Hemi-Sync® Journal 2006-3&4 (Summer/Fall)

relying on plastic inserts instead of the much heavier metal rods center at the Riverview complex. After delivering the GOING on either side of my feet. In March I started acupuncture and HOME program for several weeks to doctors and to the manag- herbal treatments with Dr. Merek Ramirez, a very positive er of the palliative care center, we sent a team of volunteers (who experience. had taken the program at an earlier date) to visit patients twice a “During the last week of March, my physical therapist was week in the forty-bed palliative care unit. astounded at how much strength and balance I had recently We started with a Hemi-Sync menu composed of META- gained. I could take about a dozen steps using one crutch MUSIC®, plus MIND FOOD®, HUMAN PLUS®, and of course only—something I had NEVER done before. This also means GOING HOME. We found the most popular titles were Pain I should soon be moving to just a cane. This is a monumental Control, Restorative Sleep, Brain: Support & Maintenance, step for me because the medical community didn’t know if I Lungs: Support & Maintenance, Spirit Journey, Baroque would ever walk again. If I can get to a cane, I can get to unas- Garden, and Higher. sisted walking! My therapist was so impressed she called the During the first year, we had great success with GOING other therapists over to ‘show me off.’ I attribute my recent HOME because the life span of people at the Riverview palliative accelerated healing to Dr. Viktoria Mandlin and the benefits of care unit was at least six weeks. This allowed people to pass from the Hemi-Sync program.” one emotional stage to another, as Elisabeth Kübler-Ross The exercises used were the GATEWAY EXPERIENCE described, and to arrive at the fourth or fifth week able to speak Waves I, II, and III and HUMAN PLUS Restorative Sleep, about death. In some cases, volunteers gently questioned patients Synchronizing, Brain: Support & Maintenance, De-Tox, as to why they were using their precious few weeks or even days and De-Hab. on things like watching television all day. Unfortunately, over the course of our study, the average life span in the palliative care cen- ters decreased to approximately three weeks. That made it more difficult to achieve our goal: death as a process of awareness. The following are “real-life” examples of the volunteers’ work and experiences: Experience 1: Peter, a forty-five-year-old man who had read iv Summer/Fall 2006 a Hemi-Sync Palliative Care flyer, asked his nurse to call for more continue the same Hemi-Sync “treatment.” A few days before information. I went to visit him, and after a few minutes he Henri’s death, Fanny played the tape Higher and later told us that agreed to try the tape called Lungs: Support & Maintenance, as he although Henri endured pains and absent-minded moments, he had a hard time breathing due to his lung cancer. I left the tape took his last breaths with a smile on his face. Fanny thought that with him for the rest of the day. Hemi-Sync sounds helped them to be more relaxed and especial- The next morning he came to see me, saying he was very sur- ly helped them to speak about death—even though they thought prised with the results of Hemi-Sync, and asked me to tell him it would never happen to them in their lives, only to others. more about other Hemi-Sync programs. While I was explaining Over the past two years, Terri has been one of the Aromansse GOING HOME, he listened with great attention and asked me a volunteers with the GOING HOME program offered at the lot of questions about my beliefs and experiences. But at the end Riverview Health Centre Palliative Care Unit. She shared with of the conversation, he said that it was too early for him and he me the following two experiences from sessions at Riverview. didn’t want to die. A few weeks after he started the tapes, I sensed Experience 3: Doris was in her seventies. She had lived a full negative feelings toward me, and he began to miss appointments. and active life. Her husband had transitioned about eighteen One morning, frustrated with the situation and knowing his months earlier. Her support network included a sibling, nieces health was worsening from day to day, I burst into his room and and nephews, and friends. Terri sensed from her that none of told him bluntly that avoidance of me would not change the fact them wanted to talk with her about the dying process. During a that he was indeed going to die. There were only two choices: visit, Doris expressed an interest in working through the GOING dying in fear with mental and physical pain or transforming his HOME program. death into an experience of awareness and controlling all the steps Terri visited with her on a weekly basis, and over a period of of the process. He was stunned at my outburst, and while I was six weeks they listened to the following tapes from GOING making a brisk departure, he ran after me in the hallway saying HOME: Flying Free, Remove and Release, Edge of Here and Now, that I was right and he was ready to do GOING HOME. Touring the Interstate, Moment of Revelation, and Freedom Flight. I came to the unit to listen to tapes with him every morning After each session Doris opened up more and more and said and to prompt him to talk about his experiences. He said that he she found the tapes to be very enlightening. She discussed belief really liked the program because he could talk about his fear of systems with Terri and how limiting society is. She said she dying but could only do that with me, since his family was not looked forward to Terri’s visits and—even as she became very ready to let him go. He traveled through Focus 10 and 20 with- weak—she wanted to continue with the program. She really felt out any problems and even found that funny. The day he was she was able to let go of a lot of things, especially after Remove introduced to Focus 21 was unforgettable. He had no clue what and Release. As Doris progressed through the tapes, she expressed it was about. After that tape, he was only willing to travel up to how much she enjoyed them and how she truly felt at peace. Focus 21. I found that very interesting because he had felt com- Experience 4: Terri’s other case was a woman in her fifties pletely lost in Locale 2. who was anxious to talk about dying since she was unable to dis- I urged him to continue to do tapes beyond Focus 21 and cuss it with her family. This woman was very interested in pro- told him that I would be with him until Focus 27 even if he ceeding with the GOING HOME program. She and Terri spoke couldn’t see me. A few days after finally becoming comfortable about the whole process of dying. She opened up about her life with his journey into Focus 27, he died peacefully without too and her relationships, how she felt, and her most important con- many fears and especially without any physical pain. cerns. Leaving the family behind was her most difficult issue. Experience 2: Henri and Fanny were a couple from Quebec Her most dramatic experience was with Flying Free. She real- who didn’t speak English fluently. They welcomed my presence ly enjoyed it and connected with a bird called “Willie” during the because I was able to translate and mediate between them and the exercise. That became an important aspect of her transition hospital staff. Both of them were very upset by chemotherapy’s process. Her husband was named Willie, and when she perceived effects on Henri. He refused any pain medication for his brain “Willie” during her meditation, she knew that everything was tumor because it caused him to completely lose his awareness. going to be okay. Terri saw her again just after she had complet- The medical team thought Henri was the ideal patient to ed tests. She was unable to concentrate on the tapes because she work with to demonstrate what Hemi-Sync was really all about. was engaged with visitors. Shortly afterward she made her tran- Right away, I installed a sound system where he could continual- sition. She had realized that she could move on, and “Willie” was ly play some METAMUSIC and the Pain Control CD, and the certainly waiting to fly with her on her new journey. results were impressive. Two weeks of tension that had built up In September 2002, the palliative care center asked me to par- between the nurses, the doctors, and the couple disappeared ticipate in the provincial conference about palliative care and almost instantaneously. We tried to start GOING HOME, but explain our program to other Canadian palliative care centers. Fanny was not ready to see her forty-five-year-old husband in the Although we had positive experiences to report, results were not process of dying so young, so she kept finding excuses to retard as good as we had thought they would be. Unfortunately, pallia- the program. Two weeks later they were transferred outside the tive care centers are looked upon as places where people go with province to be in Montreal, where he could be with his family. the hope of feeling better and not as places to end our journey here Fanny came to see me before leaving to get a set of tapes to on earth. Nurses and doctors are usually not trained to talk open- v HEMI-SYNC® JOURNAL ly about death or to show dying people that they are more than when I pressed the fifth-floor elevator button the elevator went their physical bodies. Our volunteers found this situation unreal- past five, stopped at the sixth floor (the doors opened, then istic because of the “hospital-like” surroundings and the intention closed), then went back to the fifth floor. I felt this was a message to heal and make better, as opposed to what palliative care should from spirit, which gave me strength. be: a place where people can find psychological and spiritual help, “When I entered the hospital room, my dad’s breathing was