Jenna Milner

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. (13th century poet and mystic Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, also known as Rumi)

I find that when I am trying to solve a problem with my mind, or I’m uneasy about not performing well, I retreat to trying to make something happen. It’s especially easy to see this in clinical practice. When I started out as a practitioner, I would pray for courage in my sessions. I was frightened of uncertainty and preoccupied with whether and how I could help. It took all my strength not to try to make something happen — and not to try to know what was happening in my client. 

Yet the place of uncertainty, doubt, and not-knowing is fertile for our work. I’ve had so many sessions where the impulse to know what to do would short-circuit the unfolding of novelty, meaning, and healing that is available through the potency of unknowing. In fact, I propose that one element of mastery in Biodynamic Craniosacral Work is the tolerance of uncertainty and the willingness not to impose change on an inertial system.

The late psychologist and spiritual teacher John Welwood offers a brilliant invitation to stick with the uncertainty. This quote from The Psychology of Awakening demonstrates his resonance with Biodynamic practice:

The therapeutic dialogue, like any intimate encounter between two human beings, is full of mystery, surprise, and unpredictable turns. Therefore, great therapists are likely to be more interested in what they don’t know about their clients than what they do know. When therapists operate primarily from knowledge, they are more likely to be manipulative; when they operate from not-knowing, they are more likely to embody authentic presence. Letting themselves not know what to do next invites a deeper quality of stillness and attentiveness into the work.

In supervising therapists, I have found that they often have an inordinate fear of these moments of uncertainty. Therapeutic training rarely teaches people to remain open and alert in the face of the unknown. So when therapists don’t know what to do or say next, they usually feel deficient. And they search around in their bag of tricks, or else quickly shift the client’s attention to safer and more familiar ground — thereby leaving the creative edge of the present moment far behind. 

Osteopath Hugh Milne (founder of Visionary Craniosacral Work) points out that doubting a perception can actually be a signal that something is true. What the mind protests is unlikely to have emerged from the mind. Milne’s advice is especially helpful in the Fluid Tide, when the personal mind, though less constricted, is still a player. You might think, “That couldn’t possibly be where I should make a contact,” because: that’s not what my client wanted help with; I made that same contact in my last session; or I don’t know the anatomy well enough to touch the client there.

I still grapple with doubt — is there a biodynamic practitioner who doesn’t? — but the anecdotal evidence has piled up in favor of surrendering to the inherent wisdom within my clients. In fact, at one point my practice included many clients who had come up short after seeing numerous medical specialists. Some of them found relief from the only source that truly knew what they needed: their own inherent health.

What about you? Do you have examples of grappling with – or benefiting from – doubt and uncertainty in your practice? I’d love to hear.