Hurt And Searching For Answers.

"Every treatment I tried felt good for a few days, but nothing addressed the problem." 

I remember when I was searching for answers. I felt so scared, like I had been handed a life sentence; humiliated by the doctors who asked me embarrassing questions, which left me feeling that somehow I was deficient. Every treatment I tried felt good for a few days, but nothing addressed the problem. I had to learn to live like that.

This compounded in me the sense that I was stuck, and looking back, I can understand the mass frustration going on. The despondency around ever breaking out of the locked pattern, and regaining the original plasticity that was there. The way we think locks us in. 

The frustration and the panic locks us in, bringing us to a dead-end place: an "I've tried everything" feeling, "and nothing works!"

But the truth is... we haven't. We've forced it, and bullied it, coerced it, and pleaded with it. But we haven't listened to it. 

When and where have you been silent with your body, and asked it? Or has a practitioner ever walked in with a clear, unbiased mind, and been willing to not know?

We are not stuck. 

I was so lucky when I found Osteopathy. Even luckier that I found J.P. Barral and John Upledger, Bruno Chikly and Suzanne Scurlock-Durana, under the umbrella group of the International Association of Healthcare Educators founded by Upledger, into which he invited the others. This was the dream of possibility. Healing actually happening. 

What I learned in these classes, and by practicing their work for nearly 10 years, was how to invite the body to unlock her own mysteries. 

Every time I treat someone, or myself, I experience this awakening into endless possibility and plasticity all over again. It blows my mind about who we are in ourselves and the universe. And I think of so many people struggling needlessly, scared. I want them to know that their healing is possible. They can have their bodies, minds, and lives back. 

When I look at how simple these tools are I want everybody to have them. I want there to be a future when somebody gets sick or hurt there is someone right there who can cure them. And I mean cure. Not ease, or maintain or manage. 

I came to this work from a yoga background. That's why I think everyone can do it. I started with Thai Yoga Massage, and my favourite teacher came from Shiatsu. 

I was lucky enough to get 6 weeks in of Thai Yoga massage at Lotus Palm in Montreal. I think the most important thing I learned from that was the Buddhist concept of Maitri, loving-kindness, or unconditional love for yourself and others. That really put me on a karmic path of doing good for others, and being surprised by how much this fulfills me. 

I then did my Osteopathic training backwards. Further proof that anyone can do it. I found a mentor, an Osteopathic Practitioner with the last name Parent, who gently guided and encouraged me. He told me about the Barral and Upledger Institutes, whose motto is "Putting Health In Your Hands." Incredibly revolutionary, perspective shifting, science based teaching that encourages right brain thinking. Absolutely meticulous about standards, don't get me wrong. But a world that flipped all others on their head. This was home for me. 

John Upledger, founder and developer of Craniosacral Therapy used to teach kindergarten children. It was his vision to open the institutes to make healing accessible to everyone. J.P. Barral, who Times Magazine calls one of the "Top healing innovators to watch in the New Millenium" put the science, and rigorous testing to techniques he learned from faith healing nuns in the Alps. 

And when you think about it, you already know it. That's why this healing is so powerful. You know how to heal. Are you kidding me? If you didn't you wouldn't have survived your first day of life. Your body, passed down to you generation upon generation, is itself a creature so old, responsible for and capable of its own evolution and creation. It's wisdom is ancient. 

I became a teaching asssistant at both institutes and broadened my horizons with Healing From the Core, Suzanne Sculock-Durana's female, wider, approach to healing, where I explored the subtler energetic aspects, such as how to bring boundaries and a therapeutic presence to the work. And then finally, I satiated a life-long passion for understanding the brain with Bruno Chikly's work.

I became my mentor's mentor, and then I went to the National Academy of Osteopathy in Canada.

I have helped a little girl heal a broken arm in 9 days. I have helped a childhood friend reverse a lifetime of asthma. He went from 1 puffer a week to none. I have helped a dog reverse paralysis and walk again. I have helped a child remove his fear of being born before he was even born. I've helped prevent a stroke. I've removed whiplash, the next day. 

There's more here than your instructor. There's also the guy behind the camera, who used to walk with a cane and now he power lifts. Who was so drugged up on pain meds he didn't care. Who lost his personality. He's also had his journey. He's also on board with this vision. 

He's my brother, Raphael, and we've been making videos together since 1982.