Complimentary Friday-- A Different Course

Welcome to Complimentary Friday's. With this post, and in the Friday's to come, I'll be creating a space to throw out some different ways of thinking, offer broader perspectives, introduce the different alternative therapies I've studied and experienced, and chronicle my quest to find my own wholeness. It is a post that will be focused on a more holistic approach to healing. So, if you're interested, open your mind and read on, my friend!

My Journey Continues. . .

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I got my start in alternative therapies. In that post, keeping the long story short, I mentioned that I had enrolled in two schools. Today I'm going to make the short story long, and write about how I ultimately ended up choosing the courses of training that I did.

One day while at Karyn's home, my eyes zeroed in on a book that was on her shelf called The Bright Red Bow. I took the book and began to read through it. I immediately recognized the author from a meeting I had been invited to several months before where she demonstrated an emotional release technique. As I was looking through this book, Karyn walked in, told me she had another copy and that I could keep this one if I wished. I took her up on her offer and read the whole thing before the next day was through. It tells the story of a woman and her journey to find healing and inner peace, and outlines the four step emotional process that she had learned and further devoloped. This woman, Pam Robinson, was currently teaching her personalized technique at a school she had opened up called The Institute of Healing Arts. I knew right then and there that this was the school I wanted to attend. However, we were short on money and I was concerned that if I were to go back to school it would need to be in something that I felt would safely offer me job opportunities to fill my time now that my youngest had just started school. So I ignored what I really wanted and made a decision to sign up for the largest, most reputable massage therapy school in our county. And yet I worried about the time committment and high tuition prices for this school. I wasn't sure how we were going to handle it all, but I had learned to be resourceful with our time and money while my husband had been in school, so I figured we could find a way to make it work. Beyond this, I held some pretty major negative beliefs about the physical body back then. My experience had been that my body was nothing but a burdensome betrayer that brought about a whole lot of pain, suffering, and weakness. In the end, I decided that this belief was precisely why I needed to enroll in a school of body work. My hope was that it would provide new experiences that would give me an appreciation and ability to find the gift that the human body is. At this point, I had just lost about 70 lbs and was still losing, giving me the courage I needed to move forward and face the issues that had caused me to put the weight on in the first place.

With about a week left before I was to start, I ran into a new aquaintance. In our conversation, she began to tell me about an iridologist she was going to who was also a graduate of the Institute of Healing Arts. As she spoke about this woman, I felt tingles spread through my body, and I knew I needed to call her--though I had no idea why. I called and scheduled an appointment right away. Our meeting was interesting--but nothing more. I had my list of suggested suppliments and was checking out a business card of a suggested body work I had never heard of before called Craniosacral Therapy. Then afterwards as we were chatting about my plans to go back to school, she said something like, "Can I ask you a question? After hearing you talk I'm curious as to why are you going to massage therapy school. It really feels like you have a far greater interest in emotional release therapy." I told her about my reasons, and she then proceeded to tell me I might want to check out a small school for advanced massage therapies called Cotton Tree Academy that had an emphasis in Craniosacral therapy. She explained how this therapy often includes emotional components and that it might be more suited to what I was looking for. I called and scheduled an appointment to check out the school the very next day. The minute I walked through the door, it felt right. I found out that this school met the requirements needed to get my license in massage therapy, but was not accredited, making the tuition less than half the amount of the other school and would only require one full day of classes per week plus clinic hours which I could choose to fill with the times of my choice. Then, I know this may sound silly, but just before leaving as I was being shown around the school, I saw a picture of Jesus hanging on the wall of the instructors personal therapy room. I felt the tingles again--it felt like this was the place I was being led to. The interesting thing is, the very next time I walked in that room the picture was not there, and I never saw it again.

Visiting Cotton Tree Academy (which I would link, except it no longer exists), got me thinking--and the more I thought, the more excited I became. Previous to this, I had already checked out the Institute of Healing Arts and found the time commitment and cost to be about the same as Cotton Tree. I realized that I could enroll in both schools for less time commitment and still less money even combined than the school I had originally signed up to start the next week. By the end of that week, I had called and let the first school know I was not going to be attending and had enrolled in the other two.

I started Cotton Tree Acedmeny of Advanced Massage Therapies in March of 2002 and The Institute of Healing Arts the following month. The class sizes were small, with only about a dozen of us in each. The instruction was fascinating, the instructors very gifted in their respective therapies, and my classmates were fantastic--many of which I have remained good friends with until this day. And although it was a very intense year, I wouldn't trade the education and experiences I gained for the world.

In the coming weeks I will be posting the specifics of some of the therapies I became trained in which include Craniosacral therapy, Swedish massage, Reflexology, Visceral Manipulation, Structural Integration (similar to Rolfing), Touch for Health, Lymphatic Drainage, and Acupressure, as well as the Four Step Emotional Process.

Next week if all goes well, I will be posting about Craniosacral Therapy.