Developing Our Personal Power
I took the words in the below two paragraphs, with permission, from Elissa Hayman's November blog post. Elissa is a spiritual healer from New Mexico. I was introduced to Elissa and her work by a fine, local lady and friend.
I was stopped in my tracks by the most fiery blaze of coppery gold color I ever saw, radiating off a long line of cottonwoods on the riverbank.
Someone else had stopped to admire them and we got to talking. He turned out to be an herbalist who lived in the nearby mountains. His renowned company, Dragon River Herbals, was on the scene in Santa Fe; they supplied doctors and health facilities with their high-quality, wild-crafted, organic products.
Through this herbalist, I learned something interesting about wild-crafted herbs: their medicine is so much more potent because in Nature, they go through a lot of stress. The plants' response to the natural stressors in their environment makes them produce more potent medicinal properties. The "fat cat" herbal plants grown in cultivation don't need to develop the inner strength necessary to BE strong medicine.
That's something to remember in November 2014, when it will behoove us to see challenges like a plant in the wild, as something that develops our powers.
I love these words. It is the wise woman teaching I do around the foods we eat, the herbal plant foods we use for medicine, and the way we cultivate personal power in our mind, body, and soul.
Organic foods have this magic about them as well! When food is grown organically, the food itself has to fend off foreign invaders. In this dance for survival, the organically grown food develops higher amounts of nutrients and develops nutrients that do not exist in conventionally grown agriculture's foods (because conventionally grown foods do not survive these natural stressors).
We are approaching the American holiday of Thanksgiving; a time to be grateful for all that we have and have experienced in life.
Life experiences are the building blocks of who you are as a being; your wild crafting as a human. Take a moment to express gratitude, every day, for your life and all the wild crafting that has made you grow stronger. Life experiences are powerful medicine!
Feed your body, mind, and soul well!
Gratitude for making it safely into the Supai Village in the Havasupai Home, the Indians of the Blue Waters. Gratitude for surviving the long and very, hot trail down into the canyon. Getting out was easy; we started at 4:30 AM and beat the sun out of the canyon!
Happy Thanksgiving with Love!
Herbal Recipe to Clean the Liver from Holiday Eating and Imbibing!
Simple Liver Nourishment Cleanse
Liver Nourishment: This is a very simple way to nourish the liver as it goes about its non-stop job of filtering your blood. Your liver is not “dirty.” Spending a few days focusing on nourishing this important organ is a good way to prevent disease and heal your body. Love your liver with good food, liver specific herbs, and relaxation. Oh yeah, did I mention fun and laughter? Anger is a toxin to the liver; let go of anger and revel in fun, love, and laughter.
Raw food fast for 3 days: lots of local and seasonal berries / fruit in AM with nuts and seeds and then vegetable salads and raw nuts and seeds at noon & PM meals.
***If pre-diabetic, diabetic, or you have any metabolic syndrome issues (where you need to not have high levels of blood sugar surging through your system) keep your intake of fruit conservative and eat more vegetables.
Raw root veggie and cabbage slaws are great in fall and winter for the raw, seasonal veggies.
AM liver flush before any food: juice of 1 whole lemon, 1-2 tsp olive oil, pinch of unrefined sea salt. You can use this simple liver flush in the PM and/or the AM.
I have clients who do it in the AM because they drink their Essiac detox tea at night.
Detox infusion: purchase an ounce of each of these herbs: cut burdock root, cut dandelion root, nettle leaf, dandelion leaf, and red clover blossom.
Each night heat 1 quart of water, stainless steel pot please. When water is simmering turn to very low heat and simmer 1 tsp. each of the burdock and dandelion roots for 10 minutes. This is a very gentle simmer with the cover on the pot.
After the ten minutes, shut off the heat and have 1 tsp. each of the dandelion, nettle, and red clover. Add to pot, stir to get wet and cover pot. Let it sit over night to steep, pot covered. Strain into quart canning jar in AM and drink 3-4 cups over the course of the day.
Relaxing habits when doing a liver nourishing cleanse: Plenty of fluids; lots of good, restful sleep, eating in a calm environment (without screens) and chewing very slowly and thoroughly, yoga, massage, relaxing by the fire or under a favorite tree (seasonally dependent behaviors!) while reading a good book…the point is to nurture the whole you and make your liver feel at peace and loved.
When to nourish the liver: Ideally 4 times a year at the spring and fall equinoxes and the summer and winter solstices. I recommend waiting past the Winter Solstice, after the December holidays, for obvious reasons!
Milk thistle is a good herb to take for liver nourishing and rebuilding. It can be added to the above dandelion, etc. herb tea. Milk thistle is a seed and needs to be added and simmer with roots and/or barks.
http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/making-herbal-infusions-teas/
Capsules, tinctures, teas of milk thistle are good options as a single herb or as a combination herbal formula with turmeric and perhaps ginger…
Taking milk thistle for a couple of weeks after a three day nourishing cleanse can help to nourish and rebuild the liver. You can make milk thistle into a tea with nettles. Again, simmer the milk thistle seeds, very gently for 10 minutes before adding the nettle leaves. Shut off the heat before you add nettle leaves and allow the herbs to infuse, covered, for at least 4 hours.
If you would prefer to do a more intense liver nourishing (that is pre-packaged for you, creating ease), go to this website: www.herbdoc.com and search under the 5 day detox programs for the liver cleanse. It is a very complete liver cleanse kit with a well written book explaining liver cleansing and its benefits to your health and longevity. Think of it as nourishing your liver, fortifying it with the nutrients it needs to do its blood filtering job well.
Dr. Schulze’s products are top of the line and use high quality herbs. They tend to be a bit more expensive but quality is quality.
You can do a more intense, longer, liver / organ cleanse by putting the materials together yourself and following the cleanse for more than 3 days
- Whole foods, raw
- Herbal teas
- Fresh made juices
- Lots of pure water (no chlorine and flouride from municipal water supply; both are toxins to body cells and your liver.)
- AM flush
If you have diabetic tendencies do not do a "juice or herbal tea" only liver cleanse. Eat food and keep your protein level up.
Need help? Give me a shout.
Hugs ARE Better Than Drugs!
Hugs have an amazing capacity to:
- bring peace
- soothe the soul
- ease tension and heal an argument
- infuse your life with love
- reduces cravings for sugar, sweets
- heal the human body, mind, and soul!
What exactly do hugs do that is so amazing?
Hugs promote the release of oxytocin, the love hormone. Oxytocin is the hormone that is releases when women give birth, when we nurse our infants, when we have loving sexual encounters, and at other happy times. When your body releases oxytocin the hormone has a calming, peaceful effect on your body because cortisol (think stress hormone) levels go down! This reduces stress and increases feelings of well-being in your world!
Lowering your stress levels through oxytocin and low cortisol levels helps to reduce blood pressure, boosts your immune function, dopamine levels go up (pleasure hormone), and serotonin levels rise (happy, feel good hormone). There is literally a ripple effect of health and mood enhancing biochemical effects that happen when we hug.
I once heard a natural healer compare the body's biochemical reaction to hugs like the reaction to the chemical cocktail ecstasy (a pleasure inducing street drug).
Seems to me that giving and receiving hugs is so much easier, no bad side effects, and readily available. Maybe we should start selling hugs on street corners! Just a thought.
Action to take:
- Get Hugging! It is good for your health and, if you need another reason, all the above health benefits of hugs help your body balance your weight. Give hugs, lose extra body weight!
- Get a massage. Human, healing touch releases oxytocin.
- Pat a friend on the back... oxytocin is released!
- Love up your pets. Pets like hugs too and you both benefit!
- Hug a tree!
Tell me your hug stories in the comments below.
People hugs are good!
Tree hugs too!
Holistic Healing Taste Testing
My latest Holistic Healing Taste Test has been with Jody Wallace. Jody is a Massage Therapist, Plant Spirit Medicine Healer, Atlas Balance Energy Healer, Ayurveda, and other forms of natural healing - body balancing techniques.
I had Jody do the Atlas Balancing sessions on my spine. I have to say I am impressed with the results on my long-term issues with sciatica and low back / hip aches. Jody also gives an impressive massage. I asked her to rub deeply as I prefer the deep tissue work. Her hands did an amazing job making my muscles and connective tissue feel the "aaahhhhh!"
Check out this space to find out more about Jody. Give her a call; you will be glad you did!
http://atlasbalancingusa.com/jody-wallace/
http://www.amtamassage.org/famt/jody http://jodywallace.amtamembers.com/jodys-story
Comments on your experiences are always welcome!
Dispelling THE Food Myth
So you ask, "What is this myth you are referring to Paula?"
Why it is the myth our medical culture continues to perpetuate:
The food you eat has nothing to do with your long term health. Health is all about your genetics.
So, the wise ones among us use their common sense around this issue and say:
"Hey, we know that. Common sense says that food is the huge impact on our short term and long term health."
I questioned this food issue my very first day in the hospital, clinical setting as a student nurse. I could not figure out why we were feeding my patient, a man who had his 3rd heart attack, these foods:
- instant mashed potatoes with margarine and canned gravy
- pressed turkey loaf slices with more canned gravy
- overcooked, previously frozen, carrot cubes with peas and corn
- a plop of canned pudding with some sort of fake, whipped cream topping to adorn it
I was no nutrition genius at 18 years of age but I was quite certain that nothing on this man's lunch tray was in any way going to heal his damaged heart.
31 years later and I am still convinced institutional food, fake food products, are killing people!
Another food issue arose when I was in my 40's and it was recommended I have a colonoscopy because of my age. I asked if this was necessary as I ate a 100% whole food diet. I was told yes, it was necessary.
So I then asked: "OK, if I ate McDonald's food three times a day or ate as I do now (100% whole food) what would the impact be on my colon?"
The answer was: "Nothing, your colon cancer, colon disease risk, is based on your genetics and what you eat has no impact."
I opted to not have that colonoscopy and went home to resume my healthy eating habits.
Let's play around with some food information for a minute or two....
Packaged Food VS. Real Food
Which food choices do you think will feed your body cells in a healing way?
Take Away Points:
Medical care decisions, preventative included, are a personal choice.
Keep feeding your body with the magic of nature: real food!
Your body cells depend on densely nutritious foods to replicate in a healthy manner. Replication is happening every day. Your food does matter.
Happy Halloween!
Healing the Collective Mind, Body, & Soul!
Human… Heal thyself!
Healing literally means to make, return yourself, to whole–whole in mind, body, and spirit.
Healing is natural
I write this to remind everyone of their own innate ability to heal. Healing is the norm. If you cut your finger, it heals without intervention. Every part of your body is capable of healing if it is given what it needs to heal and thrive. This is a Vitalist philosophy of healing: healing comes through nature. You are nature; therefore, healing comes from within you and through you.
The responsibility to care for our bodies, to ensure lifelong health, prevent disease, and heal is ours. Healing is not about what you are giving up; it is not about deprivation. It IS about what you are inviting into your life: the choices, changes, and additions that will open doors to healing, health, and happiness in ways you may never have imagined or experienced.
Healing your own body is a supreme act of self-responsibility. It means taking control of aspects of your life that have often been left in the hands of the modern medical professional. “You are in the driver seat, Doc. I will do whatever you say.”
Self-responsibility would change the above statement to, “Thanks for being here to support me, Doc. This is how I plan to handle this health crisis.”
“If you don’t take care of your body, where are you going to live?” Unknown
Healing is a simple equation:
Remove the cause(s) of your health issue + add in healing choices = healing, returning to whole!
10 steps to start on your self-healing path:
- Remove the causes of your disease. If you are diabetic, this means removing sugar, in all its forms, from your diet. Lung disease? Stop smoking or exposing your body to the toxins creating the lung challenges. Find a healer who can help you with the task of discovering the causes of your health challenges.
- Add in whole foods. Whole foods heal the body by feeding your body cells with nutrients. Refined, factory made foods deplete the body of nutrients. You want to nourish the body, not deplete it.
- Add in herbs that heal the health challenges you are facing. Every organ system has herbs specific for healing that system. Herbs are whole foods. Herbs feed your body cells.
- Movement. Movement, daily exercise, increases circulation to every body cell. This brings more oxygen and more nutrients to each and every body cell. This IS healing! I call this Movement Magic! Increased circulation also removes the waste products, toxins, from each and every body cell. Again, this is healing!
- Movement Outside! Engaging in your daily movement outside has the added benefit of fresh air and natural light. Fresh air and natural light are amazing healing tools for every body cell. Both help your body to produce the hormones that balance the nervous system and create happy, feel good emotions. Feeling happy and emotionally balanced sends ripple effects of healing throughout your body to every cell.
“Just lift the corner of the clouds and the sun is always shining.” Eli Schechter
- Sleep. When we get to bed, to sleep, before 10 p.m. each night, our bodies work in rhythm with the earth’s circadian rhythm. This is poetry in motion; magic healing energy to your every body cell.
- Get plenty of juiciness in your life! Hydration is a must for keeping body cells working at their optimum levels. The internal structures, organelles, of each and every body cell need proper hydration to do their jobs. If your cellular structures are doing their jobs, your whole body is functioning at optimum performance. Your cells are your building blocks! Get your juiciness from pure water, herbal teas, and fresh produce every day.
- Juiciness in your emotional and spiritual life is also essential for health and healing. When we connect with people we love, who love us, when we have support in our lives, have people to tell “our stories” to, and have people we listen to as they tell their stories, we produce oxytocin. This is the feel good hormone, the hormone of love. Oxytocin is also the antagonist of adrenaline, the stress hormone. Oxytocin helps us to relax, release stress, feel love, and heal mind, body, and soul. Find some juicy friends in your life.
- Kindness. Create and live from a space of a healthy attitude toward yourself, all others on this planet, and life in general. Practice a kind attitude towards all, starting with you. Self-care, and its ripple effects for your health and how you perceive and interact with the world, cannot be emphasized enough.
- Energy Healing. Energy healing helps us to release blockages in our body’s internal energy system, the chakras and meridians. When life force energy flows freely to every body cell, this is healing energy. Find a form of energy healing that works for you and use it regularly to shift the healing, life force energy in your body. Energy healing to try includes acupuncture, acupressure, reiki, yoga, Tai chi, Qi gong, Tae kwon do, prayer, meditation, massage… to name but a few.
Taking one step at a time can create huge changes in your health, happiness, and vibrant longevity. Step up to your plate of health and healing today. Ask a holistic health coach for support on your healing path. This one action could bring some juiciness, oxytocin, into your self-healing equation.
See my bonus pages for more tips on incorporating healing changes into your juicy life!
Every person who self-heals adds one more healed being to the collective mind, body, and soul. These actions, in your personal life, make the world a better place for every living being.
Get healing and, please, tell me your story!
My Happy, Juicy, Life Announcement:
My next book... Early Morning Coffee & Donuts will be out before the end of this year, 2014. OK, so my fingers are crossed that all goes as planned with the publisher!
Are you chuckling yet? A book about coffee and donuts from Paula, seriously? Maybe, just maybe, it is more than you think it is.... read what it IS about here: http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/book-2/
Cheers of good health to you in mind, body, and soul!
Please Remove Shoes & Negative Attitudes
I painted this door sign years ago. I have glued and removed it from a couple of front doors. I was inspired to create it because of a bumper sticker: "Mean People Suck." I also related that sentiment to negative people and their energy.
This past Saturday I watched the documentary film Symphony of the Soil. I was reminded of the beautiful method of how soil rebuilds itself when we care for it in natural ways, recreating nature's gardening methods.
Another message that was clear to me: how farming with chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides is much like fraternizing with negative people - soil / soul sucking!
These chemical means of farming literally suck the life out of the soil. Chemicals slowly and insidiously kill off the soil microbes, fungi, earth worms, and various other life forms that are essential to healthy soil and life on this planet. Chemically farmed soil becomes dry, pale, lifeless, and infertile. Food grown in this soil is nutrient deficient like the very soil it was grown in.
Negative people and negative energy (i.e. watching, listening, or reading the news) do the same to us. These things slowly and insidiously suck the life from our body, mind, and soul. Negative energy in our life is a real force that leeches the nutrients from our every body cell just as chemical farming leeches nutrients from the soil.
Chemical farming is a stress to the soil, to all biological life, and to this planet. (All are one and the same.)
Negative people and negative energy stress our physical body, our emotional/mental being, and our soul. Negative energy activates the stress response. This response eats up nutrients from our body cells. This is one reason why stressed people get sickly looking (pale like the stressed soil), age faster, and contract more acute illnesses (colds, the flu, etc.) and go on to develop more chronic lifestyle diseases than relaxed, peaceful people.
Touch each other's lives, and your own, gently! Northern Sun T-Shirt!
POSITIVE Action to take:
Surround yourself with warm, loving, positive energetic people
AND
Be a warm, loving, positive energy person!
See and inspire the good in everyone, including you!
Whole food RECIPE: Tourlou Greek Mix-Mix (made with local ingredients!)
This is positively delicious!
- 5-6 medium ripe tomatoes (Richard Paolillo's & Vanessa Bittner's Old Market Farm)
- 1 medium eggplant (Kent Family Growers)
- 2 medium red potatoes (Keim Amish Farmer)
- 1 large red pepper (Keim)
- 1 large red onion (Birdsfoot Farm)
- 4-5 good size cloves of garlic (Birdsfoot Farm)
- 2 bay leaves
- 1/2 cup olive oil (I used 1/4 cup olive oil and 1/4 cup of Kriemhild Dairy's pasture raised butter)
- dash of nutmeg and thyme, I am a heavy handed dasher! I would say a good full tsp. of thyme and slightly less than a tsp. of nutmeg
- unrefined sea salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste after cooking
The finished Tourlou, Mix-Mix, with chickpeas.
- Cut veggies into bite size chunks and mix together well (except garlic)
- Spread out in the bottom of two 8 x 13 baking pans
- add oil, butter, bay leaves, nutmeg, and thyme and mix together
- Bake at 350 F for 1 hour, set timer for every 20 minutes and mix-mix away adding water to not "fry" the veggies! This makes for a juicy creamy mix-mix!
- If veggies not tender enough after 1 hour, give them a few minutes more
- When finished cooking add the garlic via garlic pressing into the mix of veggies
- Serve and add salt / pepper to taste
- Serve with chick peas added to the mix or chunks of chicken
- A side of whole grain pita bread, warm of course, is nice
- Perhaps a 'lil Greek goat's milk feta too!
Hints:
- This dish can be eaten hot or cooled. Traditional Greek serving is when cooled allowing the flavors to meld.
- I have used zucchini, yellow squash, buttercup & butternut squash, sweet potatoes... The eggplant, tomatoes, and onion are required... after that, add veggies to your delight. The more you make, meaning the fuller the baking dishes are, use more tomatoes to add to the creamy goodness.
- Another serving suggestion: To get a raw veggie salad in with this yummy dish serve with a Fall cabbage-root veggie slaw OR sauerkraut.
Enjoy!
Ice Cream's Purpose
To Every Thing (turn, turn) there is a season (turn, turn)...
To everything there is a purpose!
So you are asking me, what real purpose could ice cream possibly have? Ready for a story? Sit down, let me tell you a story. Stories are the fibers that weave us together as community!
The recent Indian Summer has been a joy. I love warm fall days with bright blue skies. 75 degrees is about as perfect as it gets. This is still good swimming weather!
The sudden Autumn heat made me think some ice cream would be a good idea. Now I confess, I am not a big ice cream eater, maybe once or twice a summer. Ice cream was just appealing to me. My sister was visiting during this fine summery fall weather. After a hike in Stone Valley, I threw out a "Hey, let's get some ice cream" to her and my kids.
Mistake #1, I opened my big mouth before I thought about it and they (my 2 boys and my sister) were not going to let me off the hook on this one.
So, off to the Potsdam Food Coop a shopping we will go! (I had my way and organic, quality ice cream was on the shopping list!)
I suggested we try a pint of The Three Twin's Dad's Cardamom flavor ice cream. Somehow we left with that, the Sea Salt Caramel, AND the 3 pint container of the Alden's Organic Vanilla ice cream. My sister wanted to get the Three Twins Milk Coffee ice cream as well.
Someone had to be the voice of reason... 5 pints of ice cream for 4 people? Seriously? They listened, we skipped the coffee ice cream!
So, are you wondering about the whole "ice cream's purpose" thing here? Let me just say this:
Ice cream in your freezer is like the canary in the coal mine. It is the perfect way to gauge the correct temperature setting of your freezer. Ice cream too hard to eat? The freezer needs to be turned down, meaning the temperature inside the freezer needs to be raised a bit. Ice cream too mushy and runny? Time to set the temperature in your freezer a tad bit lower.
I recommend any freezer temperature changes be carried out in tiny, little increments and tested frequently. It is totally acceptable to leave a spoon right on top of the freezer, you know, just in case an emergency check is required.
Caution: Do not ever hide the spoon inside the freezer. Way too cold in the mouth!
Action to take: Head on over to the Potsdam Coop or your local natural food store that carries quality, organic ice cream and get some now... before the Indian Summer escapes us!
PS By the way, I do recommend the Milk Coffee ice cream. It is divine! The cardamom was exquisite! Vanilla is simply scrumptious and the Sea Salted Caramel is a must try. You decide!
Tell me your ice cream story!
PPS Remember to join the Local Living Venture and I as we rock your world (no, not with ice cream) with vibrant health and healing messages! Whole Health & Healing Academy continues this Thursday evening with Natural Foods Know How. See you there!