Miriam Franco, MSW, Psy.D

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The Stressfree Bride

Relaxation and Guided Imagery for the Bride to Be

As a psychologist and social worker, I have long been aware of the stress individuals and families can experience when undergoing major life events and transitions.  As a Professor of Sociology at Immaculata, I teach students to observe how such changes in the family life cycle are stressful as they pose opportunities for new growth and adaptation.  One of the essential components of change is stress, whether it be good or bad stress.  Since all change requires that we lose something and gain something else, individuals must absorb and integrate this process over time. Major transitions, such as marriage and weddings, typically evoke more adaptive pulls and, hence, more stress.

In modern American life, brides to be are socialized into many new roles, tasks and responsibilities in a brief period of time. As women marry at later ages and participate more actively in the economy, brides now attempt to express their individual personal and consumer decisions actively.  The bride and/or the new couple to be assume responsibility for the definition and process of their wedding experience.  As a result, there is more decision making and responsibility in crafting a personal signature, design and identity associated with this rite of passage.  Most brides to be work full time and manage many of the details of the wedding planning with their groom, their girlfriends, not just their families. There is  less reliance on the nuclear family and parents to execute the whole plan and design of the wedding. It is no wonder, therefore, that many contemporary brides express more stress and worry, above and beyond just wedding day jitters. They are often at the center of a major, multi-decision making enterprise and event.

During the engagement, brides to rehearse new familial statuses and roles as they enter, formally, a new kinship system. As such, they are also attempting to manage the social, familial, spiritual and often financial components that are involved in two families coming together.  And since, traditionally, it is the bride and her family who assume the major responsibility for the wedding itself and its financing, in this current economy, brides are challenged to be more creative and artful in pulling off a wedding that befits their romantic needs and budget.

Relaxation and Guided Imagery are gentle yet powerful mind body techniques that can allow people to learn how to become deeply relaxed and practice positive and less stressful ways of adapting to challenging emotional, physical or developmental experiences. It is a user friendly method.  Almost anyone can do it and it does not hurt.  It is inexpensive and, unlike addiction, the more you practice it, the less you need.  It can be practiced almost everywhere, except while driving.  You do not even have to be a believer for it to work. In contrast to most forms of meditation, it does not take months or years of practice nor does it require that you let go of thoughts or clear the mind with each breath (which is difficult to do if highly anxious).

Relaxation and Guided Imagery teach people to lower tension in their bodies quickly while practicing diaphragmatic breathing.  One is then guided to imagine a safe place or an ideal place of relaxation with any of their senses, e.g., imagining your favorite beach by visualizing the bright, clear blue sky, or feeling the warm rays of the sun on your back or perhaps hear seagulls chirping. By doing so, a deep state of relaxation is evoked quickly that is accompanied by increased blood flow, lowering of blood pressure and a reduction of muscle tension, fatigue and body aches.  When sensory images are experienced in this relaxed state, the body does not discriminate from the real event or image.  So all the healing, soothing, restorative and renewing properties of being at the beach are reverberating in the body without being at the beach. The body treats the imagined imagery as if it is happening in the body.  If taught how to expand these abilities and apply them to stressful situations and reactions, one has a powerful tool that increases their positive coping and their ability to bear and manage a challenging experience with less reactivity, improved presence and focus.  Guided Imagery can be taught one on one, in a group setting (which is very effective) or alone with a CD.

As the imagery exercises become more elaborate, people can learn to make more rapid shifts in attitude, perception and behavior rather than think hard upon something or try to solve it logically.  They can creatively imagine ways they would like to feel, practice having these end results or even “interact” or dialogue with an image and learn in an experiential way, what they are needing and how to practice applying it.  Relaxation and Guided Imagery is a fast way to relax the body and then bring on mental relaxation. It enables individuals to not force or command healing or letting go of anxiety, but rather, to engage in a process of relaxed, playful discovery. 

I am certified in Integrative Guided Imagery by Beyond Ordinary Nursing Association. I train people in these techniques to improve their coping with chronic illness, to reduce anxiety associated with surgery, chemotherapy, injection treatments, MRI scans, care giving strain or anxiety, preparing or organ transplant, dialysis, and coping with pain conditions.  At Immaculata University, I teach a popular, one credit, weekend course on Stress Reduction and Guided Imagery each semester. In 2008, I taught the course to graduate students in the Organizational Psychology Program and had several brides to be in the group.  The brides were excited to learn these techniques and asked me if I would design a specific Relaxation and Guided Imagery script to help them sustain clarity of focus amidst all the pressure and busyness of the engagement, so that they could connect more with their loving, generosity of spirit and remember what their core personal and spiritual goals are amidst all the wedding planning and frenzy. At that moment, The Stressfree Bride was christened.

I designed a CD script, recorded it with guided imagery music and acquired a sketch of a bride to be in her wedding dress by Edguardo Bonilla, a gifted, wedding dress designer, for the CD cover.  The Immaculata brides to be from the course offered their testimonials after they tested the new CD .  Since then, The Stressfree Bride has become a popular shower gift or personal gift from the maid of honor or a wedding basket gift available at local gift shops in the Main Line.

If you’d like to hear a sound bite of The Stressfree Bride, please visit: http://www.imagerywork.com/the-stressfree-brideand go to the store link.  There you will see the professional CDs for sale including The Stressfree Bride.

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May 4th, 2010 | Category: Articles

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