I had my first class on Myofascial Unwinding today. Now, I have been through some bizarre classes before, but this takes the cake.
The idea behind Unwinding is that every experience in one’s life is stored in the memory of each cell in the body. This causes the body to react in certain manners to certain stimuli. Unwinding is a way of deprogramming the cells and releasing the energy that was stored.
People that go through Unwinding will allow their bodies to go into whatever positions it wants to go. Sometimes these positions will bring up emotions or memories, sometimes not. The memories or emotions can be good or not. The key is that by going through this experience, the energy is released. If you look at it in comparison to other therapies that work with problems that arise from experiences, they all say the same thing, that one has to go through it and release it, basically let it go. Unwinding does this, but instead of doing it on a mental level only, it is on a physical level as well.
One of the keys to Unwinding is to let yourself go, to take your brakes off. One is completely conscious, and can stop at any time they don’t feel safe. The first time I tried it, I had to take a few moments to let go and let myself go. I was laying on a table paired with one other person. I allowed myself to float mentally. As I did, I felt that my arms would be more comfortable in another position, so I moved them there. Keep in mind this wasn’t the normal conscious effort that it usually is, but more like letting my arm go where it wanted to. As I did this, I felt my arms needed to move somewhere else, so I let them go there. Then my legs wanted to move, and I let them. Eventually, I was moving all over the place. I was laying across the table with my legs hanging off one side and my head and arms hanging off the other.
Now the job of the person helping the unwinding is to keep the person on the table safe, and to put their hands where they are needed. A couple of the key places are the abdomen, the chest, and the head. If the person unwinding stretches out with a straight hand, the person helping is to pull them. If they stretch out with a bent hand, the person assisting is to push them. Sometimes, the person assisting is there to hold up a leg or arm or some such, to basically take gravity out of the situation.
While I was moving around, my ‘partner’ put her hands where she felt they were needed. The energies from her touch as well as the physical touch itself made me want to move more and go into other positions. It was very interesting letting my body move where it wanted.
When we switched, I was the one watching over my partner. She started going through some gyrations and movements. I suddenly saw a picture of myself putting my hands on her chest and abdomen. When I did this, she started crying. (She told me later that these were the exact positions she needed to have my hands.) She continued to move and cry until time was called. She told me that she had tapped into something that happened when she was a child. I didn’t ask what it was about as I figured it was none of my business.
Later we did a group unwinding. This was where one person was unwinding and there were several people around to help. In this exercise, the person unwinding went through so many movements, they ended up on the floor, doing more movements. The people around were responsible for making sure that the person unwinding went to the floor gently, and gave them what they needed. Sometimes the subject would know they needed someone’s hand in a particular place and they would grab it and place it there. One person was going through some movements and figured out that she was going through giving birth to her second child. She grabbed my hand and had me help push.
While this was going on, she realized she was harboring some emotion about the birth, and it started to come out.
Unwinding has been a real eye opening experience. A lot of the people were connecting to emotion. (I wasn’t able to bridge that gap. I was just on a physical level.) They had lowered the lights so the room was dimly lit. Every now and then someone would laugh, or cry, or scream. I would love to see the look on someone’s face as they walked in to change out the refreshments. They would see a dark room with people rolling around on the floor, and every now and then hear a blood curdling scream.
As I said, it was an interesting experience.