Question:

Belleruth, first, I have used your visualizations for 12 years and I got through major severe depression with you. Thank you!

I am Puerto Rican and my therapist then introduced me to your wonderful, blessed, special work. I want to be like you when I grow up!  Hahahaha!

I am a likable, sweet, social person, who is loved by her family and friends, but I seem to not be favored in the work environment.

As much as I wish to be a strong team worker, I struggle so much. And I honestly do my very best to be accepted and supported by coworkers, with not a lot of success. I really do not know what I am doing wrong.

I am a science teacher, love my students, love my work, but just never seem to click wherever I work. It is very frustrating.

What visualization would you recommend? Thank you!

Rosa

Question:

Dear Belleruth,

I have listened to your guided imageries, Ease Grief, Relieve Stress, and Healing Trauma when I moved to a new and very different (and in many ways less good) place, was extremely lonely, and then had a rejection by someone I got involved with. The imageries helped me a lot – really a lot. Thank you!

I write to ask you about dealing with loneliness. In the new place I moved to, I finally have friends, so I am much less “friends-lonely”. However, I live in a world in which friends come and friends go:  They move away, get into relationships that consume a lot of their time, have babies, get sucked into work projects, etc. and they regularly evaporate. So I can still wind up quite “friends-lonely”.

Thanks to Ken Burns, we have footage from various Civil War reunions from 1913 to 1938, showing Blue and Gray coming together at Gettysburg.  It surely does give perspective on our various American wars.  

(A friend sent this to me and I opened it not knowing whose film this was.  It’s a tribute to Ken Burns and his gifted staff that after less than a minute I knew it could only be Ken Burns’ impeccable editing, scoring and narrating. There’s nothing quite like it, is there?)

View Civil war veteran soldier footage, captured between 1913 and 1938.

Question:

Which of your CD's might be appropriate for my new massotherapy client? She is in her early 70’s, very intelligent and talented and is dealing with the anger, fear, and grief of being the caregiver to her historian husband of 45 years, who has brain damage from an accident he suffered 3 years ago.

He has worked to recover a good deal of function, but he can no longer communicate with her on his former level, which she finds so frustrating.  She sorely misses her best friend.  Some days are ok and others present her with shocking surprises such as finding him trying to read the ingredients of a can upside down. She has received little help from her family.

She is presenting now with gastrointestinal upset and some dermatological symptoms as well.  She is responding to massage, acupuncture and biofeedback, but she needs to gently go deeper.

Thank you so much for your help.

Joan

Question:
 
Do you have any comments about therapists taking on somatizing the fears and anxieties of clients? Are there recommendations for therapists protecting themselves while working with clients in the altered state that guided imagery produces?

Answer:

This is more likely to happen to newbie therapists, before they get their boundaries in place, but this issue affects us all.  You want to aim to set your boundaries in such a way that you can still experience empathy and compassion, but without taking on the client’s pains and fears.  This balance is critical to being effective and to staying that way, without burning out.

This poignant poem goes right to the heart, inspiring a rich, open-hearted awareness of what’s precious with its perfectly chosen words and everyday details.  Please enjoy and linger over it a little. It’s by Ellen Bass, who co-wrote Courage to Heal with the very gifted Laura Davis.  This one is in her latest collection of poems, The Human Line.

If You Knew

What if you knew you'd be the last
to touch someone?
If you were taking tickets, for example,
at the theater, tearing them,
giving back the ragged stubs,
you might take care to touch that palm,
brush your fingertips
along the life line's crease.
When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase
too slowly through the airport, when
the car in front of me doesn't signal,
when the clerk at the pharmacy
won't say Thank you, I don't remember
they're going to die.

A friend told me she'd been with her aunt.
They'd just had lunch and the waiter,
a young gay man with plum black eyes,
joked as he served the coffee, kissed
her aunt's powdered cheek when they left.
Then they walked half a block and her aunt
dropped dead on the sidewalk.

How close does the dragon's spume
have to come? How wide does the crack
in heaven have to split?
What would people look like
if we could see them as they are,
soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
reckless, pinned against time?

Ellen Bass,The Human Line

Dear Belleruth and Health Journeys,

I have been an ER Nurse for over 20 years.  We are currently seeing a dramatic rise in patients coming through the door with injuries due to domestic violence.  A colleague suggested it might be connected to increased unemployment or maybe other factors in the larger, societal picture, but whatever the reason, it’s increasing a lot.  

Some of us were wondering if you could put together a special kit of CDs for this.  And in the meantime, which individual guided imagery programs would make the most sense for this population?   Thanks in advance.

Emerson P., ER RN

Question:
Hello, I'm trying to deal with the suicide of my ex-husband.  I am not sure if I should feel guilty for this, as I do not feel I handled some things very well toward the end of our marriage.

I am unsure of why he did go away, but then not long after, his brother-in-law told me he had taken his own life. 

This is a difficult situation to deal with.

Thank you for your advice.

Kind regards,
Alice

Question:

Over the past several years I have had more friends and relatives die than I can count.  One of these more recent losses was someone I had been taking care of for four years. There were a lot of issues between us, including anger about having to care for her before I even started high school. I wanted a "normal" teenage life, and couldn't have it because of my responsibilities to her.

After she died I could not forgive myself or her for the death. Since then I have not been able to get much sleep (it's been almost 3 years).

Now I'm dealing with a close relative battling cancer, stage 3. I don't live close to this particular relative, and that's made dealing with the strong possibility of losing them that much harder.

I was always the main caretaker in the family when there was a problem. I find myself restless, angry, resentful, and depressed. A psychologist familiar with my situation suggested BR's recordings. I would like some suggestions about which CDs to start off with.

Nora