EP 394 Why Your Fascia Holds the Key to Healing with Deanna Hansen
In this episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, I sit down with Deanna Hansen, founder of Block Therapy and Fluid Isometrics, to explore the often overlooked role of fascia in healing, fertility, and emotional wellbeing. Deanna shares her own remarkable story of healing chronic pain, anxiety, and weight struggles by working with the fascia, and explains how compression in the body, suppressed breath, and stored trauma quietly impact our health over time.
We talk about why proper diaphragmatic breathing is foundational to fertility, why the feet hold so many clues to pelvic alignment and reproductive health, and how releasing the fascia can support better menstrual flow, hormone balance, and overall vitality. Deanna explains the concept of TIP (Trauma Induces Programming and Patterning), how everyday traumas shape our posture and breath, and why creating space in the body is essential for the cells, organs, and energy to thrive.
If you have been feeling stuck, congested, or disconnected from your body, this conversation offers a grounded and empowering perspective on how to gently come back home to yourself.
Key Takeaways:
• Fascia is a connective web that links every cell, organ, and system. When it is congested or compressed, flow slows down and symptoms emerge in seemingly unrelated places.
• Trauma, suppressed emotion, and chronic shallow breathing pattern the body over time, creating compression that can show up as pain, fatigue, weight gain, hormonal imbalance, or fertility challenges.
• Diaphragmatic breathing is one of the most powerful tools we have. It supports the nervous system, oxygenates the cells, massages the organs, and helps the body release what it no longer needs.
• The feet are often a hidden key to fertility. Misalignment in the feet creates compensation up through the pelvis, which can affect menstrual flow, hormone movement, and reproductive health.
• Conditions like cramps, fibroids, cysts, and stagnation often reflect a body that cannot fully release each cycle. Creating space and improving flow allows the body to do its natural work.
• The body is intelligent, not broken. Pain and symptoms are messages, and when we listen with curiosity instead of fear, healing becomes possible.
Guest Bio:
Deanna Hansen is a pioneer in fascia decompression for physical and emotional transformation, with over 20 years of clinical experience and more than 50,000 hours working in the fascia. A Certified Athletic Therapist, she is the founder of Fluid Isometrics and Block Therapy, a self-care practice that is meditation, exercise, and therapy all in one. Deanna is also the author of Unblock Your Body: How Decompressing Your Fascia Is the Missing Link in Healing.
Connect with Deanna:
Website: www.blocktherapy.com
Book: Unblock Your Body on Amazon
Instagram: @blocktherapy
Disclaimer: The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Please consult with your healthcare provider before making any changes to your health or fertility care.
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Episode number 394 of the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. Welcome to the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Orbits. And on today's episode, I'm joined by Deanna Hansen, a certified athletic therapist and founder of Block Therapy and Fluid Isometrics. With over 20 years of clinical experience and more than 50,000 hours working in the fascia, Deanna has become a leading voice in helping people understand how compression, suppressed breath, and stored trauma shape your body over time.
In our conversation, Deanna shares the personal healing story that led her to this work and walks us through how fascia connects every cell, organ, and system in the body. We explore why diaphragmatic breathing is so essential for fertility and overall vitality, how misalignment in the feet can affect the pelvis and reproductive health, and why [00:01:00] so many of the symptoms women experience from cramps to stagnation to feeling stuck in their own body often trace back to lack of flow.
This is a grounded, eye-opening conversation about how the body is always communicating with us and how creating space, breath, and gentle awareness can help it return to its natural state of balance. I'm so excited for you to hear this amazing conversation that I had with Deanna, so stay tuned.
Welcome to the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. I'm Michelle, a fertility acupuncturist here to provide you with resources on how to create a wholesome approach to your fertility journey
Michelle: Welcome to the podcast, Deanna. I'm so excited to have you
Deanna: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here
Michelle: Yes. So, um, first of all, I've actually [00:02:00] watched you before, and I'm very excited that you are my guest today. I'm excited because I really love your work. I think that it's, it really fascinates me, just, um, the power of the fascia. The fascia is very magical, I would say. It has, um, powers that I think people are just starting to learn about.
I do think that it also, um, corresponds with a lot of what acupuncture does, so I'm so excited to dive in. So before we get started, I'd love for you to share a bit about yourself and how you got into the work that you're
doing. Oh, thank you. Um, yeah, I love sharing this. So this started for me 26 years ago. At the time, I was 30 years old, and I was really struggling. So prior to that moment, I was, um, studying to be a certified athletic therapist, which I became in... when I was 25. And now I'm working with professional athletes, and I've learned all the things that you need to do to be fit.
Deanna: I'm dieting. I'm working out like crazy. I'm in [00:03:00] the gym doing weights, running, Tae Bo, I mean, all of it. And the more I was putting that time and attention into my body, the more compressed, the more ballooned, the more toxic I became. So it was such a frustrating moment in time for me. I was, like, literally in a full-blown depression because I'm putting the time and energy in, and I'm not getting the results, and it's like, "Why are the rules of weight loss not applying to me?"
And it was more than my size and shape. It was literally how I felt so toxic inside and just that sense of failure for trying to do something so dramatic and getting results that were actually happening but in the opposite direction. So by the time I was 30 years old, I made some big changes in my life, and the result of those changes, uh, started...
I, I started having really severe anxiety attacks, and it was this one attack in particular that was really the foundation of my understanding of what was going on in my body and then creating this whole system, Block Therapy and, and, um, Fluid Isometrics. In the moment, I actually thought I was gonna die [00:04:00] because I was literally frozen in fear.
I couldn't catch my breath. So for some reason, I intuitively dove my hand into my belly, and the first thing that came to me was pain, but the pain brought me back into my body. So I'm like, "Okay, I'm alive. I'm breathing. All is good." Then I started intuitively exploring with my hands in the tissue. Now, as an athletic therapist up to that point, I always focused on deep tissue work, so I was very familiar with what scar tissue felt like in a body.
However, because I carried my 50 extra pounds of weight largely in my, in my belly, I hated that area of my body. I never touched it, let alone did I ever let anyone else touch it. So now I'm diving in, and what was fascinating was I felt that it was marbled with scar tissue even though I hadn't had any injury or surgery in that area.
So now I'm recognizing why when I'm coming home from a five-mile run dripping wet with sweat, my belly would still feel cold. There was no energy getting into that space. Around the same time, I also had started the practice of yoga, [00:05:00] and I had a wonderful teacher, and every 30, 45 seconds she would be prompting us to breathe.
And every time she did, I recognized I was holding my breath to some degree. So that also became a really foundational understanding for me. So I started fusing this together and working in my body with that intention in mind. And literally the second night that I did that same work in my abdomen, when I stood up, I felt taller.
And when I went and I looked in the mirror, I started crying because my belly was flatter than it had looked in years. So this now became my new, my new approach. Instead of doing all the other stuff that I was doing to try to change my container, now I'm simply doing this, and within two weeks my chronic low back pain was going away.
My neck pain was starting to improve, and most importantly, my outlook on life changed. I suddenly felt like I had some control again to what was happening to my body because, again, like, I put so much energy and time and money and effort into creating change that did change but in the wrong direction.
So this sense of hope. You [00:06:00] know, every time I would come home from working on patients, I, I had my hands in my own tissue, and it wasn't long before I started attracting therapists that wanted to learn what I was teaching because-- or what I was doing because the word was getting out how what I was now then applying to my patients was making dramatic change.
So that was 26 years ago, and it was probably two years in w- where I really recognized I'm working in the fascia. I'm not working in the muscles or the ligaments like we're trained to do. I'm working in this other tissue. So that began a whole adventure for me of understanding the deeper layers of this,
Michelle: It's so fascinating. The whole topic of fascia, um, I think a lot of people are starting to learn more about, and they're even finding that it has, it's almost like a network of communication. what people don't realize, I mean, people, you know, if anybody doesn't really know what fascia is, it's like, you know, when, if you've ever skinned a, a chicken or saw, you know, that connective, tissue, that white tissue that connects the [00:07:00] skin and the, the muscle.
But not just that, the amazing thing about fascia, and I think it was really intriguing to me when I did yin yoga, and the guy was talking about it and he said, you know, 'cause we're s- we're holding poses in a certain position for a long time, and he said once you release the fascia in one area, it actually impacts the whole because fascia is all interconnected.
It's like this web that not only is it under our skin, but it's also in between our organs. It goes really deep into our body. It's everywhere. So it's this huge web, and now they're finding even that it has, uh, structural water or it's like a, a type of, uh, another form of or state of water, which is a gel-like substance that communicates with the whole, so that if you're releasing it in one area, it releases so many other areas, which explains when you were saying that you were working on your abdomen, but then you started f- to feel like you were taller and then even, like, areas
that were not in [00:08:00] that specific location were starting to improve.
Deanna: And, and really what it comes down to, it's the cell membrane of every cell connecting other cell, every other cell. It's bone, it's ligament, muscle, skin, fat, organ. It's absolutely everything. We are a container with parts, but we are also this liquid crystalline matrix that is completely interconnected, and for that reason, you do change one thing and it impacts everything else.
And to that point, it's really important to understand also that where we feel pain and symptom, that's the cause or pain site... Or sorry, that's the, the pain or symptom site. The cause sites are from a distance, and that's where it can get frustrating for people when they're trying to resolve issues in their body, because we are often led to working in the place where we're struggling.
And yet that can cause you just kind of, you know, running in circles because if we don't release the anchors that are holding the body out of alignment, then we're not gonna get anything more than a temporary improvement in the situation
Michelle: [00:09:00] Very similar to how acupuncture works. People are like, "Well, why are you treating my
hand if it's really my digestion that I have to work on?" And that's, um... It, it really is. It's a-- Now they're starting to think that maybe the acupuncture points are actually stimulating the fascia, and then it's traveling and it's im- You know, that's one of the reasons, and the qi is sort of that travel network.
and I love the term matrix. It really is
kind of like this matrix that holds us together and communicates.
Deanna: Absolutely, and if I may just kind of talk a little bit about, um, my whole TIPP concept to really give people an understanding of what changes over time to the fascia structure that creates the issues and the symptoms that we're dealing with in the body. It really helps to give people a, a very deep understanding and sense of why they're struggling with their issues, whether it's fertility or pain or anything else in the body.
It really [00:10:00] becomes simple when you understand the system. So, um, I'm actually writing a, a book right now called TIPP, Trauma Induces Programming and Patterning. So essentially what happens in the body is ... Actually, let me back up one, one second here. So y- you were talking about what, makes up fascia. So there's a lot of components, and the structured water's a big piece of that, but there's two main proteins, collagen and elastin.
When these proteins are in balance, what that means is our cells are in their correct place. If that's the case, there's optimal space in and around every cell, space for the absorption of nutrients as well as the removal of toxins and debris. There's an ease of flow. As long as there's an ease of flow, there's no disease, disease, I don't even like calling it disease because in my mind that's this, you know, permanent constraint that we're now, like, labeled with, and then
Michelle: Another label. Yeah.
Deanna: But really it's understanding there's blockages in the body creating, a lack
of flow to certain [00:11:00] cells, organs, tissue, whatever it may be, and those areas will be struggling because they will be hungry and dirty.
So what happens over time with this tip, perspective is when there's trauma at whatever time and place, I mean, literally, we're traumatized every day because, I mean, listen to the news and we're traumatized. But, you know, we all have traumas that have impacted our perspective on life, our perception of reality.
So we have a trauma, and the first thing that happens is we immediately go into that reaction of holding the breath because we are protecting this vulnerable inside of our body. Unlike the deer who survives the attack, who shakes and releases that energy in the moment, we as humans, we hold the breath, and then we end up aging from that perspective.
So now we have this holding pattern in the core of the body, and if I was a victim and I'm holding my breath from that assault, now that programs my brain into that reality. And again, if I don't change that [00:12:00] reality, that's where my brain stays programmed. And now because the core of the body ends up becoming asymmetrical, the limbs have to pattern to keep us upright so we don't fall over.
And what's going on with this collagen, elastin balance, the collagen is the structural protein. The elastin allows mobility and freedom of movement, and when together we have our form and we have that ease of flow. But when that collagen protein, that structural piece, starts to migrate to areas of need to stop us from literally tipping over, that creates barricades to flow, just like scar tissue from an injury or surgery, which is basically a buildup of collagen in that area.
it's a slow-moving version of that reality, and it creates these grooves that we continue to move in over time, and it gets locked into the feet, the hands, and the top of the head most specifically because these are the areas furthest from the engine, the diaphragm. So if that beautiful muscle, the diaphragm, isn't working [00:13:00] as it should be, we have compensated over our lifetime, and we are now limiting the amount of oxygen in the body to get to the cells required, and we're also not keeping the lymphatic system mobilized to remove the toxins, and then we get a buildup.
So when I was struggling with my weight, fifty pounds overweight, and I'm doing all the work- I had no breath. I was a Highland dancer when I was a kid. I was told to hold my stomach in. I had my whole raft of traumas that created that alignment for me. So the more I was holding my breath and trying to hold my belly in to look a certain way, the more I was forcing this upper chest breath, this very shallow different breath.
And we can feed the body, I read this in, Stephen Cope's Yoga and the Quest for the True Self years ago. We can feed the body up to 600% more oxygen when we breathe diaphragmatically. That's six times. Wow. Not because we're pulling that more air into the lungs. Yeah. It's because we're bringing it to the base of the lungs where the [00:14:00] absorption is optimal. And also they've proven 84% of weight loss comes through proper exhalation, and that was such... I was so excited when I heard that. Um, you know, I think it was 2014 that they did a TED Talk on this. I'm like, "Well, there you go." You know? Again, I'm working out, I'm dieting like crazy, but I'm not breathing and my body's getting bigger.
So understanding these components of what is so crucial to keep us healthy and aligned and moving forward through time, it's really about the fascial system keeping the body in balance. If our core is balanced, the diaphragm can work dop- optimally. If it's c- if it's not, then again, we're, we're relying on these upper chest muscles to breathe, and it's limiting
Michelle: Yeah. I wonder if that has anything to do or with how we're processing energy in general, like the really the efficiency and possibly even leading to insulin resistance, 'cause so many of us have that. But we can obviously shift that through food, but we can also maybe physically and
[00:15:00] mechanically shift it by releasing that detoxification from the body so that it works more
efficiently, like
really systematically.
Deanna: I'm actually just gonna bring my camera down to show my core. So I just wanna talk a little bit about what you just talked about with metabolic function. So
Michelle: Mm-hmm.
Deanna: our diaphragm is the,
uh, the floor of the ribcage and everything above. When it's working properly, when we inhale, it moves down in the core, when we exhale, it lifts. So with conscious diaphragmatic breathing, we are getting a continuous massage. Your stomach, your liver, your pancreas, gallbladder, heart and lungs, spleen, like organs, um, you know, your, your kidneys, your adrenal glands in the back. So this mechanical activity gives energy to these organs. So here I am when I was younger, told to hold in my belly.
So now I'm using these external muscles to pull this area in, but now because I'm not breathing through here, because in order to breathe diaphragmatically, [00:16:00] we have to let the belly move. Now I'm holding and I'm breathing in this really shallow way up here, and over time, this muscle becomes weak. So then the weight of the ribcage and everything comes crashing down into that core space.
So we become shorter and wider. As I come crashing down, now I'm putting immense pressure on my stomach. The aorta, the main, the main ar- artery leaving the heart, it gets compressed and squeezed. Now your heart has to work harder. Your pancreas, designed of course to control blood sugar and so many other functions, it's not getting the energy it le- it needs.
How many people have fatty liver disease today? Because part of what keeps these organs healthy is the heating from the mechanical action. So butter at room temperature is a fat, heated it's a liquid. When we are working this area with simply the breath, it's keeping us at a certain tissue temperature, and the liver is essentially cold like all the other organs, so nothing's functioning as it should partly [00:17:00] because of that
Michelle: Yeah, I remember the first time I heard about diaphragmatic breathing. I actually trained myself to breathe, to belly breathe. Uh, it took me a while. Uh, I was like, "Wow, this is so crazy because I've gotten into such a habit of not breathing from my belly," just being afraid of like my belly just coming out.
And, and I-- And then I remember, um, getting lots of compliments from massage therapists, "Oh, you're a belly breather," 'cause it was like a, you know, it's rare. People don't, you know, they forget to breathe the way they did when they were younger naturally. And, uh, I remember also taking Pilates, which I, I like Pilates.
I mean, there's
definitely like aspects of it that do
support the body, but what I didn't like was that they tell you not to breathe from the belly. You're supposed to bre-breathe
from the back. I don't know what your thoughts on that
was. I'd be curious.
Deanna: Well, the thing is it's, it it should be coming from that space between the pelvis and [00:18:00] the ribs as a starting point. So again, if it's a relaxed breath, you know if, if we're, if we're working out and we're, we're running, we want the breath to come from the belly then to, uh, um, have the lower ribs, and then move up to the upper ribs.
We're getting this full beautiful breath. But if we're just breathing in a relaxed way, we're not working the body that much that we need that. So it, it does need to start in the belly, otherwise again, we're not getting the air deeply enough into the lungs to really support that proper diaphragmatic breath.
Michelle: And it also helps with the,
stimulate the vagus nerve, and that helps with digestion. So when people are hearing this mechanical thing,
it, it really
encompasses like everything
Deanna: It does. And, I mean, to talk about
digestion, it's so important obviously. And, and again, like we're so pulled away from how we should be running this container
that we get to live in. So part of what supports digestion, again, is that mechanical action, and chewing. [00:19:00] And think of how many people, like- Yeah
you know, eating becomes this social event, and you can't chew and talk at the same time. So if you're in conversation and you put food in your mouth, and I've done it many times myself, you don't want, you know, food as you're talking, so you swallow quick. So now you're not chewing properly. So now you're swallowing these big chunks of food that end up in your stomach container, and because most people aren't conscious of proper diaphragmatic breathing, they're breathing up here, and now there's this food in this container that doesn't have the energy from the breath, to actually help that digestive process.
So people with leaky gut, people with digestive problems, diverticulitis, c- like whatever it is, right? Like, all of it really comes down to the same thing. The entire system is stressed, and wherever you happen to be compressed, creating blockages for flow, we're gonna start to see some buildup of adhesion and issues as a result
Michelle: what are some of your suggestions? 'Cause I know you do a very unique type of
therapy, which is called block therapy, and [00:20:00] I've heard of people doing that and saying that they felt a huge release. How does that
work, and how does that work to really
release the body and the fascia, just generally speaking?
Deanna: So back to
the
whole concept of TIP, again, trauma induces programmed
patterning. It really comes down to understanding how to release the body in the pattern, and how to release that accumulation of those collagen proteins that have trapped lymph, negative emotion, toxins, all of the things, how to release that.
So we use tools that are made from wood. Um, this is the Block Buddy, this is the Block Baby. So our starter program has both of these tools, or you can get one or the other. If you're over five feet, the big one, if you're under five feet, the small one. The thing is, what we do is we always start in the belly position.
No matter what area of the body we're focusing on, we're gonna start in the belly so that we can first of all teach you where the breath should come from. And we [00:21:00] really do reinforce focusing on a longer exhale than an inhale for the reason that it increases the carbon dioxide in the body, which is required for the oxygen to leave the hemoglobin and get into the cell.
So, so many people that are doing these breathing exercises, they're missing that component. So you might be pulling more air into your body, but again, if the oxygen isn't getting into the cell, it's not really doing what we want it to do. And so when we're in position, no matter if it's there or anywhere else in the body, and we work the entire body in a systematic way, we have you in a position for a minimum of three minutes because we can't rush through melting adhesion.
It takes time. Pressure over time in an area creates heat, and then teaching people proper diaphragmatic breathing turns on your body's internal furnace. So it's a really beautiful passive form of getting profoundly deep through the layers. When you're in position, we also teach you [00:22:00] how to look for the pain- But as your breath is your guide.
So you become the person responsible and also connected intuitively to your own system where you started to fall out of balance because pain equals adhesion. Pain is not something to fear. Pain is like the baby crying. It's your cell letting you know, "Mom or Dad, you want me to thrive for you. However, right now you're squishing me, or you're starving me, or dehydrated or exhausted."
So all of these symptoms that we feel that we've been told to mask, they're things that we want to actually understand and know. We wanna understand. If we put our, our hand on that burning element, we wanna feel pain, so we pull that hand away. We don't wanna mask it and, and continue to let the tissue fry.
So that's the thing. When we're in these positions, it's such a beautiful exploration of your deeper parts of your body, and the thing is, pressure overrides pain. The pressure fibers in the body are [00:23:00] larger than the pain fibers, so when you start to connect with the breath into the body, it suddenly becomes a good pain.
And then we teach you, okay, now I'm starting to feel really good. Okay, now let's actually search for those deeper adhesions, that deeper pain. And we wanna get to the bone because that's where those adhesions will root with the most profound force, up to 2,000 pounds per square inch. And that's why we don't move on the surface.
We are settled in, and then we are moving through the layers in that shearing action. That allows us to deep-sea dive. If we do something that's on the surface where we're rolling and we're using a different tool that might be more porous in nature, that might be plastic, or people use tennis balls, that will give you some surface improvement, but that's not going to actually get to the root of the issue.
So you'll only get, like, temporary benefit. So that's the thing about the tools and why they're made of wood, because bone and wood are similar in density and, and they actually love each other. Very ... It's, it's very, supportive [00:24:00] to the nervous system to have that pressure over time with that breath. It absolutely turns on the parasympathetic, which we should be in 80% of our day, and yet most people are sympathetic 100% of their day, even when they're sleeping.
We're not really getting that restful sleep anymore.
Michelle: Oh my God, it's so true. I, I think that we just, um... I, I see it as the yin and the yang, and we're way too yang. You know, yang is like fire, dry, and think about what happens when we're in sympathetic. Our mouth dries, moisture goes away. So it really, um,
it can really deplete us
100%, And I agree. Uh,
you really need to be in a growth state, which happens in parasympathetic
Deanna: And then the
third pillar of... So there, there's three
pillars to my
work: creating the space lost through time through the
process, inflating that space with blood and oxygen. So think of a
cell, or sorry, think of a balloon fully blown up. It's round, it glows, it almost defies gravity. That's how we want our cells to be.
We [00:25:00] wanna be able to glide through life and to stay youthful through time. Take half the air out of a balloon, now it becomes wrinkled, dirt and debris get trapped in the creases, and it becomes heavy, and it starts to fall to the earth. So that's what's happening in our body if we're not conscious diaphragmatic breathers over time.
Suddenly, our cells start to lose that fullness. We start to accumulate the dirt and the debris in the spaces. Those collagen proteins start to migrate to areas of need, so we don't tip over from that, that lack of fullness that we want through the breath. And I don't mean fullness in the negative way, I mean fullness in the, in the positive right way to keep that space, that balloon fully blown up.
So that's the second pillar. When we open up the space, we drive the breath into there, so the new cells that are getting awakened actually take that fuel, and then they start to do their job for you. And then the third pillar is understanding proper postural foundation, so we don't continually pull back into [00:26:00] those negative patterns.
And we make it really simple through the process that we've created.
Michelle: Amazing.
And so have you seen, um, certain conditions get alleviated or are there like certain
patterns that you've personally seen?
Deanna: Uh, any and all of them, and that's the really cool
thing about
fascia because it literally innervates
every cell. If you have neuropathy from diabetes,
if you have MS, if you're struggling
like me with size or shape, if you have cellulite, if you don't like the, uh, the way your body's going through aging, if you've had chronic pain for a number of years, if you have an acute injury, you know, how do you handle it in a different way than what we're, what we're initially taught?
If you have issues with fertility, gut health issues, anything and everything comes down to our structure and our form. I live in a building here in Winnipeg, and it can be minus 40 Celsius in the winter sometimes. It can be crazy cold. I can have the best, most expensive everything inside my, my container.
If my window breaks and I can't fix it, I will [00:27:00] die. And that's the thing, like we really have to recognize the value of the container, that cell membrane, the fascia. If it's compromised, so will that cell's health be, and then our health because it's all connected. If those cell membranes stay intact through our ability to be conscious of alignment and breath, then we can handle so much.
S- Like this body that God created for us is just truly remarkable, and I do truly believe we are just uncovering even a percentage of the potential of what we actually have capable if we really knew how to look after ourselves properly
Michelle: Oh yeah, I agree with that. There's, uh, we're definitely scratching the surface. It is nice to see some of the research that's coming out, but there's just so much more, and it's definitely very vast. And so we have, you know, in fertility, I know that they have many different therapies, uh, something called Clear Passage, Mayan [00:28:00] abdominal therapy, and they all work on fascia.
And, um, Clear Passage has been shown to even release and clear adhesions. That's why it's called Clear Passage. They've even unclogged, tubes. So that's really fascinating, but it kind of is in line with a lot of what you're saying. It's just when you're allowing your... Because the body itself, and I agree, I mean, we, we believe this in, in Chinese medicine, is that we're not really doing the healing.
It's the body that's doing the healing. It's just that you're facilitating an environment that's easier for the body to heal. And when the body has to worry about all the congestion and everything that's
in its
way, then it's harder. But when you clear that space, then the body's able to
move faster and clear its own
way easier.
Deanna: And I think when it comes to fertility, one of the most overlooked areas to focus on are the feet. [00:29:00] And this is going- the feet are gonna be the strongest anchor. So everything
trauma-wise starts with the breath, but then again gets patterned, and the feet are literally the furthest from the engine. So whenever I'm looking at a body, I always look at the alignment of the feet, and there's always one foot, usually the right one, that acts like a flat tire.
Of driving a car with that right f- front tire flat. It pulls the wheel and everything about the car into that system. If that tire doesn't get pumped up, there's gonna be breakdown in other parts. And you can go and fix those parts, but if you don't pump up that tire, they're just gonna break down again and again and again.
So because we're a living body that's designed to be upright, we start pulling away, the opposite side of the body goes into anchor mode. So now we have all this twisting up the chain. And from the alignment of the pelvis, that's gonna create likely a- an anterior twisted pelvis. So everything in the body is designed to be supported through the laws of nature.[00:30:00]
So for the woman, with our monthly cycle, we're supposed to be releasing everything that doesn't serve if we don't get pregnant But if our alignment isn't correct, now the body is struggling to remove all of that tissue with every cycle. So month after month after month, there's a whole bunch of tissue that doesn't get released appropriately, and this is waste tissue now building up in the pelvis.
So endometriosis, scarring, blockages to the flow, like all of that stuff. It, it really basically creates scarring and toxicity in that space. So when we start to understand how to re-pattern the feet, we should have 60% of our body weight on our heels. The average person has 80% or more on the balls of their feet, and we don't just compress line- linearly.
We spiral down. Um, energy moves in waves and cycles, or waves and spirals. So over [00:31:00] time, we are literally spiraling down toward the Earth in these negative patterns. Women that have strong menstrual cramping... I used to. I was a Highland dancer. I trained to turn out. I had a whole bunch of problems, and I had really wicked cramps because now the body's saying, "Oh, I've gotta like really work to push out the tissue," that if we were properly aligned, gravity would be taking care of that dumping of the uterine wall and all of the stuff that should be leaving with every cycle.
So when we get this buildup and backup, you know, whether it's cysts, uh, fibroids, it's all the same thing. It's just a different name for basically stagnation and scar tissue buildup, and this is what the system is really designed to address, but head to toe. Because if we just work where we have the issue again, and we don't actually change what's creating that patterning, you know, we're not gonna get that end result that we're looking for
Michelle: Interesting that you say the feet because we always, talk about not being on cold tiles, not [00:32:00] to have, exposed feet because
we have, uh, the beginning of our kidney channel, which is very, very important when it comes to reproductive health, starts
in on the bottom of the
feet, kidney
one. So it, it's really
fascinating that you had mentioned the feet, but
yes, 100%. I can see it from a Chinese
medicine lens that the feet are incredibly
important when it comes to fertility health.
Deanna: I actually have, um, a couple videos.
My first one was Death
Starts in the Feet, and then I redid another
one- Mm
and it's called Life Starts in the feet because it goes both ways. we can we can undo the patterning through really making the footwork a focus to bring, to, to release the toes. Like, I always teach people, I've got multiple videos on YouTube where I talk about releasing between the webbing of the toes
Michelle: I've seen that and I've done
that. It's
amazing
Deanna: crazy how much pain there is, and we don't really recognize it.
Like, we've got beautiful feet that we walk on our entire body weight [00:33:00] through life, and we pay such little attention to the feet unless we're
getting a pedicure. But literally, the
toes are the eyes of the feet, and if they're not online and part of your balance and your gait, now you're basically walking on clubs, and then that's where that tension up the chain happens.
In order to not tip off balance, literally, we are becoming anchored on one side, so now we get all of this tension in the back of the body as it's, like, working to try to stop you from falling over, and then we become more solid in movement. So we don't have that fluid movement anymore. We become literally he- like denser, not heavier, but denser, and then that creates that lack of flow, and now we're getting cells starved and dirty.
And if, I mean, think of how you feel when you're hungry and dirty. You don't, you don't perform the same as if you feel refreshed and clean. So that's really what the cells are. Each little cell is just like a, a mini version of the whole, so we want to look at them like our little babies that we need to give so much love and support to.
[00:34:00] But how many people hate their bodies, right? Like, they're just like, "Oh my God, I can't..." I mean, that, I remember, like, in my 20s when I was 50 pounds overweight, and I hated my stomach. And then I started reading The Celestine Prophecy, and, you know, the biggest thing I took from that was what you think you become.
And I'm like, "Well, no wonder it looks like this. I'm hating it." Yeah. So it's basically reflecting how I'm feeling about it. If I actually start putting some love into this, you know, and, and things did change when I really opened my mind to changing how you think about your cells and yourself.
Michelle: Even plants can feel intention. If you speak to a plant, if you give it attention, it will do better
than one that does not. And we-- they've
even seen it with, the water, messages in the water. It's
really fascinating. And really,
what's fascia? It's all water. Your body's
water. Like, so much of it is water. It carries that
information, and water does carry
information. It has memory
Deanna: It sure does. Yeah, and those, those little things, like you... And of course, everything takes a little time to kick in. [00:35:00] So you think, "Well," I remember when I really started recognizing this, the first thing I did was I,
and I did not love my body. The first thing I did was I took my clothes off, I stood in front of the mirror, and I actually said, "I love my body," and I blushed. And I was alone, but I knew I was
lying, so I blushed. And I'm like,
"Wow."
Michelle: Yeah.
Deanna: really, I really do hate my body, but I'm telling it I love it, and then I repeat it, and I repeat it, and I repeat it. And then you start, you start believing, and then you start seeing. So you have to have that little bit of faith.
But it's, it does add up
Michelle: Oh, I love that because, it's true. What happens most of the time is people are like: "Oh, that's a great idea," 'cause I've seen, uh, Louise Hay talk about that, you know, looking in the mirror and Just saying, "I love you." And then what happens is people will do that and they'll be like, "This is awkward," and they'll never do it again.
And
what people may not realize is that it's okay
that it, it's kind of the phase, in the beginning
phase of doing that.
If you can get through that phase of feeling that awkwardness until you repeat it, just like [00:36:00] you said,
and then it starts to-- you start to embody it, and your cells respond to
Deanna: Yeah. Just like loving your, your animals or your plants. It's all the same thing. Yeah.
Michelle: Yeah, Yeah, for sure. Oh, I love this conversation. Um, s- this is such a great conversation, and I think it's really amazing. I think a lot of people need to hear this because it is, uh, something that we're starting to really discover. I think people have known this, I guess, through the ancients, you know, through yoga, like tai chi, qigong, you know.
People have really felt that movement and embodying and the kind of moving the qi, you know, that's what they would call it. But now I feel like science is catching up and starting to realize the
importance of having that stagnation being cleared So that the
body's able to function better. And I do think
that if we do that, we'll stay younger longer, we'll probably live longer, and I think conceive [00:37:00] longer, you know, that's my thought, you
know, later in
Deanna: that's just it. Um, essentially pain, aging, death result from compression. So if we can understand that through that full exhale where that plate of muscle in the core of the body is moving up against gravity, that allows us to walk through time without that compression. Now we're starting at a place of patterned compression with this work.
We can put the space back into the body that time has taken away as we pull out the trauma, the patterning, bring the body back to balance, and then really make diaphragmatic breathing your focus. And again, this is free, right? Like we were born to breathe this way. And what's, what's unfortunate today is my generation, I'm 56, my generation, like we were breathing diaphragmatically as a baby, and then over time, pain, fear, and stress causes you to react, withhold the breath.
[00:38:00] That's the trauma piece. Babies today are coming out not breathing diaphragmatically because the mothers are coming
into that phase of their life from a different phase in life. They grew up in front of technology, so the posture there is dramatically different than my mother's generation. And they're so compressed when they're getting pregnant that now they don't have optimal space in the abdomen and the mother's breath is more stressed.
In yoga they talk about we are born into this lifetime with a signature posture, and the goal of this lifetime is to break through that signature posture. I see that as we're born into this lifetime with our mother's breath, and the goal, and then we're born with that compromised breath, whatever that looks like, and then we're flogged with life.
So again, like think of our fast-paced world with all the toxins, the posture, the lack of free play like we used to have when I was a kid. We hung from twe- trees, we climbed fences. Like you don't see kids doing that [00:39:00] so...
Yeah.
So now the
kids are coming out from a different container and they're more compromised.
So this is something I'm really passionate about
teaching people because, a- and I've heard this from
many sources over the years, this is the first time in human history that the kids are not gonna live
longer than the older people, and that's terrifying
Michelle: is. It's really scary.
We have to change that. We have to change that.
Deanna: Yeah
We do.
Michelle: Yeah.
Deanna: And this is one of the things
Michelle: It's unacceptable
Deanna: in doing... Yeah
Michelle: So, w- well, honestly, this is such a, an important conversation. It's an amazing, fascinating one, but it's just as important. And, uh, I think definitely it's going to shift a lot of minds, which I
always love on the podcast, to bring in guests like you that shift perspectives and, um, ways of
thinking about the body, really.
And, and the fact is the body is
incredibly [00:40:00] resilient. It
wants to heal. It wants to thrive. It was programmed to
thrive. So it's just about us
kind of finding the ways
to help it
do so. Uh, so. for people
listening that wanna learn more about
you,
maybe see your videos, how can
they find you?
Deanna: My website is blocktherapy.com, and I've got tons and tons of YouTube, uh, videos and, sharing,
you know, how to, how to do the work on YouTube Block Therapy. my favorite
place
to direct people is actually my private Facebook community, Block Therapy community. I've got over 25,000 members, and what's
lovely there is I've got two people that moderate it, two of my, um, instructors, but you will also be supported through people that have gone through this for their
own personal things, and it will be anything and everything.
So if you pop in there and you say, "Does anybody have any, um, anything to share regarding blocking with MS or Parkinson's or fertility issues or endometriosis or whatever that is?" There's going to [00:41:00] be people in there that will be there to support you as well along the way. So I love directing people there.
Such a beautiful, supportive place
Michelle: That's wonderful. That's so great. Uh, well, thank you so much, Deanna. This is a great conversation. I really am so thankful you came on today
Deanna: Uh, thank you, Michelle. It's been such a pleasure to chat with you
[00:42:00]