The Sanctuary Within-Leopi Nicola

Welcome to Ortho-Bionomy® with a Midwifery perspective

My dear families, friends and clients.

I have moved to Los Cerrillos, near Santa Fe, New Mexico!

I will  continue to return monthly to the Bay Area in California to also care for my community there.

I am an Ortho-Bionomy practitioner ® and a home-birth midwife. I am counsellor, consultant, wise woman and body tracker. I listen to your body and we have a conversation.  Some call me a body whisperer.

I am an Ortho-Bionomy practitioner but, also I am always a Midwife and all that I do with you, comes from this perspective. I offer my wisdom through my hands and voice. I am a consultant as much as I am a body therapist. I mostly work with the transformational time of pregnancy, post pregnancy and yes, pre-pregnancy preparation for families to be. I also always include  new~born baby cranial sacral sessions.

However, now, I work with people of all ages from newborns to 100 years young.

I have been a home birth midwife since 1984. I have caught through my hands something over 1500 babies. These beautiful families and babies have taught me so much in my 36 years of service. I am so deeply grateful to you all.

I also offer support and deep listening to all of our precious caregivers, healers and birth guides and birth workers. I feel I am  blessed to be your midwife now, and am touched and honoured to bring my midwifery heart and hands to you.

I also so enjoy working with athletes, dancers, yoginis, pilates instructors and all those that lover to move.

and here, a few examples of why Ortho-Biomomy benefits you

Repetitive stress injuries

chronic muscle tension

PTSD

post surgery

Physical stress to the body through life style stress, injury, surgery, falls, car accidents, high velocity injuries

Life changes such as grief, divorce, death, trauma, any intense emotional experiences and traumatic events.

Ortho-Bionomy helps reset and align the nervous system, and re-organise the cycles of pain to a more simpler state of well being and ease.

All are welcome to discover Ortho-bionomy!

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Who am I?

My name is Leopi Nicola Sanderson-Edmunds. I have been a licensed home-birth midwife since 1984 and an Ortho-Bionomy body therapist since 2009. I am also a large-scale figurative Painter. The images on this website are my paintings.

Ortho-bionomy is a body therapy for everyone of all ages and life cycles. I work with new borns to people as young as 100.

I specialize working with  women – pre-pregnancy, pregnancy,  post birth and all members of the family. I love  to be in Ortho-bionomy with the new born, until about 16 weeks. I also love to initiate and gently invite labor by releasing the pregnant body, for all women due or overdue.

let the sacred work begin!

As a midwife, I am in awe of our wonderful pelvis. Ortho-bionomy can optimize baby positioning, spaciousness and alignment of mother and baby as they grow together. Also, for women who are due or over due, we can often gently invite and initiate labor to begin, by a deeper treatment with a midwife perspective. We together, release deep pelvic muscles, bones, ligaments and even upper rib/diaphragm tension. Also, and just as importantly, we  release from the inside out, emotions of stress, tension, apprehension, and fear of birth.

Ortho-bionomy is also wonderful for tired, worried parents, holding baby through the day and night, breastfeeding shoulders, tight neck and sore back and hips from sitting long periods of time.

 It is important to me, to always work with both parents, because both parents are somatically and structurally in a deep life transition. It is a loop between parents and baby, and everyone is tapping into one another nervous systems. 

I hope through ortho-Bionomy and, a holistic midwifery perspective, we can support the family, creating more resiliency and ease during this time. To also honour and acknowledge, that every baby brings a new beginning and and so, this is a very important time to re-align,  centre, balance, and re-set. 

I am in two locations,

Albany, California, and Cerrillos New mexico.

If you see me in Los Cerrillos, New Mexico.

You will come to my beautiful and serene home office  “sanctuary” is in Los Cerrillos, NM supports both parents and baby nicely in the large studio space. A comfortable living room area, with couch, rocking chair, fire in winter, Ac in summer, most of all, the most peaceful enchanting town to walk around before and after your session. You may also go and have a delicious bite of food at the blackbird Saloon a few doors down from our place if you have a little extra time to hang out.  Have a spa day together as a family, while one rests or walks baby, your partner will be deeply resetting in a quiet room on a warmed table.

How do we “do” Ortho-Bionomy?

Although the name may seem long and difficult to remember at times…in fact we track together.

I am sort of like a tracker with your inner body self. I see a landscape of your inner body intelligence and life force. I am a guide help you reconnect and return to your original home. We together, are invited by your intelligent and sentient being to heal and align without force or resistance. We are always patient and non judgmental. You will rediscover what you feel like at peace and at ease.

We ask  through Ortho-bionomy, what your body may be waiting to tell you. We release tension, pain and perhaps emotions, like fear, anxiety, and futility, overwhelm and grief, so we can free up more space for the experience of peace, joy and stillness.

Many of those who receive Ortho-Bionomy experience moments of deep calm, relaxation, a feeling of expansion, warmth, and new internal sensations of spaciousness, that settle into a tranquil and more fuller presence.  You may also notice, a heightened body-mind awareness and feelings of presence, softness, stillness, calmness, alertness.

Ortho-Bionomy is truly a conversation with yourself. For some of you, this can be quite surprising, as you first observe your body releasing, and this may feel very new and intimate. You may feel as if you are awakening.

What I have observed and what my clients have observed while on my table:  Within 10 minutes, you may experience a state of  re-connection with your Body Self ,that feels dreamy, as if in a light trance, your eyes will soften or close.

You may also experience:

Feeling and looking more youthful, more flexibility, in body and mind. Able to handle life a little easier.

MORE  ease, bounce, lightness, suppleness, fluidity, resiliency, flexibility, balance, and calm. Please know, sometimes there is soreness even emotionally, activation of something coming from deep within and surfacing, as your release continues.

Often there is internal lengthening and even feeling physically taller and longer. Feet and stride may feel different and more balanced and supple. Shoes may fit differently, so please don’t be too attached to them.

Sleep may be unusually deep and you may awaken more refreshed or, awaken very sore.

You may have a stronger sexual drive and more connection to your sensuality.

you may experience your Self as pure nature and interconnected.

If you are pregnant, you may feel your baby move when ever a release passes through your body. Your baby may very well turn into her optimal position, with next 48 hours.

… and a Life effect may be you might notice that you are naturally beginning to slow down, even in our fast world and find more presence and ease with it.

I hope to see you soon at the Sanctuary

Don’t go outside your house to see the flowers. My friend, don’t bother with that excursion. Inside your body there are flowers. One flower has a thousand petals. That will do for a place to sit. Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty inside the body and out of it, before gardens and after gardens.” ― Kabir.

Ortho-Bionomy® is a registered trademark of the Society of Ortho-Bionomy International, Inc. and is used with permission.