What is Craniosacral Massage?

by SharonHartnett | Jul 10, 2024 | concussion, craniosacral, Craniosacral Therapy, Energy Healing, healing, Massage License in Ohio: 33.007505-H-K, mind body & spirit, stillpoint, upledger institute

What is Craniosacral Massage?

Many people call me asking for Craniosacral Massage. The first thing I do is listen to why a person wants to come in.

People speak about their health issues, and often state that they have heard about Craniosacral Massage. Yet they don’t really know what it is. It’s important to me to take the time to explain the foundational basics, and then to make sure they question and understand if this work is a good match for what they are looking for.

So I do want to start by clarifying that Craniosacral Therapy is not actually “Massage”. Instead, it is a light touch manual therapy with a very different focus. It’s based on the Craniosacral System and how it relates primarily to the Nervous System. Just to name a few, it’s great for people dealing with:

Chronic Pain
Headaches/Migraines/Concussions
Fibromyalgia
People looking for Body Centered Help with Trauma Release
Scoliosis
TMJ
Anxiety

You can find out more on the Cleveland Clinic site:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/17677-craniosacral-therapy

or through the Upledger Institute.

Also, there is a big difference between practitioners and therapists. Practitioners may have taken a class, whereas therapists going through a rigorous process to get certified through the Upledger Institute are much more thorough and deep into the work.

While the touch of Craniosacral Therapy is very light and simple in a way, there is actually alot of complex anatomy and techniques to learn, as well as taking the time to gain experience in order to become a professional and helpful therapist. So if you are looking for a qualified person to meet your needs, ask them about their backgrounds and specilties.

I love Craniosacral Therapy because it can help almost everyone. Craniosacral Therapy is also attentive and gentle-yet profound. It nudges the body into self-healing and deeper awareness. There are a few contraindications, but for the most part everyone can appreicate a healthier nervous system, more balance and fluidity through their bodies.

If you would like to find out more about Craniosacral Therapy, not craniosacral massage, please contact me and I offere free 10 minute phone consults.

Warmly,

Sharon Hartnett CST-D

703 509-1792

www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com

Serving the Columbus Ohio Area

6797 N. High St. #333

Worthington, Ohio 43085

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Ease Into Grace with Mindful Connection: Being in the Heart

by | Jun 30, 2024 | craniosacral, Craniosacral Therapy, healing, Massage License in Ohio: 33.007505-H-K, upledger institute

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Grace

Working today, I thought about how there are so many people who are suffering who could use some Grace. Some people find help and relief. However, some don’t know how to find and connect with the healthy resources they need in order to get well. Perhaps they don’t have the financial means. Mostly what I run into though are the many women who don’t feel acknowledged in the healthcare system for chronic pain. Many tell me that they feel dismissed and unheard.

As a Craniosacral Therapist, I enjoy having the 75 minutes my sessions offer to help people. It’s a therapy which addresses the whole person with grace. When we connect, meld and bring spaciousness into awareness, the body can miraculously heal itself. The Craniosacral Therapy relaxes the body, and enhances the nervous systems body to regulate. Often, it’s a very deep and profound experience.

Today, in life, remember that there are people who are truly having a hard day. Maybe a hard life. I bring that a little deeper into my heart. How can you bring some grace into the relationship and the Moment?

Sharon Hartnett CST-D
703 509-1792

www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com

Easy Problem Solving In the Moment

by | Jun 26, 2024 | craniosacral, Craniosacral Therapy, healing, mindfulness, upledger institute

Problem Solving is an Intention.

Every day problems arise. They can all add up and feel totally overwhelming. Low grade stress can actually help. Especially when we have a lot on our plates. It helps us to become motivated to “Do”. Our body takes us into first gear.

On the other hand, when we are intentionally organized, we slow down and focus on what is right here, right now. The simplicity of this can bring effortlessness into any stressful situation. Quiet internal rest helps our mind and bodies to relax and make space to be better responsive to life and problems.

When we don’t use this structural equation of the dance between these two components of action and restful moments, it can become too much. We need balance between the doing and the “Being” to find peaceful resolution. It’s a combination of “Being” and taking “Action”. Mixing the both to be one is optimal.

Here is a great map to help us move through life more easily. There is flow, but there is clear direction. Clarity makes life so much easier.

The idea is to be mindful when action is needed. This includes being restful and allowing internal spaciousness. In this place of expansion, new ideas can come in. When we apply them to our clear structure, things get done. It’s the mix between balance point and motion.

Craniosacral Therapy can be very useful when we are streesed, overwhelmed and/or confused. It helps a person to settle into the body. It promotes healing, balance and motion. It calms the mind and brings most people back into the “Now”. This is the clearest place from which we can be living in.

Intentional problem solving is best done when it is not based in fear nor reactionary. Craniosacral Therapy in my practice has shown me how much a person’s stress system can calm down. My clients start anew with a fresh new attitude after sessions.

We are all in charge of our choices. And that’s what we have to live. “Yes” or “No”, live life in balance and with purpose if you are interested in the easiest way to develop and use problem solving skills. Find the calm inner strength inside of you and live from there!

Sharon Hartnett CST-D

703 509-1792

www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com

The Quality of Touching Fascia and the Craniosacral System.

by SharonHartnett | May 26, 2024 | craniosacral, Craniosacral Therapy, healing, Massage License in Ohio: 33.007505-H-K, upledger institute

Touching the Facia and Craniosacral System from an Artistic Craniosacral Perspective.

I love this floral picture of the various layers in color. It reminds me of how when I am listening to the Craniosacral System inside the human body, that the fascia is so closely related to everything. Visually one can see these bright vibrant colors in this picture individually, but we can also notice the melding and adding into the interconnection of the whole in beauty.

That’s how it feels when a Craniosacral Therapist is listening with our hands. We feel the many layers of conscious cells, tissues, organs and sytems which are alive and communicating. There is a deliciousness to understanding in a deeper context how the body is organized and flowing through our gentle manual touch. Swimmingly, there is so much information moving through the super highways of the fascia. The sensitive in our hands are feeling the fascia acting as the medium of interconnection and dynamic motion. To me, it feels like the Craniosacral System is at the bottom of the well which informs the rest of the body how to move through life. The fascia is the orchestra playing out the song.

As Craniosacral Therapists, we can’t isolate the work we do. We tune in, and listen. Pieces arise and move toward the whole. We meld, and blend, just like this gorgeous artwork. Patterns and Essence Intelligence lead the way to healing and growth. Something profound happens when we connect with the cerebral spinal fluid and its rhythm, so that the nervous system finds peace and it’s own sense of inner agency.

Craniosacral Therapy affects us in a way that awakens the Higher Self and Inner Wisdom. It provides a bridge to sourcing ourselves and finding meaning and understanding in our lives. After years, of receiving and offering this work, I find it to be a road to the “Taste of Bliss”. Yet, we all discover what is meant for us through each interaction we make, when and at the time that it right for us. With enough mindful work, we discover that the wonder of the body is always here. Most often Craniosacral Therapy slows us down, and activates that which moves from dormant to vibrance and resonance. It helps us to be freed to live in the moment.

Sharon Hartnett CST-D

6797 N. High St. #333

Worthington, Ohio 43085

703 509-1792

www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com

Embracing Wholeness and Wellness

by SharonHartnett | Apr 21, 2024 | Craniosacral Therapy, healing, Massage License in Ohio: 33.007505-H-K, thought for the day

Knots on the way to Wholeness

This morning, I woke up considering wholeness. Dreaming about my early childhood. I was bathing in that quiet serene place where I felt connected to my father’s side of the family. Memories of cousins, and second cousins. aunts, and uncles. The family coming together. One big family. An extended family. Close. I was a crumb, that made up a cake, and I felt safe in the bosom of my family. I felt happy. I felt even more deeply content at my Grandmother’s house when everyone was there. She came from a large family, and the web was thick.

Next, I dreamt about my mother’s family. Seeing my grandfathers cousins at his funeral, and my Grandmother Mary’s family from Pennsylvania. Back then people easily traveled in for a funeral to pay respects. Soothing to the soul to have a sacredly held transition. Even though my grandfather was adopted, people who knew him from decades past gathered.

I felt farther beyond in the thread where even in absence of knowing, the line continued back generations earlier. My Pa came from somewhere unfamiliar to me, but the person who bore him, and the one before her, they all make up a chain that never can be broken. No matter the circumstances, the love, the hate, the good and bad decisions, the lines are made, and the order never does break. What is born is not unborn.

I was lucky to have been brought up in the refuge of this large family as a very young girl. It is something that gave me a taste of happiness. Even if it was later going to fall apart.

Today, in my 60’s though, I have fine memories that help me remember that I come from two long lines that individualized into very different families, different cultures, and different religions. These ancestors of mine moved across different parts of the earth, each living a life worth living. Because of course, all of life is worth living. They all faced good times and hard times, but somehow made it through and lived enough to continue the line on. They all add up to nourish me through their time and experiences here, and now my children too.

In that state between waking up and getting out of bed, I also felt how if I traveled back even farther, that the two threads would eventually come together as One. Realizing again in my life that although we have different experiences, and different beliefs, that we all come from the same lacework. All of us our interconnected, and the Life Force that blesses us to be human beings is the same. It is powerful, and the more we stand together, we remember this.

Quite often these days, there is an emphasis to live in the NOW, which helps us be in wholeness. Perhaps because scientifically, that’s all there really IS. But as human beings, we do live in space and time. We do have this web, of which we all are a part. We have all struggled and suffered to some degree. If we are fortunate, we have also found miracles and love too. We feel. We sense. We get to experience this beautiful world. These moments are so valuable. It feels to me like it’s important to not rush towards enlightenment or heaven so quickly, but instead to savor what we are and have now. We will meet all the parts, and know ourselves as it all unfolds.

This Sunday morning, I write to remind every soul, that we are a knot of individuality in the web of life that crosses time and space. And we are also born from the One Source. If we want to find peace & joy, and if we are to stop creating violence and hate so strongly, we must remember that we all come from the same place. We are sand on the beach, a pebble in the creek. We are Creations of God, or Source, or the Universe’s Creative ability. Whatever we believe, we are One and the Same.

Maybe it’s important to remember this. Perhaps some might want to find a new quality meaning in life. Maybe this is a good reminder that without each other, we are nothing. Do you feel like you are living a life worth living. Do you do things which uplift others? Especially someone you don’t know or care for? Even the smallest changes count.

What if, when you wake up in the mornings, you connect to your Higher Self, sensing into your wholeness, and set your intention to make a positive change by facing your Lower Self with love? Start within to wake up to what is real. It will change you. And when you treat others well, especially those who seem different than you, when you give them an opportunity, you give this to yourself as well.

We are a tapestry that dances across all the universes. Every act touches the Whole. All the threads, and all the knots, we all have value, just by Being.

Sunday Morning Dreaming
Sharon Hartnett CST-D
703 509-1792
www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com

by SharonHartnett | Mar 27, 2024 | concussion, craniosacral, Craniosacral Therapy, healing, Massage License in Ohio: 33.007505-H-K, mind body & spirit, Structural Integration

Young people and older people are getting forward neck posture. All the computers and the cell phones contribute greatly. But also all the sitting Americans do. It’s not good. If I had to do it again, I’d start squatting and learn yoga or pilates early on. I’d make them a life practice. But life being what it is in our culture- our postures are often misaligned as we get older. But there are things we can do to have more freedom of motion.

In my opinion, massage can help. But someone who specializes in fascia is the best bet. The fascia wraps around and through everything in the body superficially to the deep. From macro to micro and reversed. It’s a living tissue that contains and keeps us alive and in motion. When we nourish the fascia and help it remember its ability to be vital, pain can disappear.

I have clients in their 50’s and on up. They can hardly move their necks when they first come in. They are told it is arthritis. Well, they may have arthritis, but it’s the tissues that restrict or allow motion. It’s the fluids dancing with the structure that makes the change. If things can start to soften, spread and move, the bones can be adjusted or perhaps move back on their own. It’s like a wrapping. If it’s tight and stiff- how does life nourish or relinquish what it no longer needs?

Of course there are minerals, vitamins, PT and other things which can help (all part of the HELP team), but the fascia is key. People, whose doctors tell them it’s arthritis often don’t talk about the benefits of fascial work. I think this is a big mistake not including it in health protocols. In addition, learning Feldenkrais, Continuum and other movement exercises that are gentle can be essential and really help too. People don’t have to stay stuck or frozen internally. At any age, we can make choices that will help us. It may not correct the issue 100%, but it can make a huge difference.

Friends, move yourself in different ways. Be proactive with your health. We all have habits that aren’t easy to break, and when this happens- there is always someone out there with skill and experience who is willing to help. It may take time and patience. Take care-no matter which route you take.

Sharon Hartnett CST-D
7035091792
www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com