CraigJustCraig

Tag: mental-health

  • What is Remembered, is Restored

    In a recent session, we focused on decompression and fascia release.

    In a world that trains us to split, divide, and dominate,
    this work moves us gently: allowing tension to soften and giving space for something deeper to emerge.

    An undoing of all the ways we’ve been trained, controlled, and fragmented.

    This is woven into our everyday experience. It lives in the body, pressed into the breath, curled around the spine, locked into the tissues. Unintegrated it becomes part of us.

    We are taught this is normal; to see the world in split pieces. Strong vs weak. Good vs bad. Mind vs body. Spirit vs reason. These splits are reinforced again and again, until the natural unity of self is broken and compete. This shapes our behavior. It shapes our beliefs, our imagination, and our body itself.

    In rope, we begin to reverse the fragmentation. We invite the Self to slow.
    That slowing creates an opening to shift.

    Seekers come to this work carrying chronic pain and a long history of discomfort, often managed through medication, endurance, and bracing.

    They’ve learned to survive it.

    But, many experience significant relief even after the first session. The pain doesn’t vanish: it moves, shifts, softens.

    With each session, The pain lessens.
    And slowly, the body begins to feel like home again.
    This kind of healing moves beyond treating symptoms. It invites the body to participate in its own restoration. Through intentional effort, we help the body learn safety from the inside.

    Rope offers a return, a experience, felt beyond the skin. The body is fully present. And within that learns that safety is possible. That holding does not have to hurt. That surrender can be healing. That rest is spiritual.

    The goal is not to conquer or control. It is to listen, and to reconnect with what’s been split. To allow meaning again, not another problem to solve, but a story to be told.

    When we treat with rope, we step out of logic. We return to knowing—that knowledge comes from immersion, and not distance.

    This is sacred .

  • I was talking to a goddess

    She didn’t speak in words, but in heat, in breath, in the ache behind my ribs:
    “You are not responsible for their feelings.”

    …I used to believe otherwise.

    I shackled my worth to people’s moods, contorted myself into someone else’s idea.
    I made myself small.
    I apologized for existing.
    The fear of abandonment, of rejection, of being too much and not enough at the same time.
    Boy, what a time.

    Then came the revolt.

    I told myself I didn’t care.
    I wore detachment like armor.
    If I couldn’t please them—fuck them.
    I became loud with boundaries and quiet with vulnerability.
    But I wasn’t free.
    I was still ruled—by them.

    Then came a knowing:
    That I can hold space without setting myself aflame.
    That my needs matter.
    And that theirs did too.

    I was not taught this.
    I was taught to blame—either myself or them.
    I was taught to focus on them and to lose myself.
    I’ve learned: feelings are not caused by others, but shaped by how we receive them—filtered through our own needs and expectations.
    Now, my work is to OWN that.

    This is hard to learn.
    Trauma trained me to see everything and everyone as dangerous.
    I forgot how to play.
    I forgot how to imagine.
    But my body remembered, even when my mind forgot.
    And shame clung deep.

    But pleasure is not sin.

    So I began to ask myself:
    What makes me feel good?
    Can I ask—clearly—for what I want?
    Can I speak in a language that is not vague or coded in shame?

    Instead of “Don’t ignore me,”
    I would say, “Would you be willing to check in?”

    Instead of “You don’t care,”
    I would say, “I feel lonely and need connection.”

    This is power.

    I wasn’t given these tools—I had to make them.
    Walking around yearning, yet terrified to feel it.

    Risk, with clarity.

    For the child in me who never learned.
    For the adult in me who is still learning.
    Knowing it’s safe to say:

    I don’t know where I’m going.
    But I promise: I know the way.

  • Hollow Smiles and A Velvet Thrones

    …breath that catches, through heat rising in the belly.

    This time, she came whispering about needs versus strategies.

    I didn’t recognize the difference at first. How easily we miss each other. like boats passing in the night. I’ve spent so long trying to survive that I blurred the line between the two. It’s subtle, but different strategies—like requests or desires—are about specifics. While needs? Needs are different. They’re universal truths we all carry.

    “Your needs are not too much. And they are not the same as the strategies you use to fulfill them.”

    For so long, I was confused.

    I’d say: _Call me, see me, don’t leave me, change for me._
    What I meant was: _I need connection. I need reassurance. I need to be seen._

    But I didn’t have the language. I only had the longing, the shame—and I’d end up analyzing or criticizing.
    “You’re selfish.”
    “You never listen.”

    I didn’t know I could just _name the need_.
    So vulnerable. So exposed.

    Not make someone responsible.
    Not demand a script.

    Just… that I have the right to say:
    _I need care._
    _I need respect._
    _I need room._

    Once I could name my needs, I became aware of my strategies—how I cope with the fear of my needs not being met.

    They are the most human part of me.

    When I lose sight of the truth, I trap myself. I stop seeing possibility.

    It all comes back to this: Be here, now, with what’s real. That’s the gift.

    I think about all the times .
    “I didn’t know how to ask for…”
    “I didn’t know how to say…”
    “I didn’t know how to take ‘no’ as anything other than proof I was unworthy.”

    It fucking sucks to learn this now—unseen, unspoken, unmet needs.

    To realize: I was simply trying to survive.

    That kind of shift—the one that doesn’t need to scream, that doesn’t collapse—it just _is_.

    To name what you feel.
    To honor what you need.
    To ask.

    And when I really get quiet and sit still, I feel it—that sense that our needs aren’t separate.

    We all just want to be whole.