Besides just pure curiousity, we most often come to craniosacral therapy because we want to fix something that we think is wrong, because our health has been somehow compromised. And in fact, most modern healing modalitilies will approach you as a patient who needs some sort of help. Craniosacral therapy takes a step back and acknowledges that health is ever-present, even at the moment of death. What exactly does that mean, you'd ask. I know my knee hurts every day, and it's been weeks since I've gotten a good night sleep, and you are telling me I'm healthy? Indeed, considering everything that is going on inside you (and outside you), trust that your body's inner Intelligence is doing the best job it can. Illness and symptoms are not a sign of something being wrong; rather they point to a continous process of your body trying to balance itself within the existing conditions. Why is this important? It's a shift in perspective. We no longer need to treat ourselves as sick, or "patients". Which brings me to the start of the nesletter. Once you stop thinking of yourself as ill, you begin a conscious participation in your healing process, and it becomes a Joint Practice with whomever you work.
On a practical level, when you lie down on the table, it becomes more than taking a nap and tuning out for an hour, while something happens (or, rather, the therapist "does something") and you magically feel better after you wake up. Note that if you are not getting restul sleep, there might be sessions where it's necessary for your body to do just that. But there is more to the picture - you begin to tune in to your own processes, and to the presence of the craniosacral therapist. There, in that silent conversation, healing starts to take place. This is what is meant by The Relationship doing the work. An appliance needs access to an electric current in order to run. The Intelligence of a body needs presence of another listening body to experience itself and thereby make its way towards greater health. More on that in the next issue...
The Scientific Bit
As you might know, the scientific basis of craniosacral therapy lies in optimizing the flow of cerebrospinal fluids. This is a highly intelligent fluid that carries out number of vital functions such as bathing the structures of the brain and spinal cord, acting as a nutrient fluid, fulfilling the role that lymphatic fluids play in the rest of the body, being a fluid field for exchange of messenger molecules throughout the central nervous system, carrying neuroactive molecules from the central nervous systems, the endocrine system, and the immune systems as they communicate with each other, balancing the arterial pulse, and many more.
This fluid is also the only one the system of the human body that has it own inherent rhythm. It fluctuates by a power found within itself and not moved by structures or mechanisms found outside of itself. Through that, cerebrospinal fluids act as a reservoir for finer energies that are conducted via nerve roots to all part of the human body. Recent research has shown that small quantities of cerebrosponal fluid leave the core of the body via the dural sleeves, which cover the nerves as the leave the spinal canal. This is, by the way, is an accepted fact in German anatomy texts. As you can see, working with this fluid has profound effects on all physiological systems - muscularsceletal, endocrine, respiratory, neurological, etc. etc.
New Year - New Era in Healing
In our culture, new year tends to be the time for intention to re-invent and improve ourself through the invaluable "new year resolutions", I'd like to throw out a new perspective on health and healing. Now is not just the new year, but the new era for wiser, more profound healing.
In his book, Reinventing Medicine, Larry Dossey, MD, describes three eras of medicine. Era I is characterized by a conventional, cause-and-effect, statistical scientific approach to healing dating from the 17th century. Era II is mind-body medicine. Here, medicine's most recent advances include psychosomatic and various alternative medicine techniques, such as yoga, meditation, biofeedback, and the study of the nature of the placebo effect. However, the methods used to evaluate or study these Era II methods still resort to that same causal, statistical deterministic proofs of Era I medicine. These Era II methods label mind-body phenomena trying to explain mind-body healing through physiology. In other words, there still has not been a shift of paradigm.
That shift will occur with Era III medicine – this is nonlocal medicine or eternity medicine. Here, the mind plays a fundamental role in the healing of the patient. This form of medicine integrates the concepts of quantum physics. Intention plays a significant role in healing, both from the mind of the physician and the mind of the patient. However, this type of medicine cannot be measured by conventional means. We are now at the time that feels ripe to bridge the gap between Era II and Era III medicine.
Craniosacral Miracle - Birth Dynamics
One of the therapeutic benefits that craniosacral therapy brings, that is truly a miracle, is resolving birth patterns. What are they? Basically, these are effects of a person's birth experience. They include not just the physiological issues, such as various cranial distortions and compressions (have you seen people whose face looks like it was dragged down on one side, or cone-shaped heads?), but also the emotional and mental traumas that a baby experiences upon parting with the womb. Birthing is a process that doesn't often go smoothly – the baby could get stuck inside the birth canal, or not want to leave the warmth and comfort of the womb.
Why are birth patterns significant? If physical or emotional issues are bound up in them, the person will carry them through the rest of his/her life. For example, lateral compressions of the skull could cause frequent ear and sinus infections, not to mention serious central nervous system dysfunctions. Also, such emotional patterns and life statements as “the world is good”, “the world is bad”, “life is a struggle”, “i am always stuck in life” likely date back to that very first experience of being introduced to the outside world. Chronic fatigue and exhaustion could also be related to the issues around cutting of the umbilical cord and the use of anesthesia, where the ignition/spark of new life is not fully expressed.
Craniosacral therapy, unlike any other modality, offers profoundly effective ways of addressing these issues in both children and adults. It's the practitioners, and oftentimes patient's, orientation to those primal forces that were present during the person's birth, that allows for the their resolution.
Resources - The Engine of Healing
It's not a new thought that in order to create change, one needs resources. As your embark or continue on a journey to deeper health, I invite you to continously expand your network of resources. In fact, your resources are often the answer to the question "what lets me know I'm OK". Take a piece of paper and write down everything and everyone you consider to be your resource. As you reach into the library of your life experience, draw on people who are dear to you, activities you enjoy, places you find special, pleasant memories, smells, images, and perhaps your internal resources, such as the sense of your own strength. How well the person is resourced is felt on the table during a craniosacral session, and is directly related to a person's capacity to heal. These resources manifest themselves as life energy, immune system, prana, whatever speaks to you best. If they are depleted, it could take a number of sessions to build them up enough so that the shift towards greater health could take place. In fact, some symptoms could resolve immediately after that, now that the body's engine is cranked up. With other, more deep-seeded conditions, it's just the beginning of the journey and is the step that can't be skipped.
Helpful Exercises
Finding The Sense of OK-ness
Find a comfortable place to sit, and a comfortable enough sitting position that you wouldn't want to change for a few minutes. Drink a beer or take a few sips of your favorite wine if that's what it takes for you to relax. Take a few deep breaths, perhaps a bit deeper than usual, so that you start paying attention to your breath. Note how doing so naturally brings you into the sense of the present moment. Now turn on your feelers and note your surroundings - sounds, smells, etc. Try not to do this with your head, but rather feel into your immediate environment. Take notice of any thoughts that are running through your mind. Some of them will be like little fish, swimming quickly by you and disappearing; others might be so intense and persistent, they will snatch your attention away from the breath. With that, gently bring the attention back in, imagine your mind becoming very big, and try to widen the space inside it beyond the current thoughts without pushing them away. It's like watching a child play - let it play freely, yet don't let it out of your attention. I could stop here, and invite your inquisitive minds on a journey to see what arises from this seemingly simple exercise. I'd love it if you shared with me how you do with that...
At first, you will start noticing what's most prominent for you at the moment - it could be a physical sensation of a body part, or an emotion that is up on the surface. Then as you deepen, subtler textures might arise. Before you know it, you are swimming in the ocean of thoughts and sensations, many of which are like your old familiar buddies, and others are of an unknown quality. Here I invite you to make an inquiry: "in the midst of all this, what lets me know I'm OK just now"? Your ability to answer this question in a relaxed, non-stressful environement is a great training ground for surviving much tougher life situations.
Shuttling
Starting with the basic meditation instructions. Find a comfortable place to sit and a comfortable enough sitting position that you wouldn't want to change for a few minutes. Drink a beer or sip your favorite wine if that's what it takes for you to relax. Take a few deep breaths, perhaps a bit deeper than usual, so that you start paying attention to your breath. Note how doing so naturally brings you into the sense of the present moment.
Think of something – a person, an image, a place, a memory, or something about your body right now that feels pleasant. As you do that, note where you feel that pleasure and how it manifests. Perhaps there is softness and expansion in your chest, the energy of the body shifting downward, or a sense of warmth throughout. Give yourself sometime to really settle into this feeling and capture its indicators – as many of them as you can.
Now that you are well immersed into feeling well, think of something that you find difficult – a person, or an issue you are struggling with. Take a note of what shifts in the body with that negative thought. Where do you sense that difficulty? How does it manifest itself? Without spending too much time there, go back to the pleasant image. Re-settle into its feeling, and now that you are well resourced in it, go back to the difficulty. Touch it now for a bit longer, again noting what happens in the body when you do that. Go back to the pleasant thought.
Continue this shutting between the pleasant and the difficult thoughts, re-visiting the difficulty from the safety of the pleasant one. You might notice that the edges around the difficult thought will gradually begin to soften, and you will see things in a different light.
