My First Craniosacral Treatment—Why It Changed Everything

I was five years into my massage career, working deep, working hard, and getting results… or so I thought. Clients loved my deep tissue work, but they kept coming back with the same tension, the same pain, over and over. It was frustrating—why weren’t the changes holding?

Then, a fellow therapist with whom I was trading a lot at the time begged me to let her do a Craniosacral Therapy session on me.

I resisted.

This girl was the other “massage terrorist” that I knew of. We both worked deep and hard on the muscles and people loved that. To think of her putting “5 grams of pressure” on me seemed like a total waste of time. I’d had a brief intro in massage school, couldn’t feel a thing, and honestly thought it was nonsense. But she was relentless. She kept bringing it up until I finally caved.

I thought, Fine, she wants to do it so bad, I’ll just waste 90 minutes of my time to make her feel better and let her share with me this ridiculous thing she thinks is so great. It’s just one massage. Then I can tell her that it didn’t do anything for me and I just want her to keep beating me up every time I come and she will respect that.

I expected to feel nothing.

Instead, I had a deep emotional release—tears streaming down my face for no obvious reason. And when I got off the table, my body felt like I’d had the best deep tissue massage of my life… without the pain. Without having to breathe through it. Without having to focus on letting that muscle go that she was leaning on. Without having to engage in the session and do a whole bunch of contract/relax to get things to let go. It was so much easier to receive this work and seemed to have an even deeper impact on me than massage ever did.

That moment changed everything. I had to know why this worked. So I started learning. One class led to another, and soon, I was studying osteopathic techniques and visceral manipulation, diving deeper into how the body truly heals.

Over the course of the next 10 years or so, I gained a deep understanding about how important the nervous system is in healing. I also learned how to work with the nervous system, and work on the nervous system to create freedom in the body to accept new changes to overturn deeply entrenched habits in the body… Habits of tension, habits of stress, habits of patterns in the joint capsules that had come from previous injuries or other traumas.

Now, I work with the body, not against it. It’s easier on me, more effective for my clients, and honestly? I can’t imagine practicing any other way.

Since I have started teaching continuing education, therapists I have trained over the years have sent me their clients that they had trouble getting anywhere with. I have always appreciated the opportunities to work with these special clients who needed the extra presence, the extra skills, and the novelty of what I do in order to jumpstart their healing process. I love to send them back to the person that referred them to me, so that they can continue their healing journey with them. I look at it as an opportunity for everyone involved to learn something from the experience. And I enjoy sharing with the referring therapists, with permission from the client of course, what the client needed in order to get over the obstacle they were facing.

Have you ever had a treatment that completely shifted the way you think about healing? I would love to hear from you about it!