The Root of Healing
“The body is a dense and visible aspect of a unified field which is always being fed by that which created it. It can’t be separated from the field in which it lives. It can only be incorrectly seen as separate.” - Stephen Schwartz, Compassionate Self-care
This quote from Stephen Schwartz's Compassionate Self-care points to the heart of what inspires me as a biodynamic craniosacral therapist. In this work, I listen to the way the unified fluid field of the body shows up, bringing the potency of inherent health to whatever is out of balance and needs attention.
This field was there at our creation when each of us was an embryo, working away at developing us according to the Blueprint set down by the function of inherent health.
Yes, it’s a mystery that cannot ultimately be described. Only observed, felt, respected.
Schwartz then says “The whole body accepts. It accepts our loneliness, our grief, our anger, our bounty, our abundance, and our love…. Here is a moment in which we can transcend all our cruel and distorted beliefs. Turning with care to our own life, coming to the heart, allows us to begin outshining those arbitrary ideas which have confined us for so long.”
Our deepest healing comes through accepting what simply is in the moment without adding anything on top. This means if I'm hurt, I allow myself to feel the hurt moment by moment. I can do this if I turn my attention to the physical sensations of the hurt, literally sensing my body's signals telling me about the hurt.
Once settled into acceptance through the gifts my body brings, I no longer experience the separateness Schwartz writes of. I become close to the wholeness of this world, even when pain is present.
I can turn away from spinning in my stories about the hurt. Our bodies, our cells, know how to simply be with what is, accepting whatever has happened.
It’s not always easy, this choice to turn towards the actual feeling. And it helps to get therapeutic support. But it’s essential in order to move through the healing process.
I can’t emphasize enough how simple somatic presence is the root of all therapy, all healing.
From the beginning of life our bodies are a gift.
