A quiet place.

A quiet place is quite portable. You can take it to bed. You can take it to any room in the house with a comfy chair. You can take it on the train or while sitting on the bus. You can have it right now.

This is the place where you quieten your thoughts, ease your breathing and become aware of every cell of your body. This is the place where you are aware of being totally alive right now.

There are many practices you can take into that quiet place and you may like to try them all to see what feels best for today.

Some of my influences have been:
Paul Wilson - The Quiet
Thich Nhat Hanh - The Miracle of Mindfullness
Echart Tolle - The Power of Now
Doreen Virtue - Healing with the Angels
Barefoot Doctor - Handbook for the Urban Warrior
Mantak Chia - Microcosmic Orbit Meditation

Enjoy your quiet place.

It's just a matter of using your imagination

Jill Windmill

Thanks to the works of Jung and Freud we are much more comfortable with the concept of the difference between subconscious and the conscious.

By the very nature of the subconscious it's mode of communication with the body and conscious mind is different from the thoughts and logic we use in the conscious mind.

So how do we tap into the subconscious and have a chat?

In Upledger CranioSacral therapy we have a technique called "Imagery and Dialogue" that we use when a client goes into SomatoEmotional Release or SER. In other words when the subconscious wants a chat it uses images.

The client sees images that can be worked with by the therapist asking open ended questions about why that image is there, how the client feels about the image and what they would like to do with the image. The images can change as the dialogue takes place and as moments of realisation are reached by the client.

A brief example.

I had a tight throat that was causing me to gag when I was lying down. I didn't know why this was happening and in this instance there seem to be no need for me to know why. My therapist began to work on my throat and I felt myself falling into my body so I was no longer aware of the room I was in. I then began to see an image of the inside of my throat. There appeared to be a build up of a limescale like substance that was sticking to the wall of my throat. I felt I should be chiselling it off and washing the powder that formed down my throat. So that was what I started to do in my imagination. I had a chisel and I hacked away and imagined a spray of water coming down my throat to wash the rubbish away. When I had almost finished my awareness came back into the room and the session ended. I was still aware of the image of the limescale even after the session and I was able to imagine going back into my throat and finishing the job later in the day. My throat felt relaxed and the gaging feeling had gone.

What is the point of having children?

This is a question I asked my mother, my mother-in-law and any other female I met shortly after I was married. No one could give me an answer other than saying its instinctive!

Well instinctively I went onto have two children and I can say there is every good reason to have children.

When they were young they opened my eyes to a selfless life that was rich in awareness of the smallest flower or pebble. They helped me to walk more slowly, to breathe and to be mindful.

Now they are adults, they are still helping me. Their questions and actions make me consider my own belief systems and principles and they encourage me to be more authentic and transparent.

None of this has been easy but what a blessing they have been and still are.

Just the tip of the iceberg.

The South Downs

The pain is in your knee and you can't remember what you did to cause it but its painful when put weight on it or bend or sit for too long.

Is it just the knee thats the problem? Does the body work in isolated compartments? I think we all realise that is not the case.

The cause of your knee problem could be traced back up the leg either through the groin or the psoas muscle and into the pelvic girdle where the sacroiliac joint could be tight or there is inelastic scar tissue in the pelvis or it could be tight in the back muscles that are pulling the pelvis and that leads up to the spinal vertebrae mid back whose nerves are associated with the stomach!

So there are quite a few physical possibilites for a painful knee but what if the tissue around the knee has been storing the memory of an event that took place in your life that you have not fully come to terms with and it envolved the knee area. For example you tripped over a mat and fell onto your knee with all your weight but at the time you were having an argument with your then husband and you were feeling threatened and vulnerable. This might have happened twenty years ago but now the knee is painful for no apparent reason. It could be that the tissue has stopped compensating for that unresolved memory and the pain is there to get our awareness to do something about it.

So whether the pain in your knee is physical or emotional Upledger Craniosacral therapy has the tools to help your body resolve those issues.

Worth a try?

My first guiding light.

Seascape at Brighton

As a child my family lived in many parts of the world including Hong Kong and as travellers we brought back momentos of our experiences. So I had lived surrounded by chinese calligraphy on the wall, chinese dishes for my cornflakes and a chinese whicker dolls pram. But it wasn't until I was in my early teens and my brother gave me The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin that Oriental culture came into view and particularly Zen Buddhism.
I had been brought up in the Church of England faith and been confirmed and had even dabbled in the Baptist church but what really appealed to me about Buddism as a teenager is that no one was in control apart from you. There were no rules and regulations just a different way of thinking and I have persevered with that independent thought through out my spiritual journey.
Another big influence at that time was a book The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. Only two inches thick but a great read.
I also enjoyed reading and writing poetry at this time (where has that interest gone?) and my most favorite poem and often quoted before going to sleep is the following by Ryokan (1757-1831) from the Penguin book of Zen Poetry.

Without a jot of ambition left
I let my nature flow where it will.
There is ten days of rice in my bag
And, by the hearth, a bundle of firewood.
Who prattles of illusion or nirvana?
Forgetting the equal dusts of name and fortune,
Listening to the night rain on the roof of my hut,
I sit at ease, both legs stretched out.

Welcome

Welcome readers to my new blog!

I have created this blog to let you know what healing therapies I offer and through case studies show you the extent and depth of this type of work.

Also I would like you to follow me on my spiritual journey that started in my teenage years and still continues many years later.

From experience I have found that talking to like minded souls has been my main guiding light on my journey and I very much hope you will be one of those guiding lights and likewise I can be yours.