What is Cranio Sacral Therapy with Shelley Clarke

Cranio Sacral Therapy (or CST) is the type of bodywork therapy that Shelley mainly treats in, it's the modality that she uses as a physiotherapist in her clinic.  In this episode she shares about her journey with CST and how she has used and applied the philosophies learned through this modality,  to parenting her children. 
 
In this episode you'll learn about:
- the fascinating surgical procedure that led to the development of CST
-  how rhythms affect the physical body and why it is such a huge part of CST
- how CST helps to free up trapped trauma within the body
- Shelley's personal experiences with CST with both her and her entire family
- exactly how she has brought CST philosophies into her parenting paradigm

If you are wanting to know the ways Cranio Sacral Therapy can help not only you, but your whole family, then this is the podcast episode for you!

Worldwide Directory of Cranio Sacral Therapists
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Continue the conversation with Shelley here:
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This podcast is produced by Nikki O'Brien from Quintessential Being

Transcript

Shelley Clarke  00:00

I wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands I live on. I pay my respects to the Kaurna people elders past and present, and honour their ongoing traditions. Welcome to the Mind Body Parenting podcast. I'm your host, Shelley Clarke. Here I talk about all things mind and body and how this relates to ourselves and our parenting. I envision a world where children are seen and heard, and parents feel supported and less alone. Join me here in the power of story, expert knowledge and lived experiences. Let's dive in. Today's episode is brought to you by Kids in Adelaide for all the best events, activities, places to visit and things to do with your kids in Adelaide and around South Australia. Visit www.kidsinadelaide.com.au. Welcome back to the mind body parenting podcast. I'm your host, Shelley Clarke. And today it's a solo episode from me. And I want to talk a little bit more about cranial sacral therapy, which is the type of bodywork therapy that I mainly treat in, it's the modality that I mainly use as a physiotherapist in my clinic. And I wanted to share a little bit more about my journey with CST so cranial sacral therapy is often known as CST, share a little bit more about my journey, my family's journey with it, and also how I use the principles or the core philosophies of cranial sacral therapy in my everyday life and in my parenting. So I also wanted to preface this with saying that I have been studying this now for eight years. And I certainly do not consider myself a master in it. I don't teach this, I'm certainly very much still a student, as I think we're always a student and in life and learning. But I am very passionate about more people knowing about cranial sacral therapy, and how it works, how to access it. And so I really wanted to share a little bit more about my story really with it. In case it helps someone out there and you want to seek out a therapist in your area, I will put a link in the show notes to a worldwide directory of therapists that use and that are trained in cranial sacral therapy. So I'll put that link in the shownotes for people as well to have a look and see if there's someone in your area. If you're wanting to try, you know, try it for yourself and see what it feels like. So I just wanted to say that I'm certainly not an expert in this, I very much still consider myself a learning and a student. And I'm really really, really thankful and grateful for this modality because it really has changed changed my life. So cranial sacral therapy was developed by Dr. John Upledger. And he was an osteopathic doctor in the United States. So osteopathic doctors are a little bit different in the United States compared to here in Australia. They are medically trained doctors that have an osteopathic part of their training as well, more of a holistic approach, but they are medically trained MDS or doctors so so he was a, like, ran a general medical practice and was also had, like rights with, you know, some clients in hospitals and some surgical procedures, you know, as a part of some surgical procedures. And he had one client in particular that he was doing surgery and assisting in some surgery, and he actually had a role of holding the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord. And he realised that he couldn't hold those membranes. Still, they were moving within a rhythm. And he went on to he came out of that surgery really curious. And it reminded him of a lecture that he he did in medical training around there being a central rhythm in the body or rhythm that surrounds the brain and spinal cord. And we have our rhythm, our heart rate, and we have our breathing rate, they create rhythms in the body. And because he couldn't hold this sort of membrane steady, it piqued his interest and he wanted to go and find out more. So the cranial sacral system is surrounds the brain and spinal cord surrounds our central nervous system. And so as the cerebral spinal fluid as the fluid around our brain has Spinal Cord fills and empties, it creates a another rhythm in the body. And so he went on to study this further to research this more, he was one of the first to research and coined the term cranial sacral therapy. And he did research at Michigan State University and really created techniques to treat the body with This Rhythm as that core component. And so what is the cranial sacral system, so the cranium is the head. And the sacrum is the bone at the base of your spine. And so cranio sacral means that it's, it's connected by the membranes that surround the spinal cord. And so he coined the term cranial sacral system, because we're really working with all of the membranes, the fascia, and I'll talk a bit more about fascia in a minute, and the cranial bones and the pelvis. So we're really working with this the core, the core system. And so with fascia fascia is the connective tissue that surrounds all of our bones and joints and ligaments and muscles, and fascia. It holds us together, it gives us structure it holds organs in place, and it divides compartments within the body. But it also allows us to move and it's flexible. And it's what often gets warmed up when we do sport. And when we do yoga, or when we stretch our fascia is the thing that can change and move. It's also the thing that can often tighten up and it can tighten up in certain tension patterns. You know, if we sit a lot, if we sit at the computer, if we have certain movement patterns, if we're a baseball, or we're going to have a certain movement pattern, or a certain tension pattern in our body, that's different to if you're a swimmer, it's different to if you have if you're an office worker, and you sit a lot and so we end up over our lifetime with different tension patterns in the body, and cranial sacral therapy because it one of the core tenants of the work is that everything is interconnected. Everything is connected through our bodies, that often when we are working with the fascia, it starts to open up the body. And it starts to allow our body to move and to function in the way that it's meant to. And so when we treat with cranial psychotherapy, it's a very light touch. So it's a very gentle modality, it can be worked, you know, I've traded babies that are, you know, a day old. And, you know, right up until adults in their 90s, you know, like it's It spans the lifetime because it is about listening to the body. And it's a very gentle and light touch. Very big shift from physio philosophy, where you're often trying to find something and fix it. cranial sacral therapy has a core philosophy of listening and following the body, which I'll talk a little bit more about in a minute. But what we're often doing with a light touch is we're coming in and connecting with the fascia. And fascia will shift and change with gentle pressure over time, and the body starts to move and it opens and and, and we shift these patterns and we shift the tension in, in the body. And often the body then can thrive. You know, the healing capacity of the human body is so incredible. And often with cranial sacral therapy, what we're doing is allowing the body to come back into balance and for the body to be able to do its, you know, self correcting and self healing that you know that it can do. But it may have often just forgotten a little bit. And so, cranial sacral therapy is really around listening to the body and helping it to come back into balance. Another part of the work that Dr. John created or evolved out of his years and years of study and research is a term again he coined the term somatic emotional reliefs. And Soma means the body and emotional releases is shifting things through the body. And often he found when he was working with people that the body had a memory and when when he was working with clients when they were able to move their body and in whatever ways it needed to often clients on the table would have an emotional release and so that would shift through their body when they have a chance for those feelings to be expressed, then, you know, deep healing can occur and the body really changes and we know that the that the body holds our memories it holds traumas, it holds the things that we have not been able to integrate into our lives yet. And somatic Somato emotional release is a part of cranial sacral therapy, it's one of the tools that we can use to help shift the body and come back into balance. So I wanted to just say like, for me, personally, CST has been amazing at helping with anxiety helping with lessening the tension in my body, helping me to understand more about who I am and how I operate. And the parts of me that I had been buried and holding on to, it's really helped me to be able to shift out of that go go go overdrive sympathetic part of my nervous system. So the sympathetic part of our nervous system is the fight or flight part, the part that is often needed, we need some sort of activation to be able to do our daily things. But sometimes we can get a bit stuck in that busy Go Go Go State and it's helped me to be able to shift into the rest and digest parasympathetic part of my nervous system and be able to sleep more soundly digest my food better. So digestion issues have really settled, it's helped me to be able to move flexibly between these different parts of my nervous system rather than being stuck or constantly activated in a stress response. Now, I might have a stressful response to something but I'm able to shift back out into a calm and centred and connected state more freely than I could eight years ago, or I was I wasn't even aware of it eight years ago. And so it's also helped my husband with his migraines, it's helped my children with their, with their things. So speech and language, gross motor skills, different things with tongue ties, and tension in the body reflux and colicky babies, we've, you know, it really has changed so much for our whole family. You know, now, my, my, my sister is a cranial psychotherapist, actually, she's on the podcast next week, my sister in law also does cranial sacral therapy, my mum and dad have had it, and you know, they love it. And that's changed their lives with different things, back pain, neck pain, and also, it can help with thriving in your life, you know, like just your mood and anxiety and depression, it has a really big impact on on many things within your whole system, because it's so closely related to the central nervous system because it surrounds your brain and spinal cord, and then affects fascia, you know, goes all through the whole body, it really doesn't have an impact on all your other systems. So your hormone, your endocrine system, your, your musculoskeletal system, your immune system, your all of these things can really shift because we're often working with your nervous system. So I wanted to talk a little bit about how some of the core philosophy is, in cranial psychotherapy, I relate to my parenting and I use really in everyday life. So the first one, a big part of the paradigm is that we listen and follow. And so it's not about in many other modalities. So even in physiotherapy, you go into see a physiotherapist and they find the thing that is, you know, causing the problem or is sore. And you they diagnose it, and then they try and fix it. They give you exercises to fix it. So it's very much the paradigm of find and fix. And I'm not saying that that's there's right or wrong way paradigms here. It's just a different way of looking at things. And so certainly, that's what I was trained in, you find something and you fix it, and it shifts. This is very much about listening and following the body. And so as a therapist, it's about connecting with the body. And we're using our the light touch to really listen to what is going on in that person's body. And so it's deep palpation skills, and you're really following what that body needs. And so, for parenting, I really use that same approach with my kids. It's about listening and following our kids. How can you To sit back a little bit from the find and fix paradigm that we often have as parents, and sit back in the, how can I listen to what is what is my child trying to show me here? What in this play? Are they telling me? What are they saying to me, not necessarily through words, but how can you listen and follow their lead. So I really love this is one of the core principles of CST that I can apply in my everyday life. The next one would be a grounded state. And so in as a therapist, we're often trained in, you know, being really grounded in our bodies. And this is the fundamental part of CO regulation. So the work of Dr. Steven Porges, which talks about polyvagal theory, being really grounded in our bodies, as a therapist helps our clients on the table to have that same sense of safety and for their bodies to come to a grounded and centred place. And so often, in our training we're taught, we know, we'll learn about how to stay really present in our bodies, how to slow your heart rate down, how to extend your breath out ways that really help us to stay grounded in our bodies. And this has played a huge part in how I'm able to meet my children, if I'm able to notice my level of activation in my body. So when I noticed my heart rate starting to rise a little bit, or when I noticed that my breathing starting to get a bit faster, and you start to kind of feel that anxiety or feel the activation in my body. This is what as a therapist with the cranial sacral therapy, were then working on really grounding in and slowing our own bodies down. And this creates that sense of safety for whoever you're with in the room. Now, this is the same for our children, as adults. And as the parents, if we are able to stay really grounded and present in our bodies, and be aware of our own activation in our bodies, and we slow that down and we get really solid, then that is like an anchor for our children and for whatever the chaos is around us. But if we're really solid and centred, then everybody else in the room or your children will eventually orientate back to or how you are in your body. And so it's one of the things that I work with a lot with parents is about how do we start to become aware of that activation in our body and learn different techniques and ways to be really grounded and centred in our bodies. So that we can be that anchor for our children, and our children will then be having their big feelings or they'll be you know, doing whatever they need to do. But if we are able to be really solid in ourselves than our children, that creates that sense of safety that our children can come back to. Another core tenet of cranial psychotherapy is blending and melding. So as a therapist, we are coming in with a really light touch and we're wanting to actually blend and meld with the client's tissues. So with the body that we're working with, and it is about a really light touch, and not coming in firm not coming in too strong, just finding that just the right amount of pressure to meet that body where they are at with the right amount of pressure that feels like you're really connected with the person on the table, the person that you're treating, and I apply this same philosophy with my children, how can I blend mode and meet my children right where they're at. And so it's about attuning to the child in front of you. And really melding or blending in with them so that they really know that you are right there with them. When we're working with someone on the table with craniosacral therapy, it's really about meeting the body, you're right there with them. So it's like you almost don't even know that they're there but you'll feel so held. And it's the same with our children when when they have got their things going on. It's about coming in alongside them or meeting them maybe they're really hyperactive. So you meet them there. And then you you know they and you help them shift whatever's going on, or then you're listening to the feelings or whatever it might be. But it's about meeting the child in front of you. And meeting the mood that they're in, if they're really angry, you can kind of meet that and hold that, and then help them to, you know, find safe ways to express that. So blending and melding with a child in front of you is really a beautiful way of attuning to them, and deeply listening to their needs. Okay, another core tenant of cranial psychotherapy is intention, so are an intention behind everything. And so our clients and our, the people on the table can really feel our energy, they can really feel, you know, when the clients when the therapists intention is to maybe find something and fix it. And we're not really in the listening and following that can feel really, like it can feel a lot for the client on the table, when our intention is on something in the body, the client can feel that area. And so I like and this with our intention with our children really plays a big part of how things will go down. And so our children are so aware of our intention, and they can see it a long way off. And so, if I've often worked with parents, and they say, Oh, the play doesn't work, play doesn't work with my kid, you know, they still don't get out the bath, you know, I've tried the play thing, and it doesn't work. And I'm like, Well, what is your intention, if your intention is to still get your kid to do what you want, but you're just dressing it up as play, then they will smell that a mile away, they really do know your intention, if your intention is actually to connect with them, and to really attune to them and listen to them and, and meet them and see what's going on for them, and really play and laugh and all those things, then they will notice that intention, they will feel that. And then often, the getting out of the bath is the byproduct of the fact that you've connected with them, and laughed, and you know, they've really felt your intention behind, you know, behind your actions. And so often with, with parents when things aren't working, working as in when, you know, they've tried play, and you've tried different approaches, and it hasn't seemed to shift anything I will always ask for, What's your intention, like, show me how you're doing it, because often we can then see your intention there is still to get your child to do the thing or to listen, your intention needs to come back to connection with your child first, and then things will often shift. So intention is a big one, a couple more core philosophies that I love to apply to my parenting, the next one would be being the saying the least amount of pressure to get the job done. And so in craniosacral therapy, we're wanting to apply the least amount of pressure. So it's so light touch, we're wanting to apply the least amount of pressure to meet the body and allow the body to shift in whatever way it needs to. So it's about just meeting it just enough for the body to change and to use its self correcting mechanisms. And I really love to apply this with my parenting, how can I use the least amount of pressure? When I say pressure that, you know, I don't mean pressure on my kids? I mean, how can I use the least amount of influence to get the job done? So for example, if how can I use the least amount of influence to allow my child to be who they are in the world, but guide them or or you know, still be there to facilitate and to be that bouncing sounding board that, you know, guides them and navigates them through life or helps them to navigate through life with the least amount of influence and the least amount of control or imposing my my own stuff into that relationship. So I really love the least amount of pressure to get the job done. Like how can we navigate where my child's needs are met and my needs are met. And it's with the least amount of force and the least amount of you know any of that sort of power over it's really it's really about how can I you know meet both of our needs, with a power with approach rather than In a forceful control or any of anything like that, so next time your kid is doing something, or there's a really tricky behaviour, I've even done this before, as a little experiment, what's the least amount of pressure here that I need to navigate this scenario. And when again, when I say pressure, I mean, what's the least amount of influence that is needed here to help guide my child or to listen to my child, or to set a loving limit with the least amount of pressure to meet my child, but hold that space for them in a really loving way. So I really love that one too. Next, I wanted to talk about attention. So our attention is really, really important. And as a therapist, we do a lot of work around our ability to be able to stay with the client, our ability to be able to be really focused and present for, for them for the whole session to be able to listen to the body for an extended amount of time. And so our attention to what's happening under our hands, and what's happening in the client's body is really a core part of the work. And I would liken this to and I bring this into our parenting in that our attention is so important with our children, how present, are we? Are we there with them? Like our clients can tell if you are somewhere else, and you're not really there present with them? And I'm not saying I certainly find, you know, it's hard to do sometimes. But it's about working to stay more and more connected with, with the body for longer and longer. And so it's the same with our children, I'm certainly not connected and attune to them and have my full attention. I don't have my full attention all the time. But when I am setting aside time, so when you're doing special time or one on one time with your children, how is your attention with them? Are you able to focus on staying really present with what they are doing with the games that they're playing, because most of the time as parents, we've got a running list that's happening in our head, I've got to do this job. Today I did, I found this, i Hang on, I've got to pay that bill, I've got it, I'll do the dishes, then I'll start putting dinner on. And we're not actually there with our child, we're not there, and our full sort of attention on whatever they're doing. And so that's why one on one time and special time is so powerful, because it's about being fully present with your kids for that amount of time. And when I first started doing cranial sacral therapy, I found that I would, my attention was really short, my ability to be able to stay focused was quiet, it was very hard for me, I would sit with a client and I would get agitated and antsy and I would want to fidget. And it really felt like I had ants crawling on the inside of my body because I was so needing to move. And it was anxiety, you know, and my ability to be able to stay with that person and sit and it has taken time to develop. And it's still you know, it's an ongoing process. And ongoing learning to be able to stay with somebody. And it's the same with my children. When I first started doing special time with my kids, I could do five minutes, I set the timer for five minutes. And about two minutes in I found myself picking fluff off the carpet. And you know, we were playing Lego on the floor with my kids. And I was sort of going oh gosh, there's something here, I'll just pick this up, hang on. I'm meant to be spending time with my kids, you know, our mind wanders, and even more. So these days with the fast paced lives that we all have, and phones and scrolling and quick things. Our attention is it's getting harder and harder and harder to be focused and to stay focused and not get distracted and really be present with whoever is in front of us. And so with our children, it is about being able to set the time aside. Maybe set a timer for 15 minutes and go right for this next 15 minutes. I'm going to really focus on my child in front of me and what they're doing. I'm just going to name just narrate like just sports cast what they're doing, you know, are you picking up the block or Oh no, the cars crushed together and really be with whatever they're doing in their play. And it can be quite profound for the child because they go oh, this person is really here with me. They will feel it just like our clients on the table can feel it. They can feel when we're really present with them. And I really love that this is actually something that if you find really hard, you can get better at, you can practice it, it's just like a muscle, it's like going to the gym, you can build your play muscle, you can build your attention and your focus muscle, to be able to stay focused and present with your kids. And you know, 1520 minutes of quality, present time with your children is incredibly powerful, and probably more so than just being with your kids in the same room as them, but you're on your phone, and you're off doing stuff. And I'm not saying I'm definitely not judging people on their phones, because I'm on my phone too. So it's not, but it's about making sure you are also prioritising connection and present time or special time or one on one time, or just time where you are actually in the room. And you're not thinking about work, and you're not thinking about that next email. And you're not thinking about other things that you're just there with your kids. So that is really, really powerful. And all of these things is that I've talked about, so being, you know, listening, and following, being grounded in the body blending and melding and attuning to the child in front of you and meeting the child where they're at. And you know, what your intention is behind the thing that you're doing? What's the least amount of influence here that I can have to meet this situation? What's your attention, like? How present are you being with them, all of these things are core tenets of cranial sacral therapy. And really, their core tenants of now like this is how really cranial sacral therapy has become a philosophy for my life, and, and in my parenting, because I bring all of these principles into my everyday life with my kids. And so all of this is presents, all of this is how you able to bring yourself to your kids and really be grounded in your body, and really attuned to what they're saying. Try not to come at it from a find and fix paradigm, but a listen and follow paradigm coming at it with your intention of connection over just trying to get them to do whatever you want them to do, coming at it from a place of your attention, and, you know, being really present to what they're saying and focused, rather than our minds wandering and distraction. And so all of these things are a core tenants of of all of my work that I do. And then lastly, I just wanted to say one of the, you know, a lot of my teachers will say, you know, the more advanced therapists, you know, the first couple of modules and the first couple of levels of cranial sacral therapy are a lot of the techniques and the philosophy, and the understandings and all of these core teachings and principles. But then as you become a more advanced therapist, you're really just doing your own inner work, so that you are bringing a more whole and integrated therapist to the table. And so you know, if you've done deep inner work, the client on the table, also will know that and they sense that, and it helps provide that sense of safety for them to go there to, for them to do their work. And I like and that or I like to bring that philosophy into the parenting world as well. Where this is about bringing a more whole and integrated parent to that parent child relationship. And when I say more whole and integrated, I mean understanding your stories, understanding your patterns, understanding your conditioning, working on the things that come up for you, on your patterns on your triggers on on the way you were brought up on your traumas, and so you know, working on the things that come up for us so that when I say more whole and integrated, it means that you are able to see those things and we project them less and less on to our kids. And so you're bringing that solid grounded centred adult into the relationship so you're able to hold more for your children. And that's the same as, as a more advanced therapist that you're able to bring that whole an integrated therapist to whatever is coming up for that person. And it's the same for our children. And that's one of the core philosophies that I bring from the therapists and from CST with all the parents that I work with, and it always I always start with what is yours? What is this bringing up for you? What are you making it mean? What are the stories here? What does it feel like? What's the feeling And so when we work on that piece, we can then really start to meet our children with what they need. So, that is a little bit or quite a lot about a summary around cranial sacral therapy, a bit about what it is where it's come from my journey with it, and how I use some of these principles in my everyday life and with with my children. So if you'd like to know more, you can find more on my website, Shelly clark.com. I'll also put that show. In the show notes. I'll put the link for the directory of therapists worldwide that are registered through the Upledger Institute, cranial sacral therapy, there's also biodynamic therapies. So there's therapists around Australia, and around the world that have been trained in biodynamic, craniosacral therapy, it's just a different avenue of cranial psychotherapy, Upledger trained craniosacral therapists, I've done my training through the Upledger Institute. And so it's just a different branch. Like you've got many different branches of yoga and many different avenues of different philosophies. So, you know, looking up in your area, a craniosacral therapist, if you're wanting to try it out and see how it feels, because it is one of these modalities that you really do need to experience because it is about your experience. It's about your healing and your journey and your body and integrating your your life. And so, every person's experience of cranial sacral therapy will be different because it's individualised or individual to you. So thank you so much for listening, and I will be back next week with a interview from my sister or with my sister, who is another cranial sacral therapist, and has just become a mother. So it's a beautiful episode around her journey as a therapist, but also into motherhood. So have a listen and watch out for that one next week. Bye for now. Thank you for listening. This episode was brought to you by 21 days of play my self paced course to help bring more play into your every day. Thank you so much for listening. I would love to know your thoughts and feelings and to continue the conversation. You can connect with me on Instagram at Facebook @_Shelleyclark_ If you'd like to keep in the loop for all my resources and offerings as they happen, you can join my mailing list at www.shelleyclarke.com Thank you for all you're doing. Your parenting is important and powerful. Have a lovely day. Bye for now.