Biocynamic Craniosacral Therapy in Austin
Sego Palm at The Healing Touch
Welcome to My Blog - Principles of Health.
Three Energy Portals, posted April, 2015
There is one Source of energy that is responsible for our Life and Health and there are many portals or ways of accessing that energy. Today I will talk about the three main energy portals into the body – breath, the earth representing the visible realm, and the divine or invisible. I’ll share a brief commentary followed by a simple practice for each of the three portals.
According to mystics throughout many traditions, regulation of the breath is most essential in maintaining health. A natural breath, even and rhythmic is the most beneficial. We tend to breath very shallow and irregularly, especially when we are stressed. Then someone comes along and tells us to breathe deeply and we take a big gasp which only produces more tension in the body. We have taken in a breath for which there is no accommodation. We don’t realize that breath can be subtle, soft and deep at the same time. When we breathe this way consciously, we treat our body to a healing infusion of Prana or life force energy which is some traditions is actually called the Breath of God or the Breath of Life.
Take a moment and breathe in to the count of four and breathe out to the count of four. It’s important not to make any effort as this only makes the body tense. Simply breathe in slowly and rhythmically and out slowly and rhythmically. If you feel your lung capacity is restricted, you can do the same breath but double the exhalation. The longer exhalation empties the lungs and creates the accommodation for more breath on the next inhalation. If you continue with this practice, it will become your default pattern. And if you feel you are about to get sick, lie down and do this breath for ten minutes. The Sufi mystic, Hazrat Inayat Khan, said all sickness is due to improper breathing.
The second portal is the Earth. We are nourished by the earth’s energy through our awareness and appreciation of Mother Earth. Every time we step outside, we receive a healing dose of the Earth’s healing energy. These days we spend more time in front of screens like this one, and less and less time outside. We are made of earth elements and we need constant and frequent contact with nature to sustain ourselves. We need to go to the sea, to the mountains and meadows and forests. We need to lie on the earth and gaze up at the stars, to take in the radiance of the sun and moon. We are fed by this light and energy. Without it our battery runs down and we become tired and uninspired.
Take a moment and feel your feet on the floor. Even better, walk outside and become aware of the trees and flowers and sky. Take your shoes off and walk directly on the earth, receiving her healing energy. Go to www.earthinginstitute and read the interesting research and learn how direct contact with the earth’s soil feeds our bodies electronically. Yes you read that right! We receive free electrons from the earth through our feet and bodies and these electrons join with and neutralize free-radicals in the body. Free-radicals are a major source of inflammation. This is a good thing! So please spend time outdoors everyday and make special pilgrimages to places of beauty and power. The inspiration you will receive is another form of breath – the breath of life. Last night I visited the creek near our home and sat on a tree root with my feet dangling in the water. Then I sang with the frogs. I came home peaceful and inspired.
The third portal we could call the spiritual. Whether you believe in a supreme being or not, everyone has a sense of connectedness to something greater than the individual self. It may be nature and it may be a sense of the infinite. It doesn’t matter what we call it. We can draw energy from it. Whether your cosmic story begins with the Big Bang or a creation story, this is the Source of all energy. It is the source for the breath and the Earth and all creation. There is so much to say about this divine energy. It is palpable and real and without it there would be no life as we know it. There are many portals into divine energy, including the prophets of all times, the great Beings who have come to Earth to awaken us to our divine inheritance. Think of Abraham, Moses, Christ, Buddha. Think of the teachers you have met in the current age who have encouraged and inspired you. Think of the beauty of nature.
You can train yourself to feel the divine energy. Close your eyes and simply feel whatever sensation is present in your body. Think subtle and vibrational. Feel the presence of energy swirling through your body and extend awareness beyond the body and feel the same presence. Imagine yourself breathing this energy into your body through the crown and circulating it to all the cells. Offer your gratitude for life and for the energy which continuously supports it.
Wishing you Health
Health is Wholeness
November 4, 2013
The only thing we need to heal is the belief that we are not already whole.
~ Eric Michael Leventhal
Health is Wholeness is another of the essential principles of Biodynamic
Craniosacral Therapy. Let’s take a look at what this could mean. Wholeness
refers to completeness; the thing is complete in itself. Every part is an
essential part of a greater and greater whole. Thus humans are an intimate part
of the Earth, the known universe, and even unknown universes. We understand
that we are part of nature. Our health depends on that connection, not only
because nature is beautiful and nourishes body, mind and spirit, but because
that is who we are. When we live apart from nature, we lose access to an
important part of our own being and its intelligence. David Bohm, the nuclear
physicist says:
The notion of a separate organism is clearly an abstraction, as is also its
boundary. Underlying all this is unbroken wholeness even though our
civilization has developed in such a way as to strongly emphasize the
separation into parts. [David Bohm, The Undivided Universe]
Attending to wholeness requires perspective. If everything is connected to everything else as quantum physics now asserts and spiritual masters have long known, we need a very wide perspective to view the whole. When we isolate and limit our awareness to a
part as often happens in western civilization, we lose the sense of connectivity and reciprocity that are essential ingredients of the healing process. We lose the all-encompassing perspective that allows us to relate to
the Health.
Living as a separate part in a world perceived as made of separate units leads to unhealthy states of being. These states are reflected in the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of our being. When we consider the interconnectedness of everyone and everything, we know Health depends on awakened relationships of parts to wholeness.
Health is relational. When parts relate to other parts in an unbroken wholeness, the system tends to reflect Health. More intelligence is available. There are more feed-back loops and more communication is generated. What happens to one part affects the whole and awareness of the whole generates more connectivity with the parts. When we
don’t feel well, or have a pain, our focus narrows to that place or point. It worries us and we worry it. A loop is formed and it can become well established as in chronic pain. Western medicine is largely focused here in this narrow band of attention, and has forgotten the wholeness.
The part that hurts has also forgotten it is part of the whole. The mind separates it out and attends to the pain in a narrow band of focus, forgetting the rest of the body that is free of pain. There’s often judgment about the pain. It is bad and must be banished
rather than seeing it as intelligent communication: Hey, something here needs your loving attention.
All illness is on some level about separation from the whole. Healing is about remembering and returning to wholeness. It is about parts communicating and relating at higher and higher levels of interaction. Therapeutic work is about helping the parts feel connected again. Hello liver. I see you. Hello spinal chord, I sense your
tension. Would you like a little more space? Hello occipital bone and sacrum.
Can you feel your connection with each other? Hello cerebrospinal fluids. I feel your hesitation at the bottom of the spine. Would you like to flow there now?
Healing is about remembering the whole while bringing awareness to the parts that have forgotten how to function within the whole. When this is done with appreciation for the body’s intelligence, things change and greater states of Health emerge.
In the next post I’ll share a personal experience of healing which illustrates this principle – Health is Wholeness.
I leave you with the words of Margaret Wheatley:
When we seek for connection, we restore the world to wholeness. Our seemingly
separate lives become meaningful as we discover how truly necessary we are for
each other.
This is as true at the cellular level as it is at the highest level of organization.
Wishing You Well.
The Blueprint is Health
September 14, 2013
Today I held a premature baby in my arms. Though yesterday was the official due date, she was delivered almost three months before term. She is a miracle of modern medicine and a healthy expression of the nearly infallible design process, the blueprint in action. What a joy it was to hold her and to know that despite the fact she was
delivered three months early, despite the challenges of premature birth, she is
still developing on schedule, a healthy, beautiful baby.
This blueprint is the foundation of Health. It is amazingly accurate and unerring. Of the
approximately four million babies born in the U.S. each year, an average of 120,000 or 3% is born with a birth defect. And many of those are preventable, caused by
environmental factors like use of alcohol, cigarettes, drugs etc. Clearly, the
blueprint is working as it was designed most of the time.
Can we leap into the unknown together for a few minutes? This is the domain of great mystery. These formative forces are responsible for the great miracle of life and human
development. The human being is not designed by committee but by a mysterious
blueprint which exists inside and outside of what we know as life, and is present and activated from the very beginnings of life. It continues to be present up to the moment of death.
From the very beginning, the development of the zygote or fertilized egg is directed by the blueprint and the pre-existing forces which constellate again and again to form
living beings.
When we use the term ‘blueprint’ we are not talking about gene expression. As the cellular biologist Bruce Lipton has shown in his research, cells can live without DNA.
And cells are life. Most scientific explanations are still based on a mechanistic view of life, and lack credibility in explaining the miraculous!
We know that the blueprint is encoded in very cell. These same forces that created us, sustain us throughout life, constantly working to restore and maintain balance as in
homeostasis. The blueprint is the Health. If Health is present at all times, then why aren’t human beings as healthy as we could be?
Though Heath is always present, we can’t always access it due to multiple factors including lifestyle, stress, fear and its focus on disease, system overwhelm, lack of awareness of our own bodies, negative self-talk and perception of self, active imagination, and current paradigms of medicine.
It is long past time to realize our Heath is being compromised by the modern paradigm of medicine with its emphasis on disease, drugs, and outside interventions while the blueprint, our greatest resource, remains hidden. Let’s embark together on
the journey to a new paradigm whose blueprint is already recorded to guide our
path. More to come in future posts. Stay tuned…
I leave you now with these words of Dr. Bruce Lipton.
This force[read blueprint] is "universal in nature" and each of us can
access it. It is the electromagnetic energy field that surrounds each of us
(and every other living thing) the instant that the egg or seed conceives.
Read more at www.BruceLipton.com.
Till next time, I wish you Health.
Postscript: I want to acknowledge that the views I share in these posts have been informed and shaped by two essential streams of wisdom/knowledge – spiritual practice, especially Sufism and Buddhism, and the study of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, and I would add, a few enlightened scientists. My definition of an enlightened scientist is one who does not require scientific proof to explain life phenomena.
The Old Wisdom ~ New Paradigm of Health
August 23, 2013
With all the hoopla over The Affordable Care Act, the discussion about how
best to create and maintain good heath is often lost on the margins of thought.
The traditional medical model, which is disease-based, with its emphasis on
treating symptoms with drugs and surgery, has its place. But that is not what
this blog is about. I'll let the medical model speak for itself.
Quietly, for decades now, a new perspective has been emerging. It has often
been called holistic health, or alternative medicine. The modalities are
numerous and varied, ranging from home remedies to upscale spa treatments, from
crystal healing to acupuncture and chiropractic. Yoga and nutrition are
featured as well as herbal therapies. I could go on and on. What most of these
things have in common is an interest in the whole being, recognizing the
body/mind connection, and they tend to be non-invasive.
Here in these pages we will explore some of the essential principles of Health in this emerging or re-emerging field of healthcare, weaving together ancient and contemporary wisdom. As a practitioner, I find Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy [BCST] incorporates many of the principles of this evolving paradigm. There are other modalities that do also, but I’ll limit my discussion to the one I am most familiar with. Over the next months, I’ll be exploring some of these principles such as innate intelligence, orienting towards Health, mindfulness of body, regulating the nervous system and much more.
My Health Credo: I believe in Health. I believe the body is a self-regulating, living intelligence which responds positively when awareness is present and directed towards supporting balance and integration at all levels of the body/mind. I believe Health is always present even in illness. It is our sweet responsibility to befriend the body, make a new covenant of mutual support with it, and share the knowledge and fruits of
Health with others.
Until next time…Wishing you good Health.
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The Healing Touch News
Fall, 2013
Quiet friend who has come so far. Feel how your breathing makes more space around you. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
These words of Rilke remind us of the importance of breathing. Following the breath with awareness is the single most important thing we can do to counteract the effects of stress and anxiety. As I have invited you before, please stop and take three conscious in breaths right now and feel the spaciousness inside and around you.
What’s New at The Healing Touch
New Blog and New Webpage
I have several exciting new projects to share with you as we move into fall.
First, the long-awaited blog is up and going. The main topic is Health and specifically the principles or fundamentals of Health. I will have a new post every two to three weeks approximately. It’s easy. Please go the blog and click on the “follow” box that
pops up on the top bar just below the URL or on the right hand margin at the
bottom and you’ll get a link each time I add a new post. Also “likes” bring a
smile to my face. Here’s the address: www.TheHealingBreathofLife.wordpress.com. Caps not necessary.
You’ll find my new website at http://TheHealingTouchAustin.com. Check it out for new content.
Free Baby Clinic
Several months ago I had a free clinic day and it was very successful. I’ve decided to do this on a quarterly basis. The next free day will be a baby clinic. Stay tuned for
details. Babies are very responsive to Craniosacral therapy so please bring
your baby in.
Advanced Training in Working with the
Autonomic Nervous System
I’m continuing the advanced Biodynamic training in Boulder on healing the nervous
system. We can learn to self-regulate our nervous system which brings balance,
health, and vitality. Here’s a wee nugget from the course. Red experiences
activate the sympathetic nervous system or fight and flight responses which
make us feel tense. Blue experiences help us to relax, facilitating the
parasympathetic arm of the autonomic nervous system. Blue experiences feel
good. When blue experiences meet red experiences consciously, you get purple –
the color of transformation. This is real alchemy! Can you sense how excited I
am about this work?
The Power of Appreciation
Blue experiences activate the pre-frontal cortex [the most recent
part of our brain] which regulates emotions, modulates fear, helps us feel
empathy for others, have a more flexible range of responses, etc. Research
shows that 30 seconds of appreciation activates the pre-frontal cortex and
orients us to a more positive frame of mind. This is good for our health. So
try this exercise: spend 30 seconds appreciating yourself – your body, your
strengths and talents – anything and everything you can think of and watch what
happens to your breath, your heart-rate, and your general sense of well-being.
And if you like what happens, do this simple exercise up to six times each day.
If you smile while doing appreciating yourself, you’ll get even more benefit.
It is a great joy to continue to accompany you on your healing
journey.
~ Stillness Heals ~