Tree Hugging in Winter for Clearing Out Heavy Energy

Barefoot on a 50 degree day in December 2020.

Barefoot on the Earth is such a great way to release heavy energy and recalibrate oneself. But what is one to do in the Winter when barefoot activity is just not the completely sane choice to make? Well, at least not any lengthy barefooting outside.

Here are three ideas to allow yourself to let go of, release, and/or wash away the heavy energy that we carry. Heavy can weigh us down energetically. Releasing this has healing impacts on the physical body, relaxes the nervous system and boosts the immune system (yes, this is proven phenomena from years of research in Yoga, Forest Bathing, and Energy Medicine work), as well as the mind and spirit.

1) Energy Bathing

Wherever you are, whenever you need to release heavy energy (think sad, angry, depressed… all often thought of as negative or dark energy):

• Close your eyes

• Think of yourself standing barefoot on the Earth, in your favorite outdoor space of course

• Visualize water or colorful healing light raining down on you, any color that makes sense to you

• As the color of choice comes over you, washing away heavy energy, visualize the energy you are letting go of, flowing into the Earth

• Stand and visualize this as long as you need to to feel lighter in Body-Mind-Spirit

2) Tree Hugging is a fine way to release some heavy energy into the Earth. Remember to do this respectfully of the Trees. Approach the Trees like you would people: until you have established a hugging relationship with them, ask politely before you dive in for the big hug. Would you hug strangers you meet on the street? Ok, if you are like me, maybe you would. But my kids tell me this is weird so use your best judgement.

• Take a walk in the Woods, listening to the woods. Yup, this means you will need to See, Hear, Smell, Taste, and Feel FULLY: a full on sensual experience. Think of Spring Rain and how you can smell the Earthy, wet floor in the Woods, taste the freshness of the Rain, feel the Rain misting on your face, hear the plop-plop-plop of rain on a rock, and see the beauty of the Rain’s mist and showers in front of your face. Immerse in this mindset with whatever is happening in the Woods today.

• Turn off podcasts/ music / and the urge to catch up on phone conversations. In fact, shut your phone ringer off.

• Approach a Tree of choice and ask if you can hug it. Wait for the Yes.

• Wrap your arms around the Tree and place your forehead up against the bark.

• Breathe in the Smell. Feel the barks texture on your forehead’s skin. Weave your heavy energy together with the Tree’s energy and wash it down the Tree’s inner trunk, through the roots, and into the Earth.

• Thank the Tree for transporting this energy into the Earth.

3. Or, try this Chakra clearing ritual.

Whatever you chose to do, to release what you no longer need, make it your experience.

Change up my suggestions to fit your needs.

Release, let go, and allow Mother Earth to recycle your heavy energy into healing energy.

Interested in learning more skills to change your Lifestyle Medicine to Self Heal in Body-Mind-Spirit?

Join me for the next Session of Sacred Circle Wise Women Mentorship.

Slow Health Education, Slow Healing

In 1986, the Slow Food Movement began in Italy. This was a movement to reclaim cultural food, the art and healing benefits of in-home cooking, and the sustainable farming of whole, real food grown locally.  This was a grassroots effort, that is now globally strong, to reclaim food from the corporate strangle hold. 

It is time to put this same grassroots action into our health care system.
Health care in this country, right now, is really just about disease management: how can the medical system suppress your ill health symptoms just enough to keep you functioning and somewhat happy.
Our current health care is not about actually restoring true vibrant health OR about true prevention of illness.
True prevention would teach you proper healthy care of the body, the real way to nourish the body with food, and actually prevent you from succumbing to degenerative lifestyle diseases.

Slow Health, Slow Healing is what I am about.
Slow Health, Slow Healing is what Sacred Circle Wise Women Mentorship™ is about. 

People have become accustomed to instant gratification with their health.
For example, if one goes to their primary care with high blood pressure issues, they are given a prescription medication and within a few days their blood pressure reading is "normal" again. (I use this example because it is an easy one to think about, a very common problem in our culture, easy to visualize the blood pressure cuff and reading procedure, and thoughtfully consider the situation and apply its concept to other health issues.)
No effort outside of filling the prescription and popping the pill daily. 
The question is: has any healing change been made, in the person's lifestyle choices, to change what actually created the downward spiral of personal health leading to the high blood pressure?
Everything seems fine, the numbers reading on the sphygmomanometer are within normal range again.
Here is where the problem lies: if zero lifestyle changes have been made, the lifestyle habits that created the high blood pressure (body damage symptoms), then the damage to the body is still happening.
The pretty number on the sphygmomanometer just hides the fact that nothing has really changed. A band-aid has been slapped on the problem. The problem will eventually lead to more problems unless change is made.
This story line can be used with any ill health symptoms and our "health care system's" business of just managing symptoms / controlling symptoms with artificial means. 

I support people's health around many, many of these lifestyle related health issues: (yes, working in cooperation with one's primary care practitioner IS ideal)

• high blood pressure and cholesterol issues

• cardio-vascular disease

• overweight and underweight

• thyroid health

• auto-immunity

• gut health

• anxiety, depression, and mood issues

• on & on

In the first couple of weeks of making lifestyle changes, a person's ill health symptoms can transform quickly. 
A good habit, I tell my clients, is to write down exactly how you were feeling (in body, mind, & spirit) before you start making changes. 
Then you can go back and put yourself back into this ill health feeling in 2 weeks, 2 months, 6 months, a year later.
Never stop reminding yourself how far you have come, how much positive change you have made, and the impact it has had on how you function, feel, and interact with yourself and others. 

After lifestyle transformation, if we could step back into ourselves to exactly one year ago and have this HUGE "Ah Ha Moment", we would 

• bow in gratitude to the work we have done with & for ourselves

• say a deep prayer to all of the powers that have held us together to accomplish what we have accomplished

• vow to only continue stepping forwards in the Slow Health & Healing process

I suggest you do this self evaluation, look back on my progress, journal keeping. Not daily, don’t stress yourself, but just often enough that you see the milestones of recovery AND can look back on how bad things once were. That is such a beautiful reminder to keep moving forward!

Slow Health Education & Slow Healing is what we do in Sacred Circle to Transform your health.

Fall and the Earth Element (The Physical Body's Health) is the perfect place to start on this Sacred Circle Year Health Coaching Experience. Fall, and back to school, has always signaled a new start, transformation for me.

Each Slow Health Education Session is 5 simple weeks long. Join one, to see how you like it, maybe you will be in love with learning how to slow heal yourself and then you will keep coming back for each 5 week session and another Element of Learning.

Mentorship is open to anyone & everyone who wants to learn to slow self heal their health back to vibrancy.

My Yoga Mat IS My Magic Carpet

OR... Why I Love Yoga, Take 3!

5 years ago I wrote an article titled Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing that has been published on several Yoga, Mindfulness, Health, & Healing websites (In a professional holistic Nursing journal as well). This writing was/is my attempt to lure you into a personal practice that will transform the manner in which you exist in this world and support you making the best health and healing choices with each and every choice you need to make.

Did I lure you? Are you immersing into yoga to change your inner landscape so your outer world blossoms?

Yoga plants seeds. Seeds that are possibilities for life long change. 

Yoga lifts you up (body, mind, and spirit) so you can soar and sway with the breezes of life, being calmly flexible.  Yoga also roots you down and grounds you into your life so you can be stable and steady no matter what comes your way.

Yoga has taught me, reminded me, that my human body is a sacred vessel for spirit. My body is the home of the divine essence that is me.

I am a soul in a human existence not a human walking around with a soul (Wayne Dyer, one of many, kindly reminded us of this).  Once we embrace our divine essence and purpose, in our human form, it becomes easier to make those healing lifestyle changes and stick to them.

Your lifestyle choices can and will build your soul a home that is a castle that can weather life with grace.  Your lifestyle choices can also cobble together a shack that feels unwell, daily, and falls apart easily.

When we come home to this, truly embody the fact that we are divine beings within a human body, it makes the task of choosing healthy lifestyle habits the path of least resistance. 

Our inner conversation goes from impulsively eating, without conscious thought, those two pieces of cake sitting there just because they ARE sitting there to being about making choices that are best for body-mind-spirit.

Building Castles not Shacks.

A regular Yoga practice creates new neural pathways of thinking in body, mind, heart, and spirit. These pathways create inner calm, peace, and presence in the hear & now. I have always called this Inner Conscious Connection. Mindfulness is the word we all here now.

Stepping off of my Yoga Mat Magic Carpet, navigating the world in a magical way, transforms the whole world into my Yoga Mat Magic Carpet. 

Sending Love from My Castle to Yours. Namaste. 

Join Shelby Connelly & I at Five Elements Living Retreat Center for a 3 hour Yoga - Acupuncture Mini-Retreat: April 8th (evening retreat) or April 11th (morning retreat), 2018

                                                       Beginner's Yoga : Letting Go Of Awkward                                                         Yoga-Acupuncture-Self Care Evening Or Morning Retreat

More articles to inspire you to jump on a Magic Carpet of your own:

• Why I love Yoga... Take 2

• More Yoga inspiring posts from Paula

Green is the Heart Chakra... Love Your Yoga!

Why I love Yoga... Take 2

When the weather drops below 45, I move to the porch: bright, cheery, & open window for fresh air. Below zero, bright sunny days, are still Yoga pleasant on the porch.

4+ years ago I wrote an article titled  Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing. I have shared, many times, the ways in which Yoga benefits healing body, mind, and spirit. Type "Yoga" into the search bar, over there to the right, and you will find Yoga posts on weight loss, healing, body benefits, stress... you name it. I recommend it. Yoga that is.

Yoga is a self healing retreat every time you step onto the mat and every time you step out into your world living life from a space of deep interconnectedness that Yoga spins and weaves for you; that you spin and weave for yourself.  

If 45 degrees F... yoga on the deck is my preferred place to practice. Yes, cats are a reoccurring theme in this mindfulness; sensing & appreciating the peaceful energy.

So often people tell me: "Oh, I do stretching exercises, I don't need yoga."  Most people equate yoga with doing poses. Yoga is not just about the poses on the mat. That is part of it. Yoga is a way to bring presence of mind to your daily awareness. The poses are a way to embody mindfulness. Poses help to move life force energy, embody breath with movement, and guide our actions into a conscious connection with our true self.

Poses support you synchronizing breath with body, mind, and spirit. Breath is spirit. Yoga poses teach you how to be strong, flexible, and balanced in body, mind, and spirit so you can step off the mat and be strong, balanced, and flexible in all areas of your life activities, in all of your interactions, in your essence of being in this world.

Yoga is a way of being in the world that supports our moving with the flow of the universe, making conscious decisions based upon thoughtful wisdom and mindfulness around choice and consequence, and walking through daily happenings with a presence of peace and contentment (even when life seems to hand us chaos).

Magic happens when a person practices Yoga. Yoga is a tool to connect self with life force energy: inner life force energy and the life force energy of the universe (which are one & the same).  The universe pulses on and with life force energy. Practicing yoga is a way of tapping into this universal energy, wisdom, consciousness. Yoga has been practiced for thousands of years. All indigenous cultures have healing systems for tapping into the infinite. 

Deepening Practice for you... Yes, this is your Self Healing homework.    ; )   

I will happily send you the word document or PDF files of these below Yoga pose practices. You can print and laminate them if you choose. Email me with your request.   pyoumell@gmail.com

Yoga Stick Figures by Charlotte Bradley of Yoga Flavored Life.

Grounding Yourself for Emotional Healing

1.    Remind yourself that you are in complete control of you.

2.   Start your day with an AM grounding experience. I do a blended visualization / meditation that takes 5-7 minutes and grounds me for the day.  I sit on the stone steps in my back yard with my feet in contact with the ground. (Urban dwellers, sit and visualize your feet in the grass, connected to Mother Earth!) I close my eyes and visualize white light coming from the ground, up through my Chakras and Nadis, then turns around at the crown Chakra and goes back into the earth taking all negative (dark light) energy back into the earth to be absorbed. I visualize white light coming from above, through my crown Chakra, and circling back up at my root Chakra taking negative energy back into the atmosphere. I do both of these twice.  Next I visualize white light coming from the earth again, up through my root Chakra.  When It turns the corner at my crown, this time it goes back into the earth and creates a root system from my tailbone down into the earth. Now visualize white light from the crown Chakra, turns at the root Chakra and turns again at the crown Chakra to go back into the earth.  Again, visualize the roots coming from your tailbone deep into the earth to ground you for the day’s challenges. Finally, I swirl white light energy around my body, from feet to head, like a twister moving up my body. This is to protect me from negative energy and other’s stress.

3.   Create peace in your life with a regular yoga practice. The benefits of Yoga are profound.  You will intuitively move towards healthier choices in your life. Your mind will become calm. Your body will respond physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually to the beauty of yoga.  Your body will be in the flow of life. This is true mind -body -spirit healing.

4.   Nourish your body with 100% whole foods. To get started on whole food eating, pick up a copy of my book, Hands On Health: Take Your Vibrant, Whole Health Back Into Your Healing Hands. Read the Free info on my website: Principles of Whole Food Eating,  Whole Health Lifestyle Choices, & more Free Health Info

5.   Get to bed and be asleep before 10 PM.  When your body is asleep before 10 PM, the level of stress hormones in your body drops. When you stay up late, burning the midnight oil, your body pays through higher levels of cortisol hormones. This is stress.  Sleep, sweet dream sleep, before 10 PM and your body’s glandular system works for you in a balanced manner, making happy feel-good hormones!

6.   Get outside every day, preferably moving your body. Yes, I mean exercise. Call it movement magic that heals the divine you!  Something as simple as a brisk paced walk in the fresh air and natural light can do much to reduce stress, create feel good hormones, help you sleep better at night, and ease the challenges of daily life so you can think clearly and make healing choices around food and your health habits. Get outside in sun/wind/rain/snow/fog, walk barefoot, sit on ground, hug a tree, rest your spine against an old growth tree… just breathe in the world around you. Your body, mind, and soul will thank you for this grounding, earthy experience.

Positive, holistically-minded, lifestyle choices make for healthier, happier living.  For a full list of lifestyle choices I recommend to my holistic health coaching clients, click here.     More Free Health & Self Healing Info, click here.

7.    Create a grounding habit you can return to, in a moment's notice, for immediate calming energy. Here is how...

• Find a body motion (hands in Namaste or prayer position or a Yoga Mudra that calls to you),
• a "saying" or mantra* (Amen, Namaste, Blessed Be, Mitakuye Oyasin, Om mani padme hum), and
• a visualization of a space in nature that is sacred to you.

When you close your eyes and do all three you will bring yourself to a place of inner calm. Proceed forth from a space of thoughtful action as opposed to emotional reacting.  The ideas in parenthesis are just that, ideas. Create a 5 second ritual that is your special way of coming into your calm. Use it daily. Use it in any moment that you need to stop and think rationally before you proceed forward in your next step or choice. This is a quick grounding experience.

Be Well; Very, Very Well, Paula   ; )

Extra posts on creating calm, grounding, and healing eating/health habits: 

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

To find more related posts do a search on my blog for: yoga, weight loss, &/or mindfulness.

*Saying or Mantra meanings, they are all Blessings

• Amen: So be it, the well wishing of your prayers & meditation being sealed for integration and to come to fruition in the world
• Namaste: Sanskrit, the Divine in me honors the Divine in you
• Blessed Be: Wish good and positive things upon self & others
• Mitakuye Oyasin: Lakota, we are all related, interconnectedness of everything, we are all brothers & sisters (all beings on Earth, not just humans)
• Om mani padme hum: Buddhist, No literal English translations, jewel in the lotus, invokes compassion

Create Constant Calm

Anxiety and panic attacks are a common health concern. The ages of affected people range from young elementary kids to our wise seniors. Anxiety seems to be across the board and a common denominator in many of my client's health struggles.

I will not tell you there is a quick fix, a silver bullet, or magic wand answer.

I will tell you there are some self-help triage habits you can put into place, now, while you work on the long-term lifestyle changes that will weave and create an inner magic of calm and bliss.

Yes, I know, there is some eye rolling going on here. I cannot tell you often enough how you are in complete control of your own health: body, mind, and spirit. You have the personal power to make every change necessary to create vibrant health, inner calm (even when the world around you is spinning out of control - remember, we can ride the merry go round, we just don't have to get carried away with the ride), and radiant self healing. 

Quick Fix Triage:

This is to help you get on with your life right now BUT please realize you need to work on the long-term solutions below for creating true, lasting calm. Healing body (physical) - mind (emotional) - spirit (soul) is key to whole health.

• Teach yourself to deep breathe right now. Yes, right now. Sit, relax, and close your eyes. Now deep breathe way down low into your belly. Remember the "take 5-10 breaths before you knee jerk respond in anger" advice. It is a truth. Do this deep breath at least 5 times in a session. Repeat several times daily.

• Deep breathing habits, doing while in yoga poses is fun as well, supports toning of the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is a large nerve in your parasympathetic nervous system, your rest & digest - “Constant Calm” branch of your nervous system. Constant stress keeps the sympathetic nervous system branch activated, your fight-flight-freeze branch of the nervous system.

• Create a grounding habit you can return to, in a moment's notice, for an immediate calming energy. Here is how... Find a body motion (hands in Namaste or prayer position), a "saying" or mantra (Amen, Namaste, Blessed Be, Mitakuye Oyasin), and a visualization of a space in nature that is sacred to you. When you close your eyes and do all three you will bring yourself to a place of inner calm. Proceed forth from a space of thoughtful action as opposed to emotional reacting. The ideas in parenthesis are just that, ideas. Create a 5 second ritual that is your special way of coming into calm. Use it daily.

• Chamomile tea is a blessing. Add some passion flower, calendula flower, peppermint or spearmint, lemongrass, lavender flowers (use lavender in small amounts)... there are many tea blends offered by many companies. Buy 3 or 4 and use a different one each time. This prevents developing resistance to the plant medicine's affects. (Teas: Yogi Tea Calming, Tazo Chamomile Calm, Traditional Medicinal's Cup Of Calm, Yogi Relaxed Mind, Yogi Stress Relief, Celestial Seasoning's Tension Tamer - this tea is in glued tea bags so cut the bags open and use the loose herbs to avoid steeping glue into your tea. How to steep medicinal infusions: click here.)

Paula's Tea, below, is available at the Potsdam Food Co-op.  It is a simple, calming, medicinal tea recipe I threw together to create a video with Shelby Connelly of Five Element's Living, Colton, NY. 

• Magnesium: this is a body, mind, spirit relaxing mineral. Think Epsom's salts baths. Try a product called Natural Calm by Natural Vitality. Available at Nature's Storehouse in Canton. The 2 teaspoon dose is 325 mg. I recommend 400 mg at bedtime. This is magnesium citrate and will assist if you are constipated. If constipation is not an issue, this could create loose stools. Pay very close attention. After 1 week, up the dose to 500-600 mg daily by using Calm in the morning and at bedtime. If your bowel movements get too loose try using magnesium glycinate for part of your daily dosage. Magnesium deficiency is common in many people and contributes to tension and anxiety. Taking Vitamin D uses magnesium for integration into the body and can contribute to magnesium insufficiency/deficiency. Pure Encapsulation brand is available in citrate and glycinate form as well as magnesium malate.

• Herbs Etc. Brand Stress ReLeaf tincture or gel caps. This is the link for the tincture because it has the reviews of the product: http://www.herbsetc.com/stress-releaf-1-oz/ I would buy it in the gel cap 60 bottle; 120 bottle if they had one.

• Create a habit of gratitude for everything. This is both an in the moment triage habit and a long-term lifestyle habit, much like the take a deep breath advise above. When we cultivate a true attitude of gratitude in our lives it helps to bring inner peace.

 

Are You Ready for Lifestyle Changes to Create Vibrant Health (and prevent & heal anxiety)?

1. Food is the foundation of your health. If you are eating a whole food diet you are doing these things for your body:

• Creating vibrant body cells that retain their level of health with each new regeneration of cells (degenerative disease, including anxiety, is a degeneration of body cell health contributed to by eating food that is not real, not whole)

• Feed your gut microbial population for health and well being. Whole foods feed the gut bugs you want living in your body and starves the ones you want to see less of in your life. The reverse happens with junk, packaged, processed foods.

• Feeding neurological health by creating healthy neurons (see cell health info above) and healthy neurotransmitters (those feel good hormones manufactured by your gut microbes - see advice above).

• I could go on & on about the impacts of whole foods on each and every body system. If you want this info; please, give me a call and we will chat.

2. Get rid of sugar and caffeine in your life. They both feed poor mood health. Sugar is a get rid of completely issue. Yup, bye-bye sugar.         (I have a donation based online class to help you kiss sugar goodbye for good. Click & Scroll down to Sugar Addiction Be Gone.)

If you drink one cup of coffee a day, and it does not interfere with your sleep at night, don't deprive yourself of this pleasure. Life is about pleasure and the morning, calm & peaceful coffee ritual is a daily self gift.

3. Sleep, my friend, sleep. You know how much sleep you need to function at top notch capacity and feel happy and energetic. So do this! Keep in mind: sleep needs change with monthly cycles, seasons of the year, and your age. Pay attention to you and your individual needs and fulfill those needs! Lack of sleep causes stress. This sleep deprivation just feeds into the cycle of anxiety. Get off this particular merry go round ride.    : )

4. Move your beautiful body. Exercise (that is not a dirty word) fuels your body with energy, feel good hormones, and helps you sleep at night. Move yourself outside so you get the added benefit of...

5. Natural sunlight (even on cloudy days): the sun does really recharge your personal batteries. Remember to get plenty of sunshine that is not interfered with chemical sunscreens. You need healthy levels of vitamin D, manufactured by your skin, to prevent anxiety. Be smart; don't overdo it and burn your skin but get out there and manufacture some vitamin D. If you need sunscreen for extended outdoor time: use a natural one. Chemical sunscreens are toxic to the very body cells you are feeding whole foods to create vibrant health. Why do counter-productive things in life?

6. Get your digestive health in order. You body needs a well functioning digestive tract to digest food and move nutrients to your body cells. Healthy digestive tracts have a gut microbial population that manufactures mood hormones that keep you happy and calm. 

7. Yoga is a gift you give yourself to reclaim your body, mind, and spirit for a peaceful presence in this world. Any body, mind, spirit exercise will do here if yoga is not your thing: Tae Kwon Do, Tai Chi, Qi Gong...  If you want to learn more about the benefits of yoga: go to your right on this page, type yoga into the search bar, and click. You will pull up many posts I have written about the healing beauty of yoga.

I have many more suggestions to alter your lifestyle and create vibrant health for anxiety prevention. Check out my WHOLE HEALTH LIFESTYLE page and make your sense of calm and peace soar to new heights.

A Yoga blog post to deepen your wisdom around creating inner peace: Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing     More yoga posts from a search on my blog: http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/search?q=yoga&f_collectionId=539c849de4b01d9b6dd2fef4

Grounding Yourself for Emotional Healing

My books below were written to support your path of healing.

Hands On Health is a lifestyle primer to support your making healthy choices across all aspects of your life.

Weaving Healing Wisdom is a book on mindfulness and how to create it in your life with activities, food, yoga, herbs, essential oils, and lifestyle habits. Jenny Morrill, of 3 Marigolds Mindfulness Consultation Services, and I co-authored this book. Enjoy with love from Jenny & I.

My work in this world is to support true health and healing for everyone who is interested in making personal Lifestyle Medicine changes. When we grow and heal ourselves… we heal family, friends, our communities, and the world.

Coffee & Donuts not currently available; publisher's issues.