BodymindResources.com
Connective Tissue Face-Lifts
Hello and welcome to BodymindResources presentation of "Connective Tissue Face Lifts"! Our goal today is to teach you how to achieve a lift in the soft tissues of the upper body to restore a relaxed youthful beauty to your face. This class has benefits in isolation from the other classes, but you will gain much better results if you use this class in conjunction with the Heal Thyself Series as an issue of the body is always a full body issue and must be treated as such. Let's begin.
Today I'm going to talk to you about the structure of the human body. By the time we are done, you will have a better understanding of your body's relationship with gravity and how to bring your body's structure back to it's natural form. We will discuss all this on a full body level and then, in the Face Lift Lab, we will teach you how to apply it to your head and neck to achieve a lift in the tissues of your face.
As a structural bodyworker, people come to me with a million different kinds of pain. Some have carpal tunnel syndrome in their arms, some have low back pain, or knee pain. One thing I know, is that whenever there is pain or dysfunction in the body, you will almost invariably find some distortion in the body's structure. Maybe the arms ore rolling forwards and inwards. Maybe there is a sway back in the lower spine. Maybe the knees are not directly underneath the pelvis. Most likely it is a combination of all these structural distortions. I know this is likely the case because the body is not made up of a bunch of isolated parts, but instead functions as a whole unit. What do I mean by that? I mean that if there is a problem with the structure in any part of your body, the rest of your body will have to adjust itself, structurally, to balance out the original problem.
Why must we balance ourselves in this way?
We must balance ourselves in this way, because human
beings must function within the force of gravity. Gravity 
forces our body
to function as a unified whole. Our ability to balance ourselves within
gravity determines our relationship with this force. Our relationship with
gravity actually determines whether gravity feels heavy or light in our
bodies. Our ability to balance ourselves is determined by our posture, or
a better way of putting it…our body's structure and how we use it. So
you see, structure is actually pretty important to our quality of life.
Structure determines the effects of gravity on your body by
determining your relationship with gravity. At this point it is
important for you to know what causes these structural distortions
Muscular Holding Patterns
You have an intricate system of musculature set up throughout your body. These muscles cross the joints in your body connecting the different bones to each other for the purpose of facilitating movement. A common problem arises in people where a certain muscle or grouping of muscles decides to shorten into a contraction and remain tight and shortened. This is what we call a holding pattern and it can come about for a variety of reasons. Perhaps you were injured in that area and are still protecting it. Maybe you had some emotional trauma that made a part of your body feel too vulnerable and so you closed it off. Maybe you just watched the way your parents functioned within gravity and decided to copy their holding patterns. However it came about, you now have this holding pattern and the rest of your body has had to adjust itself within gravity to accommodate it. Even worse news is that whenever a muscle holds like that in a state of constant contraction for extended periods of time, the connective tissue thickens around that area to brace it. It actually bunches up around the area and pulls on the skin of adjacent structures. For example, if you have holding patterns anywhere in your chest, arms, or neck, the connective tissue thickening is most likely tugging down on the skin of your face!
So what is the antidote?
How do we release the holding patterns and connective tissue thickening? How do we heal our relationship with gravity? I would like to introduce you to a powerful, but elusive subject. I call it "The Art of Letting Go". You are practicing the Art of Letting Go when you are not holding onto a single part of your body, but rather are allowing…allowing every bone, every joint, your connective tissue, every muscle to just be. You allow it to be whatever it is and you take your own personal investment of trying to control everything out of it. Your body knows what it is doing and would do a lot better if you would just step out of its way. So you see, good posture is not something you have to do. Good posture grows from what you stop doing. You stop hanging onto your body and just allow it to find its most natural form. Your body's natural form is uncovered when you release your muscular holding patterns and it naturally exists in an optimum alignment with gravity. The natural structure of your body is forever becoming straight and straighter, more and more balanced within gravity.
The exercises in the Face-Lift Lab are designed to bring your body closer to this natural form. My hope is that when you see how highly malleable the structures of your upper body are, that you will want to continue the journey on a full body level which is the only way to really make a change in any one part of your body. If you can learn to remold your body, you can forever change your relationship with gravity. You can experience a freedom within your physical body you have not know since you were a child. For now let's start with the face. Onto the Face-Lift Lab!