The difference between stress tension and emotional holding: why your muscles won’t fully let go

You know when you have muscle tension, you usually think of a “knot” in the shoulder or a tweaked neck?

Well, muscles are only part of the story, my friend.

What often gets overlooked is the tissue surrounding them—you’ve heard me say it beforeeee—

your fascia.

Fascia is a like a spider web of connective tissue that wraps around every muscle, bone, nerve, blood vessel, and organ in your body.

Seriously, imagine taking away every other tissue in the body and leaving only the fascia behind—you’d still recognize the shape of a human.

How wild is that??

For years, fascia was thought to be little more than a compartmentalization system.

With updated science, we now know it’s much more than that.

It’s one of the body’s richest sensory organs (like your eyes, tongue, skin, etc).

Your brain is constantly communicating with your fascia.

Your fascia is packed with sensory receptors that are constantly sending information to your brain.

Think things like:

• Where is my body in space?

• Am I balanced?

• How much tension am I under?

• Can I move freely?

• Do I feel safe enough to relax?

Most of this is subconscious, meaning we don’t even have to think about it.

So before your brain decides what choice to make, it makes sure to have as much info about the environment as possible. We now know that the fascia helps make this possible.

So:

when you experience stress in your environment, your nervous system now has the info it needs to keep you alive.

This affects your breath patterns, muscular tension, digestion, posture, and more (remember that the fascia surrounds and contains all of this).

It’s part of the design.

The problem only occurs, when your nervous system never fully receives the message that the threat is gone, and you can chill tf out now.

So that then becomes a holding pattern in your body.

Over weeks, months, or years, those protective patterns can become your new “normal.”

Whoopsies.

Like every other tissue in the body, it shapes itself around how you use it most.

If there is always a fear of threat, if you’re under constant stress, then you will always be guarding, hunching, limited your breathing and your digestion, etc etc.

Now, to correct something, it doesn’t mean emotions are literally stored in the fascia like people say. At least science hasn’t shown this yet.

This is why people think I can just push a magic button and make everything move out, and that’s not what’s happening when you have a powerful emotional release experience.

What we do know is this:

Emotional experiences change the nervous system.

The nervous system changes breathing, posture, muscle tone, and movement.

The brain is able to communicate and understand what’s happening inside of your body because of the fascia.

In other words, fascia isn’t storing your memories like a frickin’ filing cabinet.

It’s actively participating in the ongoing conversation between your brain and your body.

If your nervous system has learned to stay guarded, your fascia is one of the tissues carrying that message forward.

And you stay stuck in a little loop.

This is why someone can receive an incredible massage, feel amazing for two days…

…and then wake up feeling like their shoulders are right back where they started.

The therapist didn’t fail, your muscles don’t “hate” you.

Your nervous system simply returned to the protective strategy it knows best.

If your brain still believes it needs to brace, it will continue organizing your body around protection.

That’s why lasting change often requires more than simply releasing a “knot.”

It requires helping the nervous system experience safety.

It requires looking at your environment.

Which requires accountability (self and otherwise).

When I work with clients, I’m not looking for hidden trauma in every tight muscle, even if you’ve heard me say “you’re storing something here.”

What I’m noticing is that there are holding patterns within your body, that start impacting everything else.

And if you’ve received body work from me, you know that it isn’t hard for me to find the spot. What I’m also finding is the spots where your fascia may be compensating for these stress patterns, and when these release, you might find an emotional release, aha moment, or sense of peace.

By combining therapeutic bodywork with nervous system regulation and emotional awareness, we’re addressing both sides of the communication loop.

For example, when you’re getting the body work and receiving the communication to relax physically in the tissues—

when you’re also learning how to sit with your emotions and welcome them in like guests at your table—

when you’re looking at your environments, work spaces, friend groups, and actively choosing what helps your support and growth—

we’re helping the nervous system go, “Ooohhh, like I actually get to choose safety now!”

And we’re helping the brain recognize that it no longer has to keep sounding the alarm. :)

Because healing isn’t just about changing the body, my love. It’s about changing the conversation happening between your body and your brain.

Curious to dive into this work with me?

Set up a free consultation call with me to discuss the best options for you.