"Love to Learn" was the tagline for my children’s Montessori school and as an adult, I can see how it remains just as important. This last month has been a particularly intense period of academic learning for me. I believe that it keeps the brain healthy and vital as we age.
This last weekend I took a review class in Craniosacral Therapy, Touching the Brain 1. Fascinating information was presented on the role of the glial cells within our central nervous system and how we use that information in craniosacral therapy. When I was in college training as a Physical Therapist, none of this information had been discovered yet!
This month I began training in a new touch technique called Havening. This technique can be used with clients, and also we can Haven ourselves making it a great self-help tool. Here is a good video to watch if you are interested in trying it out for yourself. The Havening organization has partnered with the Choose Love Movement so that this powerful technique can be taught in our schools and homes helping people navigate our everyday lives, particularly as we emerge from the restriction of the pandemic life. Here is a great article about the science that supports this Havening.
In addition to taking these classes, I am reading a couple of thought-provoking books. One of the books was given to me as a birthday present and even though I have only just started reading I am learning so much. It is called The Path of the Holy Fool: How the labyrinth ignites our visionary powers by Lauren Artress. One of the many highlights I made in the book was “Please excuse the inefficiency of my work. The nature of it requires such a high degree of complexity that I simply don’t know what I’m doing.” It encapsulated how I am feeling right now as I learn new information and apply it to my work! The author went on to say that “the complex problems we face can only be addressed by our intuitive and imaginative capacities.” That statement really struck me as important and sparked self-inquiry on how I can spend more time in my imagination or daydreaming and using my intuition. It feels like many things need to be reimagined both in my life and in the world. Another class I will be taking is on how to use the labyrinth to help integrate all that I am learning.
I had been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Anita Moorjani’s new book Sensitive is the New Strong. When Anita first told me she was working on this book a while back, I knew it was going to be an important book for me to read. Being sensitive or empathic can be a mixed blessing depending on how well we work with this sensitivity. As my good friend, Suzanne Scurlock says it can be an asset or a liability. A lot of my colleagues, myself included, are described very well in Anita’s book. I also find that many of my clients are in this category too, as craniosacral therapy is often a more natural fit for the more sensitive system. Anita has an empath quiz that you can try out and see how sensitive you are.
I hope you enjoy checking out some of the material I have described in this newsletter. And please let me know what you have enjoyed reading or learning recently.