11d • General discussion
Sally, Scoliosis, and the Day Her Feet Forgot to Hurt
Some people walk into your life looking like a medical chart come to life. Others walk in looking like a miracle waiting to happen, whether they know it or not.
Sally was both.
The Woman the Journals Loved
Sally had scoliosis so advanced that she’d become something of a celebrity in medical circles. Not the fun kind of celebrity with red carpets and photo shoots—the kind where doctors put your x-rays on screens at conferences and say things like, “Now this is a case.”
Her spine wasn’t just curved; it had practically taken up calligraphy.
By the time I met her, she had been through more procedures, surgeries, and “experimental approaches” than any one body should be asked to endure in a lifetime. She’d been nearly doubled in half at one point—her spine bending her forward so dramatically she was practically folding into herself.
In one surgery, a surgeon had over-extended her skin and muscle—pulled things too far, too hard, too fast, all in the name of “correction.” The result? Years of pain layered on top of everything else.
The world had not been gentle with Sally.
How She Found Me
At the time, I was working out of a high-end fitness facility—the kind with perfectly coordinated branding and more mirrors than any one building really needs. My massage and bodywork room was tucked off to the side, like a little oasis off the main jungle of clanking weights and treadmill thunder.
I’d made friends with several of the trainers because, well, I kept wandering out onto the fitness floor whenever I had downtime. Eventually, I started working out, too. Between sets and stretches, I’d chat with the trainers and learn about their clients, their injuries, their goals.
One of those trainers was Alan—a thoughtful, observant guy with a solid background in movement and alignment. He’d come to see me a few times for bodywork, so he knew what I did and how I worked.
When he looked at Sally—at the way she moved, stood, winced—he thought of me.
“You really ought to go see her,” he told her. “Her work is… different. In a good way.”
That “different” would become a theme.
Sally’s Skepticism
By the time she walked into my treatment room for the first time, Sally was carrying two heavy loads:
- A crooked spine
- And a deep distrust of anyone who claimed they could help her
She had good reason. She had been “helped” into even more pain by people who meant well but pushed too hard—literally and figuratively.
She told me about being worked on so aggressively she came away bruised and inflamed. She talked about procedures that promised correction and delivered trauma instead. As she spoke, it wasn’t just her body that showed the scars; her voice did too.
Her face said it loud and clear: Prove it.
Explaining Craniosacral Therapy to Someone Who Has Been Manhandled
I began where I always like to begin—with an explanation and a choice.
I told her about Craniosacral Therapy (CST): how it’s subtle, how it listens to the body instead of bullying it, how it follows tissue and fluid patterns and waits for the body to invite change instead of forcing it.
I told her it might feel like “nothing is happening” if she was used to big pressure and dramatic pushing and pulling.
I also told her this work has depth—the kind of depth that doesn’t require force.
She took it in, arms crossed, eyes wary.
“Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll try it.”
She booked a session.
The First Session: Eye Rolls and Quiet Miracles
From the outside, that first session probably looked uneventful.
Sally lay on the table. I rested my hands in specific places: sacrum, cranium, along the spine, following subtle movements and holding space for the body to unwind.
On the surface, she didn’t move much. But her face told the story.
Frustration. Skepticism. Occasional annoyance.
Her eyes opened occasionally to look at me with a silent, “Seriously? This is it?” And yes—I absolutely caught an eye roll or two.
Craniosacral Therapy is not dramatic to the outside eye. There are no grand adjustments, no cracking sounds, no big stretches or deep elbow digs. If someone walks in expecting “no pain, no gain,” they often think nothing is happening.
But underneath my hands, I could feel movements—small shifts in the craniosacral rhythm, subtle releases in the fascia, a gentle leveling of her pelvis, tiny changes in tissue tension.
Her body was responding. She just couldn’t feel it yet. Her body had never been a safe space and she was not 'home' yet.
At the end of the session, she sat up slowly, looking mildly unimpressed.
“Well,” she said. “I don’t feel any different.”
I smiled. “Sometimes the body likes to show off later, after you get up and move around. Let’s see how you do over the next 24 hours.”
She gave me a polite nod that said, I’m humoring you, thanked me, and left for her training session with Alan.
I went back to my routine—tidying the room, resetting the table, getting ready for my next client.
I had no idea what was about to happen.
Fifteen Minutes Later:
Screaming in the Gym
It had been maybe fifteen minutes. I was folding fresh linens when I heard what sounded like yelling out in the hallway.
Not angry yelling—excited yelling. Loud. High-pitched. Full of energy.
And then the door flew open.
Sally burst back into the spa, jumping, arms flailing, laughing and screaming all at once.
Behind her came Alan, jogging to catch up.
I stared, completely at a loss.
This was not the skeptical, guarded woman who had left my room earlier.
This was someone who had just discovered fire.
She was so excited she was practically speaking in tongues, words tumbling over each other, hands waving, eyes wide.
I couldn’t understand any of it until Alan jumped in to translate.
What Happened in the Gym
Alan explained it like this:
He had started their post-session workout like usual.
“So, how’d it go with her?” he’d asked.
Sally shrugged. Rolled her eyes a little.
“I didn’t feel anything. She said something about my pelvis being balanced now, whatever that means. I don’t know. Felt like a whole lot of nothing.”
They started moving.
Not long into the workout, Sally stopped.
“My feet hurt,” she complained. “They’re hurting more than usual.”
This confused her, because she was wearing her special shoes with insoles—the ones that had been carefully fitted to compensate for her unbalanced pelvis and protect her feet, knees, and back.
Alan paused and reminded her of what I’d told her:
“She said your pelvis was balanced, right?”
“Yes,” she grumbled. “But I don’t know what that even means.”
“Well,” he said, “if your pelvis really is balanced now, those insoles are probably tilting you the wrong way.”
So—cautiously, almost skeptically—Sally took off her shoes.
She stood barefoot on the gym floor.
And for the first time in years…her feet didn’t hurt.
Not a little less. Not “well, it’s tolerable. ”No.They didn’t hurt.
At all.
This was a woman who had spent years needing those shoes just to make standing and walking bearable. Bare feet on a hard floor had always been her enemy.
And now? No pain.
Her body, finally balanced at the pelvis, didn’t need the artificial correction anymore. Those insoles had been a lifeline before—but now they were working against the new alignment.
Realizing that, feeling that, broke something open in her.
Joy. Relief. Disbelief. Hope.
So she did what any reasonable person would do when their entire physical reality has just been rewritten:
She screamed, laughed, and sprinted—barefoot—back to my office.
The Hug That Nearly Cracked My Ribs
Back in the spa, she barreled into my room like a one-woman parade.
“She doesn’t hurt! She doesn’t hurt!!” Alan called from behind her, still catching up.
She was jumping—full-on bouncing like a kid in a candy store.
“I took my shoes off!” she yelled. “I took my shoes off and my feet don’t hurt! They don’t hurt! I have never in my life—”
I barely got my arms up before she grabbed me in a hug so fierce I thought, Well, this is it. This is how I die.
There are worse ways to go than being crushed in a hug by a woman who just got her life back.
Her joy filled the room, spilled into the hallway, and pretty soon everyone in the spa knew that something had happened. Clients were peeking out of rooms, staff had come around corners. You’d think we’d announced she’d just won the lottery.
And in a way… she had.
From Skeptic to Super-Fan
After that day, Sally became one of my greatest advertisers.
She told everyone.
Trainers. Gym members. Her doctors. Her friends. Random people in line at the grocery store, probably.
“She worked on me once, and my feet stopped hurting. Once. You need to go see her.”
Which, of course, isn’t the full truth—healing is rarely a one-and-done process. But that first big breakthrough? That first undeniable, measurable shift? It changed her relationship with her body and with touch.
She was no longer a victim of what had been done to her. She was participating in what was happening for her. It was safe to come back to her body.
The Years That Followed
We continued working together for many years, across several different offices and chapters of my career.
There were ups and downs. Real life doesn’t move in straight lines. But overall? She continued to improve.
Her pain decreased. Her mobility increased. Her trust deepened—not just in me, but in her own body’s capacity to heal.
We laughed a lot in those sessions. We grieved some, too, especially over what had been taken from her by brute-force approaches and well-intentioned harm.
But we also celebrated every little win:
- A new range of motion
- Less pain after walking
- A better night’s sleep
- One more piece of her life she got back
What Sally Taught Me
Sally reminded me of a truth I’ve seen over and over:
Sometimes the most profound changes start so quietly, you don’t even notice until your life suddenly… doesn’t hurt where it used to.
She also reminded me that skepticism is not our enemy in this work—it’s often a sign of how deeply someone has been hurt before. Her eye rolls weren’t disrespect; they were self-protection.
And I don’t blame her.
But I’ll never forget the way that protection shattered the moment her bare feet hit the floor and didn’t scream in protest.
That joy? That shock? That wild, laughing, beautiful chaos in the spa?
That’s why I do what I do.
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Sally, Scoliosis, and the Day Her Feet Forgot to Hurt
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