Tag: Craniosacral Therapy

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Craniosacral Biodynamic training in Austin, Texas

The Wellness Institute/Roger Gilchrist is offering training in Craniosacral Biodynamics (BCST) in Austin. This is exciting because he’s one of the most experienced teachers on the continent (30+ years, trained as a practitioner and teacher by Franklyn Sills, founder of this modality, and a master teacher).

We are fortunate to have him teaching in Austin. This level of training hasn’t been available in Austin or anywhere in Texas since 2019.

Seminar 1 was held in late September, and students were very enthusiastic about the skills they learned over the four days.

It’s not too late to join. Seminar 1 will be offered again Dec. 9-12. The remaining 9 seminars in this certification-level training will be offered every three months, in February, May, August, and November, ending in February 2028.

Teaching assistants provide support between classes.

For a description of the seminars, click here.

I did this training in Washington, DC, in 2021-23. It deepened my skills immensely. For more about this practice, click here.

Here’s what some students from Seminar 1 in September have to say about it:

“Several factors influenced my decision to choose The Wellness Institute. It’s an established institution, and Roger’s experience, along with the supporting faculty, was a significant draw. The proximity to my home was also a convenient factor.

“After completing the first seminar, I am confident that all participants will be well-prepared to become excellent practitioners. This is a thorough program that offers a personalized approach and ample opportunities for hands-on practice.” ~ Diana Tono, Norman, OK

“I feel so blessed to be learning BCST from Roger Gilchrist. He is a true master. With the help of his co-teacher, James Foulkes, you feel truly seen and heard. The teachings are clear, easy to understand, and grounded. I am excited to continue to learn and practice this work.” ~ Tempera McCarron, Sedona, AZ

I began training with the Wellness Institute after becoming deeply fascinated with BCST through the sessions I received from MaryAnn Reynolds. The work had such a powerful impact on me that I wanted to learn more about it. When I found out there would be a training in Austin, I was so excited to have that opportunity, especially since there wasn’t another training in town. I read about Roger and picked up his book, and after reading his work and receiving his very thoughtful class communications via email, I knew I wanted to learn from him and from the Wellness Institute.

After completing the first seminar, I couldn’t be happier with my decision. Roger and James did such an excellent job teaching the material and keeping everything engaging. They gave everyone individual attention and created a truly safe space to learn and experience. I reached a level of stillness that has never come so easily before. I feel confident that anyone who takes this course will become a highly skilled practitioner, if that’s the path they choose. I feel very grateful to be learning from such gifted teachers and to be part of this community. ~ Ariel Matthews, Austin, TX

I have received several treatments & taken several classes w Christian Current, one of the TA’s for the training. I have worked w several other colleagues who are also BCST certified over the yrs.

I have been asking Christian & Ryan Hallford (host of The Craniosacral Podcast, who also taught in TX) for yrs when a BCST certification training would be offered in Austin. Due to the interest of myself & many others, MaryAnn & Roger were able to organize this one. It is a special opportunity to get to study w instructors & TA’s who studied under BCST founder Franklyn Sills, who also bring their own unique knowledge, experience, skills & wisdom to this training.

The first training was quite informative, interesting, enjoyable & inspiring. A lot of information & technique was imparted for an introductory training, but the atmosphere & pace felt relaxed & comfortable. Part of the preparation involved in sensing & working w such subtle & deep mechanisms, dynamics & energy in the body requires one to slow down, to quiet oneself, tune out internal & external interference & distractions, & to be able to be attentive, present, open-minded & neutral. This in itself is therapeutic for both the practitioner & receiver, & a welcomed contrast to the daily hustle of demands, expectations, agendas, pressures, conflicts, attachments, stresses & anxieties. I love Craniosacral Therapy bc it means listening to the body & tap into its infinite inherent healing potential & wisdom. To go into this journey of discovery w this particular group of educators & students was special & powerful. There was a positive, supportive & productive dynamic & group discussion & reflection.

Roger & James did an excellent job of teaching, presenting, leading & facilitating the learning & practice. The flow w which they alternated, complemented & built upon one another’s information & ideas felt very natural & dynamic. They both bring a calm, grounded, experienced respect & enthusiasm for the work & their students, & a well-rounded, holistic, eclectic knowledge based in the science of human health & various physical, psychological & spiritual teachings. They are attentive to, & interested in, each student & help them feel seen, heard, recognized & supported. Their love for what they do helps spark the interest & passions of others for it. We are fortunate to have educators of their caliber & I am grateful & appreciative for their teachings. ~ Jesse Crandall, Austin, TX

I was directed to Christian Current for craniosacral biodynamics when I needed brain surgery in 2016. It was helpful and I felt more in control of my body and more comfortable with what was to come. 

It also helped when my infant daughter needed a frenectomy. My mother (very conventional) saw the difference in the baby’s response after the session and started getting sessions herself. 

I learned that our bodies can do more healing than our medical system gives it credit. I’m a female engineer but am planning to practice Biodynamics after training in it so I can have a 100% fulfilling career.

I was a little intimidated in the classroom on the first day because I don’t have any bodywork experience, but it was refreshing to me to instantly jump into hands-on practice twice a day. I did a lot of self-discovery in the class. I didn’t expect to know myself better in the classroom, but I did.

The benefit of this training is it’s a safe space with endless hands-on support. Plus, you’re healing yourself while you’re working on others. ~ Adrianne Marcum, Bella Vista AR

If you have any questions, please contact me. I can send you an application and answer most questions.

Roger is teaching in Prague and Sydney for the next month but is checking email. His email is wellnessinstitute@yahoo.com.

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Craniosacral Biodynamic training in Austin, Texas

The Wellness Institute/Roger Gilchrist is offering training in Craniosacral Biodynamics (BCST) in Austin. This is exciting because he’s one of the most experienced teachers on the continent (30+ years, trained as a practitioner and teacher by Franklyn Sills, founder of this modality, and a master teacher).

We are fortunate to have him teaching in Austin. This level of training hasn’t been available in Austin or anywhere in Texas since 2019.

Seminar 1 was held in late September, and students were very enthusiastic about the skills they learned over the four days.

Seminar 1 will be offered again December 9-12, so it’s not too late to join. The remaining 9 seminars in this certification-level training will be offered every three months, in February, May, August, and November, ending in early 2028. Teaching assistants provide support between classes.

For a description of the seminars, click here.

I did this training in Washington, DC, in 2021-23. It deepened my skills. For more about this practice, click here.

Here’s what a couple of students have to say about it:

“Several factors influenced my decision to choose The Wellness Institute. It’s an established institution, and Roger’s experience, along with the supporting faculty, was a significant draw. The proximity to my home was also a convenient factor.

“After completing the first seminar, I am confident that all participants will be well-prepared to become excellent practitioners. This is a thorough program that offers a personalized approach and ample opportunities for hands-on practice.” ~ Diana Tono, Norman, OK

“I feel so blessed to be learning BCST from Roger Gilchrist. He is a true master. With the help of his co-teacher, James Foulkes, you feel truly seen and heard. The teachings are clear, easy to understand, and grounded. I am excited to continue to learn and practice this work.” ~ Tempera McCarron, Sedona, AZ

If you have any questions, please contact me. I can send you an application and answer most questions.

Roger is teaching in Prague and Sydney for the next month but is checking email. His email is wellnessinstitute@yahoo.com.

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Craniosacral Biodynamics training in Austin, Texas

I am working with one of the most experienced teachers of Craniosacral Biodynamics in North America, Roger Gilchrist, to offer a foundation training in Austin, starting in 2025.

I completed his foundation training in Washington DC in 2023, because no training was available in Texas that I hadn’t already taken.

If you’re wondering, a foundation training consists of 10 four-day seminars spread out over 2.25 years. It meets the requirements of the Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy Association of North America for certification — RCST® after your name indicates you completed this training and registered with BCTA/NA.

Roger is a master teacher who has taught numerous students around the U.S. and abroad. His team of teaching assistants are all RCST® certified teachers.

Where we are now:

I am gathering names and email addresses of those interested in doing such a training. So far, I have 30 names — optimal class size is 16 to 24. Not everyone who’s expressed an interest will be able to actually take the class at this time. If demand is high enough, Roger may consider adding another training later.

I am looking for a suitable location to do this training. Preferably it will be a massage school or acupuncture school — a place with classrooms and massage tables.

If you’d like to add your name to my list, please email me at mareynolds27 @ gmail . com.

If you want to know more about Roger, go to https://wellnessinstitute.net.

If you want to know more about BCTA/NA, go to https://www.craniosacraltherapy.org.

If you’d like to experience a session before deciding, you can schedule with me at https://maryannreynolds.com.

Meditation, My Practice

How does meditation influence Craniosacral Biodynamics?

After I started training in Craniosacral Biodynamics in 2013, I was curious about some of the terms that were used, like “the Breath of Life,” “primary respiration,” and “dynamic stillness.”

How would I know if I was experiencing these states that are considered integral in practicing Craniosacral Biodynamics? I was meditating a lot, often for 45 minutes or longer, partly because I was on a mission to discover how relaxed I could get while lucid and partly because I believed that there was likely a sensory component for these nominalized terms.

When I asked my first Biodynamics teacher about a state I’d experienced in meditation in which felt akin to sitting on the bottom of the ocean with multiple currents flowing within, through, and around me, his eyes lit up and he affirmed that I was sensing something important in the practice.

Craniosacral biodynamics and meditation overlap each other. After reading the book Craniosacral Therapy and the Energetic Body: An Overview of Craniosacral Biodynamics by Roger Gilchrist, I understood more about the spiritual dimensions that these practices have in common, one often practiced alone and the other using hands-on connection with a receiver.

I later completed a foundation training with Roger.

Here are some quotes from the book’s Chapter 18, “Spiritual Dimensions of Craniosacral Therapy”:

  • When one encounters the essence of the life force moving, it is a deeply humbling experience, as there is the immediate recognition that something moves through us that is beyond us as individuals, and beyond the conditions that we hold.
  • Note that this approach to therapy is not about a therapist working on a client; it is about a therapist coming into a direct relationship with what is here in the present moment… In a biodynamic approach there is the recognition that experience arises mutually between the client and the therapist.
  • Often as clients receive this work they come in contact with levels of their being that were previously unavailable. Many times there is a sense of depth and wholeness that is beyond anything they have encountered before.
  • Through specific training and personal guidance, we cultivate our skills of direct awareness… This way of perceiving is cultivated through personal practice… This field of perception then becomes a dynamic process of awareness that is an unwavering therapeutic ally.
  • Biodynamic craniosacral therapists, in particular, practice refining their ability to stabilize their perceptual fields at a wide level of awareness.
  • In these ways biodynamic craniosacral therapy has important overlaps with meditative practice. Many of the types of practices are similar. Even the nature of the work elicits fairly meditative states a great deal of the time… The process of this type of craniosacral therapy often takes both client and therapist into qualities of awareness and states of being that in other contexts would be described as meditative.

Biodynamic Meditation is a way to learn to experience awareness of the healing currents of life force energy within your own system.

To inquire, schedule a discovery call with me.

My Practice

Reasons people sought Craniosacral Biodynamics, Summer 2023

I compile a seasonal summary of the types of issues that my Craniosacral Biodynamics clients have sought my therapeutic help with. Creating these lists reminds me of the wide range of issues that respond to Biodynamics.

Craniosacral Biodynamics works with the body-mind-energy system’s rhythms, patterns, and physiology from the inside out in these ways:

  • deepening the parasympathetic relaxed state in which healing occurs
  • strengthening the coherence of the internal systems (nervous, digestive, etc.), improving regulation
  • facilitating the system’s ability to heal, thus increasing overall health

The list below is for sessions given between early July and September 15. Some clients had multiple issues, and in some cases, multiple clients experienced the same issue.

Maintaining wellness.

Curious about experiencing Craniosacral Biodynamics
Deepen coherence and relaxation
Deepen meditative connection
Increase sense of well-being
Prevent migraines

Recovery.

Recover from 10-year-old head injury
Recover from a fall
Recover from bump on head

Relief for specific areas of the body.

After-effects of Bell’s palsy
Back pain
Bruxism (teeth clenching/grinding)
Constipation
Pain from degenerated disc
Diarrhea
Discomfort in chest
Ear issues
Eye issues
Feeling of fullness in one ear
Headaches
Hearing loss
Hip pain
Intestinal parasites
Intracranial pressure
Jaw issues
Mast cell activation syndrome
Menstrual discomfort
Neck pain
Pain pattern on right side of body
Plantar fasciitis
Severe neck and jaw pain
Sinus congestion

Whole body issues.

Anxiety
Brain fog
Brain-based pain
Depletion
Dysregulation
Fatigue
Fibromyalgia/central sensitization
High blood pressure
High emotions
Inflammation
Insomnia
Menopause
Overwhelm
Relationship breakup

Click here to read my previous seasonal summary, for spring 2023.


My Practice

Reasons people received Biodynamics, Spring 2023

Recovery

After dental work
Difficult home birth recovery
Full moon eclipse overwhelm recovery
Post-COVID recovery
Recovery from brain surgery
Recovery from hernia surgery
Releasing anesthesia after dental work

Specific Areas of the Body

Back pain
Cranial tension
Diagonal strain pattern (L hip, R shoulder)
Emergency neck pain
Headache
Intestinal upset
Jaw issues
Joint pain (shoulders, elbows, hips, knees)
Low back pain
Memory loss
Mid-back pain
Migraine prevention
Osteoporosis pain
Pain from dental work
Poor digestion
Release of force vector after injury
Respiratory allergies
Sacrum pain
Sinus congestion
Spinal pain
Tachycardia
Upper neck tension and pain

Whole Body Issues

Anxiety relief
C-PTSD relief
Long COVID relief
Depletion
Dysautonomia
“Everything”
Grief after loss of pet
Healing
Insomnia relief
Marital separation
Mast cell activation syndrome
Renewal
Seeking calm after a shock
Seeking calm before making major decision
Stress relief
Wellness boost

Click here to read my previous seasonal summary, for winter 2022-23.


My Practice

How can Biodynamics help with well-being?

For a year now, I’ve been summarizing the reasons people have sought Craniosacral Biodynamics from me and felt better afterwards.

The range is wide.

That may be surprising, but if you understand how it works, it makes sense.

Our systems at all times try to maintain homeostasis.

Picture your body as having many systems — digestive, endocrine, nervous, immune, etc. — that have individual functions but also work in harmony with each other to maintain your well-being.

Every hour of every day, your body is working to keep these systems operating harmoniously.

And yet, things happen that can impair the functioning of your systems: illness, stress, injury, insomnia, exposure to toxins, trauma, etc. Life brings challenges, and homeostasis — while still working to harmonize your systems — doesn’t always function optimally.

If your systems are functioning well, you are resilient, recover from challenges, and return to high-functioning homeostasis.

If you experience too many challenges too close together, or too severe a challenge, your homeostasis doesn’t just automatically bounce back to good health. Although it’s still trying its best to keep your systems working harmoniously, it can be a real struggle to recover.

This is where Craniosacral Biodynamics helps. It improves coherence, which allows your wholeness to reset in the direction of optimal homeostasis.

https://psychcentral.com/lib/your-sense-of-coherence#1

Those who receive Craniosacral Biodynamics sessions report feeling more relaxed after a session, sleeping better, and feeling more whole. Their symptoms lessen, and their well-being increases. Their homeostasis shifts toward coherence and greater health.

Regular sessions (every 2, 3, or 4 weeks) work cumulatively over time to increase your sense of coherence and well-being.

This is why Craniosacral Biodynamics works well with integrative medicine, which focuses on treating the whole person to improve well-being.

This is why I’m grateful to work with the practitioners at West Holistic Medicine in downtown Austin, as well as in my private practice in West Lake Hills.

If you are interested in giving it a try, click here for West Holistic Medicine, or click here to schedule at my office in West Lake Hills.

My Practice

Reasons people got Craniosacral Biodynamics (summer 2022)

What is Craniosacral Biodynamics? The name may not mean much if you are unfamiliar with this type of hands-on therapy.

It helps to share why people seek it, so I write these seasonal summaries of what my clients are seeking.

Craniosacral Biodynamics is different from most types of bodywork in that it works from the inside out, with internal rhythms and patterns, rather than working from the outside in, like massage therapy.

It can help with a wide variety of issues.

In every session, receivers shift into a deeply relaxed state in which the innate intelligence in their system can pause, reflect, and reorganize their tissues, fluids, and energies toward greater health.

One of the benefits of this modality is that it affects specific physical issues as well as whole body issues. The deep relaxation that clients experience empowers the body’s innate healing abilities for all kinds of issues.

Some clients come in with one issue, others with three or four. Often there’s a mix of specific physical issues and whole body issues.

Changes occur during sessions and continue afterwards. Sometimes clients notice a week or so later that an issue has disappeared.

The work is also cumulative. Often issues do not reoccur, and in subsequent sessions the work addresses deeper strain patterns and imprints of overwhelm, releasing these bound energies to return you to greater wholeness and vitality.

Specific physical issues

tension in thoracic inlet
atlanto-occipital joint tension
pain around C1 transverse process
frontal headache
tight cranial bones
mid-back strain
chest and upper back tension
neck, shoulder/s pain or tension
jaw tension or pain
sacrum unbalanced
dysfunction from old knee injury
structural asymmetry from playing a musical instrument
energy block at back of heart
vestibular cranial nerve and brain stem issues
foot pain
hip joint popping

Whole body issues

healer burnout
work-related stress
long-term stress
dysfunction from trauma
deep attachment trauma
reorganizing after releasing deep attachment trauma
fixations from Enneagram type
post-partum recovery
overwhelm from mothering young children
insomnia
anxiety
depression
PMS
overwhelm from excessive heat

Here’s the list for spring 2022.

My Practice, TMJ Relief

Treating TMJ Issues: you can learn to stop clenching

In every TMJ consultation that I do, I ask about clenching. I consider it to be an important factor that contributes to jaw tension, which I treat with manual therapy.

Clenching is a habit that people do unconsciously, and most of the people who come to me for TMJ relief consultations and sessions clench and/or grind their teeth, which is called bruxism.

How does this habit start?

Common sense tells us that clenching comes from stress. If you clench, do you do it when you’re feeling relaxed and happy? Probably not!

It seems likely to be a response that represses free speech, or perhaps it started that way and then became a habitual response to stress.

People of all ages past infancy do it, even as young as three, I’ve heard anecdotally.

We’ve probably all experienced an authority figure (parent, teacher, boss, partner, etc.) who doesn’t want to hear what we have to say and who has the power to shut us down — unless we are willing to experience the consequences…which could be getting fired, isolation, abuse, punishment, abandonment, or violence.

We still think the thoughts, we still feel the emotions, but now we also have to shut up and hold our feelings/thoughts in, unexpressed. We feel threatened and want to feel safe. This creates even more stress.

We may learn that clenching our teeth keeps us safe by keeping our mouth shut…but at a cost to our own well-being.

(If you want to get better at interpersonal communication, I recommend Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication approach.)

We have to use our jaw muscles to clench, and overuse of these muscles creates the chronic tension in these muscles that so many with jaw issues complain about.

The pressure of clenching can cause teeth to crack and break. The dental solution is to replace broken teeth with crowns or implants. These are expensive procedures requiring a lot of time in the dental chair with your mouth wide open, which is tough on already chronically tense jaw muscles.

So what’s the alternative?

I teach what I call Relaxed Resting Mouth Position, aka RRMP. It’s very simple:

  • Close your lips and breathe through your nose.
  • Keep your teeth slightly apart.
  • Curl your tongue up so that the tip touches your upper palate behind your front teeth.

If you clench, try it now and see what you notice. How does it feel? How might it feel if it became habitual?

What if this could become your new default relaxed resting mouth position?

You can teach yourself to do this when you’re not otherwise using your mouth.

Any time you want to change a habit, first you need to become more conscious of your behavior. Then you need a healthier alternative to replace the unwanted behavior.

Repetition replaces bad habits with good habits. Enough repetition rewires your neurology.

How can I learn RRMP?

The way I teach it in my office (and now online) is to give people a few coffee stir sticks, 5-7 of them.

They can put one between their teeth, either flat or on edge, so their teeth are slightly apart, and then close their lips with their tongue tip on the roof of the mouth. Not hard at all, just to get a feel for RRMP.

I then advise them to place the coffee stir sticks in the places they habituate: for instance, on the bathroom counter, bedside table, kitchen counter, desk, dashboard, coffee table, by the remote.

Online readers, you can go to a coffee shop (buy a drink, please), take a few, and do this yourself.

Be sure to tell the neat freaks in your household to leave them where they are!

Here’s where the change happens!

The most important part of changing this habit is that whenever you spot one of these coffee stir sticks — and they will get your attention because they look like clutter — ask yourself, ”What am I doing with my mouth?”

This makes you more conscious of your clenching habit.

If you find yourself clenching, immediately switch to Relaxed Resting Mouth Position. Tell yourself how much you look forward to this becoming your new default mouth position!

Do this again the next time you notice a coffee stir stick. And the next, and the next, and the next.

No one knows just how many repetitions it will take for RRMP to become your new habit. It may take 5 times a day for 3 weeks, or more, or less.

But with repetition, increasingly you will find that your mouth is already in RRMP when you see a coffee stir stick and notice what you’re doing with your mouth.

When you’re satisfied that RRMP has become your new default mouth position, you can put the coffee stir sticks away.

Why tongue on the roof of the mouth?

This appears to come from Eastern medicine and practices. I haven’t found anything in Western medicine about it.

In Taoist practices, the two most important meridians regulating the flow of energy in the body are located on our midlines.

The conception vessel runs along your midline on the front of your body, and the governing vessel runs along your midline on the back of your body, coming over the top of your head.

These meridians meet when you place your tongue on the roof of your mouth.

This practice connects these meridians, strengthening your energy, balancing yin and yang, resulting in a state of calm alertness.

Tongue tip on the roof of the mouth is used in meditation, qi gong, tai chi, kung fu, 4-7-8 breathing, yoga, and probably more.

My Practice

Reasons people sought craniosacral biodynamics (spring 2022)

Here are some reasons people have come to me for Craniosacral Biodynamics sessions in the past few months. Most of the time, people had multiple issues going on. I’ve consolidated them into general categories.

You can see that the range is wide.

  • breathing issues
  • muscle tension and/or pain (neck, throat, shoulders, upper back, lower back, chest, jaw, face, hip, glute, calf)
  • muscle twitching
  • migraine, chronic headaches, chronic migraines
  • fatigue, chronic fatigue
  • restlessness
  • nerve energy, nerve damage
  • integration after trauma, recovery from multiple traumas, physical and emotional childhood trauma
  • re-regulation after long COVID, reset after multiple challenges during pandemic
  • sadness, grief
  • emotional upheaval, severe emotional shock after break-up, feeling unsettled from work
  • managing bipolar condition
  • empty feeling at solar plexus, chaotic feeling at solar plexus, engaging personal power instead of hiding
  • insomnia
  • better heart rate variability
  • stress, anxiety, wanting to feel secure and relaxed, anxiety about upcoming presentation
  • auto-immune issues
  • holding heaviness in part of body
  • adjusting to new nightguard
  • wonky atlas, cranium feels unbalanced
  • withdrawal from psychiatric drug while waiting for new one to kick in
  • reset after various health issues
  • addressing a layer of inertia
  • three past untreated concussions

You may be curious how one bodywork modality can work with so many different issues.

The simple reason is that Craniosacral Biodynamics augments your own system’s ability to heal, no matter the cause of dysfunction. Everything in your system has a pattern, and sometimes patterns become unbalanced or strained.

Practitioners trained in Craniosacral Biodynamics can help your system move these patterns toward resolution — if they are ready to change.

We all have multiple strain patterns, and there is always something ready to transform.

How does it work? During a session we both get very quiet and still. You sink into a state of deep relaxation. Some people fall asleep. Others stay awake enough to feel shifts occurring within.

I tune into your system, and with attention and support, it pauses, gathers potency (intelligent energy), and starts reorganizing the patterns that are ready to optimize.

This work continues after you leave my office.

Here’s my list for the winter of 2021-22.