 Tips To Help You Reclaim Your Health (Without Disrupting Your Life)
We all have the capacity to live healthy, happy, and long lives. Unfortunately, in the hustle and bustle of the world we live in, health often takes a backseat to pretty much everything else. But it should not, and it does not have to. With a tiny bit of restructuring, a few positive changes, and an open mind, you can change the way you live without losing out on the fundamentals that make you happy. Understanding Energy There is energy all around us. You can feel it when someone with a bad attitude walks into a room just as well is when you hear a baby giggle. And bad energy may be exactly what’s zapping the life right out of you. Start evaluating your space by looking at your home. If your house is cluttered, dirty, and hasn’t had fresh air breezing through the hallways in months, it may be time for a quick home overhaul. You can almost immediately change the ambience of your home by simply giving it a good cleaning. You might also try smudging with sage or other herbs and getting rid of heavy window treatments to allow more natural light to come in. These small steps may reduce tension at home while injecting some positivity into everyone’s day. Essential Oils Are More Than A Fad If you have never used essential oils, you should. Not only can these help with aromatherapy, but many can be used on your body and even in your food. The Joy Of Being Well recommends doTerra because of their high vibration and energy. People have been using fruit, bark, and root oil for centuries to heal the mind and body. One great example of how you can use essential oils in your own life is to simply add a fraction of a drop of peppermint oil to your daily tea. Peppermint is known for both its calming properties and its ability to exhilarate the mind and body. Getting Very Close To Vegetables If you paid any attention to the media the last few decades, you know that eating a plant-based diet is quickly becoming mainstream, and for good reasons. According to Vegetarian Times, eating a diet of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and other plant-derived foods may help you live a longer life and reduce your risk of food-borne illnesses. If you are a woman, you may even experience fewer symptoms of menopause, and everyone will benefit from a boost of energy provided by antioxidants and other nutrients in whole foods. If you are not currently eating a plant-based diet, it does not take much to get started. There are plenty of vegan recipes online, and you can usually find a healthful variety of foods that will easily become your favorites. Other Health Tips Other ideas to help you remain at the top of your game are to:
Little steps, such as changing the way you eat, moving more, and clearing the clutter from your life won’t turn your world upside down. What these strategies will do, however, is help you make the most of this thing that we call life. Don’t wait, today is your day and there has never been a better time than now to live at your healthiest best. Guest author: Jennifer McGregor mcgregor_jennifer@publichealthlibrary.org PublicHealthLibrary.org
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 Dear Human,
Did you know that we are the only species that continues to live in the past? If an animal in the wild is confronted by a threat, she will run or fight to survive. However, as soon as that threat is gone, she will go back to loving her life, enjoying the open range, the cool water or the dense woods, the trees, the birds, the plentiful food. She does not live in the high adrenaline state of fear. She does not replay the threat over and over in her mind. She will remember which circumstance provided the possibility of threat (the watering hole), and she will be alert, but she will relish the water, play in the water and thrive. As humans we have the capacity to relive any memory. We often embellish these memories to keep them alive, and we live them over and over again. If the memory is good we enjoy going back to it. If the memory is unpleasant, we dread it and it often finds us in our sleep. As humans we pride ourselves in being survivors. We have all experienced trauma at some point in our lives. It might have been beatings or neglect as a child, or the extreme of seeing someone you care for brutally murdered – trauma is part of every person’s experience. Another often unreasonable capacity we humans have that our animal friends do not, is the ability to attach guilt and or blame to the trauma. That then brings up anger and resentment, either toward ourselves or the perpetrator. Of course the anger and resentment fester in our souls creating a fetid swamp that eats away at our joy. We call ourselves ‘Survivors’ with so much pride. We have been through the fire and we lived. We live with the pain, but we keep going. We keep pushing through. We keep surviving. What a sad way to live. I believe, because I have seen it over and over in my practice, that we humans can release the energy of trauma. We can allow it to surface and then let it go. We can recognize it for what it was, a profound experience that showed us what we do not want in this life. It showed us what we do not want to create for ourselves or others. It also showed us what we DO WANT to create for ourselves and other. For those who grew up in the 60’s, our trauma was Viet Nam and the horrors of segregation that we were so ready to abolish. We protested. We wrote songs. We experimented with different life styles. We tried so many things to create change, and it was the beginning of awareness. The focus was on LOVE. So I challenge you to STOP being a survivor. Stop defining yourself by all of the horrors you have lived through. Stop dwelling on the past, replaying it over and over so that it becomes the very essence of your physical life. This is not who you are! This is not who you came here to be. I see you as an amazing BEING OF LIGHT! I see you as POWERFUL! You do not have to be simply a survivor, you can be a THRIVOR! You can live in the now instead of the past. You can be excited about the future and the possibilities for creating something even better. Go back to your ‘wild’ nature and thrive in the now.  Trauma is passed down on your DNA.
Those of us who work with energy and emotion have known this for decades, but now science is catching up. Imagine that your great grandfather was traumatized while fighting in WWII. It could have been a physical injury or the trauma of witnessing a massacre. The emotions of fear, panic, terror and more can be so intense that they are imprinted on the cells in his body. He then returns home and begins a family passing down these intense emotions on the DNA in his sperm. (see notes) Fear may not even belong to you. Are you afraid of heights? Snakes? Water?... If you can't remember an incident in your life that caused this fear, it's likely that you inherited it. You might have an extreme fear of being hit by a car, even though you've never been in an accident - but one of your ancestors was. I've always had an unusual fear of driving over railroad tracks - especially if I have to stop close to them. Turns out my great grandfather was killed driving a wagon home late at night as he crossed a railroad track. Pretty good chance that panic was passed down. You don't want to keep these emotions. As an energy healer, I help you identify the emotion that your body is carrying, where it is stored, and then help you to call it out and release it. We now know that emotional energy trapped in your body can contribute to disease and pain. Fear trapped in your bladder can contribute to infections. Anger trapped in your liver or gall bladder can lead to all sorts of diseases. Every organ, gland, bone and tissue in your body can store strong emotional energy. This energy does not serve you. You are meant to experience emotions then release them. You can release even the most intense emotions. No matter what is trapped in your body, I believe you have the power to release it. I've seen it over and over again in my clients. In many cases, releasing the emotional trauma has helped them to reverse years of pain or illness. You are a powerful, amazing being of light. Maybe you need a little help cleaning up that light so you can shine the way you were always meant to. I am here to help. Schedule a free Discovery Session to see if this is work you would like to try. Anything is possible for an Infinite Energy Being like you. Namaste ~ Mary Notes: Just a few of many resources on this topic. "It Didn't Start with You" by Mark Wolynn Alterations in sperm long RNA contribute to the epigenetic inheritance of the effects of postnatal trauma https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-018-0271-6 "Intergenerational Trauma: Understanding Natives’ Inherited Pain" By Mary Annette Pember http://www.mapember.com/ICMN-All-About-Generations-Trauma.pdf "Inherited Trauma Shapes Your Health" https://www.unicefusa.org/sites/default/files/YemenTC1_Can%20Trauma%20Be%20Inherited%20Between%20Generations-The%20Atlantic.pdf  I’ve been sharing what I know about nutrition for decades, trying to keep up with this ever more enlightened field. What we know – what studies are now showing – is so much different than what we used to believe.
Soy is a great example. For many years we cautioned women not to eat soy as it would contribute to breast cancer and other estrogen-positive cancers. We cautioned men and boys not to eat soy as we believed the phyto or plant estrogens would give them enlarged breasts. Boy were we wrong. We were just going with the knowledge of the time and that knowledge has changed. We now know – due to many well-documented studies – that soy is a Super-Food and women especially should be eating it every day. Turns out the phyto-estrogens in soy actually block the cells receptors for certain cancers. We now know that you have 2 receptors for estrogen – alpha and beta. Alpha attracts cancer cells. With 16000% more affinity the phytoestrogens in soy bind to Beta receptors. When beta receptors are activated, the alpha receptors are shut down. Also – soy deactivates aromatase so there is less conversion of fat cells to cancer cells. The Shanghai Study of 73,000 Chinese women compared soy consumption and risk of cancer. Those who ate more soy had a 58% reduction in post-menopausal cancers. Another study followed 6200 women with breast cancer for 9 years. They ate at least one serving of soy per week. Results showed a 21% drop in deaths, a 51% drop in estrogen negative cancers and 32% drop in estrogen driven cancers. Dr. Kristi Funk recommends 2-3 servings of non-GMO soy per day. This can be edamame, tempeh, tofu, soy milk or miso. Try to stick with the less processed soy products. And MEN who eat 2-3 servings of soy per day showed an increase in fertility and a reduced risk of prostate cancer. This is huge because recent studies have shown a major decline in male fertility over the past decade leading to dire predictions of the end of our species. Eat more soy please!! Here’s a tasty recipe to get you started. https://www.thespruceeats.com/vegan-tofu-lasagna-with-spinach-recipe-3377165  Did you know that the little button Mushroom is one of the best foods you can eat to prevent breast cancer?
One of the drugs used to slow the growth of estrogen-positive cancers is an 'aromatase inhibitor'. What it does is prevent the body from turning the androgen hormone into estrogen, thus limiting the kind of estrogen that feeds these cancers. The good new is that just 10 grams (about the size of your thumb) does the same thing with no side effects. Now, I don't claim to be a medical professional and never suggest you stop your meds; however, mushrooms are going to be on my daily menu going forward. An ounce of prevention... (or 10 grams :) Do note that mushrooms should always be cooked - steamed, stir fried.. - as raw mushrooms contain a bit of toxin that is destroyed by heat. There are so many wonderful ways to enjoy mushrooms. Even if you don't love them, you and mince them and add to soups, stews, stir-frys and you won't even notice them. I'd love to hear how you are enjoying your mushrooms.  Does it feel like FEAR is overtaking the planet? I know you've heard this acronym before, but it's good to remember. F-E-A-R is always created by False Evidence Appearing Real. I'm not crying 'false media.' Not at all. They are reporting what they see. We need to ask, 'Is what they see real?'
This applies to so many things - the list is too long to copy here. So let's take one thing - the corona virus. Did you know that more people die from the common flu every year than have died from this new virus? Did you also know that only a minority of those who contract this virus actually get very ill? Also, those who do get seriously ill are those with already compromised immune systems. Exactly what happens with the flu. What compromises your immune system?
Would you like some tools to help with that? Great. Here goes.
Sending you lots of love and light. Mary  Gustav Klimt 'Goldfish' I used to be beautiful – tall and slim, long, red, wavy hair, clear blue eyes – and so full of fear of what that would attract.
I spent 12 years in Catholic school, being told how ‘sinful’ I was for even thinking I looked good. We were told that anyone attracted to us because of the way we looked was likely evil and would definitely harm us. The female body was something to hide, something to be ashamed of. I even remember one elderly nun telling our class that if we were caught in the shower, naked, when the house caught fire, we best allow ourselves to burn rather than be seen in that state. I did not grow up in a Middle Eastern country. My country was not ruled by the Taliban. This was the United States of America, yet it wasn’t much different than what we see today and criticize others for. So yes, I was afraid of being seen as beautiful. Worse than that, I didn’t believe the men who told me that I was. I was sure they were lying to get what they wanted. I was a mess when it came to intimacy. In my late teens I had a job working downtown in a big city often until after dark. I took the bus, and when the weather was wicked with temps below zero, it was miserable waiting outside. So I would seek out any place I could to warm up while I waited. One such place was a small record shop. It took so much courage to walk into this tiny shop knowing that the men who ran it, not much older than me, would immediately start making comments, ‘what was I looking for’ (wink, wink), ‘I’m sure we’ve got what you want’ (grin), ‘you look really cold – we can warm you up’. HELP! I could hear the voices of the nuns in my head, ‘better to get frostbite than to flirt with these boys.’ Where was my voice? Where was my power? This is not what I came here to be – fearful, hiding, embarrassed by my body, my wild hair, my feminine energy. As I think back now on the emerging woman I was, it is with sadness for so much time wasted in fear and hiding. Even in my marriages I never truly believed that I deserved to be loved. I found myself hiding so much that my body changed and took on layers of ‘hiding energy’. So many of us do this. We silently plead, ‘don’t look at me’, ‘don’t see me too closely’. We show only the parts of ourselves that we think will be approved, valued and hide the rest. We lose ourselves as we strive to be what we believe the other wants. It becomes our first nature to put ourselves second. We believe what others tell us and we tell ourselves this is all we deserve. Today I find myself alone for the first time in my life. No husband or children to take care of. Only me. It’s been interesting to experience what taking care of me feels like. It’s such a new feeling. There is freedom. There is discovery. There are also those times when is would be so great to share all of this with someone close. Then there is the hardest part – falling in love with myself. Do I deserve to be loved? Is it truly possible to love all of me? What I know to be true in the deepest part of my soul, is that every cell in my body longs to feel love. Every cell in my body is eager to be exactly what I would like it to be, and love is the key. Love is the fuel that ignites the fire of regeneration, self-expression and vitality. Love of self creates the undefinable but incredibly powerful force in each of us that attracts all we desire in this life. We can not get this force from anyone or anything outside of us. It must come from within. When that fire is ignited and burning strong, we are powerful beyond measure. I believe this is why so many of us were taught self-loathing by those in power. They understood and feared what we all could become if we learned to love ourselves and honor our beauty, our power, our Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine energy. Today, as I walk this new path, I am learning to truly see myself and love what I see. I’m not that same young girl, nor would I want to be. I am wiser, more confident, more aware and so grateful for all that I have created in this life – all the lessons I learned – all the experiences – all the love. I know I’m not finished. I look forward to what else I choose to create. My wish is that every young girl on the planet can know that she is beautiful, know that her beauty is part of her power, and recognize the Divine Goddess energy in herself. She can then use that energy to create more love here now.  My reasons are personal to me - or so I thought at the time. Then I discovered that quite a few others experienced the same thing.
I have always known that I am sensitive to the emotions of those around me. Maybe a bit too sensitive. I feel their pain as though it is happening to me. Over time I have been able to shield myself a bit, but it's still there. This morning, watching just a few minutes of the news about Kobe, his daughter and the others in that horrible crash, my heart started hurting and it was hard to breathe. I had to turn it off. I had to come back to myself, get grounded, remember that these beautiful souls - while no longer in body - are with us always. Breathe. So what has that got to do with giving up meat? It occurred to me one day in meditation that the anxiety, even unfounded fear, that I had experienced most of my life was not mine. It was coming from the animals I was eating every day. What? How is that possible? There is science behind this. It has to do with hormones which are directly related to emotions. Imagine you are a young steer and life has been pretty good - all that grass and sunshine. You know you are one of the lucky ones. Then one day you are forced into a big box - crowded with all of your fellow steers- and you are moving. You don't know where or why so anxiety starts to build. Stress hormones are released into your blood. The box stops moving and you are moved into a crowded pen, and you smell fear. The stress hormones build. Then you smell something you can't really identify. It has a powerful energy of not only fear but panic. You also start to panic. What is happening? Why? The stress hormones are flooding your system - then it is over. I apologize for the graphic nature of that last paragraph, but for me it was a huge awareness that I was consuming flesh that was full of these stress hormones. I was basically eating a big dose of hormones packed with the fear, anxiety, even panic of the animals on my plate. So here is what I discovered 3 or so years ago when I first gave up meat and dairy. I started to sleep better. I had fewer nightmares. I woke up feeling lighter, a bit more hopeful. At first I wasn't sure of the correlation, so I would experiment. Eat some chicken or beer and see how I felt. Yup. The stress came back - even to the point of panic attacks. Now I understood where those panic attacks, that I had experienced so often throughout my life, were coming from. So that's my first reason for becoming vegan. As I learned more, the many other reasons made sense to me as well. For example - did you know that there is lots of research linking a diet of meat and dairy to heart disease, auto-immune disease, diabetes and so much more? Please take a moment to listen to this doctor's personal story. Then share it with people you love. https://www.instagram.com/tv/B702DOTI5nu/?igshid=btvn9zxbp2f&fbclid=IwAR22odAz5L9jR-Ojr89lXbY5Z4krisI8CpjIqXjkNaQvZkLvWwICNBNWyO0 Thanks for reading this far. I would love your feedback, what have you noticed about how your body reacts to foods? If you want to know more about switching to a vegan diet, I am happy to help. much love ~ Mary  Interesting that Black Spruce is the oil that wanted to support us this week.
As we move into a new decade, we might be facing uncertainty, or even fear. The message that is coming from Black Spruce is "You are protected, I've got you." Of all the grounding and stabilizing oils, the spruces are the most effective. Black Spruce helps us to go with the flow, be more in harmony with nature and all of the cycles in our life. It helps us let go of fear and anxiety - especially anything related to family or past generations. Maybe that's why it's coming up just now as we continue our family celebrations and ring in the New Year. Use Black Spruce essential oil whenever you need a little calm or ease. Inhale it from the bottle or from a drop in your palm. Massage the diluted oil on your back or the back or your neck. Definitely diffuse it as the scent is lovely. Enjoy this transition into 2020 - so filled with hope and opportunity. I send you much love and light for a joyful and abundant new year. Always ~ Mary |
Mary CrawfordOver the last 30+ years I've been gathering tips to help my family live a healthier life. I'll share some of those here with you and welcome your ideas as well. Archives
August 2020
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