What kind of bodywork do you do?
I get asked regularly what do I call what I do. Uhm - I don’t have a name. I’ve been told to call it Body Whispering. If you come up with something else, feel free to share it with me!
Here is my educational background:
I received my certification as a Massage Therapist in 1988 from the National Holistic Institute. My first continuing education class was for Pregnancy Massage. In 1998 I took my first CranioSacral Therapy class (rocked my world). In 1999, I took my first Visceral Manipulation class. In 2002, I took my first Lymphatic Drainage Therapy class. I’ve studied the brain, studied concussion therapies, how pain is in the brain and how to interact with the brain, etc. I just kept going and going and going. I have a thirsty brain and an insatiable curiosity. Here are my main modalities with an overview.
CranioSacral Therapy
CranioSacral Therapy sounds like something that should just be involved with your head (cranium) and sacrum (the sacrum is both part of your pelvis and the base of your spine). But…it includes the whole body, all layers of you; emotions, surgeries, physical and emotional traumas – all of that. I like to say that the memories of our life are not stored in the brain but in all the layers of tissues in the body – down to the cells.
Connecting with your CranioSacral System is essentially connecting into your central nervous system. This is done in a very gentle, non-invasive way. I carefully listen and follow where the body shows me it needs to be given to, opened up, stabilized, mobilized, loved. Once you learn to listen to the body, this is all quite simple and clear.
This modality is my core. It stands on it’s own and it can blend with any other modalities as well.
This is a valuable technique on most everyone from infants to the elderly. I strongly believe every infant should have craniosacral within a few weeks after birth. There are a few studies that show that babies thrive better when receiving craniosacral therapy. I also find it to be very effective on animals. That’s right – I work on every cat, dog, horse, llama, goat I can get my hands on. I totally lack experience working on fish though!
Visceral Manipulation
Visceral Manipulation is an osteopathic technique developed in France by Jean Pierre Barral. The translation into English may not be graceful, but what the technique accomplishes on the body is — using a light to moderate touch to address the organs and the fascial layers that connect them. All our organs must move, glide and slide on one another to function properly. Accidents, stress (emotional and mental) can impair this movement and therefore their function. In Visceral Manipulation, I use physical touch to listen to the tissues of the body, so that I may be lead to where in the body the cause of the dysfunction is happening. Surprisingly to most clients, the area of pain is not the cause of that pain. I incorporate many techniques together in a way that they are seamlessly woven with one another as each organ, nerve, artery, or lymph vessel that is in need and ready to release. This, of course, also includes working with the spine, joints and muscles.
Vascular, Nerve Manipulation
Fluid flow is one of the most important functions of the body. Blood and lymph vessels are next to each other all over the body, as are the nerves. Muscles and joints that are tight, unyielding and just plan stubborn most likely have a fluid flow problem and/or a nerve problem. A muscle will not let go if a nerve or an artery needs protecting. This is far more important than moving the skeleton!
These techniques all have the same quality of touch as CranioSacral Therapy and Visceral Manipulation. The touch can be light or have some depth, but not painful. I avoid painful touch as it can cause a defensive pattern called armoring. Also, it can cause a cycle of inflammation that is not therapeutic. As with all techniques, I listen and follow intently to be guided into the body’s intelligence leading us to where the cause of the dysfunction is happening and showing us what needs to be done to release it.
VisceroEmotional Relationship
Your organs not only do their physiological jobs of digesting food, pumping blood & lymph, liver processing everything - they also process our emotions. A teacher once said that you could take a brick and turn it into powder and you could eat it and nothing in your gut would be damaged. But if you take an emotion and swallow that, it takes energy away from the organ making its job much harder. That was said to me in the 1990’s and it has always stayed with me.
We have all swallowed an emotion, not letting it go, not letting it process. Not only does it affect the efficiency of the organ, it also affects the brain. The two are very linked.
The hands-on process is to link the organ and the brain together. There is no dialoging between you and me. There is no identifying what, when how. It just integrates. Your brain is at more ease, and the organ is has improved function (we can palpate the organ and feel it’s ‘motility’ as a sign of improvement). Most people have an experience of going into a deep, peaceful place.
I have been doing this SO MUCH since Covid. It is a beautiful interaction within your body/mind.
Pregnancy Massage
This was my first continuing education certification in say 1993. It was the beginning of the trend to take classes and collect CEU’s. I worked on MANY pregnant women and then learned (without the benefit of a certification) to massage babies. I then taught the Mom’s (at the Birth Center that I was the Director of) how to massage their babies. I taught Pregnancy Massage for many years as well. LOVED IT!
Movement Education:
Here is my list of movement education in chronological order:
Modern Dance BFA
A decade of dance classes in San Francisco
Eric Franklin teaching “The Franklin Method” levels 1-3
Laura Franklin teaching all sorts of levels of movement, creativity, etc
Joe Goode’s Movement for Human workshops
MELT Method Levels 1 -4 (one more level to go!)
Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis - for me is a culmination of all the other mentioned above.
