Subscribe To This Site
About MeWhen I am asked about me and who I am, there is a personal story I share that effectively explains who I have become.When I was six or seven years old, my life of caring for others began because of the loving heart of my mother. She was the Director of Nurses of the nursing home in the small farm town in which we lived. I would go “visit” her at work before and after school so that I could help feed the residents, play checkers, or just hang out and listen to them as they shared stories of the important moments in their lives. There was one particular experience with my mom that molded my very young heart, and subsequently, the choices I have made along my life path. One morning while visting, my mother asked if I would go help one of the very developmentally delayed residents with his breakfast. As I approached he started to make some very loud and odd noises. The volume of the noises very much scared me. I didn’t know what to do except run and hide behind my mom's legs. It was in that moment of fear that my mome knelt down, and with love in her eyes she wisely and calmly spoke these words from her heart to me, “Honey, you don’t have to be scared. Just because someone may look or act differently doesn’t mean they are any different than you. Everyone just wants to be cared about and loved.”
Now, as a 50+ year old adult, I use these words to honor that early learning journey: “Everyone has a fundamental need to be seen, value, and heard”. About Me: Stress management experienceI have spent the majority of the past 16 years working as a healing and wellness coordinator and the stress management consultant of an inner city Trauma 1 hospital. It was in that position that I found a pathway for combining all of my formal and informal training with who I AM as a person. Out of that environment was birthed a very successful holistic stress management program that I was fortunate to use with the patients and staff of that hospital.While working in this role, I had the honor of working with inpatients, outpatients (pre and post surgical, cardiac rehabilitation, cancer, and general patients), I integrated a music relaxation therapy program, and I managed a fleet of volunteers who offered a 5 minute hand massage to the inpatients that I had created. The average reduction in pre and post hand massage for reducing stress and pain was 3.5 points on a 1-10 scale. I offer deep gratitude to all the clients I was able to work with. It was through them that I truly learned two very important aspects of stress:
As the Healing and Wellness program manager, I also worked one-on-one with the employees and entire departments on their stress management related issues, and their focused efforts to create healthier working relationships with one another. From those experiences, I learned how closely woven the dynamics were between managing stress and having healthy and productive relationships were. While in that role, I also evaluated how to reduce stress from environmental and noise perspectives. And, I also published monthly stress reduction articles, and was asked to present my holistic approach to stress management at quarterly staff continuing education classes. About Me: EducationMy formal education is as ecclectic as I am: to satisfy my heart and mind, I have my B.S. degree in Psychology and Gerontology, and a MBA certification. Informally, I also became Certified as an Energy Healer back in 1996, and more recently spent time in training as a Shamanic healer. Most recently, I have enrolled in a wonderful Massage Therapy program.All the career choices I have made have enabled me to be myself...a healer. Most recently, for the past 16 years I have had a private practice as an energy healer. My training for this taught me about how ALL the facets of who we are (thoughts, physical, emotions, spiritual, soul) all work together in our lives to create health, restore innate balance, maintain personal power, and create a greater capacity to handle all that life has to offer each one of us. This understanding of each of us having a holistic "self" later became the foundation of the successful stress management program I created, and will share with you as your stress coach. About Me: My commitment to youWhat I can tell you about me, personally, is this…All that has mattered to me, in this lifetime, has been to make a difference in someone’s life. That is my commitment to you. I will listen to you with my ears and with my heart. I believe that truly listening to what someone thinks and feels is as much a part of creating a successful stress management strategy as anything else that I could do. Time and time again, I have witnessed how "the body knows" what he/she needs to restore balance. It is in our conversations together that we will learn of your own inherent wisdom.
From my years of experience, it is respecting these three simple values that have always created the insights into what needs to be shared, and how I might best guide you forward along your own stress management healing journey.
For more information, please see: Control My Stress -- Let's work together to control your stress. Return From About Me To Coping With Stress Home Pay it forward!There a lot of people that have become overwhelmed by stress and how to get rid of it. I can understand this feeling. But it does not mean that good information is NOT out there. It is.Please help a friend or loved one by sharing this information with them. Email this link to them or submit this page to your Tweet account, or Facebook or your favorite social bookmarking or networking site. Use the links below to pay it forward. |
Looking for a specific topic?
Search for it here:
- FREE -
Control My Stress
stress management tools!
Abbie K. – Minneapolis
K., age 45, is a long term chronically PTSD disabled patient. She has had daily headaches for 20 years. Two weeks ago she reported that she had had 4 days of pain free time, and was having the exceedingly odd sensation of "smiling all the time". She and Cathi have made extraordinary fast progress together.
Dr. Cole
I referred C.L., age mid-forties, to see Cathi after a life of suffering the post traumatic stress disorder of parental sexual abuse over many years of her childhood, with major dysfunctions of alcohol and drug abuse, and with the disabling symptoms of migraine that have for more than twenty years become chronic.
She has lived with daily headaches that have not responded to any of the several drugs which have benefited many such suffering patients. She has needed chronic opiate treatment of her chronic pain syndrome.
In the few weeks that Cathi has worked with her, C.L. has begun to experience days without pain, periods of happiness, and a reduction in her opiate dosage requirements that represent a breakthrough in her stalled-out life as a single mom raising a teen-age daughter with only social security income resources.
Dr. Racer
“I first met Cathi Churchill eight years ago when she effectively helped my work unit through the stress of a hospital-wide layoff. I was impressed with her clear-minded approach and willingness to listen.”
Andy R.
N., age 60, is a hard driving attorney twenty year patient of mine who hit the wall with chronic fatigue four years ago, and began to realize she had to learn to rest. She recovered enough to return to her workaholic lifestyle when she was stopped by a herniated cervical disc and resumption of her chronic colitis.
Working with Cathi, she is discovering "the way she does life" and learning to make choices about it. She came in last week, having "danced until dawn". She is learning to dialogue with her body in effective ways.
Dr. Cole
“I stumbled upon Cathi after my recent heart attack that was brought on by stress. I was scared of having another one, and didn’t know what to do. I had lost hope. Working with her has changed my life. I’m so grateful."
Debbie – Canada
M.S., a woman in her late forties with progressively more and more disabling rheumatoid arthritis since childhood, whose most recent problems have arisen over the last two to three years as complications of immunosuppressive therapy for her disease. The complications have been associated with the severely disabling chronic pain of recurrent herpes neuralgia for more than three years, and for the past 15 months, recurrent osteomyelitis in her right lower mandible.
The second, more alarming (even life-threatening) problem has caused months of diagnostic and therapy confusion among her many consultants, three successive resections of the bone over the last six to eight months, and the still ongoing threat of more relapses of the smoldering bone infection and chronic pain only made bearable by chronic, massive doses of opiates.
In the few months since M. began to work with Cathi with several modalities: stress management, therapeutic touch, guided imaging, and others, her life has become more livable, as she has become able to bear the pain and the discouragement of unresolved disease.
She has relied on many of the methods for maintaining hope and getting through overwhelming discouragement by using the inner resources she has learned with Cathi.
My hope as her primary physician, is that Cathi and M. will be able to continue to work together to maintain that inner strength and hope as she faces yet more months of pain, and further repeated surgery.
Thank you for the healing guidance you've been able to give her thus far.
Dr. Racer
“I sought out the help of Cathi during my divorce, and found her to be an insightful and compassionate coach. Her ability to see deep into the heart of an emotionally stressful problem is, I believe, unique and I would highly recommend her service to anyone.”
P.R. – Brooklyn Center
S., age 48, is a Laotian patient of mine with 15 years of chronic abdominal pain. She has had an extensive medical worked up, and nothing ever worked. Cathi saw her over several months.
S. has improved! Cathi established a trusting relationship with her, and helped her to effectively break through her wall of silence and grief about her son's mental illness, and taught her how to "change her thinking".
S. now comes in smiling, notes some unusual continued symptoms, but no longer has chronic abdominal disabling pain.
Dr. Cole
“Control My Stress is so amazing. I want to thank you, again, for such a valuable resource.”
Tony.
Search for it here:
| site search by freefind | advanced |
It is the lack of balance that comes with chronic stress that creates so many problems for teenagers. There is hope. There are teen stress management strategies that can help them cope with stress. |
- FREE -
Control My Stress
stress management tools!
Testimonials
“Ms. Churchill is the unique health care worker everyone hopes to encounter, but rarely does. She has an extraordinary gift that allows her to do much more than diagnose and treat.”Abbie K. – Minneapolis
K., age 45, is a long term chronically PTSD disabled patient. She has had daily headaches for 20 years. Two weeks ago she reported that she had had 4 days of pain free time, and was having the exceedingly odd sensation of "smiling all the time". She and Cathi have made extraordinary fast progress together.
Dr. Cole
I referred C.L., age mid-forties, to see Cathi after a life of suffering the post traumatic stress disorder of parental sexual abuse over many years of her childhood, with major dysfunctions of alcohol and drug abuse, and with the disabling symptoms of migraine that have for more than twenty years become chronic.
She has lived with daily headaches that have not responded to any of the several drugs which have benefited many such suffering patients. She has needed chronic opiate treatment of her chronic pain syndrome.
In the few weeks that Cathi has worked with her, C.L. has begun to experience days without pain, periods of happiness, and a reduction in her opiate dosage requirements that represent a breakthrough in her stalled-out life as a single mom raising a teen-age daughter with only social security income resources.
Dr. Racer
“I first met Cathi Churchill eight years ago when she effectively helped my work unit through the stress of a hospital-wide layoff. I was impressed with her clear-minded approach and willingness to listen.”
Andy R.
N., age 60, is a hard driving attorney twenty year patient of mine who hit the wall with chronic fatigue four years ago, and began to realize she had to learn to rest. She recovered enough to return to her workaholic lifestyle when she was stopped by a herniated cervical disc and resumption of her chronic colitis.
Working with Cathi, she is discovering "the way she does life" and learning to make choices about it. She came in last week, having "danced until dawn". She is learning to dialogue with her body in effective ways.
Dr. Cole
“I stumbled upon Cathi after my recent heart attack that was brought on by stress. I was scared of having another one, and didn’t know what to do. I had lost hope. Working with her has changed my life. I’m so grateful."
Debbie – Canada
M.S., a woman in her late forties with progressively more and more disabling rheumatoid arthritis since childhood, whose most recent problems have arisen over the last two to three years as complications of immunosuppressive therapy for her disease. The complications have been associated with the severely disabling chronic pain of recurrent herpes neuralgia for more than three years, and for the past 15 months, recurrent osteomyelitis in her right lower mandible.
The second, more alarming (even life-threatening) problem has caused months of diagnostic and therapy confusion among her many consultants, three successive resections of the bone over the last six to eight months, and the still ongoing threat of more relapses of the smoldering bone infection and chronic pain only made bearable by chronic, massive doses of opiates.
In the few months since M. began to work with Cathi with several modalities: stress management, therapeutic touch, guided imaging, and others, her life has become more livable, as she has become able to bear the pain and the discouragement of unresolved disease.
She has relied on many of the methods for maintaining hope and getting through overwhelming discouragement by using the inner resources she has learned with Cathi.
My hope as her primary physician, is that Cathi and M. will be able to continue to work together to maintain that inner strength and hope as she faces yet more months of pain, and further repeated surgery.
Thank you for the healing guidance you've been able to give her thus far.
Dr. Racer
“I sought out the help of Cathi during my divorce, and found her to be an insightful and compassionate coach. Her ability to see deep into the heart of an emotionally stressful problem is, I believe, unique and I would highly recommend her service to anyone.”
P.R. – Brooklyn Center
S., age 48, is a Laotian patient of mine with 15 years of chronic abdominal pain. She has had an extensive medical worked up, and nothing ever worked. Cathi saw her over several months.
S. has improved! Cathi established a trusting relationship with her, and helped her to effectively break through her wall of silence and grief about her son's mental illness, and taught her how to "change her thinking".
S. now comes in smiling, notes some unusual continued symptoms, but no longer has chronic abdominal disabling pain.
Dr. Cole
“Control My Stress is so amazing. I want to thank you, again, for such a valuable resource.”
Tony.