SHIFTING PERCEPTION
Health Oriented and Resource Based Therapy
- The Biodynamic Approach
Kalakeli - Julia L. Bodkin
In total health,
you will not find yourself: the total health is a zero experience.
That zero
experience is what religious people have called the God experience.
OSHO
Content
1. Preface
2. Introduction
3. Somatic Experiencing©
4. The DiamondLogos Teachings
5. Biodynamic CranioSacral Balancing®
6. Conclusion
7. References
Preface
The theme of this project is particularly
relevant for me at this time of my life and inner journey.
The last 20 years or so both personally
and professionally, has been and continues to be a process of evolution
in my attitude to my personal journey and my preference of the way in which
I choose to work with my own inner process of personal growth - which subsequently
reflects the way in which I work with others.
In the late 80’s when I first participated
in group therapy, received bodywork or took counseling sessions the general
approach was still very much influenced by the group therapy of the 70’s.
The therapy style was direct, fairly confrontational and the therapist
often gave the impression that they knew me and what I needed better than
I did. While this may have been true to some degree it didn’t feel
empowering or helpful for me in getting to know myself and prompted me
to put in place another set of ways to be. I felt that I needed to be different
from who I am and set out on a path of self-improvement.
While some approaches still very much
work with directly guided therapy, strong catharsis for freeing up held
emotions and confrontational exercises for breaking through layers of defense
- it seems that the world of therapy and healing is becoming more sensitive,
respectful and attuned to the client.
I have had many experiences of therapies
with an emphasis on catharsis and expression of intense emotions with an
implication that the more emotionally expressive one was, the better, and
the deeper one went and the more pain one could feel the more healing would
take place. I felt that I had to make a lot of effort and work hard to
get somewhere and my tendency has been to approach therapy and self inquiry
with a determination to feel everything at the deepest possible level in
order to move through it and heal. This required a lot of telling of the
story of my childhood and the re-experiencing of unpleasant passed events
in the hope that feeling it again consciously would heal the wound and
or stop the perpetuation of an unhealthy pattern of behavior. It seemed,
most often, to be oriented towards the problem and focused on what needed
changing and improving. The techniques were at times overwhelming and in
my experience the style tended to be too fast, pushy and provocative. I
sometimes found that although I could do the process and go through the
motions, I found it difficult to remain present. And while there
was some kind of cleansing and release it would have a shocking and jarring
effect on my system that was at times subtly creating another kind of layer
of protection for me to be able to deal with the therapeutic process itself.
There is an awareness arising that
if a therapeutic exercise or structure is too strong and confrontative
the person becomes overwhelmed and they are either preoccupied dealing
with their defenses to the method itself rather than issue or go into shock
and are not present anymore. This very much varies from person to person
and some of us are much more resilient than others in these situations.
Once someone is in shock, apart from it being an unpleasant experience,
the therapy becomes fruitless. I believe the person has to be there for
any approach to be effective.
There is, of course, a place and a
time for strong and challenging therapeutic processes and body work. They
challenge our need to be in control and confront our ego identity in a
way that can be very helpful in breaking old ‘stuck’ patterns. This is
especially true of breathing and body-oriented techniques. But even many
of these techniques are evolving into having a more allowing approach,
encouraging the client to relax and invite their body to move, breath or
express rather than forcing or pushing.
There has also been a further evolution
as the understanding is emerging that to focus on the aspects of ourselves
that are healthy and the parts of our lives that work can be more beneficial
in a transformational process. There is a realization that if we give attention
to something it thrives. In my experience when I focus on what is
wrong with me, even if I have the intention to change it, what I see more
and more of is what’s wrong with me. The same is true when I look at aspects
of myself that I feel good about or enjoy - when I notice what in my life
I am happy about and grateful for it brings it to the forefront. This not
only highlights that aspect allowing it to flourish but also enables me
to have the strength and trust in myself to deal with an issue or pattern
that I am faced with.
I don’t mean that the solution is
to pretend everything is okay, to think I am only wonderful, or go in to
denial about painful patterns or history. It means that rather than constantly
‘pulling the carpet out from underneath’ there is a grounding in a place
of health and balance and a nourishing of the healthy part so that the
issue can be brought into perspective.
This may sound easy but in my experience
in my own structure it is a challenge. There seems to be a habitual pattern
in most of us of focusing on what is wrong or what we need to change in
ourselves. It may be true for the mind universally, but certainly my mind
is most often geared towards criticism and noticing what’s wrong. I was
brought up in an environment where an opinion was only verbalized was when
something wasn’t okay. While it seems natural and healthy to aspire to
a higher state of consciousness and have an intention to come out of our
conditioned patterns–
unfortunately, this is often translated into an inability to accept ourselves
as we are and a fixation on improving ourselves.
It was also not part of my upbringing
to have an idea of, or support for, a connection to anything like source,
god or a higher self. It wouldn’t have been understood or could have even
been considered ridiculous to talk about us humans being as an integral
part of the whole, part of something bigger. There was a vague concept
of god, but more as a punishing father figure. The
notion that was upheld was that we are separate and unrelated to the rest
of existence, implying that we have to struggle through life alone, has
left a deep imprint in me. I have been fortunate enough to have been exposed
to a different way of experiencing life and existence but I still live
often in the painful ego-identity of perceiving myself as a separate entity.
I have recently been facing some very
difficult times where this sense has been amplified. I am sometimes in
what feels like long periods of inner darkness. At these times I
become very skeptical and don’t believe many of the teachings that I have
heard, or what the masters are saying. From this perspective it all seems
like bullshit. I become identified with the sense of myself as a separate
self, struggling in the world. I seem to spiral down into a well of darkness,
not a restful, soothing darkness but a negative space full of doubt and
self-judgment. At these times I become lost and despairing and don’t know
how to find a way out. This
can last for some time and then eventually, for no apparent reason, I ‘pop’
out of that state, the clouds part, and I feel connected, alive and inspired
again, it is like being on a different planet. Then from that space
everything the masters have been saying makes sense. I feel inspired again,
I trust in life and have a connection to source, and I feel love for other
people and for myself and feel optimistic about my life and the world.
Having watched several cycles of this
process recently I have been feeling a need for a bridge between the two
states. I started to relate to the Christian concept of ‘faith’ where they
have their belief as an anchor or thread to guide them back. For me, in
those dark times, a belief wouldn’t be strong enough to withstand my level
of skepticism. I realized that even in those times, I can’t contest
that I have undeniably had incredibly profound experiences of trust, love,
and connection to the whole in the past. It seemed feasible, in that case,
to refer to a memory.
The next time I started to spiral
down into the darkness I practiced remembering a time when I had felt loved,
trusting and connected. I took time to recall all the details, how it felt,
who was there, how it felt in my body. I had to overcome an initial attachment
to an identity of the separate, lonely person – the ego.
I started by seeing if there was a
place in my body where I could sense a good feeling that wasn’t so dark
and miserable… I noticed in the part of my body that had contact with the
chair I was sitting in, the back of my legs and seat, I had a pleasant
spacious sensation. I stayed with this feeling and it slowly became warmer
and started spreading. I took a deep breath and could already feel some
distance from and less identification with the misery. Once I had a felt
sense of a part of me feeling okay I started to access a memory of a time
when I had felt loved, held, supported and part of the whole. I could
breath and the sense of utter despair eased, putting it into perspective,
allowing me to see that it isn’t all that I am. This may not sound like
a big deal, but for me it was very significant and was the beginning of
realizing how helpful resourcing can be. I have also seen this process
many times with clients but it became much more significant and trustable
when I could apply it to myself.
This doesn’t mean that I see no value
in exploring and embracing the more negative aspects of myself, on the
contrary, it gives me some distance to see more of what is going on without
being completely engulfed by it.
This inquiry led me to realize that
I am often in need of a bridge between these two extreme states and wanted
to explore more in this direction on a personal level. I have also seen
more and more, the benefits of having an orientation to health and resourcing
in a therapeutic context so felt inspired to highlight these aspects.
Introduction
The goal of this thesis is to expand
and deepen my own and the readers understanding of the therapeutic principles
of Biodynamics.
I have focused on the three approaches
that I have been most interested in and attracted to over the last 10 years.
These are Somatic Experiencing®, The DiamondLogos Teachings and Biodynamic
Craniosacral Balancing®. This project is an inquiry into their orientation
to health, how they are resource based, and the benefits of this alignment
as an approach to healing. It is not intended that this thesis gives a
full overview of these modalities as they are all more complex than I can
describe here.
I have been working with all three
of these therapeutic approaches in my practice, sometimes on their own,
but often weaving the three together. This is possible because they all
embrace the uniqueness of the client, the relationship between client and
practitioner (also known as resonance) and the unfolding of the moment.
Although in each modality there are specific skills and a wealth of understanding
- there isn’t a set protocol that is being followed – the session
is revealed step by step as the clients physiology and Being leads
the way.
Health
Orientation
We see health in action all the time,
every moment of our lives the body is working to maintain health. Even
the symptoms of disease are our bodies working to heal and regain a state
of balance and wellbeing. We are walking miracles. It mostly goes unnoticed
but our bodies are, with out us having to think about it, breathing, the
circulating blood, digesting, regulating hormones, growing hair, skin,
nails, regenerating cells to name just a some of the processes that are
happening in our bodies all the time. Our natural capacity for healing
and self-repair is phenomenal.
Health expresses itself throughout
our whole lives - even in a person who is very sick or dying the health
of the system is working. Health is not just a state of wellbeing, it refers
to the life force, the intelligence of the body and, as we will come to
discover in this exploration, it is ultimately an emanation of the divine,
god or whatever word you choose to use to describe the source of life.
And yet the majority of health care
professionals (and their clients) choose to focus on disease, not health.
In the medical profession and the mental health profession there are all
kinds of terms and definitions for dysfunctional, unhealthy symptoms but
health is rarely defined. It is often only defined in the negative as a
lack of disease or a state of being free from illness or injury. Even alterative
therapies or ‘holistic’ approaches to healing are not actually oriented
to health. They take a step out of the old paradigm of treating a symptom
as an isolated unit and see the person as a whole system but still seem
to orient to the problem rather than to the health of a person.
Holistic
health care practitioners view people as the unity of body, mind, spirit
and the systems in which they live. Searching for the underlying causes
of disease is preferable to treating symptoms alone.
From
the American Holistic Medical Association - http://holisticmedicine.org
This is one of many definitions I
found on the internet, it is significant that these modalities see the
person as a whole unit of function, but they don’t seem take it to the
next step of actually interacting with the Health of the person.
The root of the word health comes
from wholeness. Osho has talked extensively about health as wholeness:
Whenever
your heart falls out of line with the whole you are in trouble, you are
ill; whenever the heart is in rhythm with the whole you are healthy.
Let this be the definition of health. Whenever there is no conflict between
you and the whole, not even a rumour of conflict, you are healthy. To
be whole is to be healthy. To be whole is to be holy. And what is the
way to be holy, healthy, whole? Your heart should beat in the same rhythm
as the heart of the whole. You should not fall out of line, out of step.
It is a great cosmic dance. It is a great harmony. When you sit still,
silent, not doing anything, meditative, prayerful, suddenly you start
merging into the whole. You come closer and closer and closer and your
steps are no longer heard as separate from the whole. You become part
of this great symphony. Suddenly you are healthy, holy, whole.
Ancient
Music in the pines, Chapter 9
By
health Buddha means wholeness. Health comes from the same root as 'healing'.
A healed person is a healthy person, a healed person is a whole person.
By "health" Buddha does not mean the ordinary, medical meaning
of the term; his meaning is not medicinal, it is meditational -- although
you will be surprised to know that the words 'meditation' and 'medicine'
both come from the same root. Medicine heals you physically, meditation
heals you spiritually. Both are healing processes, both bring health.
But
Buddha is not talking about the health of the body; he is talking about
the health of your soul. Be whole, be total. Don't be fragmentary, don't
be divided. Be an individual, literally: indivisible, one piece.
The
Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha. Vol.6
Resource
A resource is a reserve, something
one can rely on in hard times. We all need resources to fall back on and
take longer to recover or return to balance after an impactful event or
injury if those reserves are empty or depleted.
In a therapeutic context, a resource
is something that when noticed or remembered activates an inner sense of
wellbeing.
It is anything that helps a person
feel relatively at ease – examples of which may be a safe environment,
a person in ones life that is supportive, something that gives a person
a feeling of comfort. It could be a memory of a time when one was safe
or supported. It can also be an inner space of strength or aliveness. This
may only be felt in one part of their body, like a sense of contact through
their feet with the ground, warm hands, an expansive feeling in the belly,
a feeling of a soft and open heart. A resource could also be the knowledge
that one is safe now, even though there are times when this isn’t the case,
the knowing that a person has that they have survived a difficult event
and are now safe is, in itself, a resource.
It is relative and very individual
- for some it is easier to access resources than others, but we all have
something that we can call on other wise we wouldn’t be alive today. Even
people who have lived through the most horrendous situations will have
something that has kept them going or given them the strength to go on.
Somatic
Experiencing®
Dr. Peter Levine is the founder of
this method of working with Trauma, I have been learning from Diane Poole
Heller PhD a senior faculty member of his school – the Foundation
for Human Enrichment.
Somatic experiencing® (SE) was developed
by Levine in the early 1970’s and is known to be a very effective therapy
for resolving symptoms of trauma including post-traumatic stress disorder
and overcoming extreme life events. The SE model is a complex treatment
strategy, I won’t attempt to include the whole approach. I will only discuss
some of the main elements – specifically those that highlight the
use of resources as a therapeutic tool.
Trauma
Trauma is a widespread fact of modern
life. Most, if not all, of us have been traumatized in some way. Both the
causes and consequences of trauma are wide-ranging and can be obscure or
unconscious. The causes include natural disasters such as earthquakes or
tsunamis, motor accidents, serious illness, sudden attack, difficult birth,
troubled relationships or high levels of stress. The symptoms are also
diverse examples of which are panic attacks, chronic fatigue, obsessive/compulsive
behavior, random phobias, anxiety, migraines and insomnia. It can often
be the case these symptoms don’t show up immediately, they can remain hidden
for years after the event that triggered them. A definition of trauma
is something that is overwhelming and happens too fast and too soon for
our systems to deal with.
Trauma
is physiological
Levine’s research and experience has
shown that trauma is actually stored in the nervous system, in the body,
it is not in the event that caused it. The level of trauma is gauged by
the effect it has on the person, not on the event itself – one person
could perceive a situation as very traumatic while another may not be phased
by it.
Levine has seen that there was no
need to review the memory and details of the event, and that in fact it
would often be re-traumatizing and a hindrance in resolving the issue. Treatment
is not dependant on reliving the content or story or through psychological
approaches – the therapist works through the physiology, without
necessarily knowing the initial cause of the symptom.
The therapist assists the client to
discharge survival energies that are bound in the body during a traumatic
event. These energies are a result of immobility or freeze responses that
are occur in response to an event that has happened to a person too fast,
was overwhelming in some way or unexpected. There are 3 primary responses
available to reptiles and mammals when faced with an overwhelming threat:
FIGHT, FLIGHT and FREEZE. These responses are involuntary.
Levine writes:
Traumatic
symptoms are not caused by the “triggering” event itself. They stem from
the frozen residue of energy that has not been resolved and discharged;
this residue remains trapped in the nervous system where it can wreak
havoc on our bodies and spirits. The long-term, alarming, debilitating,
and often bizarre symptoms of PTSD develop when we cannot complete the
process of moving in, through and out of the “immobility” or “freezing”
state. However we can thaw by initiating and encouraging our innate drive
to return to a state of dynamic equilibrium. Waking the Tiger p.19- 20
The instinctual part of the human
brain and nervous system are almost identical to those of other mammals.
Hence Levine studied how animals in the wild recover from the constant
threat of life threatening prey and predator dynamics in the wild. He recognized
how the instinctive reactions in all animals, including humans, controlled
by the brain and nervous system, are physiological resources and very important
for the healing of trauma related stress.
Levine writes: ‘The key to healing
traumatic symptoms in humans is in our physiology. When faced with what
is perceived as inescapable or overwhelming threat, humans and animals
both use the immobility response. The important thing to understand about
this function is that it is involuntary. This simply means that the physiological
mechanism governing this response resides in the primitive, instinctual
parts or our brains and nervous systems, and is not under our conscious
control. That is why I feel that the study of wild animal behavior is
essential to the understanding and healing of human trauma.’ Waking
the Tiger p.17
Levine also believes that ‘the
key to healing traumatic symptoms in humans lies in our being able to
mirror the fluid adaptation of wild animals as they shake out and pass
through the immobility response and become fully mobile and functional
again.’ Waking the Tiger p.18
Nervous
System Regulation
Understanding what happens in the
two branches of the nervous system when faced with a dangerous situation
is part of what informs Levine’s work.
There are two branches of the Nervous
system, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) that mobilizes energy to take
action while the other, the parasympathetic branch (PNS) initiates the
cycle of rest and recovery. The limbic brain triggers these different branches
to respond and the SNS attempts to meet and defeat the threat through action
oriented responses (fight or flight).
If during a traumatic event these
actions were thwarted or inadequate, the SNS may continue to flood with
energy such as residual anger, frustration and panic and it may then be
that the PNS will also initiate a shut down response. This response lasts
for a short time but it may then continue be triggered by associated experiences
or it is held in the body causing uncomfortable symptoms.
The result is an over-activated nervous
system that loses resiliency and can mean that events that would normally
be manageable become overwhelming.
As shown in the top part of the illustration
(page 13), in a resilient nervous system the flow of charge and discharge
happens easily. SNS and PNS are working allowing a flow between charge
and discharge.
In the lower part of the illustration
showing an over-activated nervous system there are high oscillation shifts
between the SNS and PNS resulting in flooding that alternates with over-constriction
leading to disconnectedness and fragmentation.
Either the SNS is over activated which
means the activation is “stuck on ON” and the client experiences symptoms
such as panic, hyper-vigilance and mania or the PNS is over activated and
becomes “Stuck on OFF” and the client experiences symptoms such as chronic
fatigue, exhaustion, dissociation etc. When the stimulus is too great the
SNS and PNS activate simultaneously and a highly charge freeze response
is the result.
There is a natural sequence of responses
to threat; starting with the arrest response that alerts us to danger,
then the startle response which creates an attentiveness and vigilance,
followed by orienting to the threat by turning towards it or looking in
the direction it is coming from. Then there is a moment of evaluation where
it is determined if and how dangerous the threat may be, and if needed
a self-protective response (flight, flight and/or freeze) is triggered.
Next is the completion of the response (flight, flight and/or freeze) and
most importantly is the discharge of the energy mobilized to meet the threat.
After this discharge comes relaxation followed by the exhilaration of having
survived.
This sequence has to be completed,
if it is prevented at any stage the person may remain stuck in a threat
response - which is then what causes the symptoms of trauma. Most often
our bodies instinctively respond without enough time to analyze the situation
cognitively. If a person is overwhelmed it is common for them to become
paralyzed and unable to respond with fight or flight. Part of the problem
is that these responses have already been mobilized so when the paralysis
or freeze response happens there is a huge amount of energy in the system.
Animals seem to manage to discharge
these compressed energies and almost never develop symptoms. We are not
as adept and to add to the problem we often get fixated on them and may
re enact similar scenarios repeatedly or re live the experience over and
over by talking about them with the desire to release the charge but with
out the tools to do so.
When the memory of an overwhelming
trauma is triggered in life or remembered in therapy the clients report
feeling immobilized, frozen and often become dissociated.
Titration
/ Pendulation
The SE model works with the physiology
to release this held energy, the process is slowed down and discharge occurs
bit by bit. Guiding the client to loop between the physiological experience
(felt sense) of arousal in the nervous system and the felt sense of a resource
slowly the body starts to discharge the held energies. They may feel a
tingling, start to tremble and shake, release heat out of the body.
This looping and discharging has to
happen gradually otherwise (because the breaks have been on) the held energy
floods the system and the person is overwhelmed causing dissociation.
As this process happens it brings
the client from the experience of fragmentation to a sense of wholeness.
Diane Poole Heller often uses the
term Core intactness in her teachings of SE. Even though we may be working
with a fragmented part SE encourages students not to hold themselves or
the client in that identity – but to keep remembering the sense of
ourselves as fundamentally healthy and whole.
She writes: By starting from an Oasis of Safety,
building resources, taking only very small pieces of the traumatic material,
then using those resources to neutralize the activation, and by going
slowly, directing attention to events before and after the impact and
working gradually toward the center it is possible to regain a continuity
of self. There is an experience of moving from fragmentation toward
integration.
Article
– Trauma Healing and Transformation ©Diane Poole Heller, Ph.D. 2004
Throughout Diane’s trainings the focus
is on the parts of ourselves, our lives and our relationships that work,
rather than focusing on the symptom. This again works as an antidote and
allows the body to discharge the arousal that is held in relation to the
event or issue.
The SE therapist will work with the
client to help them use a sensate focus often referred to as ‘felt sense’,
guiding their awareness between the memory of what has been distressing,
how it feels in the body now, and then shift to focus to what resources
they might access that have a calming effect.
Diane Poole Heller writes:
This
‘pendulation’ back and forth is one technique among many to help the
over-activation discharge through accessing the parasympathetic relaxation
response. Deeper abdominal breathing returns naturally without he therapist’s
overt suggestion and is a signal of successful creative self-regulation.
…This
process allows highly charged survival energies to be slowly and safely
discharged, often alleviating arousal-induced trauma symptoms.
Article
– Trauma Healing and Transformation ©Diane Poole Heller, Ph.D. 2004
Discharge
and completion of threat response
The client may move from a positive
felt sense experience to a challenging felt sense experience and back several
times in a session, this then initiates the discharge process of the nervous
system. This can happen in several ways, typically the body will release
heat or will start to tremble or shake, it may be that there is a sense
of tingling or flowing of energy down the arms and out of the hands. These
are all signs that the held energies are discharging – which is then
often followed by a deeper sense of relaxation and well being.
Later as the freeze response literally
thaws out, we tremble and shake as the nervous system releases and reorganizes. Soon
impulses for fight or flight will surface as a sense of mobility returns
and there is the opportunity to complete them to facilitate further discharge. Interestingly
enough, it is not necessary to actually make the gross motor movements
of fight or flight. Simply having (the client) feel her body organize
fight and flight responses and then feeling her body prepare to move
or just move slightly and in slow motion, the body finds its greatest
release. In most traumatic events and typical of auto accidents,
the body has little if any time to prepare and these preparatory movements
are overridden. By giving the body all the time it needs it can
then relax and shake off the excess energy left from the traumatic experience.
Biological completion helps unlock the jamming in the nervous system
and allows the client to integrate the experience so that they can indeed
move on in life and become freer of the after-effects of trauma. (Levine
– Waking the Tiger)
The main goal is to keep the arousal
levels moderate enough so that the clients’ awareness remains intact
and connected to the experience so that the dissociation is unnecessary.
The nervous system is designed to facilitate recovery from threat and
extreme experience. Understanding how to work clinically with the physiology
greatly enhances ur use of all of our skills and training in a much more
effective way.
Article – Trauma Healing and
Transformation ©Diane Poole Heller, Ph.D. 2004
It
is also important to note that the use of ‘resourcing’ happens throughout
an SE session. From the first contact between therapist and client the
physical environment is arranged in a way that suits their needs so that
the client feels comfortable and safe. In my experience this initial setting
of the scene and creating of a safe space can take some time and is an
important and intrinsic part of the work of resolving trauma.
There
is attention given so that the person feels comfortable with where they
are sitting. It may be that for someone having their back to the door or
if they are sitting too close or far away from the therapist makes them
feel activated. This is all negotiated and can already start to bring about
a discharge of arousal in the system.
I have found that something seemingly
simple like giving the client choices at the beginning of a session incredibly
supportive in creating a safe, secure environment. Which then allows the
client to feel more supported and provides a sense of empowerment
and self-confidence as a grounding to start.
This approach doesn’t stop at helping
the person back to living a functional life, it also utilizes this resiliency
to experience and embody higher spiritual states. In fact some of the experiences
of trauma and dissociation can provide spiritual access, it can be a portal
to enlightened moments. The difficulty can be in integrating these states
into our lives, SE provides some tools for this assimilation.
This
work sets the stage for experiencing expanded spiritual states in an
embodied and integrated way. As arousal discharges and we become increasingly
emotionally and physically neutral, we become less defensive and much
freer to express ourselves unhindered by past inhibitions from the past.
As we mature we naturally develop increasing wisdom and discrimination
and function in an appropriate intelligent way independent of old fears.
Rediscovering
core intactness is a very different approach than feeling damaged and
trying to fix our wounded selves. We are already whole, valuable and
perfect but history is covering this treasure when we are identified
with it. Article – Trauma Healing and
Transformation ©Diane Poole Heller, Ph.D. 2004
The
DiamondLogos Teachings
This approach originated as The Diamond
Approach® to Self-Realisation and was founded by A.H Almaas, Karen Johnson
and Faisal Muqaddam. Faisal then started his own branch of the work - the
DiamondLogos Teachings (DLT).
This work is often referred to as
a ‘Spiritually informed psychology or a psychologically grounded spirituality’.
Faisal describes his teachings as a bridge between therapy and meditation
- between the personality and the Absolute.
Until I came across these teachings
it seemed that we were either working with the personality and ego structure
or focusing on meditation and meditative techniques – the two seemed
to me to be unrelated. In most spiritual teachings the Being is considered
Universal and the same as source or the absolute. In the DLT it is considered
more individual. The DLT teaches that while the Absolute is the nature
of being there is a portion of it that forms the unique nature of the soul
made up of many different aspects of Essence.
The DLT is fundamentally a map of
the psyche offering precise descriptions of Essence - the various aspects
and dimensions of the human spirit. It is also a spiritual psychotherapy,
working with the healing of wounds by reconnecting the person to essence.
According to Faisal the individuated
self is a manifestation of the Absolute - it is our being, the essential
self. It is made up of essential qualities, like a multi-faceted diamond
with all the different aspects of essence making up the unique, whole being
or soul. Sometimes it is called the ‘true personality’. We are born with
an exquisite (essential) personality, as connection with it was lost it
was replaced by the false personality - our persona, became an imitation
of our original face.
Essence
and The Theory of Holes
Essence is not a concept it is clearly
experienced as a substantial (often fluid) presence which can be differentiated
into various qualities or aspects, such as Compassion, Strength, Will,
Joy, Peace, Love, Value, Humanness, Personalness, Identity, Space. The
experience of essence is felt all over the body, there is a sense of unification
and each state comes with distinct characteristics that are experienced
as a particular color, density, feeling and flavor.
When
a baby is born, it is pretty much all essence, or pure being. Its essence
is not, of course, the same as the essence of a developed or realized
adult. It’s a baby’s essence – non-differentiated, all in a big
bundle. As the child grows, the personality starts developing as a result
of interactions with the environment and especially with the parents.
Since most parents are identified with their personalities and not with
their essence, they do not recognize or encourage the essence of the
child. So, after a few years, the essence is in fact forgotten, and instead
of essence, personality develops. Essence is replaced with various identifications.
The child identifies with one or the other parent, this or that experience,
and with all kinds of notions about self. As the child grows up, these
identifications, experiences and notions become consolidated and structured
as its personality. The child, and later, the adult, believes this structure
to be its true self. However the essence was there to begin with and
is still there. Although it was not seen or recognized and may have even
been rejected or hurt in many ways, it is still there. In order to protect
itself, it has gone underground, undercover. The cover is the personality.
There is nothing bad about having a personality. You have to have one.
You couldn’t survive without it. However, if you take the personality
to be who you truly are, then you are distorting reality. The personality
is composed of experiences of the past, of ideas, of notions, of identifications.
You have the potential to develop a real individuality, the personal
essence, which is different from the personality that covers the loss
of essence. But this potential is usually taken over by what we call
our ego, our own acquired sense of identity. A.H
Almaas, From the Diamond Heart – Book One p.3-4
As our personality develops we slowly
become alienated from our essence through our conditioning –
created fixed patterns of perception and behavior. Each of these patterns
of perception disconnects us from a specific aspect essential aspect. In
other words our personality (ego identity) is built around the missing aspects
of essence or “holes”. Each time a quality of essence subsides it creates
an energetic hole, an absence. It feels as if that area, or that warmth,
or sweetness, or density is gone and created a vacuum. Literally there is
a vacuum –
you can’t feel anything.
By exploring the structure –
layers of personality and defense, through tracking the felt sense, insights
and feelings one eventually gets to the ‘Hole’. By allowing the sense
of the hole, tolerating the deficiency – with out actually doing
anything - the hole starts to fill in with the missing aspect of essence.
The specific lost aspect of essence is retrieved and becomes available
to the person again. When an essential state is retrieved and is present
it is can felt like a flooding through or filling up of the body with
that quality.
Whenever
an essential aspect is missing or cut off from one's consciousness there
results a deficiency, a hole, in its place. This hole is then filled
by a part of the psychic structure that resembles the lost essential
aspect. One fills or covers the deficiency with a false aspect in its
place. Almaas-
The Pearl Beyond Price, pg 96
Allowing
ourselves to tolerate the holes and go through them to the other side
is more difficult now because everything in society is against this.
Society is against Essence. Everybody around you, wherever you go, is
trying to fill holes, and people feel very threatened if you don’t try
to fill yours in the same way. When a person is not trying to fill his
holes, it tends to make other people feel their own holes. So, it’s becoming
more and more difficult to do the Work. And the Work is also becoming
more and more needed. Almaas
- Diamond Heart Book 1, pg 23
Inquiry
and the Diamond Body
This Approach has three aspects -
the transmission and knowledge of essential states, self inquiry and private
sessions. The retreats focus on one aspect of essence at a time.
This is where the student receives a transmission of the specific essential
state and learns how to recognize it, gradually learning the map of the
psyche. It is a forum to learn the material, explore and process the issues
related to that particular aspect of essence. The private sessions
are a more personal space for self-enquiry and exploration. The students
also come together for self-enquiry.
Self-inquiry is a method of inner
exploration in the moment. Coming from an objective space one starts to
notice what is present, in the body, the emotions and the state of consciousness.
The person starts by sensing their arms and legs (to widen the perspective)
being present to and describing what they are noticing as it unfolds. This
process is an ever-deepening process of self-discovery, the intension is
to allow the magnificence of our true self to reveal itself as we uncover
and move through layers of defenses, beliefs and identities that are in
the way.
Through accessing objective awareness
or inner guidance, an aspect that Faisal has called the ‘Diamond Body’,
we start to awaken to the capacities and possibilities in our soul for
participating in the inner unfolding of our Being. The Diamond Body orients
our self exploration so that we can recognize and encourage implicit guidance
that arises as we travel, with curiosity, our own inner space. And as the
journey continues and our awareness deepens, we learn to appreciate the
subtleties, the richness, and the intimacy that is ours as we follow the
path of inquiry.
Almaas describes the Diamond Body
or Diamond Guidance;
In
other traditions, the Diamond Guidance is sometimes called the angel
of revelation, the holy spirit that brings the word or message from the
source. It is the angel that guides us to Beingness that is our ground,
our nature, our source. It is the true friend, the total friend, because
the Guidance’s only concern is for you as a soul to go back to your source,
to be who and what you can be, with total acceptance, total support,
total guidance, total kindness. The soul needs to place herself in the
right attitude for this kind of blessing to come. You have to do the
work of correctly orienting yourself. Basically this means harmonizing
your consciousness with the mode of presence and operation of the Guidance.
This is what we are exploring when we discuss inquiry – the right
orientation, the right posture, the ways of being and functioning that
will invite the Guidance. (Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg 223)
There isn’t a procedure or protocol
followed in the inquiry except to be present and stay with what ever arises,
as it arises and allow it to change in its own time.
Orientation
to Being
The DLT is thought of as a disintegrative
approach – meaning that it is disintegrating for the ego identity.
As we uncover the false layers of our identity it starts to fall apart,
to disintegrate. This can be very scary. For this reason the emphasis is
on essence and all the retreats start with the transmission and embodiment
of essence. This is the grounding for the self-exploration. Without this
there is no orientation – the orientation has to be to the Being
and ultimately to the Absolute. In effect we dismantle the ego structure
allowing the holes to open up, feeling all kinds of fears and pain along
the way. The next step is what many approaches disregard - the filling
in of the hole with essence. This is what gives us the capacity to function
in the world and deal with our daily lives. Retrieving essence is not something
that we can do, it happens by trusting and aligning to the Being
and the nature of our soul.
The process is not linear, it is circular,
there is no clear order of unfolding – each person is unique and
the processing of an issue and the retrieval of essence varies from person
to person according to their particular conditioning and Being.
I have noticed in my personal inquiry
something is shifting. I tend to be aware of having a focus more on the
essential qualities of being and less on the issues related to it. For
years I would go ‘head first’ so to speak into the hole and would at times
be overwhelmed and so immersed in the issue that I would lose my objectivity.
I am finding as the awareness of the Diamond Body develops I am less identified
with the issue and the negative state associated with it and can take on
smaller chunks at a time which allows me to stay present to and in contact
with the relevant essential state. It has been an important shift
to consciously orient to essence and not be caught in the endless world
of issues.
The word health was originally a term
meaning Whole
If the w is removed it becomes hole
Narrow it right down further and whole becomes hole becomes o …all
we are left with is the ego identity or what Faisal calls ‘the pea’.
And when we Widen the field,
enter the hole, let it open up and relax into it … again we
reconnect with essence and we again become Whole
Biodynamic
Craniosacral Balancing®
The founders of Craniosacral Balancing®
are Bhadrena Tsumi Gemin and Kavi Gemin. By now their practice and teachings
are inspired by many different sources including Dr. William Garner Sutherland
(the founder of Osteopathy), Dr. Rollin Becker, Dr. Jim Jealous, Ray Castellino,
Franklyn Sills, Peter Levine, Faisal Muqaddam and Osho.
From
Biomechanics to Biodynamics
I did my first training in the early
90’s which wasb informed from the teachings of Dr. John Upledger. I was
immensely touched by the subtlety of the work and gentle respect for the
client in the lightness of the touch and the lack of force used in physical
corrections. Upledger’s work is now referred to as ‘biomechanical’.
The biomechanical approach is simple
to understand. The practitioner looks at relationships between segments
of the body and works with correcting the motion and relationship between
these segments using the craniosacral therapy methods. Working
with the ‘cranio rhythmic impulse’ initiated by the movement of the cerebrospinal
fluid that has a rate of 8-12 cycles per minute, and is palpable all over
the body - We would motion test and diagnose where there was a lesion or
an ‘energy cyst’ and work with that segment of the body. Through gentle
contact we would ‘follow’ the subtle movement of the fascia, bones and
joints into the direction of ease holding the part at the extreme of the
motion and wait for it to give way.
As time went on it was seen that the
movements we were sensing were a result of deeper forces than we were initially
aware of, and that there are deeper slower rhythms and stillness underneath.
These biodynamic forces were referred to as ‘the breath of life’.
The method changed from using the
movement of the fluids as a diagnostic tool and then correcting the dysfunction
to working with the forces that were creating the movement and allowing
the intrinsic health in these forces to do the healing. The approach consequently
deepened from treating a symptom to treating the whole person though the
functional movement coming from the whole. This is referred to as the ‘biodynamic’
approach and is not as simple to understand because it isn’t linear it
is multidimensional.
“I’m
treating to restore health. I’m not treating to correct the problem.
In treating this way, I have opened the doors for the body to try to
do what it wants to with its own living forces.” Dr. R. E. Becker, DO
Dr Jealous expresses the basic principle
of the founder of Cranial Osteopathy Dr. Sutherland, from where Craniosacral
originated;
In
order to appreciate primary respiration and in order to appreciate osteopathy
as a functional science rather than a biomechanical science, one has
to have the perceptual experience of the essential truth of osteopathy.
And that essential truth is that there is health inside each on of our
patients and that health is perfect, and that health is something against
which all disproportion, whether it’s in our psyche or in our biochemical
function must take place. And it’s through that relationship that we
find healing. And our job then, at least from a biodynamic point of view,
is to find the health in the patient and then to explore the therapeutic
process as it’s being presented to us, and to fully cooperate with that
therapeutic process and then reevaluate the patient’s response to this
natural healing process. - Dr J. Jealous transcription Audio CD
The
Breath of Life
As I mentioned, the deeper forces
referred to as the Breath of Life (BoL) are what the Biodynamic Craniosacral
practitioner is working with and calls ‘the whole’. The Breath of Life
is the expression of natural, alive, dynamic forces as a ‘spark of life’.
It is an organizing principle – it organizes form by organizing space,
through this it generates the natural fulcrums of midline and the straight
sinus (Sutherland’s fulcrum).
The
breath of life abides in stillness and breathes a living fire that fashions
creation. Nature’s living breath weaves a trembling matrix that connects
all living organisms to the free-flowing motion of good health. Charles
Ridley
– Stillness p. 1
The
breath of life unites all – she contains us and she is in us, like
the fish in the ocean- and life without her is preposterous. Charles
Ridley –
Stillness p. 2
The BoL is the body’s inherent life
force. It has been referred to in many healing traditions, sometimes called
Divine Intention or Creative Intelligence in action. It carries the essential
ordering principle acting as a blueprint for health and is present from
the time of our early embryological development and is the fundamental
factor that maintains balance throughout our lives.
We can have a direct experience of
the BoL in the body – we can palpate its living action and expression.
The potency of the BoL expresses itself through the cerebrospinal fluid.
The action of the BoL within the cerebrospinal fluid causes it to pulsate
in a tide-like fashion.
This movement (Primary Respiration)
is described as tide like because it is not a linear movement or a current,
it is a holographic movement welling up and receding, widening and narrowing.
Although it is most palpable where there is cerebrospinal fluid, the movement
is not limited to these places, it effects all the fluids in the body which
influences the tissues to express the movement too. This rhythmic
response to the breath of life, tide or fluctuation is known as inhalation
and exhalation and describes deeper dynamics of the living system.
The conceptual understanding of the
orientation to Health in this work is essential, at the same time we have
to know how to put the theory into practice. For this reason I have broken
down the different elements of how we access health and the aspects of
the work that are resourcing.
Intention
of a session - The realization and consistent awareness
that there is health in all of us all the time is the main principle
of this work. It is not the job of the practitioner to bring the person
to health, health is already there, all the time – even when the
person is extremely unwell, or even dying. The work of the practitioner
is to support and work with the BoL and its expression of the inherent
health of their system and let this matrix of health and its inherent
treatment plan guide the session.
Practitioner
Fulcrums - A fulcrum is a still place,
around which other (moving) parts orient. It organizes motion and space,
in this context it provides orientation for the practitioner and is therefore
a support for the practitioner to access neutral.
Personal
fulcrum – this is an orientation to the practitioner’s
own body from the inside. Orienting to space, to present time and the
practitioner’s personal emotional state, physiology and inner motion.
It is a state of inner peace and brings the ability to put personal feelings
aside and be present. It may be for some a space of meditation.
There are several techniques to assist
a practitioner neutral, it may be different for each practitioner. One
I particularly like is the Buddhist practice of equally divided attention.
First bringing awareness to the breath and its movement in the body and
then without shifting awareness including the awareness of the spine and
then adding the sense of the skin. This widens the perception and lets
the mind open to a greater field of awareness.
Practitioner
Midline - Awareness of midline brings the sense
of a vertical line in the centre of the spine, it extends down into the
earth and up into the sky. This invites centeredness and clarity and
gives an upright support to our system. Stillness at the centre of the
midline brings a personal connection to dynamic stillness which is at
the centre of everything and therefore is a unifying state. When the
practitioner is in contact with their midline, it is an orienting fulcrum
for both practitioner and client.
The
Straight Sinus/ Sutherland’s fulcrum - This
fulcrum is a natural fulcrum related to the straight sinus which is laid
down embryologically. It is at a 30° angle
and drains from the inferior sagittal sinus at the centre of the brain
to the transverse sinuses. It offers some support in the back to the
ground, like the third leg of a tripod. This also allows the practitioner
to rest back in themselves without leaning into the client energetically – giving
more space.
Earth
as a fulcrum - This is an energetic extension of
the midline down into the earth offering a sense of grounding and solidity.
Elbow
fulcrum - A very practical fulcrum. It is an
anchor for the elbow on the table when we are in contact with the client
so that our hands can be stable and still. The shoulders and arms are
supported and can relax. This then enables a floating quality in the
hands making perception clearer.
The
Heart fulcrum, the Sinoatrial Node – Located
in the upper wall of the right atrium - the SA node which according to
Charles Ridley is “your heart of hearts where infinite stillness and
finite form unite”. The SA node sets the rate of contraction for
the heart. It spontaneously contracts, it is said to be capable of contracting
by itself, it is self-firing - generating the rhythm of the heart. Abiding
in this place gives a sense of wholeness, and a connection to the rhythm
of the life. It is the bridge between dynamic stillness and the sense
of self, bringing a sense of wholeness.
The
Third Ventricle – the largest amount of the
cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is produced by the choroid plexi in the lateral
ventricles, but there are also some on the roof of the 3rd ventricle.
The choroid plexi filter out red blood cells and other chemicals including
toxins leaving a pure, clear, slightly visceral liquid which is the CSF.
These fluids are ignited with potency in the 3rd ventricle
as it is moved in a circular motion like a turbine. It is said to be
the receptacle of life force and when we abide in this place (just behind
the 3rd eye) it brings a sense of clarity, vitality, centeredness
and light.
Neutral – Practitioner
fulcrums are supporting a state of neutral for the practitioner.
A biodynamic
term for what feels like reverent equanimity. Being neutral is to learn
to see with a transparent eye, to have no judgment about, or desires
for, or aversion to, the mode of representation that arises within. This
transparent eye removes preconceived patterns and meanings and enables
the meaning in itself to emerge into perception. When your heart field
is like a still pond, any image that strikes it is allowed to pass directly
within you to be held in neutral, and the image can then take its own
shape with which you do not interfere. You are both a detached witness
and a participant. This feeling witness consciousness is what frees the
flow of meaning for you. –
Charles Ridley, Article on Neutral
Neutral is when the awareness becomes
unfixated and free of egoic control, surrendered to the processes of the
Breath of Life. Practitioner neutral is the optimum state for the practitioner
and although it may not be possible to be maintained at all times throughout
a session it is the intention to keep returning to this state of neutral.
Resourcing
- This would include making sure the person is
physically comfortable and communicating what they can expect from the
session. At the start of a session, as the client arrives and during
the history intake, there is an awareness of gathering resources for
the client. Part of this process is reassuring the client, creating a
rapport and starting to engage and teach the person how to access their
own resources.
During
the history intake some of the questions might include, “What
helped you make it through difficult times?”, “Was there support from the
outside? If not, what support would have been helpful?”, “If you imagine,
who you would have liked with you, who would it be?”. If someone is talking
about a traumatic event these questions help to remember that the event
is in the past and realize that they did survive and had support to do
so.
The
practitioner would then ask something like, “And how does that feel in
your body when you notice that?” (support or resource) - bringing it to
the felt sense so it is felt in the body and can be accessed later in the
session as a resource if needed.
Holistic
Shift/ Client Neutral - The client’s neutral is pivotal in
biodynamics. This ‘shift’ happens with hands on, in any hand position
on the body through the presence of the practitioner, who is holding
a space of neutral and inviting the clients system to orient to that
neutral. In the spaciousness of neutral and resonance with the
client the system slows down and settles into a neutral, it is as if
the system drops down a layer and is often signified by an involuntary
deep in breath. It is a free space in which potency infuses an area of
inertia with the original imprint of healthy, coherent motion or provides
a portal to deeper forces of motion and stillness. A unification occurs
and the system that was experienced as fragmented is reminded of wholeness.
There is often a clarification of primary respiration at this stage followed
by a state of balance.
If this shift to neutral doesn’t happen
then the practitioner would first work with stillness processes.
Primary
Respiration is the expression of the Breath of
Life in action and arises out of stillness. It is delicate, sublime
whole body breathing that wells out of the midline while it radiates
out the transverse dimention as a potent fractal array of lemniscates
(figure 8) patterns of health throughout (the) body before it recedes.
(Ridley p. 55). It is a holographic expression of inhalation and
exhalation palpable all over the body when it is being expressed.
In mid tide, on the level of fluid
body, it is perceived as a fluidic motion that ebbs and flows in cycles
of about 24 seconds, approximately two or three cycles per minute. The
quality of the touch is of the hands being immersed in fluid. The perception
is of the client as a whole fluid field. There is a connection to the tissues,
fluids and potency of the system. Information is received through the whole.
Fluid body has a quality of the personal. The therapeutic processes have
to do with neutral and state of balance related to inertial patterns.
In Long tide, on the level of tidal
body, primary respiration is perceived as a vast, vaporous, oceanic potency.
It is a huge field of action and comes with a radiant, loving presence. The
hands of the practitioner are immersed in potency. There is brilliancy
and radiance with a sense of both lightness of density and lightness of
vision. Tidal body is perceived as a universal resonating matrix, and has
an impersonal quality. The therapeutic process has to do with ignition
processes related to embryological forces and formation.
This ‘whole body breathing’ has a
unifying force which reestablishes healthy patterns throughout the body.
It is self-regulating and maintains inner dynamic balance. Primary respiration
is the guiding force that directs the therapeutic process – the inherent
treatment plan.
Dynamic
Stillness - A deep stillness literally enters
the space and permeates both client and practitioner. There is a sense
of reverence, a religious experience where healing occurs at the deepest
level.
Inherent
Treatment Plan
This can only be accessed once the
initial holistic shift or client neutral has occurred. The therapeutic process is decided
by what is presented by the clients system in the moment. A typical session
will start with the ‘Three steps of Becker’ which are three Neutrals: Practitioner
Neutral, Neutral in Relationship (which is the negotiation of touch, setting
up of relational field and resources) and the Client Neutral or holistic
shift. If the shift happens it would then be followed by a state
of balance of inertial fulcra. Here the question is asked ‘What is organizing
this inertia?” and as we sense this axis of organization the system naturally
moves through steps towards reorganization. If the ‘shift’ doesn’t
happen it may mean that the system is over-loaded or lacking potency so
would be followed by stillness processes - with the intention of
revitalizing the system. Simply put, the practitioner cooperates
with primary respiration, which creates potency in the body’s fluids as
a therapeutic force that emerges during a neutral, it then deepens in to
a stillpoint out of which primary respiration occurs and breathes healthy
motion throughout the body.
These are basic guidelines but it
is important to understand that the inherent treatment plan unfolds uniquely
in each moment of the session so it is impossible to follow a protocol.
Because the biodynamic approach is accessing and realigning with the inherent
health of the system therapeutic processes are more about perception than
doing.
Afference/Non-Efference
The biodynamic approach to healing
is seen as afferent. The word is taken from a physiological term used when
referring to a movement conducted inwards or towards something – for
nerves that means towards the central nervous system and for blood vessels
it means towards the organ supplied with blood. Efferent activity
is a moving away from or out of something. Efference is the reverse of
afference.
In the context of this work efference
means there is a doing attitude, having a kind of interfering or
‘fixing’ intention towards the client and their healing process. Charles
Ridley in his book ‘Stillness’ clearly explains how our intention can effect
the clients natural healing capacity of their system and it’s process during
a session.
In reference to Sutherlands admonition,
“No outside force that can be safely applied” he says, To me, this means
that you apply no efferent activity, which includes motion testing, applying
techniques, intentions, suggestions, focused perception, fluid direction,
or augmentation,. In place of efference, you wait, remain relaxed, quiet,
and in reverent equanimity. When you abide in this disposition you leave
the Breath of Life free to be in its natural state, and can then coherently
resynchoronize the inertial parts with the whole. If I apply efferent techniques,
even subtle non-verbal conversation skills, suggestions, intentions or
minute augmentations – it imprints an exact template of these linear
patterns onto the delicate field of primary respiration – it has
to. This field of moving stillness is so utterly transparent that it can
be likened to unexposed film. While my efferent activity is imprinting
stressful vectors onto this sensitive field, it creates destructive interference
patterns that can imprison primary respiration, forcing it to deal with
the lines of force that I introduces instead of the forces present in the
clients body. I will say it again: Even the most subtle, loving suggestion
is efferent, and therefore not neutral. P.51
The practitioner remains with a quiet
mind, an open heart with no desire for resolution of any kind. This
is not always as easy as it sounds because we are often stressed, activated
or nervous ourselves and need to take the time and have a clear intention
to settle into this afferent state of neutral before and during a session.
Additionally we are habitually oriented to trying to change or heal the
client and can feel pressured to do so from their side when someone comes
with a painful symptom and, understandably, really wants to be fixed.
However, remaining in a neutral state
makes it much easier to hold a wide field and clarity of perception while
we, as practitioners, are refraining from efferent activity. The
afferent approach i avoids interpretation, doesn’t name lesions or dysfunctions,
and doesn’t label a clients process. We don’t project our hands or
our energy inside the clients body looking for insight or understanding
about what it happening. We rest in neutral and let what is just be, allowing
any information to come to us. The skilled practitioner works with presence
and perception and is comfortable and able to maintain a neutral state.
From there we learn to become familiar with and differentiate the different
tides, neutral, recognize specific processes and stillness. This allows
the intelligence of the breath of life to express and reorganize the system
to access potency and realign to its original matrix of health.
At
the essence of Craniosacral Therapy life begins to teach us about itself – Roger
Gilchrist
Conclusion
This project has been and continues
to be a wonderful exploration in seeing how I can bridge the different
levels of perception. It has helped tremendously to inquire into the benefits
of orienting to health and using resources in a therapeutic context. My
research has been much more far reaching than I have been able to put into
words.
These three approaches (SE, DLT and
CSB) are all phenomenological in their approach – they work with
the person as a whole unit of function. This means that there is a bridge
between the spiritual dimensions and the personality, they have a connection
to the whole through the wholeness of being, which makes the movement from
one to another integrated and less of a schism.
I have made a chart (page 34) summarizing
the different aspects that are health oriented and resourcing. The chart
is self-explanatory being a summary of the aspects that have already been
discussed in this document.
The chart on page 35shows a summary
of the levels of perception in the three approaches and how these are parallel
to each other. From
left to right, the first column is the name in each modality of the source
or energy that is the Divine or God. As
this energy is embodied, incarnated in the flesh and differentiates from
the undifferentiated unified field it becomes our true nature, an expression
of the source - it is whole and complete and manifests as a sense of wellbeing
and aliveness. As
a result of our conditioning, traumatic experiences and history we disconnect
from this and the personality is formed, this is shown in the last column.
We move from wholeness to fragmentation, from our true self to personality,
from health to patterns of dysfunction. Of course this process is not linear,
all of the levels are present all the time, it is our perception that changes.
Many healing modalities and therapies work only within the last column,
working with the level of the physicality and personality and their layers
of defense and fixed patterns of behavior to fix the person or improve
the personality.
During the research I have had the
tendency to discount my previous experiences of therapeutic styles which
may have been more cathartic or shocking. I soon realized that I may be
receptive and appreciative of the subtleties of these more refined and
respectful approaches now because I have been through so many other experiences
already and have this as a background allowing me to feel the gratitude
of being met at such a deep level with these ‘new’ approaches. I also believe
that there is a time when one modality may be more suitable than another,
and that there is no perfect approach that suits everyone all the time.
I have, however, as a client, a student
and in my personal life found it very helpful to be supported to look at
what works, rather than endlessly trying to improve myself. When I am faced
with a challenging situation I am tending to include more of an awareness
of parts where I feel good, rather than what is difficult. I am aspiring
to see myself and my history less from a negative point of view but with
a more holistic vision. Seeing that it is all part of something greater
than I am usually aware of and is perfect both in this moment and in the
bigger picture. This then brings a more accurate view of myself and the
world.
As part of my research I gave a series
of sessions. During this time I focused on giving myself permission to
take all the time I needed to settle into neutral and do what ever I needed
to do before and during a session to maintain a relaxed connection - this
then allowed me to sense the inherent treatment plan like never before
and from there I was only able to work from a non-efferent approach. My
practice changed dramatically as a result of these sessions and shifted
my approach much more into a biodynamic mode. The sessions were often clear
and magical, sometimes very tangible fluid body (mid tide) processes and
at times deep truly religious experiences. The clients reported that these
sessions had deep and lasting benefits.
One of the conclusions that I came
to is that each person in each moment is utterly unique and the only way
to work with someone is to practice being able to be still, with the presence
of mind not to interfere, allowing the process and their Being to unfold
in each moment according to their own intrinsic essential nature.
We’re looking at ‘a paradigm shift from elimination
of pain and suffering to the restoration of health from within’ – Dr
Rollin Becker
The question is - Can we truly
let go into trusting this life force that is in a constant flow of recreation,
resurrection and repair? - It is a quantum shift and for both the
practitioner and the client - a realignment to health that is a true alchemy.
| |
Health
Orientation |
Resources
for Practitioner |
Resources
for Client |
Somatic
Experiencing® |
· Understanding
that client as whole and intact at the core
· Alignment
and focus on ‘what works’
|
· External
– environment
· Internal
– body, supportBring
to felt sense
· Slowing
down
· Tracking
and following physiology of client
· Resiliency
|
· External
– comfort, choices
· Internal
– body, memory, supportive people - Bringing to felt sense
· Slowing
down the process
· Titration
– bite size pieces
· Orienting
to present time
· Completing
flight/fight response
|
DiamondLogos
Teachings |
· Orientation
to the Being
· Focus
on embodiment of essence NOT issue
· The
field of the Absolute as holding environment
|
· Presence
· Knowledge
of the map
· Experience
and understanding of different states of being
· Embodiment
of essential states especially the Absolute & DiamondBody
|
· Presence
(practitioner and self)
· Sensing
arms and legs (widening of perception)
· Knowledge
of the map
· Essence
· Inquiry
/ tracking
· Embodiment
- Ability to ‘tolerate’ space and other states
|
Biodynamic
CranioSacral Balancing |
· Seeing
the client as healthy, not as symptoms
· Working
with the system as a whole unit of function, coming from the greater
whole
· Orientaion
to the Breath of Life
· Following
Inherent treatment plan
· Understanding
that PR is self-regulatory and maintaining inner dynamic balance
|
· Taking
time to settle
· Neutral
- equally divided attention (breath, spine, skin), midline- earth/sky
· Fulcrums
– neutral, midline, SA node, straight sinus, elbow, 3rd ventricle
· Widening
of perception to include the whole
· Orienting
to Midline
· Stillness
at the core
|
· External
/internal - bringing to felt sense
· Negotiation
of space & contact
· Neutral
in relationship
· Slowing
down
· Holistic
shift … unified field
· Potency
· Midlines
· State
of balance
· Neutral
… Stillness
· Time
for integration
|
LEVELS
OF PERCEPTION |
Somatic
Experiencing® |
G
O
D
L
O
V
E
|
· Core intactness – a place
at the core, however traumatized, remains untouched and in tact
· Innate healing wisdom
|
E
M
B
O
D
I
M
E
N
|
· Wholeness
· Natural Resiliency
· Presence in Body
· Healthy response to perceived
life threatening events
· Intrinsic healing capacity
|
T
R
A
U
M
A
C
O
N
|
· Fragmentation
· ANS dysregulation
· Trauma Symptoms:
· Shock - dissociation
· Freeze
· Loss of resiliency
· Hyper-vigilance
· Hypersensitivity
|
DiamondLogos
Teachings |
D
I
V
I
N
E
S
|
· The Absolute
· Buddha Nature
· Consciousness
· Undifferentiated field
|
T
I
N
C
A
R
N
|
· Essential Vehicles
· Essential Dimensions
|
· Being
· Essence
· True self
· Essential self
|
D
I
T
I
O
N
I
N
G
|
· Personality
· Ego identity
· False self
· Enneagram Fixation
· Issues
· Deficiencies (holes)
· Defense layers and False essential
states
|
Biodynamic
CranioSacral Balancing |
O
U
R
C
E
|
· Inherent intelligence of Breath
of Life
· Stillness
· Unconditional forces
|
A
T
I
O
N
|
· Expression of Breath of Life
· Primary
Respiration
· Tidal Body -Longtide
· Epigenetic forces
· Potencies
· Neutral in LT
|
· Potencies
· Fluid body – Midtide
· Neutral in fluid body
|
H
I
S
T
O
R
Y
|
· CSR
· Inertial fulcrums
· Inertial patterns
· Pain/suffering
· Physical/emotional dysfunction
and symptoms
|
References
A.H
Almaas : Diamond
Heart Book One: Elements of the Real in Man, Berkley, Diamond Books,
1987. The
Inner Journey Home, Shambala Publications, Boston and London, 2004 The
Pearl Beyond Price, Shambala Publications, Boston and London, 2001 Essence – The
Diamond Approach to Inner Realisation, York Beach, ME: Samual Weiser,1
1986
Babette
Rothschild – The Body Remembers, W.W. Norton & Company,
New York, London, 2000
Bruce
Lipton – various articles – www.brucelipton.com
Byron
Brown – Soul without Shame, a guide to liberating yourself from
the judge within, Shambala Publications, Boston and London, 1999
Charles
Ridley – Stillness, North Atlantic Books, Berkley, California,
2006
Diane
Poole Heller Phd. – articles and notes from workshops
Faisal
Muqaddam – The Lataif, a transcript taken from a workshop
in 2006.
Franklyn
Sills – Craniosacral Biodynamics Volume One, North
Atlantic Books, Berkley, California and U I Enterprises, Florida 2001
Franklyn
Sills – Craniosacral Biodynamics Volume Two, North
Atlantic Books, Berkley, California 2004
Michael
Kern – Wisdom in the Body, the Craniosacral approach to Essential
Health, North Atlantic Books, Berkley, California and Pacific Distributing,
California, 2005
Osho
- The
Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha. Vol.6, Ancient Music in the pines
- Chapter 9
Peter
Levine with Ann Frederick – Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma, North
Atlantic Books, Berkley, California 1997
Roger
Gilchrist – Craniosacral Therapy and the Energetic Body, an overview
of craniosacral biodynamics, North Atlantic Books, Berkley, California,
2006
