I would like to welcome Dorothea Hover-Kramer, author of Second Chance at Your Dream, to Cafe of Dreams! I found Ms. Hover-Kramer's post to be extremely interesting and I am thrilled to be able to share it with everyone!
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Energy Psychology Self-Care for the Sandwich Generation
by Dorothea Hover-Kramer, Ed.D., RN, DCEP
website:www.SecondChanceDream.com
Recent estimates show one out of four American families are currently involved in taking care of an elderly parent. Many are at the same time raising children or nurturing their adult children which defines them as members of the “sandwich generation”—the people with family demands at on both sides of their own mid-life time.
Being a “sandwicher” is no easy matter as caregiving can vary in requirements from minimal supervision to 24/7 care that would be need to be filled by 3 full-time professional workers per day. An AARP study shows 8.7 million women in this country are caring for both one or more elderly parents and growing children at the same time. Family caretakers have twice the number of chronic conditions as non-caregivers and research suggests the multiple service roles can shorten lifespan by up to ten years.
Besides making sure there is respite care available at least one day a week, sandwich generation members can help themselves tremendously with self-care techniques from the new field of energy psychology. The central premise is learning easy-to-follow steps for maintaining your own personal vitality. This is called Qi or vital life force in the current practice of integrative medicine.
Here are a few sample suggestions for a start to daily self-help for your energy system:
Learn to identify and let go of stressors quickly. Opportunities for releasing negativity abound in the busy muddle of a three generation household. Treat yourself by massaging the heart area and stating, “Even though this has happened (name specific event or words), I deeply and profoundly accept and honor myself.”
Learn to forgive yourself for mistakes. Remember you are on a learning curve to finding out what works best in your family and no one has all the answers to complex interactive conflicts. Affirm, “Even though I made this mistake (name it), I still deeply and profoundly accept and forgive myself.”
Choose a new option as soon as it becomes clear that something is not working well for the family. Enlist support of family members who can assist you in thinking through possible choices. Encourage all family members to try out something new as a simple experiment.
Energize your body and mind with quick exercise as often as needed with the Cross Crawl (right hand on left knee, left hand on right knee while walking rapidly), rubbing the Brain Buttons (at the collarbone on each side of the suprasternal notch), or Zipping Up by moving the hands up several times from above the pubic area to below the lower lip (tracing the central meridian of the body’s energy system).
Clearly state your intention for yourself by tapping on the upper mid-chest (thymus gland area) while stating your daily goal. Examples: “Today, I want to feel peace of mind...Today, I want to nurture my health and well-being... I attract the resources I need (courage, patience, strength, caring).”
Unlike medication, these exercises help to boost your immune system and increase your sense of personal power. Doing good for others can flow most easily when you are replenishing yourself as often as needed. Enjoy the journey with all its opportunities for your deepening personal development!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Bit About Secret Chance At Your Dream:
This is the first book to apply the breakthrough insights of Energy Psychology to healthy aging. Energy Psychology is an exciting new healing method that changes the vibrational patterns in the body’s energy fields to produce rapid emotional healing and a sense of well-being. With the help of the over fifty exercises for rebalancing yourself offered in this book, you can face the challenges and opportunities of later life to create a time of energy, abundance and joy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt:
“Out of kilter” for a while or longer
Brief, traumatic incidents are very real human experiences. Often, they leave us feeling out of sorts and imbalanced. Even the most focused individuals will have experiences causing disorientation and distress. In someone who is basically emotionally healthy, such turmoil may soon pass and be forgotten. However, if the pressure is unrelenting, or if the person leads an otherwise stress-filled life, it may take considerably longer to unwind from the shaky feeling Janet described.
If intense stress is repeated often and/or continuously (for many days or weeks) health changes such as high blood pressure, frequent headaches, or fatigue can set in. In addition, emotional disturbances such as ongoing anxiety or a quiet sense of despair become internalized as stressors keep piling up. It’s important to remember there are many dimensions of distress: the more obvious stress is one of too much to do with too little time, while another is the stress engendered by having too little meaningful activity. This results in boredom and underuse of one’s resources. The build-up of either stress and its effects on human energy levels is all too familiar in our culture. Recent statistics report over 75 percent of all physical illnesses are stress-related and that one in three American adults is depressed or anxious.
Anti-depressants and tranquilizers are the most frequently prescribed drugs on the market. These figures dramatically increase in life’s later decades because stress has a cumulative effect over time.
All of us have had a jarring experience that left us exhausted and/or in pain for several days… although medical examination showed no broken bones or physical injury. Something more subtle has happened in such instances, not treatable with medication or procedures known to Western medicine. One way of understanding this condition is to say more subtle energies, or the energy body, absorbed the impact of the trauma and, as a result, became distorted, imbalanced, blocked, or depleted in some way.
Understanding changes in energy levels is often captured in popular language. For example, we often may hear statements such as “I feel charged (with energy)” or “I feel depleted (of energy), or “I feel scattered…fragmented… pulled… or… pushed.” These approximate the true condition of the energy body at any given moment.
For most people, energetic disturbance occurs frequently, perhaps several times a day. It can be sensed as a tired, depleted feeling with vague discomfort in the entire body. It can, in fact, be assessed by healthcare professionals who have studied Therapeutic Touch, Healing Touch, Reiki or some of the other well-known other energy therapy modalities. “Energy field disturbance” is recognized as an accepted nursing diagnosis (1) and guides caregivers to rebalance human energies with specific techniques.
Coming back “online”
Understanding energetic imbalance as a distortion of the energy body leads us to seek relevant remedies. For example, people say, “I need to recharge my batteries” or, “I want to refocus myself” or, “I must pull myself together.” While recognizing imbalance and stating intention for relief is helpful, focused activity is needed to renew one’s inner vitality.
Here are two exercises (2) to relieve energy field disturbance such as the one impacting Janet:
Exercise 1.1. Centering
1. While sitting comfortably, release the breath fully with a sigh, or as if you're blowing out a candle. Do this 2 to 3 times more while imaging stress and tension flowing out through your hands and feet. The in-breath will naturally be deeper as you proceed.
2. Allow yourself to imagine a peaceful place in nature… seeing, hearing, feeling, even smelling it. Let the peacefulness fill your body with light and warmth. Continue to release any tension or emotional distress with each breath.
3. After 5-10 minutes, notice how you feel and jot down any images or ideas that came to you. Notice how your breathing has become deeper and describe any changes such as relief of muscle tension in your body.
Exercise 1.2. The Brush Down
1. As you think of a recent stressful event, set your intention to release its effects. While sitting or standing, take a deep breath and let it go, fully releasing pressure and tension. Imagine giving it to the earth to be healed and cleansed. Again, breathe and exhale to let any remaining tension flow out through your hands and feet.
2. Next, bring your hands above your head on the in-breath and breathe out fully while gently brushing downward above the body, head to toe. Allow a sigh or groan to help release the tension fully as the hands move downward.
3. Continue releasing with each out-breath while brushing with one hand from under each arm, then alternating to the other side. Then, brush with both hands down the upper and lower back, the groin area and the inside of your legs. Imagine you are smoothing the ruffled edges of your energy field.
4. Notice how you feel after 3-5 minutes of this
exercise.
Allow yourself to use one these exercises each morning when you first arise to soften the transition into the day. Also, remember to use one when something nerve-wracking happens, such as getting caught in a traffic jam or feeling pressured…Experience will prove which is most helpful to restore your vitality quickly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Bit About Dorothea Hover-Kramer:
Dr. Dorothea Hover-Kramer is a psychologist and clinical nurse specialist in private practice who has authored 6 books about energy therapies including her most recent entitled Second Chance At Your Dream. She is co-founder and past president of the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology, an international network of therapists and health care professionals utilizing energy-based approaches for emotional freedom and healing. You can visit her website at www.secondchancedream.com.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Win Prizes!
SECOND CHANCE AT YOUR DREAM VIRTUAL BLOG TOUR '09 will officially begin on June 1 and end on June 26. You can visit Dorothea's blog stops at www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com during the month of June to find out more about this great book and talented author!
As a special promotion for all our authors, Pump Up Your Book Promotion is giving away a FREE virtual book tour to a published author or a $50 Amazon gift certificate to those not published who comments on our authors' blog stops. More prizes will be announced as they become available.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Energy Psychology Self-Care for the Sandwich Generation
by Dorothea Hover-Kramer, Ed.D., RN, DCEP
website:www.SecondChanceDream.com
Recent estimates show one out of four American families are currently involved in taking care of an elderly parent. Many are at the same time raising children or nurturing their adult children which defines them as members of the “sandwich generation”—the people with family demands at on both sides of their own mid-life time.
Being a “sandwicher” is no easy matter as caregiving can vary in requirements from minimal supervision to 24/7 care that would be need to be filled by 3 full-time professional workers per day. An AARP study shows 8.7 million women in this country are caring for both one or more elderly parents and growing children at the same time. Family caretakers have twice the number of chronic conditions as non-caregivers and research suggests the multiple service roles can shorten lifespan by up to ten years.
Besides making sure there is respite care available at least one day a week, sandwich generation members can help themselves tremendously with self-care techniques from the new field of energy psychology. The central premise is learning easy-to-follow steps for maintaining your own personal vitality. This is called Qi or vital life force in the current practice of integrative medicine.
Here are a few sample suggestions for a start to daily self-help for your energy system:
Learn to identify and let go of stressors quickly. Opportunities for releasing negativity abound in the busy muddle of a three generation household. Treat yourself by massaging the heart area and stating, “Even though this has happened (name specific event or words), I deeply and profoundly accept and honor myself.”
Learn to forgive yourself for mistakes. Remember you are on a learning curve to finding out what works best in your family and no one has all the answers to complex interactive conflicts. Affirm, “Even though I made this mistake (name it), I still deeply and profoundly accept and forgive myself.”
Choose a new option as soon as it becomes clear that something is not working well for the family. Enlist support of family members who can assist you in thinking through possible choices. Encourage all family members to try out something new as a simple experiment.
Energize your body and mind with quick exercise as often as needed with the Cross Crawl (right hand on left knee, left hand on right knee while walking rapidly), rubbing the Brain Buttons (at the collarbone on each side of the suprasternal notch), or Zipping Up by moving the hands up several times from above the pubic area to below the lower lip (tracing the central meridian of the body’s energy system).
Clearly state your intention for yourself by tapping on the upper mid-chest (thymus gland area) while stating your daily goal. Examples: “Today, I want to feel peace of mind...Today, I want to nurture my health and well-being... I attract the resources I need (courage, patience, strength, caring).”
Unlike medication, these exercises help to boost your immune system and increase your sense of personal power. Doing good for others can flow most easily when you are replenishing yourself as often as needed. Enjoy the journey with all its opportunities for your deepening personal development!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Bit About Secret Chance At Your Dream:
This is the first book to apply the breakthrough insights of Energy Psychology to healthy aging. Energy Psychology is an exciting new healing method that changes the vibrational patterns in the body’s energy fields to produce rapid emotional healing and a sense of well-being. With the help of the over fifty exercises for rebalancing yourself offered in this book, you can face the challenges and opportunities of later life to create a time of energy, abundance and joy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt:
“Out of kilter” for a while or longer
Brief, traumatic incidents are very real human experiences. Often, they leave us feeling out of sorts and imbalanced. Even the most focused individuals will have experiences causing disorientation and distress. In someone who is basically emotionally healthy, such turmoil may soon pass and be forgotten. However, if the pressure is unrelenting, or if the person leads an otherwise stress-filled life, it may take considerably longer to unwind from the shaky feeling Janet described.
If intense stress is repeated often and/or continuously (for many days or weeks) health changes such as high blood pressure, frequent headaches, or fatigue can set in. In addition, emotional disturbances such as ongoing anxiety or a quiet sense of despair become internalized as stressors keep piling up. It’s important to remember there are many dimensions of distress: the more obvious stress is one of too much to do with too little time, while another is the stress engendered by having too little meaningful activity. This results in boredom and underuse of one’s resources. The build-up of either stress and its effects on human energy levels is all too familiar in our culture. Recent statistics report over 75 percent of all physical illnesses are stress-related and that one in three American adults is depressed or anxious.
Anti-depressants and tranquilizers are the most frequently prescribed drugs on the market. These figures dramatically increase in life’s later decades because stress has a cumulative effect over time.
All of us have had a jarring experience that left us exhausted and/or in pain for several days… although medical examination showed no broken bones or physical injury. Something more subtle has happened in such instances, not treatable with medication or procedures known to Western medicine. One way of understanding this condition is to say more subtle energies, or the energy body, absorbed the impact of the trauma and, as a result, became distorted, imbalanced, blocked, or depleted in some way.
Understanding changes in energy levels is often captured in popular language. For example, we often may hear statements such as “I feel charged (with energy)” or “I feel depleted (of energy), or “I feel scattered…fragmented… pulled… or… pushed.” These approximate the true condition of the energy body at any given moment.
For most people, energetic disturbance occurs frequently, perhaps several times a day. It can be sensed as a tired, depleted feeling with vague discomfort in the entire body. It can, in fact, be assessed by healthcare professionals who have studied Therapeutic Touch, Healing Touch, Reiki or some of the other well-known other energy therapy modalities. “Energy field disturbance” is recognized as an accepted nursing diagnosis (1) and guides caregivers to rebalance human energies with specific techniques.
Coming back “online”
Understanding energetic imbalance as a distortion of the energy body leads us to seek relevant remedies. For example, people say, “I need to recharge my batteries” or, “I want to refocus myself” or, “I must pull myself together.” While recognizing imbalance and stating intention for relief is helpful, focused activity is needed to renew one’s inner vitality.
Here are two exercises (2) to relieve energy field disturbance such as the one impacting Janet:
Exercise 1.1. Centering
1. While sitting comfortably, release the breath fully with a sigh, or as if you're blowing out a candle. Do this 2 to 3 times more while imaging stress and tension flowing out through your hands and feet. The in-breath will naturally be deeper as you proceed.
2. Allow yourself to imagine a peaceful place in nature… seeing, hearing, feeling, even smelling it. Let the peacefulness fill your body with light and warmth. Continue to release any tension or emotional distress with each breath.
3. After 5-10 minutes, notice how you feel and jot down any images or ideas that came to you. Notice how your breathing has become deeper and describe any changes such as relief of muscle tension in your body.
Exercise 1.2. The Brush Down
1. As you think of a recent stressful event, set your intention to release its effects. While sitting or standing, take a deep breath and let it go, fully releasing pressure and tension. Imagine giving it to the earth to be healed and cleansed. Again, breathe and exhale to let any remaining tension flow out through your hands and feet.
2. Next, bring your hands above your head on the in-breath and breathe out fully while gently brushing downward above the body, head to toe. Allow a sigh or groan to help release the tension fully as the hands move downward.
3. Continue releasing with each out-breath while brushing with one hand from under each arm, then alternating to the other side. Then, brush with both hands down the upper and lower back, the groin area and the inside of your legs. Imagine you are smoothing the ruffled edges of your energy field.
4. Notice how you feel after 3-5 minutes of this
exercise.
Allow yourself to use one these exercises each morning when you first arise to soften the transition into the day. Also, remember to use one when something nerve-wracking happens, such as getting caught in a traffic jam or feeling pressured…Experience will prove which is most helpful to restore your vitality quickly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Bit About Dorothea Hover-Kramer:
Dr. Dorothea Hover-Kramer is a psychologist and clinical nurse specialist in private practice who has authored 6 books about energy therapies including her most recent entitled Second Chance At Your Dream. She is co-founder and past president of the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology, an international network of therapists and health care professionals utilizing energy-based approaches for emotional freedom and healing. You can visit her website at www.secondchancedream.com.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Win Prizes!
SECOND CHANCE AT YOUR DREAM VIRTUAL BLOG TOUR '09 will officially begin on June 1 and end on June 26. You can visit Dorothea's blog stops at www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com during the month of June to find out more about this great book and talented author!
As a special promotion for all our authors, Pump Up Your Book Promotion is giving away a FREE virtual book tour to a published author or a $50 Amazon gift certificate to those not published who comments on our authors' blog stops. More prizes will be announced as they become available.
1 comments:
Interesting, I'll have to check the book out. I've heard of energies and of caregiving, but not of the two together.
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