I have a website for my private bodywork practice. It’s a big and important part of my life. I haven’t posted much here on this blog about my work (although I posted a lot about Biodynamic Meditation), so I’m going to do that occasionally, keeping my clients’ identities private but letting readers know something about what this work is like.

I had a good week last week. On Monday, I first talked to a young woman who had signed up for a free 15-minute discovery call. Her father had seen me as a bodywork client and had asked if she could get in touch with me since she was going to be a massage student. I said yes. Keep reading to learn about our session.

Also on Monday, I worked on a regular, twice-a-month client in her late 70s, who’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, has been a friend for years, and is one of the most conscious, loving, contemplative people I know. She loves receiving craniosacral biodynamics, and I love hearing about her experience afterwards.

When she came in for her first session a few years ago, she was feeling very anxious about her prospects with Alzheimer’s, which runs in her family. She was noticing some memory issues that were a little more serious than age-related forgetfulness.

When she came back for her second session, she said her anxiety had disappeared and she was able to find her inner peace again and accept and be grateful people who would help her.

Now, she is still quite functional and gets top-notch care from her doctors and her husband.

Our biodynamics sessions are usually about going deep into a whole-system healing state unless she has a specific issue she wants me to work with.

It’s never too late to find more health and well-being.

Then I worked with a newer client who is in her 30s and is working through issues from having a very impaired parent and its impact in her adult relationships. I’ve already seen her a couple of times. She has very good body awareness, and we talk a lot during her sessions. She has vibrant energy and has already done a lot of healing/integrating/growing using many modalities. She found me through my professional association, BCTA/NA.

Tuesday is my day off, as well as weekends.

On Wednesday, I had three new clients. The first was a fellow bodyworker, trained in Structural Integration, who drove in from a few counties away. She found me online. We worked on several issues including releasing some grief, and she had a most light-hearted beautiful response! She recommended me on Google afterward, which was a lovely surprise.

The second new client that day was referred to me by a renowned bodywork teacher that I studied with starting back in 2011. She’s a current student of his and was curious about craniosacral biodynamics. I felt honored by the referral. She also had some grief issues along with some cranial issues. She liked the experience and expressed an interest in possibly training in it should a teacher be interested in teaching in Austin.

My third new client Wednesday was a young professional man, athletic, who had been working with another biodynamic craniosacral therapist who moved away from Austin and referred him to me. I asked him to do a body scan, and he said his chest area is where most of his inertia was, stemming from a major loss in childhood and residual grief, so that’s where I focused. He said he felt a lot of energy moving in the heart area afterwards.

Wednesday turned out to be a grief day, which is a bit unusual. For grief, I work with the pericardium, the “heart protector” organ in Chinese medicine, and also the lungs, diaphragm, and thoracic inlet if time permits.

I invite the body’s palpable-to-me intelligent awareness there, and it does what will most contribute to the overall health and well-being of that person in the present moment. It takes stock, gets a reading, somehow that I don’t understand but trust. After all, it knows that person’s health/life from the inside out every moment of their life from conception.

On Thursday, I worked with a woman recently diagnosed with ALS, which impairs motor neurons and has no cure. We worked with grief and on the areas where she’s noticing the most impairment in muscle movement. She recommended a documentary, For Life and Love, about strides being made in treating ALS, and I will watch it today.

On Friday, besides the young massage student I mentioned at the start of this post, I worked with a young woman who wanted some relief from her TMJ issues. Over time, I developed an integrative protocol for working with jaw issues that stem from clenching and/or grinding the teeth or bracing the jaw muscles.

She takes meds that have jaw pain as a possible side effect. I asked her if the prescribing doctor had asked her about previous jaw issues before prescribing these, and she said they didn’t. She has tooth damage from bruxism.

There’s gotta be a better way, but I don’t know what that is.

She does a lot for herself already, but the jaw pain and tension had gotten unbearable. Her neck was very tight, and she had a knot — very hard, very old — next to her C2 spinous process on the right. I’ve seen this before in maybe 15-20% of my TMJ clients. It will take a few sessions to release.

Her lateral pterygoids were the biggest culprit. They were almost the last thing I worked on, and that made the biggest difference. She immediately felt it.

People don’t know they have jaw muscles inside their mouths.

The young woman who called me on Monday was my last client of the week. She wanted some support and guidance on her career path and a sample of my bodywork, so I acted as a kind of mentor.

I saw her on Friday. I’m glad I got to talk to her. She’s a lot younger than I am, but also on the tiny side, under 5’, not that common among bodyworkers. I shared my strategies for dealing with not being tall enough or strong enough to give people a lot of pressure when giving massage. I learned Ashiatsu (barefoot massage) to be able to do that, using my body weight. I also learned reflexology and dove into working on people’s necks, all the while I was taking classes and starting to practice craniosacral therapy.

I shared more about my evolution in bodywork, eventually finding my niche. With some inspiration, I believe she will find her own way.

My favorite tip about getting through massage school had to do with being intimidated about learning the anatomy required for massage therapy, which I had never studied before.

I told her that I convinced myself that I had been a doctor in a previous life, that I already knew all the anatomy and I was just reviewing it, refreshing my memory, in this lifetime. I savored learning every new term and image, also associating with where that muscle or bone was in my body. I am now an anatomy geek.

I thought that by posting this here on my blog, anyone interested in receiving or studying craniosacral biodynamics (here or anywhere else) would have a better idea of the kinds of issues we address.

I have a website for my central Texas practice, maryannreynolds.com, if you’re interested or want to refer someone. You can also search for Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy Association/North America to find a biodynamic practitioner near you. The Upledger Institute offers the same referral service.