One of the first questions I hear Biodynamic Craniosacral students ask is: “How in the world do I talk about this with my clients?” Here are a few pointers.
1. AVOID AN EMPHASIS ON EXCITING EXPERIENCES.
It is easy to fixate on generating an experience for your client. This is a risky strategy. After all, a practitioner can’t guarantee that the Fluid Tide shows up and knocks the socks off your client. What if the client has trouble even achieving a Neutral? In that case, there’s little chance of the more expanded states.
Besides, are we actually seeking states? I would argue that while fantastic experiences and expanded states are enjoyable, they are not the goal of a clinical session. Personally, I’m more interested in supporting my client to open the Midline and to achieve, sustain, and deepen the Neutral – that is, their receptivity to Health.
What’s more, if you are just starting out as a practitioner, you may not have a reliable perception of Midline or the Fluid Tide. But your ability to maintain your own Neutral will support your clients in achieving or deepening their Neutral…whether or not you have the perceptual skills to discern their experience.
2. KNOW YOUR OWN INTENTION…AND CULTIVATE SIMPLE LANGUAGE TO DESCRIBE IT. What is the nature of your professional practice? What are your clinical goals?
This pointer acknowledges that a biodynamic practice can orient toward a diverse range of goals related to physical healing, emotional regulation, and spiritual development. In addition, I encourage you to avoid biodynamic jargon. It is possible that some clients will benefit from phrases like the Neutral or the Long Tide. But in setting up a successful session, it’s important (as I suggested above) not to seek particular states, because we’re not looking for states.
Try talking to your clients, using broader statements like:
- This approach facilitates your inherent ability to heal.
- This modality helps you experience the transformative power of stillness.
- We’ll connect with the therapeutic agency within you that is already repairing, sustaining and evolving you. It’s already doing the work, and we will try to augment its capacity.
3. LEAN INTO YOUR CLIENT’S LANGUAGE instead of relying on concepts. Use their own language, worldview, intention, and experience to craft your message to them.
- Is your client a Scientist? (Quote quantum physics) or a mystic? (Quote Theresa of Avila or Eckhart Tolle).
- Does your client have concrete goals or practical needs, for example, are they in physical or emotional pain? (“This work accesses the health and wholeness that operate at a fundamental level, no matter what compensations are also present. Physical/emotional healing is often a byproduct.”)
- Is your client seeking spiritual development? (“This approach inherently resolves the unresolved tensions that keep you trapped in habitual consciousness” or “This work has an uncanny ability to connect us to mystery/divine source/our higher power.”)
- Is your client new to meditation or bodywork? (“Let’s try resting in stillness, and see what happens. Then we can talk about your experience if you wish.”)…or a longtime meditator? (“This work capitalizes on the same four stages of consciousness described by many other wisdom traditions. In Biodynamics, we experience the truth of those universal levels through the body.”)
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OMG, I LOVE this Jenna! It is clear, succinct, and very, very helpful. I’m looking forward to more of your writings about this work. I definitely have had a hard time articulating to clients what this work can offer….made harder for those oriented to direct work/massage who can interpret stillness as “nothing is being done, ” and “I am paying for what exactly?”I have been challenged as a BDC person with less experience under the belt to explain/describe the work in layman terms, or in their own language channel as you suggest. TY!
I’m so glad it hit the spot, Mary! If I understand you right, you mean that you’re talking to folks ahead of time about trying out this work, and they say, “No way am I interested in a modality where the practitioner does NOTHING!” In that case, the issue is semantic. Don’t use language that emphasizes that you do “nothing.” In fact, you doing nothing in this way is something that the client is probably unable to accomplish — and thus you doing nothing may be the key for their healing or evolution. You are attuning to the flow of health and the potency of stillness in a way that palpably engages inner processes for your client.
It’s not so much the practitioner’s stillness that is the issue, then, but the assumption of the client that nothing therapeutic can happen if “nothing is being done.” Many clients are astonished that the practitioner is not doing anything, because they experience how much happens.
Thanks for inspiring me to keep sharing my perspective. And I’d love to hear more from you about times when your language has come up short, so we can brainstorm as a community about what is most effective in communicating with new clients.
Thank you for the reminder that seeking an experience is a sure fire way to be disappointed. I find that the more I stay in the not-knowing the more familiar and comfortable it becomes, and the more I can drop into whatever experience is unfolding. It still can feel awkward and a tad ‘contrived’, but not for long. I started out thinking I needed to know what I was doing enough to explain in, now I just tell my test-clients that I am going to meditate while you rest and my hands will be somewhere on your body. This seems to be enough.
@Stephanie, I appreciate your comments so much. It can be very hard to put this work into words; but for our clients, the most important thing is that we accompany them in “whatever experience is unfolding.” If the session helps our clients to blossom in health and vitality and nourishment, then that’s what they will take with them (not our ability to articulate anything). And it’s not up to us to dictate what kind of experience will provide that for them. Please stay in the not-knowing…That will surely serve you (and your client) best of all.
This is so helpful! What brilliant language and flexibility to describe a non-process to many different kinds of people ☺️ Thank you, Jenna!
I’m so thrilled that it was useful for you, Merike. Would love to hear what kind of language you use with your own clients. And I’m chuckling about the word “non-process” for what you know is such a rich process. Ahhh, nothingness! Can’t beat it.