Kathryn

I respect and use the work of JKZ regularly as part of my meditation "workout". I get wrankled right from the beginning when he says his patients dont have to "like" the meditations, they just have to do them. In my search for non-pharma pain management techniques, this one is good, but there are far better ones in the library of mindfullness meditations here.

This book is so unrelentingly dreary that I can't find one good thing to say about it. Not one character had any appeal to me. I am so sick of reading about drunks and their devestating effects on children. I can't imagine how this book won any prize whatsoever. The only good thing I can say is that the reader successfully intoned, in a monotonic haze of despair, both the tone and content of this book. I hated it so much, it makes me mad.

I bought this book because I was fascinated to see how the writer would work with the interaction of an Irish slave with African Americans. Although I found some of the characters stereotypical or even cardboard, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I thought Ms Grissom did a great job depicting the intertwining oppressions the characters experience. I also find it interesting that women of privilege are depicted as so constantly cornered and trying to keep fragile houses of cards from collapsing. There is a timelessness in the plights of these women and the different ways they use to cope with such despair. Oddly enough, I didn't find it depressing. Slavery and the Irish are generally depressing ( nb Ann Enright's The Gathering) but the voices of the women are so strong and determined that whatever they do gives one hope. Excellent readers, as well.

I have never been able to stay awake for this whole program, but I try to get through his Sleep for Healing Hypnosis as it addresses chronic pain. I use this every night and have been sleeping far better. I learned that with PTSD I have missed out on Delta Wave sleep most of my life and this is helping. If I can get enough of that, I may be able to calm the chronic pain from nerve damage.

I find Steven Gurgevich's voice very soothing and his various hynposes surprisingly creative. He gives frameworks around which we can fill in our own stories. I find some other hypnotists to be kind of "Hollywood" dramatic, but this man is terrific and calming and the images he chooses gentle and appropriate.

Thanks goodness Barbara Erinreich is still publishing. This book is such a relief for those of us oppressed by unrelenting demands to be optimistic even when the worst outcomes are inevitable. This book is so important for people to read. The reader is really terrible, I think and that was a big disappointment.

I enjoy all the new brain science that is coming out and I think it is very useful to us to make better use of our minds. I do find NLP to be a westernized version of Buddhist Mindfulness, complete with fantasy land attachments to money. There also comes a point in this cd, that I wonder if we are not just being encouraged into fantasy land, rather than developing our own awareness. To me, this is too far from the source and way too consumer oriented for my liking.

I started with Glenn Harold's hypnosis when I undertook to help myself with chronic pain. I found his voice quite spooky at first but learned to sort of smile after a while. This is one cd I return to again and again, as it is very effective. I find his images sometimes overdone and with the music, overly dramatic. It did lead me to more stripped down meditations, but they all seem to help.

I am very fond of this hypnosis for relieving body pain and anxiety. He has a gentle voice which is very soothing. I used this for weeks in conjunction with mindfulness meditation and it has helped me break through some significant pain. The hypnosis laid a foundation for me to learn to breathe, as well as to enjoy just surfing in my body. Whereas some of the minduflness meditations are quite emotionally cathartic, this one teaches the body to relax in order to be able to more able to deal with tough stuff. I go back to this cd all the time. My only criticism is that I wish the last three meditations were on separate tracks as I can never find them when I want and I dont need all the intro that he provides.

I use parts of this cd to help with fibro pain and ptsd. He has one of the best explanations of fibro and a good meditation to start breaking up the knot of emotions that keep us in pain. His segment on Stigmata and Fibro is very helpful and the meditation goes right to the heart of problems. I wish there were separate tracks for the actual meditations, however, as I can never find them when I am looking. I suppose bookmarking helps.I would like to have easier ways to find the experiential stuff, as I dont need to keep hearing the explanations.Sometimes his voice grates on me and i dont agree with all he says, but its well worth a try at the meditations if you are dealing with chronic pain.

I have been using Tara Brach's work, along with several others, to untangle the mystery of PTSD, fibromyalgia and unexplained debilitating pain. This, along with Radical Self-Acceptance, which sometimes overlaps with this, are the keystones of my healing. I have noticed considerable decrease in pain when used in conjunction with a chakra/gong meditation I found here. I have not experienced anything that had to power to break through cognitive defenses and so lovingly get to the heart of matters as Tara Brach's cds combined with other forms of meditation. You just have to keep practising and being aware of subtle changes in your body, and pain starts moving.