We recently connected with Liz Chandler and have shared our conversation below.

Liz, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

In my past life, I was an elementary school educator both stateside and internationally. My postpartum experience launched me into who I am now. In the first few months after my daughter was born, I experienced and new level of vulnerability and despair in navigating this new version of myself and trying to care for a tiny human that I thought I was supposed to understand and love so much right away. Together, we experienced several feeding challenges. I was introduced to the world of tongue ties and body tension through her failure to thrive diagnosis, which in turn also made me feel like I’d failed her. We’d spend hours trying to feed, which only resulted in more screaming until she was too tired to stay awake and I at a loss of how to help her. I felt like I was hanging on by a thread as intrusive thoughts tried to worm their way into any ounce of joy I might have had surrounding my daughter.

It wasn’t until her first session of Craniosacral therapy with my doula, Molly Stephenson, that I experienced what peace in the postpartum period can feel like. I had to learn what this work was all about.

At the same time, I was working closely with a lactation consultant Elisabeth Goebel, who helped me feel empowered to nourish my baby in a way that worked for us.

We moved from Kansas to Virginia with the military a couple months later. Everything started moving quickly. I found a chiropractor’s office for our family. At this office, was a woman who practiced something called Reiki, which I’d never heard of. I was recommended to try it to help with my postpartum anxiety and intrusive thoughts. One session with Tanisha Balarezo changed my life forever. Doors started opening to spiritual aspects of myself that had been shut since I was a kid. I knew I needed to learn more about this work, too.

Very soon, Tanisha organized a Reiki class, which I took. So many insights and awarenesses started forming, pieces of the puzzle coming together.

Around the same time, I was able to take a Craniosacral therapy class and learn how to hold space for the body to release physical tension.

I felt this inward drive to hold space for families going through the postpartum experience, to help provide peace in such a massive life transition. I was also co-establishing a birth and postpartum doula company, Blissful Baby Steps, LLC, and this gave me a lot of insight into this process and what was needed for our communities of families, especially those navigating feeding challenges.

After taking a CST class with Carol Gray where she hosts free infant bodywork clinics, I wanted to bring this back to my community and open an invitation for professionals who work with new families to join us as we provided free sessions of Craniosacral therapy, massage, physical therapy, and chiropractic care for infants. I wanted the collaborative approach to help families get connected with resources so that they could feel empowered and supported in their postpartum experience.

My experience and work have taught me how important holding space is for the entire family. When I have an infant in session, I will ask the parents if they’d like some work done for them. Such powerful healing and peace takes place when families feel validated, held, and helped.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Liz Chandler. I’m a licensed Reiki Master Teacher, and I practice intuitive Craniosacral therapy. During sessions, I integrate techniques from Craniosacral therapy, Craniosacral fascial therapy, and Myofascial release to help facilitate physical, emotional, and mental relaxation. I use Reiki and Psychic Mediumship to help balance the energetic bodies and connect people with their loved ones and spiritual teams.

In sessions with me, the energetic and spiritual bodies are just as important as the physical, mental, and emotional bodies. This means as I’m releasing physical tension in fascia or helping cerebrospinal fluid flow easier along the Craniosacral system, I may also be working to balance energy levels in the same areas or connecting with the client’s spirit team to relay helpful messages that are needed in the client’s life.

I work on all ages, yet many know me for working with infants, especially those navigating tethered oral tissues. I have a particular interest in serving whole families. If an infant is seeing me, I would love to see the parent(s), siblings, and even grandparents receiving this work. These types of sessions can be transformative for generational healing.

I also wanted more of the knowledge of this work to reach more families, so I created an online series called Relax Your Baby for families with newborns to help show and teach them how to release tension for their baby at home. It can be found on my website.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Most professionals in my area did not understand or even know about the work I do when I first started. It was important to me to connect with each of the disciplines that might be serving the same population because I wanted to build up my resource list for families. My work is sometimes hard to fully understand until a session is experienced, so for the better part of two years, I offered one free session for practitioners in my area so that they could understand what CST With Liz is like and so that they could better explain to others what they might experience.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

The last four years of building my business have been filled with several pivots, decisions, surprises, and lessons. Most of my early building was done in tandem with a baby turned toddler in tow. My husband is in the military, so he was often out to sea. I was my daughter’s everything, and I was also creating everything with this business. It was a lot to balance, but out of my lowest moments were born my greatest inspirations. To do this type of integrative work, it requires me to also go deep and hold space for my shadows, which is not always easy. I’m thankful for the friends along the way who truly saw me and provided space for me. I’m thankful to myself for not quitting.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://cstwithliz.com
• Instagram: cstwithliz
• Facebook: cstwithliz
• Other: Booking website: cstwithliz.janeapp.com

Image Credits

Bree Fu