The Healing Wizard who got my Brain to Breath for the First Time Since my Concussion
Have you ever met someone who when they touch you, you wonder if their hands are dipped in angels’ tears? Someone who reads into your soul, feels your energy, embraces your existence, and doesn’t judge any part of you.
Meet Christina Goodwill.
Chris is one of those people who tore both ACLs (competing in gymnastics as a kid) and believes it divinely happened to lead her to where she is today.
Chris is a physical therapist who implements a wide variety of techniques including Butler’s Neural Mobilization, Upledger Craniosacral Therapy, osteopathic muscle energy application, Maitland joint mobilization, Barnes Myofascial Release, and Barral’s Visceral Manipulation.
If that sounds like Morse Code, all you need to know is that she is a healing wizard.
I believe a massive reason Chris is a miracle-worker is because her work isn’t just her work. It’s her calling. She doesn’t pencil you in and perform the standard protocol.
Every time I walk into Chris’ office I feel like I’m surfing into a wave of deep inner peace. I know I am literally in good hands.
My first session (WTF is anything actually happening?)
My first session with Chris (and every time after), she sat me down in her treatment room and asked me what was going on. I word-vomit my ailments, and she gazed back at me with the kind of eyes that tell you they are deeply listening. Once I was done ranting, she offered a possible explanation to why I was feeling like I did.
She then left the room for me to change into a gown and basketball shorts.
The session started off with me laying on my back. Then, she picked up both my legs in her hands, closed her eyes, and gently rotated them. It was as if she was taking the wheel of my personal vehicle and assessing how my motor, engine, battery, etc. were all functioning.
Based on what Chris felt, she could sense a pull coming from my cranium. She came around to my head, and gently cupped it in her hands. She explained to me that the bones in my skull should gently glide open and closed like a butterfly. Mine are a bit jammed. Then, she ever ever ever so lightly (like we’re talking as if my head was a sacred, little, delicate butterfly ornament) used her hands to move the bones in my head back and forth.
I gotta be honest with you though, during this first session, there were several moments I was thinking WTF is anything actually happening!?
I’m one of those people who always ask for my massage “extra firm.” Like, even when I’m on the verge of tears from a masseuse digging into my sore muscles like they’re a goldmine, I say nothing. Because harder is more effective.
Or that’s what I thought before I knew Chris. I don’t anymore. Chris’s work feels slightly more than a tickle. But, it’s the most highly effective tickle I’ve ever had the pleasure of being the recipient of.
Before my first treatment with Chris my brain felt like a factory-farm chicken. The kind who is is fed GMO processed grains, crammed into a cage with one-hundred other chickens, and sleeps in each other’s poop and pee.
I walked away from my first session feeling like, for the first time since my concussion, my chicken was set free into a vast field of endless crops. It had room to roam free and breath fresh air. I will never forget lightness I felt in my body and mind. The world had a lightness to it too.
How Upledger Cranial Sacral Works
In our podcast episode (listen here), Chris goes more in-depth about what she does and how it all works, but I’m going to give you the breakdown based on my understanding and my paraphrasing of her words.
Cranial sacral work is all about getting the bones in the cranium to move properly.
Here’s a little science-y stuff on how the cranium works and its affect on the body:
Cerebral spinal fluid flows around the spinal cord and into the brain.
As it flows into the brian all the sutures in the brain expand so it can give nutrition to the brain and the nerves. Then, when it flows back out, it closes.
As a cranial sacral therapist, the job is to be aware of that opening and closing, and paying attention to: do both sides equally open, do they open as much as they should, do the open at the right rate, how is their interaction with all the other cranial bones?
If the sutures in the brain don’t open and close optimally, then the brain and nerves don’t get the nutrition it needs and the messages sent down to the spinal cord aren’t effective. For example, someone may have tailbone pain that just won’t go away because the cranial bones won’t open and let that fluid come down to the coccyx like they should. In other words, sometimes the root cause, isn’t the same place as where you are feeling symptoms.
How Barnes Myofascial Release Works // What is Fascia?
Chris has a great visual to explain fascia: if you take a raw chicken breast that’s butterflied, and pull it open, you’ll see that white filmy substance. That’s fascia. It’s the strongest tissue in the body and it holds everything together. Everythinggggg from head to toe. It weaves between all the layers of the muscles, the systems in the organs, around the nerves, and the blood vessels. Fascia works like a sweater. If one part gets twisted or has a snag in it, then the entire sweater of the body gets twisted. The snag will pull at everything around it in the body.
Fascia has a certain amount of spring to it. Chris’ work is to find where the fascia around the muscles are aren’t at their optimal springy-ness. She’s able to determine stuck, un-springy fascia through her years spent working and communicating with people’s bodies.
Why so gentle?
If you’re like me (the old me), you like your body work extra firm. But, it doesn’t have to be like that. In fact if you go too hard, your body can have a negative response. I experienced this first hand, when I saw a neck specialist who dug into my neck and also had me hold multiple chin tucks for 30 seconds straight. Later that day, I had a throbbing headache, my body ached, and I felt disoriented. My system was pushed beyond what it could handle.
Modalities, like sports massage are all about getting in there and moving the fluid. Chris argues that “pushing hard” is disregarding the bodies natural ability to do that itself.
Our bodies can communicate with us how much pressure is enough. Chris uses a water balloon analogy to explain this concept: “if you take a water balloon and put your hands around it and push in very gently, you only push hard enough that that water balloon would push back on your hands. That’s the physical barrier. That’s where we work. It might be really deep, if it’s deep in the intestines, but if it’s something like a hernia scar, you don’t push very hard. You only need to push as hard as you need for the body to give a barrier response, then you just pay attention to what it’s asking for. Sometimes bodies don’t want to be stretched anymore.”
A few months after my concussion, I saw my naturopath because I was having really sharp, stabbing pains in the upper part of my stomach. My naturopath believed I had developed an ulce from all of the Advil I was taking to help reduce my headaches. She recommended I go off Advil and start taking some supplements. That week, I saw Chris. She felt a twist in the fascia around a valve in my upper stomach. She performed her super light magic w/ angel-tears-dipped hands, and I kid you not, I left in no pain. And I stayed in no pain. Talk about an absolute legend. I’m all about the light touch now.
Communicating to the Body + Intuitive Gifts
Chris’ ability to communicate with the body always blows my mind. She often makes makes it seem like anyone could do what she does. But, she has years of in-depth knowledge of anatomy AND her intuitive gifts are next level.
I can’t tell you how many times she’d rotate my hip flexor or touch a body part and say “you should be able to feel this….” 90% of the time, I could not feel it. I had no idea what she was talking about. But, then she’d go into a detailed explanation of how and why this particular part of my fascia isn’t moving as well and because of this, it’s affecting the rotation of my neck, which is making me feel nauseous when I run. She always had a possible answer as to why I was feeling my concussion symptoms. It really eased my mind and helped me make sense of what I was feeling inside.
Furthermore, Chris has a keen ability to hone in on the energy of her patients. She has had numerous accounts where she’s working with patients and sees pictures or colors, and is able to get a sense of why someone is injured or ill. Chris believes nearly every injury has an energetic component to it. For example, if someone comes in with lower back pain, maybe it’s from the patient tensing up and not being able to express themselves as a kid. The stories she has from helping heal others are epic (she shares a few in the podcast).
I love Chris
Chris’ in-depth knowledge of anatomy coupled with her pristine intuition makes her one of the best healers I’ve ever seen. In the nicest, most sincere way possible, I am so grateful that she tore both her ACLs because it led her to being the healing wizard that she is; helping myself and so so so many others.
Visit Chris’ website HERE