Rejuvenate My Face

The Inner Game of Beauty:

Natural Facial Rejuvenation
The Heart and Science of Transformation

Women everywhere have been falling prey to the notion that fixing themselves on the outside will make them look younger and feel better inside.

Make no mistake about it, there is tremendous societal pressure on women to maintain their looks. Women can’t help but feel that pressure and respond to it on some level. We live in a culture that values youth and sexuality above the wisdom that comes with aging, inner beauty and presence.

Not only is there societal pressure on women to maintain their looks, but there is massive advertising pressure. This pressure is always there, subtlety (or blatantly) suggesting, coaxing, persuading women to buy products and services for more youthful skin, hair, nails, teeth and trimmer figures. The relentless advertising ramps up every year with new products and new “trouble spots” to treat.

How could a maturing women’s confidence in themselves and their worth not be undermined? How could the constant message that there is something wrong with a woman that looks mature NOT affect a woman’s mental health in a negative way?

We feel that it’s safe to say that this situation has reached the level of a silent epidemic that, in our opinion, has dangerous and unprecedented side-effects. Take for example, the use of Botox.

FDA approved and generally thought of as safe for decades, more recent studies suggest that repeated botulinum toxin injections cause changes in muscle composition, function, and appearance that can persist for years or forever. One study states…

…long-lasting cosmetic use of botulinum toxin can trigger permanent changes in facial expression, and an expressionless, mask-like face. Lack of facial animation or permanent changes in facial expression may be undesirable in some cases.¹

Even the Mayo clinic admits that Botox treatments can cause symptoms ranging from the relatively mild like headaches, flu-like symptoms, droopy or crooked eyebrows or smiles, drooling, watery or dry eyes and infections to the more serious, such as muscle weakness, vision problems, trouble talking or swallowing, breathing problems, allergic reactions and loss of bladder control. [https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/botox/about/pac-20384658].

While Botox-related side effects are rare, the injection of any toxin is hard on the body and the body must deal with it. When Dr. Susan Lange, OMD, L.Ac., first learned that some of her clients and also her natural medicine colleagues were secretly resorting to Botox and surgery, she was aghast. “How can you do this to your brain and your body?” she wondered.

Perhaps the epidemic is not so silent now. Many women, including prominent celebrities, are speaking up and getting more vocal.

Jennifer Aniston believes Botox distorts faces. Julia Roberts wasn’t pleased with the results and won’t try it again. Pink just can’t get behind it. Julianne Moore feels it only make a woman look like she’s had “work done” and that nobody should expect to look the same at 62 as they did at 25. Nicole Kidman stopped using it, disliking how her face looked afterwards… and there are many more saying “No.”

Many women are rethinking having Botox injected into their facial muscles creating a rigid mask-like appearance. They are thinking twice about having surgery, creating that fake plastic look. Plus, it’s expensive.

But what are their alternatives?

The problem is, they still believe that beauty and feeling good about yourself is an outside fix. Even the healthier, more natural and fashionable solutions, like using jade rollers and facial yoga, while way better, are still an outside fix, a temporary solution.

It’s not their fault; it’s exactly what the multi-billion dollar beauty and spa industry wants you to believe. And yet this still leaves women with an inner hunger, yearning for something more.

Yearning for more

Enter Dr. Maxwell Maltz, the former reconstructive and cosmetic facial surgeon from the 1960s. Even back then he discovered that no matter how great a job he performed on his clients’ faces, they still hated themselves.

“He was inspired to move from treating “outer scars” to “inner scars” after observing that so many patients’ unhappiness and insecurities were not cured, as they and he had believed would occur when he gave them the perfect new faces they desired.”

Wow! What an eye-opener.

So he left that profession, and developed Psycho-Cybernetics, to help his clients with their self-image, their inner game, their inner beauty. And the rest is history. Even self-help gurus like Tony Robbins were influenced by Maltz.

Lange also discovered this when she taught her self-help beauty program, “The Lazy Way to Looking Good” learned from her teacher, Dr. Frances Wong in 1974.

No matter how much her clients worked on their faces externally, they still felt something was missing.

Lange’s research took her deeper into studying how trauma affects and is held in the face. The trauma can range from birth trauma (through her training with Dr. Ray Castellino) to accident trauma, to Botox and surgical trauma.

She discovered that no matter how great the outside treatments, the face can’t be radiant or expressive if there’s internal trauma.

In addition, through biodynamic craniosacral therapy and the Polyvagal theory of Dr. Stephen Porges, she learned why the expressive face is so vital for deep bonding and attachment.

The fact is that your children, your family, and your clients can’t connect and bond with you if your face doesn’t move. This bears repeating: a face must have natural, expressive movements for connection and bonding to take place with others.

It takes a team

Lange teamed up with Mary Louise Muller, biodynamic craniosacral instructor, and together they created their ground-breaking Natural Facial Rejuvenation program, to simultaneously enhance outer and inner beauty.

In the last ten years of teaching their program, they’ve discovered that women are longing deep down to feel happier, more joyful, and more connected with others.

Students who have trained with them (and honored those “inner scars”) have shared how much happier they feel, how they’re more vulnerable, more open-hearted, more confident. They also feel less fearful, and less judgmental about themselves and their looks (and these are just a few of the side-effects.)

Imagine drawing deeply on your biodynamic craniosacral skills when giving sessions or receiving sessions where the contact with the face is gentle, supportive, safe and fully present. Imagine knowing exactly how to create safety (primary to resolving facial trauma patterns and internal scarring), and knowing how to create the exact amount of safety.

Imagine knowing how to get your touch just right – whether listening, laser or loving; Knowing the exact point sequences. Being spacious, yet focused and powerful at the same time.

You feel great as you work with client after client, and at the end of your day, you feel better than when you started – you’re on a high.

Working with the skillful blend of Chinese Medicine and specific acupuncture points and meridians, biodynamic craniosacral therapy, and the neuroscience of Dr. Stephen Porges (along with other cutting edge brain scan research) can lead to deep healing, more loving attention towards self, more open heartedness, and therefore less harshness and self-judgment.

This is because as the heart energy (the Shen in Chinese medicine) opens into the face, the face transforms.

It seems that Dr. Maxwell Maltz would have been proud to see the results. And Dr. Stephen Porges might be happy that mothers with young children can still have honest, real, heart-centered facial expressions.

Lange and Muller are concerned about the massive impact on childhood development that this Botox craze could be having. They’re on a mission to support heart-centered practitioners in helping women feel better about themselves, outside and in.

They believe the result will be mothers and grandmothers who connect more deeply with their kids and grandkids, practitioners who can connect deeply with their clients, and a happier, more joyful world!

– By Susan Lange, OMD, L.Ac., and Mary Louise Muller, RCST, M.Ed.

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About Susan Lange and Mary Louise Muller:

Susan Lange, OMD, L.Ac., BCST, has been teaching the principles of Oriental and Holistic Medicine since 1983.

Also a biodynamic craniosacral therapist, she teaches programs online on “The Power of the Face, for Bonding, Safety and Connection” along with “The Birth Dance: Transform Early Trauma and Step into Freedom”.

 

Mary Louise Muller, M.Ed., RCST, has been a teacher of biodynamic craniosacral therapy for over 20 years and was the creator of Lifeshapes Institute with her husband, Christopher Muller.

In 2008 they co-developed The Lange-Muller Method of Natural Facial Rejuvenation: The Heart and Science of Transformation to encourage and empower women to connect with their inner radiance and share their heart and face with the world.

Check out more tips from their heart centered process by clicking here.

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¹ Henryk Witmanowski1 and Katarzyna Blochowiak (2020 Dec; 37(6): 853–861) The whole truth about botulinum toxin – a review. Postepy Dermatol Alergol https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7874868/#:~:text=On%20the%20other%20hand%2C%20the,be%20undesirable%20in%20some%20cases.