Mindful Lifestyle Choices can help you to relieve pain and to feel better in your body.
I have been a Licensed Massage Therapist for about 15 years. After seeing and listening to so many clients, I have realized that what most people are searching for is to feel alive inside their own skin. When people feel healthy, they can participate in life with all the activities that make them happy. They feel interconnected with their environment, their relationships, and are full with an ongoing unfolding experience of self-confidence and self-empowerment. A truly embodied physicality feeds the brains and enables us to experience life in a creative and joyful way.
How do we Begin to Reconnect with Our Vitality?
It’s a Choice!
We start by reconnecting with our internal resources in a mindful manner.
Every single adult person who comes onto my table has offered to share their places of pain and discomfort. I have never had a client walk in and say,” I feel totally great without any stress or tension anywhere”. Even when clients who initially feel relatively good begin their Craniosacral Therapy or myofascial session, they begin to notice how the body holds tenderness, pain, numbness or some type of dysfunctional pattern as the work progresses. Being touched with mindful contact opens the door to a finer tuned sensory input. Whether we have encountered traumas, accidents, illnesses, or whatever… bringing awareness to our bodies and how they move will regenerate the fluid movement and tissues to bring us back to a healthier center.
How do our bodies get stuck or in pain?
One way to look at the origin of dysfunctional patterns of pain is to begin to realize that we are animals that like repetition.
As children growing up, we begin with experiential movements which if they are constantly reoccurring often turn into a gesture. If that gesture becomes a part of a person’s expression, it often turns into a habit. For example, if you were told to cross one leg over the other one because it is ladylike, you might start to do it regularly until it feels normal. This is how structural patterns begin. The problem is that whenever we delve into limited dimensional movement continuously in our daily lives, we start to loose our mobility in the other planes of movement. If we lose our awareness to even the smallest spaces, energy and fluidity can dry up.
What is it inside that is feeling in pain?
Most of us think that our muscles are what are sore when in discomfort. In actually, what I have found as a Structural Integration Therapist is that much of the pain that is experienced comes from the superficial connective tissue fascia. Perhaps you have not heard of fascia, so let me give you a brief overview because it plays and important role in finding a solution to resolving many health issues.
Fascia is the systemic biological fabric that holds us together. This soft tissue wraps under our skin like a wetsuit and is continuous throughout the deeper parts of our bodies, shaping us from the organ level down to the very cells that make us up. In healthy fascia, we have unrestricted sliding mobility between the layers. It functions to protect us from outside invaders, to build stuff to keep our internal parts contained, is very responsive, and it acts as a powerful sensory mechanism.
The New Frontier in Pain Relief!
Why is fascia important in movement and health?
Fascia mostly consists of a protein called collagen, along with water, cells and ground substance. Healthy fascia is hydrated and has a viscous, semi-fluid and elastic quality to it. As people age, tension across the body will rigidify the fascia until it becomes glue like and it looses its elasticity. If the body is not consistently contracting and releasing water, everything tends to get thicker, especially if the body is acidic. That’s when it collect impurities, fats, proteins and can get caught up as toxins, while inhibiting the gliding healthier movements where fluids nourish the other systems of the body.
How do we stop the Hurting?
As adults, our bodies are made up of approximately 63% water. We need to stay hydrated. Fascia is responsible for organizing the fluids by its ability to compartmentalize into pockets. For good health, it is essential that we allow the fluids inside of us to reach their prospective destinations so that the body can be nourished. If the flow is restricted, the water can’t transport what is needed for metabolism to the inside of the cells. In cases where there is scarring, immobility, or inflammation or any type of trauma, this is the case.
Fascia as a system has the capability to limit and direct motion in the body. In fact, we are training our fascial system through intention on some level every moment of everyday to do this through how we decide to interact with ourselves and our world. The key to finding better health and wellness is to bring mindful attention back to the places in our body where we notice pain and/or amnesia. When this mindfulness is allowed to enlivened conscious awareness, we will awaken through the body’s own sensory abilities to reconnect back to the immeasurable intelligence and zest that rests within.
One way to do this is to begin to pay attention to exercise. Don’t just get on a machine and zone out, but instead bring your attention to the feet, the legs, the muscle groups that are engaged in the activity. Notice if the body is contracting and relaxing or do you overdo it? Through mindfulness, be curious about how the foot rolls or doesn’t roll on each side. Examine your relationship to your whole body slowly allowing it to do what it does, while gaining a more thorough understanding of where you feel aligned in the present moment or not. This is all about enlivening inter-connection within. Another course that complements regular exercise…most people have some knowledge of yoga. This is a great way to stretch the muscles and relieve stress on the joints. The poses help you to gently go to a limit for regeneration and keep you limber. With this, it is important though to find a good teacher who will guide you well. It is easy to do more than what is needed and you don’t want to injure the tissues, but instead find balance and strength. Pilates and Gyrotonics are great for core exercises. You can almost feel like you have been massaged after an hour session which develop core relationship as well as multi-dimensional exploration.. There are some other items that I’d like to recommend though which aren’t quite as ubiquitous, yet are very powerful in helping one to integrate the mind, body & spirit connection profoundly. Feldenkrais teaches us how to move in very deliberate yet easy motion to enrich the sensory system. Yamuna Ball rolling softly rehydrates the fascia and increases flexibility. Continuum by Emilie Conrad also has a similar foundation in its teachings, but also includes sound and more awareness to breathwork. These types of mindful exercises will change your life if you commit to at least 8 weeks of steady practice. The last two are especially easy to do at home or anywhere you go as long as you have the basic tools.
Structural Integration (SI) and Craniosacral Therapy (CST) are two modalities where you can visit a massage therapist to help you awaken the inter-dialogue of the body through fascial work.While all movement engages the whole body’s fascial layering, these two disciplines focus much of their bodywork techniques on this grand system of connective tissue. I believe that many people know this, but I want to remind you that fascia is a tissue that is alive. It is very responsive to touch and even one point of contact and enriched motion will transmit its effects globally. Because most injuries are fascial, a practitioner of SI and CST can touch into area of dysfunction and help the tissue to reorganize. For example, at points of scarring where the fibers have been laid randomly and in a disorganized fashion, while cutting off hydration, the tissues can re-learn how to soften almost by intention alone. But with a little extra support, amazing result often happen. I have used the most gentlest of touch to deep penetrating movement in order to help release old habitual patterns. The body will always tell us what it needs, and will help us to allow it to self-correct. People often feel more vital, happy and whole after receiving fascial treatments.
One last thing that I’d like to end with. While mindful exercise is a primary force in keeping us healthy, I also want to emphasize that not “overdoing it” is critical too. It is through rest and balance that the body maintains. So make sure to listen well to what your body tells you for your own health and wellbeing.
I hope this information helps you to understand that release from pain can be found by directly releasing restrictions in the fascia. Whatever you do, mindful awareness will always bring about better progress and results in helping you to feel optimal.
Massage in Columbus
If you want more information, about these treatments, check out: www.massageincolumbusohio.com or call Sharon Hartnett at (614) 372-6598.
Wellness through Craniosacral Therapy is our goal.
Often clients are faced with challenges that take them off track for some reason. It could be unrelenting chronic or acute physical pain, feelings of anxiety, anger and rage that have no place to be expressed, or a sense of disconnect from the rest of life. Whatever your problem is, if you are having a hard time resolving it alone, you have come to the right place to start your journey to Wellness. We work holistically within our practice, and with other therapists and doctors as a team. We are here to help you move toward your goals of health.
How does Craniosacral Therapy Work for You?
Craniosacral Therapy is a system that requires an experienced practitioner to listen to the healing intelligence of your body, and energy field to support your health. By bringing our technical and palpation skills to your session, your body can begin to self-correct and release old dysfunctional patterns. This is accomplished by gently following your body tissues and moving along with your natural CS rhythms to enliven and hydrate the tissues and nervous system. As new information is introduced, a dialoguing process activates more efficient body functionality overall. When the mind of the body gets re-educated, the brain changes too.
At the end of a session, clients often get up off the table feeling relaxing changes working throughout their bodies and thinking. When people talk about the mind, body & spirit connection, it means that by sensing change on any of the physical, emotional, or other aspects of life, one spectrum can support healing onto the other. As bodyworkers, often our intention is to awaken your sense of Source through skilled touch. As indicated by the title of this blog, “Wellness is a connection of paths: knowledge and action.” One system connecting with another opens the possibilities to shift into a more whole way of living.
Wellness
At Lighten Up Therapies we offer an array of different modalities to help you on your journey to Wholeness. Our hope is to help you awaken to your Source. It is in the richness of the inner experience that healing can be activated.
For more questions on Craniosacral Therapy in Columbus, Ohio, please call Sharon Hartnett LMT at:
Lately, fascia is being touted as the new integrative approach to massage and bodywork. I am so happy to hear this news as Dr. Ida Rolf developed her work in organizing the human body back in the 1920’s, and it’s finally getting the notice it so much deserves. Since that earlier time, students who had studied with her over the years, trained, interpreted and opened various schools enabling this work to spread and improve healing for those fortunate enough to find this approach to evolutionary change. If you google, you can find the Institute for Structural Integration, The Rolf Institute, The Guild for Structural Integration the anatomy trains work by Tom Myers, and some new curriculums popping up with Massage Schools everywhere. Even more exciting, the valuable benefits of healthy fascia as experienced through Structural Integration, Craniosacral Therapy, and Myofascial Therapy is now being backed by scientists and clinicians alike. It’s thrilling for us Fascial workers who have been doing this work for years that fascia is now being recognized as a holistic system that can improve your life when optimized for efficiency. It’s time to discover and understand the potential of health and wellbeing within the global web of connective tissue.
So now do you want to know more about Fascia?
Fascia has been part of our body’s since the beginning of humankind. It has been the glue that holds us and connects us together. It is made of extracellular matrix containing: collagen fibers which contribute to structure, elastin which provides elasticity and ground matter which allow transport of material. Without it, we would be a pool of bones, and dried up parts lying randomly on the ground.
So why is it that we are just beginning to learn about it now?
Living with a healthy fascial relationship within the human body
While fascia is the living stuff that sets our three dimensional shape and form, it is not easy to see with its transparent silvery quality. For the most part, it has been dismissed as a major player in our health system until now. Fortunately, in the last 80 years, the word has gradually gotten out by manual workers that layering, spreading, balancing, and lengthening the connective tissue improves the overall sense of health. When it is in a restful state, the fascia stays hydrated, able to use its elements of viscosity, plasticity and elasticity to give us a strong yet bouncy movement throughout the body. It also nurtures the muscle spindle firing, and enhance nerve ending firing. The internal wisdom of the human body has distributed the fascial tissue with the correct amount of characteristics to keep us organized and functioning fairly well into our later years.
So What Does This Mean For You?
It means that not only is there experiential testimonials to the benefits of fascial work, but if you research on google, you will also see that the medical field is learning and verifying the positive results that clients have been feeling for years. In my practice I have helped many hundred of people by listening to the intelligence of their fascial body. With Dr. Ida Rolf’s teachings, many of my clients have completed the original 10 sessions. They walk away with a lighter, springier step as the pain disappears. For clients who are more interested in gentle touch, I tend to focus on the Craniosacral Therapy side of things. But along with working with this semi-hydraulic system, it is also necessary and practical to work with the fascial diaphragms and restricted areas as well. It is through the softer manipulation of tissue that chronic pain and dysfunction release easiest. If you are interested in finding more freedom in your movement and a spark in your spirit, check out fascial work by a certified massage therapist in your area. You’ll be happy with the results!
For more questions, Sharon Hartnett LMT offers a free 15 minute phone consultation to those in the Columbus, Ohio area.
The Barbara Brennan School has been thriving for over 25 years, bringing healing and integrative transformation to each individual student, graduate, the community of the Sacred Human Heart, and all clients touched by these healers.
Graduates are spread across the globe in fields of private integrative health care, reaching people through music and arts, integrating healing into corporate environments, and currently in hospital rooms. Our intention as a school is to teach, learn and grow in order to make this planet a better place left by our footprints of life’s experiences. As part of the intensive curriculum, students must work on their own process and healing in order to reach out and help others. By opening and cleaning ourselves, we open the life force to move freely and to heal. Healers are here to help you to find your sense of health, purpose and potential!
Question: Are you wanting to heal yourself? Have you felt like you have searched but found no answers to your deepest prayers? Is it possible to open up to the vast intelligence of Being to integrate into Wholeness and Health? Is it time for you to allow a paradigm shift to help you expand beyond your current way of living?
There are many Barbara Brennan Healers available to assist you on your healing journey!
We are dedicated to our work and to connecting its benefits to all who all who come our way. For many of us who have practices, it is our job to facilitate your process and help you uncover the Truth of your Being. We are trained to be present, supportive and confidential in our work. With over four years of study, we know how to perceive the Human Energy Field, how to correct and balance the system, and to lead the client’s own intelligence to self-correct and find alignment. We work privately and also often with full healing teams in the medical field to help you achieve your goals.
If I have your attention now… if something is interesting to you, then I invite you to check the Barbara Brennan School for a graduate in your area. We are thrilled to bring our energy healing work out into the world. We want to make sure you know about us so that we can serve for the Highest Good. Also, a new website is coming alive for all the different Country Associations. Stand by for information coming your way.
In Columbus, Ohio, there are plenty of graduates to choose. But as you have found me, Sharon Hartnett LMT., I’d invite you to call me for a free 15 minute telephone consultation. I have been practicing energy work for over 15 years, studied at the Barbara Brennan School and am a former faculty member there. I love this work as I have seen people go through extraordinary changes as they commit to their mind body & spirit journey.
-When I tell people I specialize in Craniosacral Therapy, they often ask me to describe what it is. While Craniosacral Therapy has been around for a while, it is just now coming more into the forefront as being known as an effective integrative health approach. So in order to bring even more clarity to this field of healing, I want to present this short blog entry. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me, Sharon Hartnett, LMT, for a free 15 minute phone consultation
703 509-1792
Craniosacral Therapy is a light touch type of bodywork that enhances the functioning of the whole body by working primarily with the Cerebrospinal fluid around the nervous system. This is done with palpation from the feet all the way to the head. The name “Craniosacral Therapy” can be misleading because while the main focus is on listening at the cranium and the sacral area, this gentle manual therapy may be approached from anywhere on the body. During a session, a client remains fully clothed and lies down on the table for about an hour. The therapist will follow listening stations and help the body find its own healing course. Craniosacral Therapy’s relaxing and balancing effects may be felt physically, emotionally and spiritually throughout the session and afterwards.
Craniosacral Flow
A Craniosacral Therapist is a listener of the craniosacral rhythm much like a Counselor may listen to the words of a client. As the session progresses, the client often calms down and lets go of stresses and pain. The therapist is guided by the body’s own intelligence to follow any dysfunctional patterns and to help the system to self-correct. The quality, symmetry and strength of the craniosacral movements are strong indicators if there are restrictions or weakness in a certain area. As certain patterns are tenderly touched, unwinding and lengthening may occur allowing healthier interaction between the nervous system and the tissues. Often people who come to a Craniosacral Therapist for a series of sessions after finding no relief elsewhere end up feeling more vitality and release of deep pain patterns.
For a quick Youtube layout of the work, check out one of my earlier teacher’s explanation of the work:
Craniosacral Therapy has been helpful with relieving traumas from the body on many different levels. Once these traumatic experiences are processed in a healthy environment, the person usually feels freed up to live more fully from a clear more positive intentional place.
Sharon Hartnett CST-Diplomate specializes in helping people with anxiety & related issues, concussions, and chronic pain.
Craniosacral Therapy can help you to find center. With any questions, call Sharon Hartnett LMT at 703 509-1792
