I am less than a month away from completing my certificate in Cranial Sacral Therapy at Langara College!
(this is part of the reason my plate has been very full)


I AM SO EXCITED!
It's been amazing learning.  I am in reverent awe of how complex, ingeniously designed and wise our bodies are.  This modality is the best kind of deep listening mixed with gentle Nancy-Drew detective work.  

One of my long standing dreams with my nursing career has been to bridge Western medicine with Eastern medicine.  I was not sure which modality would lead me to this goal so I started to explore by getting on the table and getting treatment from other practitioners:  massage, naturopathy, homeopathy, reiki, shiastu, accupuncture, reflexology and so on.  

By the late fall of 2010 I had a eureka moment and became aware that Cranial Sacral Therapy (CST) would be a brilliant modality for me:  it was a subtle, holistic approach to healing that used human anatomy as a map.  What a great fit for my personality and nursing training!  I also personally had really effective and profound results with CST.  Most importantly, CST met my low tech criteria:  after years of delivering care in tech-heavy, resource-sucking, waste-producing hospitals (hello incinerated waste!) I desired a healing skill that I could perform any time, any where.

There's more to this story, including the very timely and essential sojourn into Quantum Touch training throughout the spring of 2012,  that I will write about at a later time.

Right now, I want to share a live update!
I am very blessed to be doing my final CST practicum at Tsleil Wau-tuth Nation in North Vancouver.  My Fridays for the past month and a bit have been awesome:  a morning drive to work with my sweetie, a walk in Deep Cove (usually with a dear friend) and a half day of really interesting clinical practice.  I have been warmly received by both staff and community members who seem universally curious and receptive to CST.  I am really enjoying the variety of challenges presented so it's a phenomenal way to finish off my 150 hours of practice time.

Between clients I have been scribbling down ideas and doing progressive scheming for the small and modest beginnings of my cranial sacral private practice, effective this Autumn.  I've decided to name it "Hello Stillpoint!" for two reasons: firstly, because the conversational tone is true to how I work with the cranial bones and secondly, I am simply in love with stillpoint.  A stillpoint is the dynamic silence between two points.  Stillpoint = naturally occuring zero point field of cranial rhythm, spaciously between inhale / exhale.  As a cranial sacral therapist, stillpoint is a profoundly helpful restorative and gentle means to healing.  Stillpoint is my friend :)

Through the summer months you will probably see a WHOOHOO I'm finished! and a WHOOPAH! Welcome to www.hellostillpoint.com post.  If you want to be the first to hear news about or low-cost treatments and complementary referral sessions please subscribe to my mailing list to stay in the loop.

Yours in keen studently delight,

These are my two favorite textbooks specifically about CST for any one who may be interested in learning more!

I have to confess:  May's been a bit of a BLERG for me.
I have been finding my plate loaded with some awesomeness:  really interesting professional work, bubbling creative endeavours and super-interesting crescendo of cranial sacral study all mixed into my usual blessed and full life (hello amazing partner, hello awesome friends,kitties, colleagues and dear family).

What happened?
I hit a huge blerg.  I got overwhelmed so I slowed down to take care of myself.  Good plan usually, except that my to-do list & goal pile remained the same so peeking at both of them sent me into EEP mode.  My eep mode looks like this: panic, anxiety, more overwhelm, freeze, hide under the covers leading to shame + guilt spirals with broad dashes of cranky topped with a few catastrophic "every thing is awful!" exclamations.  I doodled some captures of my overtures.  What do your blerg and eep moments look and feel like?

Though sometimes they are very uncomfortable and unpleasant, I think that blergs + eeps are part of the natural ebb and flow of life.
Peaks and valleys, natural rhythms of movement.  They are also awesome moments to tend to my ouchies and mind my achilles heels (susceptible to guilt and prone to episodes of trying to do ALL THE THINGS) so that I have insight and can do better when the blerg recedes.

Thanks for reading friends!
Love much,

Here are some of my favorite ways to take care of myself during deep blergs.  

ONE:
First I must introduce you to a dear friend, Little Woo.  She is a spiritual mentor and muse who is simply amazing.  She's ingeniously creative and her deep loving commitment to our local community touches many peoples' lives.  I have had the deep privilege and joy of taking some of her Epic Evolution workshops.

She writes weekly musings that are totally rich with wisdom and unique woo-metaphors.  Two of my favorite articles from her which I reference during blerg & eep moments are Saying No With Love and Easing Backlog Guilt.  I highly encourage you to check her out; she's truly a gem.

TWO:
Marie Forleo is generally the awesome.  I find MarieTV especially to be full of 6 minute wisdom smackdowns that are valuable and practical. Hells to the yes for this, thank you Marie!

My own compass.  What is interesting to me is that instructions on how to #dieawesome are the same as how to live awesome.  Not so coincidental, non? :)

It doesn't feel finished though.  I wonder what you would have on your #dieawesome manifesto?  Also, what does #dieawesome mean to you?

I would love to hear your thoughts :)
Love much,

These are my most favorite manifestos.  I look at them regularly to keep me fresh. Booyah :)

Sark: How to be An Artist.  For me, Sark is the original 
artist-entrepeneur.  From the 90's.  The first manifesto that moved me to be bold.  Essential thread in my whole-life-is-art-make-it-beautiful philosophy :)

The Desiderata by Max Ehrmann.  Eternal truth.

The Holstee "This Is Your Life Manifesto" - I love this story.  I love the proliferation of it across the internet in the past year.  It's lighting people up!  Another sign of resonant truth :) 

For a long time I felt like I led a bit of a double life.

I worked by day as a palliative care nurse.  I spent many hours at the bedside with families and caring for people who were nearing the end of their life.  By night I often was sewing and learning choreography which almost always climaxed with a jubiliant, dynamic and glittering pastie reveal.  Not many people whom I worked with knew the details of my creative life and few of my sequined family knew the details of my professional life, both rich and full as they were.

For many years I couldn't quite explain why palliative care nursing and burlesque stripteasing existed so harmoniously together for me.  When my "life plan" (ha!) fell apart last year I searched everywhere to understand how my passions could fit together with my work.  I could not for the life of me figure out how creativity / sexuality overlapped with wellness / dying.  I thank my lucky stars that I bumped into Alex Baisley whose keen listening and insight helped me connect the dots.

Here are the beginning reflections about how death & burlesque are connected for me:

 Burlesque is a fascinating, multi-faceted art form.  For me, neoburlesque became an important way of discovering and celebrating my body.  I became more myself, grew to deeply appreciate my physicality and learned to rock my curves after a youth of mass media influenced self-doubt & scrutinity.  Burlesque also allowed me to explore the sexuality and creative expression.  My incredible peers shared experience, skills, knowledge and passion for me to express with increasing freedom.  Performing burlesque became a profoundly awesome coming of age for which I am deeply grateful.  I learned to delightfully embody femininity.  Then I learned to play and explore, freeing myself from rigid gender identities and celebrated this thoroughly.  Best of all, thanks to burlesque, I learned that I could be whatever I wanted and hilariously enough, the world loves dirty, stripteasing anthropomorphic bananas. 

More importantly, I found that performing and the burlesque community were an important means for me to keep balanced in my demanding field of work. Burlesque connected me to an amazing community of inspiring artists, audience, photographers, costumers and make-up artists.  At once I had a large, beautiful, sparkling, international family who continue to challenge and enrich my creative life through their dynamic evolution and passion.  

Dancing dorky orange at Screaming Chicken Theatrical 
Society's Taboo Revuve, photo by Greg McKinnon (2011)

Performing burlesque also became an honouring ritual for me over time.  I would think of people who I had been fortunate enough to work with and allow my emotions to flow through my performance.  This helped me transform any grief and heaviness I carried into joy, love and wonderment as a tribute to their unique lives.  It may sound grandiose, especially since I often danced as plush fruit, but for me, it was sincere and profoundly helpful as part of my self-care.   

I'm inspired to share this because next week is the 8th Annual Vancouver International Burlesque Festival:  May 2nd to 4th.  It's one of my favorite times of the year because it brings together the local phenomenal talent with some of the finest international burlesque talent.

I highly encourage you to go and enjoy an evening of burlesque as this will be some of the finest onstage all year.  There's nothing like watching some amazing burlesque to make you come alive in more ways than one :)

In effervescent cheeky delight,

POST SCRIPT INSPIRATIONS
I love sharing.  I would like to share an awesome infographic and article which prompted me to compose these words.

I love this.  I'm all about infographic edutainment these days.  Thanks so much to justrandomdesigns for turning this fantastic Guardian UK article which captures the Top 5 Regrets of the Dying, as shared by Australian palliative care nurse Bonnie Ware (2012).

Next I'd like to introduce you to Jes, The Militant Baker:

She wrote anwesome blog post called Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls ... So I Will  which I wish someone had given me when I was a young suffering teenager.  In one fell swoop she captures things that were years of "aha!" moments for me, particularly through the awesome route of burlesque :) Jes is AWESOME :)