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“Your imagination can help you heal.” This simple and elegant statement was nine-year-old Helena’s response when asked what she had learned from our work together as we were wrapping up our counseling relationship.
Helena first came to me because she never expressed any negative feelings. Her parents were concerned since her younger brother was very expressive – actually a terror around the house – and they didn’t want Helena to get lost, but to be her own person. They wondered if she harbored truer feelings under the surface that were afraid to come out. And she did.
Helena lived in a home filled with chaos. Although loving, her parents expressed their everyday disagreements by yelling. A new baby at home added to the attention already taken away from Helena by her four-year-old brother. Nannies were coming and going while her mom was trying to return to work part-time. Helena never knew who was going to take her to school or bring her home.
Helena’s problems are the problems of thousands of kids: jealousy of younger sibs, parents fighting, grappling with fears of unworthiness, trouble with friends, struggling with school, dealing with headaches. I focus on teaching children to access their inner wisdom, and often the most lasting and creative healings I’ve seen have taken place through using the power of a child’s imagination.
During our final sessions, Helena easily recounted how she incorporated Imagination Tools into her life and made them her own. Here’s her advice (with some commentary from me) on how to use eight of them.
(1) THE BALLOON BREATH
“If you take Balloon Breaths [slow, deep breathing about two inches below the belly button], it can help. If you’re mad maybe you are able to center yourself and not hurt someone – like for me, my brother. If he does something that upsets me, I may be able to say something instead of hurting him back.”
(2) DISCOVERING A SPECIAL PLACE
“My Special Place is a room that can turn into anything. It starts like a museum and there is a big remote with dots of color that changes the room into different places.”
Helena created a rainbow of Special Places, depending on what kind of healing space she needed, and never ran out of places to go to practice her Imagination Tools.
(3) MEETING A WISE ANIMAL FRIEND
“If you need help with a problem, then you could ask one of your Animal Friends to give you a special present that might help you. My owl is very wise. Owl gives me invisible ink and a pen so if there’s a problem with someone else I can write it.” Her owl’s advice helped Helena get in control of her emotions. “If you’re feeling sad, drawing makes you feel better. If you have angry feelings, you can let them out by drawing.” One day her owl showed up with a magical pencil that had a magical eraser. “It’s really colorful and erases my bad thoughts.”
(4) ENCOUNTERING A PERSONAL WIZARD
“My Wizard is very nice and very tall. He has a purple hat, long white beard that has silver in it, and a magic wand. The wand is blue with gold stripes around it like a candy cane. My wizard’s most special Gift for me was kindness so I could be nice to my brother.”
(5) RECEIVING GIFTS
Helena’s competition with her brother often resulted in physical fighting. “I am trying to stop. I know I have to stop. But I just can’t. And I yell before I hit him.”
So her Wizard offered the Gift of a magic peach to help stop yelling and listen to her heart. “When you eat it, you think about other things so you don’t pay attention to worries, like your brother bothering you. It makes it like he’s not even there.”
(6) CHECKING IN WITH YOUR HEART AND BELLY
One time Helena was having particular difficulty with her friends. She felt they didn’t like her and so she sat by herself at lunchtime. She knew to check with the wisdom of her Heart. Her lesson turned into wise counsel for others.
“Your Heart can be open or closed. If it’s closed, it’s probably mad and not in a good mood. And if it’s open you’re happy to receive love.” To open, her Heart suggested Helena breath in the color of love – pink.
Helena’s inner dialogue about how she felt and what she needed opened her Heart… and she joyfully joined her friends the next day.
(7) TALKING TO TOES AND OTHER BODY PARTS
“I learned that my feelings are important. Anger is in my head and dark gray, squiggly. Happy is in my arms and is light purple. And Love is cherry pink in my Heart. If your feelings are bad you can change them with the ‘therm-o-meter’.” This special Gift looks like a thermometer, but can be used to lower or raise the temperature of certain feelings (like decreasing anger and increasing patience).
Whatever her problem, some part of Helena’s body had information that could assist her.
(8) USING COLOR FOR HEALING
“Your feelings have different colors. If you’re in a bad mood they may be darker ‘cause they may be gloomier. If you’re in a good mood, at least for me, they would be lighter. So if you’re thinking about dark red while in a bad mood, then think about a fun color, like gold sparkle, that would remind you to be happy.”
“I prefer to be happy. I hope other kids do too.”
I hope these bits of Helena’s story inspire you to develop your own personal Imagination Toolbox with the children in your life. Kids love to mix and match the Tools and find what fits best for their personal circumstances. Try three Tools… and email me in the morning!
Charlotte Reznick, PhD is a child educational psychologist, an associate clinical professor of psychology at UCLA, and author of a new book, The Power of Your Child's Imagination: How to Transform Stress and Anxiety into Joy and Success (Perigee/Penguin 2009,www.ImageryForKids.com).
