The Doing of Non-Doing
“What are you doing?”
“Are your hands moving?”
“Are you stretching me?”
I’m not doing anything.
Well, not exactly true. I am doing something, but I’m not doing anything to you.
I’m listening. I’m present. I’m holding. I’m trusting. I’m accepting and not judging. I’m acknowledging your incredible intelligence. I’m trusting that intelligence and your capacity to heal and repair yourself.
I’m doing non-doing.
When I do this, your body responds by showing both of us its story. It shows us its history and what it’s holding. Together we become witnesses, observers that hold the key to the door that opens the way for a return back to comfort, ease…. to health.
“It feels like someone's pulling on my right leg and my left shoulder, it feels like they’re stretching me”
“Can you hear that? There’s cracking in my ears, it feels like my bones are moving”
Out of nowhere intense pain shows up and then images from an event from 20 years ago. A hockey ball to the temple, the story unwinds. The held inertia releases and with it the pain. Other tension in the body leaves too, tension seemingly unrelated but all a part of the global picture.
A nervous tremor that haunts a sensitive soul. Its epicentre is locked deep in the tissues of the neck. It makes life uncomfortable, physically, mentally and emotionally. At the point where feeling safe and held makes it possible to explore the shape, the size and the story of the tremor, it has one last hurrah and then leaves. It’s departure brings a relief that’s visible. I’m now looking at a face that’s bright, eyes sparkly and years of held tension have melted from the jaw.
To be truly seen and heard for who we are, warts, moles, lumpy bumpy bits and all. It’s such a relief for our entire being. There’s nothing magical or woo woo about that. It’s about feeling safe. There’s an internal sense of safety that can’t be manufactured by anyone else but you. When you feel it, your nervous system comes out of alert. Out of the flight or flight mode and into rest and repair mode. Simple.
When you know that I’m not going to do anything to you but hold and listen. You can be who you are, show all your gloriousness and your dark ugly bits. I don’t want to change a thing, nothing. You can keep the stuck bits, the blocks. That’s ok. I can help you feel them, hear them and see them. Then you can decide what to keep, what to release and what to transform. You decide, not me. I’m not going to do anything, because I don’t have to.
But I will ask you… “how are you doing?”
This is a post by Danielle Rowarth, a Craniosacral Therapy Practitioner and Chi Kung instructor based in Melbourne - which explains CST in such a wonderful way that I couldn't say it any better myself! For more of Danielle's excellent blog posts and services see her website.
