Wee blog of a human being working as an osteopath

Stillness

So I was waiting to get a treatment from Charles Ridley. I was lying down on the osteopathic plint, looking at the ceiling. I was sure that I was going to get a very powerful treatment, that I would probably feel the so-called energy flowing in my body. I read his book called Stillness and thought I understood.

Charles walked to the table as it was my turn to receive a treatment. For a few seconds, he stayed there, and after a while, he finally placed his hands under my skull, just like I do for most patients.

The first thing that appeared in my consciousness is that my neck was actually extremely tensed. I just could not relax it. I was literraly unable to let my head and my neck gently fall on the table, and for a few minutes, the intensity of that sensation kept on increasing, until it got quite uncomfortable. Charles did not seem to be doing anything, and he was still sitting there with his hands under my head.

And then…nothing, finally!

Stillness by Jules Rampal Meditation

Suddenly, but I cannot say when or how it happened, everything vanished. My tensions were gone, my neck relaxed, my breathing became extremely calm. Charles did not stretch my neck or cracked my vertebras, and still, my body was just…wait? What happened to my body?

I could not feel the limits of my body anymore! Actually, I had no more limits at all.

It seemed as if my body was…in me, instead of me being in my body. And everything was extremely peaceful, really quiet, like being fully conscious and in deep sleep at the same time. A pure Dynamic Stillness.

Even the notion of time disappeared. I am unable to say how long this experience lasted. Was it 10 seconds? 10 minutes? I could not say. I know that Charles removed his hands when I was kind of coming back from that experience, and he moved to another table to treat someone else.

It comes from somewhere else

There is a French book I read maybe thirty times, written by Jacques Andreva Duval. In this book, he talks about discovering this kind of osteopathy when he first met a very famous osteopath called Rollin Becker. Duval went four times to visit and work with Becker in Texas. From the first day, Duval called his secretary and told her to warn the patient that they would not be treated the way they used to be treated anymore.

I believe that just like me, Duval thought the trip would be about energy and power. At least that is what he understood from his first visit in Dallas. But as soon as he went back there and started to talk about energy, Becker told him “Shut up with your energy. It comes from somewhere else and that is with that somewhere else that I invite you to work”. My treatment with Charles had the same effect on me.

So, how was it for you?

After he treated everybody, we had the occasion to talk about what we felt during the treatment. Listening to others was a bit surreal. Most of them did not get it. One of them, supposedly extremely trained in biodynamic osteopathy (always be prudent with people who pretend to be expert in a field), dared saying that on Monday he would have to deal with real patients and he cannot do nothing.

When my turn came, I watched myself saying that “I found what I was looking for”. Which was quite random as I had no idea I was looking for something. At this moment I was not able to depict my treatment as I just did it above. “I found what I was looking for”.

Sharing Stillness

From that day, so many things changed for me, and that peace, that stillness, became the space from which I observe the world every day. The space from which I write words, practice yoga or treat my patients. From that day, I knew how it feels when someone holds space for you.

And from that day, holding space is what I want my contribution to be for this world. Which I do through osteopathy and teaching meditation.

jules rampal meditation

About Jules Rampal

Meditation teacher and osteopath

I am an online meditation teacher and an osteopath currently working in Gordes, France. My courses are for people who want to learn meditation with guided sessions, and for therapists who want to delve into the way they feel and the knowledge they can gather for their clients.
Book an osteopathic session here
Learn more about me here


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13 responses to “Stillness”

  1. […] Here lies the intensity of life. Here lies one of the best kept secret by people who are fine with having a simple life. Life is intense, because the intensity lies in the listening, not in what you listen to. This is how you do the work. You get back to the silence and operate from there. […]

  2. […] you operate from Stillness, just like when I hold space for a baby, you will experience how life unfolds within […]

  3. […] journey, you might now have an idea about how I do not treat my patients. And maybe even about what I want to point at. If you have checked on the patient’s stories section, you might have read how I hold space […]

  4. […] to insist on a point here: I do not point at synaesthesia. What I point at will be clarified in the next article. Synaesthesia is only a part of my story, but it is not the heart of my […]

  5. […] embodied experience. When I talk about Stillness or Silence, I talk about a tactile experience of Stillness. It is not a concept, not a label. And that’s the reason why I keep on getting the same […]

  6. […] I could feel a whole sensation of Stillness, I knew that we were done for today. And when my patient stood up, she was feeling extremely […]

  7. […] examples above are based on the idea of a body and a mind. And most importantly, on the idea that Stillness is a state that can be reached by doing something. Either getting our body tired or controlling our […]

  8. […] is a way to first let it grow in us, to realise that this Sillness lies within us. And maybe, one day, to realise that we lie in it. By doing so, the intensity of life changes, without having to do more. This silence spreads and […]

  9. […] everything I speak about, the most crucial element is definitely the Stillness from which we experience the world, and it is not about feeling more. It is so simple that no […]

  10. […] osteopath, you do not start with the fluidic tide to then go to the long tide and later to the dynamic stillness, but you experience everything from the dynamic stillness. The tides become superficial. If you […]

  11. […] be wiser or richer. And certainly not when you will be grounded, centered and aligned.It is about finding that space in yourself and working from there, instead of working from what you believe about life. It is about working from what life is, […]

  12. […] do not blame patients for that. I used to think like that too until I discovered something different. Patients usually get that way of thinking from their family, from mainstream media or even […]

  13. […] how to feel. But more importantly, you will soon start to feel more.That is one of the effects of the treatment I received a few years ago. Indeed, something that changed deeply following that session is the way I experience the world. […]

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