Mothering the Bones
- reclaimconnection
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
This past weekend, I took a 3-day workshop called ‘Mothering the Bones’, led by Angela Dechaine of Wellspring Craniosacral Therapy. This course intrigued me when I read about ‘tending the female pelvis’ – an area that I had not learned much about in my Somatic Experiencing training – and we would be taught how to touch and hold women in their pelvic area in a supportive and healing manner.
In my previous bodywork trainings, I have never had the sense of safety and clarity of purpose that I experienced in this course with Angie. It was obvious that she had given much care and intention to how she structured our learning to prepare us for the actual touch work. Two and a half days of learning about Give/Receive/Take/Allow, about negotiation, about creating a safe space for this most sacred of healing practices to prepare us to touch and be touched. Because of this care and preparation, when we got to practice holding and supporting another woman’s pelvis, the learning seemed to just fall into place. Feeling safe, feeling heard, feeling supported in both our learning and in our receiving care from another. Bones and tissues that had carried the energy of accidents, of difficult birthing, of caesarean sections, of various traumas, had the opportunity to be witnessed and to let go.
My pelvis has held injuries from falling on ice, breaking my sacrum, torn ligaments from a fall off a horse, in addition to holding deep visceral memories of very early childhood trauma. I was so incredibly fortunate to be a demo client for Angela and, as she ‘mothered my bones’, I could begin to connect into the sensations in my pelvic area in a new way. An area that had always been somewhat numb and foggy began to let go of years of ‘freeze’ response and I could feel aliveness return to my pelvis and spread down my legs to my ankles and feet. It made me wonder if the reason I have so much trouble walking now is because the lower part of my body has been ‘disconnected’ for most of my life!!
I can see that Mothering the Bones will be a powerful addition to my Somatic Experiencing trauma recovery work. But my real learning this weekend was about the care and intention that needs to go into creating the safe space for this most sacred and vulnerable work.
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