Why Your Body Feels Out of Tune (Fascia Holds the Key)

From Fitness to Fascia - Why I stopped exercising once I felt the sensory wisdom of fascia through somatic movement

You know that feeling when you're trying to tune a guitar, and one string is just... off?

The whole instrument sounds wrong, even though most of the strings are fine. You could play harder, press the strings more firmly, or switch to a different guitar entirely. But none of that will solve the real problem.

The string isn't broken. It just needs to be brought back in tune.

Your body isn't so different.

The Day Everything Changed

In 2004, I heard a word that would completely reshape everything I thought I knew about the human body: fascia.

At the time, I was a fitness professional devoted to form, alignment, and effort. I believed that a strong core was the key to everything, and that if I worked hard enough, I could shape my body into wellness.

But something inside me remained untouched by all the effort.

Then I learned that fascia wasn't just connective tissue—it was a sensory organ. A living web that remembers stress, holds tension, and responds not only to movement, but to emotion, thought, and trauma.

More importantly, I learned how to listen to it.

During a somatic exploration, something unexpected happened. My body released a spontaneous sigh. A deep letting go. Without any technique or alignment cues, my body reorganized itself. It stood with ease. It moved with grace.

It knew what to do.

That moment changed everything.

What We Got Wrong About Our Bodies

Here's what I've discovered after two decades of this work: We're always affecting our whole body—there's no such thing as isolated work.

Traditional fitness approaches use voluntary movements (strengthening, cardio) that often strain the system, then rely on stretching or rest to recover. But there's another way.

What if instead of working harder, we learned to work with the body's own intelligence?

What if instead of adding more methods, we remembered that the body has one way of organizing itself—and we simply need to create the conditions for it to emerge?

The Missing Piece: Fascia, Your Body's Sensory Web

Science is revealing something remarkable about fascia. Researcher Robert Schleip has discovered that fascia contains six times more sensory receptors than muscle tissue—with many of these being slow-conducting C-fibers that researcher Bud Craig identified as crucial for interoception, our ability to sense internal body states.

Think about that for a moment.

Your fascia has more nerve endings going to your brain's feeling centers than to its movement centers. Your body is literally designed to feel first, move second.

Yet most movement approaches focus on proprioception—being told where and how to position your body.

What we're missing is interoception—the ability to feel from within and let movement emerge naturally.

This is why so many people feel exhausted by exercise, even when they're "doing everything right." They're working against their body's natural self-regulation instead of with it.

The Body Isn't Broken—It's Out of Tune

Here's what I want you to know: Your body isn't broken.

It's not failing you. It's not too old, too stiff, or too far gone.

It's simply out of tune.

It doesn't need to be replaced or forced. It needs space to reorganize, rehydrate, and return to its natural rhythm.

What It Feels Like To Tune Back In

This approach—which I call SomaSensing—isn't about learning new movements or following another method. It's about remembering what your body already knows.

Just like hunger, thirst or the urge to pee are everyday sensations that help us self-regulate. The body has movements that emerge to release stuckness, stress, strain and emotional trauma.

It might emerge like:

• A spontaneous sigh that releases tension you didn't know you were holding

• The urge to unwind that emerges naturally with a yawn after restful sleep

• Standing with ease instead of "holding good posture"

• Moving in a way that restores energy rather than depletes it

These aren't techniques to learn. They're natural blueprints to unlock.

A process called fascial unwinding, where movements emerge to recharge not deplete your energy.

Rest Isn't Stillness—It's Recharging

One of the biggest paradigm shifts is understanding that rest isn’t about being still or relaxing. It’s about resting from habitual patterns that leave us depleted. Taking a moment to pause from living life on autopilot to allow the body to recharge itself. 

We often think that physical activity depletes energy. It’s the opposite in fascial unwinding. The body recharges as it moves. Because it goes through a different sensory pathway.

Allowing the body to move intuitively. Sometimes there are small, quiet movements. Sometimes bigger movements, bouncing, jumping or a whole-body unwinding (what scientists call pandiculation — think of how cats and dogs naturally stretch when they wake up).

The body knows what it needs and sometimes bigger movements are required to restore elasticity and spring, an energy storing state.

Why This Matters Now

We're living in a time when more people are exhausted, disconnected from their bodies, and frustrated by approaches that promise transformation but leave them feeling depleted.

Especially women in midlife, who are navigating hormonal shifts while being told they need to work harder to "maintain" their bodies.

What if the opposite were true?

What if this stage of life is actually an invitation to tune in more deeply? To honor your body's wisdom instead of overriding it?

During different stages in our life cycle our body changes and requires different energy demands. This is where listening really matters.

The Practice of Listening

SomaSensing isn't a new method—it's a reconnection. A return to what the body already knows.

It's fascia-informed, science-backed, and gentle enough for anyone. But most importantly, it's yours. Your body's own intelligence, waiting to be heard.

The practice is simple: pause, sense, rest and let you body respond from within.

No fixing. No forcing. Just listening.

When you rest, you unlock the intuitive process of fascial unwinding, the body's way of bringing you back in tune. Restoring suppleness, strength and vitality.

Coming Home to Your Body

Every time I work with someone new, I'm always in awe of how the body calms stress and chronic pain when given the space to come to quiet.

How their body's natural capacity for healing, for movement, for vitality is all that is required.

Not by doing something new, but by allowing the process to emerge.

Not by learning new techniques, but by remembering old wisdom.

Your body has been trying to come back in tune this whole time. It's been speaking to you through sensation, through tension, through fatigue, through the way it naturally wants to move.

The question isn't whether your body knows how to heal.

The question is: Are you ready to listen?

The P R A Y Practice - A 5-minute somatic practice

A gentle somatic pause to bring your body back in tune.

P – Pause

Could you take a moment to pause, to arrive, to notice where your attention is right now? Without needing to change anything. Just notice

R – Rest

Can you take a moment to rest? To let your body rest from the noise. To come to quiet.

What supports you right now—beneath you, around you, within you? Can you feel where your body is already softening?

A – Attune

As you tune in, could you allow yourself to take care of any areas of stuckness, tension, or holding? Can you self-adjust to soften and sense spaciousness, ease, or aliveness?

Can you rest your attention in what feels most nourishing?

Y – Yield

Let your body find inner ease. Your body may send you the urge to move, shift, or unwind can you let the happen? Can you follow the impulse to wiggle, to sigh, to find what feels good, without directing it?

This way of tuning in to your inner felt sense is called interoception. It takes care of you from the inside out, keeping you calm, supple, strong and pain free. A way of being that helps you bounce back when life throws you off center

Ready to Tune Back In?

If this resonates with you and you're ready to explore what it means to truly listen to your body, I have two ways to support your journey:

Start Here: Download my free guide The Somatic Secret to Vitality (Begins in Your Fascia) - discover how fascial hydration and gentle movement can restore your energy from within.

Go Deeper: Move With Ease - my self-paced somatic mobility course that shows you how to restore natural flexibility and reawaken ease in your body, at any age. Because getting older doesn't mean moving less—it's the moving less that makes us feel old.

Your body isn't broken. It's just been waiting for you to tune back in.