Knowing what the root cause of symptoms are is very important in securing long term relief. To get an idea of the different areas that the root cause of illness and unhappiness can be in, think of it in terms of layers.

Layers like you might see in a cross-section of rock showing layers of strata. Except in this case the layers are not stone but are fluid and moving, interacting with each other like the wax in a lava lamp.

Physical layer

The first and thinnest layer is the physical layer. This is where the balancing act our bodies are engaged in happens.

This physical layer usually has to to do with you and your environment. “My car hit a tree.” “I fell down the stairs.” “I slipped on some concrete.”  Because of the reciprocal nature of the craniosacral system, the pain may not be in the part of the body that the restriction is in and being able to detect this requires skill.

Problems in this layer generally only affect this layer.

Emotional layer

Below this layer, we have the thicker layer of our emotions. This layer usually has to do with you and someone else. “My father hit me.” “The kids in school bullied me.” “My first boyfriend broke my heart.” That sort of thing.
Problems in this area bubble up and affect the physical layer, causing physical symptoms.

The line between the two layers can get a bit blurred but the principal of disturbances percolating upwards to the surface and causing physical symptoms is the same.

Deeper layer

Over time I discovered that there was another layer below the layer of our emotions, something deeper.

I really got it when I started working with people with life-threatening illnesses, people with cancer in particular. I kept finding that the root cause of the problem was deeper than simply physical and deeper again than just emotional.

While there were physical reasons for the cancer and also emotional reasons for the physical creation of the cancer, there was also something deeper going on.

Is it spiritual? I don’t know if it’s spiritual or not. I think it would be presumptuous of me to say I did.  The only thing I can say with any certainty is that this deeper layer is vast and mysterious. I’ve found that in practice I’ve had to go into it because that is where the root cause of the problem was.