A Place For You Here: A Loving Re-Creation of Your Birth Journey

Shaina sent me four CDs to review, and because my brain wasn't fully engaged, I thought this one was intended specifically for pregnant women.  (The subtitle makes it abundantly clear that it is not!)  I decided to listen to it first, because I didn't think I'd care too much for it, and I wanted to get the review task "out of the way"-- instead, I cried for the next half-hour!

This product is a guided meditation, with beautiful Rhodes piano backup by Shaina, in the mode of what is called "brief therapy". 

Here is a Wikipedia excerpt about brief therapy: Brief therapy is an umbrella term for a variety of approaches to Psychotherapy. It differs from other schools of therapy in that it emphasises (1) a focus on a specific problem and (2) direct intervention. In brief therapy, the therapist takes responsibility for working more pro-actively with the client in order to treat clinical and subjective conditions faster. It also emphasizes precise observation, utilization of natural resources, and temporary suspension of disbelief to consider new perspectives and multiple viewpoints.

Rather than the formal analysis of historical causes of distress, the primary approach of brief therapy is to help the client to view the present from a wider context and to utilize more functional understandings (not necessarily at a conscious level). By becoming aware of these new understandings, successful clients will de facto undergo spontaneous and generative change.

Brief therapy is often highly strategic, exploratory, and solution-based rather than problem-oriented. It is less concerned with how a problem arose than with the current factors sustaining it and preventing change. Brief therapists do not adhere to one "correct" approach, but rather accept that there being many paths, any of which may or may not in combination turn out to be ultimately beneficial.

Don't be fooled by the dry, clinical tone of this definition!  This is powerful medicine! 

{Taken from liner notes:  Dr. Chapman holds a doctorate in Mind/Body Psychology and is certified in Advanced Hypnotherapy.  Her work integrates spirituality, psychotherapy, energy work and hypnotherapy.  Cathy believes that people are perfect spiritual beings who came into their physical body for the purpose of spiritual growth.  Her guided journey is a loving expression of this context...}

When you get this CD, DON'T just throw in into you player while doing chores!  Set aside quiet time for it, at least an hour.  And do not listen to it while driving-- it's too powerful. 

Following the guided meditation is a beautiful song by Shaina, sung by her and her husband.  I felt that it was an important addition because the meditation brought up a good deal of "stuff" I didn't know I was carrying around in there, and I needed time for my emotions to complete an "initial assimilation" of it.  The song, "Song of Welcome", assisted in that masterfully for me.  

Be well!

-- Van Casey --
Music and Spirit
at myspace.com

This CD has been profoundly moving and healing for me. Each time I listen to it I have a different experience, starting with my first time when I sobbed the whole way through just digesting the images of unconditional love surrounding my journey from conception to birth! Repeated listenings have sometimes been drier but no less embracing and healing. I would recommend this for anyone on a journey of inner healing, anyone reaching for a deeper sense of safety and belonging in the world, anyone wanting greater freedom from unconscious, limiting patterns.  Both the spoken words and the music work powerfully to support a sense of welcome and unconditional love. The music Shaina and Richard created is, as usual, beautifully done from beginning to end. I expect to wear out my copy!

Janet Mather
ExerciseReminders.com
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The CD arrived and is a most welcome and already treasured gift. I've listened to it in an alert/awake state and in a meditative/going to sleep state several times. It has powerful messages either way. Although it seems to have been intended primarily for a meditative tool, there is much to be said for listening to it in a fully awake state because many of the concepts are provocative new territory and worth exploring consciously. I've read about and thought about healing what occurred in the womb, but this CD has sent my mind down paths I have never thought about, i.e. the things that were going on in my parents' lives, the energy that was going on between them and within them individually, the war my father was involved in, etc.

Your song is exquisite and the lyrics touch me very deeply. I am welling up now as I write just remembering them. And the real surprise was the impact of the loving father energy that Richard brings to the experience. I had expected your voice to have an impact on me but I guess I didn't realize how much I had relegated parent energy to the mother. It's ironic to me since I had such an absence of father energy in my life. I would think I would be looking for it but I guess I never have in a conscious way. Perhaps not believing that I could ever have it. All very interesting.

Thank you so much for this wonderful gift. I will look forward to buying copies for my friends.

Darrell Jones
Houston, Texas

Hi Richard and Shaina,

I listened to the CD (A Place For You Here) that you sent me. I was going to listen to it while I puttered around in the kitchen. I put it on and started listening to it and I immediately sat down to listen.. It was excellent. From my reaction to it, I realized how much I didn't feel loved or wanted by Mom and Dad. I'm sure that they did love me but I didn't feel it. It also made me realize that Mom and Dad were not my true parents. They were the means by which I came into this world, but my true parent, the one who always loved me and accepted me and always will, is God, The Source, The Infinite, whatever you want to call that love. And so if I have that eternal love, it is okay that I didn't feel the love of Mom and Dad. The song at the end was wonderful also. I played it several times over. So, thank you very much for the CD. It was a very good thing for me.

Life is good.

Mary
Navarre, Ohio