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.
