Craniosacral Biodynamics
Craniosacral therapy is a gentle way of working with the body using light touch. I make a light contact with the (clothed) body, always negotiated and client-led, and 'listen' with my hands for changes in the natural flow of fluids and vibrancy which may indicate areas impacted by trauma or disease. I assist in establishing stillness within the body, a state of balance from which the forces contained there can resolve, restoring harmony and vitality. Clients often report a sense of deep relaxation during treatment, sometimes describing a blissful experience. The body is able to settle and respond to my trained touch with its own healing intentions because I begin by establishing a sense of safety and well being. Resourcing in this way is the starting point for healing. Listening to the body with my hands also enables the body to begin to listen to itself, where internal communication has been compromised or broken down. I support the nervous system to adjust such that natural homeostasis is restored.
How it Works
The original blueprint or energetic matrix of our mind-body system (they are not separate) is an organised condensation of potency - vitality or life force energy - which gives rise to our particular physical structure. Potency is the intelligent life force, which organises our structure, orchestrates our adaptation to and protection from the impacts we meet in life and acts as our wise ‘inner physician’. It has been described as a kind of 'liquid light' or fluid within the fluids.
Our physical/energetic structure is continually interacting with the forces of life - our life experiences and conditions - and making adaptive changes in response to these impacts such that we continue to function in the best possible way as a whole. Thus any deviations from the original blueprint are actually expressions of our health at work. This is a paradigm shift from the view that there is an 'ideal' structure which we need to maintain & restore. Our human system is always maintaining the best state of homeostasis that it can, given the conditions that are present. The vitality available to us may, however, be severely depleted if much of it is working to contain and centre factors such as toxins, pathogens, emotional shocks and physical impacts on our bodies. Our system becomes more dense and inertial, less fluidic and we may experience symptoms of fatigue, depression, physical pain and malaise.
Under the right conditions, potency moves out of this protective function and begins to express a healing function, whereby the conditional forces of historical events can be dissipated back to the environment and a new homeostatic balance is achieved. The life force energy that has previously been bound up is liberated back into the whole available pool, and the person may feel lighter, more at ease and more alive.
