Spotlight: Sarah Fredrickson

I’m lying on a massage table, clothes on, face up. Sarah Fredrickson, massage therapist, Reiki master, CranioSacral Therapy (CST) provider and full-body spiritual empath has one hand under my back and the other on my abdomen. She begins the CST session with hands on my feet, grounding herself and listening to … something. I couldn’t hear it, but she went right to my lower back and hip flexors where my stress and running habit compound themselves into cement-filled knots.

I’m humming. There’s an internal current of something making my ears murmur in harmony with my abdomen. It’s warm. The stresses that had been collecting in my hips and back seep down the table legs to puddle on the floor. And then whoosh, the current Sarah is conducting lets go and the energy whorls down my right leg.

To me, that’s what energy work feels like. Sarah’s pleasant combination of CST and Reiki is like a mother’s hug. It’s peaceful, completely in the moment, visceral.

When you find someone who really knows their craft, who - moments into an energy healing session - has locked onto the source of your pain and is working it, you know you’ve got to come back.

Sarah Fredrickson is one of the good ones.

A History

Ten years ago, Sarah was a waitress with back aches. She went to a massage therapist for the pain, and after her first session thought, “That’s what I want to do.” She says the realization, “was a like a bolt of lightning.” Within the month, she was taking courses at the Healing Arts Institute in Fort Collins. Upon graduation in 2002, she started Reiki training and received her Reiki teaching certificate in 2003. Since then, Sarah has been a practicing massage therapist. Her continuing education has included CranioSacral Therapy (CST) training through the Upledger Institute. She blends traditional neuro-muscular massage with Reiki, allowing clients to release their tensions and then refilling them with a sense of peace.

“Whenever I do a massage or I do CranioSacral Therapy, I’ll do a Reiki balancing at the [end of the session], which brings a nice energetic balance to the work that I do.”

Sarah says she enjoys the challenge of incorporating more CST work in her practice, sometimes in combination with traditional massage, or more increasingly, on its own.

What is CST?

CST is light-touch therapy that can release tensions and injuries to the head and spinal column. CST was pioneered by John Upledger, DO, OMM (Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine) who taught osteopathy at Michigan State University. The healing practice uses the fluids and tissues that surround the central nervous system to balance the body’s health.

From the Upledger Institute website: “With a light touch, the CST practitioner uses his or her hands to evaluate the craniosacral system by gently feeling various locations of the body to test for the ease of motion and rhythm of the cerebrospinal fluid pulsing around the brain and spinal cord. Soft-touch techniques are then used to release restrictions in any tissues influencing the craniosacral system.”

“The first time I received CST,” Sarah remembers, “I could feel all the subtle movements that my body was making as it was releasing unwanted blockages to my central nervous system. I felt it as energy or as an unwinding sensation. It just really amazed me how deep and profound the work is yet also how gentle it feels. With such light touch … it was really remarkable.” CST practitioners are taught to use five grams of pressure (the weight of a nickel) as they test for and conduct energy flow in the body.

“Starting at the feet,” says Sarah, describing practicing CST, “I ground myself. I open my heart space … and ask the body to tell me what to do.”

She explains that a person who has experienced a stress or a trauma has energy blockages. “The trauma eats up energy in an area; it’s closed down. I can feel this is an area that wants to be worked.” To be thorough, Sarah checks the feet, head and shoulders. Just because the therapy is CranioSacral doesn’t mean she begins at the cranium. “I often start at bottom of the spine,” she muses. “But the head calls or the knees or elbows and shoulders. I move around the body as it calls me.”

Using her hands and universal energy, Sarah pushes on the energy blockages and helps them unwind, helping them to regain their optimal function. She elaborates, “When we receive trauma, the body jolts and absorbs it. Now there’s a force stopped in the body.” CST compresses energy into the blockage until it releases. “It’s like pressing in a cabinet door lock that you have to push in to open up.”

Another tenant of CST is that the bones in the cranium are structured to allow for movement. Sometimes they become slightly misaligned.

“The goal is to feel the cranial sacral rhythm [the pulse of fluid surrounding the central nervous system],” Sarah elaborates. “In a location where trauma has occurred, the body isn’t contracting appropriately. Usually, the forehead expands [minutely], but where a blow has occurred, it doesn’t contract. Many times these injuries have been lying in body for years.”

A CST practitioner gently lifts the frontal bone of the cranium. Or she will try to mobilize the sphenoid bone (behind the eyes). With only five grams of pressure applied (the weight of a nickel), patients don’t experience pain but often report a sensation of lightness or lifting.

Sarah relates the story of one patient who came to a regular massage appointment with the beginning of a migraine. Usually these headaches would require her to lie in the dark for days, but with Sarah’s help, the patient completely skipped the halos and throbbing headaches she usually experienced.

“I did CST to help realign the bones in her head,” Sarah remembers, “particularly the sphenoid bone behind her eyes.” By returning the sphenoid to a state of order, the patient left with the migraine hangover (the last stage of a migraine) and completely skipped all the other usual symptoms.

Who should try it?

“CST is better for someone wants a less invasive approach.” Sarah jokes that some of her massage clients really just want an elbow digging into their neck muscles. But often, she reports, the light touch used in CST can result in deep emotional as well as physical responses. “It works at core of you,” Sarah says.

According to the Upledger Institute, “CST is increasingly used as a preventive health measure for its ability to bolster resistance to disease. It is effective for a wide range of medical problems associated with pain and dysfunction.” CST is a good modality for treating headaches, chronic neck and back pain, TMJ and PTSD, among other problems.

Sarah usually uses CST to treat people for headaches, post-accident pain, sciatica, and emotional pain. She reports that her CST practice is growing to include a number of children. Her Upledger training includes a course on infants and children.

“I see many children for digestion problems like constipation or colic. I help them poop,” she teases. “Also, I help with ear pain and issues in the mouth, often the result of dental work” she says.

Sarah feels drawn to her work and appreciates being able to help people whose bodies may be freaking out. “So many times, people with chronic health problems feel like their body is doing something to them.” They don’t always know why. Sarah’s combination approach is very balancing, very peaceful.

“It helps them feel at home again in their bodies,” she smiles.

Sara runs A Sense of Balance and is a member of our Holistic Care referrals.

Corey Radman is a freelance writer living in Fort Collins. Her passion for story threads its way through all her work, which has been published at 5280 Magazine, Style Magazine, Northern Colorado Medical & Wellness, Get Born Magazine, and The Mom Egg. She can be contacted via her website at www.fortcollinswriter.com.