The Prism Perspective: The Architecture of Resilience🤸‍♀️

Hello Firends,

Meet Molly - a Fajardo Method® apprentice, with a background in Pilates and Alexander Technique.

From birth, my parents were aware that I was struggled with “motor” and “tone” issues. There were a lot of functional challenges I dealt with that were downplayed or spoken about in whispers, until I entered my late teens/early 20s and chronic pain and joint dislocations became too overwhelming to ignore.

Before the pain and dislocations, my body and my mind felt like separate parts of myself. When the pain showed up, my body became a thing to escape. Fajardo Method® gave me an avenue to stop escaping it, stop ignoring it, and start partnering with it. Eventually, even a way to love, appreciate, and trust it.

That inflection point of pain, though, sent me on an unexpected journey exploring ways to treat this supposedly permanent, genetic condition. When I started taking lessons in Holistic Biomechanics, I had a background in the Alexander Technique, another somatic practice. FMHB® was similar, but different. Similar enough to catch my interest, but different enough to affect me much faster and more profoundly.

During my fourth lesson, the body part of the day was the Lungs. As my lungs got higher and higher in my chest as a result of the sensing and moving I was doing, I noticed a lot of “sensation” changes, but it wasn’t until I sat up at the end that I noticed the real functional change: I could no longer move my head/neck from side to side the way I was used to doing. I was concerned and shared this with my teacher, to which she replied, “this is a normal range of motion for a human neck.” Basically, I was so accustomed to turning my head way, way beyond a healthy range of motion that a normal range, subjectively, felt restrictive at first.

But I understood enough about EDS and the extreme range of motion that characterizes it, to understand in that second that everything I had been told about the nature of my diagnosis was totally off base. “Genetic” was a huge oversimplification, and the idea that this genetic signature had total control over how my body functioned and organized itself was disproven in less than 30 minutes. I think I knew at that moment that I was a committed student for life, or at least as long as it took to unravel this myth and help my body heal. I am still here over 6 years later, still practicing enthusiastically, and what feels like lifetimes away from the belief that my quality of life is in the hands of my genes. 

I wish others understood that while our genetics have relevance to how we come into the world, they have SO LITTLE to do with the potential we have to exist within it. In other words: the choices we make, the way we move, the things we choose to put our attention and energy into, these are the things that shape how we really experience and live life, and who we become.

Ehlers‑Danlos syndrome (EDS) is a connective‑tissue situation that reshapes the body’s structural scaffolding. At the center of it all is collagen — the tensile element that gives skin, joints, vessels, and organs their strength and flexibility. The state of the autonomic nervous system changes the manner that the genes produce and repair collagen. In a dominant fight-or-flight body, this leaves the body’s architecture more fragile, stretchy, or unstable.

EDS lives on a spectrum. Some bodies move like dancers in hypermobility; others navigate deeper complexity. Common threads weave through every type:

• Joint hypermobility — movement beyond the usual range

• Skin hyperextensibility — skin that stretches like silk

• Tissue fragility — bruising, slow healing, delicate vessels

• Chronic pain — the echo of instability and fatigue

But how that story plays out depends on the body’s physiological state, especially the autonomic nervous system.

🌡️ Sympathetic Dominance — Emergency Mode

When the body lives in fight‑or‑flight, it prioritizes survival over repair. Collagen production slows. Blood flow tightens. Cortisol rises. Inflammation scrambles collagen’s organization. The result: slower healing, more micro‑tears, amplified pain, and connective‑tissue fragility.

🌿 Parasympathetic Dominance — Repair Mode

When the body shifts into rest‑and‑restore, the internal construction crew gets to work. Collagen production increases. Circulation improves. Cortisol shifts to homeostasis. Nutrients flow. Collagen remodeling strengthens the body’s scaffolding.

 Common sympathetic symptoms also seen in EDS:

• heart‑pounding sensations

• lightheadedness when standing

• dizziness, fatigue, heat intolerance

• constipation, nausea, bloating

• always cold, always hot, or swinging between the two

• Sweating changes — too much or too little

• Muscle guarding — the body tries to stabilize joints by gripping

• difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or feeling rested

• Heightened pain sensitivity

• Anxiety‑like sensations

• Brain fog

• Fatigue

To learn more about Molly, visit her website: www.mollybennettmovement.com or give a listen to her recent podcast interview on Perfect Child.

Onwards, Amy

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This content is for entertainment and education. Not medical advice, not therapy. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical, psychological, or health condition. Every topic here is basically crowdsourced from your lives, your stories, and your “please explain this chaos” requests. Thanks for all the brilliant newsletter ideas.