I could never pare it all down to one favorite place. I've been to many places and I just couldn't pick one place. I've lived in 3 cities but many apartments, now houses. There were lots of great things about each. Nope, I couldn't just pick one.

The point is to pick some place where you feel comfortable and relaxed. While there have been a number of places where I feel that way, selecting just one of them will do fine. If you have a top place, great. If not, that's ok too...just go with a good one. Me, I'm on the beach looking out at the ocean...I've done that from many places so it almost doesn't matter where.

Annie- My happy place is the ocean, too.

Typically, the patient searches the memory not for a specific "named place"' but an imagined place that brings back a scent, a feeling of comfort like a sun warmed body, a sound that is soothing or something you remember seeing and feeling...... that will help the patient to stay focused....concentrating. It is finding that "place" in one's mind that a patient can recall those feelings of special safeness and comfort. Once found...and it is not an address....it is a "memory" that you learn to return to without "sifting" thru many memories.

Mine is always at the beach, sunny day, cool ocean breezes, the smell of the salt air, the sounds of the waves a lullaby. Oh I almost hypnotized myself! At this very moment I am laying in the rv bedroom holding my little Mia against my chest in her blanket, I am looking out the window and replying here. Not bad either.

hahahahha

Beach in The Bahamas.

I haven't been to many places so my favorite place would just be at any beach relaxing by the water.

At home. I have been to many wonderful places but I am most relaxed at home... a favorite spot is by a pond back in the woods

Generally I go to Kings Canyon National Park down by the river, hearing the rush of the water and birds singing. And my children laughing. I imagine the sun sparkling, feel the warmth of the rock and hearing the wind in the tree tops.

France.

Next to water, be it at an ocean side beach, on land on a lake, at the river, anywhere hearing the lap and rhythm of the water, and experiencing the cool breezes off the water.

I hate those types of questions. We were at a party once, when someone asked me where was my favorite place I'd been to in the United States. My reply was that I had a lot of favorite places, and no one stood out. But she persisted, insisting several more times I tell her the "very favorite one of all of them". Eventually I just turned away from that group and started a conversation with some other guests.

gyr_falcon, my answer would be "home" with my family. No better place to be with people who know your life story. I can't be with my family as often as I would like but I cherish the times we have together more than cruises or transatlantic flights or cross country journeys.

But I do have a deep affection for France. That could easily be my second "home".

I told the missus that I posed this here. And that started a discussion that took this into account and then veered off.

Her cousin was here for the past couple of days. During the first five years of life, they were together every day in every way. They are buddies and pals and best friends. I don't have that. Our family was away from everyone else, and because of the moves that I have undertaken (voluntarily or not), I just don't have one spot or one person that I could consider the 'best' place or person.

I enjoy the water, the lapping on the shore. I was in awe as I stood by an active volcano in Nicaragua or seeing some the fantastic buildings that have been created in Europe. By the end of next summer, I will have been in all but one of the U.S. States. I will have been in 64 countries. I just cannot select one place where I would feel most comfortable. I just cannot do this.

I am trying to challenge anyone in any way. I just wanted to read some of your responses to what I read in the book.

highway 1 in California, from beginning to end...with stops along the way, including hurst castle...

Jim - I think you started a thoughtful dialogue. Thank you.

My back yard in the summer evening! The cicadas try to drown out the tree frogs and it's wonderful. That would be my favorite place right now.

By family, do you mean parents and siblings, seagrass? I wish I could have experienced what you did, but rehashing my life story results only in nightmares. My parents were evil, and thankfully dead now, and I am not close to any of my siblings.

I like to travel with my family (husband and children) and experience new places together with them. I've already spent decades home with them, because my end of the business was more home based specifically for that purpose. We sacrificed a great deal financially to make it possible, and not everyone has that choice, I understand. We have many great memories from traveling together.

My favorite place, right now, is sitting at my kitchen table, drinking coffee or wine. Visiting with friends and family, whether in person, on the phone or online. I love my kitchen, favorite place in the world....right now. Who knows later!

With the question posed the way it was it would probably be Running the mountain biking trails on the mountains 2 minutes from my house with my running buddies.

It's the sound of rushing water (or pounding rain on my head), the sounds of chirping birds, the sight of the way the sun filters through the moss on the trees of the local rainforest, the thought that I am running in trails that go north for hundreds of kilometers (and no, I never run that far LOL), and when we pause to admire the beauty, sometimes all we hear is our breath in the stillness.

My second place would be where ever I happen to be traveling with my DH and sons with no concern as to where we are - the feeling that evokes is love and warmth

gyr_falcon - my dear mother, my baby brother (3 have died and I'm estranged from another) cousins, grand cousins, nieces, nephews. Hard to keep track of the web of relationships. I'm not tight with everyone but I married and moved from Ohio to New England in 1978. A good marriage. My only regret is being so far away from my family for so many years.

No children for us, so going home I get to see the kiddos. I love being the "faraway" aunt lol. I come back to Cape Cod pronouncing all of my R's.

seagrass: That is a different perspective, to be so distanced and unable to ever meet in the middle, so to speak. Relationships can change and evolve over time, but not so easily when separated for extended stretches. At least I was able to marry into an extended family, but it just isn't the same, and the sheer size of gatherings were overwhelming and alien early on.

But "faraway" aunt, there are no "Rs" in "Cape Cod". ;) Interesting how old speech patterns all fall back into place, isn't it?

I'm relaxed and happy in many places. Delicate arch Utah. I've been there after dark, DH & I, no one else around....except the bats. I'm comfortable under water floating with my legs crossed practicing my buoyancy. Sitting on the swing in my backyard. So many places. So many choices.

Jerusalem. No contest. When I lived there I felt that it was the most noble address on earth. Jerusalem has my soul.

While my life has been almost the opposite of rootless, I think I can understand the feeling of having no one place to call home...but on the other hand, I've experienced and seen so little...you've experienced and seen so much. My comfort level when I go to new places is low...you're probably more at ease with the process of familiarizing yourself with new places as you've done it so often. There's always a trade-off, benefits and costs.

When my Mom moved after 60 years of being in one place, it felt odd at first, but then I learned that home was not the building but the people in it. But even they will leave you over time. When we would go over the old house after MIL had passed, it was such an empty shell. Full of memories, but they were memories of things that could never be again. Rather than being welcomed with open arms, it was a haunting and sorrowful experience. So even though it was still "home", it wasn't "home" as we knew or experienced it.

The one home that is with you your entire life and will never leave you and will always be your home is the home inside yourself. And just as we can spend time decorating our surroundings, bringing in and cherishing the things we love most, displaying the things we find most beautiful and excising the things that no longer serve, no longer represent us as we are now, we can do that with our souls as well. I think getting ourselves to the point where we are most at home in our own body and mind and soul, that's the way.

I can't settle on one place, but so loved traveling through Utah's spectacular landscape. Then there is South Western Canada, and Highway 1 the length of California. the mountains in Colorado. Add the White Sands in New Mexico, the endless fields of sunflowers in Kansas, the winding roads of such pleasant scenes along the Blue Ridge Parkway. I can't forget the Atlantic Coast into the brilliant fall colors in the New England States and Eastern Canadian Provinces. Now I go back to the foothills of the Appalachians and my Pennsylvania home. Then there are all those places in between the above mentioned awe inspiring places in the good ole' USA that I experienced behind my dear husband on the back seat of our motorcycle.

So I guess my most favorite, enjoyed, awe inspiring place to be would be on that moving motorcycle.

The problem here is with the work of fiction. Properly done, the psychologist would never be so specific, instead just encouraging the patient to find a safe and relaxing mental image. The technique is not looking for a specific site. Chalk up your confusion to the author's overreaching.

Jim, you are being "resistant". Resistance is one indication of how deeply emotional pain is buried. The longer you've carried it, the more ingrained it is -- and the more deeply resistant to being examined for its *current* relevance/value to you.

Sometimes it isn't just one place, but a state of mind.

My ex told me about meeting a retired Navy Seal, seems like his name was Rusty, in the British Virgin Islands one summer.

He asked Rusty what one thing he'd teach someone about how to survive in the ocean, & Rusty said, "how to float on the water".

My ex being anything but shy asked Rusty to teach him.

Ex was a "violent" sleeper:

he'd go to sleep quietly but then he'd start thrashing around & muttering.

One night after he'd told me the "floating" story, he was flailing & muttering, & I quietly told him, "float on the water".

Magic!

He immediately got quiet & slept peacefully the rest of the night!

Wow! You are one smart, quick thinking woman!

I love my poolside when yard has been freshly mowed. Love the smell of grass and pool

One place is my screened porch where I am sitting now. The other quieter spot is a small private beach on a pond at a cottage I rent on Cape Cod. I go in September when the crowds are gone.

Places change. For years, my favorite place was Ventura, near downtown and the beach. Now they charge for parking, most of my cherished used book stores are gone, and it just isn't the same. in my mind, the Ventura of 20 years ago is still my favorite place.

I've taught classes in a guided meditation that I've developed to help children fall asleep and eventually to help then learn to calm themselves when scared or upset. During the meditations I never choose a specific place but will instead choose a generic place like floating on a river or in a hot air balloon or laying under the stars in a sleeping bag.