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Cranialsacral Therapy pt.6

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Hugh Milne was Rajneesh’s (also known as Osho) bodyguard for years. I didn’t find this out until recently and hadn’t realized he’d written a book on it. As Milne described in this video he had to watch people as Osho’s bodyguard.

Many of the things that stood out from Milne’s book had to do with listening. The listening wasn’t with your ears alone, it was all of you. Pay attention. He encouraged watching body stance, posture, physical expression. Watching the video it became clear that he’d practice deep observation as Osho’s bodyguard.

In meetings and organized talks he’d watch for signs of agitation in the audience. Those were the people he’d approach and make light chat with. Depending on how they reacted he acted as bodyguard. I found it remarkable to see two of my teachers had worked so closely together, something that intrigues me forever. Here they were Rajneesh and Milne in close contact, a fact I’d never realized before.

I encourage my students to practice this observational skill in their bodywork practice. It cuts our work when we can observe posture in particular to figure out what people are doing to hold themselves in positions that hurt more than they help. If we can educate, it makes a huge difference. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Being devoid of attachment to particular outcomes is ideal as a bodyworker. We want to help but being too fixated on outcomes leads to stress, strain and burn out. Relax. Enjoy your work with people and watch them, assist them, make them aware of their own patterns and practice, practice, practice.

Jesus didn’t become a healer over night.

Being able to sit and deeply listen is the core of cranialsacral therapy. Just making contact is more than doing anything. In that deep stillness, the client’s healing can come out. When we’re not trying to do anything is where most of the healing seems to happen.

Cranialsacral Therapy pt.5

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A client for massage told me they had TMJ problems. Speaking with them I recommended they come in for cranialsacral therapy. She seemed to be a balanced person, hard working, intelligent but this one issue plagued her for years.

She’d seen dentists, orthodontists and various medical professionals but no one seemed to be able to help. I worked with her then put on gloves to do work on her lateral pterygoids. She found it so tender I tried several times to sink in but with little luck. It takes finesse, a deeply relaxed client and frankly, time. You need time to settle and sink in and thirty minutes makes for a poor session.

I asked about her TMJ dysfunction and she said, “Well it’s more headaches.” I asked more questions to clarify and she said that the TMJ stuff didn’t hurt but the headaches kept her from really excelling at life. The pain, frequency and duration meant that she just got lost in life. Friends can’t help her, nor doctors and with no one to help, the pain just agonizes some days. I asked where they hurt and she made a motion with her finger, right through her eyes temple to temple.

Her lateral pterygoids which I’d been unable to relax are faulting her sphenoid. The muscles connect to the sphenoid, which is the keystone bone in the center of the head. It exits on either side of the cranium at the temples. As any boxer knows, the knockout punch is to the temples or the jaw, both put significant pressure on the sphenoid via its articulations and in response your bodies protection is to pass out.

I know what I think is right but clients are at times a hard sell on cranial bones moving, sphenoid what? Explaining all of this comes out of left field. What medical school did you go to? Life and love, the same that Jesus went to. Cranialsacral therapy is as much energetic as it is sound structure and function. One without the other is incomplete.

I never saw the client again. It’s sad to feel I can help but when they’re unwilling to do more than one session in a world where they want a single pill to fix things, my hands are tied. Healing is cooperative. I provide what I can in bodywork and education but the clients have to meet me with self care.

For this reason regular sessions are best with something like cranialsacral therapy. For most conditions I recommend a minimum of three treatments just to see if you have any benefit. At the most it may rid you of your health issue, at the least you’ll feel relaxed and calm.

Hopefully I can head to Big Sur, CA and take a class with Milne in the future. It’d be an honor to work and study with him.

Cranialsacral Therapy pt.4

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My learning yoga, practicing Thai massage and working with cranial sacral therapy all ran together. I’d delve deeply into breathing exercises and noticed that I could make my hands warm. I didn’t know why but clients seemed to like it when I worked on them so I would purposefully breathe deeply and do so.

Once performing chair massage a woman was startled because she said my hands were so warm. My then boss, also a massage therapist looked at me, one eyebrow cocked, knowing I was doing something but unable to figure out what the weird kid was up to. I kept my secret, explaining things even I don’t understand gets tiresome.

At a party with friends several years into my practice I was more secure. I was doing very deep breathing exercises most of the day. I just lived a normal life but I focused on my breathing. At a party one night I went Really deep. No one could tell I was doing anything, I just altered something so imperceptible that no one would notice. A friend came over and said, “Rob, what are you thinking about?” I smiled with no answer and then he persisted, “Come on, I know you’re thinking about something.” I laughed loudly and said, “I’m thinking about all of it.”

My response wasn’t a mock. I was just free floating. The mental state that came with this deep breathing was an acceptance of whatever floats through your mind. Don’t attach, just let the movie play out. My friends fortunately have grown used to occasionally odd behaviour from me due to my practice and eccentricities.

I sat on the floor. As I sat conversation flowed and someone mentioned I was a massage therapist to some of those friends of friends who were unaware. A beautiful young lady, a friends girlfriend, jumped up from her seat and in front of everyone, without a pause, lay on the ground at my feet asking me to massage her.

It’s all a practice right?

All my friends were watching. What to do? I don’t really want to work, work is over, this is my down time. Someone’s girlfriend is asking me to touch them with observers everywhere. I love female attention but I breathed deeply, sitting to see what options and actions would be best. As she lay on her stomach I calmly said, “Turn over.”

She looked at me confused but I assured her and after she turned over I moved down to her feet. Knowing my friends were watching I just tuned into her. I placed one hand on the outside of her foot and the other on the other side making no physical contact. I’d probably been taking 3 breaths a minute for the past half hour. I was other.

I honed in, listened, again, without physical contact. I settled and breathed and when all felt like it’d synced, I breathed, channeled whatever was in me and flicked my fingertips in the slightest most imperceptible way. She immediately interrupted, “I can feel that running up my legs!” I still hadn’t layed a hand on her.

Placing my hands on her feet I listened to her cranial rhythm for a few minutes then stopped. At this point I’d sat up and returned to the party like nothing happened. The rest of the evening she kept asking me what I’d done. Where had I learned it? I just shrugged. I still do.

To my friends and close associates she just became the girl I radiated on. There are many mysteries to the body, one need only to sit and listen deeply to be able to hear what they’re saying.

Cranialsacral therapy pt.3

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I tried to promote my doing cranial work in Baton Rouge years ago and remember my first ad was for it. It was the high art but I was determined. I saw a client here and there, one spa I worked at even added it to their menu.

The first client I worked with was a deep sea diver. He welded underwater in some crazy suit and was having headaches that turned into migraines. His girlfriend encouraged him to come in and in the 30 minutes I was given I walked in, put my hands on his feet and coned in. That is to say I breathed, relaxed and slowly tuned into what was going on. Two minutes in the guy said, “Hey Doc! The problems with my head.”

I laughed and realized this was going to be a long road. He didn’t know what I was feeling for, what I was doing and barely did I. Listening to his feet didn’t seem to him to be a treatment for head pain. I felt his head and could tell the temporals were involved. They didn’t move together so well, felt lopsided and the right side panned more slowly than the other. I only saw him that once and he saw no major improvement but I’d at least begun to work on people.

Months later a fellow massage therapist referred a woman to me for cranialsacral therapy specifically. I met her in the office, spoke with her and we began. I don’t recall what her complaint was, but I started at her feet and then moved to her sacrum. Placing one hand underneath her and one on top above her pubic bone, I settled in. 20 mintues later it felt like I’d come to. I’d tranced out, continued feeling the ebb and flow of her sacrum. In a space of calm and quiet I heard “it’s not right.”

My eyebrows lightly wrinkled and I listened, relaxed to hear the same phrase repeated. “It’s not right.” I didn’t resist, just let whatever it was through but after a few more minutes I felt I’d done whatever was needed here. I slid away my top hand, looked up opening my eyes and the client turned to look at me and let out the saddest, “Awww” in memory.

In a flash, I knew what was wrong. I knew what had happened. She’d been raped. I remained calm, finished the session and never said anything to her. You see, I wasn’t looking for that, wasn’t prepared to see it and certainly wasn’t prepared to talk to a client about something they hadn’t really told me. The flash left no doubt. Her response of “aww” felt like she finally found someone who could touch her in a healing way, to start the process of looking at what had happened.

None of my schooling, before or since has prepared me for these sorts of things. It’s come up again from time to time and intially I was scared. What if this thing turned on and I can’t turn it off? I don’t want to walk into the grocery store and feel this stuff. Over time I’ve relaxed, my yoga and meditation practice has grown and I’ve less fear of being me, even if that me starts to seem highly odd. I can only do what I do.

I pick up things from clients occasionally but it mainly passes through. I’m older, wiser and more secure. I’ve learned to settle in and not much surprises me. Well, not much except that the practice deepens and the harder you focus…the more you see.

Headstand pt.4

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In this last installment on headstand we discuss the effect of the pose on cranial sutures and the cranial bones, specifically as regards their movement. This information is heavily informed from my study of cranialsacral therapy. If you’re interested in cranialsacral therapy I highly recommend The Heart of Listening by Hugh Milne.

If you ever feel an imbalance in the head or cranial bones while in headstand come out. Better safe than sorry. The pose should feel good, even on your head.