Probiotics: Rebuilding the Gut Biome from the Ground Up

This is my wisdom around building the gut microbiome after a round of antibiotics.

The gut’s microbial population follows a pattern of “construction” from the time we are in utero and being nourished by our Mom’s body, biome, and eating habits.

We then are, hopefully breast fed. Breast feeding continues this gut microbiome building “construction.”

Formula cannot mimic this.

Nature, and natural means in everything we do

• food,

• medicine for healing and preventing health issues, and

• every lifestyle choice is best when practiced with natural choices

is how the body stays balance with, well, Nature!

Suggestion for after finishing a round of antibiotics: build the gut microbiome from the ground up.

1)Toddler’s Probiotics and finish the bottle then move onto

2) Children’s Probiotics, again finish the bottle and move onto

3) Adult multi blends.

I also suggest using 2-3 different multi blends of adult probiotics, meaning different high quality brand and different blend of gut bugs . The gut microbiome is vastly populated with many varieties of healthy gut bugs. Variety is the spice of life in the gut.

If you had a long round of antibiotics, think Lyme treatment as one example, it might be a good idea to use 2 bottles of Toddlers, then 2 bottles of Children’s, and then the varieties of Adult blends.

Gut Healing, this contains info on high quality probiotics:

https://issuu.com/paula754/docs/gut_healing_simplified/1?ff

The Probiotics in image #1 are available at Nature's Storehouse, Canton, NY

Buy local. Support local businesses, local families, & ultimately your local community. It does matter.

Probiotics, purchased through amazon, could be sitting in a warehouse for a long while, under unknown warehouse climate conditions. If a local store does not carry Flora Probiotics, buy directly from Flora Health.

Take care of your gut so you don’t feel like this, image below!

Beans & Franks

It is better to eat Beans & Franks with Praise & Thanks than Organic Butter & Bread with Fear & Dread.

I share this beans & franks vs. butter & bread to access a space about our thoughts, words, and actions in our daily living.

What we think, what we speak, and how we act becomes part of our very being.

Whether consciously aware of our impacts or not; thoughts, words, and actions draw more of the same energy to us. We create what we think, speak, and do.

We are sensual beings, spirits here in human form, to sense into life and create experiences.

We are told we have 5 sense: sight, smell, hear, taste, and feel.

We have more than these 5 physical senses. We have extra sensory perceptions as well.

Our thoughts are part of our senses. Our brain is a sense organ.

There are many sayings that speak of our thoughts and mind as part of our sensual being. How can they not be? But that is another post.

• “that makes a lot of sense”

• “she has a lot of sense about her”

• “that’s a bunch of nonsense”

• “what a senseless person, thought, or deed”

Your third eye and pineal gland are part of the sensory experience of your brain and intuition. Our intuition is part of our connection to the strands of universal wisdom that vibrate all around us. Our thoughts, words, and actions pluck those strands, and in doing so, invite more of the same energetic qualities into our life.

What if we were more mindful of our thoughts, spoken words, and actions?

How can we use this information for healing?

Everything we do with our senses creates vibrations. We are energy. Everything is energy.

Sensual vibrations are healing energy: sight, smell, hear, taste, feel, think, speak, do…

To begin with, you will have to be consciously aware of feeling the energy flow through you from whatever you’re seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking etc.

If we pay attention, we inwardly know the difference we experience inside ourselves when we think and speak from a space of gratitude, joy, or love vs. anger, resentment, or lack of appreciation / gratitude. I invite you to practice noticing how you feel in these different states when thinking and speaking to yourself or others. Just notice, no judgement or criticism.

Joy and love produce free flowing and lite energy inside our being. Anger and resentment produce contracted and heavy energy inside ourselves. Being in awareness of our inner energy flow supports healing.

What does thought vibrations feel like moving through you? Practice by looking at things you love: people, pets, trees, plants, anything that literally lights you up. What do you feel inside?

With practice, attention, intention, and awareness… we get better at sensing the flow of energy inside. And here’s the fun part: when we add gratitude for those things we look at with love… the lite, healing energy flow increases.

Some things I like to look at or listen to with love and gratitude and allow it all to flow through my being:

• the shimmer of the Sunlight through the canopy of a Forest

• Evergreen Trees, especially White Pines & Cedars for me

• a Daisy or 100 Daisies in my yard

• Moss in the Forest

• Mushrooms on the Forest floor

• Birds singing

• Chipmunks and Squirrels chattering

• the shimmer of the Sun on Dragonfly’s Wings or Grass Snakes Scales

• the sound of Spring Peepers or Bullfrogs calling

• the Twinkle of Stars

• the Moon

• barefoot walks in the Grass or on a Wood’s trail that is a bed of Pine Needles

• the color of Spring Flowers poking up through the Snow

• my Lily and my Cats talking to me, playing, sleeping peacefully

When I look at, hear these things, and notice it with gratitude in my heart; I am pulling that frequency of this experience into my heart and it vibrates throughout my whole body. The frequency of the colors, the Sun and it’s shimmer, Birdsong, as well as my gratitude… All of this flows out into my body and creates expansiveness and healing. When my Heart is open and expansive, our whole being flows with healing frequencies right down to the level of my DNA.

Practice pulling yourself into conscious awareness of these sensual vibrations (including one’s thoughts, spoken words, and actions), sensing the movement of the frequencies through your body, and how it makes you feel as a whole. As we practice this ‘awareness,’ it becomes an unconscious habit without having to think about it. It becomes part of your being: noticing these things and feeling the flow within and without. This is what happens we quiet our mind, as in meditation, hence the reason meditation is so healing: the sensual frequencies flow through us unencumbered. Healing frequencies flow. 

Healing Homework:

Infuse the frequencies of everything Nature right into your being: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling, thinking, speaking, acting. Allow the vibrations the space to reverberate throughout your entire being: 

• This IS Self-Healing. 

• You ARE Healing Energy ️.

• You ARE Nature.

These healing frequencies are used in Energy Medicine.

• Acupuncture: when your acupuncturist holds your arm to check your chi pulses, they are feeling into your body and sensing where your energy needs to be shifted. When needles are put into your body, it is shifting the energy where it needs shifting. We are all energy.

• Reiki

• Healy or Rife machines

• Shamanic practices

• Using your thoughts and sensual experiences (see above) to create waves of healing energy

I intuitively knew this stuff as a kid because we all do. I had special places that I went to sit and watch the shimmer of the light through the greenary of my favorite Evergreen trees, the Great White Pine and Cedar. I still, on occasion, go and visit the Great White Pine in the Brasher State Forest that I used to lie under with my dog Buster.

Try this: sit and gaze at the pure beauty and whiteness of a daisy and then the contrast between the yellow center and the varying hughes of green on the stem and the impression of the serrated edges of the Daisy’s leaves.

Our healing is not just about the food we eat, the movement we engage in… Body-Mind-Emotions-Spirit make up who you are. Engaging with all, in awareness, is lifestyle healing medicine.

Yoga is a Healing Practice of Walking through Life

Yoga is a tool, a self-healing tool, that is part of a way of walking through the day and life as a whole.

I could replace the word yoga with many things:

• Shamanism

• Energy medicine

• Tae kwon do

• Tai chi

• Qi gong

• Andean Paqo Honoring Pachamama in everything because they see nothing else, it is their cosmology, their very way of being

• Medicine Wheel Living

• Celtic Cauldron Living

• Living Astrology (not the foo foo horoscope stuff but the art & science of astrology & astronomy. Look that up IF so Inspired: SOLA)

• on & on with indigenous, cultural groups living in Sync with and honoring the Sacred Heart of Nature, the rhythms of Nature

For me, and how I share this forward, is my seeing and immersing in Yoga as the gift of living in the Sacred Circle of Life, the Rhythms and Cycles of Nature. You ARE Nature. All of the above practices, and many more from the Global Collective, are versions of living in the truth of our Nature. Nature period.

When I counsel people around finding their calm space in life, Yoga principles are a huge part of what I share. Yoga postures and breathing, what the greater US culture perceives as Yoga, is just the tip of the iceberg of Yoga’s healing energy. Yoga is part of the Ayurvedic healing system. Practicing postures, breathwork, mantras, mudras, and other Yoga practices are pieces of the “calm the nervous system” for self-healing that Yoga and Ayurveda offers up.

My Yoga Counseling these days tends to be more on the spiritual side and strongly suggesting a daily physical practice as a means of calming, quieting, and toning the Peaceful, Rest & Digest mode of the body’s natural healing way of being.

Yoga posture and breathwork are the ideal Ayurvedic exercise. Yoga rejuvenates the body-mind-spirit, improves digestion, removes stress, tones the vagal nerve, balances all three doshas, improves circulation of blood - lymph - life force energy - cellular & extracellular fluids - nerve impulse… do I need to add more? Have I peaked your interest in at least giving the self-healing system of Yoga a try?

One of my Yoga Teacher Training Schools always invited us to try new habits, commit for 30-40 days of daily practice, and then see how we feel differently in Body-Mind-Spirit after our commitment. This kind of commitment, to self-healing, can bring profound transformation in the way to think, feel, and energetically express ourselves in the world.

How I offer suggestions for a daily practice to my students, clients, people I love: (*see the info below that I shared with my ‘students’ at Colton School before we started our Create Constant Calm Journey together)

• Practice Yoga postures while deep breathing throughout the day where you can fit them in. If this means while standing at the sink or counter doing dishes or prepping dinner, so be it.

• Yoga does not need to be an hour and a half continuous practice, fit in bits and pieces where you can. This is about creating calm and not another thing to cross off your to-do list.

• The practice is creating peace in every moment of your day. Yes, it takes time, patience, and practice to get to this space. We need to let go of instant gratification and invest time into our healing, into creating constant calm within ourself.

• Follow the cycles of Nature. Pay attention to the cycles of the day, week, month, and seasons of the year. Be aware of the different sounds, smells, and the energetic feel of each day and season of life.

• Stay calm in every moment: Deep breath, create awareness around what just created the energy of being triggered (thank it for alerting you to that which does not create healing flow inside your being, that which does not serve your highest good), looking into the dark shadow of why this triggers you, what lives in the deep recesses of your mind, heart, and soul? 

• Ask yourself: why am I allowing this to bother me? How can I let this go? What action can I take instead of this trigger reaction? What new way of BEING can I bring to this lifelong habit of reacting?

• Shed light into the dark areas of your being and bring forth your awareness as a tool for growth & transformation and living in your Sacred Heart Space. Yoga opens us to being in our Sacred Heart Space, peace & love. Yup, the Hippies of the 60s were onto something.  

Transforming self, through awareness practices, heals you and opens the door for others to heal. Everyone in your Circle of Life can vibrate at a different level, if they choose, because you initiated change.

Butterflies are a symbol of transformation.

Be like the Butterfly and release your layers of trigger points to transform into your natural state of peace.

As I stay in beginner’s mind, relearning the wonders of Nature (this is inherent in all of us, part of our DNA because We ARE Nature), I stay mesmerized by where my practice takes me. This practice is my personal practice and the practice of services I offer to others, with Love.

If I have intrigued you to want to hear more about Yoga’s gifts to self: Yoga Blog Musings From Over The Years

*From the Create Constant Calm course I offered to the staff at Colton school when everyone was stressed by Covid.

One purpose of Yoga’s is to bring us back into the present moment via our body and our breath. So many of us have forgotten how to live in the rapture of the living moment.

I will be teaching very simple aspects of yoga. Simple to keep it as a doable *daily practice.

A yoga classes purpose is to have an experienced yoga mentor, hopefully with somewisdom, to lead you through learning. I will be honest, after 23 years of a pretty consistent daily yoga practice, I struggle to be in an actual yoga class. Yoga is a quiet inner journey, a moving meditation for me. Being in class with a yoga teacher, giving constant directions into and out of the poses, is a distraction for me. BUT, this verbal instruction is what supports your learning the hows and whys of Yoga so you can create your own moving meditation at home. The goal in coming to classes is always to create independent yoga practitioners never to create students who are dependent upon the teacher/guide for their yoga practice.

In class this week, and every 2 weeks, you will experience me guiding you into and out of a simple series of yoga physical postures to:

• Move energy in your body

• Bring you inside yourself to feel what your body feels like in this pose, in this moment

• Keep your spine, and therefore body-mind-spirit, supple and youthful

• Bring awareness to breath and all the magic this creates in your B-M-S so you can create a personal constant calm even when approached with life’s occasional chaos.

• Build a little more inner wisdom each time we meet.

My wish for you is that you learn to use these yoga tools to create constant calm in your life.

*A daily practice can be as easy as 15-20 minutes each morning. Honestly, if 10 is all you can squeak out, 10 it is! Learning that everything you do is yoga (being alive to the rapture in the present moment) you can stretch and breathe while doing dishes, folding laundry, writing lesson plans, grading papers, driving kids around to various activities, etc. When we bring awareness, calmness, and deep inner peace to everything we do: yoga off the mat is our thriving existence.

In Peace & Love, Paula

From another CCC Colton Follow Up email (Maybe I will take all of the class follow up emails with their Yoga posture series and create a small spiral handbook of Create Constant Calm Yoga. It could be placed right on the floor at the top of your mat to support your weaving a daily practice):

I am still giggling about our short chat in class around creating a daily yoga practice. 

I want to offer some short, simple, easy to navigate suggestions to bring the calm into your day without a lot of extra "where will I find time for that Paula?!? Seriously, have you seen my schedule, walked in my shoes?"

A 5-7 minute nervous system reset to get the day off in Constant Calm Mode all before breakfast: 

• raise the spine up creating extension between each vertebrae while standing at the kitchen counter getting the coffee brewing: Deep Belly Breathe

• turn sideways to the counter and reach up into the cupboard at a lateral spinal bend to carefully grab a coffee mug... deep belly breathing

• turn to the other side repeat, grabbing another cup if someone you live with would appreciate your Act Of Love getting them a cup of coffee

• turn your butt towards the counter and fold forward while deep breathing (and hopefully NOT picking up shattered coffee mug pieces from faulty lateral oopsies)

• turn pelvis back towards the counter, lift the spine up and bend backwards from the Sacred heart space, deep breathing and NOT hyper extending your neck.

• in the shower, position yourself comfortably and turn the upper body, from the Sacred Heart Sternum space to twist the upper body and rinse off, yup deep breathe

• repeat on the opposite side, rinsing off all evidence of body wash choices. 

• while bending forward, twisting, etc. to dry off... do so with mindful consciousness to your deep breathing and sacred heart living

Look at that... you just had a morning yoga practice, breath work to calm the parasympathetic nervous system and tone your beautiful vagus nerve, and you did not use any extra time than maybe 5-7 minutes. 

The Week #1 Yoga Posture Card I shared at Colton School.

Eat Your *****Weeds

What one person considers weeds... another person considers very same plant their cell nourishing food and medicine. 

Wild Violet: the essence of Life pulsates in them

I love spring for the wonderful green plants shooting out of the earth around my home, in the woods, and in the fields.

Spring time plants remind me of the ever changing and newness of life, the bounty of good food right outside our doors, and the nutritional value and healing properties of what many people consider weeds.  

I personally await the Spring's:

• Wild Leeks,

• Dandelion Greens & Flowers,

• Stinging Nettles,

• Plantain Leaves,

• Rhubarb Shoots,

• Wild Violet Flowers and Leaves,

• Trout Lilies,

• the Herbs coming up: Chives, Oregano, Tarragon, on & on,

• and so many more Spring edibles.

Spring Wild Edibles and our garden perrenial herbs are the Spring Tonic Elixirs for our bodies to wake up to the Spark of Life after a long Winter.

Fresh, green, Wild plants and garden Herbs awaken our taste buds, livers, digestive tracts, and every body cell to the Fire of Springtime, the upward moving Spark of Life inherent in everything.  

The incredible amount of nutrients in the Spring plants add to our nutritional stores and support the clearing and cleaning of our winter blood, liver, digestive tracts, and sleepy cellular wastes.  

If eating wild foods calls to you:

• grab a wild edible book specific to your region

• download the Picture This app

• get browsing the woods, fields, and your yard.

I use the Picture This app to get a general idea of plants I do not easily recognize. This helps me narrow down my search in an actual book to make a positive identification before using the plant for food or medicine. The plants I listed here are very common plants that most people already recognize. Start off easy and work your way into enjoying Wild Plants.

There are so many herbalists, all over the internet, who share information on Wild Edibles. If it calls to you… get learning!

*****Sustainable Harvesting: I cannot stress this enough. Please only take 5-10% of the plants you see in a patch or area of the woods, field, or your yard. If you “clear cut” the plants (or dig up a whole patch of Wild Leeks) you are leaving nothing to regenerate plants for the next season. This is a HUGE responsibility when Wild Crafting Plants… do not over harvest EVER.

Wild plant patches are not like a garden. No one shows up to replant if everything is taken.

House Cleaner Wanted

I will be straight up about this, my previous House Cleaner is a hard act to follow. Up for the challenge? Let me know.

Requirements:

• Good sense of humor

• Self motivated to SEE what needs to be done & do it

• Takes direction without feeling likes it’s criticism, but, in all honesty the self motivated is what I’m looking for so I can go about my business, *doing what I love, and not be exhausted from my home’s deep cleaning needs

• Hear and speak “Cuss” fluently without fuss… cuss, no fuss, please

• Honest & trustworthy: what goes on at Paula’s Home stays at Paula’s Home

• References, personal & cleaning

Tasks not required to do:

• Laundry

• Dishes

• Kitty litter

• Windows

• House Plant care

I have to keep my hands in certain aspects of house care to stay grounded in myself & my home. AND, your time is better spent doing the deep stuff.

Required tasks:

• Dusting “everything,” I’ll explain it in person

• Vacuum & mop

• Toilets, tubs, sinks

• Pet hair removal from couch, chairs, pillows, etc.

• Deep cleaning shit: moving furniture to clean under it, walls, door & window frames (the dusty tops), furniture legs & rungs, stone fireplace wall, etc.

• I’m sure there’s more…

Interested?

Send me an email at @ pyoumell@gmail.com and let me know about you, your needs in a cleaning job, your hourly rate, etc.

*what I love:

• My Plant Spirit Medicine Herb business work & writing books, article, blog posts, newsletters

• Daily yoga and woods walks with Lily

• Yard work: mowing (or I should say Wild Yard management), my gardens (which includes all Wild Plants in the before mentioned unmowed yard)…

• Tea time with my Mom, Dad, & Jake… playing cards and not worrying about my dusty, pet hair covered home

The Beauty of a Yoga Daily Home Practice

1) Total Quiet. Time to go within and commune with your own Soul.

There is no teacher giving you non stop instructions about how to move your body, etc.

Yes, instructions are really nice when you are new to Yoga, just learning. You get tips on how to safely immerse your physical body into what you’re now asking your body to do.

You also get little bits and pieces of interesting info about moving energy in your body; learn about the chakras, the five elements, the seasons of the year & moon cycles and their impacts on your body-mind-spirit, and other Energy Medicine insights.

This all raises consciousness around body-mind-spirit health and our Natural Rhythms with our Earth & Cosmos.

The benefits of a teacher can be quietly replicated by learning Yoga out of a book, using common sense about how you move your body, and paying deep attention to how the poses make you feel while doing them and after you finish. I remember my first in person Yoga teacher here in the Potsdam area, Joe Digiovanna. He had us spend more time after doing the posture sensing the energy shifts in the body than we spent physically in the poses.

My first Yoga book was a true gift of learning poses slowly to support my body adapting to the movements of Yoga.

2) You get to create your own repertoire of posture series. I invite you to have several options to choose from so you inspire your body-mind-spirit in different ways each day.

A couple of Yoga posture series are posted here. I invite you to explore them if it so pleases you.

I create Yoga posture series PDF files for every class I teach and I gift my students with a hard copy. When you can go back to the postures from class, with a visual guide, your body is invited to remember what you did in class. Your mind and spirit also recalls details of the tidbits of information about the Energy Medicine of each Yoga posture I try to share with students in each class. See #1 above.

One of my favorite series of poses is the Moon Salutation. I do it in a full circle Mandala and tend to practice this over the 3 day period of Full & New Moons.

3) Daily yoga creates strength, flexibility, and balance in body-mind-spirit.

Yoga is more than postures that strengthen and create flexibility in the physical body. We gain amazing balance physically. These benefits also extend into the mind and spirit.

The physical struggles we have with the postures support our opening to the metaphysical struggles of mind and spirit supporting the creation of strength, flexibility, and balance in body-mind-spirit

4) Daily practice opens your consciousness to other ways of thinking and being. You begin to explore and grow as a person.

See the above mentioned creation of strength, flexibility, and balance in body-mind-spirit

5) Saves you cash.

The number one reason my clients tell me they don’t do daily yoga is because they can’t afford to pay for daily yoga classes.

I invite you to grab a book and learn yoga on your own. Commit to gifting yourself even 20 to 30 minutes a day while you explore, expand, and grow your abilities on and off the mat.

And continue to gift yourself the occasional or weekly in person Yoga class. Many studios have a community Yoga class where donations are the accepted payment: a pay what you can afford Yoga class experience.

Find a donation class near you!

6) *No pressure to have fancy yoga outfits or care how others perceive you.

Yoga in PJs? Perfect!

Naked Yoga? Sure, why not?!

Yoga in your jeans and sweatshirt? Absolutely. I do recommend jeans with some Lycra stretch in them. Yes, experience speaking here!

Down dog without a concern who’s seeing your butt up in the air or watching your flesh jiggle!

*Although, I confess, after a time committed to daily Yoga practice, you stop caring what others might be seeing, perceiving, and thinking and you tend to just sink into your Inner Yoga Bliss: Soul Growth.

Yoga Blog Musings From Over The Years

I browsed through all of my blog posts from over the past 10+ years, well back to Dec 2013. I quit after that point. Not an easy task. I can see how all of my writings have been influenced and inspired by my Yoga background as well as my Herbalist, Shamanic - Energy Medicine, and Functional Medicine all woven together in an attempt to inspire the best in Body-Mind-Spirit.

I hope these writings inspire you to sink into your Daily Yoga Bliss and come home to your soul!

• Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing

• Why I love Yoga... Take 2

• 10 Body Healing Benefits of Yoga

• It's Not About The Poses

• My Yoga Mat IS My Magic Carpet

• Yoga IS Snake Oil!

• 5 Shocking Ways Yoga Causes You To Lose Weight

• Create Constant Calm

• Clearing the Energy Body

• Yoga Is NOT About The Poses

• Coming Home Through Yoga

• Grounding Yourself for Emotional Healing

• Very Yoga inspired info on weight loss: The Final Tip: Divine Weight Loss, this post has links to all 10 Divine Weight Loss Tips

• Healing Power of the Great White Pine

• Yoga as a muscle builder: Building Muscle, Building Vitality, a couple of decades+ back… my Yoga practice was about fitness. Yoga is so much more: Strength, Flexibility, Balance in Body-Mind-Spirit

• Sacred Eating, every thing we do, all day long, can be brought back to peace and calm through Yoga principles

• Vagus Nerve Love! This is the Big Medicine of a daily Yoga practice. I did not write this article but I share it constantly because it is amazing & to the point: https://www.paulayoumellrn.com/vagus-nerve-toning-for-health