Exploring the Holding Field

What do Focusing and Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy have in common? A lot!

They are both based on a fundamental and deep trust for the inherent knowing and health of the person and their journey. In both practices and worldviews, the therapist/companion is a Listening Friend, not there to “do” or “decide” what’s best, but rather to Be in the space with the client or Focuser. In Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, the therapist also consciously serves as an Attunement to Presence and Midline for the client. Both practices approach gently, with enough time and enough space for the potency of the felt sense to unfurl if and as it wishes to. In both practices, the commitment to the reliability of The Process is unwavering. And, of particular significance for the content of this class, both practices work with a Relational, or Holding Field.

Biodynamic Craniosacral Work, based on embodied energetic principles of Midline, Ground, Tide, Rhythm and much instruction in subtle perception, has a lot of refinements of Listening Methodology to offer to both roles of the Focusing relationship. Focuser and Companion both can deepen their inner space their ability to be with a felt sense, to deepen contact significantly, and expand the skills and forms the Self in Presence can take. As both Focuser and Companios, we can deepen contact with the Self In Presence Itself…in Craniosacral Work this is equivakent to attuning to the Breath of Life as the ultimate source of our inherent health and blueprint. Biodynamics also has a lot to specifically offer the Companion role, in terms of how to easefully, simply and subtly refine the field they hold for their Focusing clients, being able to deepen the space of the session in without interfering in the Focuser’s sacred process at all.

While we of course can’t learn to be Biodynamic Craniosacral Practitioners in the 90 minutes of this class, we can drop in to a few different aspects of Embodied Sensing of these Biodynamic principles and get a felt sense of these and how we might bring them in to our Focusing practice and sessions.

On a practical level, the class will consist of a brief introduction to the basic Biodynamic principles and how they work together as a coherent whole in session work. This will be followed by a few short guided embodied sensing exercises of Midline, Rhythm and Tide, Coming to the Edge of Contact, Holding Space etc.. We will engage in two short Focusing exchanges with the same partner, in a before and after exploration of how we are (or aren’t) shifted in Focusing with these new understandings of our personal and relational space

This Class is facilitated by Mixchel Tupko (see bio below) offered through Sandy Jahmi Burg at Learn Focusing: https://learnfocusing.org

I am a long-time student of the Yogas, outer, inner and secret. I have practiced for many years within traditional (mostly) female-led tantric lineages and this life path fundamentally informs my way of working, guiding and perceiving the world. I spend significant time in personal retreat and teach the path of yogic meditation in small group settings as well as one to one mentoring. I am also an accomplished Thai Bodywork practitioner and teacher, and have lived and studied in Thailand, as well as having studied Yoga therapy in India and spent much time in meditation and on pilgrimage there in the yogic motherland.

Over time, increasing subtlety and sensitivity to energy led me to the practice of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. I studied in England at the Karuna Institute with Franklyn Sills, one of the founders of the Biodynamic Craniosacral work , and a team of amazing women teachers, headed by Tanya Desfontaines of 5th World Cranio, which weaves shamanic practice with the depths of the Biodyamnic understanding. It was here at the Karuna Institute that I first met the practice of Focusing as a way to introduce verbal interaction with clients while they are held in the space of stillness and potency in a craniosacral session…and to help them stay in contact with the felt sense in the soma while using language.

I have also studied shamanic work and earth-based spiritual path for many years, most formally and recently with my mentor in the Womb Shamanism path at Song of Sophia, a plant-taught, womb-wise lineage of attunement to the light of nature. My work is connected to and honoring of this embodied life lived on the earth, within the cycles of the natural world of which we are an intrinsic part, with full acknowledgement of the living web of Life we ARE.

I also hold an MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I explored collaborative movement and performance with other humans. Movement and embodiment are center points of my practice, sessions and guidance.

I come to Focusing in the context of all of these explorations and lineages. Focusing brings the Ground -- a ground of tenderness, presence, accompaniment and compassion that I find serves to deepen all of my other practices. Focusing is a very accessible basis for the body, mind, spirit and soul work I offer in session and group classes in the other lineages and traditions mentioned above. I am currently working towards my certification as Focusing Trainer in the Learning Community under the loving guidance of Sandy Jahmi Burg.

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