614 653-8111 Sharhartnett@aol.com
Benefits of the Undefended Heart

Benefits of the Undefended Heart

Knowing Love in an Undefended Heart

How many people feel comfortable living deeply embedded in the love of their own hearts?  I am not talking about the intense passionate feeling we have for a partner.  Instead I am talking about an embodied sense of being True to Yourself.  Caring about yourself, and opening up to your Essential Self.

It takes courage to push away those layers of protection surrounding your heart. But aren’t you curious what is underneath everything you have been taught and believed?  Peeling away the onion is an honesty and acknowledgment check.  But it’s worth your while to self-realize love.  Feeling love deep inside spreading through everything you are is the best!

There are many ways to discover the love living inside you.  The easiest way is by building your confidence back up.  How do you do this?  By being real with yourself.  This is a two fold process.  One is by noticing and writing down the beliefs you hold that make you believe you are “less than” or “bad” . Any negative belief.  Question those beliefs and the validity of them.  Second is to Choose Love and physically move toward your heart.  Is it a smooth ride?  or are there obstacles in the way?  Bring mindfulness in and question.

You can take this journey yourself, or you can enlist friends or see a therapist.  Relationships though are key to opening up the love in your heart.  We are meant to work and play through life with others.  This include the easy and the hard times.

How an Undefended Heart can Benefit You:

1.  You feel better inside your body. Dopamine, oxytocin and seratonin take you into a state of pleasure.

2.  You feel more appreciation for life.

3.  It’s easier to be clear about your goals and how to accomplish them on a soul level.

4.  Life is easier to navigate when other things are difficult when you are centered in your heart.

5.  Developing meaningful friendships are easier when you feel kindness and love for yourself.  People are happier when they are helping each other with care.

6.  Love reduces stress and anxiety.  It brings in a sense of calm.

7.  Love promotes healing.

Love is the evolutionary tool available to all of humanity. It’s free, and available for each of us.  Take the leap… Move towards Love and see what it can bring you the deeper you go!

Sharon Hartnett CST-d

703 509-1792

www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com

 

 

 

 

 

Winning Life By Choosing Love

Winning Life By Choosing Love

Love Is…

Love means something different to each of us. Our understanding of love changes from moment to moment.  What does it mean to You?

One thing is true. Love is free. Nothing can contain it. Yet, often there are demands or attempts to take it. To control love. It’s impossible though to take what is not offered organically.

Some people will be happy to see you self-realizing love.  Others might be jealous or even angry. It means so many things, it can be fear, it can be anger, it can even be hatred in some type of entangled loyalty.  It is part of the creative process of life, and it is a key to human evolution.  Love transforms us when we lean into it.

Sometimes, the only way that we realize what we are made of… is to have it reflected back. Healthy relationships can mirror it back when we have not experienced before. It can deepen our love bond. And when a relationship ends, we can either embrace it or defend against it. Grief is a form of love too as we transition from loving the other to finding it inside our own hearts.

Some people might call “love” a complex emotion.  Really though, it is what we are made of.  It’s the flame inside our heart that burns and allow us to be human between the earth and the heavens.

Lastly, knowing love often requires a surrender of what we know in our heads.  It’s often the breaking of our hearts.  A broken heart can later open up the deeper well inside to help us self-discover our True Essence.

I’d like to say, even if love feels like it is escaping you now.  Set your intention to choose it.  Love hears you.  It will show you the way.  It’s the only way to win in this life.

Sharon Hartnett CST-D

Perspective by a Craniosacral Therapist Witness

www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com

703 509-1792

 

 

How to Find Relief for Concussion Symptoms

Common Concussion Symptoms

Working with a Craniosacral Therapist Columbus

Concussion symptoms are serious business.  A concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury. Any strike to the head should not be ignored. Especially if you find yourself being forgetful, sensitive to light, dizzy,experiencing blurry vision, confused, experiencing headaches, nauseous, clumpsy, moody, or having difficulties following instructions after any impact to the head, make sure you get checked out by a physician.  Symptoms may or may not appear immediately, so be mindful about your state of being for at least a few days. Especially if you lose consciousness, it is imperitive to your long-term health to receive proper care.

Healthcare providers will usually recommend that you take it easy after a brain injury. The brain needs time to resource its energy to heal. Usually with lots of rest, the brain can recover. However if you continue to have difficulties concentrating, feel off, or feel irritable with headaches, you may want to check in with a Craniosacral Therapist.

Having experienced a few concussions myself, I have found that besides rest, Craniosacral Therapy has helped me the best. How this works is that a Craniosacral Therapist. will directly work with the cerebrospinal fluid that surrounds the brain and the spine. Why this fluid is so important is that it protects, helps nourish and moves out toxins.  A concussion or a Traumatic Brain Injury will disrupt function.  Craniosacral Therapy listens and melds with the deeper healthy currents of the Craniosacral System to bring better symmetry, a healthier rate, optimal quality and amplitude to the rhythm.  After a numerous bumps to my head, the Craniosacral Work has helped me to feel more balance, more clear and able to manage my life normally.

My training is with the Upledger Institute

If you would like to find more detailed information about how UI is helping to advance research and the positive results they have observed in clinics and intensives, check this link:   Concussion Help

If you are suffering from concussion brain injury, don’t wait.  You deserve to live a good life.

Sharon Hartnett CST-D

703 509-1792

www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com

 

 

 

7 Things to Know about Highly Sensitive People

7 Things to Know about Highly Sensitive People

Recognizing the Gifts of Being with Highly Sensitive People

Understanding Sensitive People takes effort. Yet it’s definitely worth your while.  About 20% of people are sensitive.  Basically, what this means is that we (I am including myself) react more to life’s stimulation. At times, it’s not as easy for us sensitive people to screen out certain stimuli.  Things can become overwhelming for us if we aren’t mindful to our comfort zones.

Anyway, in the recent past, I was talking to my Craniosacral Therapist about my sensitivities in group relationships, and she recommended the book, “The Highly Sensitive Person“, by Elaine N. Aron.  As I began to take the test in the beginning of the book, I checked off almost every single characteristic of a Highly Sensensive Person (HSP).  Wow, this woman understood my life without even meeting me!

Honestly, I can’t tell you how alone I have felt (on a certain personality level) for a long time being highly sensitive.  Most of the world either masks it or is less sensitized.  I have processed things and been in the healing and therapist field for close to 30 years.  I have worked on boundaries and so many things.  Yet, still-when I walk into a room, I feel the mood of the people, and all the nuances in human relationship.  I hardly miss a thing, especially emotionally.  This even extends to plants, trees, and watching a bird fly.  It’s as if I feel ever flap of the wings. My heart resonates.  Yet I also feel very vulnerable.

At the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, we learned to develop what Barbara called “HSP” Higher Sense Perception.  Same acronym.  This is a fine tuning of seeing, feeling, tasting, sensing etc at a very subtle level.  This helps people who work with energy or relationships to become astute and skillful in meeting people in connection,  the auric field and other dimensions. This has benefited my clients in that I can deeply sense stress, pain, and dysfunction simply by tuning in.  When I do this, I can use my sensitivity skills to help ignite the healing response within.

For me, being aligned with my sensitive nature is tremendously helpful in my work.  I can sense things and support where others may not. On a fine level, I gather so much information through listening and melding.  I know how to meet the “Other” in a gentle manner with touch which can encourage wonderful openings.  At the same time, I often have to take some alone time afterwards to settle and digest life experiences.  Being senstive doesn’t necessarily make me an introvert, but I do need to rest and integrate often. Self care is crucial.

Aron, writes in her book that our mind/body experiences are different and unique.  Some of our positive traits that she mentions are:

1. We are better at spotting errors and avoiding making errors.

2. Highly conscientious.

3. Able to concentrate deeply on things where we are drawn.

4. Especially good at tasks requiring vigilance, accuracy, speed and detection of minor differences

5. Good at being able to process materials at deeper levels.

6. Deeply affected by other people’s moods, which help us to understand and be more present.

7.  Able to learn without being aware we have learned.

There is so much great material in this book.  What I like best about it is that I don’t feel so alone in that I feel different than so many others.  Also, It helped me to refocus on the gifts of this personality I have lived with.  I feel so aware of the interconnection of all of life.  I feel it deeply.  Sometimes, life hurts as the casing around the heart breaks wide open, but I am also able to have such profound life experiences.  I have become emotionally stronger in my vulnerablity and can hold that for others in “Presence”

I am sharing today about being sensitive, and I hope this helps someone else recognize that there are many other of us around. We need to learn to accept ourselve and find the seeds of truth and kindness inside to make this life of sensitivy so worthwhile. We do this through self nourishment and awakening to our authentic selves.

Sharon Hartnett CST-D

703 509-1792

www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com

 

 

Aligning Your Life with the Truth of Your Body

Aligning Your Life with the Truth of Your Body

The Truth of  Your Body

Believe in the Truth of Your Body.  It’s honest. It’s integrity. It is what is real in the moment. What I mean by this is that the physical is not making up perceptions. It is what it is. An expression of your human physical state of being.  It lives and does its’ thing!

The mind is what perceives and creates stories. Your thoughts, experiences and learned beliefs influence the body. But the body is not the thinker. Rather, it is living physical relationships dancing cheek to cheek inside of you on a physiological level.

From one perspective, this includes individual parts. The human body can be seen as cells & their parts, tissues, organs and systems. They are all separate, yet the truth of your body which also exists is experienced as a “Whole” dynamic creative expression. The body exists in partnership through fluids and connective tissue as ONE Living Experience. It shapes based on mind and from Source itself.

When a professional and experienced manual therapist works with you, they are listening to your body primarily and also your story (if this is their practice focus)  if they are to be precise and accurate in discovering and supporting the health of any physical tension areas.  While a person may come in and say,  “this hurts”, the therapist listens verbally but also stays curious primarily by where the body directs us.  By placing our hands on the body, we allow the body to lead us to the pattern that is most significant in the encounter.  This is where we work rather than on the place that hurts. Generally, the pain spot is what speaks from a mind perspective.  It could feel like the weakest link. However,  the truth of the body is more accurate in its’ objective communication.

I know that sometimes people do have stories and issues where they need to be heard, and understood. This IS valuable information on a different level.  Often this is key in healing too.  This can be addressed in Somato Experiencing type of work.  It needs to be mirrored and given equal measure.  Yet if we truly want to address the physical piece, we need to understand that it’s vital to address the truth of the body to remedy what ails you.

When you trust the signals of the body, it is easy to move and meet the current concern.  Feeling the pull towards that area is easy with practice.  Dr. Barral says, “The body hugs the lesion”.  I find this to be very true in my work as well.

What differentiates a talented manual bodyworker is the ability to listen on different levels.  We have to stay open minded and learn our anatomy.  If you want better alignment in the body,  find a therapist who listens to the truth of your body.

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

 

 

 

 

How to Keep Your Eye on the Dream

How to Keep Your Eye on the Dream

Dream On

Life is a Dream.  In life, we are always in relationship. Whether it is to another person, an animal friend, an object or the empty sky. Reality is the world as it is.  It’s whole, the sum parts of all existance.  To be in it we must be in the present moment.

The challenge is our brains are most often generating what we think is our experience before we even live it.  The truth, how we understand life to be in often a quest.  Until we settle down into mindful awareness and curiosity to the experience of the One.  It’s not really something the brain can wrap it’s mindset around. It’s a surrender.  It’s a giving up of the ego’s need to exist.

We are fortunate to awaken out of the dream.  But many of us actually enjoy the dream as well.  It’s part of the earth’s gift to human beings.  It’s an experience. Either way, becoming aware of illusion, the  noticing of the dream state is helpful if you want to navigate life with more ease.

In the dream state, there are many glimpses. Signs so to speak. When these signs come into your life. Listen. Pay attention. For example, recently I had a deep loss. The heart hurt deeply.  Inside, I felt broken apart.  I still do although I am feeling a bit better every day. 

Anyway, just as I was walking toward the physical place of my avoidance of feeling this all, a beautiful butterfly appeared.  Black with turquoise wings on top.  The colors associated with the horse I lost recently.  My heart horse.  It just stood in front of me flapping it’s wings until I was ready to leave.  At that time, I felt my horse’s life all around me.  I woke up to his joy and his freedom. I felt it inside me as well. This happened with the same type of butterfly 4 times with me and those close by.

I know this can sound like a dream.  Part of it is the dream in which we all live. But the essence of love and interconnection inside opened and freed me as well with each sign that showed me the way.  I am still in the midst of grief.  But reality is showing me out the dream by keeping my focus on the signs.  Yet, the signs are from reality poking through the dream.  So pay attention.

I think, being human is very tough.  I suppose that is my belief I came into with this life.  At the same time, it is miraculous, so precious yet fragile.  It’s eternal spiritually but just a speck of temporary sand in the physical world.  This life in these skins in which we live are full of potential.  Life is what we make out of it, and also in how we treat others.

Enjoy this dream world.  It’s an adventure.  But if you want to wake up out of the suffering, it’s essention to set an intention, then pay attention, and open the door by being yourself.  Your real self.

Sharon Hartnett CST-D

703 509-1792

www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com

 

How to Empower Yourself By Facing Your Own Fear

How to Empower Yourself By Facing Your Own Fear

Fear Embraced

The Stimulation of Fear. Prepare to Run!  Get ready to fight! What a great friend fear can be to each of us.  It often moves us toward safety. Fear is a strong emotion. Human Beings, as animals, have evolved successfully thanks to the biological process within each of us that shifts our bodies into gear when in danger.

In fear, the adrenal glands prompt us to react when faced with an immenent threat. The challenge though is when we can’t fight or flee, the brain freezes.

In Craniosacral Therapy, I often work with people who live in patterns of anxiety, PTSD or panic attacks. At some point in their lives, there was an inability to act against a given threat. So in current times, sometimes the logical mind is taken over by the limbic system. Living in hyperarousal, it’s easy to be overly sensitive or to be easily triggered.

If this sounds like you, take back the reins of your own life force!  There is a way through. I find that there are many good therapists out here in the world with great tools to reflect and teach how to calm and bring you back to center.

From a Craniosacral Therapy perspective, we work with the Cranosacral System (CS).  Bascially, that focus is on the brain, the spine, and particularly on the cererospinal fluid which surrounds it and flows. We listen and meld with the rhythm of the CS of an individual, supporting and helping to enhance the nourishment of the nervous system as well as helping to release toxins.  Most clients find deep relief and peace after they start to trust the process of receiving the benefits of their own healthy self-regulation.

A Craniosacral Therapist works in a body centered manner. In the higher level, they learn to open up dialogue to fear. There are also body centered psycotherapists who work with the body which can be helpful too. Then there are therapists like me, trained in both.  All of these work at supporting the limbic system to find balance. We include the body to brain relationship, from bottom up.  This acts as a doorway to transform and heal.

I do want to remind you that fear is never the enemy. I often invite my clients instead to allow whatever is happening to move through as long as they are strong enough and in a comfort zone to make room for the movement of emotions.  If not, there are techniques and different ways to slow down or minimize at a healthy pace.

Fear is only an emotion.  It’s not who you are.  It’s just waiting to be processed and to come into completion.  When that’s done. you are set free.

Sharon Hartnett CST-D

703 509-1792

www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com

Introducing You to Craniosacral Therapy

Introducing You to Craniosacral Therapy

Anyone with an open mind can enjoy the benefits of Craniosacral Therapy.

At the very core of Craniosacral Therapy, there is an Inner Wisdom Within each individual. This is where the faith comes in with this manual therapy.Trusting that the body has its own intelligence. A craniosacral therapist listens, follows, and melds with the Craniosacral System to help mirror, nourish and acknowledge the power that is held in each of us.

The Brain and the Spine are part of the information highway of the nervous system withing each of us.When a therapist blends and supports the Inner Wisdom though blending with the fluids, magical things happen.  They really do. Not in an abstract way only, although that can certainly be the case. But also in a very science based methology. Craniosacral Therapy restores and benefits by enhancing the quality of the rhythm of the cerebrospinal fluid.

Cranioacral Therapy is gentle yet powerful work. It enhances wellbeing and brings strength to the whole body by enlivening the tissues and waking up new awareness within the body’s communication network.  New messages are born. New information changes.

The thing is, a person must be open minded.  They need to think outside the box of traditional medicine. Imagine, a 1:1 relationship where full attention is on your deepest body intelligence. What amazing things could your body do when it is acknowledged and empowered?  It’s enough that it works as it does miracoulously every day. But boosting its efficiency, and optimizing its health frees one to deeper wells of inner resources.

If you want to find out more about Craniosacral Therapy, check out the Upledger Institute.  Dr. John Upledger has gifted the world with this beautiful and powerful manual therapy.  Learn more about how it can help you.

May the fluid flow peacefully Within You!

Sharon Hartnett CST-D

703 509-1792

www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com

 

Moving Into the Light: How to Lift the Shadows

Moving Into the Light: How to Lift the Shadows

Your Sacred Light Opportunity

We are all mixtures of light and dark.  Sometimes others will try and fool you.  They present themselves as holy, as illuminated and high and mighty.  That’s ego.

The Truth is that we are all made from the same Source, the Creator. The story of origin lives and dies everywhere all the time.  We are all ordinary in our sameness.  We are all extraordinary light creations in our unique experiences. We are all small. We are all great. Every soul possibility that lives with me, lives within you. That is the substance of God.  It is the love of God that sustains us whether we remember or don’t.

I used to wonder when I was younger, why am I alive?  What is my purpose here?  How did I get here?  By my 30’s, I felt such a deep dark hole near my heart.  I missed something in this lifetime, and yet I didn’t know what it was.  By now, in this stage of my life, I know it was the Light within.  But I have to decide to take the path of truth and love many times over to wake up.  We are all interconnected.  We all do better when we unite.

Anyway, for me, this hole has been my teacher. The spirit which lives within me has chosen to be a  spiritual seeker. I move toward the “whole “open heartedly.  I am an opener of doors. Yet I also  know that to constantly seek can present its own stuck dilemma loop.  Therefore, I aslo love to choose gratitude as well. I tend to rejoice more in the moment.

Personally, I am a Pisces, so I am overly sensitive, creative and very emotional.  This thing called life has been so easy in some ways, but internally not so much.  I live inner struggles all the time by trying to understand how to fit into humanity and its polarities, and to feel, and understand how limiting my beliefs and others can be.

I recognize that in our own way, each of us suffers.  We all feel pain.  Nobody wins the prize for who has it worst.  However, what we decide to do with all that we have been given-that’s what matters.  That’s what give meaning to our lifes.  That’s where we get to join into the school of human evolution.

We have two choices in life really.  A “Yes” or a “No” to what life has to offer us.  Being human, we identify as being individuals.  These are the rules we live by.  I am me.  You are you.  We are taught from and early age, our names, and some type of social order to which we belong.  Our tribe so to speak.  Yet, at some point, do we want to step out?  What does he take to move away from the familiar?

Each tribe has its own resonance.  It’s own ways of doing things.  We belong until we don’t anymore.  It is inherent in all of us that we will  have opportunities to grow. Awareness is moving in and out as waves of new consciousness , intending to wake us up to something bigger than our individual selves. Alas though, we can resist change too.

These tiny brains that we are given soak up everything which is being mirrored to us.  Our identify is formed by all the outer influences and how we dance with them based on our soul configuration and personality. Because we each live different lives we each end up experiencing, accepting and also confronting expriences which are Light Opportunities for us to grow and shift into the Greater Whole.

The 3 Main Core Challenges:

1.  Choose Love or Move Away From It

2.  Take Responsiblity for our Choices and Actions or Deny Life as It IS.  Also included here is to Blame in order to avoid oneself.

3.  Choosing to live authentically or to pretend to be what others want and tell you to be.

For us humans, it’s not so easy to love all the time. Conflict is inherent in indivualism at this point of our evolution.  Some times we are just plain mean spirited.  Often we can see ourselves and others trying to hurt each other. Underneath all of us are woundings that have never been fully met nor understood.  So we repeatedly act out our lower selves. We are living in an illusion of our own making.  Our social media imposes fake reality all the time. With AI emerging, even more so in the future.  Still, we can choose love and light at moment.  It’s available.

Often, it seems so hard to take responsibility for our hurtful and cruel choices.  At a young age, most of of learn to slip the blame somewhere else.  It gives us an instanteous relief.  However, in our youth and until we learn, we don’t realize that the lies we tell ourselves hurts our health, wellbeing and our soul self.  Pointing a finger creates nasty karma when we don’t sense and feel into the consequences of our own negative actions.  Choice point moments are to accept Yourself as you are. You are Light.

One of the most painful things is to live by the standards of others. Although we train for this starting at a young age. We all do.  Eventually though, as we mature, we are intended to break out and find God in our own individuality. I truly believe that is why we are all here. We have these Light Opportunities to transform and transcend beyond what we ever imageined we are capable of. Change can be found in the smallest acts or grandiose.  However evolution enters into your life, you get to choose to hold onto a past that is over.  Or- you can choose to be in your truth and express the true authentic you.  No matter what the cost.  There is profound beauty in being yourself.

This world is a low dark place on many spots.  At the same time, the Brightest, Most Beautiful Compassionate Light is EVERYWHERE.  Sometimes it will be more apparent. Sometimes we have to listen through our senses intently to catch sight.  The best place to begin to look is Within.  Learn to Trust Yourself and to be kind.

In conclusion, God is not “Out There”.  God is in everything.  That includes you too.  Perhaps people have labeled you as “bad”, “not worthy”, or “not wanted.”  But that was them.  Live in your own lane, and follow your heart.  Your reason will align with compassion, kindness and generosity to Self and others that way.

I’ll give you a little hint.  What I have discovered is that the path is going to continue your whole life.  We are not all awakened all at once. No matter what color skin, which religion, or type of job we take. We come here to journey in these skins together.  So take the opporunities one at a time. Learn from your mistakes and glory in the gifts of nature. Everything is here for your taking and understanding.  And when it’s enough, you’ll remember that you are embodied, whole and complete. The seeking stops.

Sharon Hartnett CST-D

703 509-1792

www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com

 

 

 

How to Love Your Body No matter How it Looks

Love Your Body, Mind and Spirit

Here are some tips for Shifting your Mindset about your body.  It takes time to Learn to Love Your Body.

  • Every morning before you get out of bed, bring mindfulness to your body and sense into it.  Forget any preconceived ideas that you have believed. Living in these bodies are pretty miraculous. The good news is that we have plenty of fresh new starts. 
  • When you get out of bed, feel into the Ok-ishness of your body.  This is the beginning of practicing self-acceptance.  Any perfection thoughts need to be put on the shelf!
  • Be mindful about how you speak about your body. You can change the patterning of your thinking.  Drive in a new lane.  The Love Your Body Lane. Eventually your belief system changes when you drop the old thoughts.
  • Every person deserves to feel love.  And we are all different and unique in how we are configured.  Realize that norms are group beliefs. It really says nothing about you.  The more you move inward, you self-realized your essence.  Imagine what it would be like if we all could appreciate the different skins in which we live.
  • Question your thoughts.  Byron Kate,has great free worksheet for this in the website The Work 
  • Receiving bodywork can bring a whole new awareness to you body.In our society, so much emphasis is placed on what is going on inside of our heads.  However, we are whole people, body, mind and spirit. For example, Craniosacral Therapy is great for helping you to embody.
  • Meditation is a great way to open your mind about your body.  It gives you a sense of understanding through neutral listening and understanding.  It also opens up the path to compassion.
  • Exercise.  Find movement that is comfortable and fun. Even basic walking can make you feel better.
  • Choose foods that are healthy.  Maybe start a garden for herbs or fruits and vegetables.  We feel good when we partake in the organic processes which sustanin us.

When you are alone, take off the clothes and get comfortable in your skin.  Turn off your computers/phones/ and TVs.  Relax and Breathe.  Know Yourself!

Our culture makes it hard sometimes for people to accept and love your body.  Yet, we have many choice points to make up our own minds about how we related internally.  You are the Captain of Your Own Ship.  Sail the seas of Self-Love.  Learn to be Ok with who you are- body, feelings, thoughts and all.   

It’s not always each, but choosing change is a great intention.

With gratitude-

Sharon Hartnett CST-D

703 509-1792

www.craniosacraltherapistcolumbus.com