Posts from — April 2008

The goal of any healing modality is to heal, obviously, but to heal what usually creates the variation in methodology. In Core Belief Restructuring, what is being healed or transformed, rather, are sub-conscious beliefs or misperceptions. Little consideration of the physical body is given, other than as a vehicle for communication. This method of healing is concerned with corrections of the mind, and not the conscious mind, but the mind that feeds the conscious mind its boundaries.

Many people begin to feel restrictions in life, and those restrictions can manifest as frustrations in the creative, financial, romantic or spiritual life. After we are finished looking outside ourselves for someone or something to blame, we eventually come to realize that our greatest saboteur is ourselves. Then the question inevitably arises, what can be done about it? The misperceptions that are subliminal are creating a physical life that we don’t want. How do we extract those misbeliefs?

For example, one fairly common belief that we hold is regarding financial concerns: To be rich is to be bad . This is not conscious, or sometimes it is, but it has been learned through observing many instances of the misuse of power, of which money only happens to be one method. Your present consciousness says you are ready to live in your abundance and enjoy what you have worked so hard for, only to find again and again that things keep getting in the way of that comfortable dream. Assuming you are really ready to enjoy your physical existence without the pain of victimhood, all that needs to happen is to release, or transform that belief . It is really that simple.

Within a session of Core Belief Restructuring, you will be given the opportunity to remove or release what no longer serves you. Using your own Highest Self as a template, you decide at a metaphysical level, what is ready to be released. Instead of talking or deciding ahead of time, you will be guided by the vision of a part of you that is much greater than that which you currently express. This higher You will illuminate your greatest potential. From these promptings, you simply release whatever presently limits or restricts your physical reality. So the goal is not just changing the mind as an exercise in self-discipline; it is to create a more fulfilling, enjoyable, complete life now, in the physical reality. Changing the greater mind accesses information upstream that causes dysfunction downstream. You want to float easily and effortlessly down the stream of life without bumping into anything traumatic or painful. Recreate the upstream energy that is causing the turbulence, instead of trying to endlessly move logs out of the way that keep flowing down your river towards you.

As with any healing experience, a client must resonate with the modality, have trust and confidence in the healer and feel that they themselves can be healed. When these three conditions are met, healing cannot help but happen! Julie Hutslar

All of us have experienced muscular sprains and/or strains at some point in our lives. I know I have when I feel stiff getting up from a chair, or when my hamstrings burn from lifting too many heavy objects, or when my quads and back muscles feel stiff from too many hours kneeling in the garden. Sprains oftentimes generate inflammation, swelling and subsequently pain and discomfort. Strains generate pain and stiffness and loss of range of motion.

Massage therapy provides an effective methodology for addressing the concerns of strains and sprains. Here is why. When sprains bring inflammation, heat, redness, and swelling, it might be from micro tears in the regional tissues. Our immune system rises to the signals and sends in the antibody troops to fight for us and repair the damage. Manual lymph drainage therapy can alleviate much of the swelling, move out debris, and thus reduce discomfort and pain accelerating healing time. But something else is also occurring.

When we suffer an injury to a specific site; for example, an ankle sprain from a fall, the muscles involved may be injured in such a way as to not function at their optimal best or at all, and may require full resting. Other associated or surrounding muscles must take up the task of keeping us moving, erect, and functional. These muscles become the “guardians” and work overtime doing not only their prescribed function, but taking on remedial efforts for the injured neighbor musculature. If the injury site is not easily or quickly healed, our “guardians” become overworked, and then they become strained. Now we have the beginnings of postural misalignment as our body and its innate wisdom compensates for its situation. When this becomes chronic, postural deviations can occur and pain and strain becomes an adaptive mechanism in associated structures of the body.

I believe it is vitally important for massage therapists as well as other medical professionals to help people understand not only what is physically occurring when injury happens, but also what is taking place biochemically as the body communicates its needs to all the healing centers within us. My medical massage training developed within me a voracious interest in physical body mechanics from all levels. I have learned of the magnificence of our bodies to heal themselves if only we provide a little outside support. When we understand how our body systems work synergistically on all levels, physically, biochemically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, we can find convenient ways to support ourselves that do not intrude on our lifestyles. Receiving regular massage therapy sessions keeps us at our optimal best, addresses guardian stresses, removes lymph fluids more rapidly, and supports the biochemistry of the body with appropriate nutritional information directed to the specific needs of our organ systems, our nervous system, and our muscle and bone systems.

Our community provides many well trained massage therapists to meet the needs of our active lifestyles. My suggestion is to interview them and find out their background, training, and specialties. Thinking differently for me means that massage therapy becomes a household “buzzword” and a regular and welcomed part of everyone’s annual health regimen.

Take care of yourself. You deserve it. Your body is your most important home.

Krystle Shapiro is a Washington State licensed medical massage therapist. She owns Touchstone Massage Therapies located in the Stepping Stones Wellness Center at 803 W. Pine Street, Sandpoint. Krystle specializes in oncology massage therapy with emphasis on lymphedema treatment. She is currently undertaking a Master of Science of Holistic Nutrition program and can be reached at 208/290-6760.

By J. Ilani Kopiecki, CMT and CranioSacral Therapist

CranioSacral Therapy (CST) is a light –touch approach that can crate dramatic improvements in your life. With a touch no more than the weight of a nickel, it releases tensions deep in the body to relieve pain and dysfunction and improve whole-body health and performance.

Few body structures have more influence over your health and well-being than your central nervous system. And few body systems have more impact on your central nervous system than the craniosacral system – the soft tissues and fluid that protect your brain and spinal cord.

Every day you endure stresses and strain and your body absorbs them. But your body can only handle so much tension before the tissues begin to tighten and potentially affect the brain and spinal cord. Unfortunately, this can compromise the function of the central nervous system – and the performance of nearly ever other system in your body.

CranioSacral Therapy releases those tensions to allow the entire body to relax and self-correct. Using a gentle touch – starting with about the weight of a nickel – practitioners evaluate your internal environment. Then they use distinctive light-touch techniques to release any restrictions they find.

CranioSacral Therapy improves your body’s ability to take better care of you. It helps relieve a full spectrum of pain, illness and dysfunction, including;

migraines and headaches, chronic neck and back pain, stress and tension-related disorder, brain and spinal cord injuries, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, TMJ syndrome, scoliosis, central nervous system disorders, learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, post-traumatic stress disorder, orthopedic problems, and many other conditions.

A typical CranioSacral Therapy session takes place in a quiet, private setting. You remain fully clothed as you relax on a comfortable, padded, table.

Your therapist begins by gently touching various affected areas of your body to monitor the rhythm of the fluid that is flowing around your central nervous system.

By carefully listening with the hands to locate areas of weak fluid flow or tissue motion, your practitioner can trace those areas of weakness through the body to the original source of dysfunction. Delicate manual techniques are then used to release those problem areas and improve the form and function of your central nervous system.

A CranioSacral Therapy session can last up to an hour or more. It can be used alone or integrated with other therapies to crate powerful effects. And because it is so gentle, it can be effective for all ages, from newborns to elders.

What you experience from your own session is highly individual. The sessions are generally deeply relaxing, creating feelings of warmth or gentle release in the areas the therapist is working on.

CranioSacral Therapy was developed by Dr. John E. Upledger, an osteopathic physician featured in Time magazine as one of America’s next wave of innovators. From 1975 to 1983, Dr. Upledger was a professor of biomechanics at the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Michigan State University. While he was there he led a team of anatomists, physiologists, biophysicists and bioengineers who performed and published the clinical research that formed the basis for the approach he named CranioSacral Therapy.

In 1985, Dr. Upledger founded The Upledger Institiute to teach people wordwide about the value of this effective approach. More than 80,000 therapists have since been trained in CranioSacral Therapy.

To learn more about CranioSacral Therapy, or to find a therapist in your area, please look up Upledger.com on the web. Or please call Ilani Kopiecki, CMT and trained CranioSacral Therapist, at 208 610-2005, to discuss the benefits of CranioSacral Therapy for you.

Patients frequently ask, “Why don’t the needles hurt?” Most of us are familiar with the “ouch” that comes with an injection with a hypodermic needle, however acupuncture needles are very different and so is the feeling. The needles used by acupuncturists are much smaller diameter – more like thin wires. In fact, as students in Acupuncture college we experimented to see just how many acupuncture needles we could fit inside of a hypodermic. Eight!

So how else are they different? A hypodermic needle is like a tube used to pass material through the skin. In acupuncture, no substances are delivered by the needles. They are simply sterile “signal wires” used to communicate with the body’s nervous system. Another reason they are not painful is the shape of the tip. Instead of a tube with a bevel, as the tip of a hypodermic, the ancient Chinese designed the tip of an acupuncture needle like a pine needle. Therefore it slides smoothly and doesn’t hurt.

What does the needle touch? Acupuncture “points” are places on the body which are tried and true over the centuries for creating specific physiologic responses. For instance, the acupuncturist may want to prompt the patient’s body to regulate peristalsis (gut mobility) in order to care for a patient with diarrhea or constipation. A different acupuncture point could convey to the body to ease the muscle spasm causing sciatica or neck pain . Often the points used are located distal to the affected area, just because that is how the nervous system is designed. The acupuncturist doesn’t touch nerves with the needles, only the correct area of soft tissue to give the signal.

When the acupuncture needle is slid into the correct place, the patient’s soft tissue will very lightly “grab” the needle – like a fish grabbing bait – which informs the acupuncturist that the communication is received. Patients often feel this sensation and may call it a “zinger” because it is so quick. Once the pins are in place, people simply feel relaxed and may even doze off to sleep.

The arrangement of the acupuncture points on every human body is consistent and similar on all mammals. They are arranged in circuits often referred to as energy meridians. An Ohm meter passed along the skin on the meridians will indicate the acupoints as distinct areas with a different electrical charge. The “zinger sensation” coincides with as a rapid change in the electrical charge of that point of soft tissue.

Several factors influence how skillfully the acupuncture is being applied. The acupuncturist’s diagnosis and pattern recognition is the first step. For instance, if a patient reports having been diagnosed with “osteoarthritis”, their condition may be one of several distinct patterns of disharmony to the acupuncturist. Differential diagnosis is made based upon the patient’s answers to a wide range of questions about sleep, thirst, characteristics of the pain, etc. and observations of their face, tongue and pulses. Once the pattern is distinguished, the treatment principle and choice of acupoints is fairly clear. Then, of course, they must locate points correctly and apply the proper signal.

My tomcat, “Turbopurr”, a.k.a.” Razzledazzle”, is a perfect model of the sensitivity of acupuncture needles. His whiskers are flexible and just about the same diameter as an acupuncture needle. He uses them well, even in the dark, which is marvelous. Even more marvelous is that, when they brushed your arm, your nervous system can pick up the signal. If sterile signal wires that size are used to touch the right acupoints your body’s nervous system can perceive the signal and alter your physiology.

Be well, or call me for a “tune-up”.

Tess Hahn, OMD, L.Ac.

Dipl. Ac., (NCCAOM)

208-683-5211