Restore: Seeing Beyond Exhaustion and Side Effects

Exhaustion. Skin changes. Gastric pain. Nausea. How to live with grace and joy during treatment? How to see beyond this moment?

When Janis Silverman could find no meditations specific to her experience of breast cancer, she wrote her way to positive mental health, lower stress and less pain. Janis wrote more than one hundred guided imagery meditations, prayers and poems during her treatments. "These meditations helped me during therapy," said Silverman. "I acknowledged my feelings and the rough side effects, focused my thoughts on tomorrow, on wellness, on prayer, planning my dreams. Meditation helped me lessen my physical and emotional pain."

Meditations in Restore offers comfort, relaxation, strength, visions of a healthy and fulfilling tomorrow. Several imagery stories guide a patient to reduce pain and stress of therapy while envisioning the body healing with each treatment. Other imagery meditations encourage planning hopes and dreams. Imagery meditations guide a breast cancer patient to sort out feelings, question fears and negative thoughts, calm anxiety. Each guided imagery meditation lets the patient know that she is not alone. Janis Silverman, a retired teacher, is the author of several education and counseling books, including, Imagine That! a book of guided imagery meditations for children. She lives near Charlotte, NC with her family.