Reduce Stress that Comes with Pain
Reduce stress that comes with pain for more relief. A new group is starting in October. I will be holding a mindfulness-based group for adults suffering with chronic pain from any cause, and fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome. Pain causes stress and both affect your mind and body.
The mindful approach to relieving pain also relieves stress in your daily life. We will discuss pain, your pain, and how your pain effects your life each moment of the day and night, and in doing so teach you how to use the mindful methods to lessen its effect on your life, your body and your mind.
I will guide you in meditations for pain relief and ask you to practice the meditations at home between classes. We will use the book shown below in the group. Reading it is interesting and easy reading, making the mindful process more clear. People’s stories scattered through the chapters. The book covers many aspects of life.
I won’t be asking to change your medical or pharmaceutical regime in any way by taking this class. It is an adjunct to your treatment plan.
We will meet at the Pain Specialty Center of Ventura, the office of Dr. Estela Diesfeld, MD.
For more information check the classes tab on my website.
Books to daze your summer mind
The title is my attempt at a play on words, Summer daze, mind daze… if you are in a daze and want to wake up then check out my book, CD and DVD suggestions page new on my website. They will break your daze by expanding your awareness.
I’m an avid reader with a few books going at all times. I still prefer the actual book to the Kindle-type readers or PC. I love the feel of the book, writing (not typing) my thoughts in the margins, turning down corners, and having multiple colorful or inspiring bookmarks placed in selected pages so I can go back and forth as I read. I’ve come to cherish certain bookmarks and have a small collection as souvenirs from which to draw. As a collage artist I have been known to use a bookmark in a collage, which also include old book pages some times.
My current suggestions include books, DVDs and CDs on creativity, spirituality, anti-aging, mindfulness, meditation, self-awareness and self-development. Different approaches and philosophies can be seen in the selections. New and old are included as some are just too good not to mention, such as Marianne Williamson’s first book A Return to Love published in 1992, I believe.
You’ll also find under the Resources tab Referrals, where I placed the names of local (Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties) practitioners from various health fields, dentistry, chiropractor, massage, in-home veterinarian and others whom I believe excel in providing their service, are licensed or certified, and operate with kindness, care and expertise.
Surrounding ourselves with high vibration material in books and media, and working with providers with a high vibration helps us develop and strengthen our energetic field. Then we attract more of the energy and resulting experiences we want.
Let me know what books and CDs you recommend by commenting below.
Namaste,
Kim
Are you attaching to suffering?
“In your attachment to your suffering, it is easy to turn your back on the open door.” Does this make sense to you? Do you believe you are attached to suffering or that suffering is attached to you?
As Shakespeare said, thinking makes it so. When you think, your energy follows the thoughts making the thought appear to be real. For example, thinking about what you’ve lost or can’t get, about your pain, being middle-aged, changes in your body, being alone, will direct your energy to a frequency of suffering in your sense of things or your body and mind. You are not surprised by it because it makes sense to you to feel bad when thinking about these things. And so you continue to think the same way, perceive the same way and next thing you know you are depressed or anxious. You believe the suffering you feel to be real. It makes sense to you, so you don’t ask different questions or change your perspective or see a way out when one appears for you. Working with me offers some ways out.
Without getting deep into a discussion about what is real and what is an illusion of our made-up mind, I’ll skip to the truth on which we can all agree. When you are focusing your energy on thoughts that bring you down, you suffer mentally, emotionally and physically, and you won’t likely notice what is present around and inside of you. You’ll miss the door.
The door is an opening to an opportunity to receive, serve, experience, help, learn, and grow. Think of the open door as the beauty or Truth of the moment. The present is known when you are conscious of the entirety that moment. Think of Eckart Tolle or Ram Dass and their message – be here now.
Being conscious of the moment is mindfulness. In this space of mindfulness, you are free from suffering. Being in the present moment may feel pain on some level, but suffering is a choice you make moment to moment. It is a function of your thinking, history and memories, future worries and current perceptions.
Suffering results from a resistance to what is actually occurring in the present without attaching the experience of it to memories, worries, experiences, ideas, beliefs and so on. Each moment is a new beginning and a chance to have a fresh experience of life.
The moment does not last long and therefore, it’s easy to slip back into suffering thoughts. This forms an attachment to suffering. Raising your level of consciousness is one key to non-attachment.
Open doors waiting for you don’t sound an alarm or flash a neon light. They open because you become aware of their energetic vibration. When you energetically match the door it opens. Are you matching with doorways opening to suffering or to joy?
When you think about something from only one perspective, you are attaching to that thought, and your energy is too. Thinking is where your energetic life force goes, so you believe your thoughts are accurately representing the situation. The more you think about it, the more you attach to it. Eventually, you can confuse attachment with truth or fact.
What you are attached to unconsciously is running your life more than you realize. Becoming aware of attachments is part of awakening, which means expanding in consciousness. In an aware state of being you can choose to embrace the moment as it is, without judging or resisting it.
You’ll feel free when reveling in your openness to being fully alive moment to moment. From this viewpoint, you are better able to see and match the doors to opportunities that each moment presents. It will be your choice at that point because your attachment causes a blind spot.
Are you attached to suffering thought? What suffering have you come to accept as part of life? Can you think about it from a different perspective? Of course, you can. Let me help you do that.
PET Brain scan photo courtesy of http://www.valleyhealth.com/images/image_popup/c7_pet_depression.jpg
Time – Use it or Lose it
Joan Borysenko, psychologist, cell biologist, author of many books on mind/body health, and deeply spiritual woman said this
” We’ve had a chance to try on materialism and see that it hasn’t made us happy. We need a certain standard of living and that’s important, but beyond that, what becomes most valuable is time. Time to spend with the people you love, time to be alone, time to create, to do all of those things.”
Are you filling your time with people, places, activities and things that bring you joy or burden?
Are you giving your time away without realizing that you’re giving it up?
Are you looking forward to the time you have remaining or wish there wasn’t so much of it left?
Are you overwhelmed or underwhelmed? How do you handle the control you do have over your life?
These questions are meant to prompt you to think deeply about how you are using your life force these days. Time is a function of life force, your personal energy forming who you are as a body, personality and mind.
How are you using your time, your life force?
You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge. once you own it, change is waiting for you. I can help you with that.
Namaste,
Dr. Kim
Are you letting your expectations hold you back?
At first this question might sound reasonable. But think again- are you basing decisions on how long you think you have to live? Based on what facts? Do you actually know how long you have to live?
A researcher in Canada recently looked into this and found “It is impossible to know how long someone is going to live, but there are many life expectancy cues not consciously processed, affecting how many more years people expect to live. How healthy are they? Do they have a risky job? Are their grandparents still alive? Is there a history of disease in the family? A branch of evolutionary theory known as life history theory predicts life expectancy to influence major life decisions in humans, as it does in the lives of other animals.”
What unconscious cues may be affecting your thinking and planning for your future? Are you avoiding or not considering options you would if you were younger? Are you thinking and behaving like you thought you would at the age you are now or are you reflecting how you feel and what you want to express in your life?
There is research to support one unconscious cue that may concern people whose parent died at a younger age than normal life expectancy. When the offspring attain the same age, there is unconscious stress that effects their mind and body. It has a quality of expectancy to it. If left unconscious and unquestioned, it could easily affect that individual’s choices and physical health due to the underlying stress.
Knowledge is power, as you know. But have you stopped to think that this power comes from inner knowledge too, by bringing your unconscious thoughts and beliefs into the light? Working with you to bring your highest self into expression now, will increase your self-knowledge and empower you on many levels.
And just for the record- unconscious life expectancies works both ways.
Let’s talk. 30 minutes on me.
Kimberly Wulfert, PhD
Is your life surpassing itself?
Life is occupied both in perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself. If all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.
—Simone de Beauvoir
I first heard this quote when I was 30 something. I didn’t quite understand it. Yet it touched me somewhere deep inside that knew more than I did then, so I hung it on my wall to ponder further.
A few years later I found a place to use the quote in the acknowledgments section of my dissertation. I did research on first time mothers and their beliefs and experiences of giving birth. I asked pregnant women questions about their anticipated levels of pain and anxiety, duration of their labor and of delivery, and their use of medication or not.
I based my hypothesis on radical constructionism. My study showed that a belief or story a new mother-to-be constructed about the birth experience she expected she would have, bore out to be so, at least in her perception of what unfolded. The facts would tell a different story for many of the women. Beliefs we hold are one way we perpetuate and maintain our life, even when they contradict the ‘facts” of the matter.
Many years later I still find de Beauvoir’s words inspiring and audacious. Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) was a feminist and writer who’s words pushed the minds of women to think outside the box and limits of their life. (more…)
When less time is a good thing
“There is no question that our capacity to experiment remains strong not just despite our age, but often because of it. ‘Live and learn,’ we say wryly on the heels of an unexpected lesson. But it is true in the longest sense of time: As we live, we learn and in so doing we expand our capacity to learn more and differently from life.
Also true is this: No matter how strongly we believe in our ability to grow and change, it is our perception of time that dictates our hope and enthusiasm for the task. If we want to act on what we know—which is that we can reinvigorate our lives at every age—
then we need to embrace the passage of time as an asset, an opportunity, a framework for accomplishments and dreams as we age.”
From The Creative Age, Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life, written by Gene D. Cohen, MD, PhD
Kimberly Wulfert, PhD, Licensed Psychologist & Coach in Ventura & Ojai California, virtually
Are you seeking personal growth and transformation? If you are holding back and blocked from within, feeling anxious, fearful, unfulfilled, trapped, indecisive, invisible, or yearning for the release of your natural self and breaking through blocks to creative or business success, let my help you. My mindfulness-based approach may be just what you need to turn things around. The methods I use have proven their value as seen in current research on mindfulness, meditation, and neuroscience when combined with psychology. I bring 35+ years of training & work as a psychotherapist to this cutting edge work I now exclusively offer.
I help you broaden and deepen your awareness, to think outside your box, to develop your gifts, and recognize and integrate the wisdom you've gained to guide you. Working with me you will feel seen, heard and understood for the unique individual you are. This is not traditional therapy. Let's talk first to see if this is right for you.
As The Woman's Coach, I help women over 40 who are stuck, stagnant and yearning to move forward, to Revitalize precious dreams and goals that fell to the wayside. Cultivate ~ Integrate ~ Act is my coaching motto, awareness and acceptance before action. Click on the coaching tab to find out more or contact me. Let's talk before another year gets away from you.