Raquel Rotnes MA, LMT, CST-D
Raquel came into my life through healing. For the past five years, both my husband and I have had the opportunity to experience her work firsthand, and over time, I’ve come to deeply appreciate the care, gentleness, and intention she brings into every session.
CranioSacral Therapy is one of those practices that can be difficult to explain until you experience it for yourself. It is subtle, non-invasive, and deeply intuitive, yet the effects can reach far beyond what is visible on the surface. Through Raquel, I began to understand how much the body holds, how much can be communicated without words, and how powerful it can be to simply feel safe enough to soften.
What has always fascinated me about Raquel is how expansive her work is. Her practice extends beyond the treatment room, including her work with dolphins in the Bahamas, her connection to the body, and the many years she has devoted to understanding healing from different perspectives.
For Women of the Blooming Path, I’m honored to share Raquel’s story and create space for her to explain a healing practice that many people may have never encountered before. My hope is that through her words, readers are introduced not only to CranioSacral Therapy, but to a gentler way of understanding the body, healing, and our ability to return to ourselves.
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1. For someone who has never experienced CranioSacral Therapy, how would you describe what you are actually doing during a session and what you are listening for through your hands?
CranioSacral Therapy is a gentle form of bodywork that works directly with the craniosacral system, including membranes, cerebral spinal fluid which is the fluid that protects the brain and spinal cord. This is also our nervous system, so CranioSacral Therapy also works with trauma in the body, mind and your spiritual approach to life. The goal is to ease restrictions in this system to help the central nervous system functionality. During a session, I am following this system by palpating certain areas in the body and I am listening through my hands for the movement of the cerebral spinal fluid which has a flexion and extension phase. I am not inducing any movement, I wait for the body to self correct. Sometimes emotions may arise, traumas may surface and we call it Somato Emotional Release. This release can facilitate the CranioSacral system functionality and bring more liveliness to the whole system. There is a potential to process emotional issues , come to completion and move the trauma from the body, which may facilitate more health, happiness and vitality.
2. Your own healing journey is part of what led you toward the modalities you now share with others. Was there a particular season of your life when CranioSacral Therapy found you, and what did it give you that you hadn’t found elsewhere?
Yes absolutely! A friend told me about a program that combines Craniosacral Therapy with dolphins. I had previous outstanding experiences with dolphins and decided to do this 4 days program in the Bahamas. This was the summer of 2009. What I found there was a clear message that I needed to quit my job and study CranioSacral Therapy to work with adults, babies, pregnancy and birth.
3. Your work requires you to be deeply present with other people. What helps you stay grounded, replenished, and connected to yourself outside of your role as a facilitator for the client self healing?
What helps me with my own process is to get sessions, travel to work in multiple hands programs, eating well and exercising, staying curious and socialize with friends, meet new people, maintaining a neutral approach towards clients so they can discover what is best for them. And mostly not taking things personally and keep doing my own healing work.
4. After all these years of working with people across different communities and stages of life, has your definition of what it means to heal changed? What does healing mean to you now?
I always saw healing as a discovery, a look into your soul journey, and how to make the best decisions for yourself in connection to your soul wishes. Healing means that you can connect to your Inner Wisdom, you already possess the power to understand and change your reality. The therapist is a witness and a "cheerleader" to your process and maintains neutrality so you can find your own way to healing.
Once you experience this process you feel more empowered and can more easily use this body wisdom for any situation that may arise.
5. For someone who feels disconnected from their body, overwhelmed, or unsure where to begin with healing, what would you want them to understand about their own capacity to return to themselves?
That no matter what you went though, no matter how lost you feel, your body's here waiting for you to claim it back. Your body has the wisdom to heal in any form that is unique to you. Find someone safe, a person, a modality and do your healing. Your life matters, you matter and the world is better when we are all doing the best we can for ourselves.
