Network Healing Centre
May 2009 Newsletter
(613) 725-0988
Important Dates to Remember
Monday, May 4 - Network Spinal Analysis Workshop
Network Spinal Analysis Workshop
Dr. Michael Tucker DC invites you to a workshop about Network Spinal Analysis
on Monday, May 4 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,
or wanted to watch how the treatment is performed,
now is your chance.
Please call Mary or Lisa at (613) 725-0988 to ensure sufficient seating.
Harmonized Sales Tax and Massage Therapy Exemption Petition
By Erin Whyte, RMT
As you may or may not know, in July 2010, the federal government is introducing a new Harmonized Sales Tax (H.S.T.) to all goods and services. What this means is that items that currently do not have the 8% P.S.T. will. So, in effect, you will be charge 13% on most everything that you purchase. This includes services for massage therapy.
The Ontario Massage Therapist Association (O.M.T.A), the collective voice for our profession, is seeking exemption from this tax hike for a number of reasons. As a member of this association I fully support their efforts and feel it is necessary to inform you, as the public and as a client, how this will affect both you and me.
First and foremost, there is the financial factor. By increasing the tax on massage therapy services, it inherently becomes more expensive. This will either eat away more quickly into extended health coverage or disposable income, effectively decreasing the frequency of visits that may be attended. As someone who provides therapeutic treatments, this will in turn mean that people take longer to heal from repetitive strain injuries, stress-related conditions and the opportunity to seek preventative care. The impact of this is that our already overtaxed healthcare system will be overrun with more serious but preventable diseases and also with easily treatable conditions becoming more and more chronic.
Under the Regulated Health Professions Act, Massage Therapy is recognized as a valuable part of Ontarians’ healthcare regime. But as there is a need for 5 provinces to be regulated under this act, we are currently still mandated to collect and remit G.S.T (5%). H.S.T. will add another 8% to a profession that is already struggling to earn sufficient income to support a family and that faces even more instability with the economic forecast. I am asking you to help petition the federal government to exempt massage therapists from the looming H.S.T. introduction.
You can easily support me and my profession, and ultimately yourself, by going to www.omta.com and following the link to “Fight the H.S.T.! Take Action Now!”. This will send a form letter to Premier Dalton McGuinty and Finance Minister Dwight Duncan.
Thank you!
Erin
Description of CranioSacral Therapy
By Rosemary Brown-Tucker
Craniosacral Therapy is a gentle, non-invasive, hands-on technique which was developed by Dr. John Upledger about eighty years ago. The basic principle of CST is that there is a subtle movement of the cranial bones resulting in a continuous rhythm throughout life. This rhythm of 6-12 cycles per minute in response to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) fluctuations. CSF pressure changes around the central nervous system creates a subtle whole body movement.
The CST practitioner uses their hands to finely discriminate the subtle movements of the body as a means of detecting disturbances in the rhythm which identifies areas of dysfunction anywhere in the body. There is a specific movement pattern of the cranial bones and the overall body with the CST rhythm. Any dysfunctions, distortions or constraints of the soft tissue or cranial bones can be detected by assessing these movements. CST treatment is aimed at restoring full CST movement patterns and the release of dysfunctional or abnormal tensions within the body.
CST is an effective treatment approach for chronic pain patterns, neurological conditions and traumatic injuries. It has proven to be beneficial in the treatment of traumatic birth, learning disabilities, developmental delays, TMJ, tinnitus, headaches, autism, soft tissue dysfunction and many other pain and neurological conditions.
Anger
by Dr. Michael Tucker, DC
Network Spinal Analysis (NSA) helps us feel better, but perhaps more importantly, NSA helps us "better feel". In the last month I have been wanting to better feel anger. If I can accept it and give it space, it can transform. "Being with Anger," the 23rd chapter of the book “Ordinary Magic,” written by Stephen Levine, has inspired me. I hope it will inspire you as well. The following are some excerpts from the chapter.
We have been taught that there were only two things we could do
with our anger. One was to reactively suppress it. The other was to reactively
spit it out. Both are forms of attachment to anger......Thus we come to
recognize a third alternative with anger and other heavy emotions. Rather than
pushing them down or spitting them out, we can let them come gently into
awareness. We can start to give them space, to get a sense of their texture, of
their voice, of their inclination. We begin to investigate the nature of the
anger instead of getting lost in MY anger. Indeed, to give anger space takes
courage. It takes acceptance, which, interestingly enough, is the exact
opposite of anger. Anger and fear are both strong aversion reactions.
Acceptance is a welcoming response. The very act of accepting anger begins to
melt it and gives access to subtler and subtler levels of holding.....
When anger becomes so intense, so identified with that there is no
space in the mind in which to investigate, you can come into the body and start
to examine anger as sensation. Because often you can stay mindful of anger
longer as sensation than you can as thought. It may be very difficult to examine
fear in the frightened mind, but it is always accessible to exploration in the
body-its denseness, its rapidity of change, its tension quite noticeable in the
gut, the throat, the lower back. Every state of mind has an
accompanying...state of body. By directing awareness into the body again and
again to rediscover the body pattern of anger, the mind does not get sucked into
reinforcing it. So that you can start to see some of its empty quality, so that
some aspect of it at least can be touched with mercy and awareness. Theroretically,
if we had no mind to be angry, still anger would be recognizable by the
contractions and patterns it left in the body, Indeed we could tell whether we
were joyous or frightened, doubtful or expectant, by the bodily echo of these
states. When we can't stay with the mind of anger, we always have access to the
body of investigation. And there we can find at least one more millisecond of
not being angry, but being with anger....
When we relate wholeheartedly to emotions, we can let go of trying
to be rational about emotion. To be rational about emotion is to try to fit a
square peg in a round hole.....To try to be rational about emotions is to go
crazy. The back wards are filled with people who are trying to think their
feelings rather than experience them as they are.......
No longer angry at anger. When there is anger, there is just anger.
When there is fear, there is just fear. And when there is joy , there is just
joy. We have room for it all. We take life as a blessing instead of a curse.