Blog

Being at peace with choices…

July 20, 2017 by Carol Leave a Comment

Many of my clients are dealing with a major life change or decision, such as serious health issues and decisions about treatments, divorce or separation, relationships and marriage, decisions about having children, abortion, or adoption. It is so common to experience many different and often conflicting feelings, like anxiety, fear, anger or guilt, as well as excitement, hope, joy, relief.

Acknowledging, validating and empowering all your feelings, your inner wisdom, and ultimately your choices, allows you to find peace and healing with your decisions and with your self. But that’s not always easy. In highly personal life choices, you may often feel unsupported or invalidated by those around you who have different perspectives, and may find it difficult to talk openly about your feelings. Guided imagery meditation can be a helpful tool to give you a safe space to experience the support and validation you need and deserve.

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Opening and completing your day…

July 2, 2017 by Carol Leave a Comment

“Opening and Completing Your Day,” is a set of morning and evening guided imagery meditations that I created and recorded to give you a way to frame your day, that give you an energetic container for your day. In our busy lives, with electric lighting and 24/7 access to everything we have lost our connection to sunrise and sunset, lost the sense of a real container that frames our work lives, personal lives, and our time for rest and turning inward.

To me, containers are sacred vessels that give necessary form. It becomes so easy to just keep moving from one thing to the next without that delineation…now I am beginning my work, now I am completing it, now I am feeding myself, now I am resting…

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What should I eat? Nutrition and health…

June 14, 2017 by Carol Leave a Comment

Your nutritional and lifestyle patterns can nourish your spirit as well as your body. How we eat is as important as what we eat. I believe any food eaten with love and gratitude, in a peaceful setting will always be more healing than the most stringent, politically correct diet.

There are so many diets, and so many people saying that their way is the only way to eat…

I have found that the most helpful approach is to look at people as individuals; taking into consideration their lifestyle and beliefs, as well as their biology and genetics.

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Flow…

March 22, 2017 by Carol Leave a Comment

Well, I’m finally back to writing… I’ve missed the connection with you through this newsletter, but it’s been quite an unusual and stressful year. I think for many of us. Maybe for most of us! It does keep our brains more stimulated – which is always a good thing – when we constantly have to adapt to new circumstances and the un-expected, but it is exhausting, and wearying to the spirit.

Which brings me to the concept of flow… That sense of moving with what comes, moving with the currents of life. Of letting go of resistance and going with what is. It reminds me of one of my favorite stories in one of my all time favorite books, Richard Bach’s “Illusions.” He tells a tale of these beings who live at the bottom of a river. They spend their lives clinging to rocks to resist the current of the river. And of what happens when they finally let go…

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Imagery, meditation and the inner dog…

November 15, 2016 by Carol 7 Comments

What do imagery and meditation have to do with dogs? I share my home and my office with 2 wonderful large dogs, who as I write this are lying in front of the woodstove, basking in the warmth and feeling safe and content. But I also have an inner dog, who lives deep in my brain, in that ancient mysterious part of the nervous system that we humans share with all mammals.

My inner dog has a lot in common with my two relaxed friends; it is protective of me and it wants me to be safe and happy. It can go from tail-wagging pleasure to a growl in a nanosecond. And it can’t tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined – whether a dangerous intruder is ringing my doorbell, or the ring is happening in the movie playing on my TV.

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Tossing and turning…

May 29, 2016 by Carol 2 Comments

I can’t sleep, I just toss and turn for hours” is such a common complaint in my office these days. Thirty five years ago, when I began my private practice, I was working in New York City, and seeing a lot of people in high stress jobs. But curiously, people slept OK. Now I work in a peaceful rural setting in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, and insomnia or other sleep disturbances are disturbingly common. What’s happening?

STRESS! That’s what’s happening. We live with a level of chronic, unremitting stress that our bodies were never designed for, and we are paying the price with stressed adrenals and elevated cortisol levels that keep us wakeful when we should be sleepy. Stress hormones were supposed to be released when the proverbial tiger was jumping out of the tree to eat us, not when we sit in traffic, worry about the economy or stress about our work, relationships or the state of the environment. Now, so many of us have constantly elevated stress hormones, and that is a real problem (for many reasons!) but especially when it’s time to wind down and relax for sleep.

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Detox and Cleanse Your Body and Mind…

March 16, 2015 by Carol Leave a Comment

Everyone is talking about detox these days. We are suddenly obsessed with how polluted our bodies are and what strange concoctions we must drink to purify ourselves. But detoxification is something that our bodies do all the time, every moment. Detoxing is not something that we need to do to our bodies, but a process that our bodies do that we need to support…

We can support it by providing our bodies with all the ingredients that they need to efficiently detoxify, and we can support it with our choices of what we expose ourselves to. As we help our body to more efficiently and safely clear out the chemicals and toxins that we are inevitably exposed to in this modern world, it is important to also look at how we are toxic in our thoughts.

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Understanding Viruses: Colds, Ebola and Louis Pasteur

October 27, 2014 by Carol 4 Comments

Viruses can be uncomfortable, like the common cold or potentially deadly like Ebola. But what they share in common is the requirement for a host in which they can take hold. On his deathbed, Louis Pasteur admitted that he had been wrong to focus on waging war against germs… And he said that in fact, “the terrain is everything.” The terrain refers to the environment of our systems; physically, as well as emotionally. Is our immune system strong and alert to any invader? Or is it under constant stress and sluggish to react?

In a recent article by the Alliance for Natural Health they discuss how governments are overlooking natural remedies for Ebola. From simple basics like good nutrition and hygiene, to the wealth of natural antiviral treatments, there are so many inexpensive approaches available. Unfortunately, “inexpensive” is the operative word here. If no drug company can make money off the treatments there is little incentive to investigate them…

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Spirituality and work…

July 7, 2014 by Carol Leave a Comment

What makes a person spiritual?” And how do we – whatever our job – bring our own sense of spirituality into our work? There are so many different definitions of spirituality, and ultimately, it is only our own, personal definition that matters. But it is really just about how you function as a spiritual being in the world. All of the world. All of the time, not just Sundays…

For too many people, work is something that has to be done, something to get through, endure, get the paycheck that allows you live the rest of your life. But what if your job were an opportunity to express your sense of Spirit, and to connect with everyone you relate to from that place. How would that transform your day and your workplace?

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Breaking My Wrist or How Long Does Healing Take?

December 23, 2013 by Carol 14 Comments

It’s been quite a year… In April as I was walking my dog, I fell and landed on my right wrist, smashing it into many pieces. I will write more about that experience at some point, but today, I want to talk about how long it takes to heal…

Obviously, as an energy worker and body worker I was out of work! How long to take off? Until my hand was totally back to normal? That seemed absurd, the first month I felt like my whole right arm was off-line. It not only couldn’t do anything, it didn’t even want to try. I remember the day, about 5 weeks in, that – without thinking about it – I reached for a glass and picked it up with my right hand. I stared in amazement. My right hand had just spontaneously picked something up! It felt like that whole part of my body woke up that day and I found myself flipping light switches, reaching for the toothbrush, picking up a fork with my right hand again. So as soon as I felt that I could minimally function with both hands I thought that was enough healing time. I was ready to go back to work.

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