Om Santé

Bodies express rhythms. In cranial work we help people deeply connect with their bodies through the sense of touch and an embodied presence. We orient the client to listen and feel their internal landscape. It’s a journey from thinking to feeling and finding safety within themselves. We want people to find safety, we want people to find coherence and want them to feel the rhythms inside them to promote health.

William Garner Sutherland, the man who discovered Craniosacral Therapy has said that: “Bodies are self-organising”. There’s a vital force in our bodied that has an organising power and this is ever-present.

“We’re famously gentle, soft and still in our touch and presence. Touch gives a new story, a new pattern, a new context, a new perception a new set of data that switches people out of negative stories - it gives brain new information of safety. Touch works by changing the representation in the brain not by loosening joints, changing the position of muscles - it works by getting safety set up in a nervous system that’s constantly assessing the amount of danger.” Steve Haines, founder - bodycollege.net and author of the Strange Series.

We learned safety as babies through touch. In cranial work, we essentially provide the same neutral, listening touch. Safety and perception affects function. Safety makes new ways of experiencing life. Cranial work helps clients understand states of overwhelm, shock, overprotective and defense systems and patterns through the use of a safe touch. Such touch, brings back our primal learning of safety - much before words or language. By representing our bodies in safe ways, we diminish pain, diminish anxiety and overcome trauma.

Image Credits: Anshul Arora

I gave 2 sessions to an 82 year old gentleman suffering from Parkinson’s. The symptoms of Parkinson’s varies in every patient. When I saw him the first time, the primary caregiver mentioned that he’s not been sleeping at all. His memory is not sharp. He also would fall often in the nights when he’d wake up to use the washroom. Their major concern were the falls. They also had a regular physio coming to help him move his body and someone to nurse him 24*7.
The first session I gave him, despite all the list of issues I was given, there was such a strong presence of health in his body. It was pleasantly surprising. His body was very responsive. By the end of the session, there was an emotional of grief that he had not fully processed which came through. His tremors became lesser and his body felt a lot more embodied and calm. The feedback next day was that he slept through the whole night, which he hadn’t for a long time.
After a gap of almost a few months, I got a chance to see him again. His condition had debilitated and he was now on a wheelchair as his last fall was left him bruised.
When I saw him, he was on his wheel chair. He didn’t remember me which I expected. He has an amazing conversation with me. He told me what was bothering him, why he stopped the physio and how frustrated he was. He had a real conversation with me which he didn’t the first time I saw him. He told me he did not want a session, that there was no point to it. So, I asked him if he was open to trying gentle movements and he said yes, to my surprise. We did some fascial opening and through the whole time, he was mentally engaged. I gave him back the agency and the power to stop me when he was not okay. I did end it with a short cranial session. In the end he said - “There is no pain and no tremors.” He turned on his side and and got up by himself without support, grinning like a little kid who had tasted a sip of freedom. It was one of the best days of my life. Again that night, he slept not waking once. Because of my travel, I don’t get to see him regularly - but this is the power of the work. It empowers you, frees you, ignites the health in you and brings back your trust in your body.

We all have patterns. Some patterns support us, the others consume us. This recognise the patterns that support you and nurture them. Those that don’t really help you thrive, recognise them and move beyond them, change them, break-free from them.
This is when health is lived and sustained in its absolute essence. This will bring freedom at the level of the body, mind and emotions.
This will keep you strong yet sensitive, balanced and blissful!
Let me know of a pattern that you’re willing to nurture and the one you’re ready to break-free from.

The picture says it all! Sri Sri Meru Chikitsa is a powerful yet subtle treatment that works on the body-mind complex. We’re having a camp this Friday until Sunday in Kilpauk from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. It’s a 30 minute session that you can take on all 3 days and feel the change in the body, mind and emotions. You don’t need to have a condition to receive Meru Chikitsa. It’s a great way to prevent a condition or just maintain your health!
If interested, please DM or what’s app: +919884493987

We're launching 'DISCOVER HEALTH - A Holistic Health-Care Plan' which is personalised for you based on your physical, mental and emotional health and condition.

We're having two Free Online Introductory Webinars, one on September 4, 2022 & the other on September 10, 2022.

To sign up, please fill: https://bit.ly/3THUVMG or Whats App us at: +919884793987

Posted • When we think about memory, we tend to think of a space held deep within our brain.

But in all our years of neuroscience, we've never found a section of the brain that holds long term memory. It turns out, the hard drive of memory of human life may instead reside within our skin — the fascial plane of the dermis and the sub-dermal area.

From this angle, we can reimagine our skin not only as a barrier against air pollution and sun, but as the ethereal interface between space-time, gravity, and who we are.

Craniosacral Therapy, using a light therapeutic touch promotes health of the fascia, lets it glide and smoothens any restrictions and releases emotional holding leaving you feeling light, embodied, and supported.

We bring you Chennai's First-ever Multi-Specialty Health Care Plan to help you with your physical and mental conditions.
We offer a customised treatment plan which is non-invasive, holistic, natural, safe and scientific that treats the body, mind and emotions.
Sign up for our webinar to know more!

The first ever CST Camp in Coimbatore on July 8, 9 & 10 organised by Ms. Priya Menon & Ms. Poornima. To book an appointment at your convenient date and time, please find the link in the bio or call/what’s app: 8971944597 | 7676891391 | 9884493987
Come and experience the power of BCST and improve your health.

When in pain, balance between rest and movement.
Rest deeply, move slowly and gradually increase pace, intensity and volume.
Your body will give you the cues on when you need to rest and when to move. Be sensitive to your body and listen to the cues.

Follow us for information on pain and health. If you are ready to experience it and discover health, then call us for a consult.

Anxiety Troubling Your Teenager? Discover a way out of it.
To Register for the talk, please DM and we’ll send you the details.
This talk is for parents and teenagers and it is free, so please do come!

Humans are social beings. When we don’t connect with our fellow species, with the surroundings, with nature, with other living species - it means the neurons are under stress, distress and dis-ease.
When we are healthy, connection is a natural phenomenon. Craniosacral Therapy supports in returning these pressured, dis-eased and stressed neurons to a sense of safety, balance, strength and health.
Book your appointment to experience the depth and power of health and balance. Call for appointments: 9884793987.

Classic example of ‘Health is always present.’ In Craniosacral Therapy, we support the health and the organising forces in the body to help you with your condition/trauma/pain.
The client wishes to stay anonymous and we respect their privacy. We are grateful to Leela for sharing her experience to the world. .

Change your narrative on Pain, Trauma & Health with Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (BCST).
Experience the power of getting in touch with the body’s innate health and intelligence to release and overcome pain, trauma, anxiety, chronic disorders and fatigue with BCST.
Book your appointment with Nikita vasa, a practitioner and Assistant trainer of BCST on April 2 & 3 (Saturday & Sunday) at a discounted fee.
If you’d like to experience the therapy or know of a loved one, friend, family who would be interested or would benefit, please click here: https://bit.ly/experiencebcst and fill out the form.
Only 16 slots available, so book at the earliest!
To know more about this therapy visit: www.omsante.in (link in the bio)

How clients feel after Craniosacral Therapy Sessions.

Whether it’s pain, anxiety, trauma or fatigue - it begins with the nervous system going off balance.
A butterfly touch is all the nervous system needs to unwind, balance and strengthen. DM/Call for an appointment.

You read it right. Anxiety is not always in the mind, it can be in your gut.
There are more microbes in your gut than cells in your body. And these trillions of microbes that live in your gut produce chemicals that affect how your brain works. This is a scientific fact.

Our brain and gut are connected via nerve cables and chemicals called neurotransmitters. Even though they have a long-distance relationship, their communication is pretty strong. The gut produces specific chemicals called GABA that help control feelings of fear and anxiety.

So, when you have gut disorders, guess what happens? It affects the production of GABA and many other chemicals that influence the brain leading to a spectrum of anxiety and emotional disorders. Appetite, sleep, memory, intelligence and creativity; our markers of growth are the first one's to get affected. There's a lot more that happens in the body. The central nervous system, immune system and endocrine system begin to disregulate, making a person susceptible to infections, pain and trauma.

How can BCST help with Gut disorders and anxiety?
BCST supports re-balancing of the central nervous system by increasing the vagal tone in the body. Once the vagus is back in action, the rest of the systems come back into balance. It supports re-production of the gut chemicals and clears the way for smooth gut-brain communication, thereby building resilience to anxiety.

If you have chronic pain, anxiety, fatigue or trauma and you've been through various treatments, therapies and procedures but nothing has helped?

Join the Free Introductory Talk and find out how Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy can help you with your physical/mental/emotional condition.

*Event Details:*
*Date: October 17, 2021 | Sunday
*Time: 12 noon
*Medium: Zoom
*20 spots only

*What will the talk cover?*
• What is BCST?
• The Science behind the Therapy
• BCST for Pain & Trauma
• Who can take this therapy?
• What conditions it can treat?

*Bonus*
Experiential Awareness Exercise
Free personal 15 minute telephonic consult

To save your spot call +919884793987.

At Om Santé, we believe that health is never truly lost, it can only get compromised. We also believe that there is wisdom in our bodies and we need to listen and connect to this wisdom to promote overall holistic health and well-being. It is said that anyone can find a disease, it takes a good practitioner to find health and amplify it and that’s what we do in this therapy.

Do sign up and see you soon!

Most often the mind and the body have a different story going on. While the mind which perceives the event or the pain has something different to narrate, the body holds within something deeper, something that's in the "Will deal with this later" box.
When someone comes into my clinic with a diagnosed condition, usually there is a mismatch in the two stories because the mind/psyche has forgotten those little boxes that seem to be locked at various places in the body. Survival does that to us, but unfortunately leaves us with pain, stress and a lot of unprocessed emotions, feelings and sensations.
So then what do we do?
The most sustainable and safe way to manage, release and recover from pain, anxiety and trauma is learning to feel your skin and the insides; LITERALLY. The language of the body is that of feelings and sensations. Those are the clues to what really happened which help connect the probable missing dots (boxes) to the mind's story.
Once the two get an opportunity to connect, the locked boxes that were lost, are then found and lasting resolutions occur. When this happens it doesn't just bring change at a superficial level, but brings a shift to your perception, expression and eventually to the quality of living.
DM your Name and Whats App number and avail a Body Awareness Exercise recording that can help you get better and deeper at connecting with your body.

Funghi was her all time favourite pizza, not to mention loaded with cheese. She’d add extra virgin olive oil to make it extra everything. She’d normally have it with her girls and with a lemonade by her side. It was her go to pizza on days when she was happy, sad and well just about anything in between.
She then ordered it with a boy. They were the best times; all her favourites with her. They would ‘pizza it’ when things were happy, sad and everything in between. The sad took over everything in between them. Eventually they moved on different paths.
Years later she got married, but never ate her favourite funghi. She still ordered pizza when she was happy sad and everything in between but with the instruction: “No mushrooms on my pizza please.” Something within her was not her. Something alien took over her, with or without permission.
Some more time later she was at her friend’s bachelors. They ordered pizza with mushrooms in it. When the pizza arrived, she saw her favourite funghi staring at her, this time loaded with memories. Memories she had buried so deep, blew up like a volcano. She couldn’t eat even though she was starving. And she didn’t.

Memories can awaken places we’ve numbed, places we don’t want to visit. But the body always remembers what we bury. Working with your trauma is not easy, never easy, but never impossible. I have known BCST to be one of the most powerful ways to help one work with their trauma safely and at a pace they choose. It is possible to move on and with your body moving on with you too. The past, this way, will not be in the present.

Repression overloads the nervous system and dissociation feels like 'no body is home'. What becomes a way of survival and protection, if left undigested and unprocessed leads to a hardened personality, automated stress loop and physical illness.
Emotional awareness, body awareness and self-awareness helps digest and process the repressed emotions and dissociative feelings. This is not just essential to overcome a condition, but to understand health and lead a healthy and balanced life.

: We act to a potential danger or threatening event based on our internal resources and the energy available within us at that point in time. And this results in whether the action is to fight the danger, run away from it, or go through a freeze or a shut down. All these 3 states are ways for our brain to protects us to survive the danger in the best possible way.

Now, whether fight, flight or freeze - if we are able to complete the process successfully, then any further tension or stress in the body gets dissipated naturally. But if there is an incompletion in processing the response, the impression of that shock gets held as a pattern in the body. Now this held pattern is unique to each person - both at the level of the tissue memory and at the level of the psyche.

An important thing to note here is, based on how successful we have been with either of the states, our brain memorises the success of each state/response and then it creates a neural pattern which then acted over a period of time becomes our automated response to any similar potential danger or threat. And for most of us, this automated response becomes a constant state of “feeling stuck” psychosomatically.

So, now what is the role of BCST in this?
1. It gradually disrupts the automated state of “feeling stuck” by amplifying signals of safety to the brain through a light touch.
2. If the body is in a state of held shock at the level of tissues or fluids, it supports the release of this shock without re-traumatization thereby regulating and balancing the nervous system.
3. If the body is in a state of freeze or dissociation, it brings back a whole body connection with the scientific know-how of the body’s innate connective tissue matrix.
4. Holding trauma in the body eats up energy you gain through food, sleep, exercise and breath leading to unexplained exhaustion and lethargy. With the release of these holding forces, it gradually builds on to the natural energy reservoirs in the body making one feel light, vibrant and expanded.
5. And most importantly, BCST helps you gain the skills of feeling embodied and listening to your body which helps in building resilience to trauma and a healthier body-mind complex.

I’ve seen so many clients release held states of shock. Each of them had given up hope, had forgotten who they are and never thought they could feel alive, joyful and vibrant again. It’s okay to feel what you feel and it is brave to seek support to help yourself.

We all seek the unconditional, whether we recognize it or not. Conditional is limiting, it can create pain and lead to suffering. Unconditional is freedom, acceptance and support.
In Biodynamic Craniosacral treatments, holding the unconditional is holding safety, vitality, empathy, intelligence and stillness. This lets the original health emerge and results in holistic healing.

During a BCST treatment session, there occurs a time when the whole body goes still. This can occur for a few moments or a few minutes. It is in this period of stillness that the body recuperates, potentizes and finds greater access to health. These points of stillness often are the key to reprogramming the nervous system, bringing structural alignment and tensegrity, rebalancing the body's chemistry, allowing more expansion within and greatly impacting cellular breathing.

Personally for me, it is a moment of connection, not just to the source of health but to life itself. It is the most humbling moment to see holistic shifts that occur in one's body and it's deep impact on one's state of mind and quality of life. It's precious and it's so beautifully accessible!

: The simplest definition of trauma is when something is unbearable, intolerable, incomprehensible and overwhelming. The essence of trauma is when the mind-body complex feels and stays stuck.

Trauma robs you of the feeling that you are in charge of yourself. It makes you feel that the situation or event is bigger and more powerful than you to an extent you feel damaged beyond redemption.

Anxiety or depression; the fear of losing control; always being on alert for danger or rejection; the self-loathing; the nightmares and flashbacks; panic attacks; suicidal tendencies; immobility; hyper-sensitivity; insomnia; the fog that keeps you from staying on task and from engaging fully in what you are doing; being unable to fully open your heart to another human being: trauma changes who you are at the level of the body, mind and heart.

Trauma can be a single event or an accumulation of many events. There’s nothing that says one trauma is bigger or more difficult than another. It fully depends on the person who is experiencing it. Understanding trauma, dealing with trauma and recovering from trauma, depends on and needs one to think about these factors:
1. How has their nervous system been conditioned and cultured to face difficult times from a young age?
2. Was he/she able to process the trauma fully?
3. Was he/she able to release excess stress from the body, emote freely, find support and slowly build enough resources to cope?
4. Or did it leave patterns in the body, conditions in the body, patterns in the mind, conditions in the mind, patterns in behaviour and action?
5. Are there residual triggers that go off when faced with something similar - consciously, sub-consciously and/or unconsciously?

A biodynamic touch, a supportive touch, an un-pressured touch and an empathetic presence in a therapeutic setting has the power to stimulate signals of safety to a brain which is stuck at defence mechanisms and hyper-vigilance; beginning the journey towards recovering from trauma.

In the next post I’l talk about the responses of the nervous system in trauma and the different states we experience.

My understanding of trauma has been as much personal as it has been clinical. I'll tell you one of my biggest learnings: trauma changes how the body works, how we think, feel and emote; and it imprints our memory.
I'll be sharing my insights and understanding of trauma in my series and the impact of BCST in trauma recovery.

Switching off pain.

We’ve heard that knowledge is power, and yes knowing about our pain begins our journey towards pain relief and recovery. Here’s a revelation: Our internal tissues heal within 3-6 months of ANY injury. At this point pain is essential as it protects us from further damage and aids safe tissue repair.

So why and when does our brain get stuck in feeling pain?

Our brain is essentially and constantly interested in this most important question: ‘Am I safe?’ If your brain is influenced by past memories of danger or threat or trigger, it’s not going to be able to resolve, thereby keeping the pain alive.

Danger is bad news that travels fast in our 3D nervous system, sensitising it and thereby creating a false-alarm which is constantly on high alert.

Finally, some good news: The science of neuroplasticity tells us that the same nerves that can amplify danger can also unlearn pain. Nerves learn to re-wire and desensitise with signals of safety.

Here are ways to amplify signals of safety and turning down the false alarm system:

1. Move: Move safely, creatively and differently. It may hurt a bit in the beginning, but take baby steps. Be patient with yourself and stay consistent. Movement creates safety signals, re-trains the nervous system and releases excessive nerve charge that gets locked in the body because of sensitisation.

2. Body mapping: Give your brain a tour of your body in real time with body mapping techniques. These are simple but super effective and powerful. The more the brain learns to feels the body through awareness and attention, the more it feels safe and grounded.

3. Titrate with health: Locate places of health in your body. Give that place a colour, texture, size, shape and quality. Now bring the area of pain into your awareness and titrate between the two places, making sure you stay with health longer than you stay with pain. And slowly see how health catches on.

4. Go down memory lane, identify the things you loved and enjoyed doing and make time to do those things. Or learn something new. It keeps the brain agile and generates signals of safety.

Pain is like a cocktail. Read on.
Well, I have unlearnt so much about pain in these last few years thanks to my BCST journey and the amazing, ever-evolving new pain science. (Yes, we now have pain scientists!)
So, what’s pain? Simply put: pain is an output, an alarm signal from our brain to tell us that something needs attention and spot-lighting it. Pain is a meant to be a friend, it’s meant to protect us. If we didn’t feel pain we’d keep hurting yourselves.

And yes, pain is real! You can’t imagine pain. It is a tangible, physical sensation perceived by our brain. And here's an intriguing fact: Pain cannot be measured by what can be seen on imaging or scan reports. There’s no equation that says the deeper the injury the more the pain or the smaller the injury the lesser the pain. Yes, that bubble has been bursted by new pain science.

Now, how we respond to pain is unique to each of us. Our brain custom-makes our own unique sensation, quality, volume and intensity of pain based on all of our past life’s experiences. Two people with the same injury and circumstance can feel pain very very differently. And knowing this is essential in treating pain, especially chronic pain.

Think of pain as a cocktail.
1. It has a physical representation: injury, compensation patterns, weight-bearing patterns, posture-related patterns and much more.
2. It has mental and emotional representations: Yes, thoughts, feelings and emotions have corresponding physical sensations in the body.
3. And it has a memory attached to it: Consciously, unconsciously and subconsciously we capture experiences that stay in our memories - interestingly even as tissue memories in the body, as many new pain studies show.
So, when pain who’s job is meant to protect us, becomes ‘the problem’ what do we do then? More in the next post.