Lauren Roxburgh: The WiFi of the Body

Lauren Roxburgh has been working with fascia long before fascia even became a word we know. A life-long athlete, Lauren knew from a young age that she had a different type of intelligence—less verbal, more kinesthetic. She can feel things with her hands and sense how and where a body is out of alignment—it’s quite stunning to behold. Lauren applies her genius to the fascia, the web of tissue—or matrix, as she calls it—that wraps around our muscles and organs. She believes that the fascia is the energetic web of our bodies, the sense organ that connects our intuition to how we move. She argues that it holds movement patterns and emotional patterns, that our trauma can get stuck or blocked in these tissues. After working with Lauren for a decade, I think she might just be right. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.

TRANSCRIPT:

(Edited slightly for clarity.)

ELISE LOEHNEN: How are you doing?

LAUREN ROXBURGH: Good. Excited. I listened to our chat that we recorded, some good nuggets. So I feel really good and yeah, I'm just excited and of course it's like you're one of my favorite people to talk to, so it's gonna be fun. That's the most important. Right? Have fun, enjoy the process, and be authentic.

ELISE: See where we end up. It's funny though, I was thinking it's almost Max's 10th birthday, and I was like, oh my god. I have known Lauren for almost a decade. That is wild.

LAUREN: Oh, we've been through a lot together, babe.

ELISE: We sure have, but yeah, I have so much obviously love for you and gratitude because I feel like you introduced me to a whole new understanding of the body and also have introduced me to so many people, I know Jennifer Freed because of you and such, such amazing people from this web that's being woven.

LAUREN: Well, you've done the same for me, and that's what we do for our sisters.

ELISE: Yeah. You and I have talked a lot about where each of us are uniquely skilled and gifted and where we feel like we're not. Take me back to when you had this dawning awareness, or maybe it wasn't a dawning awareness, and you've always known this throughout your life, that you have an understanding that maybe we don't all have, or a deeper skill that's not as present.

LAUREN: Well, I love this question because it is something that I've been talking a lot more about lately, which is, you know, when I was younger, when I was 16, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and I was really inspired to learn about the human body and how it worked. I would take her to her cancer treatments at Stanford University and I would talk to the doctors and ask them, where does cancer come from? How does it show up in the body? And they would always say, well, it's environmental and it's genetic. And then there's this whole other piece that we don't really know. And I thought, curiosity’s opened up in me and I was like, I'm gonna figure that out. And at the same time, I was also a really good athlete. I was an All-American swimmer, always had a really good ability to feel connected to my body and to be able to listen to my body and actually be able to have it do amazing things without that much effort, and so I didn't realize it actually until many years later when I discovered the work of Ida Rolf—structural integration, that as soon as I enrolled myself into that school and that program, I realized that I had this incredible kinesthetic intelligence—that I could feel things and see things and feel things in people's bodies or see the way people move or the way they posture or present themselves to the world. And it really put me on this journey and this path to dive in deeper to this. And so that's kind of a short version of my story, but essentially from the age of 16 I was ready to go with like learning and you know, going on this journey of not being a doctor and actually going more holistically and learning all these different modalities like yoga, meditation, Reiki, Thai yoga massage, you know, Kundalini yoga. And then the body work was the really big piece for me, putting it all together and of course, pilates. And so when I put it all together, I realized that I had this intelligence that wasn't nurtured in school. I wasn't really the best student in school. I was more of an athlete and more of physical body. That's why I think I've been called the Body Whisperer because I feel like I can, you know, tune in to feeling what's happening with people's bodies and help them understand and start to listen to the whispers of their bodies. I feel really lucky to have found this intelligence and to have been able to work with amazing people on the planet of all different types and to be able to help them get to know their body better and to tune in to hopefully help them increase their somatic or kinesthetic intelligence within their own bodies, cause it's a true gift. It helps you enjoy life better. Enjoy this meat suit we're all walking around in and become more at ease.

ELISE: Yeah, so we're gonna park the energetics of the body for a minute and get to that at length.

LAUREN: Okay, love it.

ELISE: But first I think for anyone who is like, what are they talking about? What's interesting about this work is that, so I met Lauren after I had my first child, and I think like most women, I don't know that I would've necessarily been able to identify it in myself or the way that my body had changed the support carrying a child but when Lauren took photos of me and we looked at my structure, how my structure had changed, it was pretty pronounced. And then I did this series, the 10 series with Lauren, where she got deep into my fascia. It can be quite painful, not gonna lie, but sort of realigned my pelvic structure. It was remarkable, more impactful than exercise or any other intervention that I did was this remodeling the pattern of pregnancy and helping me revert back to probably quote unquote more original shape. And I think anyone who's listening knows that there are certain physical patterns in the way that we hold ourselves that then get calcified or enshrined in our structure, and we'll talk about fashion in a minute. I'm gonna kick it over to you. But that also, then you get into this emotional layer. Like for me, so much of my structural, my postural issues, and a lot of the chronic pain that I have in my upper back and neck, I believe is from the way that I've held myself in order to hide myself, both being a tall woman like you, Lauren, and having a, I love saying the word bossum because it's such a weird word, but like, just trying to hide, trying to not be fully at my height. And so I think that that's, to me, how the physical implications of the way we live show up in patterns in our, in our structure. And then the emotional can also show up. Can you tell us about the fascia and take us back to that beginning too, because I know at the beginning it was sort of like, why would you give a crap about fascia?

LAUREN: Exactly, and I think that's an important piece because I get really far ahead and wanting to explain new discoveries and everything, but I have to realize that not everyone even knows what fascia is. So starting there and giving people a really good basic outline. And also because of my physicality, I came into it, you know, getting excited about the physical benefits, right? So like physically, when you are a more aware of the system in the body, the system of the body fascia is this wide network of connective tissue. It lays underneath the skin and around the entire body, right under the skin. Some people call it a second skin, and it weaves. That's the superficial fascia. So that's the outer layer, and that's the part we've gotten so excited about with rolling and you know, pilates and all of these kind of physical activities. And so the physical part is really important because it's the organ of form, ome people have called it in the past. It's essentially the body's glue. This is the way medicine has looked at it in the past, but now we're starting to understand that it's not only on the superficial part of us, but it's actually weaving through our entire body. So it weaves through every organ, every nerve, every node, every vessel, it's this vast network of connective tissue, so it's essentially boundless. It's actually touching every cell of our body. So what's exciting about that is now we know it's going through and affecting everything. Some people, actually, Hellen Lang Vine out of Harvard University is calling it the meta system, because, not that it's better than any other system in the body, but because it's intercepting and communicating with every system of the body. And so now that we know that there's this thing there, we now know, or we're starting to know and emerging research is happening that not only is it there, it's also electrical and it's sending and receiving information. Information, light, sound, frequency, and vibration.

And this is not like getting out of the, getting out of term and saying things that are outside of what we actually now have been learning about in the most recent years in the, in the research field of fascia. So I think that's really exciting to me because we know the physical part. We know what it can do biomechanically, how it can change your posture, the way you present yourself, the way you are able to take up more space and feel more at ease, and also process and metabolize stress more efficiently as well. But now we know it's actually affecting us biologically, so there's even a possibility it could even have an impact on preventing cancer down the road. There's people talking about that now in the fascia science world, which I get super excited about.

ELISE: I mean, my understanding of you as, as a practitioner is that you're just following your intuition and your understanding of the body. Has that changed? Because I know in the early, early days, there wasn't much science. Right? Not that it wasn't taken seriously. Nobody really cared about fascia.

LAUREN: Yeah. Western medicine has had not much interest in fascia for many years. It was disregarded in, you know, dissections, cadaver dissections in medical school for many years. It wasn't until the later, like 2008 or something, when people started really paying attention to it. So we're talking like new, new science, new research and even the capacity to have a really big impact on the medical paradigm in the long run. But for me personally, when I was able to get a session in structural integration, the thing that I eventually became a practitioner and went to school for, which was back in 2009. So it's been a while now. It's been a beat, right before I met you, basically or a few years before. And when I did my first session, it didn't matter what science was saying at that point, I knew what I felt. I felt something so profound. I had a session with my teacher, different Dan, down in Laguna Beach and I was working with a pro athlete, Olympian volleyball player. And she was like, you've gotta meet this guy Dan. He does structural integration in Laguna went and saw him late on his table.

I got off the table and I felt like I'd had 10 years of physical therapy and 10 years of like talk therapy, like emotional therapy. And I thought nothing could have stopped me. I was in a very toxic marriage at the time, I was you know, closing out the end of that marriage. And learning this work just completely helped me through that. My dark night of the soul. My perfect storm. I went through a really tough time, but this work saved me and actually put me back together in a more organized, more balanced, more grounded, more passionate, more inspired version of myself. And so when I had that session, I was like, I have to learn this. And luckily, this guy, Dan, was starting his first year of the program and it was actually a two year program. So I've been studying this and teaching this and bringing this to the world since then. And when I went through that program, I was lucky enough to also realize that, yeah, I followed my intuition, I followed my kinesthetic intelligence of feeling, and I was like, I'm going to do this, and then it just opened up into a lot more magic.

ELISE: Well, it's fun work because you can see it, in the way that you can't necessarily see a massage or, I mean, I love a massage when I'm lucky to get one. But this work is deeper at every level. It is touching old emotions. And, since you deserted me and moved to New Zealand, I still love you. But seeing Dan too and just having really intense conversations with him as his working. And he's like, you very present of stagnation, stuck emotion and it's wild. It's really wild. I've done this with you as well and you know me so well that it's, I'm easy prey for you, but the way that the body communicates to me is undeniable. And the dead zones do you see that a lot with people where you're sort of like, there's nothing happening. This area of the body is not online.

LAUREN: Oh, absolutely. I love that you say online, because that's another way I like to explain fascia because we can't see it. I mean, yes, we can see it. It's like the, you know, it's the white stuff on chicken if you wanna visualize it right it, and you can look at it under a microscope or you can look at it with certain new cameras that they have now in technology. You can see it under the skin in a living body, which is exciting. But the fact that we can't see it, but it is still there, it's just like, to me, it's a good way to explain it is it's like the wifi of your insides. And so when you realize that you have this system that's moving, you know, energy and information through the body, and if you wanna upgrade your wifi, then you've gotta get to know your fascia. And it's not like your fascia is the most important system of the body, it's just that it is connecting and communicating with every system of the body. So if you want all your other systems to work well, like you know, your immune system, or your nervous system, or your lymphatic system, or your digestive system, all of those things, then you need to start understanding this part of the body. So I think it's one of these areas that, I mean, as we mentioned earlier, like the physical part is the part that got me into it. And now we're starting to see, well, and I've seen it in my practice too, that you know, the emotional part. So I mean, I don't even think I realized the power of it when I first started, and then I started seeing how there were these emotions that would come up and, they call it a crea. So it's like energy coming to the surface, maybe in an area where you have a stored emotion or stored trauma.

So trauma can get stuck in our tissues.You know, our emotions can actually be stuck in our tissues because in a way, our fascia is actually holding and remembering everything that we experience in our lives, because it's this living matrix. And so maybe people don't realize it and it might be in the subconscious mind, but when you're laying on the table and you drop into parasympathetic state of the nervous system and your, your subconscious mind is more available and your body is more available to actually be present and to let things come to the surface, it's incredible what people will let go of, and they didn't even realize it was there, and then all of a sudden the pain is released or they can start having an orgasm. Or they are just like laughing and giggling. I mean, just like energy or like they're undulating. Or they're vibrating or they're, you know, like something like, just energy coming up and releasing. It's such a beautiful thing. So now we really do know that the body, we are energy, right? So we are made of energy and we do know a lot about that now. You know, acupuncture and Chinese medicine, you know, the chi and the meridians and the channels of the body. So we're affecting those when we do work with our fascia, because the meridians and the meridians are in the fascia as well, so there's energy happening and emotions happening. So you've got the physical, biological, and then you also have the emotional and the energetic parts of the fascia.

So, and then of course, I think, and I believe that there's a whole other conversation that will come as we start to embark on this new paradigm and understanding the system of the body. I mean, we're just, at the beginning, there's a so much emerging research coming. So I get super excited about the research cause it confirms what I've felt and known and have followed my heart and my own intuition from day one. So that's why I get excited about the science cause it's confirming kind of what I've already been feeling for a long time.

ELISE: Yeah. What's one another interesting part of the work is a reacquaintance for me at least. I mean, I think I probably like a lot of women, I struggle with being in my body, right? So I can sort of disassociate and hang out in my head a lot and out there, wherever out there is. So, being in my body is not always my first choice. And that sounds a little stranger than I mean it. I just, I think if people stop and think about that for a second, they'll, they'll be like, oh, I know. I kind of know what she means. And so in doing this work, over the years and getting on a roller. I mean, that's the other, well, we can talk about sort of how accessible it can be to people in a minute. But, years ago when you released my pelvic floor, which is trayson team, very intimate work. But in a way it was, it was such a gift because Lauren was like, do you know where your pelvic floor is and can you locate it? Can you physically sense it? Can you release it? And we might exercise our pelvic floors with kegels and whatnot, but I think most people can't. And so she located it for me. And then she told, I don't know if you remember telling me this, but you were, you told me every time I get to a stop sign release it because our pelvic floor gets so tight from this like perma clench and it gets very weak because it's so tight.

And so I think about that. I'm terrible, I'll be honest, about remembering to release it at stop. But I was talking to Dan about the, the pelvic floor recently, and he was like, you know, I think of it as your, another sensory, a sensory organ in the body. And this is connected to all the fascia.

And I want you to notice when you're in the presence of other people, is your pelvic floor relaxed or is it clenched because. Essentially he was suggesting that it is one of our sense perceptions for safety and how we assess our environment, even though we're completely disconnected from that. And it's been really interesting to notice when I have a clench, like in the bottom of my stomach, I guess is one way of locating it, and then what it feels like when I can really, truly relax around someone. But going with that and this idea of kinesthetic intelligence or just the fascial network as a means for reading our environment, I've heard you explain like the spine shivers, goosebumps, that it is our intuitive body. Will you talk a little bit about that?

LAUREN: Absolutely. Yes. So essentially, what the new science is showing, and not everyone is in agreeance, by the way, with this, but that it's our richest sense organ because it has so many nerve receptors. Okay? So in the fascia we actually feel things before our brain even feels it. So it's like we feel things at the speed of light in our fascia. So because we feel things that way, we could actually, like you said, get an intuitive hit or get the chills. So if we get the the chills up our spine, it's the truth residing in us, or we get butterflies in our belly, it's like, are we nervous about something? Or you know, the weight of the world on your shoulders, or you can't swallow. These are emotional signals in what I like to call or not, it's not just my term, but that fascia is the sixth sense. The sense of feeling. So as skin is to touch, fascia is to feeling. And so there's so much power in that because when we can get better at feeling, it's not just about feeling better, it's about getting better at feeling so that we can actually kind of harness these messages and start living our life with a little bit more of awareness and authenticity and listening to that instinct and that intuition is a powerful piece of, I think, living in what I like to call alignment. So, yeah, it’s a really exciting thing to think about because I think we haven't realized that, you know, it's how the energy is transmitting through us, through this webbing, essentially, right? That is sending and receiving information.

ELISE: Yeah. And so when you think about that in the context of intuition or bringing down information or pulling information out of the atmosphere, the environment, the imaginal realm, however you wanna imagine it, that we perceive it in many different ways potentially, but that this is maybe how it lands in the actual physical body.

LAUREN: Yes. That is so well said. So when you think about what fascia is like, we're, you know, it's like this stringy white thing in the body. It's this stretchy kind of silver skin, you know, it's like, but that's just the physical part. Like we were saying, the meat suit. So the energy that's traveling through it, this is where it gets really interesting to me because if that energy is traveling through this physical system, is it then not travel? outside of us, like from my heart to your heart right now to the sacred web of fascia, or is it also then reconnecting us to the earth as well? There's fascia in the earth, so, and then when you go stand on the earth, there's research on this. I don't have to validate it. You know, earthing is basically standing on the earth and the earth energy is activating your energy and recharging your own body battery with the electromagnetic energy from the earth that's going up and feeding your body energy. So it's just really interesting cause I have a whole thing I call fascia foods, but it's not just what you eat, it's actually everything you ingest. So it's like, you know what you read, your thoughts, the people you spend your time with, you know, like the air you breathe, the water you drink, all of those things are affecting , I mean, your fascia is just the one system, but I think for me, I'm just on a mission to help people understand this system and how if they can optimize the system and understand the reason why they need to, then they will optimize their actual biology, but also their ability to kind of enjoy life and have fun and pleasure and not be so stuck and restricted in wearing the armor that you know holds us back from living our greatest purpose and letting the light shine. You know what I mean? It's like we, a lot of people in the body work world will say that we are actually liquid light. We are light like pulsing through a physical body. And so as we start to work with fascia, we're able to kind of become more, if you will, enlightened.

So we become more full of light as we start to become more aware and hopefully, I mean, that's kind of evolution, right? Is like if people can become more enlightened or full of light, then they will, you know, be able to make more of a difference in the world and have more compassion and those kinds of things. I know those are getting quite ethereal, but I mean, I have to be honest, that's what I feel and that's what I see. I do feel like it could be the next, frontier.

ELISE: Well, I think there's a fluidity or flexibility about it too. That's a little, an antidote to the way that we can become calcified and stock and frozen and crunchy. You know, like that crunch that I used to have a lot more crunch, which I guess is, I don't know what that is, but is that my fascia?

LAUREN: That is facia dehydrated. So yeah, bringing it back to the physical, cause I think that's where a lot of people come into this work is for the physical because it's very tangible and we can see it improve it and those kinds of things. So yeah, I mean, scar tissue is like if you get an injury, your body will then like build like a little scar inside so that it heals.

Okay? So that's there for the healing process, but it's not meant to be there for the long run. So you see this in animals too animals can, you know, kind of move and they do crazy. Like that's why we have a lot of yoga moves that are named after animals because they're doing these things to free up the connective tissue and to kind of like actually emote energy and get the energy in motion out of the body so it doesn't get stuck and make you heavy and dense and humans, we just, I think we've just forgotten. You know, we just have, because we've been sitting a lot and we have so much technology that's helped us evolve in, in so many ways. We now are not moving our bodies enough to really cleanse and purify and release and metabolize this stuff that needs to move through us.

So it's really amazing, and it doesn't take much. That's the thing. Like you said, it's very simple, it’s like the most malleable system of the body fascia. It literally sh can make your shape different depending on how you posture yourself or how you build your muscle and everything. So a lot of people come to it for the aesthetic benefits cause it does have a lot of those and kind of beauty benefits cause it boosts when you work with it, it boosts collagen and, but there's, for me it's so exciting cause it's so much more than that because it's just this deeper system that I think the more we're gonna, the more we get to know it and honor it, the more we're gonna start to see.

ELISE: Well, one thing that I enjoy about your whole worldview is one, you're the happiest person I've ever met. You just are always kind and always positive. But also in sort of this age of CrossFit and training ourselves really aggressively and pushing ourselves, you have been holding a line against that, or maybe not even against it, but for something else, which is that we should be gentle with ourselves. There is no reason to rush to abstention and restriction and working out in ways that hurt. And a lot of the things that you, you know, you introduce me to my favorite, I call it geriatric yoga, but yoga church with Julian, but it's stretching. It's so calming and brings my nervous system right into a peaceful place. Obviously you love the rebounder and just like bouncing gently for the lymphatic system. But there's like a gentleness and gracefulness to how you train yourself and how you have always told me to train myself. I don't always listen, but I recognize the wisdom and you look amazing. So, just chilling out, chilling out.

LAUREN: Well, I know it's so funny because it really is like this old paradigm. I think we've been stuck in for so long that we have to be so restrictive and so aggressive and I mean, I guess it depends, like everyone has a different kind of intention of why they work out and things. But I think, you know, there’s a whole thing with like, you know, women and aging and you know, you've gotta lift weights and those kinds of things. And I think people don't realize that we are actually existing in gravity. So our body is actually a weight. So if you're doing things like, you're going upside down or you're twisting or you’re putting weight on certain parts of your body when you're doing certain types of movements, you are lifting weights.

And so I think it really just depends on what your goals are and your intentions are. But I'm a big believer in, get to know your body, get to know the way everything works, rebalance your nervous system first, and then you will start to see that your body actually knows exactly what to do. It has this innate intelligence, and when we start to come back home in a remembrance of this intelligence, we can actually have it do whatever we want it to do. Whether that's like become a bodybuilder or become a ballet dancer, like so much more of it comes from the awareness and the connection and understanding how the body works. Rather than like, I'm gonna go and just force myself to do all these things. Let's start working with the body so that you can actually enhance all of these incredible systems that are already there. So it's just, that's what's exciting to me as well, is like a new paradigm is coming. just wellness, like we've talked about and you've talked about, which I love is just like going from wellness in pills and powders and restriction to actually wholeness and embracing the being, what it means to be a human being, to feel the feelings and to connect to yourself and to others, and to have more compassion and to be strong in that too, and powerful. There is so much power in that. I think we're coming into a new paradigm.

ELISE: You've worked on a lot of bodies from sort of the elderly to the pro athlete to the unfit. Right? And I think, you know, one of the things about, and maybe men feel this way too, but women, I think certainly do, which is this, unfortunately in our culture, The inbound messaging and marketing is so intense, and I mean, I write about this at length and OOBB, but very early, I think we lose, we lose any sense, any thread on what our body is supposed to look like, how it's supposed to feel, how it's supposed to perform.Our natural shape. You know, we grow up and we're on these growth charts, right? And there's this understanding that we're all aligned somewhere along this height and weight chart, and that's our, in some ways, our destiny, at least for the first however many years. And at some point, I guess will come off, but the whole point is that you're supposed to stay on your growth curve.

If you meander from your growth curve, that's an alarm to a doctor that something's wrong. But if you're in the fifth percentile or you're the 95th percentile, if you stay in that percentile, that's the hope or that's the trajectory. q Anyway, I think as we as women, as we get older, there's this resounding belief that we should be able to change our bodies or make our bodies a certain size that may or may not be our genetic destiny. What do you see, like when you have people on the table and you look at how they're structured and put together, what's your view on that and the way that we're sort of, potentially holding ourselves to unreal reasonable expectations. Like what does it look like to see a body that's as it should be versus one that's maybe constrained in some way?

LAUREN: Oh, well, I mean you'll see misalignments, you know, you'll see the hips are out of alignment. There's a pelvic torsion. The shoulders are off. The neck is going one way. You know the feet are collapsed in or out. I mean, you'll see all of these misalignments, which can be emotional. They can be energetic, they can be from an injury. And so, but when we start to put ourselves back together in an actual, like, meaning like physically, structurally, from like, get the joints aligned and you know, and then when you get the joints aligned, then the force of gravity is running through you more efficiently, so your energy is flowing more efficiently as well. And so then the systems start to work more efficiently. So it's like when you get the body more organized, biomechanically, physically, then it actually enhances all of these other things, it is the trickle down effect. And so one of the side effects that people do tend to get. It's not even about weight.

It's about when you get, like we did with you, we get your structure more organized after having babies or I guess that was after Max. So we get your structure organized and then all of a sudden, like your body starts to shed the excess energy of whether it's like fat or lymph toxins or whatever it is, excess hormones that need to be purged from your body, your body can flush those things out, or the rigidity from holding the weight on the front of our bodies. So what happens is then you start to see a more organized body, and then you actually become more narrow because your body, it's like architecture. My dad was actually an architect, so growing up I would see his blueprints all over the house. And so when you get the structure more organized, you know, you go up instead of out. So you start to become more organized, more a sense of lightness coming up and down, like a sense of space, you know what I mean? And a sense of not so much compression, and so then your metabolism starts working better. Your limp system starts working better. Your nervous system is rebalanced because your body isn't using so much energy just to hold yourself up in gravity.

So now you can start using the energy for creativity, for connection, for intuition, for feeling your instincts again, or you know, having more fun or pleasure or joy. So it's really interesting how that physical beginning can really start to make this massive difference in, and this is why I get so excited about optimizing your fascia, is because there are all these incredible side effects and gifts that happen from really just becoming aware and doing these simple rituals and practices and getting the flow of energy in these pathways and channels like ignited.

ELISE: So when I met you, you were just working, you were working with people one-on-one, and we had many conversations about how you reach more people and you were early online and developing tools, foam rollers, domes, that the infinity roll, which is like two tennis balls connected so you can move it up and down your spine. I love this work because yes, it's amazing to get on the table with someone like you or Dan, and there are people who do this type of work that people can find. But you can approximate it, right? Like you can get on a roller and start doing various sequences. You have a studio, et cetera. Like where do you suggest that people start to even understand, to be like, oh, that's the fascia. Is it like rolling out your IT bands? Where do you start people.

LAUREN: Well, I love this because it was a big, and I remember talking to you a lot about this, like it was a big hurdle for me cause I felt like, I can only see so many people a day and I was seeing like 10 people a day at, at times, and I was so excited. But then I was like, wait a second. This is not gonna have the impact that I feel that I wanna have and I wanna get this information to people. And so it was quite a big deal to be able to, to write a book and then also create an online program and actually not touch someone. Like it was quite a big deal for me as my kinesthetic, touchy, touchy, feely person than I am. I wanted to touch everyone, but they were able, it's incredible by putting together this protocol in the system. And it's not, the thing about it is, it's not like just rolling your IT band. It's actually a systematic approach of working the entire system holistically, you know, and it is focusing more on the superficial fascia in the first course that I did. We got deeper into the power source. That was the next book, which I have that course coming out soon. But anyway, so basically like that course was so amazing for me to be able to give that to people and we were able to impact people all over the world by just using the big 36 inch foam roller. That we did a ton of content together in the past, and it was just like one of those simple tools that I used to give all my clients homework on it.

And some of them did it, some of them didn't. But the ones that did it really did feel and see indifference. And then I was like, oh my gosh, this could actually be a program that sits on its own. And then it was, and then we got the most incredible results and people grew an inch. They lost pants sizes. They felt more youthful and supple and juicy. And then they started feeling these emotional benefits, and then they started seeing these actual, like biological benefits, like even people with, you know, chronic inflammation and digestive issues and skin issues, things that we were like, wow. I mean, it's pretty incredible. You know, I, I always knew that there was something about this system and how it was gonna impact the whole body and the energy and even the soul, I believe.

And so now, to be able to send people to do these protocols, it’s so simple, so effective, and so inexpensive. So now I have this new thing called the five minute Fascia Flow, which I just feel like a lot of us are fatigued from, you know, the fitness world and, you know, everyone's over like doing these long programs that take, you know, 8 weeks or 12 weeks.

So I thought, you know what how can we give you something that you can do with no tools, no equipment. And it's so simple, like it's like a non-negotiable thing that you do every single morning for five minutes. Basically, it's like brushing your teeth like I always think of like working with your fascia. It's like an internal exfoliation, like you brush your teeth and you exfoliate your skin most of the time. Why can't we do five minutes of fascia flow? It's actually emotional and stress hygiene as well. So these five minute fascia flows are my new jam. So simple, so easy. They're actually really fun and enjoyable. You don't even need to be in workout clothes, but first thing in the morning, get that natural light in your eyes with no sunscreen and move your body and, I would love to share that with you.

ELISE: Okay. I know I love all the small exercises that you have where you're just like telling people how to actually stretch your, I'm like pointing out my ears, but like stretching out your, um, like hinging your jaw and, um, it's everywhere essentially.

LAUREN: It is, it's like we said the other day, like the vagus nerve, you know, finally people are starting to realize like how incredibly important the vagus nerve is and, you know, to decrease stress and to be more present and to have more compassion. Like, we're now in that place with fascia where we're starting to realize that there's all these other benefits that are showing up, and I think we're just at the beginning of really seeing how this is all gonna come out in the world.

ELISE: I am so grateful for Lauren’s friendship, support, love, and wisdom over these years, she really does have, which to me sounds like a very rare gift, particularly because as I mentioned I can be pretty mental, and emotional, but not as attuned to my feeling, so I will always be grateful for her ability to get me there. And she started an online studio years ago and has been building a pretty significant community and roster of other teachers, it’s all really gentle and graceful, and for that, I can’t recommend it enough alone. It’s called Aligned Life Studio and you can do jumping on rebounders and various foam rolling workouts and routines and just using your hands in powerful ways to open yourself up. Alright friends, I’ll see you next week.