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.

I have been having some strange things happen to me lately. I had some psychic ability as a child that seemed to go away. I sometimes see flashes of white like a figure, but it's not clear. I sense this is a man. Once in awhile, I hear a quick voice; again, this is not clear but it is usually a woman's voice. Then I had a beautiful plant just fall off the windowsill onto the floor. I watched as it happened. Then I put a rose in the same spot, and yesterday the rose was moved onto the kitchen table when no one was here. For the past week or so, I have been finding little piles of pennies throughout the house. To be honest it is getting a little annoying as they are all over by the end of the day. Could you please tell me what could be going on? Thank you so much.

Lisa

Susyn:

Many of us have psychic experiences as children, but when they are discounted by our parents, we learn to ignore them. Whether we believe in them or not, we all possess psychic abilities, and they seem to get stronger when we encounter events such as those you describe.

Though your sun sign is officially Sagittarius, you were born in November, which means you are prone to being psychically sensitive whether you have developed your intuitive gifts or not. Because you experienced psychic events in childhood, it may be that your psychic senses have been lying dormant for many years, just waiting for a chance to resurface.

Because you have experience with psychic phenomena, you may also find yourself noticing subtle phenomena or sensing unusual energies when you enter a room. This awareness will make it easier to pinpoint the source of all this activity.

It sounds like you have a poltergeist or spirit in your home. Moving objects, things that fly off of shelves, and faint voices are often indicative of the sort of paranormal activity for which poltergeists are known.

Though this does not appear to be a dangerous spirit, its activities could become annoying or unsettling. Normally, poltergeists are found in homes where adolescents are struggling with hormonal changes. They are also often found in areas that have an unusually high amount of limestone. Since it sounds like you live alone, this spirit may have been present long before you moved in.

There are some things you can do to try to clear the entity on your own. Performing a clearing ritual with a sage smudge stick, feather, and blessed oil may take care of the problem.

To perform a cleansing ritual, obtain a sage smudge stick, a large feather, and a bottle of blessed oil from your local metaphysical shop. If they don't carry the oil, you can use virgin olive oil as a substitute.

Light the smudge stick. As it smolders, walk from room to room, asking aloud that all uninvited and negative entities leave the premises at once. In each room, place a drop or two of the oil onto the feather and anoint your window sills and doorways with it.

The atmosphere should feel lighter after you have completed this ritual. It won't take long for you to see if this has been effective, for the activity will either cease or continue.

If this doesn't work, you may need some outside help with removing this entity from your home. Do some research to find out if there is someone in your area like a psychic or paranormal team that performs exorcisms or spiritual house clearings.

*****

Mata:

These events are classic signs that a spirit or metaphysical entity is trying to get your attention. No doubt this is the figure in white that you visually catch flashes of.

While some spiritual professionals may advise you to bless your home and protect yourself spiritually, I think it's best to avoid jumping to conclusions that this must be a harmful or malevolent presence.

Just as there are both good and bad people in the world, there are good and bad entities in other dimensions. It just makes sense that if bad entities can interact with us, good entities can interact with us as well.

The unmistakable hallmark of negative entities is the feelings of terror or creepiness that wash over us in their presence. This is a primal feeling designed to warn us of danger.

Similarly, when we encounter a loving Spirit, we tend to feel calm, accepting, and unafraid throughout the experience, and it is only in retrospect that we may begin to question if this is normal and perhaps talk ourselves into being afraid.

We have devoted many columns to helping people who believe they are being spiritually attacked in some way; I think it's wise to ponder the other side of this equation. Just as negative entities may try to influence us to our detriment, positive entities can and do try to help us. Sometimes they simply reach out to show us that there is more to the Universe than meets the eye.

Positive spirits and angels tend to appear as white figures, where negative entities are more likely to appear as black figures or dark shadows. Further, leaving piles of pennies is a classic way departed loved ones may send us signs of their presence.

That flowers have repeatedly been involved also suggests that this is a positive being who is trying to come up with innocuous ways to get your attention. If this were a negative entity, it would be doing ugly things to try to scare you, not leaving signs involving things like flowers and pennies.

My feeling is that this being knows you have latent psychic ability, for when you glimpse it in those flashes of vision, it is aware that you are perceiving it. Your conscious mind then immediately shuts down this awareness because it is contradicts your belief system about what is possible, after which this being tries harder to show you that what you saw was really real.

I recommend you consult a professional psychic medium for more information on who is reaching out to you, and work on awakening your own abilities so that you can dialogue with this being and determine what it's trying so hard to tell you.

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.