More anxiety. So many questions and concerns about treatment.

How to manage all of this?

When Janis Silverman could find no meditations specific to her experience of breast cancer, she wrote her way to positive mental health, lower stress and less pain. Janis wrote more than one hundred guided imagery meditations, prayers and poems during her surgery and treatments. "These meditations kept me positive," said Silverman. "I put my mind into a cocoon; state, living in the moment. The imagery stories gave me strength, surrounded me with light, compassion, kindness, healing thoughts, hope and courage." Janis is sharing her imagery stories in four audio books.

Guided imagery meditations in Reflect: Cultivating Your Garden after Surgery focus on developing inner strength, courage, compassion, hope, laughter, and a support system. Other meditations consider ways to enjoy this moment, the beauty and tranquility of nature and treating oneself with kindness. Using visualization, deep, rhythmic breathing, drawing and writing, a patient can find inner strength, peace and nurture herself before her treatment begins.

Janis Silverman, retired teacher, is the author of several education and counseling books, including, Imagine That! a book of guided imagery meditations for children. She lives near Charlotte, NC with her family.