COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Stress, shock and trauma cause the body to protect in many ways, creating patterns of tensions, pain and dis-ease. The treatment helps to peel these layers so your body can naturally reorganise into a more balanced state of health. Think of it like clearing out of the olds from your physical, mental and emotional closets to give room for the news that are suitable for your current fittings and needs. In order to reorganise your closets, you need to sort out what you have and what you can let go. Once you let go, there is room for your body, mind and heart to regulate and restore into a more efficient state, to enable you to flow freely between the closets and within the closets. 

Our body is a continuum of body, mind and heart, intelligently integrated to reflect our wholeness. Even when the continuum is affected due to stress, shock and trauma, we have an innate yearning to become whole. Healing, in its truest sense, is to become whole again. Despite our thoughts and feelings, physiology and psyche, healing wants to happen, wholeness wants to express Itself. Healing is to encourage the body’s innate capacity to heal, innate ability to regulate, for the continuum of body-mind-heart to express in wholeness, in returning to Health. Health is never lost. Wholeness is never forgotten. My primary goal in therapeutic practice is to support Wholeness to remember Health. 

Sometimes we can’t see our own blind spots, hidden away under obstructive layers – untouched, unfelt, unrecognised. It is useful to seek out a safe and supportive presence for healing before the nagging concerns become too loud to be contained. Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy is a profound therapy that can support you to feel and be present with your whole self to allow your awareness to flow and freedom to emerge as you digest the difficult feelings and sensations safely without being re-traumatised. My work is like an advocate for your body, mind and heart to facilitate an embodied awareness for change. As the treatment plan is governed by your innate intelligence to heal, your inherent wisdom always prevails.

Craniosacral can be therapeutic for a broad range of conditions and symptoms, with numerous benefits. A 2021 cohort study based on patients using the therapy to treat physical and mental, acute and chronic complaints, provides evidence of its effectiveness. Some of the treated conditions covered in this study are:

• Excessive crying, restlessness and agitation, colic, congenital deformity in babies
• Developmental, social anxiety, separation anxiety, attention deficit disorders in children
• chronic pain, fibromyalgia, fatigue, anxiety, post-traumatic stress in adults
  

Here are some of the reported effectiveness:

• ”less general tensions and more flexibility, the sense of relaxation and deceleration, and enhanced energy and inner power”
• ”intensify their body awareness, to view their symptoms, emotions and themselves in a different light, and to better recognise physical signals”
• “states of integration & physical/mental balance, which they described in words of harmony, calmness, happiness, being in the center, being normal, being connected to the ground/universe, and being safe”
• “gaining empowerment, including a higher acceptance ... an improved communication of needs, as well as a more relaxed dealing with stress and more responsible self-care”
  

This study shows the evidence of the effectiveness of the therapy as a complementary care. Its use of mindfulness together with palpation techniques to reduce sympathetic arousal, can support the body’s ability to regulate and restore. Go to 2021 Cohort Study for the full report.

Healing process is different for every person and vary each session. Increased in relaxation, reduction in pain and tension, expansion in breathing are fairly common immediately after treatment. Many report feeling "light", "expansive". Some people feel energised after the session and some may need to rest. The therapy has cumulative affects and continue to process for up to 3 days. Some people take a few days to integrate and some take weeks. Most people see improvement over time.

Healing process is not linear. It is a complex and personal journey, affecting the entire nervous system which in turn affect the endocrine and immune systems. This may cause some reactions  or seemingly setbacks that you may not expect, although positive changes are happening in the deeper level. One may feel discomfort for reasons such as:

• release of toxins as part of the body's natural healing process, presenting as headaches, muscle aches and pains, sore throats, nausea. Hence it is important to drink extra water to support the release of toxins. Once released, the discomfort should ease.
• areas of body which have been in shock or dissociated may "come online" or injured area may "wake up" which can be more sensitive or tender. The reason being that the protective layers are "peeled off" during the release process, with suppressed physical and emotional pain comes into the surface for reorganisation. Hence it is important to be gentle with yourself and keep yourself resourced.

If you do feel symptoms of your body integrates and reorganises, it indicates that changes are happening which can last for a few minutes up to 3 days in general. It should resolve on its own. Although it may appear to be a setback, it is important that you give your body time and trust your body knows how to rebalance and restore. Hence it is important to listen to your body e.g. rest when you need, and bring awareness to how you feel e.g. past memories may surface for you to reflect and digest. It is good to give yourself space for the past physical and emotional trauma to surface in order for the embedded patterns to be released and reorganised. 

Craniosacral is therapeutic and not designed for quick fix or one-off treatment. It is like your car or computer, it needs regular maintenance and updates. Similarly with healing, it is for your body-mind-heart to purge out things that no longer serve you to make space for greater health and personal growth. For most clients, initially you may need 3 to 4 sessions on a weekly or fortnightly basis to feel the effects. For chronic conditions, more sessions are recommended. Babies and children respond to this therapy fairly quickly and most may need only a couple of sessions to resolve immediate concerns. To support your optimal health, regular maintenance on a monthly basis is recommended.

If you are receiving other bodywork like osteopathy, chiropractic, it is recommended that you pace the sessions at least 3 to 4 days before or after your craniosacral session. It is good to give your body time and space to integrate. Often times, overdoing doesn't support the body to feel safe. Hence it is important to listen to your body and be compassionate with yourself. 

When you are in a welcoming friendly space, your nervous system turns 🟢, your body is prepared for social engagement. When you are in a threatening hostile space, your nervous system turns 🟡, your body is prepared for fight or flight. When you are in a combative deadly space, your nervous system turns 🔴, your body begins to shut down.  Your perception of safety dictates your state of being - physically and mentally. 

If one has experienced trauma, the body can be highly sensitised to perceived threats. Without being aware, one can live in on-going stress, anxiety, fear, with constant feeling of trapped, numbed, paralysed. These oscillations of reactions begin to shape the state of being.
The good news is we can halt the oscillations infused by 🟡 and 🔴, and start to regulate the nervous system to turn 🟢 This is the heart of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy.

Craniosacral is an advanced therapy that combines scientific understanding of the body with mindfulness skills to support safety. It works well with trauma by gently facilitating the body and brain to resolve held experiences and patterns without revisiting traumatic events. Our body and brain know how to protect and survive through traumas. Our body and brain also know how to release and repair the effects of traumas. You are guided into feeling and sensing your body, in an empathetic and compassionate relational field. This promotes embodiment and coherence of your body-mind-heart continuum, your physical-mental-emotional connection.

Mindfulness is the practise of being present in the moment and fully engaged in the present experience without judgement. You will be encouraged to feel and sense what is going on in your body, bring your awareness to the landscape of thought patterns e.g. my back is always painful even though at that moment the back may not present pain. Mindfulness helps you to be present and feel your body in a sensory way without projecting into the future or regressing into the past. Mindfulness is a transformative tool to re-train the mind to be neutral. 

Since birth, we are wired to connect. In order to survive, our body is designed to scan for cues of safety and danger. Similar with babies and children, they innately respond to feelings of closeness and safety of connection. Likewise, they intuitively react to perception of danger and threat.

In this process of neuroception (neural circuits reading cues), they navigate through a built-in hierarchical response in nervous system:

• Ventral vagal state (“social engagement”) – at the very top of hierarchy, babies feel safe and connected, facilitated by front side of vagus nerve.
• Sympathetic state (“mobilisation”) – in this activated state of fight or flight, babies feel anxious and fearful, facilitated by sympathetic nervous system.
• Dorsal vagal state (“immobilisation”) – in this shutdown state, we feel numb & frozen in danger, facilitated by back side of the vagus nerve.

As humans, we rely on being held, making eye contact, reading facial expressions, hearing vocal tones, feeling tender touch, to foster safety since birth. Whether it is adult, baby or child, these are our innate needs. Craniosacral helps to restore the Ventral Vagal State of safety and connection for babies and children, as well for co-regulation of nervous systems with their caregivers.

Babies are social nervous system beings and communicate feelings through seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. When baby’s needs aren't met, it feels unseen, unheard. Nervous system shifts to sympathetic response with crying, screaming, anger. This fight-or-flight response with secretion of hormones like cortisol & adrenaline is activated even when fighting and fleeing is not possible.

If its unmet needs prolong, nervous system shifts to parasympathetic response with dissociating, withdrawing, freezing – the last defensive mode. This response is immediate, without conceptualisation or differentiation. Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis is critical to regulate stress response. Hypothalamus regulates our inner state response through changes in hormones – a pivotal developing stage of baby’s sense of self.

Our system is designed to deal with ordinary threats to keep us alive. But when threats are overwhelming, ordinary stress becomes trauma. HPA axis is then over-sensitised, leaving imprints that can shape baby’s sense of self. Craniosacral can support the babies by harmonising its HPA axis and reduce the symptoms of overwhelming.

The therapy helps to resolve tension and stress during pregnancy, as well as enhance pelvic mobility to support optimal foetal position. Clients often report easing of symptoms like pelvic pain, constipation and anxiety as the therapy encourages natural rhythmic flow of cerebrospinal fluid and settles the nervous system, and more importantly their body-mind-heart connection, which in turn supports the baby in utero.

Many found the therapy resourceful during postpartum to ease tension and pain in breastfeeding, promote healing of surgical and non-surgical injuries, soothe symptoms of anxiety and depression, resolve stress and shocks arising from difficult birth experience and birth trauma, as well as co-regulation of nervous systems between mother and baby to relax and enhance bonding.

Body Balancing is a gentle biomechanical approach and movement protocols based on Body Ready Method®, focusing on the inter-relationship of your upper body mobility, functional core system, pelvis and pelvic floor resonance and your movement patterns. The goal is to   empower you with tools to create balance, optimise space and enhance functionality by priming your body for birth and postpartum recovery.

Together with the biodynamic approach of Craniosacral, the combined session lends tremendous support to regulate your nervous system and balance your emotional-physical needs while priming you with functional tools. Craniosacral and Body Balancing form the perfect consonance for you and your baby, working integratively from the inside out and the outside in. 

Continuous stressors in life cause you to be stuck in a state of hypo-arousal (parasympathetic nervous system shut down) or hyper-arousal (sympathetic nervous system fight or flight) or fluctuates between these two states. Over time, they lead to physiological, emotional, mental dysregulations, causing the immune, hormonal and nervous systems to be disorganised and incoherent which depletes our resilience – capacity to harbour the effects of daily stressors.

In order to bring coherence and resilience back to life, your heart can be used as the centre of regulation. It is most powerful source of energy in your body, generates the strongest rhythmic electromagnetic field. By maintaining coherence in your heart, virtually no energy is depleted because all systems are operating optimally, with synchronization neurologically, biochemically, biophysically, energetically (HeartMath® Institute).

As a Trauma-Sensitive HeartMath® certified practitioner, whether my role is a therapist, doula, educator or healer, evidence-based techniques of HeartMath® to bring more coherence is fully integrated in my work. Heart coherence is health.

For more than 30 years, HeartMath Institute has been researching the heart-brain connection and learning how the heart influences our perceptions, emotions, intuition and health. The Institute has developed, reliable, scientifically validated tools that help people reduce and avoid stress while experiencing increased peace, satisfaction and self-security. 

HeartMath® tools and techniques helps you tap into the power and intelligence of your heart – your heart’s intuition – which awakens you to the best version of yourself. As you bring your physical, mental and emotional systems into coherent alignment, you begin to experience increased access to your heart’s intuitive guidance. Tuning into your heart’s wisdom creates a profound shift within that helps you approach situations with more emotional balance, compassion, clarity and personal confidence.

HeartMath® helps me to be heart-centred and coherent, which plays a significant role on how I hold space for you, whether as a therapist, doula, educator or healer. HeartMath® is the foundation of my energetic offering - Heart Wisdom Healing.

Being a doula is my heart calling. To me, a doula is a gentle, nurturing presence that brings warmth and support to the symphony of birth. As a tender guardian of love, doula weaves together the threads of strength, knowledge and compassion, guiding expectant parents through the beautiful dance of bringing new life into the world. As a doula, my heart-centred and trauma-informed support services hinge on your innate power of birthing, your innate intelligence of intuition. 

Over the years of therapeutic practice, I have deepened my zeal in prenatal and perinatal health for mothers and babies. With all my skills and knowledge as a therapist, doula, childbirth and healer, my goal is to prime your body, mind and heart integratively and empower you for early parenting holistically.

You are unique and your needs are special. My ranges of services aim to:   

• prepare your body, mind and heart for empowered birth
• understand dynamics of birth and impact on your baby
• equip you with knowledge and tools for safe and healthy birth
• provide you with practical information on early parenting

I strive to give you a peace of mind with my array of therapeutic skills and evidence-based information. Whether your need is continuity of care, in-depth preparation or flexibility, whether it is natural birth, elective caesarean birth or home birth, I have got you covered:

• birth preparation and attendance - perfect for continuity of care to prepare and support at birth to give you optimal benefits using Body Ready Method® and HeartMath®, plus personal labour support and birth debrief
• birth preparation only - excellent for comprehensive preparation without personal labour and birth support to give you a peace of mind using Body Ready Method® and HeartMath®
• birth consultation - great for flexibility and gain benefit from some birth preparation. This is tailored to your personal needs even if you are not sure of your birth choices or if you are preparing for elective caesarean 
• Lamaze® childbirth education - group or private classes

In-person services are available in Sydney within 10km radius of CBD. Online support is available for Australasia time zones. Please go to Bookings and Fees for more on fees and book a Complimentary Chat to explore further.

Working virtually is an extension and expansion of my role as a therapist, doula, educator and healer. Distance makes no difference in my relational field and perceptual awareness of clients' needs. As with an in-person healing session and birth support, my stillness and presence meet you where you are and hold a heart-to-heart space to enable my role to be fulfilled. 

I am highly trained to work with relational and perceptual fields within which and from which our physical bodies are formed. In my deep attunement with you, my work remains very much encompassed as a safe container with my whole being as a listening antenna for your needs to be met and your process to be held, just like in a hands-on presence.

Online Craniosacral and Heart Wisdom Healing sessions are not distant healing which may be construed as channelling or sending of energy. As I would in any in-person session, my body acts as a neutral field to listen to what is happening in your body like patterns of stress and pains, movements of fluids and motions. The main goal is to settle your nervous system for balance and coherence to enable your innate healing to express. It is most suitable for clients who are immobile, prefer to be in the comfort of their homes. It is resourceful for mothers and babies where leaving home for appointment is challenging. Some clients have reported their sensations are even more apparent with shifts and releases are equally felt.

It works similarly with online birth support and childbirth education where my attunement and awareness are honed and refined with my relational field and perceptual awareness.