How I Got Here: My Path to Practicing CranioSacral Therapy

I was in so much pain, I couldn’t tie my shoes. . .

It was the summer of 2021, the thick of Covid. On my first day working at a veterinary urgent care, I rolled out bed, unable to bear weight on my left leg without wincing from the electric pain shooting up my back. My job as a coach at a barefoot gym abruptly ended with the onset of the pandemic and I had to take whatever work I could find. For most of my professional life, I had been a dancer, choreographer, coach, and movement teacher- and all of it came to a screeching halt when Covid hit. I watched other teachers and practitioners simply move their businesses online without missing a beat while I struggled to stay afloat (and relatively sane.)

Working in vet medicine felt like a new chapter- an obvious transition away from something I’d done my whole life into an exciting new path working with animals. . . and on my first day, the spasms in my low back were so intense, I didn’t know if I could get my scrubs on.

It wasn’t the first time I’d felt these spasms. In fact, it was the same pain that sparked my fascination with the body and movement.

Dancing with Pain

As a young dancer in college, I felt alone in my observations that the techniques I was learning didn’t seem to align with the way bodies naturally wanted to move. If dance technique (primarily ballet), has any basis in function whatsoever, why were my peers and I injured all the time?

(SERENDIP Dance Company, Seattle WA —->)

I moved away from ballet to focus on modern dance, hoofing (tap), and African- styles that allowed for the freedom of human expression I so deeply craved. But something was still missing. Pain and injury were relentless and ever-present figures in my life, but no one seemed to be able to answer my questions. Teachers would say things like “that’s just how it’s done,” but weren’t interested in examining the difference between movement for aesthetics and movement for function. There was no requirement for- or even discussion about- Anatomy, Kinesiology, or Biomechanics for dancers.

I thought there must be something wrong with me, so I trained harder, stretched more, and kept dancing through pain.

It wasn’t working. Training to do what I loved prevented me from doing what I loved. So I went on a mission to learn everything I could about human movement outside of dance. I didn’t want to be forced into early retirement because of injury. I wanted to dance until I’m 90 and I wanted to help other dancers have longevity in their careers, too. I became a personal trainer, thinking I could learn to help dancers cross-train to prevent injury and recover faster.

Again, something was missing. After implementing everything I learned, I was still constantly injured and couldn’t seem to help my clients, either.

In 2014, I discovered a new movement method that changed the way I looked at bodies. It was cutting edge for its time, combining side dominance theory with biomechanics and somatic concepts. This was where I began to learn what I was searching for: not what movement should look like, but how it works. I learned about asymmetry, how muscles and joints interact with the nervous system, how the body responds to impact force, and how stored emotions create patterns that influence the direction of impact force in the whole system. It blew my mind.

This new method led me to a job at the aforementioned barefoot gym, where I learned to assess feet and gait. I watched a looooot of people walk, then used what I found to help them feel more comfortable in their bodies. I could troubleshoot my own pain, but still had  stubborn flareups and the things that worked for my clients didn’t always work for my body, leading to more curiosity (and frustration.)

Then I found CranioSacral Therapy. . .

Fast forward to that day in 2021 when I was doubled over with low back spasms while trying to get ready for a new job. During the pandemic, there was an appointment shortage for pretty much everything from dentists to hair stylists. Seeing a chiropractor or massage therapist was weeks away and I was not willing to be in pain that long. I called a friend who is a Feldenkrais practitioner in San Fransisco and he suggested someone he knows who is a CranioSacral Therapist.

I had heard of CranioSacral Therapy but never experienced it. Willing to try anything at this point, I picked up the phone and made an appointment. My first session lasted three hours, during which the practitioner, Dave Monette, barely touched me. He laid his hands gently on my hips, back, and the base of skull. He asked me questions about what I was feeling and where, but never adjusted me or used deep pressure.

When it was time to get off the table, I moved carefully, expecting the pain to stop me in my tracks. But there was none. Zero. Zilch. I tested my range of motion and could easily bend and twist without restriction. I was flabbergasted.

“You barely touched me,” I said. “How. . . HOW???”

Dave shrugged. “This stuff just works.” Then he suggested I walk around the block to see how it felt.

I didn’t walk, I floated.

Every couple of weeks, I came back to see Dave and each time, I felt better and better. He would casually make suggestions that I become a practitioner myself because my background in dance and movement gave me a solid foundation for understanding bodies.

“No,” I would say. “All that is behind me. I’m ready to move on.”

Make it stand out

It took about a year before I realized that CranioSacral Therapy was a missing piece to the puzzle I had been trying to solve. The subtle approach to working directly with the nervous system was a perfect compliment to everything I had learned about the physical, mechanical body. Using both the subtle and the physical could bring powerful results, not just to dancers, but anyone in chronic pain.

I felt ready to dive in and took a class in CranioSacral Therapy with Carol Gray, a local teacher here in Portland. After the first class, I knew I had found something special. It took me about ten months to finish my certification and I opened my practice right away.

Since then, I’ve had the joy of helping dancers and folks with chronic pain get their lives back. Is CST the end of my learning? Probably not. I expect that I will continue to study new modalities, evolve my practice, and work toward a more complete understanding. . . because there is so, so much more to learn.