KAJAMA.COM NEWSLETTER

by Heather Tick, M.D.

Guided imagery, autogenic training, biofeedback, and hypnotherapy are all techniques that can enable us to reach deep states of relaxation. It was once thought that the autonomic nervous system and things such as heart rate and blood pressure could not be voluntarily controlled. But it turns out that with proper training we can, for example, be trained to slow our heart rate and lower our blood pressure. We can dilate our peripheral blood vessels and make our cold hands warm. This type of training can also be used to control our response to pain and thereby change our experience of pain. All these techniques require practice and have increased benefits with frequent use or training.

Guided Imagery

This is usually done with a recording or a guide who talks you through the exercise. It is a form of focused attention that leads you along a path of images, though they need not be only visual images. Some people can see images in their imagination, and others prefer to imagine hearing things, feeling things, or tasting things. It is generally relaxing and often involves mentally going to a safe place of your own choosing. There are many guided-imagery CDs and MP3s on the market. I am going to give you an example of taste imagery. It is best if you have someone read it to you while you are sitting comfortably with your eyes closed.

Imagine you are in a kitchen. Food is cooking quietly on the stove. You go over to the refrigerator and take out a plump, juicy lemon. You hold it in your hand, feeling the coolness. You put it close to your nose and get a faint aroma of lemon through the intact peel. You go over to the counter and take out a cutting board, and with a knife you cut the lemon in half. Some of the juice has spurted out and the aroma of lemon is strong. You see the beads of juice on the cut surface. Then you cut each half again so the lemon is in quarters, and you notice where a seed has been cut through. You pick up one of the quarters and hold it close to your nose and appreciate the lemony smell, then you bring the lemon to your mouth and bite into it.

Are you salivating yet? This is an example of how a mere image in your mind can change your body function. There is no real lemon there, but most people will salivate as if there were.

Autogenic Training

Autogenic training is another relaxation technique that helps you to reduce the effects of stress in your body by taking you through a series of images and affirmations. Mostly the statements address the symptoms of stress and aim at helping you achieve relaxation. There are tapes and therapists who can help with this practice. The scripts vary, but they go something like this.

Sit or lie down comfortably. Make sure you are not cold. Repeat each of the following statements three times and try to feel, in your body, the sensation suggested by the words.

I am completely calm.
My arms feel heavy and warm.
My legs feel heavy and warm.
My heartbeat is calm and regular.
My breathing is calm and regular.
My abdomen is warm and comfortable.
My forehead is pleasantly cool.
My neck and shoulders are heavy and warm.
I am at peace.

Biofeedback

Biofeedback, another relaxation technique, has traditionally used electronic instruments, such as blood pressure monitors and galvanic skin response meters, to aid in the training, but something as simple as biodots, small temperature-sensitive discs applied to the hands, can teach some of the same principles. People can learn to control specific functions; for example, they can increase their blood flow and relieve muscle tension and even migraine headaches.

Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy is a way to focus attention and achieve a state of deep relaxation. Some people fear hypnosis because they remember the nightclub acts where it seemed that people could be made to do things they would not normally do. Unlike in extremes of brainwashing, as seen in spy movies, you are in control when you are hypnotized. Hypnotherapy is often used for pain relief in childbirth and with headaches and other conditions as well.

Humor

Humor is a great way to de-stress. People have used humor in tragic theater since the Greek chorus in ancient times. Shakespeare made comic relief a regular part of his tragedies. Comedy helps us cope with the catastrophic. Laughter is infectious, and brain and body chemistry change in response to humor. There is now laughter yoga, which uses nonverbal exercises. Most participants start out pretending to laugh along with the program and usually end up in genuine fits of laughter. Laughter causes some of the same physiological changes as exercise and helps balance the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems.

Some research from Norway indicates that humor may prolong life. Norman Cousins, in the autobiographical Anatomy of an Illness, explains how humor was his best distraction from pain and helped him recover from a debilitating disease that his doctors had not expected him to survive. In his book, he lists funny lines from newspaper want ads that his friends collected for him. No matter how many times I read them, I am in hysterics. Loretta Laroche and Patch Adams, M.D., are health care professionals who have turned to laughter and humor in medical settings, and there is an entire program for medical clowns in Israel called the Dream Doctors. The Dream Doctors program is a three-year course to train medical clowns who have become part of the pediatric hospitals around the country. They are developing a graduate program as well. Patients and health care personnel state that the Dream Doctors reduce stress and help the children through traumatic and painful events. Look at someone who is frowning, then look at someone who has even a little smile. Does it feel different for you? Who would you rather be faced with? Remember you have that effect on others when you smile.

Dr. Heather Tick is the author of Holistic Pain Relief and has been an integrative medical practitioner for over 20 years. A sought-after speaker, she lives in Seattle and works at the University of Washington, where she is the first Gunn-Loke Endowed Professor for Integrative Pain Medicine. Visit her online at heathertickmd.com.
Adapted from the book Holistic Pain Relief ©2013 by Dr. Heather Tick. Published with permission of New World Library.

My mother-in-law passed away at home. She was only 41 when she died from cancer. At the exact moment she left us, the lights went out. They were only out for about a minute or two. We all believe she didn't want us to watch her go so she turned the lights out for us. Is this possible or are we just being sentimental? There weren't any power outages in our area at the time, and no one could have flipped any switch because it was the entire house that went dark.

Julia

Susyn:

When people transition from a physical form to a spiritual one, as happened when your mother-in-law passed away, they will often draw on electro-magnetic fields to help themselves cross over. This would explain why all the lights in the home went out for a few minutes upon her passing.

People have reported this type of phenomenon as well as clocks stopping at the time of death or being suddenly awakened at the exact moment of someoneís passing even if the person passing was miles away.

Most paranormal researchers agree that for spirits to manifest, they must draw upon energy sources nearby to make their presence known. Along with electrical power sources, batteries can be drained, devices can mysteriously turn off, and all the warmth in the atmosphere can disappear. These same things can happen when one is in the process of moving out of the physical body and on to the next plane of existence.

Because these synchronicities happen so often, it seems that people who are passing over often have a higher spiritual awareness of what is going on, and can either consciously or unconsciously send a special message to loved ones who are left behind. While it's possible that your mother-in-law did not want anyone to witness her cross over, it is more likely that she was simply using all the energy available to her to make this transition.

As we become more aware of the spiritual mysteries of life, certain patterns become evident. If you research this a bit more, you may also discover other signs or events that suggest your mother-in-law knew that her time was near. Statements that she made a few weeks prior to her passing or activities she engaged in could also give hints that she was preparing to pass over.

Now that your mother-in-law resides in the spirit world, she may use this same phenomenon to let you know when she is near. If lights flash or the power goes out for a short time for no apparent reason, she may be trying to get your attention.

You may also be able to contact her through a channeling session. When you would like to connect with her, begin a meditation session and after a few minutes, flash the lights off and on or blow out burning candles and then relight them. This will be a special way you can signal to her.

With some practice, you should be able to feel her presence near you. This may also open the door to a conversation with her so you can affirm that she is doing well and watching over you from a higher plane of existence.

*****

Mata:

If you research the term deathbed phenomena, you'll learn that all sorts of wonderful things can happen during the special moments when a person is in the process of leaving this world.

Perhaps the most common is for the dying to report visits from loved ones who have already died. They may suddenly become very alert and stare into what seems to be empty space. They may talk to people no one else can see or describe the presence and appearance of departed loved ones.

Usually they indicate that these spirits have come to comfort them and help them cross over to the other side. In many cases, at least some of the living people present have also seen these spirits or seen lights or other strange phenomena where the spirits are supposed to be.

Often the dying will suddenly become very conscious and alert even after being in a coma for an extended period of time. It is as though they come back to this world for those last few moments so that they can bid the living goodbye.

Electrical phenomena are very common surrounding the moment of death. Many families and hospice workers have reported clocks stopping at the exact moment of death or lights flickering and going out as the last breath is expelled. Some have even seen a misty shape leaving the body at that time. Often these electrical devices will begin working fine again some time later for no apparent reason.

There have been cases that involve cell phones, television, computers, cameras, and all sorts of other equipment that suddenly turn on or off or cease to function at the moment that someone dies, only to begin working again some time later. As the same phenomena can be seen with equipment when spirits are trying to communicate with us, it may be that the dying are drawing upon the electrical energy around them in order to transition or in an effort to give us some sign or message.

If you all feel that she purposefully knocked the power out so that you wouldn't witness her final transition, I think it's wise to trust that intuition. It may be that she was trying to distract you from that painful moment while at the same time giving you a fascinating sign to boost your faith in the afterlife.

I think it's wonderful that your whole family was able to witness the power going out. Too often amazing deathbed phenomena are only experienced by individuals who are alone with the dying, and are so subjective in nature that after some time, they begin to wonder if their minds were playing tricks on them.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.