Craniosacral Biodynamics is a deep and gentle approach that:
~ QUIETS the mind
~
RELAXES the body
~
SETTLES the nervous system
~
AWAKENS the heart
~
INTEGRATES the parts
The term biodynamic simply means “working with wholeness”. Craniosacral Biodynamics is a joint endeavor between client and practitioner so that the whole of your situation - be it physical, emotional or spiritual concerns are listened to. Physical and emotional shifts, as well as insight and self-compassion, often arise within this space.
The aim in Craniosacral Biodynamics is to collaborate directly with the tidal forces and potent energy moving through the fluid body as a lived and felt experience of Health.
Health is the ability of the body, mind, and spirit to meet life in a way that is balanced, conscious, sensitive, and appropriately responsive to current conditions. This is also known as the ability to self-regulate and to transform.
Craniosacral Biodynamics is different from mechanical methods of craniosacral therapy because it does not focus on pathology; as such, it is not really a therapy in the strict sense of the term. It is more of a tuning of the body's fluid system.
As the practitioner, I initially focus on a slower rhythm in my nervous system so that your nervous system can follow. It’s a subtle but very profound therapeutic approach.
In a session, you will lie down fully clothed on a treatment table and after I settle my own nervous system, I will make hand contact in one or more areas of your body. These areas of contact are designed to allow a deep listening to the vitality of your fluid body. We will decide together what will most meet your needs and if I can help you.
The Fluid Body: We are Firstly Water
The human body is made up primarily of clear, living water - yet most people identify with the small part of their bodies that is more solid. In craniosacral biodynamics, we bring attention to and become familiar with the pulsations of blood, lymphatic fluid, and craniosacral fluid that make up the fluid body. Biodynamic practitioners work with these living waters as one body. I can coach you how to find your fluid body so you can learn to do this on your own.
In the first four weeks of life the embryo is all clear, living fluid. Research and findings in the field of epigenetic embryology tell us that the tidal pressures and changes in the fluids that help us to form as an embryo continue to be available to us as therapeutic forces throughout our entire lives. Whether we look at growth in an embryo or an adult we see the same physiologic forces creating and organizing new structures and functions throughout the body.
Because the fluid body is the first system of the body to develop and is in communication with every other system of the body, working directly with it can facilitate profound healing. These tides in the body give us a starting point to witness the body's inherent ability to self-regulate that arises to meet every experience that we go through. This innate body intelligence is always present, although sometimes it is obscured, compromised, or overlooked.
By paying attention to the fluid in our bodies, the more solid muscles and bones that float in this fluid can and do reorganize and shift.
The Heart: Powerful Center of Life
Developmentally, our heart forms before our brain does. Research results in the field of Interpersonal Neurobiology indicate that those who learn to feel the shape and beating of their heart and blood (this is called Cardioception) are better able to regulate their emotional state and overall have a deeper sense of relaxation.
In Craniosacral Biodynamics, the practitioner uses the witnessing intelligence of the heart to set the tone of the session. Profound shifts can take place in the physical, emotional, and spiritual heart during a session.
The Nervous System: Settling the Alert System
Unattended, the strains and stresses of daily life on the central nervous system can cause our fluid body to stiffen and contract - leading to pain, illness, fragmentation, dissociation, injury, or diminished health.
Often when we are in pain, we isolate parts of our body - my bad knee, my sore neck. When the part is reoriented to a sensation of the body as a fluid whole, the nervous system settles and healing occurs.
The gentle touch of Craniosacral Biodynamics releases these strains on the nervous system, allowing stressful holding patterns to soften, and health to flow with renewed potency through the fluids. All other systems of the body can then come more easily back into balanced relationship.
Slowing Down & Listening
There is therapeutic value to slowing down and becoming still in your body and mind. If you’re dealing with specific symptoms in your body, imagine devoting an hour of undivided attention to help make sense of what your body is trying to tell you and how it relates to you as a whole. Imagine feeling the transformation that is available right in the center of your symptoms.
Developing Subtle, Broad Attention (Mindfulness)
By cultivating the skill of broad (rather than focused) attention and noticing subtleties such as non normal shapes and temperature variations in the whole fluid body, we find the inherent Health alive in us. When we slow down and become mindful of our natural inner rhythms, allowing them to do what they do instinctively, amazing things can happen.
Mindfulness is an attitude of:
~ NON-JUDGING: seeing experience as it is without adding interpretation or judgement.
~ PATIENCE: a willingness to let change and understanding develop in their own time.
~ BEGINNER'S MIND: being curious about the current situation, as if you have never experienced anything like it before.
~ TRUST; developing faith in the validity of your own body sensations, thoughts, emotions, and intstincts.
~ NON-STRIVING: allowing experience to be as it is without trying to change it.
~ ACCEPTANCE: being willing to see things as they actually are in the present moment.
~ LETTING GO: developing a sense of non-attachment to experience; letting thoughts and emotions arise and pass by without getting entangled in them.
~ KINDNESS: to oneself and to others.Below are some qualities that are often experienced in or after a biodynamic bodywork session:
~ a sense of feeling settled, often discovered in moments of deep relaxation, quietude, stillness, or neutrality.
~ Feeling more
spacious in your body and mind (noticing you have more "room" or are free from compression physically, emotionally, and/or psychologically).
~ a felt sense of the entire three-dimensional shape of your body as it changes with subtle and strong sensations in each moment.
~ an
automatic shift to a more comfortable alignment in any part of your body, including but not limited to changes in tissue, muscle, or bone.
~ a feeling of buoyancy, vitality, potency, and lightness of being;
~ an experience of warmth, softening, or tenderness.
Recognizing Signs of Mental Health
When we become more comfortable in and aware of our body, and more sensitive to our experience, our mental health automatically improves and the outer world begins to mirror this newfound inner balance. Signs of increased mental health can include subtle changes in:
~ your ability to see what is already working in each situation, or
~ your ability
to see the potential in challenging life situations
~ the amplification of your imagination, or an increase in clear visions, day dreams, or sleeping dreams.
~ a greater capacity to surrender and let go, to give and receive.
~ a greater sense of freedom, independence, and cohesion in one’s life
~ an attitude that one's life is meaningful
~ a sense that you are supported by life
~ a greater capacity to feel genuine gratitude
~ more frequent experiences of love, trust, joy and connection with yourself and others
Attain complete emptiness
Hold fast to stillness
The ten thousand things stir about
I only watch for their return
Things grow and grow
But each returns to its root
Returning to its root is stillness
This means returning to what is.
- Dao de Jing, Laozi
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