My client Carol couldn't stop thinking about her mother's funeral which had taken place a month earlier. Sad and feeling that the burden of holding the family together had now shifted to her, she decided to do some gardening to distract her from her feelings of grief and resentment. As she lifted a large bag of planter mix, Carol suddenly felt a sharp pain in her lower back. This was the beginning of a year and a half of chronic back problems. Carol tried regular chiropractic adjustments for her back pain but these onlly brought her temporary relief.
Our bodies often retain the emotional imprint of a physical trauma. These imprints are caused by especially intense feelings such as grief, anger, fear, or resentment that we may have been feeling at the time an injury occured. These emotional imprints can leave residues in our bodies at the injury site. These residues are referred to by CranioSacral Therapists as 'energy cysts'. 'Energy Cysts' can be treated by a trained CranioSacral Therapist.
Our bodies can adapt to 'energy cysts', but if the buried emotional trauma is not released, time passes and the body's energy pathways become blocked by the 'cyst'. Then the body must adapt by trying to re-route its natural energy flow past the 'cyst'. As years pass and the body becomes more and more stressed, it can lose its ability to adapt to 'energy cysts' so that painful physical symptoms and dysfunctions begin to appear that we simply cannot supress or ignore.
By the time Carol came to me for treatment, she was desperate for relief from the back pain that had disrupted her life. I directed her to lay down on my treatment table and then I gently placed my hands over the area of her pain. I started by talking to Carol about what was going on in her life when she first began having problems with her back. Carol recalled the events which led to her initial back injury as I applied manual techniques and gently guided her through therapeutic visualizations and dialoguing to help her release the pain. As we spoke, I felt Carol's tissues relax along her entire spine. An hour later, when she got up from the treatment table, Carol said that most of her pain had disappeared and she felt as thought a large burden had been lifted from her. The next morning Carol felt even better and she was able to get dressed with no pain for the first time in several months. Since her therapy session, Carol has been able to return to her normal activities without pain.
Each client can have a uniquely different experience with CranioSacral therapy and regular treatment may be required in order to maintain the client's new state of health. During a therapy session to release 'energy cysts' from the body, the CranioSacral therapist engages in imaging and dialoguing along with manual techniques that can gently and painlessly guide the patient through a release of long-held negative emotions. As this occurs, the therapist can feel the 'energy cyst' being expelled. Then the client's body is able to return to its optimal levels of functiioning.
Gloria Flores LMT,CST,HHP is an A.A.D.P. Board Certified Holistic Health Practitioner and an Upledger Institute trained and Certified CranioSacral Therapist. She has a private practice in Burbank, CA and is a practicing therapist at Wellness Works Holistic Health Center in Glendale, CA. Her practitioner profile is on the Upledger web site at http://www.iahp.com/gloriaflores