Craniosacral therapy, manual lymphatic drainage – combined

A few weeks ago I spoke about a lovely man, P, who comes to me to work with his eczema.   He’s pretty extraordinary in himself.  His partner, V, is a whole other ball game.  I’m struggling for words to describe what our sessions are like as no two are even remotely the same.  P and V always come together, P gets on the table first followed by V.  They kiss before they go in and it’s as if they will not see each other for days, rather than an hour and most times they wait for each other in the reception area.  They are absolutely the most perfectly paired couple I have ever met.

When V first came her main hope was to get some relief from the pain she suffered monthly during her period – she was taking anti-inflammatories via suppositories for the pain and if she didn’t get them in time she ended up in hospital, sometimes on morphine.  Now that’s real pain.   She had surgery for endoometriosis but still the pain continued.  Her lifestyle was very clean – she ate fish but no other animals, didn’t drink alcohol or take recreational drugs, meditated daily for an hour – she had as much natural in her life as she possibly could.   Like P, she took homeopathic medicine and natural remedies so taking anti-inflammatories and morphine really wasn’t what she wanted in her life.

The first couple sessions we used craniosacral therapy to work on calming her system down and releasing restrictions gently and some Emmett Technique for some knee issues she was having looked at by the physio. After the first treatment she had relief from pain in her knee and generally felt happier and more positve.  Next session we continued with similar treatment and she had a big nasal release.    She said the nasal work had a big result – in the shower the following morning she had a gush of blood from her nose, which stopped quickly and then there was massive relief.

Occipital HR workphoto courtesy Google Images – www.balanced-energy.com

She continued having both physical and emotional releases.  She got her period about three weeks after we started and didn’t even need to take a Panadene – for the first time in 15 years!  I have to say that the period pain did fluctuate a bit at the start but it is not an issue any more, can’t remember the last time we’ve even spoken about it.  And her physical aches and pains have kind of taken a back seat.  My patient notes are usually very detailed but for V they’re minimal, just because it’s difficult to put in words what we cover and I’m not sure it would make sense to anyone reading them anyway.

A typical session may start like this … “oh my goodness, I’ve been so looking forward to this.  I feel like today I need grounding so if we start with a massage to my legs and back then we can do some energetic work at the end, they say we need to look at such and such”.  It’s really useful having such specific instructions.  It’s never quiet for long, there’s usually some sort of update on what she’s feeling, what kind of release she’s having in a physical sense as well as on an energetic/spiritual level.  Interestingly, I sometimes get some very strong impressions or feelings when I’m working with V, seeing very vivid pictures in my head which I think are way out there and part of my imagination, only to have her pipe up something like “wow, I just had this feeling of being stabbed in the left shoulder by a lance while I was charging on a horse” or some similar event which TOTALLY matches what I saw.  Sometimes I feel compelled to say a word or phrase to her and that thought is often going through her mind right at that exact moment.  I don’t get that with anyone else I work with … this is not a normal occurence in my room.  But it makes for very interesting sessions.  It has been a steep learning curve for me, I’m learning to let go and trust what I’m feeling, particularly when working with someone who lives totally intuitively.  The shifts happen when you can work together to let go of stress on a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level and that is what V does.  I learn something about myself every time we work together and I look forward to every visit – it is certainly never, ever, ever dull.

If you’d like to find out a little more about craniosacral therapy, have a look at http://www.upledger.com/content.asp?id=61.