The Body Doesn’t Forget

I first learned about fascia in 2006, when I was living in Los Angeles. It was long before I understood what the body was holding onto.

It was through a method called Gyro Somatic Training (GST), developed by Anna Rahe. At the time, it felt ahead of how I understood the body, but I connected to it immediately. I remember feeling it before I could understand it.

I didn’t have language for any of it then. Somatic release wasn’t something I was thinking about, but there was a clear sense that something was shifting. A release of tension I hadn’t realized I was holding, the body responding in a way that felt both unfamiliar and completely intuitive at the same time, like it already knew something I didn’t yet.

It stayed with me in a quiet way. Something I understood more through sensation than language.

It showed up again years later.

About fifteen years later, I met Bonnie Crotzer, who created The Floss. Something about the way she spoke about the body, what it holds and what it remembers, brought me back to that earlier experience. It didn’t feel new. It felt like something resurfacing, something I had felt before but hadn’t stayed with long enough to understand.

The Floss is a series of movements designed to open the body, create space, and allow energy to move more freely, rooted in Chinese meridian pathways but felt more than analyzed.

Around that time, I also came across The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. It articulated something I had already begun to feel — that the body stores experience in ways that don’t always move with time.

Being inverted changes your relationship to everything. Not just balance — but where you hold, where you resist.

There’s something beneath the surface holding it all together — responsive, adaptive, constantly in dialogue with how you move.

You don’t notice it until it begins to shift.

Working more closely with the body over time, and more recently with Dr. Oswald, who focuses on fascial manipulation, shifted my understanding of it entirely. Not as a concept, but as something you can actually feel.

The way tension lives in the body.
The way it moves.
The way it resists.
The way it releases.

There were moments where I realized I had been holding tension in places I hadn’t questioned, until something shifted and it let go.

I’ve broken my ankle. I’ve had my appendix removed. Experiences I moved through and left behind, at least mentally, but the body doesn’t move on in the same way.

Working with fascia, I started to feel how those moments can stay, not as memories you think about, but as patterns in the body itself. Subtle restrictions, areas that don’t move as freely, places that have adapted without you realizing it.

Dr. Oswald speaks about how fascia can hold onto the past, not just in a metaphorical sense, but physically — old injuries, scar tissue, accidents, patterns formed much earlier in life. The body adapts, compensates, protects, and over time those patterns settle in. You don’t notice them until you begin to unwind them. And it is an unwinding. Not a quick fix, but a process of becoming aware of what’s been there all along.

Fascia isn’t something most of us think about, but it’s everywhere, a connective tissue that runs through the entire body, surrounding muscles, organs, and structure. It allows everything to communicate, to move as one system rather than separate parts. And it holds.

The body holds onto more than we realize. Not just physically, but in ways that are harder to name — patterns, tension, memory, things that sit beneath awareness until something brings them forward.

The more I’ve paid attention to it, the more I’ve noticed how connected everything actually is. It’s made me more aware of what I place on my body, not in a routine-driven way or even from a results perspective, but in terms of contact.

The skin isn’t just a surface. It’s a point of entry, a barrier but also a bridge. What we place on it doesn’t just sit there, it enters into relationship with the body.

I’ve been using a rose water spray since my twenties. It’s the one product I’ve never changed. Something about the way it makes my skin feel — and even just the scent — has always stayed consistent.

There’s a reason for that. Rose water is naturally hydrating, calming, and balancing for the skin. It helps reduce irritation, supports the skin barrier, and brings everything back to a more neutral state without disrupting it.

For me, that’s always been the rose water from Just Be by Negin Niknejad. It’s something I’ve returned to consistently — simple, effective, and rooted in a level of care you can feel.

I’m constantly researching and trying new oils, always looking for something that feels different.

About a year ago, I was introduced to Shawnelle Prestidge of Prestidge Beauté. We met for a consultation to experience her products. I wasn’t expecting much, but I ended up switching almost immediately.

The oil became my savior. It just felt so good putting it on the skin, and over time the results spoke for themselves. I finished the bottle quickly without really thinking about it, which for me says everything.

What stood out wasn’t just how it felt going on, but how my skin responded over time — the texture, the way it held moisture, the way it looked without needing anything else layered on top.

Oils like this support the skin’s natural lipid barrier, helping to lock in hydration, calm inflammation, and bring everything back into balance so the skin doesn’t have to work as hard.

But beyond that, there’s something else. A level of care in how it’s made — the sourcing, the process, the intention behind it — that you can feel when you use it.

Not just healing, but something that changes how the skin receives what you put on it.

A face mask from Of Them All, founded by Lauren Picciano, sits somewhere between skincare and mindfulness — less about layering product and more about how you feel in your skin when you slow down enough to use it.

And a body cream I found at the spa at Furore Grand Hotel in Italy. Infused with local herbs, it felt less like something formulated and more like something gathered, an extension of the landscape itself. Not something you order or restock. You have to go there. Worth the trip.

Travel has always had a similar effect on me. Not as an escape, but as a return — to rhythm, to environment, to a different pace of attention.

In Italy, that connection feels immediate. The landscape, the light, the way everything is grown, made, and experienced with a kind of inherent respect for process.

It’s not forced.
It’s just understood.

And that, more than anything, is what I keep coming back to — in movement, in beauty, in how we choose to live.

Bonnie Crotzer, The Floss
https://thefloss.com/ FLOSS50 (50% off first month)

Anna Rahe, Gyro Somatic Training (GST), Vital Life Studio
https://gstvitalifestudio.com/ ROBYN25 (7-day free trial + 25% off first 3 months)

Lauren Picciano, Of Them All
https://ofthemall.com/ OFTHEMALL15 (15% off)

Negin Niknejad, Just Be
https://www.justbeskinline.com/ LIVEJUSTBE22 (22% off site-wide, expires 3/31)

Shawnelle Prestidge, Prestidge Beauté
https://www.prestidgebeaute.com/products/ageless-skin-serum?variant=37092169384088/ RBVIP20