The Secret of Life Wellness: The Essential Guide to Life's Big Questions (35 page)

chronic fatigue, as she was dealing with all her stress.

When I shared my insights, Lilly told me that she felt relieved. She

understood that her son was trying to process the family issues she was not

able to deal with. Instead of blaming herself, Lilly resolved to make changes

to her lifestyle and to work on healing her past. As she did, her health

improved, and her son slowly recovered with the use of both natural and

some allopathic support.

Children Are Naturally Receptive to Healing

There are many different approaches and creative ways to help children increase their

confidence and discover their natural healing abilities. We need to start teaching children

to feel good about themselves from as young as possible. Researchers tell us that the first

205

SeLife_interior_pgs 145–214_Layout 1 3/29/13 12:40 PM Page 206

Inna Segal

seven to eight years of a child’s life are vitally important in how they will function for the

rest of their lives. A child’s early experiences play a significant role in their development

of physical, social, emotional, and intellectual skills. Developmental neurologists say that

the happier experiences a child has, the more neural connections they create, dramatically

enhancing their ability to process and transmit information inside the brain.

Before you are able to teach your child self-healing techniques, you must gain their

trust and make the process fun.

Healing with Color and Creative Visualization

Children are innately open to healing and creative visualization. They are always creat-

ing, imagining and conceiving games, stories, and entertainment for themselves. Color

healing is one of the simplest ways to start helping them deal with the challenges of

being a child. Color healing can help children feel loved, release tension, give reassur-

ance, create calm, increase self-esteem, improve their memory skills, develop creative

thinking, fall asleep, and heal various health conditions.

Use the wisdom I have included in this book to make the healing process most

effective. In
The Secret Language of Your Body
, there is an entire section on the healing

properties of color. It can help you use the colors more effectively. Also see
The Secret

Language of Color Cards
deck, which describes the positive attributes of forty-five colors

and also gives short healing processes that you can do.

Although I have mentioned using color to heal physical problems, it is important

that you use this information wisely. Color healing works in conjunction with medical

and alternative treatments, so please make sure you give your child the best chance to

heal by using both when appropriate. Doctors who practice integrative medicine can be

fantastic at advising you when it is important to use medicine as well as when it is valu-

able to work with other therapies.

Alicia’s Story: Color Healing for Fevers

Alice called me because her daughter had a high fever that would not go

down. She told me that she did not want to give her medicine, as she’d

206

SeLife_interior_pgs 145–214_Layout 1 3/29/13 12:40 PM Page 207

The Secret of Life Wellness

heard that fevers can help the immune system get rid of infection. She

wanted to help her daughter to feel better in a natural way. I told Alice that

the best color to help reduce a fever was blue and encouraged her to ask

her daughter to visualize blue bubbles of light moving into her head and

body. I also asked Alice to rub her hands together, visualize a big blue ball

of energy between her hands, place an intention of lowering the tempera-

ture, and then move her hands above her daughter’s body, urging her to

take slow deep breaths.

Alice did as I had instructed and called me an hour later to tell me that

her daughter was feeling much better and her fever had gone.

Raphael and Angelina’s Story: Color Healing Meditation

When my son Raphael was about six and my daughter Angelina was three

and a half, I started teaching them about color healing and meditation.

Every night before they went to bed, I asked them to pick a color they liked

and told them a little bit about the different qualities that color contained.

Then I asked them to close their eyes and imagine themselves being

surrounded by the color we discussed. Sometimes we did particular medi-

tations or made up stories involving characters who had magical abilities,

using particular colors.

On the nights when I was having difficulty getting Raphael and Angelina

to go to sleep, we talked about the color blue and how it helped with relax-

ation and rest. I shared that green was a very powerful color for helping

them calm down when they were upset. Green is also great for healing when

a person is in pain. So we visualized floating on blue clouds, while little

green aliens flew around and sent them healing green rays. We also talked

about yellow being good for thinking and problem solving, pink for love and

happiness, purple for confidence, and orange for creativity and fun.

One day Angelina came home from kindergarten in a terrible mood. She

went into the kitchen and began crying and stamping her feet, saying, “I’m

207

SeLife_interior_pgs 145–214_Layout 1 3/29/13 12:40 PM Page 208

Inna Segal

not happy!” Within moments, Raphael ran up to her shouting, “Quick, quick,

look at pink! It’ll make you happy!” She stopped crying, looked at him and

said, “But I’m wearing pink.” Smiling, he said, “The quicker you look at it, the

faster you will be happy.” Within minutes Angelina forgot what she was

upset about and was laughing.

Healing with Water

Many people are familiar with the work of Dr. Masaru Emoto, who performed a num-

ber of experiments observing the physical effect of thoughts, words, prayers, music,

energy and intention on the crystalline structure of water.

Dr. Emoto discovered that water which had been exposed to loving thoughts,

words, or feelings formed into exquisitely complex, shimmering crystal patterns when

frozen. Water exposed to negative intentions created disproportionate, often rough,

sickly looking patterns with dull, dark colors.19

Since half of the earth and three-quarters of our body is water, those findings shed a lot

of light on how our thoughts, words, feelings, vibrations, colors, and behaviors can either

have healing or destructive effects on our lives, our planet, and our immune function.

Simon’s Story: Charging Water with Color

Simon, eight years old, had very bad asthma. One of the best colors for heal-

ing any chest problems, including asthma, is orange. I encouraged Simon to

be creative and find a way that he could visualize the orange color whenever

he felt out of breath. Simon loved firemen, so every morning he visualized a

fireman with a hose that sprayed orange healing liquid washing his chest

and lungs. I also told his parents to buy an orange glass or cup, and put puri-

fied water into it, visualize orange light with healing properties going into

the water. Place the water in the sun for ten to twenty minutes then give it

to Simon to drink.

Within a month of using this visualization and drinking healing water,

Simon felt much better and virtually did not need his inhaler.

208

SeLife_interior_pgs 145–214_Layout 1 3/29/13 12:40 PM Page 209

The Secret of Life Wellness

This process can be done with any color. After putting some water in a

colored glass or cup, you can rub your hands together for about thirty sec-

onds and focus on a particular color. Visualize holding a ray of it in between

your hands, think of positive intentions and affirmations, and then hold your

hands above the cup for twenty to thirty seconds. Imagine that your posi-

tive intention, as well as the ray of light that you visualized, are energizing

the water.

Boosting Your Child’s Confidence

Self-confidence is an important part of wellness, and adults can help guide children

toward habits and practices that build self-esteem and social skills that will assist them

in childhood and beyond. The greatest gift you can give a child is to be fully present

with them and encourage them to be and to love themselves. You are the most impor-

tant role model for your children, they learn about life and what they are worth from

observing your actions and reactions.

Ten Keys to Boost Self-Esteem in Children

1. Be aware of how you speak to your child. Encourage them rather than telling them

what to do. Respect and regularly re-affirm your belief in them. Speak to your child

how you would like to be spoken to; make them feel that what they think counts.

2. Affirm each achievement. Encourage them to build on their progress. Tell them

how clever and intelligent they are and that they have the ability to solve problems.

Then, when they face another challenge, you can remind them that they have faced

situations in the past successfully and can do so again.

3. Encourage your child’s imagination. Spend time with them, making up stories and

adventures. Allow them to play different roles, so they can learn creative ways of

overcoming problems while having fun. This will also help them look at situations

from different perspectives.

209

SeLife_interior_pgs 145–214_Layout 1 3/29/13 12:40 PM Page 210

Inna Segal

4. Help your child to feel safe and supported. Children need to know that someone is

available for them. They need to feel that they are important and valuable human

beings and that for support, they can easily turn to someone who will listen and

believe them.

5. Give your child tasks. For example, encourage them to clean their room. First,

demonstrate what you would like done by doing it with them; the next time, ask

them to do it alone. After they have finished, make sure you check the task and let

them know what a wonderful job they have done. If they feel you value their efforts,

they will be proud of themselves and likely to do it again.

6. Teach your child to appreciate themselves. You can do that by telling them, “You

are a lovable child, you have a great imagination, I’m proud of you.” Make sure that

you give them regular hugs and kisses, so that they feel loved. If they love them-

selves, they will be more willing to love and see the best in others. If you were tired

or annoyed and snapped at your child or pushed them away, apologize as soon as

possible. It is important children understand that adults make mistakes and are

willing to admit them.

7. Be willing to explain why you want or don’t want your child to do something. Just

like with an adult, if a child understands the reason, even if they don’t like it, they

start to feel that you say something for a purpose, not just to restrict them.

8. Honor your child’s games. For example, many children enjoy doing the opposite to

what they are asked, or saying the opposite comment to what you are saying. Once

you recognize what they are doing is a game and they are not doing it to upset you,

you can join in the fun.

9. Recognize who they are as well as what they do. If your child does something that

you do not approve of, point out that you do not like their behavior, but that you

love them and believe they are great.

210

SeLife_interior_pgs 145–214_Layout 1 3/29/13 12:40 PM Page 211

The Secret of Life Wellness

10. If you have unresolved emotional issues, make sure that you work on releasing

those so that you don’t pass them onto your children. Children are very sensitive to

what their parents and other family members are going through and learn from

example. When you let go of an old pattern you have been carrying, you also help

to clear this pattern for your children.

Getting children involved in sporting activities also builds self-esteem and social

skills. If they don’t enjoy sports, encourage them to take a dance class, martial arts work-

shop, or swimming lessons. Acting and singing classes are also fantastic for developing

social skills and compassion. These teach kids to understand each other, be creative, play,

connect with their own bodies, and to be present. Some teachers also encourage their

students to quiet their minds, meditate, breathe deeply, and use visualization skills.

Lily’s Story: Confident Sleeping

Lilly was nine and still sleeping in her parents’ bed. Phoebe, Lilly’s mum was

at a loss. She had tried therapy and several other treatments for Lilly, which

were unsuccessful. Lilly was also putting on a lot of weight and being

bullied at school. Even though she was an extremely bright young girl, she

was losing her confidence.

When I first saw Lilly, I felt that it was important to gain her trust by