Embrace Your Sacred Cow

Cows gracing peacefully at The Lands At Hillside Farm, Shavertown, PA

Cow? Really Paula... where can you possibly be going with this? Get as big as a cow? Be gentle like a cow? Have gorgeous, long lashes like a cow? 

Nah, something much more practical! Chew like a cow people. Chew long, luxuriously, peacefully, and gently. 

95% of the clients and students I work with have some sort of GI Tract upset. Their digestive tract is struggling to do the job of, well, digesting. So many more of your bodily processes (all of them really) rely on your digestion so the rest of your body's functions can happen effortlessly. Yup, the bottom line is that efficient digestion is what creates the downstream effects of well nourished body cells or not so well nourished cells. Good digestion and a healthy digestive tract lead to:

• food well broken down into usable nutrients that are
• absorbed through that health 1 cell thick gut lining and then
• circulated effortlessly through the blood stream until these nutrients
• arrives safely at each and every body cell's doorstep and then they
• move across the cell membrane with ease and peace to be
• utilized by every intercellular organelle to make the miracle of you happen in each and every moment.

Digestion IS a sacred and beautiful thing. 

Just because these below images leave out the mouth and esophagus... don't fall for the same foolishness. Both are very important parts of your digestive tract... as is your brain and nervous system! Mouth to brain to gut communication is so key for release of your digestive juiciness.

So I ask... why do we, as a culture, shovel food (or worse yet: food products) into our mouths with no thoughtfulness around what we are eating say nothing about how we are eating it. We then expect our bodies, minds, and spirits to soar with great health and carry us through our days effortlessly and with ease?

I have written numerous times about the sacredness of food, meal times, and chewing. Is anyone listening to me? I know my kids are not...

Here's a suggestion: 

So many of us do realize that bedtime routines/rituals are so beneficial to creating deep and peaceful sleep every night. (Although, many of us are in need of embracing this bedtime sacredness as well.)  My suggestion is to start seeing meal time rituals as important and sacred. Relax, breathe deeply, and chew well. Maybe light a candle to remind yourself how important you are and how important it is to slow down and nourish your body, mind, and spirit with food and eating (chewing your food well much like the cow does instinctively and intuitively with every bite and every mouthful of grass!). 

For my PDF handout on chewing your food well click this link: http://issuu.com/paula754/docs/chewing_with_pictures

Blessings of Happy, Healthy, Peaceful, and Nourishing Meals To You!

Active Vs. Passive Medicine

                     Active                    Vs.                       Passive

Healing oneself takes an individual's active participation in the process. This participation can be physical (body), emotional (mind), or spirit work.  Often times, all three woven together into a beautiful Self-Healing tapestry is your healing magic in action.

We live is a culture that generally works from a space of passive health care.

One western medicine scenario:

1. Visit your practitioner.
2. Explain your symptoms, issues, challenges.
3. Have a prescription handed to you.
4. Go home and take your pills.

Rarely does a western medical practitoner ask you to participate in the process of regaining your health. Drugs and surgery do not get at what is causing your health crisis. Drugs cover up the symptoms. Surgery removes the damaged organs but never opens up space to determine why this organ is in a state of dis-ease and how can I change my habits to reverse the damage that has been done?  What is actually causing the symptoms usually continues in a person's life because no one asks us to take a hard look at what made us arrive at this space of ill health. When we do take this hard look, unravel the causes that led to the problem, we can then start working in reverse to remove the problems and recover health.

Examples of the "You don't have to do anything active about your health problems" scenarios:

• High blood pressure: just take this pill and it will bring your blood pressure down. 
• Type 2 Diabetes: again, take this pill and continue doing what you have been doing. Until, of course, your diabetes get worse and now you need to... inject yourself with insulin at least once daily.
• Joint problems: take this pill, come on in for a replacement... keep eating and drinking all you have been because like the problems above... these problems are not your fault. You know, it's just bad genes. Take this pill and call it a day.

I could go on & on... PMS, menstrual irregularities, infertility, arthritis, auto-immune disorders, cancer... Nothing you eat, drink, or do in your life has anything to do with the presence of this health problem in your life.

Or so we are led to believe by mainstream media, mainstream medicine, and mainstream agriculture.

Active Participation in your health and healing means taking ownership of your lifestyle habits; true Lifestyle Medicine. Lifestyle Medicine is Active Medicine. You are asked and required to take a participatory role in your health and healing. You are invited to make changes towards whole health eating and whole health living that will ultimately repair your body cells.

1. How has the food I have been eating over the course of my life impacted my body's cellular health?  (Unhealthy cells mean an unhealthy body.)
2. How are my daily lifestyle habits impacting my health, my display of symptoms?
3. How is my body weight affecting my heart, blood pressure, diabetes, joints, back problems, and overall health?

It is time for your health care providers to invite you and inspire you (that is right, health care professionals who activley participate in their own well being and are good role models of real health). Your health cae providers need to be asking you questions:

"Stand up people. Take a hard look. Where can you change habits that have contributed to this crisis in your health? What can you do to actively return your body to vibrant, vital health?"

Trust me, return to health is a reality.  You just need to get active about the process. Invite healing support into your life:

• Lifestyle medicine professionals (think Functional Medicine, Functional Nutrition, Naturopathic Medicine, Holistic Health Coach)
• Acupuncture
• Massage
• Reiki
• Shamanic Care
• Chiropractic Care
• Spiritual Counselor
• Osteopath who practices lifestyle medicine

So where does preventative health care fit into this?

There is a difference between mainstream medicine's view of preventative health care and "holistic - whole health care - lifestyle medicine's" idea of preventative health care.

Mainstream's Idea of Prevention  -  Whole Health Care's Prevention                                                            (Lifestyle Medicine)

• mammogram                                                                          whole foods
• colonoscopy                                                                            deep, restful sleep
• cholesterol screening                                                              maintain healthy weight
• prostate exam                                                                         yoga, meditation mindfulness
• bone scan                                                                               moving the body daily
• vaccines                                                                                  immune building lifestyle habits
• diabetes screening                                                                  good posture
• blood pressure screenings                                                      hydration with pure water (no chlorine and fluoride)

Natural health habits are preventative health care; TRUE preventative health care.

The "get your annual mammogram, colonoscopy, cholesterol screening type of prevention" (which often leads to your lifetime pharmaceutical prescriptions)  does not actually prevent anything but instead is an early detection tool so your symptoms of dis-ease can be treated, managed, for the rest of your life. This is management of disease through management of disease symptoms.

Healing, active medicine, needs to be part of this equation.

Active Health Care is about real preventative health care... choosing lifestyle habits that build amazing cellular health & vitality so you truly prevent dis-ease from ever darkening your doorstep and actually knocking on your door. 

If disease symptoms are already part of your life, Active Health Care invites you to heal your symptoms of disease. 

I invite you to become an active part of your own healing team AND I will do my best to educate you and inspire you (be a healthy role model) towards whole health choices and self healing! 

Join me at 5 Elements Living for

Creating Inner Wisdom: Your Personal Health Journey

Register Today

3 Class overview
• March 27th: Eating for Cellular Health
• April 3rd: Natural Food Know How
• April 10th: Wise Woman Nurse "Movement Magic"
for Digestive Health & Herbs for Gut Health

Monday Evenings 6-8 PM

More info? Click here.

Ready to join us? Register here.

Why I Am Not Vegan Anymore

I am asked these questions around food and eating quite frequently:

• What is the healthiest way to eat?
• You aren't going to tell me I have to be vegetarian or vegan to heal my health problems?
• What happened to you?!... You were vegan, you had it so right, why did you change?

Just what is healthy eating? Ask that question of 10 different people and you will probably get 10 different answers... some spewed forth with the enthusiasm of a food fanatic. Hey, I only say this as I know, I could be mildly fanatic in my hey day.     

I am grateful for age, wisdom, and my more laid back attitude (Thank you very much yoga). I am now more careful where and when I say my famous quote:   "I wouldn't feed that crap to my dog."               Which honestly is an insult to my dog, any dog. I have since replaced dog in that statement with my compost pile fully realizing it is an insult to my compost pile's amazing bio-diversity and work on this planet. *Why feed my compost pile junk food, GMOs, non-organic crap? I don't want that cycling back around into my garden plot OR worrying about the wild animals who eat out of the pile (including my dog!) and would be getting less than whole food choices. Yup, see I can be a zealot.

20+ years ago when I returned to Northern NY, my home (I grew up in Brasher Falls), I was vegan and had been for 5-6 years. Truthfully, I thought I would starve to death up here.  I quickly found Nature's Storehouse, The Potsdam Food Coop, and Birdsfoot Farm (I believe Birdsfoot was the only organic produce farm in the area at the time).

So, what made me toss aside my vegan ways, turn back the clock on my omnivorous eating? It was a circling back of wisdom I already held within. 

1. I was pregnant, 33, always hungry, and dreaming of my Mom's roast beef dinner, venison stew, and chicken and dumplings. Listen to your body. I did! Our bodies have a wisdom as deep and pure as the earth is old. I listened (with a little encouragement from my Dad that I would not rot in hell for eating meat AND he was worried about his grandson who was hanging out in my uterus at that time). Even my 100% whole food vegan diet, no packaged fake meats and cheese... processed food is processed food, was not supporting my pregnancy well.

2. A Wise Woman Native American made a simple statement to me one day (this was before I was pregnant), as we were talking about vegan eating, that brought me full circle back to the wisdom I already held within: "Everything you eat must die for you."  

Over the years this statement has held strength with me. Everything on this planet holds spirit in its being: plants, animals, the water, air, fire, the Earth herself. When we pull a carrot from the ground we are essentially birthing that carrot from its Mother, Mother Earth. That carrot is alive, alive with life force energy. The carrots roots are its umbilical cord to the uterus that was sustaining it, again, Mother Earth. Life force energy is spirit. To eat we must take a life. Who am I, as a human, to be placing higher value on one life over another. In the great web of life, all beings on this planet are required to balance out all others, all beings are equal.

Eating, actually everything we do on this planet, is a gift we receive from the Earth. Gratitude, deep and sincere gratitude, is a gift we give back to honor all the beings we use for food, medicine, building homes, driving cars, stuff we buy and own, etc. all which comes from Mother Earth. 

Yes, there is more to the story but this is enough for now.

As a kid, I knew this deep life force energy of all things. Kids just do. Trees and plants have always held special energy for me (they do for everyone). I spent hours of my summer up in trees: reading books, eating meals and snacks, lounging back against a sturdy trunk to drink my quart of Homestead Dairy's chocolate milk after school, and taking naps sprawled belly down across the length of a branch with my arms and legs dangling. I had favorite maple and white pine trees for climbing and "living" in. I had a favorite white pine for napping under: the years had piled brown needles under her branches and she faced south. Who could resist such a warm and fragrant bed? I would take my faithful friend Buster (a lop eared beagle), books, and water and head through the fields and woods to get to this pine tree a few miles from my home. Buster and I would camp out: me reading and napping in the fragrant, warm, brown pine needles with the south sun shining on me and Buster terrorizing the small animals of the woods until he was tired and napped next to me.

This deep life force energy of all things... we are culturally trained to forget it. So it was easy for me to think that the only lives I was eating that mattered were the animals. Coming full circle... the life force energy, spirit, in everything matters. (I still eat, enjoy, and am grateful for many vegetarian & vegan meals every week. Is not a meal of butter vegetarian? A meal of dark chocolate vegan?)

What are my healthy eating recommendations?

• 100% whole foods
• Grown and raised as close to home as possible, this means eating seasonally
• Eat only what you need to sustain yourself, over indulgence of anything is over indulgence
• If you know a food does not make you feel vibrant... don't eat it
• A food that makes you soar with happiness & energy? Eat it... well, if it is whole. Dunkin Donuts® do not count here.
• Be deeply grateful for every bite: grateful to the food, the Earth that nurtured the food, the farmers that worked hard to bring that food forth to your plate, fork, & table, the person shopping & cooking for you...
• Show your gratitude by eating in peace, chewing slowly & thoroughly so your digestive tract can do the work to bring the Earth's nourishment to every cell in your body

As We Express Our Gratitude,

We Must Never Forget That The Highest Appreciation

Is Not To Utter Words,

                              But To Live By Them.     John F. Kennedy

Native American Gratitude Prayer

We thank Great Spirit for the resources that made this food possible;

we thank the Earth Mother for producing it,

and we thank all those who labored to bring it to us.

May the wholesomeness of the food before us, bring out the wholeness of the Spirit within us.

*Any food you eat should have been grown with healthy, sustainable, biodynamic principles in mind:  How was this food fed? If a food, plant or animal based, was fed healthy food... its cells will be well nourished and therefore capable of nourishing your cells. If a food you were eating was fed less than whole food, that food will have less than whole nourished cells, and will be incapable of fully nourishing your body. 

For deeper diving into this feeding your food issue:                                                                                     What Does Your Farmer Feed Their Cows, Chickens, Pigs, Goats, Vegetables, Fruits...?

5 Easy Ways To Shift The Energy Of Your Life's Path

Easy is a relative word and is subject to much subjectivity. 

1. Practice being mindful in every moment.  

Excerpted from an article I wrote in 2012 for the Potsdam Food Coop's newsletter, {in my day, you know the uphill both ways to school - barefoot AND in the snow, mindfulness was simply called yoga,  ; ) }      

I have always urged and supported others to practice some form of mind, body, spirit "exercise" to bring a centered awareness into their life as this daily habit makes the process of healthy lifestyle change flow with ease & grace (seriously my friends, I am not pulling your yoga leg here): 

When we stop the constant chatter inside our heads and still our minds through mindfulness activities (yoga and other body awareness exercises), we tend to make choices that are in alignment with what is best for our health without feeling deprived.  This is because we have learned to live in the present moment and are aligned in body, mind, and spirit.  That is the awareness that Yoga brings to our being.
A cluttered "chattery" mind and a body that is not aligned in mind, body, and spirit tends to make decisions based upon impulse and cravings without regard to what is best for long term health.

2. Practice daily mindlessness!  Zone out. Stop the chatter. Pay attention to breath only.  

When we are so bent on living a life of being mindful in every moment we forget to just let go and be... be mindless for a bit. Literally people, NOTHING, going on in our heads!

Check out this Daily OM post by Madisyn Taylor. It was fitting to this thought of mindlessness.

3. Sign up for someone's daily email or social media posts that are positive and inspirational.

Read them. Reflect on them. Allow the words to weave their magic into your body, mind, and spirit. Live the words for your own peace and for the peace of all who walk your path with you.

Hey... I wrote a book on daily reflections and inspirations. This book will gift you a year's worth of body, mind, & spirit magic. Go ahead... cast a spell for yourself.

4. Revel, truly revel, in who you are and your life's purpose on this planet.

Let your true self shine, shine, shine.

"This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine..."

Check out this youtube link for a bit of musical inspiration. 

5. Offer kindness and compassion every where you go to everyone, every being, & everything. Seriously.

The natural - spiritual law of 3 fold:

"For all that we say and we do "for good or for ill, shall be returned to us threefold."

What goes around comes around baby!  Make your karma & dharma shine, shine, shine! See the above song link for another deep dose of musical inspiration.

May Your Life Be Full Of Wild & Fun Adventures

&

Free From Ordeals.  

: )

Skip Excuses, Find A Way!

We intuitively know when something needs to             change in our lives; something needs to shift.

Self Healing begins with making change; shifting habits in our daily lives.

Make the shift; create the change you need, you crave, now.  Skip making more excuses.

Try these life changing steps:

1.  What is the problem, challenge?  Write it down, give it a face.

2.  Brainstorm:  How can I solve this problem, fix this life challenge?

3.  Pick the best option(s) from above and move forward... start making change today.

4.  Creating positive action around change prevents looking back at life with regrets.

5.  Love yourself and others unconditionally!  Peaceful, loving kindness makes change easier on you and everyone around you.

Calming Digestive Tract Woes With Your Mind

Meditation - Visualization for Healing Your Gut Health

All Disease begins in the gut.                                                                                                                                                                           Hippocrates

Health begins in the gut. The reverse is also true: disease begins in the gut. Taking steps to reduce the angst in your life reduces the angst in your gut. Over the long haul of life... this is a gut healing gift to yourself!

1. Grab a blanket or two, maybe a yoga mat, and some pillows or props to make yourself comfy.
2. Lie down on your back supporting your head and knees to keep your lower back happy.
3. Take at least 5 slow deep breaths. Simply focus on your breath moving into and out of your body. Relax. Let go. Be at peace.
4. Take 5 more slow deep breaths sending the breath directly to your digestive tract. Feel your breath enter and exit the digestive tract. Feel your breath's energy swirl within the digestive tract.
5. Relax and just breath normally letting your mind stay calmly without thoughts.
6. Slowly bring your body, mind, and spirit back to the room. When you feel like returning to life... get up and get going keeping this peace and relaxation with you. 

When we are stressed, tension happens. This tension in the gut slows and impairs digestive function. Over time this gut tension, angst, contributes to ill health symptoms in your digestive tract.

When we calm the mind and bring healing energy (breath) to the gut, we relax the angst that builds up in the gut and the body as a whole. Relaxation, meditation, visualization, breath work... all ways to bring healing energy to your gut (to your whole body, mind, & spirit!).

Going Deeper with Gut Healing Visualization

Practice the above simple visualization for several days. When you are comfortable with the above technique... try this:

1. Gently observe and learn the above chakra chart. Simply remember where each chakra is located (top of head, between eye brows, throat, heart center, belly button, just below belly button, under pubic bone).
2. Lie down on your comfy blanket or mat, supporting your knees and head.
3. Take at least 5 slow deep breaths, quiet your mind, relax.
4. Breath deeply now and each time take your full breath (inhale & exhale) to your chakras, one chakra/one breath at a time. Start at the crown chakra (top of head).
5. Take a deep breath directing the flow of breath (in and out) to each chakra down your body.
6. Relax.
7. Finish with a few more slow, gentle breaths.
8. Slowly bring your body, mind, and spirit back to the room. When you feel like returning to life... get up and get going keeping this peace and relaxation with you. 

To create a bit longer calming the gut angst session:

1. take 2 breaths directed at each chakra.
2. swirl the breath, life force energy, at each chakra.

Another Deep Relaxing Gut Healing Technique

Are you a reiki person?  If so after finishing the above relaxing visualization try this:

1. Visualize yourself on a massage/reiki table.
2. Do a mini reiki session on yourself through visualizing yourself on the table and standing next to the table doing the reiki. Hold your visualized hands over each chakra (reiki hand positions) for one or two long, deep breaths.
3. If you have the time... flip yourself over on that table and do the back side hand positions as well, finishing the visualized reiki treatment in the traditional reiki practice sequence.

Try this visualization (or either of the above relaxing visualizations) when lying in bed and unable to sleep. Conscious breathing and relaxing visualizations are a fine way to calm down your body, mind, and spirit for better sleep and better moving through your daily life.

Healing the gut is a great first step in healing so many health challenges. For natural Gut Healing Guidance & support, check out my online course:

Healing Your Gut For Lifetime Vitality