The ‘Normal’ Body Signals That Come From Unprocessed Trauma

1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

   A lot of people are aware, Jason, that our body can hold emotions and trauma. But what I get from watching you speak and watching what Human Garage is doing is this idea that the trauma and the emotions might be stored in something called our fascia. Is that right?

2. JBJason van Blerk0:27

   I believe it is. And the reason why I believe that is because fascia is primarily made of water. And there have been researchers who've studied a lot about the properties of water and what water can do. So Veda Austin's one of them. What she does is she takes water, she puts a coin next to it, she freezes the water and looks at it under a microscope. And what you see is that that water actually takes on the same structure or picture that was on the coin. And water is showing that it can hold memory. So if you talk to water, if you put it next to a, a plastic water bottle, whatever that water is next to, it actually takes on the information that's around it. And so if we're 70% water, where is all the memory being stored in the body? I believe it's being stored in our fascia, and our fascia is primarily made of water.

3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:17

   Yeah. I think we, we sort of are getting this collective understanding now that our body holds tension. And look, I've been delving into myofascial release and all forms of body work for a long, long time now. I've been to many courses where they train practitioners, and you will see time and time again that when people have a deep release in their body, sometimes they can be shaking, sometimes they can be crying. And I've seen that enough times to know there's something going on here that we're not taught in medical school. And you see this all the time, don't you? That you're treating people, you're holding their body, you're pressing on their body, and suddenly they come out in tears. What do you think is going on?

4. JBJason van Blerk2:08

   You know, I, it's really interesting because w- I've worked on eight hundred people in a day. W- I've worked on probably about five thousand people in the last year, and I'm just watching patterns. When I work on somebody's knee, there tends to be certain emotions and certain reactions when I work on their knee. When I work on someone's shoulder or their head, same thing. And so I believe that different parts of the body hold different emotions or different memories. So, you know, like, what is trauma? Trauma is an event where you could not process the emotions. It could be something when you were eight years old, your mom didn't give you candy at the store, and you were all frustrated. You didn't have the tools-

5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:46

   Mm

6. JBJason van Blerk2:46

   ... to process those emotions. Those emotions go somewhere. Like when you're angry, what happens to your body? You tighten your fists, you clench your jaw. You almost... You go in. You roll like this.

7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:57

   Mm-hmm.

8. JBJason van Blerk2:57

   So people who work out and they're angry all the time, they're like this. And so when we have an emotion, it changes our posture. When we have an emotion, it stores somewhere in the body. And I've just seen countless times when I touch people in certain parts of their body, certain emotions release, certain patterns are stored there.

9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:13

   Yeah. I think something that everyone can resonate with is this idea that if you've had a really busy day at work, you know, you didn't take any breaks, there was loads of demands, you worked through lunch, you can come back in the evening and your body can feel tense and tight. You can feel neck tightness or whatever it might be. I mean, what's going on there? Of course, you know, your stress, your emotions are being stored, and unless you do something about it, it's gonna stay there, right?

10. JBJason van Blerk3:48

    Mm-hmm. Yes. And if we look at most people's bodies, we talked about this when we were working together, you know, most people have a left shoulder that's higher than the right, and their one hip is higher than the other. So it looks like they have a leg length discrepancy. It's n- ninety-nine point nine percent of people do not have leg length discrepancies that are anatomically that way. It's because the... there's some sort of torque pattern in their body. So one shoulder's higher, one hip is higher, one part of their face is more forward. The eyes are slightly torqued. And based on the emotions that we're holding, you can actually see patterns in the body when people walk, when people move. If they're holding anger, they're tight in the groin, they're tight in the jaw. So if you do a jaw release, they're gonna have a lot of anger come out, like err. And if you watch our videos, you see people, they, they scream in a very angry way when you do the jaw release. So there's something to do with posture and emotions. And there's certain emotions on certain parts of the body and certain p- emotions on another part of the body. And we've just done this so many times that we've been able to map it. You know, there's a lot of people who do this. The Body Keeps the Score. Um, you've got Louise Hay, who's documented this. You've got Metaphysical Anatomy. And over time, I've just found that a lot of these practices, they've found something. There's something about the body holding emotions in certain areas, and it affects our posture. Like, if somebody's sad, what do they do? Or they're, they're suppressed, or they're not acting as themself, they start to curl forward and almost become small.

11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:16

    Yeah.

12. JBJason van Blerk5:17

    And if someone's confident, like, look at Tony Robbins, like, he's really big and confident, you know if you stand in this posture, you feel more confident, you feel larger. And so based on the posture, it can also influence the emotions.

13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:30

    Yeah. I, I think these things work both ways, right? You know, is it sorting out your emotions that then changes your posture, or is it clearing the fascia and clearing your body that's gonna sort out the mood, right? I think it could work from both angles, perhaps.

14. JBJason van Blerk5:47

    Hundred percent.

15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:48

    Yeah.

16. JBJason van Blerk5:48

    Like everybody can do this right now. You could sit up nice and tall with your chest up. You feel stronger.

17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:53

    Yeah.

18. JBJason van Blerk5:53

    You feel more confident. So I can put the body into certain positions, and it can reprogram my emotions. I can also have an emotion that reprograms my physical body-

19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:03

    Yeah

20. JBJason van Blerk6:03

    ... into a certain position. So it goes both ways. And you know, there's mind over matter, and people always talk about can you use the mind to influence the physical body? Yes. You can also use the physical body to influence the mind.

21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:15

    Yeah.

22. JBJason van Blerk6:16

    There are two ways. You can't-- It's not just one way, it's both

23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:19

    Yeah. You mentioned the term fascia.

24. JBJason van Blerk6:22

    Yeah.

25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:23

    That is becoming, I, I hope, a term that people are more familiar with today than they were 10 years ago, for example. But for people who've never heard that term before, can you explain what fascia is?

26. JBJason van Blerk6:38

    Yeah. Fascia's a very interesting thing. You know, they, there was actually articles 20 years ago that were buried about what fascia really is, and the traditional way of looking at it was it's like this Saran Wrap connective tissue, kinda looks like a spiderweb, and it surrounds your muscles and your bones.

27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:55

    If we, if we bought a piece of meat from the store and we're sort of pulling it apart, that kind of fibrous connective tissue-

28. JBJason van Blerk7:02

    Yes

29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:02

    ... that's, that is fascia, isn't it?

30. JBJason van Blerk7:04

    That is the traditional way of looking at it.

Episode duration: 1:34:08