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Woodland Walk: Free Guided Imagery Script

March 28, 2014 by Julie Lusk

By Julie Lusk

This is a free guided imagery script of an imaginary walk in the woods that will renew your energy and vitality. It is published in Julie’s Yoga Meditations book and is on the CD included with the book. See below.

Time: 15 minutes

Begin by treating yourself to an enjoyable and satisfying stretch. Go ahead, it’s time to loosen up and stretch so you can reclaim your energy. That’s right. Stretch all over.

And now, please allow your entire body to settle and relax comfortably . . . if your legs or arms are crossed, please uncross them and settle yourself into whatever you are sitting or lying on.

Take in a nice big breath …fill your lungs full…and breathe out to let go from deep inside… And now, simply follow your breath in…and out…allowing each breath to refresh you on many levels.

With your eyes closed or barely open, begin to shift your attention away from the world around you to your inner world of sensations and into your imagination. It will do you good.

Take a big breath in . . . And sigh it all the way out.

Let your imagination take you

Wholesome Energizers CD

Listen often to release stress, refresh your outlook and feel calm. Feel rested, rejuvenated and ready for the rest of the day. Introduction and 3 tracks featuring a relaxation exercise, beautiful guided imagery and helpful affirmations to bring your energy back. CLICK the blue title link above to find out more...

Price: $16.95

Price: $9.99

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Give the Gift of Comfort and Joy

December 21, 2015 by Julie Lusk

Are you feeling the peace and joy of the season? Hopefully taking time for deeper quiet and reflection, and for setting the stage for renewal in the new year?

Actually, it’s too common for there to be extra stress and busyness for nearly everybody during this amazing season. It’s a particularly alarming time for folks who already are running on fumes.

Guided relaxation, imagery, yoga nidra, and meditation is the perfect way to truly get recharged with peace, comfort, and joy.

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Not Sleeping Soundly? Here’s Help

July 14, 2016 by Julie Lusk

Have you ever felt like you were ‘half-awake or only half asleep’ all night? Me too. It’s so frustrating, especially knowing that you have a big day ahead and want to be feel sharp and well rested. Perhaps you don’t want to miss a moment of your vacation or there’s an important conference you’re excited about.

As it turns out, half of your brain can sleep while the other half stays awake, according to sleep scientist Masako Tamaki and her colleagues at Brown University and reported in Current Biology*. They found that this usually happens when sleeping the first night in a new place, like a hotel, friend’s house, or while camping. The second night is much better.

It’s our brain’s attempt to protect us by going into survival mode. What happens is that the right half your brain sleeps while the left half stays alert, standing guard. How strange is that?

Scientists measured the slow-wave activity of the brain, something that occurs during deep sleep. They measured brain activity during light sleep by first playing a tone and then a different tone was played. Surprisingly, the brain reacted to the variation in sound only on the left side of the brain – the right side stayed asleep.

Next, they played a sound loud enough to awaken someone. They found that when it was transmitted into the right ear, the subjects in the experiment woke up faster than if it was sent to the left ear. The right ear is associated with the left side of the brain.

It stands to reason that it would be the left side of the brain that stays on duty since it is known to be objective, analytical, and rational and would be more prone to be protective whereas the right side is best at intuition and abstract thinking. Could this phenomenon be at play when sleeping in an unsafe neighborhood or household? What about when having to keep an ear out for a child or sick person. More studies are needed.

Sleeping ‘half-way’ is involuntary and the brain’s way to keep you alert enough to save yourself if something bad happened and most likely associated with the flight-fight-freeze response to stress. Because of this, scientists think there’s not much you can do about it other than to accept it rather than letting it bother you. Some suggest going two nights ahead of your big day since it’s so hard to sleep that first night.

Here are my suggestions:

Make the room feel familiar and safer to you, tricking the brain into sleeping better. Try using a familiar scent – lavender is calming and aids sleeping. If you’re used to sleeping with a fan whirling away, bring one with you. Using your own pillow makes sense too.
Try yoga nidra. It’s a comprehensive practice done lying down to go far beyond deep relaxation and mindfulness to a place of natural peace and quiet that is tremendously restful. Along with being a special type of meditation to increase uplifting levels of awareness, it can also be practiced at bedtime as a sleep aid. Layers of stress are cleared out so they don’t follow you to bed and disturb sleeping. In fact, while not a substitute for actual sleep, one hour of yoga nidra practice is equivalent to 4 hours of sleep. This is due to the types of brain waves experienced along the way. Proven relaxation skills, specialized breathing techniques, guided imagery, and mindfulness are systematically used. Learn more about yoga nidra here
Use a yoga nidra recording. See below for recommendations. Download it to your listening device, put it on airplane mode, and listen by putting the ear buds or the device itself under your pillow. It will transmit right through your pillow and not disturb your sleep partner.
Use a mudra. They are yoga positions for the hands. Curl your fingers into a fist. On the same hand, touch the tips of the thumbs to the tips of the first finger to form a circle. Rest your hands with your palms pointing down. It helps bring on sleep and reduces stress by promoting a sense of safety and security. Learn more about mudras here.
Breathe slowly and smoothly. To calm your nervous system, breathe in to the count of four or five and then breathe out for five to ten. When you get distracted, gently go back to focusing on your breathing.
Use the Moon Breath to calm your bodymind and brain by combining a mudra with breathing. Bend your index and middle finger of your right hand to your palm, leaving your ring and little finger softly extended. Softly press your right thumb to your right nostril and inhale through your left nostril. Next, release your right thumb and press your ring finger to your left nostril while exhaling. In other words, in left / out right / in left / out right and so on. Learn more about this and other practices in Yoga Meditations: Timeless Mind-Body Practices for Awakening (WPA, 2005)
Follow the guidelines for good sleep hygiene. Here’s the Mayo Clinic’s 7 tips for doing so. Read How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep – The Ultimate Guide. It’s excellent.

So even if you can’t sleep as soundly as you might like due to your brain’s insistence on staying half-awake, at least you now understand the reason why. The above suggestions may lull you to sleep, and if they don’t, you will at least make use of the time in a positive, productive way.

Sweet dreams!

Sleep Well | Yoga Nidra CD

Use deep relaxation, soothing flute music & ocean waves to go to sleep. "I slept like a log." Downloads available. By Julie Lusk, Yoga Nidra Meditations author.

Reference: Current Biology Volume 26, Issue 9, p1190–1194, 9 May 2016

Resources: Yoga Nidra for Complete Relaxation & Stress Relief by Julie Lusk (NHP 2015)

Yoga Nidra: Guided Meditations for Relaxation & Renewal (Health Journeys 2016)

Julie Lusk, MEd, E-RYT 500, has more than 35 years of expertise in stress relief, yoga, relaxation training, guided imagery, and meditation as an international author, recording artist, and workshop leader. Julie is the author of Yoga Nidra for Complete Relaxation and Stress Relief, Yoga Meditations, two volumes of 30 Scripts for Relaxation, Imagery and Inner Healing, and Desktop Yoga®. Her CDs include Wholesome Relaxation, Power of Presence, Blue Moon Rising, and many others. Learn more at WholesomeResources.com

My Favorite Links & Resources

Yoga Links
Yoga Nidra for Complete Relaxation
Guided Imagery
Meditation
Holistic Health
Wellness Resources

Yoga Links

The Yoga Alliance is an organization that registers yoga teachers. Registration can take place on at the 200 and 500 hour levels. Finding a teacher who is registered assures you that they have studied everything from philosophy, anatomy and physiology, asanas, teaching methodology, ethics, and techniques. Julie Lusk has obtained registration at the highest level possible. Julie is qualified to offer CEU’s from Yoga Alliance as a YACEP,

The Yoga Journal online is brimming with a wide range of yoga information.

Integral Yoga whose founder is Swami Satchidananda.

Himalayan Institute and the home of Yoga International Magazine

Iyengar Yoga A classic and always inspirational.

The International Association of Yoga Therapists has a wonderful collection of information.

Visit an excellent yoga pose (asana) library at beYogi

Yoga Nidra

Learn more about the history of yoga nidra here.

Yoga Nidra Network offers tons of resources on yoga nidra including free audios in multiple languages, a listing of yoga nidra teachers worldwide, info on trainings, and much more.

Research on yoga nidra, under the direction of Kamakhya Kumar, PhD

Jennifer Reis’s yoga nidra CDs, Mp3’s, trainings and workshops

The Integrative Restoration Institute (IRI), under the direction of Richard Miller, PhD, provides materials, programs and teacher trainings based on yoga nidra. See current, upcoming and planned IRest yoga nidra research

Guided Imagery

Health Journeys, by Belleruth Naparstek is the very best place to go for information and products, especially for medically-related guided imagery. Click here for a collection of research on guided imagery and similar mind-body techniques.

CardPlusCD produces Julie Lusk’s guided imagery CDs. Relaxation music by Tom Laskey is also offered.

Meditation

Loose Leaf Hollow is a wonderful retreat center in Bardstown, KY under the capable leadership of Joe Zarantonello. Joe is an exceptional teacher, poet and the creator of the Integral Journal. Check it out – it is truly a ‘space for grace’.

The Jesuit Spiritual Center at Milford is in the greater Cincinnati area. It provides programs, facilities and an environment which helps people find God in all things and live a life of compassionate service. Julie Lusk teaches classes and offers retreats there and is on their Board of Trustees.

Click here for Meditations to listen to on-line from Thich Nhat Hanh, Sharon Salsburg and others.

Holistic Health

SelfHelpMagazine is a wonderful resource. Please check it out.

The Continuum Center for Health and Healing is located at Beth Israel in NY. Their site has a great resource library on complementary therapies as well as on health conditions.

Wellness Resources

Whole Person Associates makes available the finest books, materials, audio and video tapes on stress management and wellness. They publish and sell Julie Lusk’s Yoga Meditations: Timeless Mind-Body Practices, 30 Scripts for Relaxation, Imagery and Inner Healing, Volumes One and Two and Wholesome Relaxation CD, Wholesome Energizers CD, and Refreshing Journeys audio tape and CD.

New Harbinger Publications is publishing my next new book, Yoga Nidra for Stress Relief. They offer self-help resources that are concise, practical, and factual. Topics include anxiety, depression, anger, relationships, and health and feature the newest research available.

7 Arts Studio is the brainchild of Noreen Wessling. She will inspire you to drum, draw, dream and let your spirit soar. Mostly, you will have fun discovering hidden talents you never knew you had. Cincinnati based.

J akk’s Magic Beans Workshop: Julie Keefe (a/k/a Jakk) offers Reiki and Feng Shui services, as well as one-of-a-kind creations to encourage, support and enhance your connection to well-being. Visit her website to learn more and to feast your eyes on her wire-wrapped pendants! Cincinnati based.

Mandala Monday is a new feature being offered by Julie Keefe (more about her above). A mandala is a symbolic circle for healing. It feels peaceful to look at and helps you focus too. Even better, she posts a new mandala each Monday for you to color and submit for prizes.

Testimonials

Michael Arloski, Ph.D.,
Corporate Trainer, Professional Coach, Bellevue, Colorado

”In the professions of health care, wellness, training and public speaking we are all looking for an individual who combines professional qualities with personal characteristics in a genuine way. Julie Lusk is such a person and professional. Her message is received by others with openness because her very being fosters trust, love and respect. In creating a team of presenters for an impactful training for professionals, Julie Lusk would be one of my top five choices in the nation.”

Marianella Machado
College professor and composer

Julie, I would like you to know that your books, CD’s and handy-tips-to-use from the Wholesome Resources Newsletter have been extremely helpful to me. Since I have no time to attend yoga sessions at the yoga schools in Kentucky, your books, Desktop Yoga and Yoga Meditations have been my only way to practice yoga. I enjoy doing your yoga exercises because you present and explain them in a very clear and easy way to follow.

Your CD’s have also been very helpful to me. For example, Power of Presence CD has been a great way to control my physical stress as well as to enhance my meditation techniques.

Moreover, all of your handy-tips to use from the Wholesome Resources Newsletter are helping me to maintain an organized plan for improving my physical and mental health, because they make me focus my attention on what I need to do to feel better. I am looking forward to your new Mind-Body Wellness eBookCollection.

I am extremely grateful to you for your wisdom, knowledge, and kindness. You certainly are a very gifted spiritual person. May God continue blessing you with many more gifts.

Christopher Baxter, Architect, Yoga Trainer, Wellness Educator
Founding director, AtmaYoga Educational Services and Whole Human Wellness

If you, like so many of us, are faced with enormous challenges at this time, the necessity of a self-care approach to wellness is obvious. Your time invested in reading, reflecting on, and practicing the practical methods Julie provides will bring enormous relief, inspiration and renewed strength to your entire life and all those who are in your life.

As a yoga teacher and wellness educator for over 30 years, I can say with confidence that the up-to-date information and practices Julie has presented presented in her Mind-Body Wellness Collection are of the highest caliber. As a highly qualified expert in wellness, she has assembled a terrific collection and created a brilliant synthesis of their complimentary aspects. Any one of them, taken alone, will bring lasting benefits. Having them arranged in such a well organized system synergistically increases their transformational impact.

This is a powerful body of work.

→ Mike Sterling, Director of Human Resources
The Art Institute of Ohio writes:

Dear Julie: Thanks for sharing the DARE to Relax session with our staff. I have received several positive comments about it, especially the “2- Hour Nap in 10-minutes” segment.

Our staff received several valuable tips on reducing stress and the consequences of stress at work and in our personal lives. It was definitely time well spent.

→ Marianne Lang
Julie’s classes are a combination of challenge, relaxation and physical fine-tuning that are dramatically changing my life for the better.

→ Debbie Jackson
Julie’s yoga classes inspire the child within and brings to the mat asanas (postures) that touch the heart, joy that lifts the spirit and mindfulness to center the self promoting a smile to begin each new day.

Yoga Meditations: Timeless Mind-Body Practices for Awakening

“Yoga Meditations offers a wonderful and generous assortment of simple but powerful, eminently practical practices to guide and empower its readers, from beginner to sophisticate.”

→ Belleruth Naparstek Creator -Health Journeys guided imagery

Variety is the spice of life….and meditation, October 19, Milwaukee, WI

Yoga Meditations by Julie Lusk is a gem of a book – chock full of inspirational meditations for beginners as well as more seasoned practitioners. The variety here is nice – everything from breathing meditations to chakra meditations. You don’t have to be a yoga student to utilize these as they are appropriate for anyone. As a yoga instructor, this book helps to bring more diversity to the meditations at the end of our classes. My students have been really enjoying them.

This book comes with a CD, which features some of the meditations in the book. It is a nice bonus.

Wonderful resource!, June 5, 2008

By	Kathy Bingham (Los Angeles, California) –

Yoga Meditations is a wonderful book! I teach yoga and stress management at the college level and I use this book in both classes multiple times during the semester. The author Julie Lusk takes concepts that we as teachers study for years to understand (like the subtle anatomy or differing forms of meditation) and she explains them in a clear, concise and logical manner without oversimplifying them, but making the ideas accessible to teachers and students alike. She has invited other respected experts in mind-body techniques to contribute to the many guided exercises offered and the book also serves as a great resource guide.

Desktop Yoga ®

I’d give Desktop Yoga 6+ stars if I could!, October 23

Mandatory for office workers, July 23, 2003

Reviewer:

A. Vegan (Ontario Canada) –

I think this book should be in every office drawer, especially for those of us who sit at computers all day long. This book really does what the title says, you can perform many yoga poses in your office no matter what you’re wearing. This short book covers breathing techniques, proper posture, quick yoga poses that can be done anywhere at any time. If you’re always feeling tired and stiff at work, pick up this book and try a few of the suggestions. I take a 10 minute “yoga time out” every hour and I find that I’m less sluggish and less stressed.

Desktop Yoga is a God-send,
This is a wonderful resource that helps me get through every day at work. My headaches and neck aches are better since I started using the yoga stretches and breathing techniques. It has taught me how to powernap for relief from feeling exhausted, and has given me lots of tips on how to cope with change, handle stress, and enjoy life more. A lot of helpful information is packed into the useful book. Thank you very much.

30 Scripts for Relaxation, Imagery & Inner Healing – Volumes One & Two

Volume 1

Finally! A comprehensive Imagery guide!, April 6

I use this book all the time., December 27
This is one of my favorite books because it is such a helpful resource to help me relax and benefit from guided visualization in incredible and powerful ways. Not only that, I use it all the time with my stress management, yoga and meditation clients. This book doesn’t get old.

Hurrah for Volume Two of 30 Scripts for Relaxation, Imagery
December 27, 2001
I am extremely pleased with this book and am now the proud owner of both volumes of this book. It is one of those books that I use all the time, which says a lot. It helps me personally and is a terrific resource when I teach stress management sessions.

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