As part of Dorothea Hover-Kramer’s SECOND CHANCE AT YOUR DREAM VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR ’09, Dorothea will be stopping by today, tomorrow and Wednesday! Today, we have a wonderful guest post by Dorothea (don’t you just love that name?) called How I Found My Second Chance. Enjoy! Stay tuned tomorrow for my review and on Wednesday, we’ll be having a special contest so please come back!
How I Found My Second Chance
by Dorothea Hover-Kramer
Since my early childhood in the middle of the war in Berlin, I always wanted to do something helpful for others. There was so much pain and loss around me, I knew I could find ways to be of service. I loved music but found out quickly a career in that field is very lonely. So I went into nursing and scaled the academic ladder ending up with a doctorate in psychology.
My interest in healing emotional and physical pain led me to seek out trauma interventions and energy psychology. I found I could “see” energy in other people easily and “read” their emotions by tuning my sensitivities. This was a great asset in doing private practice psychotherapy. Over the years, I also co-founded the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology and helped develop its many programs through team efforts.
By the time I turned mid-sixty, I was pretty burned out and decided it was time to slow down. In addition, I had a hip problem and could not walk well. Settling into a rural community seemed a comfortable choice for my husband and me and we withdrew considerably from life.
Five years later and after hip surgery, I felt what runners call their “second wind.” I sensed my life and fulfillment of its dream to help others was just beginning. We moved to a more active community, and I began to see the opportunities for sharing what I had learned with a much wider audience, far beyond traditional counseling settings.
The publication of my sixth book Second Chance at Your Dream this year literally became my new opportunity to speak about practical applications of energy psychology for self-care outside of conventional therapy settings. I travel and lecture widely now and am coming to love my audiences. I notice I can make them laugh with me and respond with hope for their senior years. Together, we are discovering that the second half of life is the time of real adventure: we can say what we please and what makes sense with new freedom and intensity.
Gone are the days of worrying about what others think of me and whether my hair looks all right of not. I’m free to be myself and to reinvent my life every morning now as I wish. I can be flexible, mobile, changing as well as steady and predictable. As I make peace with my body and learn how to take best care of it with exercise, rest and foods, my soul is freed to share and express all I’ve ever learned.
I’m completing my seventh book and recognize there is no limit to creativity other than what old beliefs may say. They can be updated as we create new maps for the brain. I have reached the time of choosing to be fully aligned with my soul’s purpose. No holds barred!
Dr. Dorothea Hover-Kramer is a psychologist and clinical nurse specialist in private practice who has authored 6 books about energy therapies including her most recent entitled Second Chance At Your Dream. She is co-founder and past president of the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology, an international network of therapists and health care professionals utilizing energy-based approaches for emotional freedom and healing. You can visit her website at www.secondchancedream.com.
As The Pages Turn 
Thank you for being my guest today, Dorothea! I’m wondering…I am finding a lot of women in their menopausal years are having hip problems or back problems. I went to the mountains a couple of weeks ago and my back has not been the same. Wonder if there’s some kind of precaution pre-menopausal women can take so they don’t end up having to have surgery?
Unfortunately, many joint and hip problems have a hereditary factor. The good new is that we can actively influence gene expression in the cells with positive attitudes, calcium rich foods, and exercise. Specific back exercises can strengthen your back muscles and physical therapists are a good source of information. (Few physicians know about them).
As far as your overall stress levels and possible sources of gene constriction, the exercises from energy psychology are most direct. Release negativity–in your thoughts or from someone around you–by massaging the heart center and affirming, “Even though ___is happening, I deeply and profoundly accept and honor myself and choose to release any tension around this issue.”
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Thank you for sharing on this blog. As a nurse and psychologist both I appreciate questions about practical ways to improve health and emotional well-being.
Do you want to know know how to work with the laws of attraction?
“Second Chance at Your Dream” is the first book to apply the insights of leading edge energy psychology to creativity, health and aging.