Kari Toft, 42, from Vancouver, Canada, is a mother of two who is a craniosacral practitioner and also does reiki and aqua pilates. She shared her day with Carla Albertí de la Rosa.

The first thing I do when I wake up at 5:30 in the morning is meditate for about 45 minutes to an hour. I do some stretching, kind of like doing yoga. I get my kids up and have breakfast with them. I have something a bit strange for breakfast: I put a quarter cup of grated carrots, a quarter cup of daikon radish; I put a Japanese umeboshi plum, which is like a pickled plum. I pour hot water over it and I let it sit. It’s good for the intestines and for digestion. My kids will have some cereal with milk or I might sometimes make them crêpes.

At 7:45 I take them to school by car, which takes me about 15 minutes. I might stay at school and speak with some of the people there for about 10 minutes but I usually have a booking straight after I drop them off. I used to work all over Bali but I don’t do that anymore because it was too draining for me. I live in Kerobokan and I usually stay around this area, Seminyak, Canggu or Kuta, not far anymore.

I do craniosacral therapy as well as reiki and I also teach aqua pilates. I do craniosacral and reiki at my house and aqua pilates at private villas. I get my clients mostly from word of mouth.

The craniosacral therapy is a form of body work like reiki. With reiki we are channelling the energy and with craniosacral therapy we are working with the person’s energy. I’m not putting anything in. I work with the cerebrospinal fluid and with the central nervous system. So the client will lie on the table and generally they go onto trance. I connect with them energetically and let their system relax. Occasionally they are tensed enough that it’s very difficult for them to go to that place, but that doesn’t happen very often.

My system connects with them energetically and I’m able to sense where their blocks are and whether it’s mental, physical or emotional. Mostly I feel it; sometimes I see it. I will see something that happened to them by holding their head. I work all over the body but a lot is on the head and the sacrum, which is the tailbone. I can sense from their head, by a very light touch, where the blocks on the body are. So I can sense what’s going on with the bones, with the tissues, the fluids. A session takes an hour to an hour and a half. Many times it takes one session but if it’s something very heavy it takes three or five sessions, especially if they have a lot of deep emotional things going on. People that come to me might have headache, insomnia, stress, depression, scoliosis and I’ve also had a lot of pregnant women coming to me. It’s also good for the baby.

For me craniosacral therapy goes deeper and is more profound. Reiki is more suitable for a light healing. Cranio takes training and I started doing it over three years ago. I incorporate reiki and cranio in my sessions. My life personally is about service. So this is a way I can be of service to people without telling them what to do. I like the fact that craniosacral therapy is not a judgmental or opinionated therapy. It’s client-led. 

I normally skip lunch or grab something and eat it in the car going to the next appointment. I might have an aqua pilates session and I try to finish around six.

Me and my friend trade sessions; we give each other cranio. When I have spare time I swim. I go to the beach for sunset. I especially like going to Batu Belig. On Sundays I like to go to Geger Beach in Nusa Dua and I also spend much of my time reading autobiographies and non-fiction books.

In the evenings I relax with my kids and maybe help them with their homework. I lie in bed and go through my day, focusing on the positive parts and being grateful for everything positive until I fall asleep around 10:30.