Abby Mikkelson wrote about her experience after completing five on-line sessions:
I injured my back at 18 and then had pretty severe whiplash after a car accident at age 23. These injuries and other experiences in my childhood caused my body to guard itself, get tight, stiff, and cause other injuries. At age 39 I was in University for my dream job and needed to have back surgery. My job is very physical and requires long hours of physical stamina. I often found myself recovering for days from long shifts. I wasn’t sure if I could keep going in my career for the pain I would sometimes feel.
Cortical Field Re-Education® has really allowed me to reset my body, in a way, to find the way I can move. And moving is pleasant!
I feel like I can make conscious choices regarding movement. I’m less anxious. I have better balance and better posture. Most importantly, I have significantly less physical pain, and I have been able to keep working!
Cortical Field Re-Education® has been a strange process for me, but Isabel is a compassionate guide who encourages this exploration. She asks many questions and gives suggestions, but gives me the freedom to explore a prescribed movement myself and within the bounds of safe movement for my body. I'm never asked or expected to do anything I'm not physically capable of. It’s like going for a walk in the woods with no trail and you get to just explore how to move, how fast how slow, how big, how little and somehow it fixes you! I really feel safe in this work led by Isabel even when it triggers some past deeply held emotion.
One day for one particular movement Isabel was encouraging me to lead from the sternum, I had no idea what that would even be. How do you move your sternum? It is a fixed bone with no muscles! Right? Then she asked, “what if you led from the heart?” And something changed in that movement in that moment. It’s little questions like this that help the process for me.
Isabel has also said, frequently:
“Sense yourself”
“Take it for a walk”
“Is there a middle way?”
And something about living in my bones…this is new and I’m still exploring it!
These tidbits above I carry with me through the week and thus I carry myself differently. Even my partner says I stand taller and steadfastly. And she says, “And you don’t complain about being in pain nearly so much.”
