craniosacral therapy

Craniosacral Therapy & Family Dynamics

January 14, 2019 by craniohealing Leave a Comment

by Mira on SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

Introduction

Craniosacral therapy can be useful for uncovering hidden family dynamics firstly in the individual parents, and secondly in the interaction between the parent and the child. Some Craniosacral practitioners are sensitive enough to observe direct energetic effects that parents have on their children and vice versa, and so can help parents to see what is going on in their interactions, as well as support the children in receiving the emotional regulation they really need.

Why bring a child for a cranio session?

Parents generally bring their children to me because they care about them, and see that in some way they are struggling or not happy, but don’t know themselves what more they can do. They sense that somehow I have some answers or know something that they don’t. What I do have in fact is a different perspective and insight into the causes and effects of emotional patterns and behaviours and how these impact the physical body… And a way of conveying or bringing to light the deeper unseen and emotional connections in family life to parents so that they can do what their child needs in a more conscious way.

So the initial point of contact is the child, and indeed some fundamental progress can be made in releasing early trauma, grounding, re-establishing relational abilities etc. However often already in the first session, it becomes apparent that the mother-child connection is contributing to the issues and maintaining or reinforcing the problems. Of course no mother wants to consciously hurt her child, or affect them adversely in any way, so this is a delicate matter which I normally approach slowly, as the mother opens to looking at her part in things of her own accord.

The solution lies with the parents

What many parents don’t realize is that when their children have problems or disturbances, these are more often than not a result of their relationships with their primary care takers. They are also influenced directly by their parent’s habitual behaviour and emotions. In many ways this is obvious since a child is a dependent being that is developing in response to the examples set by the nervous systems and behavioural patterns of the adults they copy and interact with, and in response their particular external environment.

And yet parents don’t know where to look for solutions on the whole other than at their children, partly because the cultural focus is on medicating and controlling “badly behaved” children. It is also partly because the adult’s connection to the deeper sense of self or inner wisdom has become very dilute in western society, where the tendency is to seek external help and pay an expert rather than work out the solution.

The fact remains that no two families are alike, nor are any two individuals, so there are no ideal solutions that an expert can give. The answer will always arise out of the relationship between the individual parent and the particular child. The solution is a result of the parent’s personality and authentic response, and the particular child’s character and needs.

How parents can find their own solutions

If a parent can’t really feel themselves or doesn’t know how to manage their own undulating emotional states, they would probably not be in a position to notice the effect they have on their child. Even when they do, many parents feel powerless to know what to do about it. However it is a simple fact that a parent who is unable to handle their own emotions will not be able to provide a satisfactory environment in which the child’s brain and nervous system can develop fully. A child that has no words or means to express what they sense they are lacking but can’t get, will of course feel hurt, frustrated and start acting out.

The sense in which the child’s problems are “relational” is that the child is directly influenced by the unseen emotional energies and responses emanating from the parent. If they are being overwhelmed by the parent’s unfelt rage, or suffocated by their grief, or affected by a mother’s constant nerves and hysteria, they won’t be able to do schoolwork, or play happily. This is the gross and basic level. On a more subtle level, every unfelt need and emotion in the parent’s field affects the child, who responds to the unspoken and unseen as if it were concrete, even if the parent is unaware of it. This is no-one’s fault, and yet the child is just a fresh and enthusiastic expression of maleable new life and in that sense, whatever behaviour they are exhibiting is a direct reflection of what is going on in their surroundings…

Finding solutions to problems with the kids…

The key to solving the children’s problems, ironically, lies usually not in the child, but in the parent finding their own centre, and coming into deeper feeling connection with themselves. This is where the gentle craniosacral therapy can have profound effects in supporting the parent’s process of becoming more aware of body sensation and emotions. The more grounded or embodied the parent becomes through the craniosacral sessions, the more present they are, rather than lost in their thoughts, the more able to respond with intelligence to the real needs of the child. This is very different from responding with parenting concepts they have been taught or what they think the child needs. The result is instantly visible in a happier, calmer, more co-operative, trusting and responsive child… which is way more evidence than an “expert’s” opinion that you are doing things right.

All human beings have this capacity when they are switched on and aware – we all know instinctively how to respond to another, when to back off and give space, when and where to touch another to comfort, how to generate fun and excitiement. These are innate capacities. Craniosacral therapy can help the family dynamics precisely because it brings us back in touch with our instinctive responses and drives. This helps by-pass the layers of mental conditioning that we learn from birth, and that have some very unhelpful aspects when it comes to parenting…

The challenge is sometimes to re-establish this balanced in the moment awareness, and find a way to get around (or put aside) the piles of emotional reactiveness and drama caused by our own painful and traumatic life experiences so that we can really be with the children.

Because “being with” fully and sensitively is mainly what their brains, nervous systems and sense of self require from us as adults in order to develop effectively.

Much more so than adults, children can’t cope with overwhelming emotions of rage or terror when adults express these without really experiencing them themselves, or taking responsibility for them. Their energies and boundaries are much more permeable, and their nervous systems simply not as robust or able to absorb shock. A placid seeming baby or small child may in fact be in a state of total shock and nervous system shut down for survival reasons…This is why craniosacral therapy often works especially well for them, since it is able to take account of the subtleties of their system and to allow them to rebuild broken boundaries, re-establish nerve pathways and learn to allow their life force fully…

Nevertheless it is really up to the adult care-takers to feel these emotions directly so that their toxic side-effects don’t spill over to the children. There are at least two very different experiences for a child: firstly the example of an adult who has rage or grief or terror in their energy field but is not aware of it, and is taking it out on those around them it. And secondly of an adult who is really feeling those emotions and in contact with them. The former may smother and terrify a small child and be felt keenly, and experienced as very confusing and overwhelming. The latter is not frightening for a child on the whole, even if they still experience the adult’s emotion, because it is clear that the adult is the one with that emotion, and able to handle it, own it, talk about it and say what is going on. This makes the child less prone to thinking the emotion the adult is having is their fault, and also less frightened that it will be taken out on them. It makes them feel safe.

Taking responsibility for emotions

And the key in this is for the adults taking care of children to be taking responsibility for themselves and for their own actions, reactions and emotional states. That means to be feeling the sensations and emotions in their bodies directly – which is precisely what craniosacral therapy can help you do – rather than blaming them on others or the external environment. That is all the kids need – they don’t need a zen monk who is calm and totally balanced as a parent – they just need someone who is feeling their own stuff and not inflicting it on the space around them, and even then, only most of the time.

Better still they need at least one parent who is centred enough in themselves and aware enough to be able to sense how the child is, and respond to them clearly so that they can learn to get a sense of themselves.

Effects of Craniosacral Sessions on the whole family

In the process of working with a child, and then often with the mother, a gradual emotional and mental separation of the individuals in the family happens. As each one becomes clearer in themselves and more connected with their own emotions, wishes and experience, a space of clarity opens up in the family as a whole and things begin to change. Sometimes explosive energies are released in one or more family members for a week or two as old held back energies surface to be released. But then things stablise once more. Real relationship begins to happen, where individuals can feel themselves, express what they are experiencing, ask for what they need, empathise with the other, and respond genuinely to another’s needs. Often a lot of joy and creativity are also generated in the process.

The family dynamic is unique to each constellation of individuals, and affected by generations beyond the current one. As parents see their own patterns reflected in their developing children they become aware of the way their parents behaved with them and can heal and change old rifts and conflicts within themselves.

The more honest and clear the parents become as they peel off the older layers of their own experience, with the awareness gained in craniosacral sessions, the more secure the children feel as a rule. Children long to connect with adults that they can feel are really there, that are really coming from their centre and whom they can count on to show up, to respond. That way they can get a sense of themselves and develop, which is every being’s deepest yearning.

Often one partner develops at a different rate from the other, and during sessions we gradually learn not to take things personally, and just to look at your own side of the equation, to do your own work, and let the others take care of themselves. Life has an amazing way of organising the dynamics of change within a family to provide just the right events at the right times, to fit in with what is going on externally. What looks like a catstrophe can often catalyse deep healing and a shift to a much more positive space for everyone. The key is always to stay in the open, to stay in the space of not knowing, to be with whatever emotions and impulses are arising and to trust. The process of change can be daunting at first, but as people get used to it, a sense of trust and excitement can develop for whatever will come next. The general movement is always one of allowing authenticity, expanding aliveness and joy and a sense of collective growth and evolution. It is the most wonderful thing to be involved in as a family.

As one father put it:

“I am so grateful to you for the work you have done with me and my family. I can’t even begin to express. First I learnt to feel my body, and to be more in my flow, now the answers to my business issues come to me much more easily, and the most wonderful thing is that the whole family is on board. We are making changes in our lives but we are all doing it together, so its making sense and feels like real fun. No-one is compromising and we’re finding ways to make things work for all of us together. It’s the most amazing experience…”

In that particular family the father came for sessions first, followed by the mother, and then finally the two children, who made huge progress. These happened to be parents who realized that by far the largest influence you have on your child is by example, not by co-ercion, which is why they came first, rather than sending their children. They understood rapidly that if your child is exhibiting a certain behaviour, you need to look for and correct it in yourself as the parent. Obviously such dynamics take some effort and willingness to uncover, but the effort is so worthwhile. In the words of the same father,

“I just can’t imagine where we would be now as a family without you. In the last year of working with you we have found a new direciton together, and sorted out so much of our chaos. We’re all happier and much closer than before. And we’re working with each other rather than fighting our own positions.”

Craniosacral therapy can have a huge impact on the family dynamics through the awareness it gives the individuals, and the process of growth which it catalyses. Because it is an embodied rather than thought-centred process, effects are profound and lasting.

Tagged as: craniosacral for children, Craniosacral therapy, emotional issues, family issues, issues with children, parent-child relationships, relating

Awakening in 2013: move from seeking to finding

January 14, 2013 by craniohealing Leave a Comment

by MIRA on JANUARY 14, 2013

2012 has been and gone, and many are wondering what the fuss was about. Yet many people have experienced subtle shifts and changes, and are on the verge of breaking through to something new. If you can feel this, then likely it is true for you, and you are on your way to engaging your life purpose on a new level and contributing to creating new innovative initiatives and an alternate reality on planet earth. 2013 is an important year for setting these changes in motion, and each person counts.

Leaving the path behind and finding your own…

Yoga, meditation, silent retreats, fasts, detoxes, crystals, reiki, angels, past lives etc. The list of options is endless, and many become a personal religion. For what? In order to… What exactly? Be healthier? Happier? Earn more money? Receive inner guidance? Find our purpose? Sometimes we lose sight of why we embarked on these activites in the first place. Maybe we didn’t feel great, and wanted to still the mind, feel better, or heal a pain or sickness, or have better relationships. But somewhere along the way being a spiritual seeker can become an identity for the ego that helps it feel more secure, more established, more solid – just as the office job or family role might have been before… except now you are someone who believes in and studies angesl…and then there are seemingly endless versions of therapies, bodywork, techniques, changing your beliefs, each of which claim to be the holy grail. People learn different aspects of awareness and embodiment from different practices at different times, so in a way they are helpful. But there is more…

Awakening…

Some people dont just want to get fixed, they want to awaken. Some even think awakening will fix them! Maybe they will be peaceful at last, and free of suffering… They earnestly pursue vipassana silent meditations, hang our with their enlightened guru on endless seminars and still, despite gathering vast amounts of knowledge and practices, nothing fundamental changes. Even after five years of eating raw. The thing, whatever it is, still eludes them. How do they know? Becasue they’re still seeking. So what is it? What is this elusive thing that these people are after, and how do you get it?

Who am I?

Well, the tricky thing is, the part of us that wants it is the same part that prevents us from having it. Or seen another way, the seeking activity of the ego, even though it is oh so spiritual, is exactly the thing that keeps us stuck. Seeking, wanting, is a mind activity. Its just another identity as a spiritual person. You still think you are that personality. Until there is no mind, no identification with thought patterns, there is no awakening. To find it, you have to just give up, just be here in this moment. And there it is. Right there inside you. Just where it was all along. In plain English, this is the same wisdom that is at the basis of every religion, spiritual teaching, writing and practice. The gurus are the ones who have stopped looking on the outside and been brave enough to find it alone on the inside.

Seeing is believing

And yet… many of these practices like bodywork and yoga can be extremely useful tools. Although your thinking mind cannot be fixed, they are tools to help you see it for what it is and not allow it to run the show. Seeing the workings of your mind from the inside is something only you can do. No one can do it for you. If you use whichever of these practices attract you to increase your present moment awareness of sensation in the body, they can slowly enhance your overall ability to be aware. Detoxing and specialised nutrition can raise your body’s energetic state and increase awareness. As your awareness increases, you can use it to see through your habitual behavioral patterns, layer by layer. This is the real agenda beneath most spiritual practices, yet it often gets lost along the way. Each layer that you can observe dispassionately, without needing to fix or change it, will lose it’s power to take you over and make you think it is you. It is not. You are the awareness that is observing, quietly peacefully and utterly content with the way things are in the present momentum. This is rarely pointed out in yoga or other classes, because there is often so much concern with the body or other aspects of physical life that we miss the important bit – that we are not the body, we are not the emotions, we are not our personality. What we are is the life that animates us and all other life on the planet. Taken to its logical conclusion, the point of a yoga class is to open your energy centres and connect you internally with your awareness to the point that you can sense this connection with the others in the class and the plants outside, and let go of thinking you are a separate individual… If you’ve recently been to a yoga class that took you there, then please tell all your friends… How would you know? After such an experience your life would change fundamentally because you would drop your personal identity. You would be at peace on a very deep level… And by the way, you can awaken without ever having done yoga, or eating raw. There are no prerequisites in that sense.

Observing the robot within

What’s amazing is that so much of our daily experience is automatic and robotic that we don’t even realize it’s coming from the mind’s repetitive patterns. Many people are very negative about life without realising, and always expect bad things or constantly complain. The fastest way to realize what your’re doing and shift your awareness is to sit with a practitioner who is present and can convey this experience of peace and disidentification to you. Once you have felt the experience of being peaceful, and it has really sunk in, you will begin to recognize all the other things that are created by the mind much more clearly.

You will see for yourself that nothing about you is broken, nothing needs to be fixed. You don’t necessarily need to learn any more or change. You will realize the pointlessness of endless talking bout your family history – though this is of course a necessary phase that many people need to go through for themselves, before they realize they are not Jenny or Philip or Sam, and the past experience and emotion has been felt and integrated. No matter what level you reach in bending backwards in yoga, nothing guarantees peace. Except if somewhere along the way you begin to accept how you are right now and to just surrender to this moment. Then a space can open, where the mind is quiet or silent, and you can experience your connection with the whole of life. This is maybe the background to many of the therpeutic practices, but watch the mind’s tendency to want to get fixed or get better, because that’s not it. There is no end to what can be wrong, there is always something. The point is to become aware enough to leave the fascination with all of that altogether and stop engaging at that level. The physical emotional human aspect is only part of who you are. It is only when we step away from all that and lean back and let go into our true nature as life itself that the seeking ends.

Oops, i am nothing

Many people find it really hard to handle experiencing themselves as space, as non-judgemental and indifferent life itself, as nothingness. Of not being anyone. It can be frightening, but we get used to it, and we can dip in and out of it initially, as we let go gradually of our old idea of self. Of course, its really shocking that after all this seeking, what we find is that there was actually nothing to fix or find. When we see we are not our names, or our family story, or our occupational role, or our past or our bodies there is in fact nothing left. Yet this nothing is life itself, it animates everything in us, around us, under and above us. It is undeniable in when experienced directly. We are life. We don’t need personalities to live and assert themselves at the expense of others, to gain power over them. Our bodies know how to live without thought. They just carry on, even when the mind has let go.

A simple question: do you feel that if people had to think in order to breathe, digest, pump blood etc that many people would still be alive? I think its unlikely. They’d forget, or get stressed and do it wrong. Our thinking minds could never fathom the complexity and sheer volume of information necessary to regulate the chemical, hormonal and nervous systems in our bodies. It all just happens without “us” as we identify ourselves, taken care of by LIFE. To think that our little individual personalities could possibly have any effect on the overall course of events is a delusion. It is a way of trying to make ourselves feel strong and important. We are not. We are tiny parts of a whole living system on planet earth. That doesn’t mean we can’t be incredibly influential and powerful as individuals. But only if our actions are aligned with life itself. That is, they arise from that peaceful expanded place beyond or underneath the little me.

Disidentifying from “me”

How can we find this place in our everyday lives? Having a craniosacral session is one way to still the mind and sink into that deep space. Craniosacral uses the universal intelligence or presence, the nothing-not-me to build up the core reservoir of energy in the body so it can move and open up our central channel and open blockages, in a similar way to yoga, but on a much deeper and more subtle level. This can help us to learn to be able to observe our own psyche from the inside. Ultimately it’s about where you put your focus, and what you identify with. At some point it’s necessary to shift away from thinking you are a particular person or role, to feeling and experiencing yourself as the pure awareness that is observing and having your human experience. And also everyone elses! To do that at some point you have to let go. Whether it’s your partner, work, home or whole life, it will happen how and when it’s meant to. Whatever last familiar aspect of your old self you are hanging onto will invite you to step away. When you do so, you won’t die, and your life won’t end. There may be some sadness and release of anger for a while, as your energy stops holding and opens up to your natural vibrant state of aliveness. You may also experience loosening or release in your neck and cranial base. And then your external life may take on a new form, or you go back to your old life but with a changed perspective and attitude. You will be peaceful and free, no longer influenced by others and events outside you in your fundamental peace.

Awakening intensive sessions

My work has evolved over the last two years to a very fine tuned accelerated process for peeling away layers of conditioning in the mind and holding in the body. Old emotions, memories and sicknesses surface and clear. Depending mainly on your willingness and readiness, not on previous work, in three to four sessions you can be taken through your individual process of letting go of who you were, layer by layer. This is a very intense process and can be literally mind-blowing, or sometimes just a gentle relief. Sometimes it only takes one session, which can be by skype too. I doesn’t seem to make much difference when you are ready to do it. I sometimes use craniosacral bodywork to work on the deeper levels of unconscious holding in the body that contain keys to personality structures so that they can unravel and fall away. People’s lives open and begin to blossom creatively. That is what happens when you recognize your own habitual patterns and let them go. When you step into the unknown anything is possible… Anything. Letting go is much easier than holding on, but it takes more courage. Maybe reading this article has already given you every thing you need for the shift to happen. If you feel you almost get it but not quite, and you get a shiver or a sense of excitement reading this, please get in touch. I offer these intensives by skype or in person.

I wish you a happy new year and much enjoyment being yourself…

If you found this article interesting, you might want to read my ebook: the Survival Guide to Awakening which details aspects of the process and how to deal with arising emotions and practical aspects…

Please feel free to share this article, but please give credit to the author. Thank you

Tagged as: angels, awakening, awakening intensive sessions, Craniosacral therapy, crystals, detox, disidentifying, fasting, finding your purpose, guru, meditation, past lives, quieting the mind, raw food, reiki, silent retreats, Spiritual Awakening and Craniosacral therapy, vipassana, yoga

A Basic Guide to Highly Sensitive Children

August 13, 2011 by craniohealing Leave a Comment

by Mira on AUGUST 13, 2011

Highly Senstivie Children – what sensitive children need and how to give it to them. Calm play in nature is an important component…

Introduction

If you are the parent of a sensitive child you may be familiar with the frustration and mystery of trying to work out what your child needs, what they are trying to communicate and what to do to help them develop. This article is intended as a guide to orient parents, school teachers and relatives to know where to start. It contains pointers to help you learn to feel and relate to their child, and to understand what their world is like from the inside.

In broad srokes, Highly Sensitive Children often need help calming their nervous systems, processing emotion, and learning to name and express the wealth of sensations and emotions they are experiencing. They expereince everything on volume ten and when it gets too loud they melt down, just like a fuse. No two children are the same, yet this article contains the broader principles within which you as adults can work out the details by observation, trial and error. You may also find it helpful to work with a practitioner (like myself, most craniosacral therapists, and those who work with gifted/senstive adults and children) who is trained to focus on perceiving at a very sensitive level, as they can be of great assistance in translating the child’s world and experience you as the parents, and facilitate a more satisfactory relationship between you and child… S/he may be able to help you as parents or teacher adjust to the child’s needs and show you how to make the more empathetic contact that will support the child’s healthy development.

What do Sensitive Children Need?

Being taken more seriously, faster responses to their emotional needs… more time and space to recover from activity and figure things out for themselves… soothing…

Sensitivity is not just an inconvenience or something that you can make disappear if it doesn’t suit you. One if five people seems to have a much more sensitive nervous system than other people. This means that their experience is heightened – things are louder, brighter, faster and much deeper for these kind of people. They are more easily overwhelmed and take longer to recover than others. They feel things more intensely, need to process events more thoroughly and tend to be very careful about making decisions to do things… only acting when they are absolutely sure… Such people also respond extremely well to craniosacral therapy because it is sensitive and does not overwhelm their delicate nervous systems. This is true for adults as well as children. However if parents can acknowledge and support their child’s sensitivity, such a child can grow up healthy with their figts in tact, rather than being heavily traumatised and having little confidence – so it’s well worth the effort.

How are their requirements different from those of other children?

They need more sensitive parenting! In practise, that means that attuned attention or precise emotional empathy is vital. Imagine a child with a highly magnified bubble around them full of their own experiences and thoughts and observations. Their nervous system picks up every nuance and change in the surroundings. Their life is rich with things they want to share with you. Showing you a sesame seed on their finger tip for example. A caterpillar on a leaf. Chalk dust under the blackboard. If you don’t make the effort to tune into their world as a parent, you will miss out on connecting with them, and they are left with the sense of being totally alone, unconnected and ignored. They will try to make sense of this by assuming they are wrong and will think their needs are not relevant, which can be really crippling for such sensitive children.. The cycle of self-criticism and self-denial begins, and often leads to later depression and relational problems.

Importance of Attuned Attention and Emotional Regulation

More than other children, they really can’t exist without daily quality attention and feedback on their states. They require a more immediate response to their emotional needs than other children because their sensitivity means they don’t have as much tolerance. A small change in their internal environment may feel huge and very frightenting, and if left unattended leads to shock and then trauma as the nervous system overloads and shuts down. Highly sensitive children react more intensely when their blood sugar falls and they get hungry. A highly senstitive child can’t be asked to wait to eat when they are hungry, or the internal storm of sensation and emotion becomes so intense that the rest of the day is a wipe-out. This is not a dysfunction in the child, but rather the result of a highly sensitive nervous system with less slack or tolerance of extremes.

They also tend to appear to be “shy” in that they pull away from new people and observe. Its not actually the case that they are shy, but rather that they perceive a lot more than other kids, and take longer to process the information. They also test people carefully to see whether they are respectful of their needs and boundaries or not, and physically run away from adults who unknowlingly try to overwhelm them. This is a very healthy trait and should be respected and encouraged. Such children know what they can and can’t handle, and even at age 12 months are taking active care of themselves.

So as the parent of such a child, you need to be present and connected with your feelings and sensations, rather than lost in thought. This will allow you to perceive what is going on with your child, and to respond instinctively through the connection you build up with them. If you don’t know how to do this, craniosacral treatments can be a huge support for you in helping you to learn to feel, to connect with yourself, and to be able to connect with your child. I currently offer a course of weekly sessions online to enable you to practise getting embodied step by step and stay present.

How Craniosacral Therapy can help deal with Sensitivity

Craniosacral therapy also opens up blocks in your core energy, and can enable you to be more present and freer with expressing your instincts. This will probably help you more than any parenting “technique” in accessing your instinctual response to your child, to give them the stimulus they need developmentally, soothe them when distressed etc. Even if you feel you don’t know how to parent, the thousands of years of human parenting are stored in your body and will naturally come out at the appropriate time if you allow yourself to set aside you thinking, your fear of getting it wrong, and the ideas you’ve been told. Everyone can parent, its literally, natural! Craniosacral therapy can help you get back in touch with that embodied nature…

Highly sensitive children are ususally very sensitive to sound and smell, and easily disturbed by abrupt movments, loud aggressive people, and hysterical or frightened behaviour. These are kids who really need adults to calm down before they approach them because their systems are to sensitive that they pick up and resonate with the slightest hint of emotion or nervous energy, and they don’t have the capacity to get themselves calm whilst the stimulous is still around.

If you as the parent are a highly strung or nervous, then they are likely to suffer constantly… which is why working on your own calm as a priority is even more important for these children. Again, learning to regulate your own nervous system or self soothe through craniosacral sessions can be highly beneficial.

And your child can benefit immensely from having the chance to learn to feel sensation in their own body during a quiet, safe craniosacral session when they will not be overwhelmed or too frightened to cope. Craniosacral sessions can also help them to begin to learn to name emotions, allow anger and express their inner states and needs. In a normal family environment this can be very hard for sensitive children because they just cant seem to find enough space or quiet to get connect with themselves, and parents may simly not know be able to tell what they need. They tend to end up rather quiet, lost and ghost-like which is a shame given the huge amount of felt experience and imagination they have to contribute to life. By paying proper attention as the parent you can help them connect with life more fully.

More rest and quiet time

Highly sensitive children also need more down time to rest between activities. In general it is not that they are anti-social, but they tend to enjoy their own company, and need solitary time every day because other people are so “loud” energetically and emotionally that they smother and squash them so they can’t feel themselves. Once their nervous systems get aroused they take longer to calm back down to a comfortable state, and they are also more affected by eg. A visit to the swings, or a friend coming to play. They take longer to recover and come back to themselves. Similarly, if you give them strong or sugary foods, they may react more than a less senstivie child. This doesn’t mean they need to be sheltered from life, but rather shown more tolerance in handling their experience, and space to work out what they need for themselves without interference.

Above all they need to be taken seriously. When a boy says he wants to play football for 5 minutes in the garage, then he really does want that, and out in the patio is not the same. A sensitive child will feel denial of his wishes as an extreme hurt and rejection of his self, whereas a more robust child might be able to brush it off.

Relating to sensitive children effectively

Parents of sensitive children need to be careful not to dominate them with their own emotions, and to leave plenty of space and time in conversations for these children to form their own opinions and responses. This can be agonisingly slow and frustrating, especially when there are other children in the family who are not like this. However if you don’t make these allowances you give the child the message that they should be different. Not only does this destroy their self-worth, but it is an impossible demand on their nervous system, which can only process things at the speed and volume that it does, and it can create physiological problems, nervous system distrubances and eventually extreme trauma.

What does not dominating your children mean in practice? In practical terms it means asking questions without expecting a particular answer. It means listening openly without thinking, and experiencing the answers without reacting. It means not forcing them to do what you want, but letting them be and negotiating a course of action. In energetic terms it means speaking only after you can feel your feet, are calm and with yourself, and to check that you can feel yourself, and feel the child when you communicate. If you take the time to sense yourself, you will feel where the edge of your being or energy meets your child, and whether you are meeting them at the right distance and intensity to make them feel comfortable and able to respond. If this is something that is unfamiliar to you or you would like to know more, i offer face to face sessions by zoom, where i show you how to increase your awareness and ability to relate empathetically to your children. In addition, having craniosacral therapy will support this process by helping you to learn to feel your own body and experience your own emotions. These are simple but essential steps in being able to relate effectively to a highly sensitive child.

Tagged as: calming nervous system, Craniosacral therapy, effective parenting, emotional regulation, highly sensitive child, relating to children, sensitivity

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

netty puji rahayu February 26, 2012 at 3:27 pm

really useful articke for me at the momet, thanks.

by Mira on AUGUST 13, 2011

If you are the parent of a sensitive child you may be familiar with the frustration and mystery of trying to work out what your child needs, what they are trying to communicate and what to do to help them develop. Craniosacral therapy can be a useful tool both for treating parents of sensitive children to help them to learn to feel and relate to their child, and for the child also. Sensitive children often need help calming their nervous systems, processing emotion, and learning to name and express the wealth of sensations and emotions they are experiencing. Since the craniosacral practitioner is trained to focus on perceiving at a very sensitive level, s/he can be of great assistance in translating the child’s world and experience to the parents, and facilitating a satisfactory relationship between parents and child… S/he may be able to help the parents adjust to their child’s needs and show them how to make the more empathetic contact that will support the child’s healthy development.

What do Sensitive Children Need?

Being taken more seriously, faster responses to their emotional needs… more time and space to recover from activity and figure things out for themselves… soothing…

How are their requirements different from those of other children?

Importance of Attuned Attention and Emotional Regulation

So as the parent of such a child, you need to be present and connected with your feelings and sensations, rather than lost in thought. This will allow you to perceive what is going on with your child, and to respond instinctively through the connection you build up with them. Craniosacral treatments can be a huge support for you in helping you to learn to feel, to connect with yourself, and to be able to connect with your child.

How Craniosacral Therapy can help deal with Sensitivity

More rest and quiet time

Relating to sensitive children effectively

What does not dominating your children mean in practice? In practical terms it means asking questions without expecting a particular answer. It means listening openly without thinking, and experiencing the answers without reacting. It means not forcing them to do what you want, but letting them be and negotiating a course of action. In energetic terms it means speaking only after you can feel your feet, are calm and with yourself, and to check that you can feel yourself, and feel the child when you communicate. If you take the time to sense yourself, you will feel where the edge of your being or energy meets your child, and whether you are meeting them at the right distance and intensity to make them feel comfortable and able to respond. If this is something that is unfamiliar to you or you would like to know more, you can take the transformational parenting course by skype or in person, and learn the details of how to increase your awareness and ability to relate empathetically to your children. Having craniosacral therapy will support this process by helping you to learn to feel your own body and experience your own emotions. These are simple but essential steps in being able to relate effectively to a highly sensitive child.

Tagged as: calming nervous system, Craniosacral therapy, effective parenting, emotional regulation, highly sensitive child, relating to children, sensitivity

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

netty puji rahayu February 26, 2012 at 3:27 pm

really useful articke for me at the momet, thanks.

Craniosacral Therapy & Resolving PTSD in children

July 25, 2011 by craniohealing Leave a Comment

by Mira on JULY 25, 2011

Introduction

This article outlines the difference between simple trauma and PTSD, which is ongoing, and details common symptoms, as well as the physiological and emotional effects of PTSD. It also looks at how craniosacral therapy can address the physiological and emotional symptoms of PTSD and assist in resotring the child to normal life.

What is trauma?

Ordinary trauma may involve threat to physical life, or to psychological survival. The world that was taken for granted may be shattered. The nervous system becomes overwhelmed, and shuts down. Following the trauma, children may initially show agitated or confused behavior. They also may show intense fear, helplessness, anger, sadness, horror or denial. These are normal reactions. Normally the physical reactions that kick in as a result of the fear will die down within a few hours. Sometimes the stress may take up to a year to dissipate.

How is PTSD different?

But for some people it never goes away. A child or adolescent who experiences a catastrophic event may develop ongoing difficulties known as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD in children and adolescents occurs as a result of a child’s exposure to one or more traumatic events that were life-threatening or perceived to be likely to cause serious injury to self or others. In addition, the child must have responded with intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Traumatic events can take many forms, including physical or sexual assaults, natural disasters, traumatic death of a loved one, or emotional abuse or neglect.

Symptoms of PTSD

Children with PTSD avoid situations or places that remind them of the trauma. Children who experience repeated trauma may develop a kind of emotional numbing to deaden or block the pain and trauma. This is called dissociation. They may also become less responsive emotionally, depressed, withdrawn, and more detached from their feelings.

Children with PTSD may also show the following symptoms:

• having frequent memories of the event, or in young children, play in which some or all of the trauma is repeated over and over

• having upsetting and frightening dreams

• acting or feeling like the experience is happening again

• worry about dying at an early age

• losing interest in activities

• having physical symptoms such as headaches and stomachaches

• showing more sudden and extreme emotional reactions

• having problems falling or staying asleep

• showing irritability or angry outbursts

• having problems concentrating

• acting younger than their age (for example, clingy or whiny behavior, thumb sucking)

• showing increased alertness to the environment

The symptoms of PTSD may last from several months to many years. They seem to occur more often in children who already have a history of poor emotional regulation from the parents, and poor attachment security. This will affect their ability to make sense of the trauma and to draw comfort from others.

Why early treatment of trauma is important

Once the trauma has occurred, however, early intervention is essential. Support from parents, school, and peers is important. Emphasis needs to be placed upon establishing a feeling of safety. Psychotherapy (individual, group, or family) that allows the child to speak, draw, play, or write about the event is helpful. Craniosacral therapy can help release the trauma from the nervous system in a series of cycles, and build up the capacity to feel sensation, and feel safe in the body again. With time the emotional energy and memories of the experience can be fully integrated and normal life can resume.

Craniosacral treatment can help reconnect the child with emotions that have been stored in the body, can slowly release symptoms such as headaches and stomachaches, improve the normal appetite for life and stabilize the emotions. Because craniosacral is such a gentle therapy, and practitioners tend to be extremely sensitive and finely tuned, this can be one of the few ways to reach a severely traumatised and very frightened, speechless child and help them regain contactwith here and now reality.

The sooner the child is treated the easier and faster the recovery is on the whole, and prevents further chemical imbalance in the body and brain changes. Once posttraumatic stress symptoms emerge, PTSD leads to neurophysiologic correlates that impact brain function in developing children and adolescents

Severe emotional trauma has widespread effects on children’s development. These effects include undermining children’s sense of security in a reasonable and safe world in which they can grow and explore, as well as causing a child to not believe that their parents can protect them from harm. The premature destruction of these beliefs can have profound negative consequences on development. In addition, a child with such experiences may spend most of their time worrying about whether they will survive at all, rather than actually living.

How Craniosacral can work directly on the effects of trauma in the brain

Craniosacral therapy can address the unconscious memories of trauma that are stored in the amygdala – the most primitive part – of the brain. This is especially important for very small children since before age 3 their prefrontal cortex has not yet developed and they can only process trauma amygdala, rather than over-riding this with the orbito-frontal cortex, which has not yet fully developed. In addition, verbalizing activities of the left prefrontal cortex are important for making sense of traumatic memories. Being able to talk about and name shocking experiences helps come to terms with them. However this is not helpful for small children…

The hippocampus, whose functioning in memory is negatively affected by trauma, is also required for processing feelings normally. Without these functions a child may get flashback states when a traumatic memory is relived because it has not been fully processed. Fortunately craniosacral therapy is sensitive enough to be able to detect separate areas of brain function or underactivity and by listening to what is going on, allow the system to re-establish an integrated working connection. It is also one of the few therapies able to work with the stubborn and inaccessible amygdala. This may take some time, especially with severe trauma, however the progress is often visible from the first session on, as soon as contact is made with the child’s core and soul, and a basic sense of safety and grounding in the body is established once again. Sometimes children can wait years for this to happen, and to an anxious parent; it may seem almost like a miracle when it does. Previous states are then quickly forgotten as life resumes again.

Tagged as: abuse, amygdala, anxiety, Craniosacral therapy, dissociation, fear, hippocampus, PTSD in children, stress, trauma recovery, trauma treatment

Solving common childhood problems: why children need emotional empathy to develop & how can craniosacral help?

July 13, 2011 by craniohealing Leave a Comment

by MIRA on JULY 13, 2011

Introduction

Emotional empathy is the basis of attuned attention to a child, which helps regulate the child’s emotions and establish a healthy and functioning brain, nervous system and immune system. It is vital for development. This article examines what it is, how to do it, and what problems arise when the right kind of emotional attention is lacking. It also looks at wider health and social implications of having an emotionally illiterate population, and what simple measures can be put in place to improve matters.

What do babies need?

Babies are like the raw material for a self, and how they are treated affects how they develop. This applies not just to food and clothing, but also to emotional responsiveness. In the early months of life a baby is establishing what the normal state of physical arousal is in terms of chemical and electrical nervous system signals. A normal range is established through social process, by the baby co-ordinating his systems with those of people around him.

Babies who are given an attuned response learn to expect a world that is responsive to feelings and that will help bring intense states back to a manageable level. It is only by experiencing having it done for them that they learn to do it for themselves. Baby’s systems are so sensitive that if early experience is inadequate, the stress response can be adversely affected, and brain growth and development may be hindered. Research indicates that the outcome seems to depend far more on how responsive the parents are than on the baby’s innate character or genetics. So parental ability is crucial in shaping the child.

Craniosacral is in effect a combination of extremely sensitive emotional empathy with empathetic touch. Therefore it connects with the being on more levels than just talk therapy, with the ability to influence the nervous system and brain directly. This makes it a powerful tool for normalising any developmental deficiencies in children, and helping them connect with themselves. It can also do the same for parents who had less than ideal upbringings.

What does emotional empathy do for the baby?

The most important thing for the baby is the degree to which the parent is emotionally available and present with him to notice how he is, because this helps him regulate his emotions.Regulation is about relieving the baby’s discomfort, since babies cannot do this for themselves. It involves tuning into the baby’s emotional and physical state empathetically, and calming him down or stimulating him to get him to a comfortable level. A frightened child, for exmple, needs to by soothed. This takes the sympathetic nervous system from a state of frantic flight or fight, back to the calming effect of the parasympathetic system. For many parents this is a totally natural, unprobelmatic and normal response to their baby, and happens without thinking about it. Touch, tone of voice, and feeling the parent’s calm nervous system all help the baby to get back to tolerable levels of stimulation in the body.

What an available responsive parent looks like in practice, is for example a father sitting next to the bath with the one year old being bathed, and looking into his/her eyes, observing their activities, just being there with them, without thoughts or expectations or judgements, or worrying that they need to go out in five mintues, or make a phone call. Just being there, feeling the child’s state and responding. Attuned attention or emotional empathy is the basis for regulation. For some parents who are always busy thinking or in their heads, being this present with their child can be a wonderful revelation. It is the only true basis for relating to the child. Fortunately it is a skill that can be learned by anyone – if you are interested in knowing more, please enquire about our Transformational Parenting course. We teach the basics of attuned attention, emotional regulation in self and others, relating and becoming aware of your own patterns.

Emotional regulation is often about responding to feelings in a non-verbal way – through touch, tone of voice, look. For example a mother soothes her screaming over-aroused baby by engaging her with a load voice that mirrors the pitch and emotion, and then gently calms her expression, taking her down into a calmer state. Or she might relax a baby by rocking him, or tickle and laugh with a sad, disinterested baby. This monitoring and adjustment needs to be a continuous task for many many months at the beginning of the infant’s life. Without it they cannot develop properly, phsically or socially, and suffer later on.

Differentiating and naming feelings

The next task is to help the child differentiate the basic states of eg. anger – into disappointment, annoyance, rage etc. and to verbalise these states, by copying the baby and mirroring states back with words and gestures. Identifying and labelling feelings is essential to teach the baby a sense of self, and of human culture and interaction. It’s the parent’s task to help a child to learn to identify their feelings, since they are unable to lable them on their own.

Getting or not getting attuned attention affects the growth and connections to the pre-frontal cortex, or social brain. In infancy and the toddler years, the part of the pre-frontal cortex involved in verbalising feelings may not develop adequately, and this part of the brain has been strongly implicated in depressino. Without the social brain connections, the child and later adults suffers in lacking external connection too.

Ideal regulation leads to feelings flowing freely through the body, whilst having the mental capacity to notice and reflect on them, and to choose whether or not to act on them. The individual with good regulation also has the ability to co-ordinate his or her states with other people, can adjust to their moods and demands, and can make his or her own demands on others. There is a flow within the individual and between the individual and others. In this way people can respond to what is happening in the moment with each other, helping each other process feelings. This is just what we do in everyday social interaction – understand how someone is feeling, helping them express it, and thinking about solutions with them. We are social animals, and we all need this experience to different degrees, and at different stages of life.

Problems

If parents cannot feel or regulate their own feelings, they will not be able to feel their baby, and so won’t respond to their needs for regulation. The baby will be left in chaos, without a clear sense of how to keep level, and maybe even thinking they shouldn’t have feelings, because they have been ignored. In this case these early experiences may lead to a child assuming that there will not be others emotionally available to help notice and process feelings, or to help them get back to feeling ok. So both regulating and labelling a baby’s feelings can be difficult for a parent whose own awareness of their states is impaired. And yet such family patterns of poor regulation need not be passed on to the next generation, because any adult can learn to provide attuned attention if they are willing, as outlined above.

Similarly, if an adult is not able to feel their own negative emotions such as anger or frustration, they will tend to try to supress or avoid them in their children. Often they will lash out at the child when the child is angry because they can’t control their own response. In that case the child will probably try to hold back their feelings, in essence to protect the parent from their own feelings. This is wholy inappropriate. The child then learns that they get no regulatory help, and will learn to suppress or switch off those feelings – which don’t go away.

One added complication is that the more sensitive the baby, the harder it may be for the parents to adapt to their particular needs. So sensitive children, who need the best regulation, in fact tend to get the worst. They are most dependent on their parents’ help, and also most likely to suppress their own needs to avoid strong emotions in the parents, that would disrupt their inner equilibrium. Sensitive children benefit especially from craniosacral treatment which can help re-establish important nerve connections and calm the nervous system when overwhelmed. Craniosacral practitioners are often also some of the few people with the capacity to form a good connection with such a sensitive child.

Feelings are all about survival and sustaining important social relationships. Anger indicates that something is wrong and needs urgent attention. If you ignore your own anger, you may get downtrodden by others. If you express it impulsively, you may disrupt relationships. A well regulated child can become an emotionally secure person who believes that their anger will be heard and responded too, and so they can manage it and express it in a controlled manner.

By age 1 these basic emotional patterns are recognisably in place. So proper attention in the first year can make a huge difference and supports the case for learning the basics during pregnancy before the child is born. Resonating with each other’s feelings is the basis of how we co-ordinate ourselves with others, and the degree of responsiveness and flexibility we have learnt determines the harmony and commmunication we can achieve, so it is a very important skill.

Identity and self-esteem

If we do not get the emotional regulation we need, our emotional systems develop poorly, we don’t learn to regulate ourselves, our brains don’t develop as they could, the stress responses are disrupted or set on constant alert, and as adults we may feel little confidence in coping as an individual or relying on others for help. At a basic level, if we can’t recognise our feelings or verbalise them, and have not learnt to value them as valid and useful direction for ourself, there is very little connection with the own identity. The consequent inability to regulate one’s own emotions can manifest as a profound lack of self-esteem, and is at the root of depression, addictions, failed relationships, and a variety of other social and work problems. Such people may retreat from life and focus on achieving rather than relating. But both neuroscience and phsychological research are indicating that relating is not a luxury, and having emotional needs met is essential for healthy human life. Lack of emotional attention in childhood can have severe consequences – hence it would seem to be equally important as food and shelter in the basic requirements for children.

Children simply need recognition of the psychological self – the thinking and feeling self. They need people willing to get on their wavelength, understanding how they are feeling, helping them express it, otherwise they can’t get a sense of themselves, or a sense of their own identity. Our sense of self is very dependent on this feedback from others. If there is little parental response at all, or it is negative, we can feel non-existent, invalidated and basically bad. It becomes harder to make sense of feelings without a framework of ongoing support and the sense of self becomes increasingly tenuous. And in practice this means that children need to relate to adults who respond to the actual present moment needs of the child, and not to their own idea, or an idea of what they think the child might need. They need adults who are really there.

You need a responsive and sensitive mothering experience to be able to apply this to yourself. Its not possible to generate an attitude of self-care without someone else first doing it for you. This reflection is how we learn our self-awareness. This is a genuine need, and children need to depend on adults as they mature. This is something that craniosacral and talk therapies can provide if you have not had the benefit of that experience.

Parents are often intolerant of dependency, which is partly cultural and partly the result of one’s own early experiences. It is often regarded with disgust and repulsion, however this often stems from fear of feeling one’s own hidden and deeply needy feelings. Other people won’t give what they are furious they didn’t get themselves as children. Either way, the effects can be very harmful for the child, who may be forced to be independent before their brains and emotions have developed the capacity to do so. This can cause severe stress to a child, or simply freeze and an inability to function at all. Even as adults, such children need to have a satisfying experience of dependency before they can become self-regulating and fairly independent. So there’s no way around the facts of how important attuned attention and emotional empathy are for developing self-aware, balanced and empathetic humans.

The good news is, that no matter what has been lacking in early infancy, as soon as people are given empathetic attention, they start to recover and grow. Children can improve very quickly, since the brain is still developing, and can learn to form healthy and secure attachments. With adults progress tends to be slower, nevertheless normal functioning and ablity to relate emotionally can be established, even though it may require more effort and determination. Human interaction can then begin to be a source of support and comfort, rather than threat and overwhelm.

“Good” Parenting

When parents respond to a baby’s signals, they are helping grow the baby’s nervous system, so that it does not get over-stressed. They contribute to proper brain development and a robust immune system. They help the child build up the prefrontal cortex and their capacity to hold information, to reflect on feelings and to restrain impulses. This will be the foundation of the baby’s future ability to behave socially.

The qualities of good parenting (and also of close relationships) are essentially regulatory: the capacity to listen, to notice, and to restore good feelings through some kind of physical, emotional or mental contact, through touch, facial expression, and finding ways to put feelings and thoughts into words. To be able to notice and respond to to other’s feelings requires importance to be allocated to feelings, and a willingess to prioritise relationships. This is a challenge to a goal-oriented society. Feeling is much slower than the thinking modality.

Craniosacral therapy is a method which can both help parents to slow down and feel, as well as children to develop their own sense of embodied self properly. It can also highlight the relational dynamics between parents and children, and give parents the tools to change them successfully.

Relating through emotional empathy with each other is the essential ingredient not only that makes us human, but that helps socialize children who can regulate anger rather than drop bombs on others. Its refinement may be a crucial step in our survival and evolution as a species. The effects are far-reaching, not just in terms of saving on mental health and hospital bills, but also for creating a functioning, co-operative supportive social life rather than a competitive, aggressive and separatist culture. Paying attention to emotions is essential for our global society to move forward since the connection to self they provide creates stability and clarity. And for most, the organising principle in life is feelings, and the meaning we attribute to them. People need feelings and meaning in order to live. Without them, they cannot find the motivation to contribute meaningfully to society, and instead become either draining or destructive. Therefore it is in everyone’s best interests to prioritise the capacity to feel themselves and relate to others, and taking pro-active steps with infants and children to ensure a good sense of identity and self-esteem.

Tagged as: attuned attention, brain development, calming nervous system, care of babies, causes of depression, Craniosacral therapy, emotional empathy, emotional regulation, good parenting, immune system function, infancy, parent-child dynamic, pre-frontal cortex, psychological self, regulating moods, self-confidence, self-esteem, social brain