Comparing Your Health To An Antique Table
Antique table and your health? What could they possibly have in common?
You Do NOT Need Me is another thought I had for this post's title. What possible connection could these 2 titles have? I will get back to all of this and hopefully the concepts will be clear.
To heal your body from most of the ills we suffer all one has to do is switch to a whole food diet. Eventually the body will recover its health:
- your gut flora will return to normal,
- blood chemistry profiles stabilize to normal,
- body cells recovery their health,
- hormone levels balance,
- DNA & RNA repairs itself,
- and the list goes on & on.
All of this repair stuff happens just by feeding your body real food*.
Most packaged food stuff, made in factories, is loaded with
- artificial ingredients
- genetically modified organisms
- preservatives
- chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, and
- so many more unnatural ingredients that were never meant to be part of your body's cellular health.
Each time we eat this unnatural food stuff we are chipping away at our body's health. The food we eat is responsible for the health of our body cells. Doritos and soda (or any packaged foods with fake ingredients) every day and you are seriously chipping away at your innate health.
Real Food = Real Healthy Cells
Crap Food = Crappy Sick Cells
If I was to take a vegetable peeler and every day chip a tiny bit of my antique table away what would my table look like? After days, weeks, months, and years of slowly chipping away on my table, the table's value, beauty, and function would suffer.
The same thing happens to your health every time you chip away at it with food stuff that nature never intended us to take into our bodies under the pretense that it is real food. You read about this in my 80/20 Eating Plan Deception. You are chipping away at your health and your innate beauty, function, and vitality suffers.
So why is it You Do Not Need Me (possible post title #2) and my Wise Woman Nurse educational services?
Just eat real food. It is that simple.
Feed your body food that nature gave us and avoid the stuff made in factories. If you must buy some factory made foods: read labels and make sure every ingredient in the product is natural, unrefined, non GMO, etc.
Be good to your body cells. If you want to speed up the healing process... there are many ways to aid the body in recuperating from a non-whole food diet. This is where I can help you weave a bit of magic and make the whole food eating and healing plan happen faster, accelerate the body's return to health!
Toss out the junk food and the vegetable scraper.
Save your body cells and the antique table today!
*real food: food in its whole state
1. If a plant based food, the food is grown:
- as it would have grown in nature
- without GMO seeds
- without use of agricultural chemicals: fertilizers pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, etc.
- preferably with crop rotation and biological methods of maintaining soil fertility
2. If an animal based food, the animal is raised:
- in open space free to roam, eat, play, love, and live as closely as it would have if it was a wild animal
- not fed unnatural foods (grains and soybeans to cows, goats, pigs, etc.)
- no steroids, antibiotics, growth hormones, and/or agricultural chemicals
- treated with loving care by the farmers
Because I have used the words... "You CAN heal your own health problems," I will add this disclaimer to CMA. Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Gratitude Is A Form of Self-Love
Life is what happens when we are busy planning our lives.
A comment made to me yesterday inspired this post.
Comment: Nothing in life ever turns out the way we plan it to, want it to.
I do not believe this to be true and I think when we put our focus on not getting what we planned or wanted, this is all we are going to see.
If we face life with gratitude for all we do have and all that does turn out as planned, our vision of the day and life is so different.
I remember a girlfriend's x-husband said this to her when she was pregnant: "Expect nothing from me and everything you get will be a gift." I confess, at the time I thought "what an asshole he is!" Many years later I can see the wisdom of his words (not that it was so wise to say to your pregnant wife!)
When we expect nothing out of the day or a given situation and open our arms with gratitude to all that does happen, our world is colored in a completely different way. Brilliant technicolor of joy. Gratitude is the attitude of joy - it colors everything in a new light.
Let the doors of life be open to synchronicity. Let your heart be open to synchronicity. As cliche' as it sounds most things do work out for the best. We may not see this in a given moment but hind sight usually tells a different story. Find the magic in life unfolding in every moment.
Gratitude brings peace. Gratitude is self-love. Listen to your heart, it knows.
My Bathroom Wall Quote
PS After writing and posting this last evening, one of my morning inspirational emails came through with this: (Serendipity rocks!)
Longevity Recipe
From NY Times Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-where-people-forget-to-die.html?_r=0
Photo by Andrea Frazzetta
The Greek man above has an amazing story of health, healing, longevity, and defying medical hexing. To read his incredible story of being diagnosed by US doctors with cancer and given 9 months to live and his story of unintended healing success, click this LINK.
Longevity Recipe
Ingredients:
Human with desire for vibrant health
Real food: http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/whole-food-feeding-your-cells/
Garden and/or connection with amazing local farmers
Vibrant lifestyle habits in mind, body, & spirit
Update 2/28/21 Connection to a loving community
It is really this simple: feed the body real food; real food for body, mind, and spirit.
In a recent conversation with a client a comment was made to me when speaking about healing:
"People do not want to believe that food is the problem."
To which I replied:
"Food, real food, is not the problem. The problem is factory made food products brought to you by Nabisco, Kellogg, Post, Betty Crocker, Pepsico, Tyson, Kraft, Nestle... on and on the list of food product manufacturers goes.
Real food feeds body cells for vibrantly healthy regeneration. Food products detract from body cell health, depleting nutritional stores, and degenerating body cells contributing to degenerative diseases. (Degenerative diseases are a body composed of degenerative body cells.)
As a culture we observe the world and look to emulate those countries with a better health and longer longevity:
The French Paradox
The Okinawan diet
Mediterranean diet
Importing their culture's specific foods is not the answer. Cultures who stick to their traditional diets: food grown locally & naturally and then prepared through time honored home cooking methods are the cultures who thrive with vibrant health. No importation of foreign foods needed. Simply grow food, team up with neighbors to share the different foods you have grown and raise, and befriend local farmers who grow real food in time honored and sustainable ways... keep those farmers farming through purchasing their food and supporting their work in this world. Your health will soar, local food economy will soar, life will be vibrantly good. http://www.gardenshare.org/
Reverse these time honored practices and instead eat processed, packaged, factory made food products and your body cells suffer. To digest and get rid of these products (detox, methylate) your body must rob nutrients from your cells. Keep robbing from your cells and the cells degenerate further and further and degenerative diseases are now the norm.
Cultures who have always eaten their locally available and traditional foods create pregnancies with healthy babies who are developing with a firm foundation of healthy body cells. Feed those newborn infants (and their breastfeeding moms) real food and the baby's bodies develop with cellular health intact. Continue this good food, real food trend through the childhood and teen years and you grow up young adults with their cellular health intact. A lifetime of real food, whole food eating and you have a natural prescription, a recipe, for vibrant health and longevity.
The same feeding process for embryos, infants, teens, and all humans in general with processed, packaged food products and the reverse happens: cells degenerate and degenerative diseases are the norm.
Take a peak at the current US population... As a whole, We are NOT vibrantly healthy people.
Junk Vs. Real... Vibrant Vs. Degenerative Body Cells
Bottom Line: Eat Real Food, Eat Whole Food and THRIVE for the Long Haul of Life!
Whole Health Lifestyle Choices create vibrant health & longevity, click to learn more.
To learn more about using herbs to contribute to cellular health and longevity Join my Herbs For Natural Health online course.
This is a no sweat, straight forward class on making simple herbal medicines and 3-5 herbs that enhance each specific body system for your vibrant health.
I look forward to sharing this time honored, wise woman wisdom with you, Paula
Wanting The Work
I confess. I am an observer of people. I think it is part of the path I walk on this earth. I observe to try and find solutions for people as they struggle with life's challenges. In my previous blog post I spoke of Working With What We Already Have. On this note, I want to remind you that each and every one of us, has inside of ourselves, ALL that we need to heal; to reach every goal we have for our physical, emotional, and spiritual health. We just need to work with what we have, call up our strengths (and we have far more than we think or give ourselves credit for having), and put into action the steps we personally need to create a healthier lifestyle.
OK, so first... my floor, back to working with what I had and my promised update. Here are finished pictures of the floor. Not bad for 100+ year old floors that the pro floor guy told me my best option was to bag them and start over!
Perfect? No.
Shabby chic? Yes.
I am happy!
Working in health care (true health care and not just disease symptom management) for 30 years and most recently for 20+ years in personal health education, I have made discoveries. We often have amazing goals for ourselves. We know where we want to be with our health, our body weight, and our physical wellness (emotional & spiritual wellness as well). Our end goals are very clear to us and we do truly want to attain these goals. Most of us have pretty good ideas about what we need to do to get to our goals.
Here's where things get sticky: wanting the work that leads us to these goals of health, weight loss, healing, physical fitness, emotional and spiritual happiness, etc.
In order to be successful at reaching our goals, we have to want to do the work to get there. This means changing the way we eat, what we eat, and our lifestyle habits little by little, step by step (or making sweeping changes if that is how you best function) and sticking with our changes to reach our goals and beyond. Maintaining health means living these newly incorporated eating and lifestyle habits for life, changing them up a bit as the seasons of the years and our lives evolve and need something different. (An example would be slowing down to embrace aging gracefully: giving you body more recovery time between fitness routines and allowing for more sleep at night than when you were 20!)
Reaching and maintaining our goals, for life, is a true "on top of the world" feeling!
The work comes in when we have to suffer a little to meet the challenge of change. I will give an example here in weight loss. In order to lose weight we have to change the way we eat, get rid of the garbage factory made food, and learn to eat less. With this comes the struggle to get through the feeling hungry challenges. If you are used to eating large meals, the challenge will be to leave the table feeling less than full and relaxing, breathing, and moving through this feeling knowing you will be ok, you will survive without feeling stuffed and full all of the time. Going hungry is the work of losing weight for some people. Wanting this work makes reaching the goal of weight loss easier and more acceptable for you to accept the challenges that lay before you.
This is true of many forms of lifestyle change to improve (yes, even heal) lifestyle diseases. To reach the goal of saying goodbye to diabetic, cholesterol, or hypertension medication and ill health symptoms, we must want the work that lies between the present dis - ease in the body and achieving the goal: major eating and lifestyle changes, living completely without sweeteners, and being OK with this and the impacting consequences of our changes.
My job as a natural health educator RN is to give you tools to support you through the WORK of making change and achieving goals. I have raved about the power of yoga to heal on numerous occasions. I am throwing it out to you again because that is just the kind of gal I am... repeat, repeat, repeat until someone actually listens to me! (I keep thinking this will someday work with my kids!)
Why I Love Yoga And Other Thoughts On Whole Food, Whole Health Healing
5 Shocking Ways Yoga Causes You To Lose Weight
The above three blog posts are inspiring posts on the benefits of yoga. I encourage you to explore what makes your mind, heart, and soul sing so that the path of the work comes more easily to and for you every day. Maybe for you it is meditation, prayer, martial arts, Qi gong, walks in the woods, etc. Find your personal soul medicine and practice it daily. Wanting the work will become second nature.
Much love, Paula
PS Upcoming Fall Online Class:
Herbs For Enhancing Your Natural Health
PPS Beloved Beet Recipe!
Substance part of the beet dish:
6 small to medium local & organic beets, gently steamed (save and drink the steam water)
2/3 can organic chickpeas
1 handful each of organic walnuts and pecans
1/2 handful organic pine nuts
Dressing:
2/3 to 3/4 cup full fat yogurt, from pasture raised cows / goats / sheep, etc.
2 tsp. local maple syrup
Fresh herbs of your liking: Basil, Oregano, Mint, Spearmint, Thyme, Tarragon, Chives , Garlic chives, Rosemary (I used all of these from my herb/weed garden out in front of my home)
Serve on a bed of local, organic, baby greens & sprinkle or slather with chunks of soft goat cheese
Working With What We Already Have
Above you see two pictures of my living room floor. The first is the before and the 2nd is after sanding, lots of TLC, and begging my "floor man" to just work with me on this one.
You are probably thinking great Paula, pictures of your floor, but what does that have to do with health. I am going to be quick about this explanation... the Reader's Digest version is what I am aiming for.
In a frenzy one day I made my boys help me rip up the carpet in this room. I hate carpet. I knew underneath there was 100 year old wood floors (my home is 175 years and there are wide plank boards under the boards you see. Hmmm, crowbar? Nah, work with what is right there!) that I would prefer to sweep than use a noisy vacuum cleaner on carpet.
Long story short: hard wood floor refinishing company took one look and said: "No way to make this floor look good. You need to put in a whole new hardwood floor." My reply: "Seriously? Why not use what is there and prevent the use of new trees to make new floor boards and the possibility of creating garbage in this world by ripping up the 100 year old boards. There is history here, lives lived on these boards, stories that I will never hear (the people are no longer alive!)... why waste what is already here? Why not work with what we have?"
I got my renegade, work for himself floor guy (who initially said the same thing about the floor and why I then asked the "pros") and begged him to just work with me on this one. I will share pictures of the final floor when I am finished sanding, fixing up, and poly-urethane covering the boards I am thrilled to have under my feet.
Your health and my floor connection? Work with what you have!
Years ago, close to 20 I bet, I was doing a workshop locally on whole foods for weight loss. After the workshop a woman came up to me and said... I want to look like you. This woman was easily 5 inches taller than me and blessed with the big bone structure of Slavic peoples. I am 5 foot 5 1/2 inches and have the bone structure of a bird. (Trust me, I have had my longings for a more curvaceous and voluptuous body and bones that would better anchor me to this earth in a strong wind but what I have is what I have!) I hugged this woman, told her that her body was strong and beautiful, and suggested she work with what she already has (what she was gifted by her genetics)! Sure, a 25 pound weight loss would increase her health and vitality but her height and bones are her height and bones.
My point(s):
- embrace what nature, genetics, God, Goddess gave you (whatever beliefs you live and love by),
- eat whole foods to re-balance your weight right where it is supposed to be for you
- move your body to keep it frisky and healthy; do not rely on movement... exercise for weight loss, real food 100% of the time is what matters in the metabolism of healthy biology and body weight
- chew your food well to take good care of your gut
- LOVE exactly what you were given (what you have) and care for it in whole health ways to make the very best out of YOU!
There is only one of you. Celebrate you and make you the very best you that you can be!
That is how I am dealing with my 100 year old floors... making those boards the very best they can be and being at peace with their imperfections; walking with the history that came before me!
My Floor & I wish you Peace in discovering that what you have is just what you need.
Life IS A Symphony
Life is a symphony meant to flow in harmony with self and all life on this planet.
When we live in this harmony with nature (we are nature) the music of the universe becomes the dance of life.
So many of us work against this flow, thinking we are wiser than the laws of nature; perhaps that we are above the laws of nature.
I invite you to do this:
- Sit or lie down in a comfortable position,
- Close your eyes,
- Take 10 slow, deep belly breaths (breathing from the belly makes the diaphragm drop down and allows your lungs to fully expand, your breath of life!),
- Envision yourself in the flow of life, all things in harmony,
- Allow this vision to stay with you as you continue to deep breathe,
- Start at your head and visualize each and every body organ & body part, one by one, until you reach your toes; visualize them alive with love, life force energy, that glowing white light,
- Finish up with 10 more slow deep breaths.
- Slowly bring yourself back to the present moment.
Your body, mind, and spirit should feel refreshed and alive, ready to meet the day's challenges with peace.
Anytime you arrive at a snag in your day, pause for just a moment, deep breathe and visualize the white light running from the center of your head to your toes. This is a quickie mindfulness meditation to bring calm and patience to the moment.
Remember your body is an amazing healing organism, part of the harmony of the universe. Allowing yourself to be in this harmony creates a healing effect in each and every body cell.
Healing Blessings, Paula
