Cranio Sacral Therapy Training and Professional Resoures

Hi John
I would like to know a bit more about working with Cerebral Palsy. What is the best approach? Is there any chance for the person to recover some of
their functions or is it too much to ask to the body? I suppose it requires to go back to the blueprint.

Your comments about the blueprint in the last newsletter were very interesting. My only problem is that I am a kinaesthetic kind of person and images don't talk to me very much. Could you tell me how the blue print feels so I know that what I feel under my hands is the blueprint or something else. This would be very useful for me.
Thank you.
Odile, Brisbane.
Odile Grisel

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Hello Odile,
Thank you for your email.
I have had some good success with cerebral palsy and I've had some no-change-at-all's. When I think about what was common among the successes the main thing was that the people were young.
Under 3yrs old.

When treating cerebral palsy I generally find myself working with the nervous system. From the hemisphere of the brain involved out to the periphery. Following the nerves, working to enhance the integrity where it is diminished.

I have heard some therapists say they find lots of limb unwinding very useful to unlock the central restrictions. I haven't found that myself but pass it on in case you find it useful.

I never think of treatment in terms of, 'Is this too much to ask of the body?' At this stage I have seen so many apparent 'miracles' that I know the body is capable of anything. So it is never a case of CAN this happen but more a case of
IS it going to happen?

It can often be a blueprint problem, which leads me to your second question about describing what the blueprint feels like without using
images.

I had to put my thinking cap on for that one.
Here's what I got. To me, the blueprint feels very whispy and mist-like, but not moist. It feels like touching a smoke ring that pulses with flexion and extension and releases like solid tissue.

Phew! Okay I'm going to take my thinking cap off now because my head is hurting.

***QUESTION***
Hi John
Thanks so much for your continuing newsletter and the great tips and humour.
I have a double question.
It's often a lonely place at the coalface and I seem to have people come to me with "last resort" problems that require much from me - I am doing a lot of anatomy and physiology research these days.

First question. Do you think it's possible for a young man whose body doesn't make testosterone to get that working again?
He is 23 and came to me essentially for massive headaches and his lack of testosterone problem. It was diagnosed at age 15 when he had major back pain.
Bone testing revealed his bone age was that of an 8 year old. He has to inject himself 3 x weekly for the testosterone cycle to happen. This injecting ritual is also affecting his mental health - facing this for the rest of his life is depressing.

So, he has major lesion patterns in his head, esp membranes, akin to birth trauma (although his mother reports a "perfect" birth), and his pelvic girdle/sacrum.
Unwinding those complex restriction patterns is top of the list, with my intention also on all sites for the production cycle to work normally (including cerebral cortex, hypothalamus and pituitary and testes). I can't see any reason it won't, but there seems to be an issue with the 'kick starting' of the process.
If he is injecting and producing LSH, then his body may not have the opportunity to take over.
He has had all the tests and specialists do not have any idea why this is happening in his body.
They can only offer injections for his lifetime.

Can you give me any clues here?

Second question. I have a lot of people with conditions related to experiencing terror in-utero. So, the main problem seems to lie in the central nervous system, and glitches in its development.

These all have the quality of having to return to the blueprint as the major goal. This requires a lot, from both practitioner and client. (This is also the situation for the young man already mentioned)

Can you give some insight into the process of returning to the blueprint?

Luckily, I have had success already in this area, but the symptoms and conditions I'm treating lately, (as well as the overall goal of returning to the blueprint), are extreme and debilitating for the clients.
Patience seems to be the major virtue. Have you any other insights?
Thanks so much for your continued support.
Cheers,
J
Perth, Australia

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Thanks for the feedback I'm glad you are finding the newsletters useful.
'Do you think it's possible for a young man whose body doesn't make testosterone to get that working again?'

Yes. When it comes to people and their bodies I think anything is possible.

Both of your questions revolve around the blueprint and how to work with it so I will answer them together.

It sounds like your palpatory skills are at the point where you are beginning to feel the blueprint, which is great. The downside is that it sounds like you are finding it a bit daunting.

But daunt not because it doesn't need to be.
The ironic thing is that you have been working with the blueprint from the very beginning of your cranio sacral training. The difference is that now you have reached a level of refinement where you can differentiate the blueprint from the rest of what you are a feeling.

As you know the blueprint is the energetic framework that underpins our bodies. The cells of our bodies being a bit like iron filings on a piece of paper. When a magnet is brought to the underside of the paper the filings are drawn to form the shape of the magnet.

The magnet is like the blueprint. The difference is that the blueprint is not a static rigid thing but moves and grows. The growing part being particularly relevant for your testosterone light patient.

Like many aspects of cranio sacral work, we feel something and learn to work with it but have very little scientific evidence or terminology to
describe it. 10 years ago science was enraptured with the mysteries of genetics, with few voices who was saying anything different, one of which
was Rupert Sheldrake and he was labelled a kook.

Then the genome was finally mapped and when the party was over there was a dawning that it didn't have all the answers. That everything wasn't determined by our genes. This is reflected in the work of the likes of Bruce Lipton in what is being called the New Biology.

The idea of an energetic field or blueprint underpinning our body has been around for yonks and shows up in different cultures in different ways, meridians, charkas, assemblage point and so on.

As I said, the blueprint unfolds during embryonic development. The timing of this unfoldment directs the pace and progress of our embryonic development and once started moves forward with its own pace and rhythm.

It's like a piece of music that begins at the moment of conception and continues for the rest of our lives. Within the overall piece of music there are movements, passages that have the general themes of the overall music but have their individual beginnings, middles and ends.

If something happens to interrupt the music or a particular beat is missed, it is very hard for the body to fill in the blanks.
No magnet - so the iron filings don't know where to go.

For example the maxillae meet each other and form the hard palate at about the seventh week of embryonic development. If this doesn't happen
then person will end up with a cleft palate.

It sounds like all went well with your patient during the embryonic phase of his development. He decided he was going to be male and the initial flood of testosterone ensured this.
The beat that was missed was in his puberty.
The second wave of testosterone never happened. So he never matured into a man. It is this point that I would look at in his blueprint.

So how to work with it?
I have found that knowing about the blueprint is the beginning of being able to work with it.
It's the same as when knowing what flexion and extension were before tried to feel for them was a help in being able to feel them.

A useful initial access to feeling the blueprint is to use the cranio sacral rhythm. Think of it in terms of William Sutherland's description of it as being the 'breath of life'. Think of flexion as the in-breath and extension as the out-breath of this breath of life. He also described the movement of this breath of life as adding potency to the cells of the body.

I find this kind of imagery helpful in getting in touch with the blueprint. It always reminds me of a beach, in particular that part of the beach where the sand meets the water. Where, if you write your name in the sand the water will come in and wipe it away and smooth the sand out.

With my hands in contact with the person's system and my eyes closed, tuning into the cranio sacral rhythm and feeling it in terms of an in-breath that vitalises and recreates an energetic blueprint, each in-breath washes across the cells of the body and they become luminous. Any anomalies in the blueprint itself begin to reveal themselves.

The daunting thing about working with the blueprint is that is energetic. You don't feel it in the same way as you feel flexion and extension, for example, which is a physical movement. It is felt in the same way you can feel something between your palms when you hold them close together. It's the same sort of something.

The good news is that once it is felt the blueprint behaves and responds in the same way the body does. So if you get a sense that there was a
disturbance in the unfoldment of the puberty movement of his blueprint 'music' then it is the same as it would feel if there was a trauma that had occurred to him during his puberty.

But instead of looking to get a sense of a trauma you are looking to get a sense of what interrupted the unfoldment of his blueprint, which, ironically could have been a trauma.

Once you get a sense of where the gap is then you can use your intention to fill it. But not in a directed forceful, 'I know what needs to be done here.' sort of way. More with a sense of providing a bridge with your intention across the gap.

It is a little like direct technique in as much as you are encouraging his system to fill in the gap but you don't make it happen.

As kooky as the blueprint may sound it is still a mechanical kind of thing to work with. Just because it is energy doesn't automatically imbue it with mystical dimensions.

If he doesn't improve through working with the blue print you would have to look deeper. What is deeper than the underpinning energetic blue print that holds the cells of our bodies in place?

Well as I said the blueprint is in essence a mechanical structure. It is used by the part of us that knows the bigger picture of ourselves. What our life is about. Why we are a man or a woman, why we chose the parents we did, the country we were born in and so on.

That is a different part of the questions you would be asking yourself about the bigger picture of what his symptoms might mean in the context of the deeper issues he may be working out in his life.

Is he resisting letting go of being a boy and becoming a man? Or is he resisting growing up? The movie, 'The Tin Drum' comes to mind. Were the headaches just a way to get him to come and see you or are they part of the mechanical aspect of how this disharmony is expressing itself.

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***QUESTION***

Hi John,
As always, superb and enjoyable! I feel like an empty sponge, ready to absorb and learn - the only problem seems that one tends to forget most of what one has absorbed, at this stage of ones life!

Have you had any success with bowed legs? Am going to have to work on a baby about 16 months old. He has nearly all his teeth (molars too) already which is a bit abnormal? If I hold his upper legs together, that part looks totally normal, but the lower legs then cross over with the feet facing nearly sideways. The problem seems to be in the ankles, so that the legs have to adapt? I will only be able to see him once a month.
Enjoy your day.
Your Buddy
JB
Cape town

>>>MY COMMENTS:

It's worth checking to see if he was lying in an awkward position in the womb but I don't think that is the case here because when I add the bowed legs to what you've said about him having all his teeth, I think it's more likely to be a case of a disturbance when he was developing in the womb.

Think of embryonic development like an orchestra playing a piece of music. Once the performance starts it plays through to the end. If one of the musicians makes a mistake or drops their instrument, the orchestra won't stop and restart, they just keep going.

Remember that the first 8 weeks of our embryonic life is the time when all organs, systems and tissues are outlined. If that process is disturbed or interrupted, we can get all sorts of problems. Cleft palate is a good example. If the two Maxillae haven't met by around the 7th week, then they never meet.

Disturbances to the process after the 8th week will cause problems in refinement or development of the systems and structures outlined in the first 8 weeks.

It sounds like your boy has had a bit of both.

That's great John, what do I do about it?

Getting that developmental piece of music to play again is a bit like trying to remember on old childhood song. You can remember bits of it but remembering ALL the words is tricky. It's the same with helping a persons system reactivate developmental energetics. It's possible but not
easy.

The most remarkable demonstration of it I ever had in clinic was an 87 year old man who was in constant pain and loosing power in his legs from stenosis of his vertebral canal.

During treatment, he managed to access the notocord part of his embryonic development music and the cells around his vertebral canal started to migrate away from the area where his physical notocord used to be, just like they did when he was an embryo. His vertebral canal consequently got larger and his symptoms went away. It was bloody
remarkable!

That's great John but how did you facilitate that?

Think of a spy movie. Remember the scene where the rookie spy was about to walk into the unguarded vault but was stopped by the older more experienced spy who then sprays an aerosol of some stuff in the air and reveals a web of infrared sensor beams and we nod our heads and think, 'Man, this movie is full of clichés.'

The point of the analogy is you firstly need to know there is something there, the energetic blue print in which the developmental music is contained and secondly you need some of that magic aerosol, which in our case is our intention.

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***QUESTION***
Hi John
I have a question. In SER the body often returns to the position of injury either emotional or physical in order to release the disease (energy cyst) held there. This fits perfectly with the founding law of Homoeopathy "like cures like' or similia similibus curentur. But I can find no written explanation for why this law is a law!
What is your experience of why the body holds to this?. Or does it always?
Thank you.
Lorraine Archer
County Roscommon.
Ireland.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

The principal of 'like curing like' is the same in cranio sacral therapy and homoeopathy but the mechanics of how the 'curing' happens are different for each.

During cranio sacral therapy the body goes to the position it was in when the trauma occurred so that it can reconnect with its underlying energetic blueprint.

But hang on, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Let's talk about the blueprint for a minute.
Why do plants, trees, animals etc. grow into the shape they do? How do the cells in a bone know to become bone cells?

Currently we are told that the answers to these questions lie in the mysteries of DNA.

DNA is very cool stuff and remarkable in its own right. But in time, the limitations of DNA will reveal themselves. The genome will be mapped better than Manhattan and these questions will remain unanswered.

What has yet to be proven is that when a seed is planted it starts to unfold an energetic outline or blueprint of the shape it will grow into and the cells migrate in accordance to the blueprint. DNA is the executive of this process and responds to the blueprint.

Think iron fillings, magnet, paper. The magnet (Blueprint) influences the iron filling (Cells) to form into a particular shape, the shape of the magnet. You may not be able to see the magnet because it is hidden behind the paper but you know what shape it is by the shape the iron filing are forming.

Most of the older traditions have identified different expressions of the blueprint and represent it in different ways.

In traditional Chinese medicine there are the meridians. In Ayurvedic medicine there are the charkas. In Toltec or Mexican shamanism there are what are called the feathers of the eagle.

The botanist, Rupert Sheldrake has been talking about this kind of stuff for years, he describes it in terms of morphic fields.

When a person's system gets traumatised, the cells may be displaced but they return to their original position under the influence of the
underlying blueprint.

As they do this, they have a particular movement which thankfully for us, is palpable. The whole process goes to make up the auto repair
mechanism we call a release.

When the trauma won't release it is because the blueprint itself has been bent out of shape.

We learned early on, that given the right support a body will start to move of it's own volition. If we can follow this movement and know when to hold it, we may be able to facilitate a release.

That initial movement is the cells of the body looking for the blue print. When the persons body returns to the position where the trauma occurred, the cells and the blueprint reconnect. It's at this point that all the different manifestations of release can occur, pulsations, trembling, shaking, sweating, crying, laughing . . .and that's not to mention what goes on for the patient.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Once the cells and blueprint reconnect then the whole system, cells and blueprint, come back into alignment and harmony.

So as I said it's a process of re-collection.
Not all bodies need to go into the traumatic position to release. Sometimes restriction patterns are very ripe for release and need very
little support to complete the process.

I've also found over the years that as I've gotten better at working with the blueprint, deeper subtleties have revealed themselves. I find more releases are happening at deeper levels and require less gross movements on the surface.

Back to the homoeopathic question. As you know, I'm not a homoeopath but I do know some great ones. So I went and checked with one of them to see if my suspicions about how the mechanics of 'like curing like' are different between cranio sacral and homoeopathy, and she confirmed what I thought.

With homoeopathy, the remedy caries an energetic signature that causes the whole energetic structure in the system to change.

So going back to the magnet and iron filings analogy, I'll explain the difference in mechanics that I spoke about in the beginning.

If a square shaped magnet gets bent out of shape on one side. What cranio sacral does is collect all the iron filings on that side and help them to 'find' the bent shape and collect it, allowing it to return to its original state of squareness.

With homeopathy a magnet that is normally red has become blue. The homeopath identifies the remedy the magnet needs. Blue. They know this because in the proving of the remedy many healthy red magnets were given this remedy and they all started demonstrating blue symptoms. So the blue magnet is given the blue remedy and the whole composition of the magnet starts to change. Eventually the magnet returns to its natural state of red.

Who said two wrongs don't make a right.

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