The Power Of Walking Our Personal Paths On This Planet & A Summer Refresher Drink Recipe!

The Native Americans use the term Medicine Path to describe our personal path on this planet; the gifts we have to offer to all life on this planet. What a strong message this sends: when we do what we are personally meant to be doing on our life walk it is healing to our body, mind, and spirit and healing medicine to those we share our gifts with. Each of us has a purpose, a story to tell, a gift to share with the world to make this place a better place for all. When we listen, truly listen to our heart-spirit, we know our special gift(s) to share. 

Are you connected with your purpose here, the gift you need to be sharing with others?

In my young teenage years I knew I wanted to be a health teacher. Going to RN school, right after high school, seemed to me a great place to start (When I look at my life in retrospect... I was not consciously thinking this out at the time!).  Nursing school taught me that our medical field works to decrease and cover the symptoms of ill health but really does very little, if anything, to get to the root cause of ill health and heal it. Health Education was my answer to get on prevention end and help people understand what causes disease, what promotes healthy bodies, and how to best make that happen in their lives. The road of life led me to my own practice, supporting other's desire to return to health is my medicine walk on this earth.

Finding your path in life means creating space to listen, truly listen to your heart and spirit talking to you:

• take walks in nature, relax and listen to what comes up without creating actual thoughts
• speak positive words about yourself and the world around you, your words create your reality and ripple out to the reality of the whole universe
• practice some form of mind-body-spirit activity, daily, that leads you back to you: yoga, tai chi, qigong, meditation, prayer...
• surround yourself with positive people, positive media, positive energy... positive food for mind-body-spirit
• eat whole foods so your body cells vibrate at their highest nutritional frequency
• discover what makes you happy and color your world happy!

All of these actions help you, your whole being, vibrate at your highest life force energy frequency. This is your medicine path in the making!

In my quest to do the best I can with what I do... I have devised a questionnaire for new clients to determine if I am the right choice for them on their healing path.  This questionnaire also helps me to determine if a client is the right fit for me and what I have to offer. The right fit, on both sides, creates happy clients who desire to be successful in this healing walk with me! We work together to color each other's worlds happy!

Summer Citrus Cooling Drink

• 1 lime
• 2 cups water
• 6 or so ice cubes
• optional: fresh herbs from the garden: mint, basil, tarragon, cilantro are all good choices; use one or two at a time

1. Wash off the lime and quarter it, put in blender (yes, skins & all as the skin contains amazing anti-oxidants... anti-cancer properties!)
2. add water & ice cubes
3. blend into a frenzy
4. pour into tall sipping glasses, add herbs, and enjoy (wide mouth pint canning jars work well)
5. PS add a touch of whole food sweetener if too tart for your taste buds but go very easy as sugar is not a cell enhancing food

I have made this with fresh lemons, oranges, peach & nectarines, berries, etc. Use your imagination and let the seasonal fruit offerings guide your choices.

RACK-ing Up Great Health!

I recently created the above image and idea I am calling R-A-C-K-ing up Health to remind people how easy the return to vibrant health is. When we follow life's plan, the natural laws of the earth and universe, our health flows freely.

I was thinking about this very concept as I was picking black raspberries at my Mom & Dad's home on Saturday morning. I began picking them planning to take them to my home and share the bounty. My kids were gone for the weekend so instead the hand to mouth experience began.

By the time I left my parent's home I bet I had picked and eaten, sharing with my good buddy Basil of course, a quart of these juicy delicacies. That is some powerful and colorful nutrition based upon the stains on my hands, face, tongue, lips, and teeth!  (The picture below is Basil and I on a little north country Hornbeck canoeing excursion.)

The thoughts of vibrant, live food kept passing through my mind and how much nutrition and life force energy our bodies receive when we pick and eat food immediately. Ah yes, the grace of local food, raised by ourselves or a conscious thinking farmer, brought to our tables within a short time frame to fill our body cells with nutrition and our entire being with chi energy.

When we pick plant based food from its life source, its source of life force energy, that plant based food begins to die.  The longer the time span between plucking or pulling the food from its source, the less nutrition and life force energy remain available to nourish your body. Grow, pick, and buy local for the most cell enhancing nutrition and life force energy infusion you can gift your body with.

To find local farmers here in Northern NY State: www.gardenshare.org

To find local farmers wherever you are: www.localharvest.org

Jump down below those gorgeous berries for a bit more life enhancing advice and a yummy, iced coffee recipe.

Eating fresh food is but one way we can enhance our life force energy and cellular health. Try these natural habits for increasing your vibrancy:

• deep breathing in a relaxed and peaceful way
• yoga
• meditation
• walks in the woods and time spent in nature (remember, you are nature)
• laugh
• acupuncture and energy healing methods
• take a swim in an Adirondack lake
• love with your whole heart

Added July 16th...

• Fun Loving Spontaneity increases Life Force Energy. See the words of wisdom, below, from Shelby Connelly, Five Elements Living, Colton, NY

Ingredients for spontaneity:

• The ability to let go:  Take a deep breath and jump. The chores and routine will await your return.
• Knowing life is short:  No one ever lays on their death bed wishing they had worked more.
• A friend to push you off the edge:   Every women needs a "Thelma" to her "Louise". Oh girls just wanna have fuu-un! (Cindy Lauper is my hero.)

Namaste'

Traditional Foods, Traditional Movement

Eating whole foods, real foods, the foods that are traditional to one's area of living and thriving on this planet is one key to healing personal (and global) health. I praise the cell enhancing and body healing benefits of a 100% whole food diet all the time.

I now want to introduce you to traditional movement, the act of simply moving your body in flexing and strengthening ways, the time honored ways people on this planet have always moved their bodies. This is moving the body in the simple acts of daily living tasks that involve using the body not auto door openers and mechanized, labor saving devices. 

The farmers of Birdsfoot Farm, Canton, NY going about their daily tasks: moving, flexing, and strengthening their bodies all while creating something tangible... whole foods! Explore Birdsfoot Farm's website to see what they are up to and what they have to offer towards your healing plan!

We are a culture that simply needs to move more. Movement creates all sorts of healing effects in the body and creates an upward spiraling ripple effect to entice us to make other healing changes in our lives. When we move and then feel better... we naturally want to make even more changes to feel even "More Better!" (My kids used to use this grammatically incorrect more better making the term very endearing to me.)

We are told by the media, scientific sources, and all sorts of exercise specialists that we need to get our butts in gear, dramatically increase our heart rates for at least 20 minutes daily, lift weights to keep our muscles and bones strong, etc., etc., etc. I am not going to tell you to not engage in such activities if you are so inclined to do so. What I am going to tell you (if you are not one inclined towards hard core, butt hauling, sweat inducing, heart pumping, serious shit at the gym exercise...) is that simply getting up and moving your body, several times daily, has huge benefits for your whole body, and yes for your each and every beloved body cell!

As I grow older, I like to think common sense and wisdom is growing with me. I am one who has run miles daily (getting those miles in at 6 1/2 minutes or less was imperative), rode my bike for long and hard miles, lifted my body weight in all sorts of ways (bench presses, squats, lunges, etc.), and swam laps across rivers and lakes... I think you get the picture. In comes the wisdom (I am glad I did those things as I have always had too much energy that I needed to burn but my wisdom also tells me that some of it wore hard on my body parts)... all 4 of my grandparents lived to be just months shy of 89 years old. Not one of them ever did hard core, sweat inducing running, biking, weight lifting, swimming, etc. They simply worked hard in their tasks of daily living, moving their bodies constantly throughout the day to take care of farm animals, gardens, orchards, wood for winter fires, hay for winter feed, etc. Their exercise and weight lifting was part of life and survival from year to year. 

Lifestyle Hints: walk away from the computers (Yup, me too) go for walks, even short ones, several times daily. Walk up the stairs to use your upstairs bathroom every time you need to go (Or do laps about the house, even outside, if you only have a down stairs bathroom). Drop and do some push-ups before peeing, drop and do some crunches or V-seats (boat pose) when you are finished on the pot. Stack wood (I have 4 more cords needing stacking if anyone is interested in assisting with some free movement, no gym membership fee required and I might even make you lunch!) Walk more, do work by hand instead of using machinery, i.e.: push that lawn mower instead of sitting on it (do push-ups and pull-ups before and after mowing), split wood by hand, hoe-rake-shovel-weed, do everything you need to by hand using those glorious muscles and save the drive, and membership fee, to the gym.

I am off now to do some muscle flexing-strengthening-balancing yoga, push-ups, and a walk in the woods with my dog. I will contemplate the wood stacking and lawn mowing!

Create some Movement Magic in your own life!

Sean Corn, Yoga Teacher. Image from Yoga Journal August 2015, page 23, Rainbow Light Nutritional Supplements ad.

This chilly, wet weather on June 28th has me looking for something to do in my oven. With a hankering for yummy granola and my local yogurt, the timing seems perfect to whip up a batch of...

Gratifying Granola

Please feel free to assume that all ingredients are whole (unrefined), organic, non-GMO, pasture raised animal products, and as local as I can get.

• 2 1/4 cup oats
• 1/2 cup spelt or amaranth flour
• 1/2 cup corn meal
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/3 cup water or milk of choice
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• pinch of unrefined sea salt
• 1 tbsp. vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 250 F.
2. Blend dry ingredients together in large mixing bowl.
3. Beat eggs in a separate bowl.
4. Add other wet ingredients to beaten eggs and mix well. If batter is seemingly too "wet" add tiny amounts of flour and meal to create a damp batter.
5. Drizzle wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir to blend well.
6. Spread granola batter in a thin even layer in baking pan(s).
7. Bake for 2 hours at 250 F. Set a timer for every 20 to 30 minutes and stir granola well and redistribute into a thin layer on the pan(s).
8. When granola seems crunchy and well baked (not burned) remove from oven and allow to cool in the pan.
9. Transfer cooled granola to air tight containers. I prefer wide mouth quart canning jars with the 2 piece metal lids.
10. Enjoy in any and every way you enjoy granola!

5 Shocking Ways Yoga Causes You To Lose Weight

updated 8/3/22

10-18-2024 Update: this link is no longer active to the Sivana Spirit blog. I am working on getting the article contents back from the company and I will post it here.

Yoga is an awesome healing tool!

I confess, I did not write the title to my article published on the international Yoga blog: Sivana Spirit.

Had I written the title, I would not have used the work "shocking" as Yoga's affects no longer shock me. I am not certain they ever did. I do know, had I been asked 20 years ago when I started doing Yoga postures, I would not have expected all the benefits Yoga has brought into my life. (Notice I put postures in italics up there. I have been doing Yoga meditation, guided visualizations, and mindfulness work since I was 26. I sincerely had no idea this was Yoga. When I started doing postures, I thought like so many others do, that the postures were Yoga. I have learned a lot!)

But these Yoga revelations have not been "shocking." They have been smooth and silky, warm and fuzzy, and oh so stealth in sneaking into my life.

To read more about these "shocking" Yoga weight loss impacts and benefits, click here. 

Yoga truly is an easy and amazing tool for health and healing. Maybe this fact is the shocker in a culture that prefers more difficult answers. 

Yoga tones the vagus nerve… this is a huge factor in creating awareness of what triggers you to do the things you do & react the way you react. You become a calmer, more peaceful person, able to stop - reflect - and chose healthy choices as opposed to knee jerk reacting into emotional outbursts and choices that do not serve your highest good or healing energy.

Namaste good people.

Yoga Supports these things in Your Life (photos added 7/17/19)

PS  More Yoga LOVE from me to you: 

http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/blog/2014/05/27/it-all-starts-with-you

http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/blog/2013/11/18/why-i-love-yoga-and-other-thoughts-on-whole-food-whole-health-healing

http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/blog/2014/06/06/building-muscle-building-vitality

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

Get Moving!

Jessica Jones photo, SUNY Potsdam Student

Get your body moving

A whole food, seasonal eating plan can do much to re-balance your body weight, heal your body cells, and put you on the path to radiant whole health.  Simple body movement, every day, can take your wellness plan to a whole other level. 

Think about this:  if you have a sedentary lifestyle, weight gain and an unhealthy body (unhealthy body cells)  is pretty much a sure thing. Instead of reaching for the remote, pick up some hand weights. Instead of the elevator, take the stairs. Get your body moving every day. Work up to 30 minutes every day, you will feel the benefits!  Ask for my hand out on the mind, body, and soul benefits of exercise.

Regular exercise increases your metabolism and your ability to burn fat, improves your mood through the release of endorphins (endorphins are a human's best friend, natural anti-depressants!  Who doesn’t like that movement benefit?), and helps to keep your heart in top notch condition. And as a stress reliever, it can't be beat. A simple 20-30 minute workout has the ability to quiet our mind, make us more present in our body and in the moment, and helps us to relax - important components for a whole health lifestyle.

Think that exercise has to be boring or drudgery? Think again! Most of us can find some type of exercise that motivates us to get into action, make friends, and have fun. What did you like to do as a kid to run and play?  What made you laugh and lose touch with time? Re-introduce yourself to these movement activities. Prefer the solitude of going it alone?  Perfect, get your shoes on and hit the trails.  Wood walks are a perfect place to exercise and find peace.  Exercise doesn't have to require expensive trainers, gym memberships, or a $2000 home gym.  It only requires movement and the commitment to you and your long-term health & vitality.

Here are a few suggestions: -- Do what you love. Be it hiking, rowing, running or belly dancing.  It's important to find exercise that's motivating to you. What will get you up off the couch and/or away from those sedentary screen lifestyles?

-- Get walking. Unlike running, walking is easier on your joints and is one of the simplest forms of exercise. It is free and easy!

-- Find a partner. For many people, exercise can be even more fun if you have someone to help motivate you. Who could you partner with on the road to better health?

-- Buy an inexpensive exercise DVD. Without having to belong to a gym, you can get the benefit of instruction and motivation in the comfort of your own home. You will lose weight, tone your entire body, and increase your balance/flexibility/strength  - all within manageable time frames.

--Stand or use a stepper when you work at your computer.  Your body will feel better when not sitting for hours as the human body was designed for movement, not sitting in chairs.  I still encourage you to get outside and move every day.  The added benefits of natural light and fresh air ramp up the endorphin benefits.

What are your life movement plans?

23 Benefits of Exercise, Movement Magic