Meeting My Inner Physician

Just stumbled upon this, something I wrote a few years ago, about a SomatoEmotional Release session in which my "inner physician" revealed herself to me in some surprising ways, personified rather than just a voice from within:

  

SomatoEmotional Release is something that may or may not occur spontaneously during a CranioSacral Therapy session. Sometimes the body stores emotions and memories, holding onto pain, trauma, or harmful beliefs. This therapeutic approach combines a light and gentle bodywork along with some energywork and dialoguing. For example, if there’s an energy blockage in the knee, the therapist might speak directly to the knee and ask for a reply. The client is to say whatever words surface, without discounting it as merely imagination, but to really allow it to be a message coming directly from the knee. This could also be thought of as receiving a message from the higher Self or what’s referred to as the “inner physician.” And sometimes the higher Self or inner physician is addressed directly to begin with.

So in this session, I’m lying on the massage table, on my back, fully clothed, as per usual. The therapist lightly placed his hands on various parts of my body to check the rhythm of my fluids. Then he assessed my “vectors” which is like a way of assessing energetic alignment in my legs, hips, and arms. He did this whole assessment pretty quickly and then immediately got to work.

I don’t even remember where he placed his hands at first, but the first thing I felt was the strong sensation of a wall in my chest. A brick wall. Eventually it turned more into a sort of tile flooring. Suddenly flashes of myself as a baby and toddler, sitting in the old kitchen, and then in my grandparents’ kitchen, came flashing through my mind. I started crying. My mind recognized these images as being from photographs or videos and couldn’t figure out the why of these images and the crying.

When the therapist checked in with my inner physician, first he had me go to a “safe place,” to imagine going to this place: the grassy lawn on a cliff, overlooking the ocean, with a willow tree and a bench. I’d been there before, but only in my mind, for work like this.

He encouraged me to invite my inner physician to meet me there. I saw an image of an old woman. I couldn’t handle her resemblance to me, and so she immediately morphed into an even older, cartoonish, witch-like figure. Possibly even one I’ve actually seen in a cartoon.

     And I felt fear.

I was scared.

I was scared of this all-knowing, magical woman.

I was scared of the power within myself.

My conscious mind recognized that this woman was really me, but my fear had turned her into a scary witch. Hard to trust.

     But I did trust.

I settled down into a trusting state.

The therapist started speaking to her directly, after first asking permission from me and from her. He asked her her name. The name that came to me instantly caused me to laugh, and my inner physician spoke through me:

     “My name makes Rebecca laugh.”

     “What is it?” he asked.

     “Helga.”

I was laughing more. Mostly laughing at my mind for creating this witch and this witch-like name, but trusting that it was serving a purpose.

Helga would look at me with love and tenderness, tears in her eyes and a smile, knowing all I’ve been through and all that I am going through.

I’m trying now to remember the first thing that released that allowed Helga to transform. I don’t remember, but at some point she started getting younger and younger and looking more and more like me again. By the end of the session, Helga had transformed into a sultry forty-something version of me, wearing a slinky black dress, smoking a cigarette.

That was my inner physician?

Apparently so.

It still cracks me up, that final image. An inner physician who smokes? I could psychoanalyze and speculate, but every time I've ever started to over the past 4 years, instead I just laugh, and the laughter short circuits that part of my brain that wants to explain. So let's just leave it at that.