Network Healing Centre
December 2008 Newsletter
(613) 725-0988
info@networkhealingcentre.com
Important Dates to Remember
Monday, December 8 – Network Spinal Analysis Workshop
The Centre will be closed for the holidays on the following dates:
Thursday, December 25
Friday, December 26
Thursday, January 1
The Centre will have limited hours for select practitioners on:
Wednesday, December 24
Monday, December 29
Tuesday, December 30
Wednesday, December 31
Friday, January 2
Regular business hours will resume on Monday, January 5, 2009.
Network Spinal Analysis Workshop
DATE CHANGE
Dr. Michael Tucker DC invites you to a workshop about Network Spinal Analysis
on Monday, December 8 at 7:15 pm.
There will be a half hour discussion and explanation about Network Spinal Analysis
followed by a half hour demonstration of the work.
Friends and family are welcome and encouraged to attend.
If you’ve ever had difficulty explaining NSA care to your family and friends,
now is your chance to let them see for themselves.
Please call Mary or Lisa at (613) 725-0988 to ensure sufficient seating.
Massage and Lymphedema Therapy
We are pleased to welcome Krista Dicks, BA, RMT, CLT,
who has joined Erin Whyte, RMT.
Krista is a Registered Massage Therapist, Lymphedema Therapist and
Certified Infant Massage Instructor.
Please call (613) 725-0988 to schedule an appointment.
Appointments are available Monday to Saturday.
This Holiday Season….
by Erin Whyte, R.M.T.
This holiday season…
Listen to your kids. Be patient with your parents. Spend time with your grandparents. Smile at a stranger. Donate food, money or gifts to those less fortunate than you. Spend an afternoon by a window with a good book and a steaming mug of hot chocolate. Choose to change one thing about yourself that you have wanted to for a long time. Celebrate small successes. Hug a little longer than you normally do. Hold hands with your partner. Bundle up and take a walk on a crisp, sunny winter’s day. Laugh and realize that that our mistakes really can be funny! Invigorate your life with exercise. Realize that you are doing the best you can with what you have got. Know that you deserve to be happy. Trust yourself. Be inspired. Share your inspirations. Encourage actions that help preserve our environment. Nurture positive relationships. Take time to reflect. Connect with an old friend. Make peace with yourself and heal old wounds. Rest. Be amazed at life and all its wonders. Never cease to find joy in the very small and the very simple. Move into the New Year with a sense of renewal, a clean slate and the desire to embrace every moment.
Disease as Punishment
By Dr. Michael Tucker, DC
I believe it is important to self-observe our patterns and myths that we live by. A pattern or myth we would do well to self-observe is that we may consider illness, pain or disease to be a punishment. If our disease is a punishment, it changes our story. We can have lots of anger about accepting the belief that we deserve to be ill. We can have feelings of helplessness about not having control over our own health and healing. We may have very strong and powerful instincts about a God, a Fate, or some other powerful authority that might send us an illness to punish us for being “bad”.
If our story is that illness is punishment, we do not allow personal insights, gifts or positive side effects to be part of our healing. Many illnesses prepare us in many ways to help prevent more serious and life-threatening diseases. Our immune systems gain wisdom from being sick. If pain is a punishment we can more easily become polarized into thinking of events in terms of “right” vs. “wrong.” We can get trapped in being “right” instead of being healthy and whole. We can have limited views of the right way to live to avoid pain and disease. If we feel that an all-powerful, all mighty authority judges us, or fixes our destiny in a manner we cannot change, then we may become less powerful and more helpless and hopeless.
Apparently many of us have an instinct or sense that we are bad and unlovable. We cover up this basic instinct with tension and defend ourselves from anyone finding out. If we are being punished we may feel not good enough or that we do not fit with our culture. We may frantically search to be fixed immediately to cover up the fear of not being good enough, of being unlovable, of being unworthy and of being in need of punishment. The frantic sense can lead to addictions.
In our bodies right now, we have over ten thousand cancer cells that will be taken care of. We replace cells a million times a minute, something that no lab can do at all. This process happens to both saints and sinners, both enlightened individuals and serial killers. We can all depend on our own self-healing. Some illnesses just happen, through no fault of our own. We are genetically predisposed to certain diseases and the environment modifies that tendency. Pain or disease often brings strength, clarity, wisdom, joy and compassion.
CRANIOSACRAL THERAPY AND THE STRESS RESPONSE
By Rosemary Brown-Tucker, RMT
Dr. Hans Selye, Physician and Endocrinologist, first identified the stress response as “fight or flight” in the 1930s. Under stress, the sympathetic part of our autonomic nervous system responds to the perceived danger by preparing to escape or do battle. In Peter Levine’s book, Waking the Tiger, he writes about the “freeze” response. When we confront a perceived danger and we cannot fight or flee, then we become overwhelmed and freeze. He writes that animals that respond in this manner shake out the experience through their body and limbs once the threat has gone. We have lost this ability to shake out our stress through human evolution and so stressful experiences can be stored in our bodies, eventually expressing in the stress response. If the shock to the system is severe enough it can remain stored or “frozen” in the tissues of the body for years. Even everyday events such as work, relationship conflicts, financial pressures, etc. can accumulate as held stress in the body. This accumulation of internalized stress can lead to a myriad of symptoms manifesting as headaches, anxiety, digestive disorders, TMJ syndrome, insomnia, chronic pain, and depression. The body will show signs of stress with shallow breathing, rapid heart rate, digestive problems, increased reactivity, etc. Feeling “amped-up” or “off” is another common sign of the stress response.
Stress and anxiety can be addressed in a number of natural ways, such as physical exercise, abdominal breathing, meditation, time off, laughter, positive mental reframing, professional counselling, etc. It is beneficial to address what is underlying the stress symptoms while also attending to the body, where the stress is held. CranioSacral therapy can be an effective approach to ease the contraction of the tissues and release “frozen” stressful experiences. This in turn leads to a calmer, more normalized nervous system, increased energy, and overall better health and well-being.