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.
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:
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
Naturally Simple Ways to Weigh LESS...
Naturally Simple Ways to Weigh Less
and Live More Every Day of your life!
This is all about re-balancing your body, mind, and spirit to create a vibrantly healthy you... inside and out. So much more than the number on the "scales!"
- Feed your soul with primary food. Friends and family, physical activity, spirituality and a satisfying career feed us. Lack of primary food creates over-reliance on secondary, edible food.
- Drink water. Most people are chronically dehydrated. We often mistake thirst for hunger. If you feel hungry between meals, drink a glass of water before giving into cravings. Limit liquid calories from soda, juice, sports drinks and “enhanced” waters. Stick with nature made!
- Eat a plant-rich diet. Plant foods are typically lower in calories and higher in fiber than meat, dairy and processed foods, while providing loads of essential nutrients. Purchase your animal products from farmers who raise the food in a natural manner; healthy and naturally balanced foods make for a healthy, naturally balanced human. Make certain you do get enough fat and protein in your daily diet to satisfy hunger, appetite, and nutritional needs for YOU. Each of our needs is different!
- Chew your food well. Digestion begins in the mouth. By thoroughly chewing your food, your body will better assimilate nutrients; you will also slow down your eating. It takes about 20 minutes for your brain to register that it is full. By slowing your eating, you’ll feel full, satisfied, and better nourished on less food. More nutrients in each cell mean a healthier body!
- Eat real food; avoid processed, packaged foods. Avoid products with high-fructose corn syrup or a long list of unpronounceable ingredients. (Reduce or eliminate refined sugars from your diet; glucose, fructose, any “oses”.) Packaged and convenience foods tend to be highly processed, lacking the nutrients your body needs, and are often loaded with empty calories. Avoid artificial sweeteners. Avoid refined sweeteners, even stevia products.
If you have attended my workshops or been supported by me as a client: Remember the cellular health information from the Whole Food slide show? Feed your cells well! Need to experience this workshop? Join me and the Local Living Venture on Thursday, September 25th for the start of the Whole Health and Healing Academy!
A few more tips for balancing mind, body, and soul weight.
- Eat raw foods: raw fruits & veggies, raw nuts and seeds, raw nut & seed butters. Raw foods are rich in nutrients that are not altered by the heat of cooking and provide natural enzymes needed in the body for many processes including digestion.
- Eating enough healthy fats and protein to satisfy your appetite and your body’s nutritional needs: choose naturally raised animal products for protein and fat and the omega 3's found in naturally raised meat, eggs and dairy products, wild salmon, avocados, walnuts, raw nuts and seeds.
- Eat breakfast. Skipping meals causes your blood sugar levels to peak and dip, affecting your energy and moods. It can also cause overeating later on because you’re so hungry. With this said, listen to your own body and what you know works for you. Some people do much better without breakfast and have no problems with the rebound overeating later in the day. Be conscious of you and your needs. I can personally admit I am not a breakfast eater. I get hungry by 11 AM or so. I listen and follow my body's requests for food.
- Eat mindfully. Turn off the TV. Get away from the computer. Sit down and savor the food you are eating with no distractions. Eat from a space of unconditional self-love!
- Get moving. Do any type of physical activity every day. Find movement or exercise you enjoy.
- Get outside. Your body needs fresh air and natural light. You will create life long health benefits!
- Sleep, rest and relax. Breath work creates relaxation, slow down & breathe deeply. Ask me for my educational handout on breath work. When you are sleep-deprived or stressed, your body will crave energy, causing cravings for sugary snacks and caffeine as an energy boost.
- Schedule fun time. Boredom and stress can lead to overeating. Make sure to take time to laugh, play and participate in activities that bring you joy.
- Find a mindfulness practice and use it every day. (Yoga, Tai Chi, Tae Kwon Do, Meditation, Prayer...)
PS Just a reminder about the Whole Health & Healing Academy that starts Thursday, September 25th. Join us to create vibrant health in your life!
Seductive Sugar....and our calamitous relationship
Sugar... oh so sweet and so seductive
Like heroin, cocaine and caffeine, sugar is an addictive, destructive drug, yet we consume it daily in everything from cigarettes to bread. -William Dufty, author of Sugar Blues.
We know sugar and refined sweeteners are a leading contributor to many health problems: diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and osteoporosis to name but a very few. Yet, as a culture, we continue to consume it in heaping piles on an annual basis.
How did we get here as a culture? The use of sugar has been on the rise for hundreds of years.
Consumption in the USA:
- In 1700, the average person consumed about 4 pounds of sugar per year.
- In 1800, the average person consumed about 18 pounds of sugar per year.
- In 1900, individual consumption had risen to 90 pounds of sugar per year.
- In 2009, more than 50 percent of Americans consume 1/2 pound of sugar per day, which is 180 pounds of sugar per year! YIKES!
Sugar's history is an amazing tale to be told.
US citizens are the world's largest (no pun intended) consumers of sugar. The first sugar refinery was built in NYC in 1689, sweet breakfast porridge became popular and consumption soared to 4 pounds per year. We now consume 100 pounds per year on average. For those of us who consume very little, where does that leave others in this average consumption?
Loving sweet tasting foods is a natural human desire. Whole foods that are sweet nourish the body cells with complex carbohydrates, fiber, minerals, vitamins, enzymes, and all sorts of nutrients yet to be "discovered." Whole sweet foods release a slow and steady level of carbohydrates into our blood streams. Not so for the refined stuff....
Refined sweeteners have been stripped of most of their nutritional value. No nourishment to offer to the body cells? Then the "food" item actually robs nutrition from your body cells. The body must deplete its own store of nutrients to digest and absorb sucrose properly. This creates nutritional deficiencies. This is an empty calorie syndrome.
Refined sugar enters the blood stream very quickly raising the blood sugar to very high levels and the resultant high levels of insulin crash the blood sugar. This is how we get swings of hyper excitability followed by lethargy and depression. We feel good for a microscopic period of time, a sugar high, then we crash and burn turning into moody, frustrated, tired individuals.
Sugar is highly addictive. A little bit raises and crashes the blood sugar leaving you craving more, more, more! And did I mention more, NOW? When we go through sugar withdrawal we have mood swings, severe cravings, headaches, fatigue, irritability... symptoms akin to drug and alcohol withdrawal.
Sugar is put into all manufactured foods, those factory made "food products." The reason is clear, sugar is addictive, add it to food and people will buy and eat more. What a great sales campaign!
The health consequences of sugar are profound. Excess sugar intake is associated with weight gain and obesity. Being overweight raises your risk for many health conditions: diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, gallbladder and liver diseases, osteoarthritis, gynecological problems such as infertility, respiratory problems, sleep apnea, and colon, breast and endometrial cancers, to name but a few.
I find it amazing that rarely does a diabetic (or anyone else with metabolic health issues resulting from refined foods and sugars) get advised to remove all sugar from their diets in order to regulate their blood sugar and insulin levels and heal their bodies. If a person had liver disease or lung cancer, would we not advise that they remove the offenders: alcohol and tobacco?
If sugar is so bad...why do we crave it? Sugar in the bloodstream stimulates the same pleasure centers of the brain that respond to heroin and cocaine but in a very pronounced way compared to other yummy foods. Sugar becomes an uncontrollable habit. One feels great while consuming, bottoms out when it leaves our blood stream, and rush to find more.
Leaving sugar out of the diet for 2 weeks ends this yo-yo affair with the sweet, white stuff.
Interestingly enough, until the middle of the 1800's, refined, "white" sugar was a luxury. The wealthy could afford refined sugar cane sugar. Most common people used maple syrup, honey, and crude forms of molasses and the true molasses rich brown sugars (not the modern grocery store variety that is merely white sugar with caramel coloring added).
Take yourself back to the Little House On The Prairie books and recall how they consumed sugar. Manufactured sugar and sweets were truly a rare treat, only at holidays. (Keep in mind that the sugar and food indulgent holidays were far fewer in Laura Ingall’s days. Another testimony to where our collective health has gone and why!)
Think how long a hard candy or small piece of chocolate, given as a Christmas gift, would last Laura. Now think about how we pack away candy and whole, large chocolate bars on a daily basis. Any wonder why and how our health suffers the degenerative consequences? Can you imagine how long an Equal Exchange large chocolate bar would last Laura… weeks upon weeks, turning into months!
Want to return to vibrant health? Removing sugar from your diet is a huge step in the direction of restoring metabolic health. How to do this sugar detox is a question of your style of functioning. Are you an all or nothing type that can completely cut sugar now and never look back (trust me, you will feel so good you will not want to look back!) or do you function better weaning yourself slowly? Knowing what works for you and doing it, surrounding yourself with loving support, and finding ways to sweeten your life without sugar are key components to kicking the sugar habit.
PS Stay tuned for my thoughts on kids' parties and sugar!
Fun Food Focus
Satisfy that sweet tooth with 1/2 an apple and a handful of raw walnuts or pecans. The nuts add fat and protein to balance your blood sugar and insulin reaction. You won't feel a blood sugar crash 30 minutes or so after eating the apple.
Fresh fruits are gentler on your blood sugar. Dried fruits are very concentrated fruit sugars and will elevate and crash your blood sugar, leaving you craving more sweetness to drive your blood sugar back up. Dried fruits will contribute to the same yo-yo cycle with blood sugar rushes and crashes. Eat them with divine respect for the concentrated source of fruit sugar that they are; be mindful of this sugar effect even with natural foods.
I'm Going Home!!
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Build a Better Breakfast...
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