SOMATIC RESOURCES
For more information, contact:
Carol Verner, LMBT, RYT
MOVING INTO WHOLENESS
Telephone: (919) 933-2330
Email: carol.somatics@gmail.com
https://carolverner.com
Carol Verner owns Moving Into Wholeness in Chapel Hill, NC, a center for healing through embodied awareness. She brings 33 years of experience in craniosacral practice. She is a Registered Craniosacral Therapist with the Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy Association of North America (BCST/NA).
She is a Licensed Massage and Bodywork Therapist (NC# 1301), a Certified Somatic Coach through the esteemed Strozzi Institute, and is certified to teach both TriYoga and Yoga for Osteoporosis. Contact her to learn if in-person or on-line appointments and classes are right for you.
PRIVATE YOGA CLASSES
on Zoom or in-person by appointment
ZOOM CLASSES:
TriYoga Basics: Tuesdays 11:00 am – OsteoYoga: Tuesdays 6:00 pm & Wednesdays 11:00 am
IN-PERSON CLASSES:
TriYoga Level 1+2 – Fridays 9:00 am
By Carol Verner, LMBT, RYT
Developing a Relationship with Stillness
I’ve had a relationship with movement most of my life. Stillness was not something I thought about or practiced. Dance was my native language. In 1990, I injured my neck and felt discouraged that therapies I had long relied on were not helping. I had a life-changing experience receiving CranioSacral Therapy from a therapist who sat with hands on, still and present. She did no tissue manipulations, and yet the work left me mobile and pain-free for the first time in months. This got my attention!
I pursued workshops with her teacher, osteopathic physician John Upledger. I practiced this work for ten years, and was hungry for a greater depth of training. In 2000, I found this with Michael Shea, PhD, then and now a brilliant and dedicated pioneer in this work. I completed a two year 700-hour Foundation Training in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy with him. In 2003, I met my beloved Biodynamic teacher, Mike Boxhall. Mike traveled from England to teach advanced Biodynamic trainings. It was with Mike that I experienced the embodied depth of his stillness, the healing effects of his quietude, and began to develop what I called my “relationship to stillness.” Mike is gone from us now; I am so happy to have met this ripe peach of a human being who truly embodied what he taught. Mike would tell us, “The cause of most of our human suffering is undigested life experience. In stillness we metabolize our experiences and are healthier for it.” This became a deep motivation to develop my capacity to sit in stillness with another.
Much of my skill as a Biodynamic practitioner lies in my ability to still myself and experience my own connection to the vast natural world within me and around me, which naturally includes my client’s whole self. It is a field phenomenon, and the field is boundless lovingkindness. This is a life-long practice, one which I hope to improve daily for the rest of my life. I welcome you into this simple, exceptional “medicine.”
Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy is a beautiful, hands-on modality of the healing arts done in stillness and quietude, and with a light contact. Through my various areas of contact, I am aware of internal movements, changes, and processes. I am in a practice of listening to the individual and to the greater field of life in the moment. I am aware of activation and restlessness in a person, and of a natural shift to a state that Biodynamic practitioners refer to as “dynamic stillness.” Dynamic, because outer stillness often frees inner processes of healing. Clients often report reduced or resolved pain, release of binding tensions, and a most welcome and profound sense of wholeness and well-being.
The nature of this work can best be described from the experience itself. I asked some of my clients to describe their inner experiences to share in this article. Their responses have incredible value. They bring a range of experiences to you that illuminate the nature and efficacy of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. These five clients’ names are not included. My deep gratitude to each of them for finding words to describe what they have experienced.
“Carol has done hands-on work with me before and after surgery, as well as tune-ups. I find her work extremely loving, focused, and tuned in. After surgery, one is most sensitive and needs a therapist who works with great respect for what the body has experienced. Carol gives that respect. Her hands are full of knowledge of the body and she emanates a healing love. Slowly and gently, she helped me open up the channels so that vitality and connection could return to the places that had been affected in the surgery process.”
Biodynamic contact has few contraindications, and is safe for many conditions, even when a person’s health is very compromised. For example, after a necessary, but perhaps traumatic surgery. Most of us face challenges that disconnect us from our inner felt sense of wellbeing. We suffer pain in so many forms—bodily pain, broken hearts, overwhelming stress. How vulnerable we are! We are fortunate indeed if we have access to the kinds of care and support needed to recover and maintain our optimal health and happiness. The stillness and quietude of Biodynamics holds a form of healing that offers a potent “medicine”—experiencing our own vast being.
From thirty-three years in this work, I have come to recognize and trust the way Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy elicits an expansive state of being that has a profoundly beneficial effect on our physical, mental and emotional health. These following experiences reveal such inner and outer benefits.
“Carol’s Biodynamic Craniosacral work seems to work on the cellular level, bringing relief to my chronic pain. My whole body hums. I travel through vast inner worlds of my body and mind as if dreaming while awake, and my chronic pain is relieved for a time.”
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“Once the initial contact is made, I tend to quickly lose the sense of being touched. My focus becomes internal, and I feel more aware of the function and dysfunction of my own tissues. My mind focuses on visual patterns including memories, abstractions, and color mixtures. I usually slip into a mostly subconscious state, only awakening when I’m told that the session is concluding. A deep feeling of settling and calm becomes present, and in the following days long held patterns of tension and pain begin to shift in a healthier direction.”
There are many who find Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy to be a source of maintaining and restoring balance.
“The felt-sense that I receive during a Biodynamic Craniosacral session with Carol is one of inner wellness and calm. I want to be aware and present to what emerges from my body, my thoughts, my feelings. I watch with curiosity as these deeper awarenesses surface. At the end of the session I feel more spacious and peaceful, in touch with my heart and connected to life.”
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“When I receive a Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy session with Carol, I feel seen, heard, safe, whole and complete. My mind is clearer, my body is freer and my heart is more open.”
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Again, my thanks to these clients who bring words to their Biodynamic experiences. They have each so generously opened a window to inner aspects that simply cannot be seen from the outside.