Our modern world is a world of rush and doing, running and achieving. You are not somebody unless you are super busy with barely time to breathe.
But what happens when a crisis falls into your lap? Or falls into the lap of someone you love? Do you hold tight to your busyness and rushing around? Hide behind it and pretend that nothing is happening? Or do you heed the warning and know that you are being given an opportunity to reassess, stop and stay still, breathe and wait.
In craniosacral therapy it is the stillness that heals, the pause in the movement, the waiting. It offers the opportunity for fresh air, expansion and a reshuffling into a way that is much more comfortable and whole. It is the same in our everyday world. We race a long at a pace that is not healthy for any of us, trying to be people that we really aren’t, lead lives that aren’t ours at all. When a crisis comes storming without any warning, our life is no longer what we thought it was. It can be the death of someone we loved, financial ruin, the loss of a job, sickness, divorce or even simply not being where we thought we would be by this age. This crisis, which has fallen into our lives is called the limina. A stumbling stone for our soul, determined to propel us into the liminal space.
The liminal space is not a place we like to find ourselves, it is uncomfortable, scary and lonely, full of heartbreak and wanting to escape. Inside of this space you can pretty much break us down into two types of people, those who quickly gather up all of their belongings and move as fast as they can into the next safe house. The other half of us scramble back to where we came from hoping to re-establish what it was we were succinctly kicked out of. If you’re lucky, the door is securely locked on the next space and the place you were hoping to go back to is a shambles. So there is no going forward, no going back. If luck is on your side and you are forced to stay still in this liminal space, the space of nothing and nowhere where all lost souls can be found, hopefully it is for quite a while. It turns out the liminal space is one of the best places we have for rapid spiritual growth. Yes, it is difficult and horrible, and in all of our sadness it is the last place we want to be. But if you can find a way to put life on hold and let the disaster wash over you and fill you from the tips of your toes to the depth of your soul, then there is a good chance you will be rewarded. You will die the death of the living and come out the other side to a new world, everything apparently the same, but inextricably changed.
For this process to have its full impact you have to be still. You have to embrace the crying on the floor, hour after hour, the not doing much, the not achieving anything, no thinking, no plotting and planning, no rushing off to the next big thing. No fixing! Please, no fixing. You don’t want your world fixed, you need it broken so that you don’t slide back into old patterns, so that you don’t continue as the habits you used to be. Take a long soak in the anger and the pain, in the fear and the sadness. Let it wash over you and through you, let it have its way. Let it mould you and just possibly the person you always thought you were might step forward.
When I entered into a run of crisis a few years ago, the best gift I was given was someone providing me with love, space, support and time so I could be still in the liminal space. My suffering and pain were immense, like nothing else I have experienced in this world, but the gift it has given me, my undeniable truth, is not something I would trade for anything. Life like craniosacral therapy needs stillness, time for us to sit and be, time to feel without distraction. If you can, and no one is saying it is easy, or sometimes even possible, allow life to be the process that creates the change you may have desired for the longest of times.