What is Cranio Sacral Therapy

Have you ever booked a massage with me online and wondered…

“What is Cranio Sacral Therapy?”

I first became enthralled with CST when I started teaching yoga. I was living in Honolulu and was phasing out of working at the Cheesecake Factory as a server in Waikiki, and stepping onto the path of teaching yoga.

I can only explain it as a somatic injury - my knees and ankles became swollen. Often, making big changes in our daily habits creates a physical “evolution” as well. I experienced edema in my lower legs for about 6 weeks, when one of my yoga-teacher friends, who also practiced massage and CST, offered to see me.

All we did was about 90 minutes of CST. I walked into her office with swollen ankles, and I left with normal ankles! I was officially a believer in its power and ability to heal even the most stubborn of ailments.

About 6 months later, an old friend reached out to me out of the blue saying that her CST instructor was coming to teach in Kauai, and wondered if I might be interested in learning with them. I knew it was a calling, and made every effort to bring that trip into my field of reality.

Under the instruction of Leonid Sobolef, I soaked in the knowledge he had to offer in Kauai for a full week. When I returned to Oahu, I immediately began practicing on some of my yoga clients, only to discover that I needed a massage license to practice…

And so began my journey to becoming a massage therapist!

Cranio Sacral Therapy uses a very light, still touch to observe the subtle flexions and extensions created in the body by the flow of cerebrospinal fluid.

This fluid washes over the brain and down the spinal cord, and back up, nourishing and cleansing the nerve tissue and the nervous system. I like to think of cerebrospinal fluid as liquid consciousness. It is created in the body by exchanging with other similar fluids, like interstitial fluid - the liquid that fills the cell space. In this way, cerebrospinal fluid carries messages from the whole body to the central nervous system and back again. This flow creates a very subtle movement in the body that we call tides.

My role as therapist is very “hands-off,” so to speak. The very light touch (about 5 grams, or the weight of a nickel) gives your body a fulcrum upon which to adjust itself. We can practice CST anywhere on the body, but particular emphasis is placed on the bones of the cranium (skull) and sacrum (back of the hips/base of the spine).

As your therapist, I don’t make any effort to guide this process. One thing I LOVE about CST is that it works under the assumption that your body knows exactly how to heal itself. The only thing that gets in our way of healing ourselves completely is the constant recruitment of our energy and attention elsewhere.

When we have an injury, our bodies have a beautiful inflammation-reparation healing process. And most often, our bodies heal the injury to the point of being able to use it again, and then our healing agency moves on to other things, like keeping our immune system active or digestion.

This old injury becomes like a blind spot to your inner healer. My role is to hold up a mirror and remind you where there is still imbalance. I listen for the quality of your healing mechanism, and our awareness together is all that is needed for your body to relax into an opening. You do all of the healing work!

The experience of receiving CST is deeply relaxing, often dreamlike, with subtle but profound openings and releases. The result can cross the bridge into not just physical, but mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual healing as well.

Cranio Sacral Therapy vs Chiropractic

CST is NOT a replacement for Chiropractic care, however, both work with adjustments to the nervous system. Chiropractic work uses force to adjust the bones back into alignment. Sometimes, depending on the doctor, the force is gentle, and sometimes it’s more aggressive. The goal of chiropractic work is to decrease spinal subluxation, which is an imbalance in the spinal vertebrae or nervous system tissue, thereby creating less pain and a more regulated autonomic nervous system.

CST never uses force. I’ll often sit in a cranio hold for ten or more minutes, listening, following your tidal flow, and encouraging an opening at a still point. The adjustments are gentle yet powerful. The practice is completely safe. Only healing, and only the healing you’re ready for, comes from CST.

The goals of CST are similar to those of chiropractic work - to experience less pain, disharmony and dis-ease in the body, and to settle the autonomic nervous system into a more regulated, sustainable state.

Who is Cranio Sacral Therapy for?

If you have:

• Any trauma, whether physical, mental or emotional

• History of car accidents

• History of concussion

• Injuries, especially those requiring surgery or that took a long time to heal

• Anxiety, depression, insomnia or other mental illness

• Autism or other neurodevelopmental issue

• Addiction to anything

• Or basically anything you want help healing

Cranio Sacral Therapy is for YOU!

Ready to give it a try? Set up an appointment with me today!