Are you ready to meditate with Kari?
Make sure that you're all snuggly and warm and quiet in your bed so that you can listen to the story and let go of your busy day.
Imani was this awesome,
Cool,
Beautiful young girl.
She absolutely loved animals.
She liked dogs and cats but she also liked lots of other animals.
Imani had one problem.
One problem that she'd been trying to solve for a while.
She had a fear of needles but it just so happened unfortunately that she had to have regular blood drawn.
The whole thing was just awful.
The build up,
Going there,
Having the needle put in,
Drawing the blood.
Afterwards she was always fine but it was just the same thing every time and it made her super nervous and super anxious and she really didn't like it.
She was thinking,
Because she's so smart,
What could you do to change this?
How could she change having to go through regular blood drawn and having this traumatic,
Scary,
Awful experience?
Instead of just dealing with it and having to live through it every single time,
She decided she was going to use her smart brain cells and her awesome thinking and her creative imagination to think of a solution instead of being stuck in the problem.
She thought about the fact that she really loved animals.
How could animals help her with her problem?
And then she did a bunch of research,
Research about how to get over being frightened of needles.
During all of the research she discovered that apparently vibration,
Any kind of vibration as you're having a needle or an injection can confuse the brain and make the brain feel like it doesn't know what it's feeling in the body.
The vibration basically makes the brain just think,
Oh,
I feel vibration.
And then while you have the injection,
You don't feel the discomfort or the pinch or the little scratch that you normally feel when you get an injection because the brain is way too busy noticing the feeling of vibration.
She thought that was worthy of making a note of.
And then she discovered that cold,
Cold really helps when you have an injection,
Anything cold like a cold spray or a cold numbing spray or an ice cube.
Ice cubes are probably a little bit impractical,
She thought.
How does she take an ice cube all the way to get her blood drawn?
But she could definitely get something cold like a cold spray.
And apparently it does the same thing for the brain.
The cold makes the brain go,
Oh,
It's so cold.
And it completely doesn't pick up on the fact that you're being injected.
It doesn't feel the little scratch or the pinch or the discomfort when the needle goes in.
She'd never tried these things before.
She'd just been having her injections and having to deal with it and dealing with all the stress and all the worry and all the buildup every time she went.
She could do those things.
Maybe she thought she could take her toothbrush.
Her toothbrush vibrates and maybe she could put her toothbrush on her arm very close to where she was going to have the injection and that would do it.
It's definitely worth a try.
And then her mum would definitely help.
Her mum would get her some cold spray and they'd just explain at the time when she was going to get her blood drawn to the person that was going to do it that her mummy's going to spray her arm as they inject.
And then,
There you go.
It's a miracle.
She won't feel the needle anymore.
Then she started thinking,
What's an animal that's super cool,
That's cold?
Penguins.
Penguins live places that are cold,
She thought to herself.
She liked penguins.
But then she thought,
Polar bears.
Ah,
Polar bears are even better.
They're bigger and they're fierce and they're super cool.
And they would probably eat anyone that hurt her.
What if she used her imagination?
And at the time of her next blood draw appointment,
She actually closed her eyes and imagined there was a polar bear in the room and the polar bear was big and ginormous,
But it was her best friend.
So it would never hurt her,
But it had snarly big teeth and big ferocious eyes.
And if anybody dared to do anything that could possibly hurt her,
Well,
That would be the end of them.
The thought of this actually made her laugh.
She thought it was funny.
But at the same time,
The polar bear paw is cold.
So when she was going to get her injection,
The next time she goes,
Her mom's going to spray her with cold spray and she's going to use her awesome,
Smart,
Intelligent imagination and she's going to pretend that it's actually her buddy,
The polar bear,
That's just putting his cold,
Freezing cold paw on her arm at the time,
Just to say,
Hey buddy,
It's okay.
I've got your back.
That sounded like a genius idea,
She thought.
Perfect.
That's definitely going to help.
But then she thought,
What if mom forgets to get me cold spray or we leave it in the car or we run out one time and I don't have it.
What animal vibrates?
Ooh,
She couldn't think of any.
She was thinking about taking her toothbrush with her the next time she went,
Just in case she needed it.
And she would just turn a toothbrush on and she would put it on the part of her arm that was just above where she was going to get the injection and the vibration from a toothbrush would feel all confusing and distracting and just interesting,
Right?
And then she would get injected and she wouldn't feel a thing.
But how could she make it more fun?
What animal vibrates?
Hmm.
Snakes.
Snakes when they hiss and they stick their tongue out,
That looks like it vibrates.
But then she didn't really like snakes.
Well,
They're not really that cuddly or anything.
And then she thought about a film that she'd watched a long time ago and she remembered Thumper,
Thumper the Rabbit,
Thumper when he bangs his feet.
It goes really,
Really,
Really,
Really,
Really,
Really,
Really,
Really fast,
Super fast.
And that creates a vibration.
That's it,
She thought.
Got it.
The next time I go and I use my electric toothbrush or I use something that vibrates and I stick it on my arm,
I'm going to add my imagination.
I'm going to close my eyes and I'm going to think about Thumper,
That cute bunny rabbit.
Super cute.
I really,
Really liked bunny rabbits.
I'm going to think about Thumper and I'm going to imagine that Thumper is banging his back leg really fast on my arm and that's creating the vibration.
And then that vibration makes my brain go all like fuzzy and oh,
What's that?
Oh,
It's something vibrating on my arm.
Oh,
Oh.
And then when I open my eyes,
It's all done and it's all over and the injection is done and the blood drawn is done and everything is done and then it's like,
Oh,
Wow,
That was easy.
Imani was prepared.
The next time she went for a blood drawn,
She would either have a buddy,
The polar bear with her or bunny rabbit.
Vibrating Thumper,
The bunny,
Is coming too.
Maybe she'll take both of them.
Maybe she could try both techniques next time.
Her toothbrush and the cold spray.
Double up the protection from any kind of feeling of being pinched or scratched or whatever.
She really did think in that moment that she was a genius.
This is awesome.
I'm so smart.
On her next appointment,
Imani did just that.
She had her toothbrush and she also had her cold spray.
They told the person that was giving her the injection what they were doing and she decided that her fierce,
Enormous,
Gigantic,
Best buddy,
Polar bear,
Was going to be with them that day.
She closed her eyes and a mum sprayed the cold spray as the lady injected her.
She didn't feel anything.
She kept her eyes closed and then when the lady said,
Okay,
You can open your eyes,
It's all done.
Imani opened her eyes.
She was in shock a little bit.
All the times before where she'd been super stressed,
Super anxious,
So nervous and worked up and upset before she went.
All those times where she could have used her brain.
But that's okay.
Now she knows.
Now she knows what to do.
Now she knows how to cure her fear of needles and injections and immunizations and blood drawn and anything that involves anything like that.
In the future,
She'll be prepared with her best buddy polar bear and her other best buddy,
Thumper the Rabbit.
Genius.
The end.
