Mind, body, and spirit aren’t separable, but sometimes dysfunction can present most prominently in the mental realm, such as with anxiety or anger.

A mind-centered approach starts with increased awareness of the narrative in your mind and of the parts of you that are at odds.

Your thoughts are a reflection of the state of your nervous system. Your rumination, future tripping, and self-criticism are indications of nervous system dysregulation. Rather than ignoring, fearing, or trying to distract yourself from the narratives in your mind, consider getting to know the parts of you that are creating inner conflict.

Parts Therapy can help you become aware of and integrate the parts of yourself that are buried or in conflict with each other. Who you are is underneath the masks you wear, the roles you have played to adapt and protect yourself. Most people can identify their Social Self vs. their True Self, and there are so many more parts within us that can both help us and sabotage our well being: the Inner Critic, the People Pleaser, the Caretaker, and the Taskmaster, for example.

All of these parts are protectors, protecting our Vulnerable Selves, but many are so outdated that they themselves have become the problem. First identifying our parts to understand when they came into being and how they are trying to protect us, and then understanding how we can transform them into roles that actually do serve us, allows us to integrate them and live in greater harmony with ourselves.

CranioSacral Therapy can help you become aware of the impact of your inner conflict on your body and spirit. If you are consumed by thoughts, you are not fully present in your body, and when you are not in your body, your breathing becomes shallow, which creates physical tension, which creates more mental tension in an ongoing loop. With shallow breathing, you can keep yourself in a state of fight or flight: your vagus nerve sends information about the state of your body to your brain, which sends down chemicals to mobilize you to be able to get yourself out of danger.

Beyond just restricting our breathing when we are caught in the thinking mind state, our thoughts create emotions, and all emotions go somewhere in the body, whether we are aware of it or not, affecting our body chemistry, tissues, and organs.

Stress and trauma activate our nervous systems into states of fight, flight, freeze, or shut down as a protective response. When the impact of a stressful or traumatic event is too big or experienced for too long, and if we don’t (or can’t) discharge the energy (through fighting or fleeing, for example), it stays in our tissues, and our bodies compress that energy and wall it off so we can function.

Fascia is a tissue that can hold and release energy. The trapped energy (“energy cysts” or “archaic wounds”) are pockets of stuck energy that disrupt flow like rocks in a river. At some point, we can start to feel like we are more rock than river: we have stuffed down so much that we are increasingly unable to compensate. Additionally, we lack the reserves (a strong river current) that can help us function, much less cope with any additional stress.

But rather than being a hard inert object, energy cysts are more like bubbles containing the unique vibration that we experienced at the time of stress or trauma, imprinted with all of our thoughts, feelings, sensations, observations, and beliefs that were present at the moment (or throughout the duration) of the event. These bubbles can erupt spontaneously as a healing mechanism: if emotional energy is coming up, it is ready for processing.

Therapeutic touch can help bring these bubbles to the surface, which is necessary for integration. You have to be able to feel the emotional vibration of stress/trauma in order to integrate it, to finally digest what has been indigestible. And first you have to become aware of it, bring it up from the depths.

SomatoEmotional Release is a therapeutic process in CranioSacral Therapy that promotes release of emotional energy from your body along with the residual effects of past physical and emotional injuries.

The combination of SomatoEmotional Release (facilitating the integration of energy cysts) and Parts Therapy (facilitating the integration of psychological parts) can help you overcome the impact of events that have interfered with your sense of well being.

We start with the narratives in your mental state and work with what comes up.

Sometimes dysfunction can present most prominently in the physical realm, such as with illness and pain.

A body-centered approach starts with increased awareness of physical symptoms and imbalanced systems.

Your body is telling you something: your fatigue, headaches, digestive issues, and other physical symptoms are your body’s way of telling you that something is off balance. Every symptom reflects an imbalance in the physical, mental, and/or spiritual realm. Rather than feeling like your body is betraying you, consider the ways in which you might be betraying your body by not listening to it.

CranioSacral Therapy can help you become aware of where your body is out of balance and restricted, which is not necessarily where a symptom presents itself. The craniosacral rhythm (cerebrospinal fluid flowing around your brain and spinal cord) flows at a rate different from your heart rate or breath and can be felt anywhere in the body because of your fascia, which covers every cell and organ in your body in a continual matrix.

By gently touching your feet, knees, hips, ribs, shoulders, and head, as well as the energy field off your body, I can sense where there is movement in the cranial rhythm and where there is not. Lack of movement indicates restriction in the fascia: protective patterns of immobility and diverted circulation, like disruption in a river flowing over rocks.

Your body shows me what it needs in order to integrate areas of restriction and to facilitate movement. I follow what your body shows me: my hands get pulled in magnetically, and I follow with gentle pressure until I sense signs of release. When your fascia releases restrictions, I might feel heat and an energetic letting go. You can feel lighter and able to breathe more easily, which in and of itself will help your system function better.

Physical symptoms are not just physical but have a mental/ spiritual component (and possibly origin) as well. Therapeutic touch can bring up memories, emotions, and sensations, both where my hands are and elsewhere in your body.

We start with physical symptoms and areas of restriction in your fascia and work with what comes up, increasing your awareness of the connection between your physical state and your mind and spirit.

Sometimes dysfunction presents most prominently in the spiritual realm, such as feeling a lack of connection, purpose, or meaning in your life.

A spirit-centered approach starts with increased awareness of your energy, first by being fully with your breath to get underneath your thoughts, and then getting underneath your body into the energetic realm.

Your sense of a lack of direction is letting you know that there IS a right path for you, even if you don’t yet know how to find it. Rather than continuing to suffer through what might feel like a meaningless existence, consider the idea that the discomfort you are feeling is a sign from your deeper self that it is time to find out who you are and what you are doing here.

We are all spiritual beings having a human experience, not the other way around. You are not your thoughts or your body; nothing that comes and goes is you. You are the observer of what is happening in your mind and body. Underneath your physical body and mental constructs, who you are is the vast energetic field intimately connected to everything else.

CranioSacral Therapy can help you tune into the deep tide within yourself, the cerebrospinal fluid that flows between your cranium and sacrum, also referred to as the “breath of life,” your life force energy.

This source energy within you is connected to the source energy within everyone else: all drops from the same ocean. We are all connected, and you are a vital part of this web of life.

Connecting to this energy and immersion into the vast subconscious realm, like all deeply meditative states, is what can heal us, steer us, and help us discover our sense of connection and purpose.

Whether you are experiencing physical, mental, or spiritual symptoms of distress, it is increased awareness of what is going on within you that is the key to transformation.