomy as little humans .

Speaker 2 14:41

And then adults are great . Those are the ones that tend to be you know your standard . They're on the massage table , they're on their back , everyone's fully clothed and you kind of can get into more of the deeper fascial stuff , which is where I kind of lean more that way when it comes to adults and we're really going after some of those deeper myofascial release points and trigger points . As I've been doing this , I've picked up some acupuncture points that are sometimes , will you know , lead us into these big unwinds and really going after kind of pinpointed things that might be bothering them . And as you start to say , somebody comes in for a shoulder , you start working on that shoulder and you find out that you're pulled way down to a hip and everything's in this . You know , right , hip or their diaphragm is super stuck and I've seen amazing things happen in one session , but sometimes it does take a while . How many sessions ? We never really know .

Speaker 2 15:35

I say give it at least four , because your first one you don't know me You're on your back and there's a stranger kind of pulling around and tugging on your body .

Speaker 2 15:44

Then by session two you've experienced it , You're a little bit more relaxed , your body might know what it's like to let go of a fascial restriction . You might be more apt to go into that unwind and by four sessions you'll know whether this is for you or it's not . And that's typically the point where you know we've addressed the big thing or we've gotten to a point that you're like okay , like maybe my shoulder's still a little sore , but it's a four out of 10 , not an eight out of 10 , but I'm running again , I'm breathing better , I'm sleeping better . You know , it's sometimes it's these other things that people will recognize and say , wow , I came in here because you know , I had TMJ and grinding , but now my hips are fine , my knees don't hurt . You know , I don't have that lower back pain . My sciatic pain is gone . So it's really amazing how people will start to see that connection of the fascial system and how everything's intertwined .

Speaker 1 16:38

And that , like one thing , might not necessarily be caused by something else . I love it . Do you feel , when they have the release .

Speaker 2 16:43

Sometimes , yeah , I mean you can feel so as I'm working in the body . Sometimes I can feel the , you know , the tightness become softness . Other times you can . You can see the unwind . So like , sometimes you know you're doing some of that cranial , sacral stuff up at the head and you're working a jaw or your intraoral and working , you know , floor of the mouth or the palate and stuff and you'll catch out of the corner of your eye . You know that ankle start to twist . Or you know the fingers open up .

Speaker 2 17:11

Or I've seen people who come in , you know , and they've got this real hard , like forward , you know flexion in the feet and by the end of it you know they're nice and tight and their toes are sprawled out . Other times it's verbal . I've seen a lot of releases where we'll get into something and just completely unsolicited , somebody will bring something up like , oh , I remember when I was a kid and dah , dah , dah , dah , and that's the unwind . You know what I mean . There's something in their body release them , brought them back to a time in their life and they just talk and talk and talk and talk . So yeah , you just see the release .

Speaker 2 17:40

You can feel the release and sometimes you don't . You can feel the release and sometimes you don't . Sometimes I'm sitting at the head of the table , I do the session , we wrap up the session and I go . I just don't know , I didn't , I didn't see anything , none of the things lit off . They say their goodbyes and then I get an email or a text and it's like you have no idea what just happened . Oh my God , and I'm like awesome , great , I had no idea . And that's what's so wonderful about it is I don't have to . I just come in and do the thing and I know it works . I've seen it work . I have complete faith in the design for the human body and , yeah , it's just really nice to kind of have that like freedom of like .

Speaker 2 18:18

This is

Working with Different Age Groups

Speaker 2 18:18

going to work . This is going to help you and I tell people it helps everybody . It can help anything . You know broken bones . Sure , you might need to go to the hospital and get that fixed , but this will still help . This is going to help the scar tissue and the osteo . This is going to help with range of motion . It's going to increase healing . So there's nothing CFT can't help with .

Speaker 1 18:38

I love that . Do you mind pushing your camera up a little bit ?

Speaker 2 18:42

Oh , my two .

Speaker 1 18:43

Cutting off a little bit for me . You can just push it up so I can see you're cutting off a little bit for me . If you can just push it up so I can see your whole self and as you're doing that , oh , that's much better . Perfect , yes , thank you so much . We're in the same line .

Speaker 1 18:57

Now I was going to add to what you mentioned about babies having a tongue tie . So that is why a tongue tie release by itself is not enough . You have to address the whole body . You have to start with body work , with you know , intraoral massage and myofascial release , craniosacral therapy , because you never know how you know , just by cutting the tissue , which is actually the only place in your whole body where you can cut fascia . That is why a lot of times , whenever they do the tongue-to-tongue release , people have these emotional responses where we see grown men just bust out crying in a chair for no reason . But it's because you're actually really cutting fascia . Like John was saying , there are these tension patterns and places all over the body that need to be released for you to get the best prognosis of your treatment . So addressing only one thing is not enough the Tantra release . It's part of the treatment , but it's just a procedure . It's not the whole thing . We have a question from Instagram .

Speaker 2 20:24

Go ahead and I'll ask this one later . Yeah , I was just going to say that tongue tie it's part of that deep frontal line , right ? So we have these fascial lines in the body and that deep frontal line connects feet to face . It's a massive deep line of fascia and it runs all the way literally from your feet through your knee to your pelvis , up through your diaphragm into your mouth . You'll hear it a lot . People say tongue to toe . There's a famous picture that circles around and it literally shows fascia dissected down from the tongue to the toe , because fascia is one big piece of tissue . You could dissect fascia any way you wanted to show the connection because it's literally connected everywhere . But the problem with that is so , like you said , we cut that tongue tie and you release the physical restriction , you release that actual tie , but the tension and the stress and the strain in the body runs all the way down that fascial line and , depending on when you get that tongue tie cut , say , you're a baby , you've built your , that's your foundation , right ? You had this strained deep frontal line , you had this restricted body and you built everything on top of it . So then we cut it . We still have to now retrain the body and kind of help integrate this new open posture right . It's like carrying a heavy book bag for 10 years and then putting it down on the ground . You're going to have this kind of recoil and this rebound as you start to reorient your proprioception to the world and then say you're an adult . A lot of adults get in tongue ties cut . Well , you've been carrying that strain and restriction in your body for 20 , 30 , 40 , 50 years and all of a sudden they snip it . There's a lot stored in there which is some of that internal release . You're going to get Just this massive opening as it takes all the pressure off your cranial sacral system . So the tongue tie alone isn't going to necessarily take everything away , which is why CFT and fascial work and cranial sacral work are so important before , during and after any type of orthodontic or tongue tie release right .

Speaker 2 22:20

We need to prepare the body before and with tongue tie releases . It's going to take all the tension out of the floor of the mouth . It's going to help bring that tongue tie forward so that when the provider gets in there , especially with myofunctional therapy , we can strengthen all the muscles . We can give you good tongue posture . Fascial therapy can take all the tension away . So when they go in and make that cut they're going to get more of the tie . It's going to be a more complete release . And then after that release you're going to continue to do myofunctional therapy and stretches , but coming in and seeing a fascial therapist to kind of take away the trauma of the surgery and relieve tension as that scar tissue starts to form so that your tongue now has you know more . What's the word I'm looking for . It's like putting a bear in a phone booth , right Like we can release the tongue but if everything's tight it doesn't have anywhere to go . So you need to come in and relieve all that tension so that new , that new tongue has places to go and can kind of find its way around .

Speaker 2 23:16

With orthodontics it's very similar . Right Before we have to prepare the nervous system and get everything loose so that when they go in there and put in a device where they do the MARP or the SARP , that the body and the nervous system is prepared for it , it's in a good state , it's not ready to set off all the alarms and then , as you go through your expansion and you're making your turns or whatever , you need to be seeing fascial therapy or craniosacral therapy , because it's not even braces , right Like , it's moving bone , it's moving the nervous system . All your teeth are connected to your trigeminal nerve . Braces move teeth , sarps and MARPs move teeth . Even cranio-friendly devices like the you know the ALF appliance it's still moving things . Granted , it's a little bit slower and it's a little bit more gentle , but we have bioindividuality .

Speaker 2 24:04

I have clients who went , sought out the provider to do the elf because it's so cranial friendly and their kid is now having , you know , behavioral changes . They're having eating problems , they're having bedwetting . Having eating problems , they're having bedwetting . It's not the device for them . What I like about that device is it's removable and you can just take it out . If it's causing a problem , take it out , call the doctor .

Speaker 2 24:26

But I have a kid who had the mark . They put the big screw through the hard pallet and they cranked open and ripped everything apart and his brain cycle took a little hit , meaning he had some tension in the body . But he was happy , he was healthy , he was having no issues and I told the mom that . I said , yeah , he's got a lot of tension in the body , I can tell that . But he seems to be doing okay and tolerating it well , so he'll get through this and then he can come back in and we can work on , you know , kind of taking away some of those restrictions and that strain out of his body , on , you know , kind of taking away some of those restrictions and that strain out of his body , but afterwards is the same thing it's , it's just integrating that new posture . You know , as we , as we do everything and not taking it so lightly .

Speaker 2 25:05

You know we think braces it's what you do as a kid or palate expansion Everyone's doing palate expansion , everybody's doing . Invisalign it's . You're moving bone , it's , you know , your , your tongue ties are cutting flesh . So yeah , I could this . I mean that's why I'm here . I could talk about this forever , but it's the , it's a , it's a big deal , it's a big , big deal . And you know , myofunctional fascial therapy hand in hand , the two of them really set up the body for the best result with an orthodontic or , you know , fat , uh taught release . They really go hand in hand . Finding them together is , uh , is the best I've ever seen .

Speaker 1 25:42

My craniosacral therapist when she , when I had the appliance in the market , she all of a sudden put her hands in my maxilla and she , her eyes got wide and she was like , oh my gosh , your maxilla is saying I'm not going to repeat it . He said oh my gosh , your maxilla is saying I'm not going to repeat it . He said oh my gosh , your maxilla is going F , f , f , f , f , F F , like what is going on with me right now . Yeah , because it is . It's a lot of pressure and you guys have to be careful . Whenever you do an appliance like that that's embedded in bone and it's putting a lot of pressure in bone , I like those to move slower rather than fast because it's embedded in bone . It's not going to move teeth , you know , until you get your braces and your Invisalign , but moving all of the cranial bones and putting pressure on the cranial bones , you want to move slow Patients most of these patients have cranial strains and whenever you have cranial strains , that tension , if you're not getting addressed with the body professional , those cranial strains are going to increase the probability of a patient have asymmetrical expansion . I have people message me on Instagram all the time saying , oh my gosh , my orthodontist messed me up because they put a MRP in , and now I look awful because I have people message me on Instagram all the time saying oh my gosh , my orthodontist messed me up because they put a Marpie in and now I look awful because I have so many asymmetries .

Speaker 1 27:04

First of all , every single time you get expansion , you're supposed to expect your asymmetries to get worse . Everybody is slightly asymmetrical already , so they do have some ways now , but not everybody knows how to do this . But whenever you apply pressure with the Marpie or with any expander , usually you apply the same amount of force on both sides . You can't really do more force on one side versus the other . Stuff is coming out soon about that possibility . However , if you're less developed on one side , you are going to always stay like that . It's going to improve , but your asymmetries are going to be more noticeable . So , first of all , expect that .

Speaker 1 27:47

Second of all , it's not necessarily the orthodontist's fault . Could have they moved a little bit slower , a hundred percent . But if you're not addressing those cranial strains and maybe they're not even aware that that's an issue , that somebody needs to see a cranial osteopath or a cranial sacral therapy , cranial fascial therapy , then you're not going to know , but you have to , as a patient , be your own advocate . Reach out to different professionals , but those need to be addressed whenever you are changing anything in the cranium . Extremely extremely important question . Somebody is asking what is the most beneficial thing clients can do themselves to help

Tongue Ties and the Deep Frontal Line

Speaker 1 28:28

their fascia . They , uh , after a trauma I think that she was talking about emotional trauma so , after some emotional trauma , what is the most beneficial thing they can do at home to help their fascia ?

Speaker 2 28:43

Let's move . It's always going to be movement and intuitive movement right . Like moving in ways that you feel like you want to move but it doesn't . Maybe it doesn't make sense to you , I don't know why , but I just I really want to hang off my bed and I enjoy being upside down or dance . You know we do dance parties , we do dance parties here at the house . It's good for the kids , it's good for me , it's good for my wife . We're just moving right .

Speaker 2 29:05

So moving that fascia is going to help . Think of it like a sponge . Keeping it hydrated helps as well . So if your fascia is loose , dry and brittle , it's going to be stiff . Dry and brittle , it's going to be stiff , it's not going to move well . So making sure that we're hydrating and we're moving that movement of the body is like squeezing the sponge . So if you take a dry sponge and you put it in water , it gets a little wet . If you take a dry sponge and you squeeze it and put it in water , it absorbs more water . So making sure that we hydrate that fascia with movement , with hydration , is probably the biggest thing you can do .

Speaker 2 29:38

The other thing , as far as like trauma and emotional trauma and stored trauma is , recognizing that it's there , not locking it away . And if it keeps coming up through dreams or it's coming up through , you know , reoccurring thoughts , to address those , to find time and space to really sit with that . And what does that make you feel like ? What does that make you think Maybe you need to talk therapy with a professional therapist or doing body work like craniosacral therapy , like fascial therapy , and helping the body kind of move that stored energy potential outward , as opposed to keeping it inside where it gets locked up in a little tiny box and creates this bigger problem . The mind-body connection is huge . So if we think it , the body will manifest it right . So it's a big thing If we start to have these thoughts or like I feel stuck or you know , depending on what the trauma is .

Speaker 2 30:34

It made me scared for my life . I was , you know , frozen in fear . Let's say that I was frozen in fear . Well , you may end up with some tingling and numbness , you might end up with some paralysis , you could end up with Bell's palsy . You know where you have this paralysis in the face because you were frozen with fear and that thought , that feeling , manifested in the body . It doesn't have to be that dramatic it could be . I now have hip pain , you know , and that hip pain is just stored to this inability to move or get out of the way , these somatic kind of releases that we can see in the fascia from stored issues like traumas and and frights .

Speaker 1 31:16

There's a great book that I'm sure you know of . It's called the body keeps score .

Speaker 1 31:20

So , for those of you guys haven't seen that book , please look it up . There are a lot of emotional trauma that your brain kind of hides from you . Like you're saying , john , in this little tiny box because it will protect you , because your brain does not know what's real , what's not . To protect you , because your brain does not know what's real , what's not . So every single time that you think about that situation or you were traumatized , your body thinks it's happening again . So a lot of times , as a protection mechanism , it hides it way behind where you don't even know . So some people who do emotional releases they can kind of help you break it down . And sometimes these memories come back up and you're like whoa , I had no idea that had happened . And , oh my goodness , now I can actually work through it and release this emotional trauma that my body's been carrying for the longest time .

Speaker 2 32:08

Right , I mean I had a client with like a right leg right , so their right leg was . They came for me . It was super tight , they had this tightness in their ankle . They were really dorsiflexed and they just they couldn't figure it out . I mean , for five to seven years they've been having this kind of deep leg pain through the quad and down into the knee . And as we're talking and we're working through this session , they kind of mentioned that they had a car accident a few years ago .

Speaker 2 32:32

So as we dive deeper into that , we find out that like they were driving , dive deeper into that , we find out that like they were driving so I helped them kind of make those connections like , oh , think about that .

Speaker 2 32:39

Right , you were driving and you felt like you couldn't stop right . You probably put a lot of force on that brake with that right leg and you start to see this oh wait , I never thought of it like that Boom , boom , boom , boom , boom , boom and that foot starts to relax and we get this big emotional release coming out of that right leg , because that's what it was for five years they're dealing with this leg pain . That's just their body remembering that they didn't , they couldn't stop right , they didn't have enough force in that foot to hold the breakdown . So they got kind of stuck in this , this tight fascial pattern , almost as if they were pressing on the brake . So yeah , absolutely the body was going to remember things and sometimes we just get stuck in body . Work like this can kind of help bring some awareness to those areas and give you the opportunity to kind of revisit the problem and close the loop on some of those trauma cycles .

Speaker 1 33:28

I'm going to sound a little crazy right now , but anyways , I'm going to share what I was talking about in the beginning . I'm going to share it just because I keep feeling this . I started in january . I mean , I've been doing inner work for a very long time , for probably about eight or ten years , yeah , um . However , recently I started , uh , exploring a little bit more the spiritual world . Uh , whenever it comes to everything else that we're doing life , you know , um , and I started feeling goosebumps . I always think goosebumps , but whenever it's something now I'm more aware of it that whenever I feel these goosebumps , it's like it's , it's spiritual , it feels to me like you know , it's , yeah , you know something . And I wonder now , as I'm sitting here thinking about this , I wonder now if , where I feel this goose bumps all of a sudden , when somebody says something , if it's in the fascia , because it kind of goes all over your body .

Speaker 2 34:27

Yeah , yeah , lights you up . The fascia talks quicker within itself than our brain cells talk to each other . Neurons are pretty quick , but the fascia has this communication . That's just quicker than anything else in the body . So , absolutely , you get in these feelings . It's , it's . You cannot not feel something in your body that isn't in your fascia . Everything , your fascia , your fascia , wraps around your bones , your skin , your eyes , your tongue , your teeth , your hips , uh , your blood cells , your visceral organs . It's everywhere . So anything you feel in your body is in your fascial system . The fascial system is the biggest system in the body because it's in every system of the body and it's quite impressive .

Speaker 1 35:05

And then going even deeper , my friend , the one that I was talking about , that I met in Orlando , the other fascial therapist . She told me , since everything that we're doing there is so spiritual , she told me , as far as thinking about the fascial system as the Holy Spirit , and I was like yeah , I mean it could make a lot of sense .

Speaker 2 35:30

I was just working , I was working on some content around this . This whole idea of tense integrity right , the tense tensegrity sorry , the body's built on this tense tense , yeah , tense integrity , tensegrity model right . So think of a suspension bridge , the right amount of tension , or a tent , a camping tent , the right amount of tension in the right spot allows the body to kind of walk upright . And structural integrity . But tensegrity is tension and integrity and it's very similar to faith , right , our faith . We need to live in integrity with the word of God and we have to sustain and go through those trials and that tension , because it brings our faith strong , makes our faith stronger .

Speaker 2 36:17

You know , and God designed our body right . We're all designed in the image of God . So , yeah , it's mind blowing , like you couldn't have made this stuff up . I mean , you cannot make this stuff up , it would . Just it's unreal to think how the body is designed in a way that mirrors the Holy Spirit and just the ability to heal itself , right Like the body really has this innate ability to heal itself . Through God's design and

The Connection to Spirituality

Speaker 2 36:45

this work . It just kind of brings that awareness and kind of creates this space for you and your body to do what it needs to do , to kind of , you know , fix itself . It's unbelievable , it's really really incredible . But you're absolutely right , that fascial system is very similar to being filled with the Holy Spirit .

Speaker 1 37:06

Yes , I mean , maybe that's how we connect , you know , with the higher self , absolutely .

Speaker 2 37:13

Yeah , god , right , the Holy Spirit should influence our mind , because the mind should influence our body , right ? So if you fill your mind with the Holy Spirit , then that mind will then manifest and influence the body in ways that are in alignment with the truth .

Speaker 1 37:29

There's another functional medicine doctor in this , the same group that I'm talking about , and he was the one that was telling me several different things to prove how our body was built in his likeness and image , and one of them was the fact that you have 32 teeth , but the Atlas is considered at the 33rd , which was Jesus age . And then how many um things you have on your spine ? Is it 33 also if you count the atlas ?

Speaker 2 37:56

right , so you're talking . Yeah , the vertebrae the vertebrae .

Speaker 1 37:59

Thank you , I don't even know there was . There was more stuff like 12 cranial nerves , you know yeah , I mean god .

Speaker 2 38:05

God breath , breathed life into us through our nostrils . That's why we should nasal breathe . And before he did that , he brought water up to the earth , so we were standing in water when he breathed life into us through our nostrils , and we're made of 76 , 78% water Water .

Speaker 1 38:22

And where do we come from Dirt which is carbon ? I mean , there's just so much . There's so much that we can go in here . Somebody asked how can I find a good practitioner ?

Speaker 2 38:35

So there's a few different ways . The easiest way is there's a directory cftgillespieapproachcom , I think Kim and Holly's website with Dr Gillespie . There's a directory on there . It is not inclusive , it does not have a lot of practitioners in relations to the amount of practitioners out there , but that's one place you could start and see if there's anybody in your area . The other thing to do is to reach out to those practitioners and find out , like do you know of anyone in your area ? I get it a lot . People reach out to me and say hey , I live here , do you know anybody ? And through my connections I've been able to kind of develop a list of people and say like oh , I know , you know Skylar's down in Florida , I'll send you to her and she might be able to direct you to somewhere . And then she knows that Kelly is down in Winter Garden , right ? So boom , we make these connections that way Because , again , there's a lot of practitioners that aren't on that directory , but other practitioners . We know each other and can kind of direct you that way .

Speaker 2 39:39

The other thing is CFT is definitely gaining popularity and more and more people are finding it , which is unbelievable , and we're even seeing practitioners get hip to it and start using it as a referral source and incorporating it into plan of cares . So sometimes they'll know . But you can look for , like John Barnes style , myofascial release up ledger or biodynamic CST and kind of combine the two and you'll get this . You know kind of close resemblance of what CFT is , and then other times you might just have to travel . I have people coming from all over because I'm the closest , or you know , by God's grace they resonate with how I do things and they come and see me , but they're traveling in and they're making a trip out of it . So I tell people that sometimes , reaching out to a practitioner that might be two , three hours away and saying like , hey , I'm really going to put in some time to get out there , can I book two or three appointments with you in a day and really making the most of their time and your time ?

Speaker 2 40:39

Or doing what they call an intensive , which is really multiple sessions over a short period of time and I develop them and put them in all different kinds of ways . But the easiest way to explain it is six sessions over two to three days and what you're doing is you're opening the body and working on top of an open system and not really giving it a chance to kind of something , and that body's going to go right back to an old posture because it uses less energy than maintaining this new open pattern . So an intensive opens you up and then doesn't really give you a chance to fall back , and then what we see is more gains . You get , you know , more relief . You're going to see bigger shifts happening in the body and you're going to see that that cranial sacral system and that pattern kind of remain open . It's a little bit more resilient , to stress . So that's another thing to do is find somebody that might not necessarily be close but making the most out of it .

Speaker 2 41:40

And some of these practitioners are in really nice spots . I mean , I'm in Midcoast Maine . You could come up and have a great vacation and just incorporate some work . There's practitioners in California , there's Colorado . I mean you could really make a trip out of it .

Speaker 1 41:52

Yes , 100% . Also , we developed a . We started a directory because whenever I started working as a myofunctional therapist , I was like , okay , myofunctional therapy works , but it only works because I'm working with other professionals . It doesn't work by itself . I mean , we get a little bit of benefits , yes , but you have to see these other professionals to be able to address the patient as a whole . So we created a directory . It is a global directory . Anybody here can go to wwwairwaycirclecom slash directory and it is free for patients and professionals If you're doing anything related to that . It is multidisciplinary . We have ENTs , we have myofunctional therapists , chiropractors , physical therapists I mean , you name it .

Speaker 1 42:34

We have it all there , so anybody can add themselves . You're going to add your training and anything else that you do . We invite any professional that's listening to this to join our directory and any patient to go over there and try to search for a provider around you . John , can you explain a little bit ? What is the difference of CST and CFT , craniosacral therapy and craniofascial therapy ?

Speaker 2 42:56

Yeah , yeah , so craniosacral therapy CST is really just focusing on that craniosacral system . So think of the cranial bones , the brain , the cranial nerves , the spinal cord that goes down into the sacrum and it's a very light , gentle pressure really . I think they say it's the pressure it takes to move a nickel across the table . It's an amazing therapy .

Speaker 2 43:22

But CFT incorporates not only that but also the fascial system , right ? So CST is looking at the craniosacral system and the flow of cerebral spinal fluid and kind of tension in the body that works itself out through the nervous system . And then CFT incorporates the fascial web and how fascial restrictions put pressure back on the craniosacral system . It's kind of , for me , I lean a little bit more fascial , so it's a little bit more pressure and a little bit more fascial , so it's a little bit more pressure and a little bit more manipulations and things like that fascial release , pins and stretching and things like that . But yeah ,

Finding a CFT Practitioner

Speaker 2 43:57

I believe cst is really just that light touch craniosacral system and cft is going to venture out into the body and you're going to start getting into the fascial web .

Speaker 1 44:08

Amazing , we have so many people watching us live on instagram right now if you guys are not going to venture out into the body and you're going to start getting into the fascial web ? Amazing , we have so many people watching us live on Instagram right now . If you guys are not following the Beauty of Breathing podcast yet , go to your favorite podcast platform . We are on Spotify , on Apple Podcasts , Look for Beauty of Breathing and please hit a follow so you can keep getting the messages whenever we go live and when the next episode has been published . Somebody asked would you expect someone to have a lot of emotional release ? Post-orthodontic surgery similar to paltoexpander or MARPI .

Speaker 2 44:42

Yeah , absolutely I think I think . Is it expected ? I don't , I don't know , but is it probable ? Yeah , I mean , it's a big surgery and you're moving a lot of things . I would tend I would probably say you'd get more release . You know , if you go get body work after that , right Cause I think the body's going to be in this kind of frozen state after something so traumatic happening to to it . But yeah , once you start getting into the fascial system whether it's through surgery and we're cutting bone and things like that , you have this potential for release of all that stored emotions , of energy that will come out as you start to cut and move and loosen things up .

Speaker 1 45:20

Just last week I was speaking in Kentucky and our server came up and she was talking about oh , I'm starting braces again and all of this , and the myofunctional therapist I was eating with was like we need , you know , look into a palliative extension . But she mentioned that she had some trauma to her face and she mentioned somebody punched her . Oh my gosh , how much trauma is in that . I recently had a patient mention that it was a male who punched her in the face . Oh my goodness . Of course , every single time you're going to move any of this , there's going to be a lot of emotional things coming back up . How is it going to look like ? I'm not really sure you know . Is that person going to become extremely emotional during that time ? Are they going to be having pain ? Are they going to have any dreams or anything else that are going to bring those memories back ? But definitely , working with another practitioner full body practitioner will definitely help .

Speaker 2 46:19

Yeah , yeah , it's like tracks , right . Like if we have this traumatic event , anything that kind of happened around that event can become a track or a trigger . You know it could be . You got in a car accident and there was a certain song on the radio and now every time your body hears that song it's reminded of the event . It could be a time of day , the tone of voice , it could be a word . So there's so much that goes into what can kind of store itself in the body as this , you know , track or trigger or button that's going to set off this alarm and and .

Speaker 2 46:49

I've seen it . It's not always , you know . People will come and they'll say , oh , I want the emotional release . I'm here because I had this traumatic childhood or whatever , and I've had it . People will write me and say I was really expecting tears but instead I got three days of like this childhood joy and wonder and I was registered , I listened to you and I just did what felt right and I went to the zoo and the museum and I went to playgrounds and your body's not gonna re-traumatize you . You had your childhood stolen and instead it gave it back to you .

Speaker 2 47:17

So emotional releases aren't always tears and sadness and terror . Sometimes it's like very peaceful and happy . There's angry releases . I've had a few releases where I just get really angry and it's go with that . Feel that emotion , find outlets that are safe and let those emotions come out , whether it's tears , laughter , anger .

Speaker 2 47:39

You got to get that stuff out , especially if it's something where , like , you're purposefully getting body work or you know that you had some work done , even myofunctional therapy you're strengthening muscles and you're moving things . You know , once that tongue glues itself to the roof of the mouth , who knows what's going to happen right , like it can really set somebody off in a good way . It doesn't always have to be bad . Releases aren't bad , even the sad ones , they're not bad . It's that stored energy in your body finally coming out . And I tell people all the time after they leave it can happen on the table , it can happen in the driveway , it can happen two weeks after you leave . But if it comes up , find the time and the space to really sit with it and let it express itself , because that's what you're here for , right ?

Speaker 2 48:22

I can't open doors . I can unlock them or I can give you some tools to kind of open them yourself , but if you open the door , you have to be ready to accept whatever's behind it and walk it out , because if you open the door and you don't get rid of it , if you don't let it leave your house , it's just going to put itself behind another door , and you don't have to . You know it's not this thing where you're going to come get body work and you're going to , you know , explode into like that big traumatic event that you had as a kid . The body is not going to do that , it's not designed to do that . It's not going to just give you something that you are not ready for . So I don't want people to be afraid to go get body work because you know oh , the guy said CFT I might have these big releases . If you're ready for them , you have to be ready for them .

Speaker 1 49:11

You know , nobody can force you into these . You know emotional releases , so 100% . Oh my gosh , I actually didn't even get to my questions .

Speaker 1 49:16

Oh , sorry , sorry we literally are gonna have to set up another day . If you guys enjoyed this , please , yeah , you guys can send us messages on Instagram letting us know what would you like us to talk about next . But , but this has been such a wonderful time . I just could not stop , uh , at the 30 minute mark . We had to keep going . So , so much , and if you , uh , if you're open to it , I'd love to do another one of these .

Speaker 2 49:41

No , absolutely . I'd love to do a part two . Let's do it Absolutely , a hundred percent .

Speaker 1 49:51

And I'll try not to talk as much . No , no , please .

Speaker 2 49:52

This is incredible , it's so good and I love when it just flows .

Speaker 1 49:53

You know what I mean . Yeah , yeah , Um . How can people find you ?

Speaker 2 49:57

So I'm on Instagram , uh , at mid coast fascial therapy Um , it's where I do most of my stuff . I'm not I'm on Facebook , but it's usually the stuff I share to Instagram that gets shared to Facebook . So if you're looking to kind of see what I'm all about and follow along and read what I share , I highly appreciate it . I know that time and energy is more valuable than any amount of money , so if you give your time and energy to come check out what I share , I genuinely appreciate it . I have a website , midcoastfascialtherapycom if you're interested in learning a little bit more about my business , what I do , how to book . I have three . I have two or three offices here in Maine , one in Bath , one in Portland and here at my home office in Jackson . I do in-homes and travel all over the country in Canada . If you're interested , reach out , we'll put something together and if it works out , I'd be happy to hold space for you . But yeah , it's unbelievable , don't forget who you are . All right , stay blessed by the best .

Speaker 1 50:51

Amen , I love it . Thank you , guys so much . Please don't forget to follow our Instagram account , my own moves and our podcast

Closing Thoughts and Contacts

Speaker 1 51:00

video of breathing . We love you . Thank you for listening until next time . Thank you so much .