Sleep Tight

Frederic Leighton

My recent post, The Fine Art of Self Soothing, was written primarily with children in mind.  Adults too, struggle through their continuum with rest and especially sleep issues.  This one is for you.

What causes insomnia, wakefulness long past lights-out, broken/interrupted sleep?  Even for those who claim they are great sleepers, there is usually a period of time in life when sleep patterns are not solid.  It could be when raising children and all those middle of the night feedings. It could be middle-age, the changing hormones wreak havoc on your circadian cycle, and we become sensitive to substances and habits that never kept us awake before.  It could be old age when hormones, a sedentary life style, frequent day napping, bladder control problems lead to a brief and unsatisfying night rest.  It could be the general tensions and anxiety of living in the 21^st century. How can we get better rest, some reliable peace at night?

The concept of ritual which I discussed in the Self-Soothing post applies as much to adults as it does to children.  Most of us were raised on some type of night ritual to help us sleep.  As we age and go through different developmental cycles, many of the tried and true ways we took for granted growing up fall to the wayside and are not replaced.  Repetitive patterning (rituals essentially) cue the body to prepare for whatever the patterning was initially instituted for.  Creating new patterns for the life I find myself in now will help the repose I long for.

Creating bedtime rituals is committing to spending time before bed preparing for sleep.  Many sleep problems are born because an hour is spent watching the news or stimulating talk shows on our electromagnetic charged devices before we expect to sleep.  Or, we fall into bed after a long day expecting sleep to take us over without any preparation.  We have to set the stage, create the conditions for sleep. This takes some thought and intention.

Look at your surroundings:  your bed, what you face from your bed.  Is it serene, pleasing to your senses?  If not, make it so.  Your bed is your haven, it should be extremely comforting and comfortable; the linens and bedding especially restful to your senses.  Get rid of unnecessary clutter, open up your dream space.  Clutter is more stimulation; you want simple (austere?), clean, restful impressions. Make your bed everyday if you don’t already.  Be slow and deliberate about how you spread and smooth the linens.  When you see it next (at bedtime) you want it to sing lullabies (figuratively speaking) and be consummately inviting.  Your bed clothes should reflect this as well and be treated special and put in a special place.  Before turning in at night, consider spritzing the linens, bed clothes circumference around your bed with sleep essential oils (Lavandin, Bergamot, Sweet Marjoram, rose Otto—whatever is pleasing).  The repetitive use of these oils will become familiar and cue the body it is time to sleep. Try a diffuser of your favorite essential oils at night.

Pre-bed rituals like night hygiene, bathing, rubbing oils into your feet and neck are other repetitive patterns to help the body to sleep. Be deliberate in your bathing.  Feel the skin you touch, be slow and loving drying yourself off (that's your leg you are toweling, it brings you everywhere you want to go without fail).  Once on a retreat, the woman sleeping in the bunk next to me spent 20 minutes a night with lotion massaging her feet, touching and just putting them to bed. (I asked her after seeing her do this for 3 nights if her feet hurt and she said no, this is what she did nightly to prepare for bed).  Laying in bed and running your hands down your limbs and body, pausing when necessary at the achy parts, sending some loving energy that way is a great way to say good night to yourself.  There is something very affirming about your own loving, caring self touch that calms and establishes acceptance and peace to your own energy field.

Reading some poetry, listening to Mozart or Bach for a time before sleep is helpful.  Try this over a specific time period and then put it away; try not to fall asleep reading or listening to music (it can be a reason one wakes up in the night; cycling tracks of music or a burning light from reading).  Sensitizing oneself to one’s breathing patterns and paying attention to it repetitively can sometimes stop a busy mind.  Guided Imagery, allowing the bones and flesh of the body to sink into the safe-haven of the bed is restful.  I teach a “10:10” exercise that involves breathing in to the count of 4 and exhaling to the count of 6.  Establish this breathing rhythm and after you have done it 5 or 6 times breathe in one impression you are grateful for in the day that has just ended.  Breathe with that 5 times in the breathing rhythm established.  This is one cycle or pattern. Repeat the pattern 9 more times, a new day’s gratitude for each cycle.  You will be lucky to get to the fifth cycle, it is very relaxing.  Not only is the breathing rhythm soliciting the relaxation response, but the series of gratitudes also support the parasympathetic nervous system in its quest for repose.

The main point about any of these practices is establishing a repetitive ritual.  Do a few of them for several nights; try a few others.  You will have your favorites.  Taking the time to establish soothing patterning will reap many rewards.  Your waking will be a peaceful waking because you’ve instilled this in your thinking, feeling and physiology pre-sleep.  This sends well being messages to your central nervous system and saturates your nerves.  You will benefit from this in the morning.

Birds Appearing in a Dream  One had feathers like a blood-streaked koi, another a tail of color-coded wires. One was a blackbird stretching orchid wings, another a flicker with a wounded head. All flew like leaves fluttering to escape, bright, circulating in burning air, and all returned when the air cleared. One was a kingfisher trapped in its bower, deep in the ground, miles from water. Everything is real and everything isn’t. Some had names and some didn’t. Named and nameless shapes of birds, at night my hand can touch your feathers and then I wipe the vernix from your wings, you who have made bright things from shadows, you who have crossed the distances to roost in me.

-- by Michael Collier
essential oil resources: HERBARIUM Herbal and Nutritional Supplements including Bulk ...  (great! info & service) Appalachian Valley Natural Products

A Sustainable Healing

We live in a world where there are all sorts of pockets of healing happening, independent of each other, seemingly unrelated.  The ecology sustainability movement has proven, unless there is a deep, systemic change in a culture's attitude toward ecology, all the "band-aid therapy" in one green area will not truly bring about a fundamental change. An example of this would be the conscientious organic farmer who does everything "right", but whose crops year after year are subject to the Monsanto GMO seed from his neighbor's field flying into his cultivated fields to sow and multiply themselves.  It's a beautiful thing the way nature does this, unless it's Monsanto's nature.

So it is similar in other types of healing.  A man might heroically struggle his entire life to heal from domestic violence or sexual abuse sustained as a child and is still left with subtle dysfunctions, further layers of the trauma. It never ends (so it seems). Part of the healing that is very related to any individual's healing and which is so difficult, is the healing of the culture.  If the culture isn't healed, the systemic dysfunction suffered by those in the culture is insidiously maintained (see the Iroquois Nation story in Forgiveness) .  There are hundreds of examples of this.  The recent disclosure of the sexual abuse of at-risk football players at Penn State over a ten year period, covered up and complicitly supported by layers of the administration (the Catholic Church priest abuse tragedies are an exponentially larger parallel). The subtle and insidious misogyny present in practically all cultures exhibited in myriads of ways including genital mutilation, the establishing a narrow standard of beauty in a culture for females to esteem toward, unequal pay scales based on gender, the objectification of women and girls through sex trafficking, sexual abuse, pornography and even fashion at large and the attempt at dictating women's health practices through law.

One can't just dispense of the perpetrator(s) in any of these instances.  The culture at large is the perpetrator, in subtle and insidious ways. That means you. That means me.  In the latter case of the sexual objectification of women, all females on the planet in some way suffer this disturbance of prejudice.  Even when it is oblique and not direct, it nonetheless impacts the female gender across the board, because it is all energetic transference. Similarly, a man is not exempt from his gender counterpart's suffering, as all females are his mother, sister, wife or daughter, it impacts him as well. We need a sustainable healing.

It's overwhelming to begin to consider my part in these large scale dis-eases. One of the things that actually gives me hope is this current sustained economic downturn; for once the knee-jerk reaction by the culture to band-aid a financial crisis so we get out of the immediate discomfort is not possible (prior bailout-cards having been used).  So we are sustaining the pain. And before long when the money still isn't flowing and people are forced to adapt and re-adapt, they begin to find another way of living, one that is more sustainable for themselves and the culture at large.  The greed and avarice in the culture that promote and manipulate fiscal ethical boundaries starts to starve, not being able to prosper or thrive in the economic desert conditions. People out of work have more time on their hands and less money. They start being creative, they start thinking outside the box, they have down time, rethink their priorities; this slows and magnifies their impressions and because of this, they have more evolved responses.  Their consumer habits are curtailed and tend to be less superficial.  They painfully at first begin to do what they previously have avoided at all costs: change their habits, and perhaps their beliefs.  This creates a ripple effect within the culture. This might not be very conscious, nor intended.  But sometimes a healing starts externally and moves inward.

When we start to consider our relatedness to the historical and deeply painful life altering events such as objectification of women and complicit coverups in all the abuses mentioned above, what happens? Where does our awareness go?  Do we leap into denial? Start to justify, separate, distance from these seemingly far away happenings? Become overwhelmed? Break down the causes and relationships into neat reasoning, categories and boxes in an effort to understand? Or possibly, we become righteous, fingerpoint or hide in our familiar and comfortable anger and disassociation.  How can we possibly contemplate our own relatedness to these atrocities?

All healing is gradual and in increments.  All healing is centered in awareness. To begin to hold the notion that I am related to everything is to strengthen an attention that is greater than myself. To hold this, or stand in front of it, even when most of me is rearing or can't begin to understand the relationship is Something.  Cultivating a tolerance for discomfort in oneself appears mandatory.  Not knowing without dismissing or disappearing is crucial.  Holding the thread of interest while suspending reaction is how we make our way toward the truth.  Soon we begin to notice the choices we make that in a small way, make us complicit.  Perhaps the programming we watch, listen to or have a peaked interest in.  Maybe we begin to see our culpability in the small or large prejudices that compound further that which is present in the larger culture. The smallness of these tendencies begin to lose their innocence.  Conscience strikes.  A shift is possible.

All healing is gradual and in increments.  All healing is centered in awareness.  A sustainable healing is possible.

The Fine Art of Self Soothing

I’ve blogged regularly on the subject of anxiety (Oy Vay: High Anxiety),  the possible reasons for the exponential increase over the last several years of the culture’s anxiety and possible ways to approach it holistically.  Most of what I write about has been in the context of the adult population.  This post mostly concerns children and young adults.

Once upon a time, and long long long ago, generations of parents cultivated in their babies and young children the art of self soothing.  This was a spontaneous and natural response on parent’s parts, probably learned from generations before them, involving bed time rituals to settle their kids: warm, relaxing baths, melodically read bed time stories, oils massaged into their necks and temples and sung lullabies.  It was (subliminally?) considered an unconditional love time when the central nervous system settles down for the night, the mom and child’s breathing rhythms match up and synchronize and a sense of calm, all-is-well-in-the-world takes precedence.  Everybody in the home would dial it back a bit and a sense of safety, oneness and wellbeing was shared.

There is a natural response to the sun setting, darkness moving in, and the universal signal by our circadian rhythm to quiet and sleep.  There are many variations on this.  In a darkened bedroom, a parent sitting with a child listening together to the crickets or bullfrogs outside, something they do in the summer months when the windows are open, the curtain fluttering languidly against the sill.  Sometimes there is a few spare murmurs between them on the mutuality of the share. Night sounds. Sounds that becomes associated with rest, repose and comfort.  Subliminal images and an ambiance that trigger in oneself from an early age that all is well. It just as easily could be the urban sound of cars moving on the street outside, an occasional muffled horn sounding or the magical non-sound of snow falling, collecting on trees or pavement.  There is a sense of safety in the nightly being tucked in in a particular way and the comfort of no light, maybe sounds of family moving in a kitchen, inaudible voices in conversation or other household members making their own sleep preparations.

I think these night-time rituals must still go on to some extent in most households across the world; how could they not, they bring delight and peace to all.  But it is a different world we live in now, and the children are anxious. There is a trend of popping Melatonin for 12 year olds and kids reporting they can’t go to sleep for hours after lying down. The members of today’s nuclear family often each have a bedroom of their own, thus the comforting sounds of a sister or brother in a bunk above snoring lightly aren’t present to a sibling as they find their way to sleep.

It’s a more complicated world, with more tenacious tensions. And somehow, parents (for all the reasons mentioned in my other posts dealing with anxiety) aren’t managing their own tensions well, which obviously osmotically affects their children. Adults perhaps don’t have a sense of their own containment or a value for the sublime and ephemeral markers which produce a perfect repose.  It may be akin to the difference of writing a letter by hand instead of sending an email or singing a song instead of playing it on a CD player, or reading a story aloud instead of hearing it on an electronic device.  Something of great value transpires in the direct human expression that will never be matched otherwise by anything else.  Children energetically require this.  And they are missing it.

So, we have children experiencing adult challenges (like insomnia) and being treated like adults in how it is remedied. Especially babies and children need to learn the fine art of self soothing. And probably direct information is not the best approach (breathing techniques, relaxation exercises, etc).  Accessing their imaginations in a positive way around the ending of a day and the beginning of a night, providing markers and repetitive opportunities to help them identify in their own unique way that which relaxes them would be a tremendous act of charity they will have their entire lives to draw upon. Parents realizing one’s own held tensions, hypervigiliance, lack of trust of the unfolding of the day, of a childhood, of a life is a big start.

For many families, child-rearing has become a very tense, uber-planned, perfection-oriented feat to perform.  When really, it is this natural exploration of being in relationship with someone who has these huge growth and evolutionary leaps over a twenty year period.  Life moves extremely quickly when raising a child, we want to grasp a knowing what to do when we’re stymied.  Understandably.  But this inability to have a spontaneous response and reliance on contrived and strategized approaches can be stifling, especially to an open perception, which is a child. 

I have a sense this is anxiety producing for kids; this lack of trust of the unknown which their parents and other adults around them suffer.  And nothing makes a kid more anxious than (energetically) witnessing a suffering parent.

Advocating for a Loved One in the Hospital

You are in a tumult.  A loved one is in the hospital and besides the overwhelming layered concern and worry you are experiencing, there is a modicum of powerlessness.  You might not be familiar with the hospital system, you don't know what would be helpful.

It would be impossible to address all individual and specific needs in this post.  Every population, sub-culture and age range gets hospitalized with a myriad of illnesses and complicating factors, be it social, psychological, emotional or geographical.  So, I will speak in broad terms.  Take what is useful and leave the rest.

In broad terms, a hospitalization is a medical crisis, a traumatic situation. Most hospitals are (usually) well oiled machines with practice and procedure protocols and usually have well trained staff.  They are looking after your loved one's acute medical needs.  In my experience, it is the family's job to advocate for the patient's "soft medicine" needs.

What is soft medicine?  Technically, soft medicine is anything that supports the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS), decreases stress, or allows the relaxation response to kick in.  Hospitalization correlates with one's stress and Sympathetic Nervous System being on overdrive; hospitals can be a very threatening, vulnerable place for an ill person. Medical staff aren't primarily concerned with this aspect of healing; loved ones should be.

Why? We need a state of relaxation to heal. When our bodies are stressed with illness or injury and we are in a sterile, foreign environment we have no control over, it is very difficult to relax.  The Parasympathetic Nervous system impacts the body's endocrine response.  Under stress, we are putting out more cortisol, adrenalin, stress hormones and insulin, further taxing the body, blocking the body's natural healing response (its in an "emergency" survival mode). Our breathing is not full bodied, but shallow further inhibiting our respiratory response.  The added tensions and anxieties to be expected in this situation just compound the already existing problems of pain, anxiety, nausea and insomnia.  Our advocating loved ones are our lifeline to wellness in this way.  As good as most nurses are at advocating for their patients, it's really the families that are left with that responsibility.

So, what to do.  Start by assessing your loved one's stressors and try to eliminate the easy ones. (ie: if the food is terrible, bring some of his favorites in to be labeled, refrigerated and reheated at meals. Nutrition is obviously key to healing.  Sick  people don't eat much, so make it nutritionally count).  If she hasn't been sleeping well, make sure stimulation is minimal, door is shut and note on door if necessary to not disturb unless bell is rung. Stressors that can't be eliminated (like morning blood draws or bed baths) can be addressed by interfacing a ritual that is positive and that could counter the negative scenario; like listening to a meditation tape upon waking, before the blood draws or before an afternoon procedure.

Showing up is literally a huge support; it is everything in a nutshell.  Loved ones' faces bolster patient spirits. An enhanced spirit increases one's sense of wellness which will:   kick in her endorphins, PNS or relaxation response, improve her healing attitude and promote the healing process.

Plan some strategies (with her if she is able) to have several times a day a "wellness routine" such as:

-- A Guided Imagery scenario or two, using all five senses, concentrating on her proprioceptive strengths (ie: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory). this might be a landscape she loves, an environment that makes her feel peaceful, as simple as imaging water over stones in a brook; the simpler the better.  Doing this before a rest/sleep period will deepen the rest and promote a faster recovery.  This is something you can begin doing with her, but eventually a skill she can do herself by herself when she needs to (before a test or a challenging hospital moment). A pointer for you is be in your own low breath, speak melodically, leave lots of empty, unspoken spaces, go through the scene yourself, enter it with her. Peggy Huddleston (Prepare for Surgery, Heal Faster) has GREAT Guided Imagery cds out on the market, as do others. Some are focused on surgery, recovering from surgery, etc.  This would be a wonderful thing to have on hand.

-- An active prayer practice.  Does he pray? Does he have a favorite prayer?  Does he use objects, like a rosary or beads in his practice? Does he have holy pictures that are meaningful you can include?  Set the stage so to speak; it's a special time when one's breath deepens, hypervigilance is put at rest and one is just with God and/or the holy moment.  Setting the stage pronounces this as a special time, creates ritual and reinforces the act.  The hospital's pastoral care department will be sensitive to this and a help.

--Light, loving touch on non hurting parts of the body like hands, feet, face.  Do a repetitive light pattern "sweeping massage" on fingers, arms, etc.  The repetitive patterning gets 'read' by the rest of the body, and is anticipated with relief and pleasure. This again, kicks in the PNS.  Talking in low tones, being with one's own breath and body will help her to mirror that in herself.  Hospital patients are in a hypersensitive mode.  They pick up EVERYTHING energetically.  So, what you want for her, create in yourself first.  Peace, quiet, stillness, deep breathing patterns.

--Humor!  Engage his and your own. The power of humor is underrated in healing.  Lightness and laughing kicks in the PNS.

--"C.A.R.E. Channel"; some hospitals have a calming, nature slideshow on their hospital TV program available in all patient rooms, which is often accompanied by meditation like music. Also, at night there is a "starry night, constellation" visual channel that moves slowly and is very relaxing.  Pastoral care or a case manager would know about this.  Probably at least, there is a music channel.  Or maybe you have an old portable cd player around with some good cds; sometimes a hospital provides cd players as well. All stimulation should be peaceful and low key.  Regular TV programming just isn't conducive for healing.  It's a distraction, not healing.

-- Moving-- laying around in one position all day everyday is deleterious. Promote better circulation (preventing stasis blood clots) by doing hand, ankle rotations, moving arms and legs up and down, becoming aware of what movement does feel good. Passive range of motion is something all nurses learn in nursing school but rarely have time to do with their patients.  Of course, movement will be minimal.  The main thing is not to let her wane there day after day.  She should have bed PT to keep musculature from atrophying (ask the doctor about the appropriateness of PT in your loved one's situation).  PT works for 15-30 minutes a day, just a bit to improve breathing patterns and mobility.  This will help her from not developing pneumonia too, a big problem for non ambulatory older people. Once you see what PT does with her, a loved one can do that at another part of the day or on weekends.

--Resources:  ask the case manager about pastoral care, integrated medicine practitioners (nurses, lay volunteers who do healing touch? therapeutic touch? hand massages?), music therapists, art therapists.  Most hospitals have these resources, but you often have to ask for them. You might be lucky enough to get nurses who practice CAM.  Make it known you want your loved one to have these nurses when they are on shift. If you have the financial resources, consider bringing in your own practitioners.  I've known acupuncturists to make visits to the hospital with MD approval.

--Getting the most out of staff.  Being an interested, congenial and non judgmental regular presence at the bedside is key.  Whereas the squeaky wheel gets the grease, a demanding, pushy family member provokes fear and an inner hostility in staff.  It's a slippery slope, a double sided coin.  A well-informed, quietly insistent, appreciative family member who is responsive (not reactive) is powerful and usually inspires great care from staff.

We want to promote rest and relaxation for our healing loved ones; the conventional medical setting won't ensure this, you will have to. Advocate for your loved ones.

Have Mercy

Having mercy is an opportunity each of us faces every day.  Whether it is the choice we make in how we handle an aggressive telemarketer on the phone, a grumpy argumentative old guy in the check out line, or an aging appliance beginning to falter. How I am is who I am.  Having mercy in a moment is as much about the care and consideration I have for myself as it is for another.


The following story is an example of the possibility of conventional medicine joining with alternative/complimentary medicine with the idea of achieving best outcomes for patient and practitioner.  

I admit a 62 year old woman, "Laura," newly diagnosed with progressive metastasized lung cancer. She claims, "I just can't get comfortable.  I want to jump out of my skin." Her vital signs are within normal limits, her oxygenation is fine, her breathing pattern is regular and even. She appears very anxious since her family left an hour ago.  I remember to use presence when I see/feel this anxiety.  I find my own sense of stillness in my legs, in my chest.  I become aware of my breathing and sense of tension in my body. I notice something has slowed down in myself. I look at her and I feel time. The time between us right now, the time we are sharing. I've got her. She's got me. Right now, we've got each other, unrushed. 

Now I can let my skills go to work.  


My conventional nursing judgment is that she requires an anxiety medication and possibly a sleeping aid (neither are currently prescribed).  She also will need emotional support and integrative medicine (IM) interventions.  Laura and I discuss her needs right now, how's she feeling and what she thinks would help her.  I make both conventional and complementary medicine suggestions. She says emphatically she wants it all.  I tell her I have to get an order from the doctor for the medications and the process of ordering and obtaining the meds might take 20-30 minutes.  I don't feel comfortable leaving her alone without some support for the anticipated 20 minutes I do these tasks.  I spend three minutes with her reviewing a simple breathing method using a relaxing guided imagery technique to help put her more at ease while she is waiting.  She's taken to it well. I leave to make the arrangements for the meds and prepare an essential oil aromatherapy "cotton ball" for anxiety and sleep.  Still waiting for the meds, I reassess Laura and find her more quiet and relaxed (her eyes are closed).  The cotton ball is to her liking, so I pin it to her hospital gown.  I coach her through deep breathing.  I speak to her in measured, low melodic vocal tones and we pick up her previous desired visualization piece and move through the five senses again, working with the breath.  


Laura is very quiet; I lower the head of the bed to 45 degrees, lower the lights and leave to retrieve the meds,returning five minutes later.  She is dozing, her diaphragmatic breathing deep and regular. I hold the meds for the time being, and do a short therapeutic touch session on her, smoothing out her energy field, allowing for a deeper rest. 

Grief and the Heart's Desire

"Wish" locks on Mt Huashan
In China, when you want something seemingly unattainable, you climb
the nearest mountain with a red tie and a padlock.  Upon arriving,
you pray to the deities for your desire, and lock the tie and padlock on a thick
chain link securing your wish for all time.

I am shadowing some holistic nurses in a hospital and we find ourselves in the ICU doing rounds.  We come upon "Louise" a 78 year old woman who had a heart attack in the morning and looks like she is about to have another one.  She 

is sitting straight up in bed, grey and diaphoretic.  She is on a cardiac monitor and her blood pressure and heart rate are climbing.  She looks in distress, having a hard time breathing.  Two ICU nurses run to get the crash cart and some Ativan to calm her down.  There we are, three holistic nurses staring at this woman about to go down.  I step forward up to the side of the bed and say, "Louise. Who do you love more than anyone in the world?"  She doesn't hesitate and says, "My seven year old granddaughter, Eva."  I say, "Ok. Eva is going to help us get through this.  She's going to help us cool your heart down.  I want you to close your eyes and breathe in through your nose to the count of four and breathe out to the count of six."  I breathe and count with her, and she begins to look less distressed, the blood pressure on the monitor begins to drop to a high normal (the parasympathetic nervous system having kicked in producing the relaxation response). I say, "Louise, with your eyes closed bring Eva's face up close to yours.  See how the light falls on her hair, the twinkle in her eye. How does her breath smell as she comes in for a kiss on your cheek?  How does her laugh sound when she says your name?  Let Eva breathe with us now, a nice cool breath, four counts in, six counts out.  Now as we are breathing, allow her image to slowly drop down around your mid chest, where your heart is and we're just going to breathe there for a bit, you, me and Eva and we are going to cool the heart down." Louise almost appears to be in a trance state.  All this transpires within three minutes. The two ICU nurses have rushed back with their meds and crash cart and stop short when they see her apparently meditating and the monitor reading normal vital signs.  When Louise opens her eyes, we talk about this event.  I ask her what happened.  She told me the story of losing both her husband and son 6 months apart a year ago in the ICU. She's afraid it will happen to her too.  When she starts to escalate again, I tell her she can repeat having Eva come to her any time.  I watch her gracefully move through it.  

  

All for one and one for all........

I've taken apart my last posting, in hopes pieces of it will be more manageable for those of you with nano seconds to spare!  "Pieces" of it will appear periodically. The whole of course,  will always remain.  Cheers!

Photo by Kelly McCoy Swann

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident. It's not a matter of circumstance but ofchoice.  Choose to live a life that matters-- Clarissa Pinkole Estes 


No one can get intravenous access on her and she is terrified of needles.  I decide to do guided imagery with her, as I've seen people's veins relax and plump up when I do this practice and it seems to go much easier for them.  So I explain everything to the patient, what we're going to try and she looks skeptical, but ok she'll give it a go.  I do the scenario I've been using a lot lately with women.  I ask them their favorite flower and color and then we go through opening the five senses to the image of the flower going from a tightly closed bud to it being in its fullest glory.  I'm breathing with the woman and then I notice how distracted from the experience she is; she's not getting into it.  And then I notice, how bored and disengaged I am.  I am so bored with this well practiced scenario! It's not working for her. It's not working for me. Ok, let's get with the program.  I look around the room to get a clue as to who this woman is. She has books stacked everywhere.  I say, “So, you like to read.”  And she brightens up, saying yes and describes her life long affair with the written word.  I ask her if she knows the book The Three Musketeers and she says, of course.  I say, "do you know that familiar phrase from the book, 'one for all and all for one'?" and she smiles.  "Well, that's what we're doing here.  You need an IV to get this really important medicine. So we have to get all of you on board with this-- it's all for one and one for all time."  She totally gets this.  She breathes, thinks of her flower and in goes the needle, giving her access. "Cool," she says.  Cool, indeed.  This  experience reminds me how necessary it is for me to be engaged.  This business isn't automatic. One has to be in the moment. It can't be repeated. Every hard stick is different, because every person is different.  We all have similar equipment, but these subtle differences in one's humanity impact each body's response.