When my kids were little, sometimes, before they would go to bed, they would get scared. I don't know when it started, maybe it was my mother or my sister who taught me, but I began to take them for a walk on the beach. Their inner beach.

"Close your eyes," I'd say. "Now picture yourself holding my hand and walking on the beach."
"I can't see anything, but black."
"Shh. Listen to the waves. Can you hear them lapping? Can you feel the sand between your toes?"
"I have my sneakers on."
"Okay, we'll stop till you take them off."   (I'd wait a beat.) "Did you take them off?"
"Yes. Can't you see my feet?"
"Oh, yes. Well, let's collect seashells shall we? What color is your bucket?"
"I don't have one."
"Yes, you do, here. I'm giving you one. What color is it?"
"It's red!"

I'd walk them on the beach collecting shells for a bit listening for their voices to sound drowsy.

Almost always they would say something like "Here comes a monster! He's coming out of the ocean!" or "There's an alligator and he's going to eat me!"
"No."
"Yes, he's here!"
"No. Silly, this is your beach. You control your beach. Nothing can harm you here. This is your place. See, it's gone. Nothing can hurt you here. What do you want to discover next? Shall we run over and get some hotdogs and cokes or buy you some flip flops to match your bucket? Tell me about your beach."
"Okay!"

They always were amazed that there was a place inside them where they could not be harmed.
I would leave them picking up seashells as their voices became whispers. They slept peacefully for the most part in their early years. I like to think those walks had something to do with their peace of mind.

Years later, I met a woman who had a terrible spinal injury. It caused her immeasurable pain. She told me how it happened. She had been standing waiting for a subway train in New York one day and the platform was overcrowded.
"Something happened and the crowd surged in two directions. I was in the middle of the platform and one half of me went one way and the other half twisted in the opposite direction. I was caught in that position for over 20 minutes while I screamed and struggled to get free. No one could hear me or do anything. We were all trapped. The noise of the crowd was so deafening."
The result was her spine was in constant excruciating pain up to the time I met her, 15 years following the injury even after several corrective operations. Pain was her intimate friend. Looking for something to do, she decided to volunteer at a children's hospital helping the kids get beyond their injuries. At first it was just for distraction, but then it became her mission.
"I mostly work in the cancer ward and with spinal injuries," she told me. "The kids are so tragic. I know their pain. I live with it every day, but they're so little, so defenseless."
"What do you do?"
"Well, that's a funny thing. I take them for what I call - A Walk On The Beach."
Then she proceeded to describe exactly what I did with my kids so many years before. I knew it worked. At the very least, I knew it removed their fear. And that in itself can cause a person to loosen tense muscles.
We began excitedly sharing ideas.
"Do you ask them to tell you what it looks like?"
"Oh yes, they get so excited and we even paint pictures of their inner beaches."

Last year I read a book by Doctor Rachel Naomi Remen called Kitchen Table Wisdom. In it she describes different homeopathic ways to encourage healing. One means is through visualization. She tells a story about a young man in one of her group sessions who she asked, "Imagine some kind of fish that swims through your blood stream and eats up the cancerous cells. What does it look like?"
"A trout."
All the other people in the class laughed and told him that a "Trout" wasn't a strong enough image. They insisted he had to come up with something better. His classmates had imagined sharks.
The doctor saw him the next day. She was concerned about his progress and so she asked him again if he had thought of something better.
"No, I still keep seeing trout."
Then she said the magic words, "Tell me about it."
"Well, trout are bottom feeders. They eat everything in the river, and they have ferocious appetites. An d... they breed like rabbits!"
He had very simply chosen the best possible image. When the group found out about his Trout, they all decided to use the image.

The past week, I've been really stressing over what shape my life is taking. The roads I am traveling - writer, artist - are not meant to leave me fraught with stress and despair, but I do seem to go there. I think I forgot that I design my own beach. I am the master of my pain and my trout. What I see is what I get and that in turn shapes me.

So I guess, what I want to leave you with is ...relax.
Lie back, close your eyes and take a walk on your inner beach. It's okay, you own it. Nothing can harm you there.

Email Carol Wood at Carol@hazelst.com and tell her what color your bucket is, and if you picked up any exotic seashells. Carol loves seashells.

That's the news from LaLaLand.