Guided Imagery Meditation

Quick Stress Relief Tips…

March 1, 2020 by Carol Leave a Comment

Trying to find the time to implement stress relief techniques can be stressful itself, so I wanted to share with you some quick stress releasing ideas. It really doesn’t take long to shift your energy and calm your nervous system and access a sense of relaxation and peacefulness. Here are a few of my favorite, very quick stress releasing tricks.

#1 – EXHALE… A few focused, deep breaths can shift your mood in a moment. Exhaling slowly stimulates the Parasympathetic part of the nervous system, the part that calms and nourishes our system. Inhaling stimulates the Sympathetic part, the part that controls the Fight or Flight response. Think about the difference between a quick gasp and adrenalin surge when you are startled, vs. a long, slow sigh of relief…

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Moods Are Like the Weather… Seasonal Affective Disorder

November 17, 2018 by Carol Leave a Comment

From a spiritual perspective, it’s been said, you are really the vast, deep, limitless sky, and your emotions are really just the clouds that come and go across that background. Sometimes they frame the sun and create a beautiful panorama, or a spectacular sunset. Sometimes they seem to block the sun and you can feel sad and gloomy. But then the wind blows, air currents shift and suddenly you are your true radiant self again…

As we move toward winter in the Northern hemisphere, we enter a time of challenging skies, often gray and cloudy, no longer balanced by the lush green of trees and plants. And many people find it difficult to remember the sun, remember the gentle air of spring, the brilliance of summer and most especially, their own inner light. They fall into seasonal sadness, also known as SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder. And it gets really hard to maintain a spiritual view on it all…

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Letting Go of Our Old Stuff with Guided Imagery…

May 6, 2018 by Carol Leave a Comment

We talk about letting go in a lot of different contexts, but what does it really mean? We take stress and trauma into our body and energy field, and that’s fine, it is how we function as physical beings. Where it becomes a problem is when we keep it and carry it with us for the rest of our lives. Our traumas and experiences and beliefs – whether they are conscious, or buried deep in our unconscious – continually impact how we function in the present.

Tapping and imagery work give us simple and elegant tools to bring this stuff into our awareness and truly let it go. Not just mentally, by talking about and analyzing it, but by actually physically releasing it from our body and most importantly, from our energy field.

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Where Does the “Four Steps to Center” Meditation Come From?

February 16, 2018 by Carol Leave a Comment

People have asked me how I came up with the Four Steps to Center™ process that I use in many of my guided imagery meditation CDs and mp3s. It evolved out of my belief of who we really are; not just physical beings, but beings of multiple levels, of heart and mind and spirit as well as body. I try to incorporate this understanding into all aspects of my life and my work, though of course, like everyone else, I frequently forget!

I call my blog and my newsletter “Living in Your Body” because I think that’s what we are really here to do; to learn how – as limitless beings of spirit – to live in the confines and confusions and endless possibilities of a physical body. So I developed the Four Steps process as two things.

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Tossing and turning…

May 29, 2016 by Carol 2 Comments

I can’t sleep, I just toss and turn for hours” is such a common complaint in my office these days. Thirty five years ago, when I began my private practice, I was working in New York City, and seeing a lot of people in high stress jobs. But curiously, people slept OK. Now I work in a peaceful rural setting in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, and insomnia or other sleep disturbances are disturbingly common. What’s happening?

STRESS! That’s what’s happening. We live with a level of chronic, unremitting stress that our bodies were never designed for, and we are paying the price with stressed adrenals and elevated cortisol levels that keep us wakeful when we should be sleepy. Stress hormones were supposed to be released when the proverbial tiger was jumping out of the tree to eat us, not when we sit in traffic, worry about the economy or stress about our work, relationships or the state of the environment. Now, so many of us have constantly elevated stress hormones, and that is a real problem (for many reasons!) but especially when it’s time to wind down and relax for sleep.

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Giving It Over – Do I Really Have To Do It All Myself?

July 4, 2011 by Carol Leave a Comment

I just found a computer program that creates a fancy To Do list for me and I felt an immediate sense of relief. How much mental energy do we use just trying to remember all the myriad details of life? And how relaxing it is to stop keeping track and give it over to someone or something else?

Giving it over is a powerful concept; acknowledging that we can’t and don’t have to do it all, that something else is there to the burden off of our shoulders. Any process of connecting to our higher self, to spirit, God, a higher power – whether in meditation, contemplation, prayer, dance, chanting, Yoga, or your favorite mode is a way of giving over, and letting go of the illusion that we are in this alone and have to do everything ourselves.

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Imagery, Visualization and Kindness…

June 8, 2011 by Carol Leave a Comment

Often clients have told me that they can’t do guided imagery because they “can’t visualize.” I find it ironic, because the truth is, we are all absolutely expert at what I call ‘negative imagery.’ Sending our bodies messages that they obediently respond to; “I’m clumsy, I’m fat (and I’ll always be fat!), I have a bad back, a sensitive stomach, that medicine will make me nauseous, I’ll never heal…” the litany of negative thoughts and negative imagery goes on all day.

So what if we could harness this ability we all seem to have and creatively use it for health and healing? What if the messages were positive and health-promoting, instead of critical and judgmental? What if we were actually kind to ourselves? Somewhere, most of us got the message that criticizing and judging ourselves would somehow make us better. It’s worth asking yourself these very important questions: What aspects of yourself do you judge most harshly? Who else in your life (parents, teachers, etc.) judged you for these things in your past? Do you really think they were right? Has the judgement and criticism ever helped you?

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How Do I Fit Meditation Into My Busy Life?

May 31, 2011 by Carol 1 Comment

The question I hear most frequently is “how do I find time to meditate? I’m stressed enough already, trying to find time to meditate is even more stressful!” Life seems busier, more rushed, more full of stuff to do every year. So how do we find extra time to do the things that will, theoretically, make us feel calmer, more relaxed, more centered?

It used to be with meditation, the longer the better. Now, in the age of tweeting, texting and shortening attention spans, people want something short and sweet. And actually, I think that’s just fine…

We are no longer in the days of retiring to a mountaintop to contemplate the Universe.

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Breathe in Peace…

June 20, 2010 by Carol Leave a Comment

I offered my guided imagery meditation “Breathe in Peace” as a free download on the Self-Help Giveaway that Dr. Joe Rubino is running, and got some interesting feedback on it.

In the meditation I say, “…This is your time, now, to take care of yourself, to be gentle with yourself, to give yourself patience and compassion, to give yourself the peace and safety that lies deep within your heart…”

One woman wrote to me, that she found herself in tears listening to that – trying to remember that last time that she put aside all her responsibilities and taking care of everyone around her and took time to be gentle and patient and compassionate with herself.

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Imagery and imagination…

May 13, 2010 by Carol Leave a Comment

Imagery comes from the same root word as ”imagination,” and describes the way your mind and body communicate, through images, words, feelings or sensations. Like guided meditation, guided imagery can be facilitated by another person or guide, or guided by you yourself. In my work, I use guided imagery combined with meditation to create a relaxed, focused state in which your guided imagery can be more powerful and more effective.

The word “imagine” describes the ability to form images and ideas in the mind. Our creation of images is an innate, natural ability of all human beings. Often used interchangeably with the term “visualization,” the word “imagery” actually gives a more accurate sense of this mode. Where the word visualization implies that we are using our sight or vision, in fact, people have many different ways of imaging or imagining. Some people do experience visual images or pictures, like watching a movie, or like actually being in the movie and seeing what is around them. For others, imagery may take the form of physical sensation or feelings, a kinesthetic experience. Some people are more auditory, their hearing is the most dominant sense in imagery, for some it is a sense of smell. Others may experience a sense of “knowing,” in their mind, their heart, or in their whole being that transcends the basic five senses. Which sense is most powerful for you?

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