Kids & Teens

 

Thank you, Lucy, so much for meeting with us. [My daughter] really did get a lot out of her time with you. She listens to your CD almost every night before bed. Her anxiety that started at the beginning of school has basically disappeared - yay! - and she's smiling and more playful again now (her old self).

 I think we would like to come back to see you sometime for a check in.

 Thank you again, and see you soon,

EK

 

It’s been hard enough for us adults to process the gauntlet of disasters dominating the news over the past few months.  What about the young ones in our lives?   Their coping tools are even more limited than ours. 

Especially if your child has just completed a challenging school year, consider the benefits of a few sessions of my work.  EFT and TAT are perfect avenues for bringing closure to difficult relationships and lingering unhappy memories from the previous school year, while custom hypnotherapy CDs help establish a solid new blueprint for success in the forthcoming year.

 If your child has experienced the agony of bullying, I can help.

 If your child had a bad year academically, I can help.

 If your child has had difficulty with shifting friendships, I can help.

 If your child experienced text anxiety, I can help.

 If your child wants to improve athletic skills, I can help.

 If your child is curious about new ways to think, behave, react and even write, I can help.

 

             

Good Stress

Our daughter's boyfriend proposed to her last week and now she is engaged. My husband and I are beyond thrilled.

We are also really goofy. Last night my husband walked around the entire house looking for a bottle top that ended up being in his hand the whole time. This is my usually grounded-like-a-rock husband.

This morning in my Bikram Yoga class I caught myself in the the wrong posture, totally out of sync with the rest of the class because my mind had drifted to plans for a family party we'll be hosting in a few weeks.

I keep having to pull my breath down out of my upper chest into my belly. My daily Vimala Alphabet practice is showing some weird patterns that I have to stop and fix as I write.

It occurs to me that this wonderful development in our lives has activated the ancient fight-or-flight response that's usually associated with bad things, not good ones. This good-stress factor kind of sneaked up on me, but now that I'm aware of it, I am doing my best to address it the same way as I teach my anxious clients to address theirs:

1. Take a deep, deep breath! Make sure I'm breathing in through my nose every time and doing my best to draw the breath all the way down into my belly.

2. Pay attention to grounding myself. I like to imagine roots coming down through the soles of my feet and into the earth.

3. Go to bed earlier -- in case my brain wakes up at 3 am (as it has done a few times already) and decides to walk me through all the details it thinks I need to be aware of right then and there.

4. Pay attention to the direction of my thoughts. What is it about wedding plans that generate catastrophic thinking?

5. Write everything down. At least one comic incident illustrated quite clearly that our minds cannot be trusted to hold new information.

6. Remember to laugh!

7. As much as possible, keep JOY as the launching pad for any and all planning. It's all too easy to get sucked into should's that rob me of my perspective, my energy and my sense of self.

If you have anything to add to my list, please comment. I plan to post updates as we go through the days counting down to October 6, 2012. What fun!

Relax!

My absolutely favorite part of yoga is final savassana. The reward at the end of 90 minutes of torture. I crawl to it. I luxuriate in it.

Well, this morning I was just drifting into that delicious la-la-land place when I hear such moaning and groaning, huffing and puffing. Someone must have been rolling a boulder up a mountain, it was so loud.

I pull off my wash cloth/eye pillow and look to see what the heck is going on. Of course, it's "R" all the way across the room. "R" is getting up from his savassana. "R" is pulling his shirt on. That's all. Just "R." "R" who was reprimanded for checking text messages between postures the other day. "R" who can't do anything and still sets himself up in the front row. "R." "R" who has been pushing my buttons since he started coming to 6 am yoga class a few weeks ago.

First I just glared. Nothing. Of course, he has no awareness of anything but himself. Then I felt a roll of anger so red, so hot, that I had to get up. I went out and told the yoga instructor that she had to say something to him about how disruptive he is. She was a little startled because no one in yoga would guess that I could be angry – especially that angry. She smiled. I left.

And then of course he pulls up behind me at the first stop light. And he knows it's me that tattled on him. I refuse to look at him. And then he's next to me at the next stoplight. I refuse to look at him, but I just know he has this little kicked-puppy look.

By the time I got home I felt like such a jerk because obviously he just doesn't know any better. I felt so unkind in my judgment of him, in my refusal to look at him. And wondering why I let him push my buttons so.

The Declaration of the Letter Dd is, "The cause of any upset is never outside of myself." Obviously I need to write some Dd's today.

Tied Up In Knots

Most of my clients just don't get the benefit of the handwriting work I do. They balk at the idea of making changes to their handwriting and dismiss the transformational value of a daily handwriting practice.

I'd been working with "Hermine" for several months. We had a few intense sessions in my office, and then, because of the distance between us, we followed-up with weekly TAT sessions over the phone. Once in a while, in response to the TAT sessions, I recorded a new hypnotherapy CD for her and mailed it.

For the past four years, Hermine has dealt with a phobia that's manifesting as a physical condition. As with most phobias, this one is anxiety-based and the result of a hyper-vigilant response to a perceived danger.

For a number of reasons (that now leave me scratching my head) I did not initially ask for a handwriting sample from Hermine. As our phone work was not yielding the dramatic results I would have expected given the consistency of the sessions and Hermine's motivation to heal, I asked her to mail me a page of her writing.

The capital H in her autograph looked like a maze. There were little loops everywhere, especially in the upper left hand corner where she began the letter. I compared this autograph with the one on her initial consultation agreement and there was a huge difference. The H in the current autograph was significantly loopier.

When I questioned Hermine about this, she said that the sample she had sent me was representative of her usual autograph. She mentioned how much she loves the way the H in her name looks with all the loops.

I asked her if she'd be willing to take on a daily handwriting practice, focusing on the capital H in of The Vimala Alphabet which is simple and dynamic. The only loop is in a "tie stroke" that projects positive energy in one's day-to-day activities. She was less than thrilled but said she'd be willing to try anything if it would help.

We then proceeded with a TAT session.

Because of holidays, our next phone session was two weeks later. I had received a new handwriting sample from Hermine from her now-daily practice and her H's were beautiful. As we caught up, she mentioned that our last TAT session must have been particularly powerful because she had been doing much better since then. The grip of the phobia had loosened and she was less anxious overall.

I pointed out that she had been working on her handwriting since the last TAT session and suggested that it was her new H that had made the difference. The old H had been reflective of Hermine's long-standing subconscious tendency to "tie herself up in knots." The more work we did to loosen those tendencies, the tighter and more plentiful the knots became as the subconscious held on to its old, familiar, "secure" ways.

Hermine's experience was as significant for me as it was for her. It is a perfect example of why the handwriting work is foundational and essential. For more information, check out Vimala Rodgers' websites: http://www.alphabeticalblessings.com/ and http://www.iihs.com/. Sign up for Dr. Rodgers' weekly e-letter. It's free!

Well, look at that!

I have trouble with the standing-leg postures in my Bikram Yoga practice. I don't know, maybe it's a Libra thing that balance doesn't come easily to me. I also have trouble making a balanced Vimala "Ss," which is the letter of balance. Added to the mix is the fact that the left side of my body is markedly weaker than my right. (Hmm ... left side ... female energy ... too much giving? Hey, I'm working on that, too!)

Anyway. Balance, yes. I decided to run a little experiment. As part of my daily handwriting practice, I occasionally do some writing with my non-dominant, left hand. I started paying attention to how poorly or (relatively) well I got through the standing-leg postures in correlation to the left-handed writing.

There's no doubt that when I consistently spend even a few minutes writing with my left hand, my body balances better in yoga.

Anyone else out there with balance problems? Try the non-dominant-hand writing suggestion and let me know what happens.

Handwriting and the Brain

Within the past few weeks, there have been three articles appearing in the mainstream press about the relationship between handwriting and brain development. I already posted THE WALL STREET JOURNAL link on Facebook. Here is a second one:

http://theweek.com/article/index/207846/how-writing-by-hand-makes-kids-smarter

Encouraging your kids to write in cursive is crucial to their development. If you missed that boat, it's never too late to start -- and that includes adults!