Ryan discusses three potential sticking points along the career path of the craniosacral therapist: zealotry, disillusionment, and stagnation.
www.craniosacralpodcast.com
Audio Transcription:
“Hi Ryan. Thank you so much for the podcast. I’ve really been enjoying it and learning a lot from the different guests you bring on. I am hoping you will take some time to discuss the potential pitfalls we face while getting established in the field of craniosacral therapy. Some of my teachers have mentioned that at times they went off on tangents or entered periods of difficulty with their practice. They have shared with me some insights about it, but I’m wondering what you think. What do you think I should look out for or be aware of when I am building a long-term career in CST?”
"Thank you, and please keep up the good work, Matthew     New York"
Wow, Matthew. That’s a great question. I wish I would have considered that question when I was getting started in the work. But I had to learn a lot of lessons the hard way because I’ve been pretty stubborn in a lot of ways in my career. So I think I’m pretty qualified to talk on the topic because not recognizing pitfalls has really cost me over the years. And even worse, it has cost my clients when I failed to show up for them in a meaningful way due to my blind spots.
There are so many things to consider when you look at the span of a career in this work. The permutations are endless as to what topics you could talk about, but I’ve been considering this since I got your email and I’ve honed in on three major pitfalls that I believe we should be aware of in this work when viewed over the course of a career, from the 30k-foot view, as they say. These will be some of the more prevalent issues that I have seen and or experienced myself.
 I’ll start with one of the first pitfalls we risk falling into when we set upon this path, and that’s zealotry.  Zealotry. So, what’s zealotry and what’s  a zealot? well, I looked it up on the interwebs just to make sure I am using the word correctly and I found two definitions that together kinda paint a picture that I think will be helpful for us:  The first definition for zealot that popped up on google was “a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals.” The other definition I want to blend in here is from the Cambridge Dictionary and it says a zealot is: “ a person who has very strong opinions about something, and tries to make other people have them too.” 
For many of us, when we first discovered cranial work, or maybe a particular style of cranial work that really spoke to us, we were deeply affected. Our whole lives may have been changed as a result of the new perspective on manual work. We may have experienced the healing of a serious physical or emotional disease, we may have had a sort of conversion experience as a result of a very strong sensational episode that significantly changed the way we view our lives, the world, or our place in the world. We may feel like we have finally found a home in the wilderness, a place we can call our own,  that has the potential to fulfill our every need. It is not that unusual to hear people who get serious about this work relating similar stories of tremendous transformation when they began interfacing with cranial work. For some new students, there arises a great sense of relief and purpose in their life because they finally feel like the world is taking on a manageable meaning, or perhaps it is opening into an inspiring void. It can go either way, really. But the point is that we may feel like we have found something very special. And I believe we do find something special when we find this work. The joy, the love, the enthusiasm, the conviction, and the hope, that arise for some of us when we find cranial work is truly spectacular and it can be really beautiful to watch this energy move into a person’s life. It is serious fuel, and it can carry us a long w