CHAPTER 1
The Lecture on the Floor
I was writhing in pain on the floor of my soon-to-open, first-ever,leap-of-faith, teeny-tiny wellness clinic.
"Oh NO! Not again! Not NOW!"
It was a Sunday in August of 2004. The clinic space I was about tooccupy was a small suite within a large medical building in ChevyChase, Maryland. Since it was a Sunday, the building was closed anddeserted. I saw and heard no one as I carted painting materials up tothe space on the twelfth floor of the building.
After being a physical therapist for six years, I was beyond excited tostart my own physical therapy and fitness business. In just a coupleweeks, I would see my first patient at TAVO PT & Fitness (laterto become TAVO Total Health). Coupled with the excitement,however, was intense fear and anxiety.
The thoughts of fear and anxiety were relentless: How are you goingto get patients and clients? Why are you starting a business where youknow absolutely no one? How are you going to financially survive? Allyou've got is a treatment table and some rinky-dink exercise things–how are you going to help anyone?
After I finished the few trips back and forth to my car to get everythingI needed, I decided that painting the treatment room would be tasknumber one. The treatment room was only roughly 100 square feetand had no windows. I picked a cheery bright yellow paint to givesome illusion of natural light in the room.
I popped the top of the paint can. I bent down to pick up the littlewooden stir stick and WHAM!!!!
Excruciating pain ripped through my lower back. Within two secondsI was face down on the floor, writhing in pain. The pain was sointense it was difficult to breathe. It was, by far, the worst episode I'dexperienced since I first injured my lower back in 1989. I saw that mycell phone was about two feet from my head. I tried to crawl to myphone but every attempt at motion caused the pain to intensify.
Panic set in. I knew from past experiences with my spine "going out"that I could be out of commission for hours or even days. I tried onemore time to get to my phone. It was impossible. For four long hoursI lay on that floor in agonizing pain.
But, those four hours on the floor were completely pivotal to thetransformation that was about to unfold in my life. Let me explain.
At this point in my life I was thirty-two years old and dealing withmore chronic spinal pain than the majority of my patients twice myage. There were days when I would simply turn my head and kick offa two-week long neck spasm with stabbing pain into a shoulder blade.There were other days where my mid-back was so tight and painful thatI'd have to excuse myself from a treatment session to pop my ribs andvertebrae back into place with a foam roller or with tennis balls. Therewere other days where my lower back had so much pressure within it,it felt as if it would explode if I made a movement it did not like.
This was my daily life. I will go into greater detail within the book,but for now I want to get back to the lessons that unfolded duringthose four hours on the floor.
The voices in my consciousness now had me as a very captive audience.They had four hours to give me the lecture of a lifetime. Of course,I cannot recall the specifics of everything that was "said" but I couldnever forget the core messages, insights, and questions. I will do mybest to convey what transpired in that chunk of time on the floor.
The Lecture on the FloorSo, here you are again.
You help so many people, Phil, when are you going to help yourself?
Are you not important?
Do you not deserve to have a better life?
Do you even love yourself, Phil?
No, really, do you?
You are starting your own physical therapy
business and you are basically crippled!
When are you going to wake up?
WAKE UP, PHIL!!!
W A K E U P!!!
What's it going to take to get your attention?
Do you want to be in a wheelchair by the time you are forty?
It's time.
Now.
It's time for you to help YOU!
It's wonderful that you help people ... now help YOU.
We will give you some credit – you have
tried some things to help yourself.
You became a therapist and fitness trainer.
You have taken many classes.
You have read lots of books.
You have tried therapy and massage.
This knowledge and experience has helped
you become good at what you do.
But it hasn't helped you one bit to GET BETTER YOURSELF.
You've been searching.
You have been searching, we know.
Do you remember ...
You were talking to Laura
about the work
you were doing with your patients.
You said that it felt like you were being
pulled deep into their muscles.
Even though you were only putting light pressure into their bodies.
You said it was strange that these people
seemed to be getting better quickly,
Even though it felt as if you weren't doing much.
Do you remember?
Laura said "It sounds like you are starting to naturally do
myofascial release – you need to take a John Barnes class!"
Do you remember?
This IS what you need to do, Phil!
This is a piece of your puzzle!!!The lecture ended and, almost instantly, I was able to move. I still hada great deal of pain but I was no longer pinned down in a heap on thefloor. I crawled to my cell phone and called for help.
The lecture sunk in on a cellular level. I really got it. I listened. Ofcourse I also thought I'd just spent four hours in crazy-land! Wherewere these voices coming from? I should clarify that there weren'tactually audible voices. Nothing could be heard in my ears. These werelike telepathic messages zapped directly into my consciousness.
Within a few days, when my back pain subsided, I did some researchon MFR. I borrowed my friend Laura's MFR book, written by John F.Barnes. As I started reading the book I recall feeling my body start tobuzz. This is the first time I recall having this sensation, but it's now acommon sensation for me when I am encountering "my truth." Whensomething crosses my path, and I literally start to buzz, I know it'ssomething that is relevant to me and my journey! When somethingresonates for me, I buzz.
I knew that I needed to take one of John Barnes' introductory MFRcourses. My challenge was that I just left a well-paying salaried jobto leap into the gaping unknown of starting my own clinic. I was sostressed about being able to pay my bills and the overhead of my newclinic, how was I going to pay for an MFR course? I knew it HAD tohappen as soon as possible so I pulled out my credit card and signed upfor my first class. I took my very first MFR class in Miami, Florida inApril 2005 and it was like stepping into another dimension of reality!
I experienced more pain reduction and increased mobility in my bodyat my first MFR course than I had experienced in fifteen years. Oneof the most amazing revelations was that probably ninety percent ofthe seminar attendees were first-time students of MFR, like I was.How is it possible that I could get such great results by working withtherapists who were just now learning how to do these techniques?Over the course of the three-day seminar I had multiple "Aha"moments. So many things just clicked into place. And I buzzed, andI buzzed, and I buzzed.
* * *
One of Phil's clients shares ...
Cameron
It's hard to put into words what my web is without explaining howunaware I was that such a thing even existed before being introducedto MFR. I started getting frequent migraine headaches when I wasthirteen years old. I quickly went from being a normal, athleticteenage girl with friends, a social life, and good attendance to thetoken sick kid that was always bailing on friends, activities and schoolbecause she wasn't feeling good. Doctors replaced friends, and a darkbedroom replaced any place I would rather be.
As most people who suffer from headaches do, I turned to countlessneurologists for answers. Instead of answers, however, I got drugs– and a lot of them. My medicine cabinet became an arsenal ofpharmaceuticals. And while some of my so-called weapons helpedto decrease the frequency of my headaches, the negative side effectsalways outweighed the benefits. While I may not have had a headache,I was nonetheless still confined to a bed as a result of the drowsinessand sheer confusion from whatever my prescribed cocktail was at thetime. This is essentially what initiated a long downward spiral.
By the time I turned sixteen, I was no longer participating in anysports or athletic activities. During a good week, I would make it toschool at least three out of five days, and good weeks were rare. Myenergy level was non-existent, and my grades suffered as a result, notto mention my self-confidence. While I tried to live as normal a life aspossible, there was nothing normal about a young adult that couldn'tfunction due to severe headaches. I developed debilitating insecurities,and anxiety began to control both my body and my life.
As a result, my body became increasingly weaker to the point that Icouldn't stand for prolonged periods of time without experiencingimmense amounts of back and neck pain. Naturally, this pain wouldmake its way up to my head and trigger a migraine. During the timeswhen I didn't have a migraine, my body would be anticipating theonset of one. I was constantly on edge, and my muscles were alwaystight. Essentially, I got stuck in a vicious cycle of chronic pain andmigraine headaches.
By the age of twenty-three, I had developed alarmingly bad posture.My shoulders were rounded and my neck jutted forward. I could notstretch my arms to their full capacity without crying out in pain. Ireached a point in which simple, daily activities became my Everest:taking a shower, getting dressed, walking down stairs, everything.My body ached tremendously and I felt breakable. This feeling ofconstant pain became my new sense of normal.
I finally reached a point where I decided to give up on modernmedicine and, instead, began to pursue more natural methods ofhealing, something I wish I had done from the very start of myheadaches. It was very clear to me that I needed to seek hands-ontreatment for my physical pain. This is when I was introduced toMFR. It really wasn't up until this point that I realized my body didnot have to feel this way.
MFR didn't reduce my symptoms immediately, but it certainly gaveme a sense of hope. Phil explained MFR and described the conceptof the body's web. The fundamentals were simple: everything isconnected. And while I couldn't appreciate this concept at first, itbecame clear over-time.
At the beginning of each session Phil would automatically start byassessing the misalignment of my hips. He would then release thetissue restrictions around my hips accordingly. I initially thoughtthat working on my hips was odd and unnecessary as my pain was inmy head and neck. The techniques that Phil used, however, echoedthroughout my body and I began to understand both the meaningand significance of my fascial web. As soon as my hips were realigned,my whole body felt straighter, more connected. It was as if my hipswere setting a precedent for each and every limb. I began walkingstraighter and standing taller. My legs were actually functioningbetter and more gracefully, even though I had never previouslyrecognized any fault in them. Every limb seemed to take on its ownnew life, instead of being tied down to another. Eventually I began tomove freely and was no longer forced to turn my entire body in orderto look sideways.
As the pain in my body began to subside and my movement beganto improve, my headaches also became less frequent. My hips finallystarted to maintain the correct alignment, allowing Phil to focus onthe tangled web that still existed in my head, neck and shoulders. Thebase of my skull felt like a brick and it took a while before I even feltPhil working in certain areas. Slowly but surely, the tangled web inmy upper body began to release and unwind.
These releases are hard to put into words. The way in which mymuscles reacted to MFR was as if they completely let go of all of thetension they carried and simply melted into Phil's hands. Once I wasable to identify where my body was releasing, I naturally became moreattentive to where it was not. In other words, I became self-aware. Ithink this is one of the most important benefits that I received fromMFR: a conscious recognition of my own web that has allowed me tobe proactive in maintaining its proper alignment.
CHAPTER 2
Invisible Kid Scars
John F. Barnes, PT, begins his first book, Myofascial Release, TheSearch for Excellence, with the following powerful description:
The fascial system surrounds, infuses with, and hasthe potential to influence profoundly every muscle,bone, nerve, blood vessel, organ, and cell of thebody. Fascia also separates, supports, connects, andprotects everything. This three-dimensional web ofconnective tissue is alive and ever-changing as thebody demands. Thus it is a network for informationexchange, influencing and influenced by everystructure, system, and cell in the organism. Like airand gravity, its influence is so all-pervasive that wehave tended to take it for granted.
I recall when I first read that paragraph and immediately flashedback to my Gross Anatomy class in the summer of 1991. The fasciamust have been all that slimy, shiny, slick stuff that we had to siftthrough to get to the REAL object of our dissection and study:the muscles, bones, nerves, and blood vessels. In thinking back, Icould recall that the fascia was absolutely everywhere! Why werewe just hacking and yanking this important tissue and discardingit without examining it? Of course I wasn't thinking that back in1991. I was just eager to learn what I thought all anatomy studentsand potential therapists needed to learn. I was excited to learneverything there was to know about muscles, bones, nerves, andblood vessels.
I realize, of course, that not many people outside of health and medicalschools have the opportunity (or desire) to dissect a deceased humanbody. However, most people who have prepared meat for a meal, be itchicken, or beef, or pork, for example, have seen and felt fascia.
If you are not a vegetarian, the next time you are about to handle araw chicken, please allot a few extra minutes to really examine themiraculous specimen within your hands. First, super-slowly peel theskin from the underlying meat and look closely at what is connectingthe skin to the meat. This is fascia. Then, before using any utensilon the chicken, gently pinch the outer slimy covering between yourthumb and first finger and try to tease it away from the meat. This isfascia. Keep pulling and exploring – see where it takes you and whatit is attached to. Then, cut into the chicken and visually scrutinizethe inner landscape of the tissues. Use your fingers to slowly pulla segment away from a bone. Notice the glistening, shiny, likely-translucenttissues that separate the muscle from the bone andone muscle from an adjacent muscle. This is all fascia. And, from astructural and fascial standpoint, please understand that we humansare designed much like that chicken!
