Hey, folks,

The three new Health Journeys CDs I recorded last month are being duplicated even as we speak.  There’s been an especially strong back-order run on Help with Caregiver Stress and A Guided Meditation to Support a Healthy Immune System, with Help with Allergies bringing up the rear.  They should be ready in a couple of weeks.

I also want to mention some training opportunities for practitioners interested in mind-body courses:

Imagery International, along with Beyond Ordinary Nursing is hosting its popular annual conference this year on July 17-19 at Vallombrosa Center in Menlo Park, CA.  This is the ideal place for practitioners of the art to hone skills, network and have a terrific time.

Hello again.

Yikes, pesky digital gremlins were out in full force last week!  Our blog got hacked and had to be cleaned up, reconstituted and surrounded by triple threat protective devices.  We had to divert visitors back to the old site while we mopped up – so those of you who found yourselves on the older, non-bloggy pages, that was why.  

In addition, Bruce the engineer’s mixing equipment wasn’t working so well with his new recording software, and so there too, the older stuff had to be taken down off the shelf and brought back to life.  

I had a terrific, informative chat with Adriana Tarazon, OEF/OIF Psychologist at the Phoenix V.A.  She’s a great proponent of guided imagery (and other mind-body methods), having used hundreds of our CDs with the men and women coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan.  As a result, she’s a mind-blowing encyclopedia of practical information about what works for returning troops and what doesn’t. 

Hey, everyone.

Just for the record, quitting my 2.5 pack of non-filtered Camels a day (yes, you heard that right) back in 1969 was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  I’m not exaggerating.  I was completely addicted and couldn’t imagine how I was going to ever stop.  Smoking is the only thing I’ve ever been addicted to.  And if I hadn’t been preggers and terrified of miscarrying (again), I’m not sure I ever would have. 

These were the days of cold turkey - no patches and no pills.  So after I stopped, all I basically thought about, 24/7, was how I was NOT smoking.  This was a full time preoccupation for about 3 years, as I recall.  And for about a decade, I’d have a repeating nightmare that I’d started smoking again, and I’d wake up kicking myself for falling off the wagon after all it had cost me to quit in the first place. Now I would have to go through that torture all over again.  Then I’d realize it was only a dream, and I’d be flooded with relief.  

Hello again.
Wow.  As of our last count, there were 88 postings to answer the question, “What CDs should we make next?”.   As I mentioned in my post, please don’t hold back just because somebody else already mentioned your idea – we go by demand, and it helps us to know you want that CD too.  So please continue to register your wishes – we’ll be checking back to that page a lot over the next few weeks.

Okay, good people, it’s that time again!  We’ve just about wrapped another catalog,  and I’ve personally finished recording 3 new guided imagery CD’s (for Caregiver Stress, Immune System and Allergies) and now we need you to tell us what new topics should we be addressing next?  What do you wish we had but don’t have in our catalog? 

I’ll be making some new recordings myself and, as always, we’ll also be finding quality titles by other practitioners.  So, where do you think we’re lacking?  What conditions do you wish we’d target?  Where are the gaps in our list? 

Hello everyone.
We’re pumped about some of our new titles.  I guess I’m not the only wild enthusiast about Tiffany Chen’s Beginner's Tai Chi video – check out the five star rating and comment posted by Sifu Kathleen M. Gill, Ph.D., on our pages last week :
 
"Tiffany's father is my tai chi grandmaster, William C.C. Chen. I have been recommending this DVD to the combat veterans with PTSD that I serve because she embodies the profoundly relaxing principles of tai chi practice, which they find helpful in managing anxiety. And she is an authentic martial artist, so her movements are not "just dance" but really tap into the Chinese medicine principles which underlie the practice."

Hello again, everyone.  We have a goodly supply of really fine, new, experiential resources for you.

For starters, in Radiant Heart Yoga, (a 35 minute DVD), Shiva Rea, a master teacher of vinyasa, or flow yoga, offers a wonderful set of three simple, do-able yoga practices for beginners, that not only help you become more supple and stronger, but contain impressive psychological and spiritual depth too. The first is designed to generate love and compassion; the second, relaxation and inner peace; and the third, to promote energy, joy & vitality. It’s all shot beautifully, with the usual, impeccable production values that Acadia always delivers.

Well, good people, at long last my voice is in good working order, and I finally finished recording the Caregiver Stress imagery that I started way back in (yikes!) June of 2008.  Each time I would try to record this imagery, my creaky, croaky voice would stop us in our tracks.  Bruce the Engineer and I would exchange sad looks through the glass of my little sound booth after a few pathetic tries, and I’d take my marbles and go home. I was kind of wondering if this were maybe an irreversible age thing that nothing was going to fix, but then again, we’d had some randomly good sessions over the past few years that kind of belied the idea of progressive deterioration.  It was especially frustrating because I’m very fond of this particular imagery, which was written after reading hundreds of emails from caregivers. I wanted to get it done but couldn’t, at least not with this voice.

Hello, everyone.

I’m happy to give three new books a shout-out.  Interestingly, they’re all about applied energy – a hot area of study in the mind-body-spirit universe. Two of these author/practitioners, Suzanne Scurlock and Mary Sise, are already in our catalog with powerful guided practices they’ve developed.