What an emotionally challenging, but all in all beautiful experience! I feel full of gratitude and compassion.
Last week we spent 4 days at a military hospital close to L’viv: Wojtek Cackowski (Zoga Movement) led two courses there, with the help of Alfonso Cazenave (Karuna Bodywork) and Khrystyna Tsvihun. The first one, about which I will write today, was Sharon Wheeler’s method ScarWork.
Meeting the war veterans face to face was shocking for me at first. Men in their twenties to their fifties, with scars from amputations, bullets, shrapnel, etc. told us stories straight from hell. Among them there were different degrees of acceptance or resignation. I was impressed by the fact that many of them showed a remarkable sense of humour and invested huge amounts of energy in their rehabilitation. In comparison I felt like a privileged coward who would be terrified of being sent to the frontline in case of war, and if I lost an arm or leg I would surely break down.
But I managed to focus on our mission. We treated the veterans with our own hands and (more importantly) we taught the local therapists new ways of approaching scars, so that they can keep helping even more effectively. Sadly this kind of work is going to be very necessary for years to come.
All of our models, to a greater or lesser extent, felt the benefits of this work. We got feedback like: a feeling of relief, more comfort, improved mobility, reduced pain and paresthesia (including phantom pain and numbness) and increased hope.
We felt huge gratitude from and towards the veterans, organizers, therapists from the hospital and all the participants. This was a beautiful and fruitful time, that’s why we will be there again in November – this time together with Sharon Wheeler!
Many thanks to the organizer (Khrystyna Tsvihun), our guardian angel (Stefan), all the models and participants, our sponsors (Boryszew group) for making this possible and, especially, to my mentor Wojtek Cackowski for the possibility of joining this initiative.
I will write about the second course (cranium) in the next post.
#scarwork #sharonwheeler