Core Success Seminar in Brisbane 07.

Posted by John Dalton on July 14, 2008

Jenny Palmer invited me to give a postgraduate seminar in Brisbane in April 07. I delivered my ‘Core Success’ seminar, which is a seminar for therapists generally not just cranio sacral therapists. As well as the Brisbane folk, some therapists flew up from Sydney. Here is what Jenny has to say about it.

Lost and Found - gifts from John Dalton’s Core Success workshop in Australia.
by Jenny Palmer.

If you’ve ever been fishing, you’ll know that casting the line out may be the trickiest part. It’s important to get the bait right out to where the fish are biting.
Sometimes, you find huge balls of tangled fishing line amongst the rocks, where someone did that thing where the line spools out into a giant knot behind you, instead of flying cleanly through the air in front of you. In desperation, they cut the line and get rid of the giant knot instead of spending hours trying to undo it.

So what’s that got to do with a craniosacral workshop?

Well, before John came back to Australia to do the seminar, I had loads of questions - about my practice, about some people I’m treating and about cranio in general. It felt a bit like a giant ball of knotted fishing line. There had been years of ’stuff’ happening in my personal life as well that seemed to have sucked the essence of ‘hope’ from my being.

So, the day of the Core Success workshop finally dawned and in I went, expecting to get loads of answers. John welcomed everyone and began the day with the statement that he had ‘no answers for anyone’.
Great! I thought…….

What John was going to attempt to do was to help everyone realise that they inherently had the answers all along. (I thought, ‘Like a good cranio session perhaps?’)

Using simple exercises (the ‘interactive’ part), there began a gradual awakening to John’s opening statement. It’s often shocking when things are revealed to you in seemingly simple ways. It reminds me of my own inner ‘complicatedness’. My brain gets in the way at times and wants to know everything - right now - please!

After a couple of these interactive exercises, I couldn’t really remember my list of questions. They’d disappeared, or the couple I could remember seemed to not really be questions at all. (That may be categorised as having a ’seniors’ moment, but I don’t think so.) It was like holding that big ball of knotted fishing line and all you really have to do is find that one little strand that seems to hold it all together - the more you dig your fingers in and search, the more frustrated you get. The tighter the knots seem to get. But if you just sit with it, soften your eyeballs and really look at it, see how the threads are running, the one bit that holds it together will become apparent. Just loosen it, a little, and see how the ball of knots falls apart, slowly, slowly, easily…

As the day progressed, I got some wonderful insights into myself and my practice and the people I’m treating and how I’m approaching everything. I had been having some serious doubts about myself, and my ability to help some people. My hope had taken a battering. That had also affected my faith, in myself.

Some of what I really got was:
• We’re NOT in the business of imparting wisdom (that’s a relief in itself).
• We don’t teach people to ride a bike by riding it for them.
• Assumption - if people come to me they want to get better.
• Assumption - when it looks like you’re sharing a reality, you’re not.
• We really don’t want to know the end of the movie before we see it
- even if it is a happy ending.
• Our biggest trap is success (you think you know for certain what’s going on).
• The other main trap is failure (you’re certain you’re no good).

And the most beautiful, yet unsettling thing?

You’re part of the liberation that you might not even see……

And that’s the beauty of the mysterious, still places that we go to every day as therapists. Or, as that infamous ex US Defence Secretary once said. “As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
Makes perfect sense to a craniosacral therapist.

We (craniosacral therapists) are pioneers. And that’s tough in itself. It’s enriching to get together with other practitioners and students and just chat. I wish we could do that more often. In the meantime, I sit back in that great ‘armchair’ and find the stillness that’s demanded of us the most (and remember, you can’t see round corners).
The day was lovely - I want to thank John. For his wisdom and insight and understanding.

He created a still place for us all (calming and unsettling) - inspiring, gentle, nourishing, illuminating, warm (just like a good cranio session?). What I got from that day is still unravelling in myself, and in my practice. I’ve really moved forward with what I want to be doing, and it’s falling very nicely into place.
I can’t wait for next year’s workshop - I’m starting on my list of questions now. (Kidding!)

Jenny Palmer
www.ynt.com.au

Sciatica

Posted by John Dalton on July 2, 2008

+ Which technique should I use? - September 05

+ Comment from Al Pelowski, principal tutor with The South
African Institute of Cranial Studies. on sciatica- October 05

Hi John,
Found your web site very useful and your URL easy to remember.
I use it as my virtual business card. I have been treating a man in
his late fifties with sciatica. I have had some success but feel I
could achieve more.

Can you recommend any techniques that you have found
particularly useful for sciatica?
Thanks
J.P.
Brisbane.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Glad you like the site.
I’m going to answer your question in two parts. Let me start by
saying no one technique is ‘the’ technique for ANYTHING.

Techniques are ways we get a handle on the bigger picture.
And the biggest picture is what you need to be available for.
I am putting it like that because describing it as ‘looking’ for
the biggest picture is way too active, eager, inefficient and INTURSIVE.
You need to ask yourself, what is really going on here?
Why has this person got these particular symptoms?
Why are the symptoms in this configuration?
What’s the root cause of this situation?

Symptoms generally manifest physically, meaning they show up
in the person’s body.  But that doesn’t mean the CAUSE of those
symptoms is exclusively physical.

Often EMOTIONAL issues will express themselves as physical symptoms.
It doesn’t just stop there, often the root cause of what is going
on has a physical component, caused by an emotional component
but the root cause is not emotional it is something DEEPER.

That may sound spooky or kooky to you depending on your slant
but I have seen it time and again, where the root cause was deeper
than physical and emotional issues.

How can that be?

Let’s go through it one layer at a time.
Physical problems.
These problems are characterised by very physical causes and
descriptions,  ‘The tentorium cerebelli is pulled inferiorly here,
causing pressure there . . .etc’.
Regardless of the source of a pattern of a restriction, it will show
up physically.  Becoming accurate in identifying the extent and
complexity of physical restrictions takes a lot of practice and is
a prerequisite for working with the deeper causes.

Emotional issues/causes.
Restrictions in the emotional aspect of the person can have causes
like, a person may need to leave a partner or job or it may be an old
emotional abuse.
Emotional restrictions are more difficult to identify accurately
because it’s very easy to start theorising about the person’s problems
instead of simply receiving the information from the person’s body in
the same way you do with physical patterns.

Core problems
These relate to how the person sees themselves in their lives, their
relationship with themselves, with God, with their idea of God.
A feeling that they’re off track.
And no, you don’t need to know what their track is.
Core problems can feel like fundamental disharmonies within the
person.  They are the hardest to perceive because they are so deep
in the person.
Your ability to see and work with these core issues comes with lots
of practice and humility.
Their revelation occurs in the dynamic between you and the person
and what you have to offer each other.

Are you with me?

It generally works its way through the layers something like this.
A disharmony in a person’s core will affect them emotionally and
in turn affect them physically.
For example someone might think they are fundamentally bad.
This could manifest emotionally as anxiety and paranoia, which
could manifest physically as headaches and chronic fatigue.
The skill comes in being able to assess where the root cause of
the problem is.

Before you go charging off into the great mystery, let me add this.
It can be as easy to go the other way and start looking for deep
emotional and core issues as the root cause of a purely physical
problem.

‘I just twisted my knee Mate!’

Now the second part of my answer is purely physical.
There are lots of different ways of creating sciatica.
It’s a pain, which means there have to be nerves involved.
The pain generally is in the lower back and travels down one
leg or the other, sometimes both.

Have a look at, [in books and with your hands] the lumbar plexus,
the sacral plexus.  How are the nerves on both sides of the spinal
column as they leave the vertebral foramina?

Scan the nerves up as far as the thoraco-lumbar junction.
Remember tight membranes can pull vertebrae together and pinch nerves.
Consider how long the person has been getting the pain?
Getting a sense of when and how the pattern of restriction was formed.
So, look particularly at the dural tube.
How are the membranes running?
Most particularly how is the cerebro spinal fluid moving?
Find ways to help it come into a harmonious flow.
It’s all about flow.

Top

***COMMENT FROM AL PELOWSKI***
- On additional physical causes of sciatica.

John,
Some of the rootlets of the sciatic nerve pass through the psoas
muscle - a noted emotional contractor- - slightly bent over posture,
unable to fully extend hips without pain, affected leg externally rotated.
Another sciatica tip: usually on right side, I-C Valve, Caecum.

Yet other possibilities: Leg length differences, real bony differences,
or more likely due to rotations in the leg from protecting an old sprained
ankle or twisted knee — most commonly external rotation in the foot
where there has been damage to the ankle lateral colateral ligaments
– resulting in compression of the S-I joint and thus irritation of the epineuria.
“from the ankle joint to the knee joint…etc” Remember the tune?

Yo. Ta for newsletter. Much food for reflection
A

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Thanks Al. All very useful places to look for the mechanics of
the physical manifestation of sciatica.

Cancer

Posted by John Dalton on July 2, 2008

+ Cranio sacral therapy and Cancer -October 05

Hi John,
I have a friend who has had a mastectomy and partial
lymphadenectomy and is currently receiving chemotherapy
for active cancer in her neck. I was thinking that some
CST would be helpful to assist her immune system (not
to mention emotional state) but am concerned whether it
would simultaneously stimulate the cancer which is
quite an aggressive type.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on the matter, I
can provide more info if you need in order to advise me

cheers Kylie

—————–
Kylie  Tobler.
B.App Sc. (Occupational Therapy), Dip. CST
Sydney.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Your question goes right to the heart of what we do.
My answer, in typical cranio fashion, is not clear cut.

Maybe . .

Maybe her system will use your treatment to grow the
cancer more aggressively.

Maybe her system will use your treatment to get rid
of the cancer completely.

By ’system’ I mean everything. Mind, Body, Spirit,
the lot and anything else we don’t know about.

You see, all the warm and fluffy talk about us
cranio sacral therapists not ‘doing’ anything but
simply supporting the patient’s system isn’t
hypothetical.

It’s actually true.

And if you know that and you are treating people
well, which means not imposing your idea of what needs
to happen on their systems, then you really have to
face the fact that you’re not in control of what’s
happening. .

. . or going to happen.

That concept is easy enough to accept when you are
dealing with something simple that isn’t resolving.

Everything feels ripe in the person’s system for an
old pattern of restriction to release but it just
won’t.

It makes you sort of scratch your head and think,
‘Well that’s odd.  I can’t see any reason why it’s not
releasing.’

Then you remember, ‘Ah that’s right, I’m not running
the show here.  There must be a reason that makes sense
to this persons system and it just hasn’t informed me
of it yet.’

But . .

When the person is manifesting life threatening
symptoms the stakes are much higher.  It’s very easy to
slip back into the mechanistic view of health and WANT
a particular outcome.  In this case more life for the
patient.

But wait, it gets more complicated . .

Being able to tell the difference between a patient
who is thinking of finishing their life and one who is
not, is difficult.

Often what comes out of the person’s mouth is very
different from what their system says.

In one case the person says, ‘I am going to beat
this.’  While their system says, ‘I can no longer live
with this discord in me.  I am finishing my life.’

In another case the person says, ‘I can’t bear this
pain any longer.  I just want to die.’  While their
system says, ‘I am fully engaged in my life and I want
this discord in me to come into harmony.’

Also. .

In practice I’ve seen that there’s a different
therapeutic dynamic between a patient and I, depending
on whether their situation is life threatening or not.

When a person comes to me for help and I put my
hands on them, the unspoken communication from me to
their system is always the same.

What are you trying to do?
How can I be of assistance?

(Anyone NOT asking yourself those questions, go to
the top of the class and bitch-slap the teacher.  Then
get yourself a better teacher.)

If the patient’s unspoken response is, ‘I am fully
engaged in my life and I want this discord in me to
come into harmony.’

Then . . it’s on . .

The dynamic between us is a bit like an Aikido
expert trying to rodeo ride a Tasmanian Devil.
(think Bugs Bunny)

I’m the Aikido expert.

No, not really - just for this analogy.

The restriction is protected by many defences that
come to the fore as the drive for harmony lets me in.

I do my best to stay focused in spite of the
barrage.

I funnel all the energy they project in defence,
back into their system, to assist the release.

There is a back and forth struggle as I stay with
them through the process of release and healing.

All going well there is a sense of liberation at the
end.  For both of us.

If, on the other hand, the unspoken response to my
question is, ‘I can no longer live with this discord in
me.  I am finishing my life.’ then I am dealing with a
totally different situation and the dynamic is very
different.

No back and forth, no struggle.

Why?

I’ll have to get a bit cosmic here to explain, so if
you have any deeply held religious beliefs, you should
maybe stop reading now as you might find what I’m going
to say offends you . .

Life threatening conditions are created at the core
of the person. To effectively work with them requires
deep respect for the origin of the choice.

We are multi layered, multi faceted beings.  The
part of us that makes this choice is not in our
awareness.

The choice to conclude our life is made in the same
place as the choice to begin our life.

The reasons for both choices are extremely personal
and by their nature, not in our awareness.

Put aside for a minute, any information you might
have come upon from clairvoyants and channelers etc.

Now consider these questions.

Why were you born?
Why did you choose the gender you did?
Why did you choose the family you did?
Why did you choose the country you did?
And so on . .

Don’t know?

Me neither.

If you don’t know the answer to these questions for
your own life, how are you going to know them for
someone else’s?

. . and knowing that, helps you be HUMBLE and
RESPECTFUL when working with someone dealing with these
core issues.

I can’t over emphasis this point.

Deep, for real, humility and respect are an
important key you are going to need if you really want
to be of assistance.

. . because, here’s the thing, the decision to
finish a life is NOT IRREVOCABLE.

It can change.

Cancer is very dynamic.  Once it gets going it can
grow very fast.

. . . and it can un-grow very fast too.

When you approach the person with humility, respect
and NO AGENDA, a remarkable thing happens.  You are
allowed deeper access to the core of the person.

No kidding.

Here’s why.

There’s a phenomenon in quantum physics called the
‘Copenhagen Interpretation’.  It says that the presence
of the observer influences the experiment.

But only in Copenhagen!

No, not really.

The significant aspect of this phenomenon is
presence.  Your presence makes a huge difference.
Think about it.
Your presence has been allowed into the part of the
person that is making the life/death choice.

A problem shared is a problem halved.

Just being with the person at this level is of
tremendous assistance to them.  A friendly companion on
a difficult stretch of the road makes the journey
easier.

As you walk along together, them talking, you
listening, they start to tell you about why they are
finishing their life.  As they do this, more and more
harmony comes into their system because of the effect
of your respectful presence.

Sometimes, as they tell you about why they are
finishing their life, it becomes apparent to them that
they’ve missed something, a piece of information or a
perspective they hadn’t looked at.

Suddenly they stop.

You are at a fork in the road that wasn’t there a
moment ago.  They smile at you and say, ‘I’m feeling
somewhat Tasmanian, let’s go down this way.’

and . . . it’s on.

Other times they keep on the same road and their
passage is made easier by your presence.

Life for its own sake is not necessarily GOOD.
Death in and of itself is not necessarily BAD.  The
QUALITY of both, our life and our death are what
counts.

Often the road you travel with a person dealing with
this issue has many forks and they change their mind a
lot.

The main assistance we can give is easing the
process, brokering as much harmony in their system as
possible.

Make no mistake it’s very demanding.

If you do decide to treat your friend, here are some
things to look out for from a palpatory perspective.
Bear in mind that palpation is a very personal affair
and how I pick it up may not be the way you pick it up.

What does it feel like?

In the initial, PRE pre cancerous cell stage, it
feels like an intensely bright point of light,
incandescent.

As the cancer becomes more materialised it becomes
brighter and starts to grow legs like a spider.

In time as it becomes ‘aggressive’ these legs
connect up with other points of light and the whole
thing becomes more solid.

Eventually the center of this mass of white hot
light becomes fleshy as the tumour proper forms.

If the person changes their mind about finishing
their life and the cancer starts to return to normal
tissue it will go from the white hot quality to a sort
of turgid yellow.

This eventually turns into normal tissue.

An exception to this pattern is prostate cancer,
which feels like a white cocoon being spun around the
prostate.  It is made up of threads and not spidery.

Benign tumours don’t have this intense light quality
and just sort of sit there like cellular couch
potatoes, slowly getting bigger.  If they are a
problem, it’s usually because they are pressing on
delicate surrounding structures.

Knowing what cancer feels like at its different
stages of growth and decline is very useful in being
able to pick up secondary or satellite growths.

Here’s why . .

If someone is intent on finishing their life and
they have received surgery, chemotherapy and radiation,
at the main site of the cancer, it often works.  The
tumour is removed or shrinks and any new cancerous
cells are killed too.

But if the person is intent on finishing their life,
their system will grow satellite cancer cells somewhere
else and being able to feel this is very useful.

As if all that weren’t enough . . .

Knowing what cancer ‘feels’ like can be terrible
knowledge because it puts you in the very difficult
position of choosing what to say to the person.

CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION!

As a general rule.

Keep your mouth SHUT!

. . .and wait.

Remember what I said, physically it can change very
fast.  Here today, gone tomorrow.

Literally.

The life threatening symptoms are being created by a
core part of the person.  That part uses speech and
words VERY INFREQUENTLY and then only as a last resort.

FOLLOW ITS EXAMPLE.

Obviously if you’re asked a direct question, answer
it but watch out for a tendency to answer questions
that haven’t been asked.

If you wait, the person will probably tell you what
you are feeling anyway and this is much more powerful
for them.

Chemotherapy and Radiation therapy?

These treatments are effective at killing cells,
particularly cancer cells but they are very hard on the
body.

Chemotherapy feels like a very sophisticated
cocktail of poison.  Which in a way, it is.

Radiation therapy is like a very bad case of
sunburn, repeated daily for 5 to 10 weeks.

Both generate a, ‘What the?’ reaction in the body.
You can be most helpful in negotiating with the
person’s system to not see these treatments as so much
of a threat but as an aid to recovery.  That’s if you
are getting the feeling that they want to recover.

If not, you can only do the best you can in a
difficult situation.  Try not to turn away internally
from their pain.  Try and continue to be with them on
this painful stretch of the road.  Remain respectful of
their process.

So, Kylie,
Cancer - Did I mention it was demanding?