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. 

1. Cut veggies into bite size chunks and mix together well (except garlic)
2. Spread out in the bottom of two 8 x 13 baking pans
3. add oil, butter, bay leaves, nutmeg, and thyme and mix together
4. 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!
5. If veggies not tender enough after 1 hour, give them a few minutes more
6. When finished cooking add the garlic via garlic pressing into the mix of veggies
7. Serve and add salt / pepper to taste
8. Serve with chick peas added to the mix or chunks of chicken
9. A side of whole grain pita bread, warm of course, is nice
10. 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!

Life Force Energy, Healing The Collective Soul

Photo and inspiring words compliments of Ali Hotmer of www.Twin Tree Healing.com, West Chester, PA

Life force energy flows through us. Life force energy flows through all living things.

When we expose our self to life force energy (it is all around us, we breathe in life force energy) our mind, body, and spirit (spirit is life force energy) become more vibrant.

As I was walking through my wood I had thoughts; thoughts I felt compelled to write about and share. A few weeks ago I wrote about the healing powers of the great white pine. This healing power of being in the woods, surrounded by trees and plants, I will expand upon.

                                              I really do hug trees!

The woods are alive and vibrant with life force energy. This energy radiates from every living thing. When we walk in a forest, the emanating energy of one plant or tree overlaps the emanating energy of all the other plants and trees around it.

When you walk in the woods, you are literally bathing your mind, body, and spirit in the life force energy of the woodland plants and trees. This is powerful medicine, powerful healing energy.

This healing energy has the strength to bring peace and serenity to you, the strength to heal from deep inside your being.

To your natural, healing medicine bag I recommend you add a daily walk in the woods (even 5 minutes) and bathe yourself in the life force energy, the collective soul of the world.

Poster available through United Plant Savers

Suggestions to enhance the flow of your life force energy: 

• walk in the woods,
• just get outside and walk,
• acupuncture,
• reiki,
• massage,  (a new massage therapist in town, Adrea Elizabeth, is looking to grow her clientele)
• yoga, (more yoga in the Canton - Potsdam, NY area),
• any energy healing!
• AND, how about trying this: (You will be glad you did!).

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!"

1. 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.
2. 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!
3. 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!
4. 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!
5. 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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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!
5. Get moving. Do any type of physical activity every day. Find movement or exercise you enjoy.
6. Get outside.  Your body needs fresh air and natural light.  You will create life long health benefits!
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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!

Energy Out = Energy In

We will not be talking about calories here. 

I was having a chat recently about good luck and bad luck, why not so happy things seem to happen more to some people. I brought up the idea of our energy, the energy we put out in the world with our thoughts, words, and actions. I made the suggestion that perhaps if our thoughts and words are mostly negative in nature we may be actually drawing these negative happenings to us.

The response I received was this: "That's impossible. No one is in control of what happens to them."

So I then threw out this immediate thought: (I am not always good with on the spot thoughts but I do love teachable moments. Ask my kids!) 

"If some one is part of a prayer list, ladder, or tree, they are called upon to say prayers for another person or family when there is a sickness or some hardship. The person then sends prayers, i.e. positive energy, to this person or family in need. Is this not using thoughts, our mind's energy, to create a positive response or outcome?"

We agreed on this.

So my next thought I threw out was... "If we can use our thought process to move energy in a positive direction for someone else, does it seem reasonable that our thoughts and words can do the same for us?"

"Point well made" was the response.

So I ask you to ask yourself questions:

• What kind of energy do I put out into the world with my thoughts, words, and actions?
• Is there a correlation between my positivity or negativity and the general events in my life?

The energy we put out in the world comes back to us ten times over.

Whatever you put out to the univere is what you will get back from the universe.  This is one of the essential threads of the universe.

Positive out = positive in

Love out = love in

Joy out = joy in    (Yes, I am using all positive examples here... for a reason. It is positive!)

Is your life not heading in the direction you want it to? Try on a new attitude. Make positive thoughts, words, and actions part of your every minute thinking and doing. You will find positive thoughts, words, and actions filling your life!

Positive energy is healing to mind, body, and spirit.

Happy healing!

PS If you enjoy what you read here on The Whole Food Healer Blog... pass it along to friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, people you pass on the street!  Share health. The healthier we are as a community, the more positive healing energy for us all!

PPS  Talk about positive energy, pop on over to this page and get a copy of the recordings from the Radiantly YOU telesummit. Best 9 bucks you ever spent!

Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing

Frost, my Siamese Mutt Cat, doing her version of Downward Facing Cat Pose. She IS a natural at Yoga!

Why I Love Yoga…and other thoughts on local, whole foods!

And you are now thinking, what does yoga have to do with the food?  My answer is quite simple. When we create mindfulness through a regular yoga practice (or any other form of body awareness exercises: Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Tae Kwon Do), we consciously make healthier choices in all areas of our lives.  This means healthier food choices. 

Back to yoga.  Why I love yoga… because it works!  It works on many levels, see my above comment around food choices.  The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit word yuj and means to yoke or bind. Yoga is often interpreted as a method of discipline that brings union (yoking or binding) to body, mind, and spirit. Yoga is the study of the Self.  Yoga gives us tools to improve our lives by stripping away the illusions that block us from connecting with our true self, with others, and with life itself.

Yoga is a whole food that nourishes body, mind, and soul.  Food is sacred to the body; it nourishes and sustains us.  Love is sacred to the mind and heart; nourishing the very part of us, our spirits, that gives to others and back to ourselves.  Yoga is the breath of the soul; keeping our life force strong and our 3 parts (body, mind, soul) in harmony and union.

Getting down to the brass tack: I am an exercise enthusiast.  Those who know me, know this well.  As long as I am not sitting still, I am happy.  The list of activities I have engaged in goes on and on and blurs together over the years and decades of my life. I love and have loved them all.

For many years I was into serious weight training and I felt that I was very strong.  When I started to do yoga, I was humbled.  I could not push up into a back bend.  My arms would just not do it.  After a few weeks I had the back bend thing down.  Years later, I now do reverse push ups.  Push ups from the back bend pose!  The strength I have gained is through my whole body (mind and soul!).

Over the years I realized my yoga strength ran deeper than that.  My choices around food and other lifestyle habits became more conscious in a health promoting way.  I paid attention to eating with awareness, chewing food well, eating only what I needed, and stopping before I was stuffed.  These habits around food and food choices slipped in the back door; all part of the study of self (ha ha, yoga!).  All those years of doing yoga transformed the way I interacted with myself and the world around me and I did not even perceive it happening.

Positive things I noticed around food: not needing to fill my plate to the brim or returning to the potluck table for another round of food, being satisfied with enough, passing on the desserts as sweet foods no longer dominated my taste buds, feeling abundance and satisfaction with light meals, and reveling in the flavors / colors / textures / and gift that each meal brings.

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.

When we quiet our minds, we use our emotions to our advantage.  When our minds are busy, our emotions use us.

Change is defined as the process of becoming different, substituting one thing for another, biological metamorphosis, personal development especially if seen as personally "life-changing". Consciousness is awareness of one's own existence and behaviors, inwardly attentive and mindful.  Conscious change involves will and deliberateness, altering self in an intentionally conceived manner.

When we discover that something we are doing in our lives no longer serves our higher purpose as a human, conscious change is how we evolve.  When we discover that the lifestyle and food choices we have made, consciously or not, are not reflections of our higher selves, we move to make change.  We realize our bodies are not vibrating at our highest level of health and we seek out ways to change this:  to heal current symptoms and weight issues and prevent lifelong degenerative diseases from interfering with our vibrant quality of life.

Remember that life is always for us!  Life force energy is always moving towards the positive, health and healing.  It is humans who tend to go against the grain of nature and turn this flow of energy against ourselves.  If you allow yourself to be in this flow, positive things will just happen.

Yoga, or any body awareness type exercise, aligns our bodies, our minds and our spirits so we make life giving choices.  Yoga helps us to become normalized in our eating, to reach a pattern of habits that are normal and healthy for us.  Yoga (or any body awareness exercise) help us to walk into the Potsdam Food Coop, Nature's Storehouse, our local farm stands or supermarkets, and we can make choices that feed and nourish every cell of our being.  We walk out with life giving, whole foods to nourish ourselves and our families.

Update 3/2/2020: over the 8 years since I originally wrote this article, I have learned much info about how science has proven “how” Yoga works. Here is one article that is simple and to the point on Vagus Nerve Toning and Health. The words, in the image below, exemplify how toning the Vagus Nerve improves our wellbeing.

Simply put into words by Donna Farhi, world renowned Yoga Teacher: (image compliments of Trillium Center for Yoga & Health, Potsdam, NY)

A book to inspire you to create conscious living in your life.

This means you no longer make choices based upon emotional triggers. You instead make choices based upon inner wisdom and peacefulness.

Your Ticket to Inner Peacefulness, Buy On Amazon

Namaste  

 

PS  

Update 7/31/2019 I created and teach my Sacred Circle Yoga Mentorship because I see what a daily Yoga practice does for one’s health. This Whole Food / Functional Medicine Health Coaching Mentorship encourages you to add Yoga (any kind of poses and deep breathing habits) to your daily Lifestyle Medicine to retrain your body-mind-spirit to a place of peaceful calm. When we walk the Earth in peace & calm… we are capable of making the best decisions for our purpose on this planet. See the Donna Farhi image above.

Update 4/23/2018  Happy Earth Day!  This post has been used and published in several newsletters and journals in the 5 years since I wrote it. My wish is that the gift of Yoga, mindfulness, reaches out to help many heal emotional issues around food, food choices, and eating habits.  I have since created The School of Self Healing home study courses on weight loss, sugar addiction, and whole food eating that embody the mindful / yoga habits to support your feeling whole and happy in the healing choices you make. Much Love to All.

More Why I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Yoga Blog Posts, Yup, click on the "blue" back there. Enjoy reading as much as I enjoy sharing my Love of Yoga.

Update on 4/29/16 Great quotes from the book "The Little Red Book Of YOGA WISDOM" Thank you Shelby of Five Elements Living Retreat Center for always keeping my heart and soul open to inspiration.

• Yoga is the martial art of the soul and the opponent is the strongest you have ever faced: Your Ego. - Unknown

• Spiritual practices help us move from identifying with the ego to identifying with the soul. -Ram Dass

• Yoga exists in the world because everything is linked (connected). -Desikashar