Monday Mantra: Open the Book

A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation".

Every Monday I will post a new thought, idea, or focus for the week. When you need a breather from life, when you need a little inspiration, or when you're about to jump over the conference table and strangle your co-worker, remember the mantra.

Monday Mantra: Show me what's under the cover

Don't judge a book by it's cover.

Last week at work I attended a training event around Diversity & Inclusion. This was by far the best thing I have ever attended in the 12 years that I've been here and, quite frankly, I'm impressed that we're taking the initiative to train all of our leaders with it. More places need it. More people need it. 

It touched on the more common things such as race, gender, and sexual preference, but it also touched on the smaller things. For example, how a person was raised or what they went through in life prior to you knowing them. It basically made you step back and give every single person another chance to show you who they are. In fact, it went along perfectly with last week's post about The 100/0 Principle. 

Anyway, along these very same lines is a post my friend did on his blog about Charlotte and Jonathan, two singers who were trying out on Britain's Got Talent. In his blog he says, "No amount of disfigurement, handicap, obesity, or even poor choices can remove a person's intrinsic value...every human being has an intrinsic worth that should not be overlooked based on their outward appearance or circumstance. "

I agree.

When I was watching the video of them singing, the first thing I noticed was the look on everyone's faces when they saw Jonathan. These looks of judgement and criticism before they even heard him sing. All because he was overweight. The moment he started singing, everyone in the crowd changed their own tune. By the end of it they were all standing, clapping, and cheering him on. Heck, people were even brought to tears by his voice! All because Jonathan, the person they had just judged on looks alone, could sing like it was nobody's business. 

I supposed this topic is near and dear to my heart right now because I just attended the training at work. Or maybe because in the training I realized I'm not so great at this non-judging thing myself. Even after studying mindfulness, I still mess this up sometimes. In ways I wasn't even aware of until recently. So really, this is as much a reminder for me as it is for everyone else.

Never go off of someone's appearance alone. Let them show you who they are in their thoughts, their actions, their personality, and perspective. I have met some of the most beautiful people outwardly, but once I got to know them, I saw how very unattractive they were on the inside. The inside is what counts. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Instead of seeing people with our eyes, we should feel them with our hearts. Then we will know the true person in front of us. 

Thoughts?

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Shadows and Secrets

About a year ago I read The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford. The book is about aligning with the good inside of you as well as the bad and removing the mask you've created to let people see only what you want them to see about you.

The idea is this: You must fully accept yourself, the good parts of who you are (the light) as well as the bad parts of you (the dark), to become a whole person. Trying to push away the dark only makes it grow that much bigger, stronger, and more powerful. It takes over, changes you, turns you into someone you don't recognize even. Embracing it abolishes all of it's power over you. In turn, you have complete power over it, over your whole being.

We tend to forget that every single person has something about themselves they don't like, that they hate even, that they just can't accept. The key here is that every single person has this. It's not just you or me or your neighbor or your third cousin twice removed. All of us are imperfect in one way or another, all of us have secrets, and all of us wish there was something we could change. Truth be told, I got caught up on working on my own dark side and never finished the book, but was fortunate enough to have a class at school that had us practice this theory full on.

One night we had to split a piece of paper in half and on one side, write what we present to the world about ourselves. On the other side we had to write what no one knew about us, our secrets. What happened thereafter will never be forgotten.

We all had to trade our unnamed papers to keep this anonymous and to keep those terrible, dark secrets safe. Now, I must admit, my school is small. I know almost everyone there somehow. Maybe not well, but well enough. That's what I thought anyway. As students would read papers I would try and figure out who had written it. I've always wanted to be a investigator of some kind, or at the very least an extra on Men in Black, so this type of mental sleuthing is quite normal for me on any given day.

That night I heard all kinds of happy, wonderful things being read: Happily married, volunteer, life coach, etc. Then we'd get to the dark stuff and I would almost stop breathing: Cuts myself, unhappy marriage, wants to die, hates everything about myself - on and on like that. I had no clue who fit any of these. None.

We all have secrets. Some big, some small. For me, blogging was always a terrifying notion. Actually, letting anyone know my innermost thoughts was the most horrible idea I could think of. I actually thought I was doing a fantastic job of not letting people get too close or see too much until one day at school a friend told me that I had "serious walls built up". Well, there went my cover. That's the point though.

We think we have it all figured out. We think we have done an excellent job letting everyone see only the best in us when in reality they see, or at least sense, that there is more to us. That something lies under the surface. We think our mask is on so tight that no shadows can escape, when in all actuality it never fit right in the first place. All along light was breaking in while shadows were creeping out, revealing our true nature.


Secrets are everywhere. Whispered in the hall, cried in silent tears, shared over cups of coffee. In some cases they're even published. The Post Secret books all started with a dream, literally, of words written on post cards. The dream eventually took flight and post cards were left all over the place inviting people to share their deepest, darkest, and even funniest secrets - anonymously. Much like with those who read Debbie Ford's book, those that sent in post cards found relief in releasing what they were holding on to.

I realized that evening in class that no secret is worth destroying yourself over and no self perceived darkness is worth any of the torture. How bad can anyone really be if all of us have a dark side as well as a light side? If we all have these secrets and face them, let them be known, we wouldn't have to have secrets anymore at all. They wouldn't grow and build up and take over our lives.

Never have we lived in an age where being yourself  is harder and easier all at the same time. Harder in the sense that even just realizing who you are is a lot of work, especially if you've tried so hard not to be yourself. Easier in the sense that more people are open minded, and open hearted, to change and differences. In fact, I just returned from a trip to Ireland where on an ad for the local newspaper a titled jumped out at me which read, "Before you make up your mind, open it." Beautifully said.

Now is the time to be open, completely and fully 100% you, whoever you may be. Now is the time to embrace your dark side and release your secrets and in doing so, embrace and release yourself. All it takes is one step forward or possibly just one post card.


What do you think about releasing your secrets? 
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The Kindness Chronicles - Diet is a Four Letter Word

Photo Credit: girlsgetstrong.com

Diet. A word that should be relegated to the rankings of all other four letters words that shall remain unmentioned.

Every person I know has either been on a one, wants to go one one, or is on one right now. Some people have been on a diet their entire lives. In the dictionary diet is defined as a kind of food someone eats regularly. Funny how the definition doesn't really mean what we think it does. We think of it as a time when we avoid things on purpose that we would normally consume. As a time when we go to great lengths to lose a few pounds.

We don't set out to gain weight. None of us do. We fall into habits of convenience. We make food be our main entertainment when spending time with friends and family. We eat when we're sad, mad, happy, angry, alone, or bored. We eat when the books tell us to rather than when our bodies do. We eat when we crave something mentally and emotionally and one day we wake up, look in the mirror, and realize something has gone terribly wrong.

Most people fail at diets because they're too restrictive. The mind and body react to starvation. The moment you decide to cut something out is the moment your brain latches on to it. You suddenly want it more than you ever have before. When you start cutting calories too low your body reacts by storing fat. It's preparing itself for starvation and therefore building reserves. This is not what you want, obviously, if you're trying to lose weight.

There are hundreds of books, magazines, and TV shows dedicated to weight loss. If there was just one right way we would know by now. Everyone else would be out of business.  The truth of the matter is, however,  that no two people are the same. Therefore no two people should rank themselves against each other trying to determine if they can be the same, look the same, or diet the same way.

I was recently reading Portia de Rossi's Unbearable Lightness. I found it to be incredibly accurate and telling of what an eating disorder does to a person. The way it makes you think, the way it controls every function of your life, until you have no choice but to literally quit or die trying. The things she does just to remain thin are, actually, unbearable. She cuts back to 300 calories a day, calculates how to lose exactly seven pounds in one week, and then binge eats until she is in so much pain she can only lie there and be miserable.

At the end of her story, when she has recovered fully from her eating disorder, she writes,"I finally understood that by being on a perpetual diet, I had practiced a 'disordered' form of eating my whole life...And Dieting, I discovered, was another form of disordered eating, just as anorexia an bulimia similarly disrupt the natural order of eating."

It's all about one step at a time. Maybe today you ordered a veggie with your meal instead of your usual side of fried-in-terrible-oil fries. You should be proud. Even if you had dessert later, you changed a habit. You did something different. Don't discount the small changes. They will become a pattern and eventually turn into larger changes which then turn into a lifestyle, rather than a diet, which is something everyone can maintain. A lifestyle becomes something you do every day without effort, like breathing or driving. A diet - just the opposite.

Strive for the lifestyle that frees you from the diet. You will find a happy, healthy balance in your body and mind.

How do you feel about diets?


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The Kindness Chronicles - An overview of your "home"

There is a huge difference between being healthy and being good to yourself.

Being healthy can mean many things, depending on the person. You could be a vegetarian, a low carb-er, a marathon runner, a weight lifter, someone who eats everything but keeps the portions small. The truth is that there are dozens of ways to be healthy, depending on what you believe in, what you were taught, and how much you know about food. In all my research, studying, and reading of health-this and health-that, I have found that no diet or lifestyle works the same for any two people.  Yes, there are ones that are better than others, but that's because they require a lifestyle change, not a drop-the-cookie-and-go-jog-for-a-month change.

I suggest a new approach. While I think a lifestyle change is important to continued success, I think we're going about it all wrong. I see too many people who get mind boggled over the "right" way to be healthy, or the "secret" to losing weight. There isn't one way or one truth.

I've been fortunate enough to study such a wide variety of things that I'm able to put all the bits and pieces together from every angle, rather than just one. I don't like approaching anything with a mentality that there's only one way to do it or that doing it this one way, while ignoring everything else, will get you the results you want. There are too many things to consider. The food you eat, the emotions you have, the life you're living, the sleep you're getting, the amount you move your body during the day, the toxins around you, and the signs your body give you- are all important. It sounds complicated, but I'm going to keep it simple. It's time to change the way we view health and our bodies.

I'm going to do a series of blogs called The Kindness Chronicles. Each one will focus on something different, but all of them will be designed to help you focus on being kinder to your body, understanding what it's trying to tell you, giving you knowledge and insight into the world of food, exercise, and time tested natural remedies.

Most importantly, I want to focus on learning to live a life where you are kind and good to yourself, bottom line.

No more feeling like you're not good enough, thin enough, good looking enough, successful enough. Those days are coming to a close my friends.  I'll still post the good old funny, random, and travel type blogs, but wanted to do something special for a change and really dive into this big, wide, confusing world of health.

Some items I will cover are:
1. Calorie Counting - How to do it once and never again
2. Aromatherapy for better health
3. Releasing toxins in the body
4. Eastern Healing techniques (Gua Sha, Acupuncture, etc.)
5. Cellulite (Yes, you can get rid of it)
6. Foods, the good, the bad and why
7. The story behind grass fed beef and why it's important
8. Various diet systems, what they offer, why, and what you need to know about them
9. Food allergies  - A look into overcoming them through multiple methods
10. Monsanto and the FDA - GMO foods, the Suicide/Terminator seed and how both of these things will change life as you know it, and not for the better.
11. Healing yoga poses
12. If Oprah can talk about it, then so the heck can I... (Maybe)
13. The Seriousness of Sleep

I'll come up with plenty more, but those are all on my mind now. I'm not selling anything or trying to get you to adapt to my lifestyle. I just want you to know for yourself what everything is, does, and how it works.

I was so incredibly mad when I first was learning everything that I saw red on a daily basis. I was furious that no one had thought it would be important to tell me, or my family, or the world for that matter, that half of what we eat/drink/use could kill us tomorrow and that there's plenty of research proving that!  All of that research is just conveniently kept quiet.

Alright, moving on before I launch into that mess. I'll also invite you into my life a little more by giving you a glimpse of what a crazy person like me eats on a regular basis, like spinach and salmon for breakfast. Yes, breakfast.

Tonight I want to give you an overviews and focus on the signs your body is giving you and on the whole idea of taking good care of your "home". The idea of asking yourself the right questions, starting right now.

First, scrap the entire idea you currently have of health and replace it with the mind set of being good to yourself and kind to your body. It is, after all, the only body you get and no matter how many plastic surgeons or scientists there are that can develop a new magic pill, this is the body you are going to be responsible forever. This is the body you occupy in this life and how well it works and how long it lasts is up to you and you alone. There are a lot of things you can reverse, but why get to that point when it's not necessary?

Not to get all deep on you here, but personally I believe we all have a soul and with that I believe our soul is really who we are. Our body just happens to be our storage facility, or "home", where our soul lives. Sometimes I like to tell myself that this - my body - is my home. My house is where I sleep.  I need to take care of my home first since there is no option of getting another one the same way that I can with my house. Buying a house isn't even that easy these days, so imagine how much harder it is to try and get a new body. It's not, it's not even an option. You can never really replace the original working parts.

It's not enough to want to lose weight. You have to want it for the right reasons. You can't do it for anyone else and you shouldn't. If you love yourself just the way you are, don't change. But be honest with yourself. Are you scared of the change, the hard work, the idea that it won't work? Or do you really, truly feel comfortable just as you are? You'll know the truth better than anyone and you'll know what you need to do.

Second, starting tomorrow try approaching everything with the thought of how you will feel, emotionally and physically, after you do whatever it is - eating, drinking, getting frazzled worrying. Don't focus on how much caffeine you need to survive or how much fiber you need that day. Focus on what you just ate or did and how it made you feel. Instead of "How many calories is this?" think "How will I feel after I eat it, mentally and physically?"

Here's a clue: If you require Tums or indigestion anything at all, you're body is desperately trying to tell you it can't handle what you just fed it.  Stomach problems, headaches, gas, and sleepiness after eating are not supposed to be considered normal. Those symptoms you feel are your bodies way of telling you that it's not OK. It needs more or less of something. It needs you to pay attention to it. That is how it communicates with you and the more it needs you to pay attention, the worse things are going to get until you're forced to listen.

Case in point: Before, when I was "normal" and I ate normal things, I had basically zero awareness of my body. I thought everything it did was just, you know, normal. Good, old normal. Advil for the headaches, Pepto for the tummy, etc. That was just life to me. When I started studying the body and testing out what I was learning by changing what I ate, I discovered how wrong I was. I would eat something and get a teeny tiny soar throat or a headache and I could easily pinpoint that it was the food, not my day, by repeating the test over a course of a couple weeks. I was so busy living my normal life before that I never even noticed it.

Let's take for example, gas. Again, we all think it's normal and hilarious. Which it kind of is, but kind of isn't. Did you know you could avoid it entirely? Entirely! Yes, I tested that out too and once you've stopped experiencing it all together for months, you realllllllly don't want to deal with it ever again. It feels odd, like you're broken somehow, and being broken isn't fun.

Let's also consider being tired. You should not need caffeine to get you through the day. What you need is more sleep. This, if you taking nothing else away, is the most important thing in your overall well being. There is nothing, nothing, that can change you better, faster, or more effectively. Your brain literally cannot function without the proper amount of sleep, thus causing everything else in your life to seem more difficult, more depressing. Caffeine is something we should never, ever need. You should never need an alarm clock either. Your body has a natural, built in clock that will wake you up at the right time every day, once a routine has been established and it's getting the right amount of rest. I repeat, if you take nothing else away from this, remember that if there was a "secret" to being thinner, happier, healthier, sleep would be it.

Something to remember, as you're working on yourself or changing old habits, is that it takes time to adapt to the change. You have to remember to ask yourself how you'll feel, if it's the best thing for you, for your "home".  You have to practice paying attention to your body communicating with you. You have to adapt to a new sleep schedule and practice, practice, practice. You DO NOT have to be perfect or expect to get the hang of this overnight and then beat yourself up if you don't. Please, please don't do that. The goal is to be kind to yourself, period.

Alright. Time to get to the business of being kind.

What is one thing that you want to work on, above everything else?


Click here for all posts on The Kindness Chronicles.

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Movie Review - Stress: Portrait of a Killer

This week at work my fellow co-workers and I started talking about stress. How interesting it is, with all of the things it does to you, your body, your life in general. It's an epidemic that we all know about, yet we are never able to break free of it's grasp, even knowing the horrible things it can do to us.

Where I work there is such a thing as a Stress Leave of Absence. Yes, a break from work because work might just in fact be killing you. That tells you something about my day life, doesn't it?

We all know stress is bad for us, but how bad is it really? And where does it stem from? I happened to have recently seen a documentary on it called Stress: Portrait of a Killer, that answers those very questions. The documentary is based on research by various professors, but one in particular named Robert Sapolsky. He has been studying baboon behaviors for over three decades and has made many interesting discoveries, one more so than the others.

The normal indicators of stress are of course work, peer, and relationship pressure. Each one having their own measurable effects on us, yet work stress seeming to be the most disastrous of all for our health.

Think about it. How many of you fear going into work every day? Or are afraid of your boss and what they might throw at you next? You don't even have to be in the office to start feeling stress itself creeping up on you, giving you a headache, making your shoulders hunch up and hurt. It turns out that the most stressed people in the world are those that are the workers, while the least stressed people are those that are the ones who make the decisions, or the bosses. Your hierarchy in the company you work for directly affects how stressed out you'll be. The higher up you are, the better, while the lower down you are, the worse off you'll be. The workers are the ones that have to make the ideas and goals of a company happen, the ideas that the bosses are constantly thinking up. There is a big difference between an idea and making that idea happen in a day to day setting.

Not only does stress cause heart attacks, anxiety, depression and insomnia, there is also a direct link between stress and belly fat. That little pudge around your midsection is not because you are somehow doing your crunches wrong. No, your body purposely stores fat there when you get stressed out. The problem with our society, America to be specific, is that we do not value things that are stress relieving.

In most of Europe they eat dinner together as a family still, which takes a good two hours at least to wind down and relax. They have mid-day breaks for tea, naps, or just extra long lunches. They value sitting back and taking their time at a lot of things we rush through. This is just one of the many, many reasons I love Europe. In the good old US of A we admire the people who can multitask, who can get more done with less, who basically run themselves into the ground. We do not value those who take the time to stop and smell the flowers. In fact, we think they're lazy.

What Professor Sapolsky found was that stress actually affects us long before we see the signs of it. That ulcer you have- it didn't just happen over night. It's been building up in your poor little body for a very, very long time. That's why, when you do finally have something happen, it's a long road back to a healthy you. The very interesting thing that he discovered about stress, however, was accidental.
He had been studying this one group of baboons for years and one year when he went back to spend some time with them he found that many of them had died as they had found rotten meat in a trash can near their habitat. However, only the leaders of the pack - the bosses - ended up dying. The workers had no chance of getting any food as the bosses were, of course, in charge and kept them back while they pigged out. They had no idea their selfishness was actually saving the lives of the others.

Professor Sapolsky thought his research would end with that one group due to the deaths. What a surprise to him to find years later that the baboon group of workers, who had survived, were thriving and happy. Happy! All the years prior the workers showed symptoms of intense stress, unhappiness, anger at being at the bottom of the ladder. Now they all work together in the habitat, fight less, and appear to have very limited stress. They are essentially doing better than they ever did with the head honchos bossing them around.

Interesting...

I'm not saying we all go poison our bosses food, no, no. I'm just saying how interesting that nature took care of itself like that and all the workers are just fine. Better, actually. How very interesting indeed.

The most important thing to take away from this, other than Professor Sapolsky's awesome 60's hairdo, is that if our culture wants to shift, wants to escape the unnecessary aches and pains of stress, we must change what we value. We must learn to let things go. Learn to understand that tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, will all have new tasks with new things to do. Work has no ending. It will always be there which means there is no point in ruining ourselves for something that is going to change next month anyway.

The trick is getting our bosses to agree, but, we can do it. I would say that anyone reading this is someone who has an increased sense of awareness. There are more and more of us springing up all over the place and we can make a difference. My old boss was open minded enough to hear me out on yoga. Then he let me talk about life coaching, then nutrition, and before you know it I found out he was just like me. I would never have known that if I hadn't tried to be myself and believe what I believe, without holding back for fear that the corporate world would judge me. I fully believe there are people just like that all over, but the work place as we know it has taught us to be boring, to blend in, to be "just like everyone else" so we can be accepted. I say let's shake that idea up. Poisoning them is not an option- I repeat, not an option, but we can help them to see other ways.

Most importantly, take it upon yourself to slow down. This is my Be the Best theory. You take care of you, first and foremost. Leave work when you're supposed to. Sleep in on the weekends. Take some deep breaths and let the world slip away. You can be an amazing multi-tasker as well as an amazing  meditator, an amazing nap taker, an amazing slower paced you. The fact of the matter is your overall health and well being does, indeed, depend on it. You are in control of your destiny. Make it a beautiful, stress free one.

What stresses you out?
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Skin Health: What you need to know NOW

Ever since I was a little girl I thought it was odd how people thought the sun caused cancer. The sun that helps flowers blossom, vegetables and fruit grow, gives us the tans we all so dearly strive for. The sun that we all look forward to, to come out and melt the snow and heat up our pools and lakes so we can go swimming. I never understood this fear of the sun. Especially since I love it. I love its warmth, the way it makes me feel tingly and heats my skin up when I'm outside. There is nothing I don't like about the sun.

My whole life I have doubted the sun and cancer theory. One day, at my fabulous school (of course), I got the answers to this problem that plagued me. It's not the sun after all. Nope. Not the sun. In fact, it's actually us and the decisions we make without even realizing it.

Let me explain.

Your skin is the largest organ of your body. That means when you put anything on your skin, anything at all, it hits everything internally and all parts of you. Ever heard of the patch? When you really think about it you're putting a band-aid like object on a tiny section of your whole body and that small object somehow magically knows where to work on what part of your body to help you quit smoking or not get pregnant. One tiny square is all it takes for your whole body to respond. Interesting, right?

Now think about this: Every day you put on cologne/perfume, lotion/after shave, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, makeup/moisturizer, deodorant, sunscreen, etc. How many ingredients can you pronounce on all the labels? How many are even listed sometimes? And what exactly do they all do? Well let me tell you my friends, they cause cancer and other diseases. I know that's tough to swallow.

Here's how it works:

You put on multiple products each day that all affect the largest organ of your body, thus affecting the rest of you. These products are full of chemicals. Full of them. Then you go out into the sun. The sun, doing it's job and heating things up, heats up these chemicals on your body and these chemicals start to "react".

Heat plus chemicals is a bad thing and is only good when used in a science lab for experiments, not on your body. This is where the bad news comes in.

Day after day, month after month, year after year of doing this will hurt you in one way or another. There's actually a website my teacher gave us that lists all the chemical names and what they do to you. That's right ladies and gentleman, once again there is something out there that would be helpful for all of us to know but no one ever told us because they wouldn't make any money if we knew. Sad but true.

You might think you only use a little bit of each product, so no big deal. Not exactly. You see, it's like the patch example. Even a little affects all of you.

Think of it like this: Let's say you wake up and shower with body wash, wash your hair with shampoo and conditioner, and then put lotion on. Let's say you only use a quarter size amount, which we will call 10% for each item that you use. So right off the bat you're at a 40% rate of chemical use on your skin, the largest organ of your body. Then, you put on perfume/cologne, moisturizer, chapstick, and deodorant. Now you're at an 80% chemical use rate. Then you put on some sunscreen (I'll get to this in a second), maybe you need gel/hairspray, and maybe you're like me and you have an addiction to body spray from Victoria's Secret. I know, it's amazing stuff. I had to give that up too. Anyway, now you're over a 100% rate of chemical use, not to mention the reapplying you do throughout the day. So in any given day you are putting excessive amounts of toxins on and in your body. Scary thought.

I personally freaked out and threw everything out. Everything. I went to Sprouts, Whole Foods, and my school book store and bought everything I needed to replace with organic, chemical free items. That was three years ago and I've never looked back. The switch over is pretty easy. It's a one day task of trashing the bad and buying the good.

As for the sunscreen issue, you probably also don't know that most sunscreens are bogus. Ever been in the sun with sunscreen on and still gotten burned? That's because there was nothing effective actually in your sunscreen. It's easier and cheaper to make bogus products, so they do.

Bogus products that are full of what? Chemicals. That do what? Heat up in the sun.

The thing that's supposed to protect us ends up hurting us. When I switched over to a new, teacher approved sunscreen I never had a problem again. I like the Alba brand, but only certain ones. I don't necessarily burn easily, but I like the sun so I spend a lot of time in it...I do live in the desert after all. Not once have I gotten a sunburn of any kind since the switch. Keep in mind that getting a sunburn is still definitely bad. There is nothing good about burning your skin ever, but a lot of the danger lies in the chemicals in and on your body.

A couple of my favorite skin care lines are Hylunia and Miessence. The ingredients are listed right on the site by the product. They are expensive but they're worth it. Some less expensive products that are better than a lot out there are the Say Yes line (Say Yes to Carrots, Say Yes to Cucumbers, etc.) and the Jason line. They're not perfect, but they're affordable and still a much better option that most things out there.

Food also plays a part in the way your body interacts with the sun. I'll save that for another blog, but just keep that in mind.

I know this can be tough to hear and to make the changes. If it helps at all, I'm not perfect at this myself. Let it be known that even with this knowledge I still must have my Viktor and Rolf perfume. I've made the conscious decision that I cannot live without it. Additionally, I'm not trying to freak anyone out. Your body and life are yours to do with as you please. I just feel that everyone has the right to be informed so that they can make the best decision for themselves.

Below is the link to the site that lists all the chemicals, the good products, and the bad. Grab your products and start researching!

Skin Deep

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Fat America

All is Forlorn for I've Lost My Mind

My New Year started off with a thud in the form of a ridiculously strong sinus infection. I, being stubborn and having studied holistic health, refuse to take medication. I mean refuse. I will do absolutely everything else until the time comes when I have no choice, like this time, when I was about to leave the country for 9 days to go to India. I figured I should be as well as possible since I could very possibly get sick from something there. Go figure.

Time was running out so I decided to go for the meds. The first thing they gave me was a Z Pack which did nothing except irritate me for having just put all kinds of chemicals in my body with no actual benefit. Then they gave me something called Levaquin or Leviton. Whatever the real name is I highly suggest they rename it Levitate because that is what happened to me. 

Now, there is something you should know about me...I can't handle caffeine, anesthetic or most cold and flu meds.  Not because they don't work on me, but because they work too well, they turn me into a crazy fruitloop.

For example, when I had my wisdom teeth pulled out they put me under and when I woke up I was bawling. I mean my dog just died, boyfriend broke up with me, and my house burned down, kind of crying. They escorted me out the back door, yes, the back door, so as to not alarm the other patients. In the car my boyfriend asked me why I was crying and I stopped, briefly, to think about that. I responded with a hysterical "I don't know!?!?!" and then began to cry even more because I had not a clue as to why I was losing it.

For that same special occasion they gave me pain pills and later than night, after I had taken one, I decided to take a shower. Everything was fine until I tried to turn off the water and realized I had no idea how to do that. At all. Not the faintest idea how the faucet worked. I tried, repeatedly, but no amount of finger snapping, clapping, or trying various voice commands worked. I panicked as visions of my house flooding filled my mind. I eventually screamed and my boyfriend came in, laughed at me for several minutes as I explained my dilemma, and then showed me in a learn-to-tie-your-shoe kind of way how to work a faucet.

These are very good reasons why, above and beyond my school lessons, I am not a fan of things that are unnatural. I debated for an entire day on whether or not I was going to take this Levilor stuff. The side effects weren't too terrifying, so I eventually gave in. This is the account of what followed:

It's my day to work from home, so I'm preparing myself for conference calls, PowerPoints, and other work like things. I take the one recommended pill. Everything is fine and dandy. Then, I suddenly start to feel...awesome. Like Spiderman awesome, where I can detect things better than I could before. As I am pulling out Kleenex I realize how fascinating the sound of the Kleenex leaving the box is. It reminds me of a train going through a tunnel only on a much smaller, softer scale. I pull tissue after tissue out of the box, placing my ear close to it to try and fully absorb this awesomely awesome sound. Then...I discover my arms. I hold them up and just stare at them. This. Is. Fascinating. The way they're connected to me, but so free, able to move and do things...amazing. Reality kicks back in for a few minutes and I start to realize just how wacky I am. I also have a conference call coming up. Excellent.

I make it through the call successfully, only to start feeling the effects of the medicine again. I email my friend at work and tell her I'm losing it. She responds with a very supportive "I just laughed out loud and no one knows why, so now I look crazy!" I then pass out. One minute I'm trying to figure out why my computer screen is so shiny and beautiful and the next I'm waking up in a most uncomfortable position with my dog staring at me. Thank goodness it was my lunch break (seriously), but still, not the impression I'm going for. I don't recall the rest of the day which is a good thing, I'm sure.

Now to my point: I'm not opposed to Western medicine at all. If I were to break a leg right this second I would not call my very talented school friends up, have them burn some sage and chant over my leg, willing it to heal. No, I would head straight to the ER and get myself all fixed up, pronto.  I just happen to favor Eastern medicine and practices. No Chinese herbal meds or regular ol' foods have ever made me want to act like a puppy with a roll of toilet paper or above mentioned Kleenex box. I tend to believe that we over medicate. Life is hard, we're in a hurry and we don't have time to heal slowly. It's hard to find time to do what we do as it is, let alone to pay attention to the real reason we're feeling bad. When I used to get sore throats I'd take whatever over the counter stuff was recommended. Now I drink pure POM juice, eat some pears, cherries, and fresh pomegranates if they're available. I'm usually back to normal within a day.  It does require time. It is a little bit of work going at it the old fashioned way, but it comes easier and easier, the more you practice. One thing I know for sure, my body appreciates it the more I do it.

I find the medical commercials on TV odd and amusing. I mean think about how hard those companies work to try and make you want to go straight to your doctors office and ask for meds. First, it makes no sense to have medicine ads on TV. We are not doctors, we can't prescribe the drugs to ourselves, yet that's the goal of those ads. They want to make us think "Yes, I suffer from headaches, and yes, I have back pain, so maybe that med will work...I'll go ask my doctor." In all honestly, that really is their goal. Why do any commercials do what they do? To entice us. To make us want what they've got. The same goes for the medical ads. I say let the doctors do their jobs and let us just watch TV, plain and simple. Heck, even their own ads warn us about their products. The commercial starts with a loud, booming voice... "For severe headaches take the new and improved Thingawatchamadoodle"...then in a hushed, quiet voice..."May cause blindness, heart attacks, disembowelment, dizziness and insanity."  Excellent! I'll take five of those, thank you!

My thought is this: Do what you can, when you can, the most natural way you can. Try it out. Give it time. See how your body reacts. Treat your body like a good mystery book: get sucked into it, pay attention to each chapter and how it unwinds, and try and solve the puzzle. You might just surprise yourself. If you still need to watch the movie instead, go for it. You tried and that counts. Try again next time. Trying and not succeeding immediately is not failing, ever. It's giving yourself a chance as many times as you need. When all else fails, buy yourself a Kleenex box and have at it. I guarantee that will make you feel better.

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Fat America

Fat America

Last night on TV I was watching a show about Fat Admirers, or people who prefer overweight people. While the show itself was interesting, that portion of it is not what caught my attention. What caught my attention was a comment made by a larger woman who said she finally loves herself, even if she is fat, but she FINALLY loves herself. Followed by that was a doctor saying that, while it's great she loves herself, she's destroying her body and the rest of America is headed that way as 2/3 of Americans are obese. He then went on to say, basically, how horrible it's going to be when we're all fat.

Being a holistic nutrition specialist I understand and agree with the fact that it does hurt the body to be overweight. Is it definitely not the optimal state for the body to be in. I get it, I do.

However, he's missing the bigger picture here. She loves herself. Finally. As did all of the other overweight people, not to mention their fat admirers. So here's my point, and my outlook on this...

Very few people can say they love themselves, or even like themselves, and mean it. How many of us can look at ourselves and not care that we aren't a certain size or shape? How many of us look at other people and compare, criticize, judge? Where does all of that come from? The lack of self love and appreciation of how fantastic our bodies really are. That is what leads to Fatland. We don't just wake up and find out the fat fairy has paid us a visit. No. We eat. Not to fill our hungry bellies, but to feel our empty hearts, to ward off our fears, to deal with stress, to fill an emotional void.

What if, now work with me here, what if we all did get fat? Yes, we would be unhealthy. Yes, we would all be the thing we desperately try to avoid but possibly, just possibly, what if being fat lead us to appreciating ourselves? Or the selves we formerly were? What if we have to "lose" ourselves to find ourselves?

Maybe, in my crazy mind that came up with this last night at midnight, we would all be large and in love...with ourselves. That self love would then ultimately lead to thinness, or at least a healthy weight, since we would no longer be eating for any of the wrong reasons. What if we came out of this as better people? A better world of human beings who finally learned to appreciate the real person within the body. How bad can that be if we turn it all around and come out a more caring, respectful, loving group?

Now, I'm not saying we should all run out right now and buy as many donuts as our bank accounts can handle and then eat prior mentioned donuts until we burst. No. What I'm saying is if we have the awareness now we can avoid the predicted Fat America. And if we don't, if we need to learn through lessons, maybe when that day comes we will all tackle it together and come out of it as a happier, kinder, and even thinner group, once we've all learned how fabulous we really are.