Caitlin Lyon is a craniosacral therapist, teacher, writer, and retreat guide. She has been practicing yoga and meditation since 1996 and teaching for the past 12 years. As a mentor, facilitator and guide, Caitlin has experience working with youth and adults, individually and in groups, and in many different settings including workshops for young women and day-long events for emerging adults; for military families, veterans, refugees, aid workers, trauma care providers, non-profit organizations, performing art conservatories, zen centers, youth groups, yoga teacher trainings, silent retreats, community colleges, caregivers, homeless shelters, spiritual communities, women’s circles, and other retreat settings.
Her devotion to healing and engaged, contemplative living has led her to study medical and sociocultural anthropology and the peace process in Northern Ireland, documentary photography in San Francisco, sit long meditation retreats, explore dreams and mysticism from a variety of perspectives, study and teach yoga, apprentice in grief work, circle and council practices, earth-based wisdom traditions, womb medicine, rites of passage, ritual and ceremony, the study of plants, and extensive training in yoga, trauma resolution work, and bodywork with notable teachers including Sarah Powers and Erich Schiffman. Her passion is creating listening spaces for embodied presence, authentic communication, and community ritual. Over the years, her focus has been working with young women who suffer from trauma, loss, or chronic illness, as well as those experiencing a “dark night of the soul.”
An artist and photographer at heart, Caitlin utilizes contemplative practices to invoke presence, beauty and wisdom. She facilitates creative workshops and retreats focused on soul renewal and the remembrance of our own gifts through writing, storytelling, and portraiture. Clients are inspired to create meaningful change in their lives through creative ritual, art-making, and self-reflective practices.
Caitlin is a licensed bodywork therapist (LMP#49494) and certified biodynamic craniosacral therapist, and for the past 5 years, her private practice has specialized in working with women and newborns in Santa Barbara County.
She lives in the Santa Ynez Valley where she continues to study, practice, listen, and teach.
Learn More About:
Who I work with:
I work with people who feel called to listen inward and honor their higher callings. Regardless of their background, they share a deep desire to live authentically - simply and soulfully, in touch with their own gifts and inner wisdom.
I work with people from all walks of life including mothers of highly sensitive children, emerging adults (ages 16-30), and I specialize in working with practitioners, creatives, and leaders - the therapeutic helpers and meaning-makers.
If this speaks to you, and you’d like to explore how I can help, you can email me here and we can talk.
How I work:
Craniosacral sessions are scheduled at my Solvang and Santa Barbara offices. For those terminally ill or unable to come to the office, arrangements can be made for house calls.
Most of my long-distance clients work with me virtually via phone or video sessions (Zoom), and for those in Solvang or Santa Barbara area, we can meet in person. Some choose to work in inspiring locations.
There are a few ways to work with me:
Personal healing and craniosacral sessions: private mentoring clients
Business building: private practice mentoring
Group work: gatherings, circles, online courses, workshops
Retreats: daylongs, craft a personal retreat, or join us in a group setting
Essential oils community: essential oils education and business mentorship
Clients often seek my support when they are looking for:
- Reconnection to their bodies
- Greater trust in themselves
- Boundary repair
- Change in painful or stuck patterns
- Deeper connection to themselves after feeling lost (soul restoration and renewal)
- Dealing with women’s health concerns: PMS, anxiety, painful periods, etc.
- Support during loss or grief
- Renewal after stressful or challenging times and wanting to refocus and prioritize themselves
- Self-reflection and self-discovery after years of focusing on other people and projects
- Meditation instruction and healing guidance
You may be desiring:
- A compassionate, grounded perspective for engaged living
- Inspiration and guidance in nurturing your gifts and intuition
- Access to your deep knowing
- Authentic connection and a sense of belonging
- Peace and attunement
I’d also love you to know that…
I’m a grief practitioner. Because of my father’s nature, deep connection to community, and work as a therapist, I’ve been exposed to death, illness, and loss since a young age. I’ve studied and explored grief in all of its forms. My parents joke that I’d been to more funerals than birthday parties by the time I was 10. Now, I often support women through the losses and liminal "unknown" spaces of their lives: miscarriages, stillbirths, parents’ deaths, children’s deaths, heartbreak, and other losses.
I’m a space-holder for men. I’ve trained in various mindfulness-focused work for men. Most recently (as of April 2018), I completed coursework with Jeannie Zandi in Creating Safe Space for Men.
I came to this work early and honestly (the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.) While growing up, my father, now a therapist, was completing his thesis in Contemplating Psyche and our bookshelves were filled with Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Zen teachers and feminist authors and healers, including my favorite writer on soul medicine, Deena Metzger. Needless to say, I had an early start in dream and soul work and re-discovering the wild, indigenous woman within.
I’m an edge-dweller and bridge-walker. I’ve lived off grid at different points in my life. In meditation and spiritual retreat communities. I grew up in a conventional household with unconventional discussion on all things spirituality, science, service, and tending to the soul.
I value communal solitude. To be an effective therapeutic space-holder, I prioritize lots of “down” time cultivating strong bonds with a soul circle of friends, my supervision mentor, clinical supervisor, spiritual mentors, doTERRA community, pets and garden, and the hills and valley that I’m from.
My work is trauma-informed, resiliency-focused, body-led, reflective, and deeply compassionate. It’s also attachment-based, somatic in nature, and relational.
Me (left) with fellow retreat leader, Kate McCarthy, at her home in Seattle
I’m a natural connector. I love introducing people to their next teachers, friends, mentors, life-changing practices and resources. One of the most common questions I get asked is, “How do you know so many people that do so many amazing things?” It’s the one tool in my fairy-godmother bag. And I offer it freely and with abandon :)
I aim to be inclusive and intersectional, even though I know this is a learning edge where I will be humbled and inevitably fail. Often.
The words others most often use to describe me and my approach are: warm, compassionate, nonjudgmental, caring, fierce, empathetic, grounded, insightful, intelligent, kind, and transparent.
I’m an INFJ or Advocate. Also, an HSP. (Makes for a sensitive bunch.) I'm endlessly entertained by Ellie, the silliest Aussie pup.
You can often find me curled up with a British novel, painting watercolor flowers, listening to podcasts, or knitting while catching up on Colbert. I take my introvertedness very seriously. ;) I’m also known as a heart-tender, wisdom facilitator, story-catcher, and baby whisperer... comes in handy as an Auntie.)
I’m fueled by matcha, oils, and empathy. I teach and lead others in using essential oils. Connecting with humans over this love for plants is one of my greatest joys.
I’m surprisingly fierce at times. My mother swears she doesn’t know where it comes from, but I’m both soft and fiery while being centered, with a great capacity to bear witness. I relish hanging out in the uncomfortable and hard places with people, holding the torch of light with an unrelenting hope in the goodness that’s to come. For healing. For reclamation. For a future to stand in.
I speak the unspokens. I don’t shy away from what’s painful or scary or broken in our world. But I’m as gentle as they come in my personal delivery and support when working with fellow humans.
There’s a lot of power in presence. And that’s where I do my best to live.
I'm so happy you're here. Please reach out and say hello.
Currently spending my days:
I divide my work time between my treatment rooms in Santa Barbara and Solvang, house calls with moms and babies, and here, at my desk where I get to write or sit and connect with lovely souls like yourself. In private sessions, I use craniosacral therapy, therapeutic mentoring, meditation, and my background in Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, retreat facilitation, women’s wisdom traditions, trauma resolution work, and therapeutic bodywork.
You can see more of what I'm up to over on Instagram.
Happening this year:
2018 is proving to be an exciting year and I’m eager to share some of the work I’ve been focusing on behind the scenes.
I’ll be holding a 6 month women’s wisdom circle beginning in September 2018. You can sign up here to be on the list for details.
Earlier this year, I launched my mentoring sessions for men after years working privately and in retreat settings.
In April, I took advanced biodynamics course with Bhadrena Gemin and the International Institute for Craniosacral Biodynamics.
I’m currently in council training to deepen my skills on holding space and helping us all be better listeners and caregivers to our souls.
Stay tuned for upcoming retreat dates.
Formal Bio
Caitlin Lyon, LMP #49494, BCST, is a retreat leader, workshop facilitator, writer, teacher, craniosacral therapist, and mentor to practitioners and caregivers. She serves as a space holder, healing guide, body whisperer, and fellow student on the journey. She's been leading women and groups to calm, clarity, and connection for over a decade - first as a therapeutic yoga and meditation teacher, and now as a cranial practitioner and mentor.
In this time, she's developed a robust framework based on somatic therapies, nervous system health, biodynamic craniosacral work, meditation, trauma skills, soul work, compassionate communication, and bodywork therapy that has transformed how women heal and care for themselves.
Praise and Gratitude from Former Clients & Retreat Participants
"Caitlin, I feel honored to have met you, and want you to know how much I have grown and gained from my short time at the retreat. I feel so much more centered than I ever have, communicating with parts I have pushed away my entire life. That warm, laughing light I felt in my session with you has been my daily companion, and I have realized it is my true self. I am emotional as I write this to you, but I feel like that was the first time I’ve ever felt it and understood what it was- my true inner light. You and that session guided me to it. I will be forever grateful."
- Selena, dancer, personal retreat participant
Caitlin has a beautiful presence that you can’t help but feel deeply held by. Her intuitive grace coupled with her soft and gentle energy creates a really powerful container for one to drop deeper into their emotions and vulnerability. Caitlin is someone I deeply trust in holding a sacred space for me, one where I feel completely safe to reveal and get in touch with the deepest parts of myself and be healed through my emotions and out through my body. She is a treasure and a true and gifted healer.
- Hillary Schneider, Founder of Epona Rise Retreat Center