“There is a doctor inside each patient. (Let us) give the doctor who resides inside a chance to go to work.”

Albert Schweitzer, MD, Nobel Prize Winner

A powerful form of mind/body medicine is now helping people of any age, including young people like you, to cope with both physical illness and the everyday stresses in life. Known as “guided imagery,” it involves using relaxation exercises, positive mental images and special breathing techniques.

Suppose you are faced with a situation that is unpredictable or out of your control, then learning guided imagery will give you tools you can pull out of your “medicine bag” whenever you need them. These mind/body healing techniques can help you relax your body so you can recharge yourself. This process decreases muscle tension and the stress that contributes to physical and emotional discomfort.

There are 3 steps in the process of stress relief. They are: to identify your stress symptoms, to reframe stressful situations, and to practice relaxation techniques. Each step is part of a progression to increase self-awareness and to experience relief.

When practiced regularly, powerful benefits of these techniques include:

• Easy to use

• You can self-start

• Reduces physical and mental stress

• Decreases fear and anger

• Expands creativity

• Strengthens a sense of control

• Increases concentration

• Improves skills in problem-solving

• Increases attention and recall

• Enhances self-esteem

1. IDENTIFY YOUR STRESS SYMPTOMS

Using the mind/body messages of discomfort and strain as a warning sign, we learn to understand our body’s responses under normal and stressful conditions. When we understand ourselves well, we have more control and relieve tension.

It is useful to see if your stress symptoms are predominately physical, emotional or behavioral. This helps you develop more awareness and appreciate how the body signals you to bring your awareness to the pain — that part of you that is asking for attention. Once we identify the warning of overload, we can stop ignoring the harmful effects of stress and start shifting into deep relaxation.

Take a moment to make a checklist of your stress symptoms.

2. REFRAME STRESSFUL SITUATIONS

See your problems in a new way. Pay attention to your thinking. Learn methods of detachment to conserve energy and program yourself for well-being and inner peace.

Our sense of time is a major influencing factor in our awareness of pain and also anxiety. It promotes a sense of urgency and unneeded stress. When we become familiar with conscious relaxation techniques, we develop a new sense of time – one that promotes “I have all the time there is”. We experience the moment as long and full – the ever present now. With practice, our sense of time expands. More importantly, we cultivate an attitude of friendliness with time.

Remember: a feeling begins with a thought and a thought can be changed. Feelings of appreciation and love help our bodies stay healthy and strong, while feelings of meanness, anger, and sadness wear the body out.

A picture held in the mind can literally effect every cell in our bodies. The brain makes no distinction between real or imagined information. So when we worry about things going wrong and picture all the possible fearful events, our bodies go into a stress response which increases our blood pressure, heart rate, respiration and overall metabolic rate. In short, our body starts using up energy, like a car engine revving-up to super high gear. Prolonged, without relief, this over-excited, over-stressed condition wears out your physical body and contributes to emotional distress as well. As soon as you realize you are stressed-out, your body is asking you to pay attention to your own particular warning signs of discomfort and pain. Then it is your opportunity to stop, slow down and regroup. Use guided imagery CD’s to imagine health, peace, love and joyful beautiful images, then your body will respond positively.

Here is a reframe statement:

“Wisdom is the instantaneous recognition that a crisis is a blessing and even greater wisdom recognizes that blessings can also trigger a crisis.” (W. Dyer)

3. PRACTICE RELAXATION TECHNIQUES

Your imagination is a very powerful tool! Current brain research tells us that we typically use only 10% of our brain’s potential. Guided imagery offers a way to tap into that other 90% of the brain. Also, guided imagery is a way to give your mind something positive to focus on, using music and positive suggestions. Unless you give your mind something to focus on, your mind will decide what it wants to focus on – and it may choose something like pain or sadness.

How do you learn guided imagery? You can be taught by a health professional (such as a psychologist, nurse, or teacher) or you can listen to audio and video programs designed for this purpose.

To make guided imagery work for you, follow these guidelines:

• Practice regularly

• Use a quiet space. Turn off the TV, computer or radio

• Find a comfortable position. Sitting up like royalty on throne chair is best.

• Listen to the audio recording.

• Let your imagination open to creativity; after each audio program you can draw or paint a picture, write a poem or a story, or dance.

Try a two-minute countdown if you need something quick for on the spot relief. Visualize an image of a beautiful stairway, one that leads to a garden, up a mountain pass or onto a boardwalk to the ocean. Count one step at a time, one breath at a time. Count from one to ten as you imagine yourself walking somewhere in nature that is pleasant and peaceful to you. Now count back from ten to one, one breath at a time, one step at a time.

Relax your eyes. It might be amazing to know, but for most people, just closing the eyes can bring about a relaxation response. So much of our day, we are over-stimulated by visual information. Learn how to take a deep, calming breath, let your eyes close, and your blood pressure lowers, automatically.

A smile is a gift of love that brings cheer to ourselves and others. Research shows the physiological changes in neurochemistry when we produce a smile. Notice what happens. Your beautiful face seems to brighten up. Now give the smile away. You will notice a good feeling as you notice them smile back at you.

You can use these rescue remedies wherever you are, and you’ll find they work naturally and easily each time you use them.

Today, we need to plant some “seeds of change.” Change for the better! Let’s expand the message from the teaching tale, “Jack and the Beanstalk” to help you and your child consider how Jack allowed magic to permeate his life with his use of ingenuity to prosper. We need to prosper, in the sense of doing well and flourishing, growing strong in our health- mind, body, and spirit.

In so many ways, intention is about creating magic. Intention is the energy of manifestation. We all have the potential to use our inner vision to see a world we want to live into! Creating magic by “holding an intention of what we want” is empowering. Ask, “what do I consciously want to create?” The choices we make will determine the quality of life on our planet. Now is the time to decide. Let’s create a new world rather than be diminished by fear.

Mindful seed planting builds self-esteem, creativity and generosity. Furthermore, selecting seeds for growing herbs that calm you is an additional measure of body/mind wisdom. For example, chamomile and lemon balm make soothing teas, perfect to drink in the late afternoon or right before bed.

Let’s show kids that our minds are like gardens. We can grow either thorny weeds by holding negative, fearful thoughts or we can grow beautiful, tender flowers by holding positive, kind and courageous thoughts. When we focus on ways to motivate our child to live fulfilling lives, we build their confidence, guided by an inner moral compass, an inner impulse to choose wisely.

But what does “choose wisely” really mean? It means you’ve taught your child about the interconnectedness of all life. That everything is energy and we all affect each other. No man is an island. In fact, we affect the earth and water. And the earth and water affect us, too.

We can be positive contributors to our world when we use the wisdom tools we’ve been practicing. Everything is energy. The use of your own energy through your thoughts and feelings (intentions)- will strengthen you. Being peaceful in your consciousness,transmits peace to your child.

We must model for our children the ways to hold our emotions contain our thoughts and generate good vibrations. This is the way of an educated heart.

Many teens and pre-teens are asking for help to cope with feelings of frustration, anger, fear and sadness during this pandemic with the order to shelter in place.

Our youth are stressed- some believe they won’t have a future to live into; some are unable to cope with their stress, while most struggle with an inability to manage their emotions and display behaviors such as irritability, impulsive outbursts, defiance and withdrawal. Disconnection from emotions may also be exhibited in physical symptoms such as headaches, changes in eating and sleeping patterns and lowered immune system. These conditions are distressing to our teens but also, parents.

Scientific findings in the mind/body studies assure us, we all have a built-in mechanism for regaining calm and balance when we learn life skills to tap the body’s wisdom.

At this time, it seems the most common reaction to stress is to ignore the warning signs of overload, missing the opportunity to restore well-being using natural methods.

Furthermore, parents, themselves, must find within their own apparatus the spontaneous ability to parent with power, calm themselves, rather than rushing to get their kids on prescription drugs thinking this will help. Other teens are smoking marijuana to decompress.

What’s happening to our kids? Our culture is promoting numbing out. I believe many teens have already been struggling with their life experiences and the trance of unworthiness even before this pandemic became a global phenomenon. Missing is the skillful management and establishment of inner strength, security and confidence.

Now, more than ever, if you learn how to face uncertainty, you’ll find a valuable part of yourself in the process.

Our mind/body connection is an innate asset for building resilience because given the proper conditions, we have the capacity to cope on four levels: physical, mental. emotional and spiritual. In my doctoral studies of cross-cultural healing practices, the discovery of the power within, convinced me to develop strategies designed to help young people help themselves. The first step, requires we understand that looking outside of ourselves for solutions to anxiety is not as effective as our inner stress-proofing system. Once you learn these skills, you’ll be able to manage any kind of discomfort confronting you in your life.

The four-fold way to find interior stability during times of uncertainty:

1. Mental Level: Wisdom of the Mind

2. Emotional Level: Wisdom of the Heart

3. Physical Level: Wisdom of the Body

4. Spiritual Level: Wisdom of the Soul

We are all going through an extraordinary time right now. It is a time of the old falling away and the new has not yet come into being. Allow me to offer you a perspective you may not have considered.

These days we may have to dive deep to find our peace.

Did you know in the wild, this beautiful nautilus usually
lives in the ocean of the tropical Indo-Pacific and will move to deeper depths such as 600-2,000 feet deep to avoid chaos?

Here’s a way to practice being peaceful…

When you realize you are energy – a living energetic being – youʼll be more likely to use your energy intentionally before you enter a room, speak a word, write a letter or begin to take action of any kind. If you donʼt believe me, run a little experiment and try this for a week. Become a “Human Sparkler!”

Kintsugi (pronounced-keen tau gee) is the Japanese art of golden repair. When growing up, I oftentimes broke a cup or plate while trying to help set the dinner table. If a mechanical thing broke apart, I’d figure out how it worked and put it back together again. In the end, although I was upset I broke something precious, my parents gave me a way to feel proud of my efforts. Many years later, I read about kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken vessels by sealing the cracks with lacquer and carefully dusting them with gold powder. The
Japanese believe the gold cracks make the pieces even more precious and valuable.

I believe the Japanese art of golden repair is a beautiful way to explain to children how to see the broken, difficult and painful parts of our lives as valuable making us stronger
and better than before. When we can adopt an attitude of acceptance. allowing things to be just the way they
are instead of hiding them or resisting, then we can grow into our magnificence with all the golden cracks radiating a new kind of beauty. Unfortunately, many kids today demonstrate little capacity for difficulty and discomfort.

When you realize you are energy – a living energetic being – youʼll be more likely to use your energy intentionally before you enter a room, speak a word, write a letter or begin to take action of any kind. If you donʼt believe me, run a little experiment and try this for a week. Become a “Human Sparkler!”