Lessons for the healer (and for everyone really)

Over the past 5 days I have been very fortunate to begin my studies of biodynamic craniosacral therapy with an amazing teacher from New York. Before I went into this, I knew for quite a while that I was going to study with this teacher, and wasn't too sure how things were going to turn out during the first seminar.

To give you some context, the seminar had around 12-14 students and most of the students had a background in the health profession for quite a number of years. I'm talking about osteopaths, energy healers, body workers, etc. Apart from one mother who currently did not work in the health industry but had had a number of biodynamic craniosacral therapy treatments from one of the tutors, I was the only one who was fairly inexperienced in the health sector - heck - I only started my business a bit over a year ago! So I was already slightly worried about how things would play out for me during the seminars.

For those who don't know what biodynamic craniosacral therapy is, it's basically a therapy which utilises the fluid and energetic dynamics of the body to facilitate the body's inherent healing resources. In my opinion it's a pretty wholistic therapy in that it works in the three aspects of the body - the energetic, the fluids and the physical. By fluids I mean the cerebral spinal fluid but also the blood and other fluids within your system. It certainly is an amazing and deeply profound sort of healing, and the more we dived into the lessons for our first seminar, the more I found that it was also teaching me a lot of things from a spiritual perspective (not to mention having a teacher who also was open to the spiritual side of the world was very liberating)! Yea yea I've spoken about these concepts for a while now but I love how it brings it to light and reinforces the message (when I at times forget about it).

So here's what I learnt from it:

• Accept yourself and accept everything as it is;
• Learn to let go of how you think things should be and just let it happen and unfold; and
• Appreciate the beautiful gift of life and know that the answer to everything lies within - we are all born with all the resources that we need. We just need to bring it to the surface.

Acceptance

The format of our days was essentially a lecture at the beginning of the day, a demonstration of a particular principle/technique, a practice session with a partner and a feedback session after the practice session.

I learned to really value the feedback session when everyone got back and discussed our experience as a group. Sometimes we are afraid to speak up about "not feeling anything" during our practice session because we perceive that something is wrong with us when we don't get any sort of sensation. In our group we felt safe enough to explore this concept and it was a relief when our teacher and tutors essentially made us realise that "not feeling anything" was actually "feeling something". I.e. it was perfectly normal. There was very little judgement in terms of our experience - the feeling I got was one of complete assurance that everything happens as it should be. 

Due to my relative inexperience in the health sector in my group, I wasn't sure whether what was happening to me was accurate. There were a number of times where I asked for help from our tutors to tune in and let me know whether what I was feeling was actually what was happening. Each of my tutors confirmed that I was definitely on the right track, and I began to feel a lot more confident in myself and my abilities as each day passed. In fact, one of my tutors told me at the end of our seminar that she thought I had a natural ability for this type of work and could tell I got a lot of joy out of doing it. I was really happy with that confirmation and again it made me realise that everything was OK. Which leads on to the next topic...

Releasing

I've written about this topic at length but I think it's important to reiterate it again because it is such an important principle to live by! When we release our expectations of what we are going to feel during a session or what is going to happen, the magic of "life" unfolds and it really is an amazing thing to see. We are one half of the game of life - the other half is the Universe.. and quite frankly, the Universe orchestrates a LOT of what is going on and it's better at knowing what is better for us than we are.

One of our tutors made a really beautiful comment about this which goes along the lines of - as healers we are trying very hard to give so much to our client, we try so hard to help our client through whatever issue they are dealing with. But, if we were just to let go of this need to control the healing process, this need to give so much, let go of all of our expectations and just be open to receive or see what happens, then something amazing happens. Not only does it take a hell of a lot of pressure off ourselves, but it allows us to expand in our awareness and in a way it just makes our lives a lot easier.

In our work as healers, this concept is especially true - we get to witness the inherent healing powers of the person and see how the issue resolves itself.. which then leads onto the last point...

We have everything we need

Today I watched the movie The Shift starring Dr Wayne Dyer. Dr Wayne Dyer and my teacher say that when we are "created", we have everything that we need. In the first 6-8 weeks of our lives as embryos, by some force of nature our bodies are formed perfectly with everything that we need in order to survive. It is only after this that the genes of our parents/ancestors kick in to give us our "uniqueness" and then how we a raised that leads us to believe that "more is better".

The same force of nature still resides in our body waiting to show itself if you let it. In biodynamic craniosacral therapeutic work, we call this the Breathe of Life, and we are very fortunate and humble to be able to work with this beautiful force of nature directly. As stated above, we literally are just observers of the Breathe of Life reorganising deeply held patterns in our client's body. We don't have to do much - we just create the space and feeling of "safeness" for our client to process for themselves a particular issue or blockage that they have. It is extremely amazing and powerful to hand the keys of the car over to our client and telling them to drive - and somehow the client knows just what to do. We're not putting anything extra into the body for the healing process to start - we're just reminding the body of the particular healing power and pulling it to the surface of their consciousness so they can use it.

So there you have it - for me personally I feel that a lot of things have shifted. This will be a continuous process but I'm so glad I have finally started this course. It's really confirmed that I am to be a healer this time around and what I have been doing in my sessions with my clients to this is pretty much on the right track. I'm really excited to see how the future unfolds... and am a lot more willing to trust and let go and welcome the opportunities that come to me. I hope that you will be able to do that too :)