Please click the links below to view the full case study.
Case Study: A New Sense of Awareness
This is a brief description of the way in which I use the HeartSpheres exercises to help me manage debilitating chronic fatigue:
I started practising HeartSpheres exercises about a year ago to see if it would help me manage a problem which I have with debilitating chronic fatigue following treatment for cancer three years ago.
I was already taking complementary remedies prescribed by Dr Gruenewald to alleviate this fatigue and wanted to explore the possibilities which the HeartSpheres exercises offer of being able to direct and harness positive thoughts and translate these into energy and healing.
After receiving ‘one to one’ tuition I started by practising an exercise called Reviewing Past Experiences. For several months I used this form of active meditation every evening and found that it helped me to achieve a very relaxed but focussed frame of mind in which to review my daily activities.
I began by reviewing the day’s main events including the people I had met, discussions which had taken place and any problems or difficulties which I had encountered. I was surprised to find that I could visualize and recall events in great detail whilst still maintaining a feeling of detachment and inner calmness. At the close of the review I sustained this feeling of peace and calmness for about five minutes whilst repeating a mantra promoting healing and affirming my personal wellbeing.
One immediate benefit was the ease with which I was able to get off to sleep at night and the quality of the sleep which I enjoyed. By finishing each day with a sense of positive achievement I had effectively drawn a line under the day’s events and was able to look forward to the next day with renewed energy.
I still practise this exercise about three times a week and have found that repeated use of this exercise brings a longer term benefit which comes from the inner objectivity which I have developed about myself and others. Learning to recognize the feelings and emotions which drain me physically or emotionally and those which energize me helps me to plan and manage my day more constructively. It is not possible to eliminate stressful, difficult or challenging situations from life, but what I have found is that this inner sense of awareness helps me to respond to these situations more effectively. By generating a more positive personal response in a difficult or stressful situation, I am able to conserve precious energy levels and manage my day more effectively.
About nine months ago I was also introduced to the other HeartSpheres exercises and find that theHeart Breathing exercise is a very powerful and beneficial prelude to meditation. My personal preference is to combine the affirmation of caring and appreciation with the affirmation of strength and confidence in the morning. This energizes me and helps me to build upon the benefits of a relaxed peaceful night’s sleep. In the evening I prefer to combine the affirmation of calmness and peace with the affirmation of balance and harmony. I alternate this latter combination with the Reviewing Past Experiences exercise for optimum benefit.
D.W., 55 years, Human Resources Manager (recently retired)
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Case Study: Driving Lesson
Eleven years ago I had stopped driving, a few months after we moved from Germany to England.
In the fourteen years since I had my driving licence I had never been a keen driver and have always been apprehensive about driving in cities. During and after my pregnancies this became even worse. I think my fears were aggravated by a very bad accident, which happened very close to our home, resulting in two deaths and severe injuries of friends and colleagues.
Now in England I was not only confronted with city traffic and roundabouts but also left hand driving, and, typical for this city, lots of very narrow streets. To manage traffic here one needs quite assertive driving skills, which I clearly did not have. I became more and more scared, especially of putting other people, including my children, at risk through my bad driving. Even just getting to the high street in the suburb had me breaking out in cold sweat and made my heart race. I spent ages going round and round at the roundabouts because I was too scared to change lanes. It would have been quite funny if it wasn’t so sad. Finally I gave up.
Last year I started supporting my children in learning to drive. Ironically I was the one to sit next to my son, practising in his little old car just driving around the block. For the first time I thought again that it would be so nice, and very useful, to drive again. Over the next weeks driving became a more accessible skill, because I saw both my children improving so fast and I became aware of their confidence in their own ability to learn what they wanted to do.
Encouraged and instructed by my husband I started to learn the Quick Coherence exercise, a technique of heart-focussed breathing devised by Doc Childre (‘The HeartMath Solution’). Having practised it for several weeks I moved on to the HeartSpheres exercises. I imagined and mentally rehearsed all sort of situations and journeys. I allowed my fears to come out and live through them, in order to transform them and replace them with positive feelings of inner calmness and appreciation.
I imagined myself mastering roundabouts and traffic in general, always breathing slowly and maintaining calmness and appreciation. I became quite good at facing negative emotions with inner detachment and tranquillity.
I am now able to review difficult past events with inner calmness and detachment, and to mentally picture difficult future situations with calm confidence and appreciation.
Last autumn my husband was so convinced that I could drive again that he bought a car for our daughter and me. He bravely went with me on my first drive around the block, which must have been quite scary. Then I tried driving on my own and practised everyday. In the first few weeks I did some slow breathing when getting in the car or just reminded myself of the positive feeling during my exercises. Even after smashing a wing mirror of another car in the first week of my new driving career I was still not discouraged, and I realized that my fears were gone.
For the first time in my driving life I actually enjoyed it. After about two months I also started driving my husband’s sports car and really enjoyed it.
Meanwhile, whenever I come to the roundabout close by which scared me so much, it seems as if this had happened to another person, it feels so unreal. The panic and fear are now completely gone.
C.G. aged 45, art student
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Case Study: From Carer to Companion
Celia S., a carer for children with special needs, describes her experience with the Inner Dialogue exercise as follows:
I have been working for about 8 months with a twelve-year old girl, Angela, with moderate learning difficulties and autistic spectrum disorder. Most people find it hard to communicate with her at all, so I am grateful that I have been able to build up some kind of relationship.
I have the feeling Angela has developed some trust in me.
What makes life difficult for Angela is her unpredictability, often combined with outbursts and violent actions, such as screeching, throwing objects and pulling hair. It is sad to see her life reduced to a very restricted environment and also to see people withdraw from her out of fear, especially as her aggression is rarely aimed at people directly.
After having worked with Angela for about four months I realized that I needed to develop more understanding for her, to be able to intervene in or even prevent these outbursts, and to enable her to have a more fulfilled life.
I came across the Inner Dialogue exercise through a friend and decided to give it a go.
I had realized before that there was no direct route to exert some kind of control over Angela’s destructive behaviour. Rather than manipulating I would have liked to empower her to be more in control of herself.
I knew from her parents, the carers before me and also from my experience that nobody could control Angela, even if they wanted to. Somehow we became reduced to clearing dangerous stuff out of her way, trying to keep her content by secondguessing her needs and doing damage control, when the chairs or cutlery were flying ...
My frustration made me open to the way the Inner Dialogue exercise works. I started to build up a deep inner relationship to Angela by visualizing her outer appearance, then her movements, her language and facial expressions, and finally by reliving situations of her life. I tried to relive her experiences and actions. After a while I imagined that I could experience how she must have felt in those situations. I started with situations of conflict, because that seemed the obvious thing, but I then also started to try to picture her in ordinary daily life. After only a couple of weeks I realized that I could experience her pain and fear within me in ordinary life circumstances. All of a sudden Angela was not unpredictable anymore. I could anticipate her outbursts, which usually were reactions to events in her environment, which deeply scared her, or people who from her (and by now also my) point of experience invaded her private space, which terrified her.
We started to go into public spaces more frequently now, from shops to small musical performances or a gallery. Through the exercises I had not only learned to understand Angela’s reactions better, but I had also developed a deep respect for how she dealt with her life. I think this allowed a transformation from my role as a carer, from functioning more or less as a guard to keep her and others safe and deal with unpleasant side effects, into a friend or companion.
I also realized that often I could not only anticipate her reactions, but appreciate them.
The really strange thing is that Angela seems to have a lot fewer outbursts than previously, not because of my anticipation and therefore ‘rescuing’ her from the situation, but because she seems to feel that I understand her and that makes her feel safe.
Her family have realized this too and I talked with them about the exercises. I am not sure whether they will ever do them too, but there has been a subtle change in their attitude towards Angela. They seem to experience and treat her more like a person and not as a cared, but slightly scary and very embarrassing phenomenon. This in turn seems to relax Angela, and their life together has changed for the better, because there is a lot less tension.
Celia J., 25 years old, carer
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Case Study: Overcoming Misery
In 2004 a lifetime of negative feelings — principally of anxiety — were precipitated by family circumstances into a much more acute depression with symptoms of sleeplessness, bursts of anger, feelings of a failed and guilty life and suicidal imaginings.
Now, a year later, my life is transformed with a much more balanced view of life in all its aspects. In Freud’s phrase (though not with his treatment methods) hysterical misery has been replaced by ordinary unhappiness. This residual unhappiness — which is mild rather than severe and does have occasional sunny intervals — is I think attributable to a life-long pre-disposition to unhappiness springing from childhood and a failure to find ongoing creative activities.
Treatment at my medical practice has consisted of modest doses of anti-depressant, now gradually being taken off, together with regular coaching from Dr Gruenewald in HeartSpheres techniques. These have consisted of the Heart Breathing exercise, a combination of relaxation and breathing exercises and affirmation.
In this process I have developed, with Dr Gruenewald's flexible approach to treatment, a series of helpful mental pictures (the essence of which came to me unbidden). In these I see a series of coloured veils fall from a ‘diamond’ version of myself to be replaced by more luminously coloured positive feelings within the transparent self that arises Phoenix-like from each negative veil consumed by the fire of love. Each major negative feeling is replaced by an inwardly and outwardly directed positive feeling.
A red veil of anger is replaced by patience and loving kindness.
A yellow veil of fear is replaced by courage and trust.
A green veil of envy is replaced by gratitude and empathy.
A white veil of perfectionism is replaced by self-forgiveness and an ability to enjoy the unexpected.
After stopping the anti-depressant treatment I see myself continuing HeartSpheres-based exercises and also continuing with new creative activities and making other lifestyle changes as may be necessary.
My treatment has provided a foundation for this future of balanced thinking and feeling.
L.T., architect, aged 62
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Case Study: Preparing a Difficult Meeting
The day after I took part in an introductory workshop on the HeartSpheres techniques I attended a meeting about which I was very concerned. I knew a difficult issue would be discussed about which I felt a huge resentment. I was worried that my resentment would get the better of me and that I would create an angry scene. In addition a manager would be present whom I had confronted about lying once before, fuelling my resentment even further.
Ten minutes before the meeting I sat down quietly and did the first part of the Heart Breathing exercise and reminded myself of my experience with the Listening with the Heart exercise. That took five minutes. I then had another five minutes to 'come back into the world' and make my way into the meeting room.
Once there I was amazed at how calm I was and how much genuine appreciation I experienced for the manager’s general attitude and professionalism.
When I spoke it felt as if the resentment had simply vanished. Instead I was clear, articulate and assertive when I stated a request. The words just came without premeditation and it was only when I actually spoke that I realized my request meant that it would be difficult for the manager to ‘be economical with the truth’ at a later point. My request was accepted.
Since then I have practised the HeartSpheres exercises on a daily basis. As a result I am generally calmer and able to quietly and assertively ask for what I want as well as set boundaries. Until now I have had great difficulties with both of these.
M.F., Accountant, aged 49
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Case study: My Personal Experience.
In my work as a doctor, coach and medical advisor I frequently come across situations where I am required to come up with an instant answer or advice.
The answer is not always immediately available to me. Rather I have to go through a process of letting go of all my medical, educational or psychological knowledge and experiences to initially develop a deep interest for the person in front of me. Activating a feeling of inner calmness and appreciation for the other person helps this process.
I focus with deep interest on details such as the gait, voice, gesture, facial features and body shape without immediately searching for an interpretation of what is perceived. When I let the impressions resound within me, this allows me to gain intuitive insights into the other person and their situation. Often this experience is initially accompanied by a slight feeling of apprehension — I might not come up with an answer. This apprehension can be counteracted by creating feelings of calmness and genuine appreciation.
I experience inner silence as an important threshold that enhances my creativity and ability to find new ways of understanding and problem solving.
Accessing my knowledge and insight after the process of letting go and facing the unknown, sharpens my grasp of the deeper underlying problems present in a person. It creates intuitive insights on how to resolve problems where therapeutic intervention is needed. This allows me to respond to the needs of my clients and patients with more appropriate and effective means.
Having practised this technique for many years I have learned to go through this process within a few minutes.
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