Stress

Missing Things…

April 25, 2020 by Carol Leave a Comment

It’s been 37 days since I last worked on anyone in my office. I love doing remote healing sessions, but I miss the physical connections, I miss touching people, I miss my orchids beaming their own form of healing energy from my office window sill…

We are all missing things, in this strange time, and we all need support. The isolation, disruption of our routines, economic stress and devastation, the fear and anxiety of getting sick, losing our livelihoods, or losing someone dear to us blend with the collective trauma of what is happening to our world. Many people seem surprised by how un-moored they feel. It’s more than just not knowing what day it is, it’s a greater disorientation from how dramatically life has changed and how quickly and unexpectedly it happened. How, even when we see other people, we can’t see their faces, their smiles through their masks… How we have to constantly monitor how far away we are, stifle the impulse to hug a friend, the wave of fear at regular, simple tasks like getting groceries or mail. How can we not miss the things that have been our anchors? How can we not feel the effects in our bodies, our hearts, our spirits?

As a holistic healthcare practitioner, as a healing guide and coach, I consider it an honor to help you find balance and grounding and centering in these wobbly and challenging times. To find the peace that lies deep within your heart, the unexpected gifts of this pandemic enforced time out, the groundedness and safety of living in your body.

May we all stay safe and healthy and connected to one another.
with love and support,
~Carol

Coronavirus – Supporting Your Immune System & Office Update

March 13, 2020 by Carol Leave a Comment

As we do our best to prepare and take precautions, it is also vitally important that we tend to our stress levels, our immune systems and our body, heart, mind and spirit.
Why do some people get very ill and others have a mild or undetectable response to any virus? That depends on many factors, especially on how well their immune system can respond to the challenge. The function of our immune systems is to recognize what is me, what is not-me; what is my body, my food, and what is a virus or bacteria or toxin and then mount the appropriate defense to keep us healthy. It is very important to support our immune systems to do their best to respond appropriately when confronted with any virus. So this is an especially crucial time to nourish ourselves on all levels – eat well, avoid stressors like sugar and junk food, take appropriate supplements, get plenty of sleep and stay connected to people we care about.
Fear produces stress hormones that send energy to our fight or flight mechanisms, taking valuable energy from our immune systems and our ability to digest and heal and repair.

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Quick Stress Relief Tips…

March 1, 2020 by Carol Leave a Comment

Trying to find the time to implement stress relief techniques can be stressful itself, so I wanted to share with you some quick stress releasing ideas. It really doesn’t take long to shift your energy and calm your nervous system and access a sense of relaxation and peacefulness. Here are a few of my favorite, very quick stress releasing tricks.

#1 – EXHALE… A few focused, deep breaths can shift your mood in a moment. Exhaling slowly stimulates the Parasympathetic part of the nervous system, the part that calms and nourishes our system. Inhaling stimulates the Sympathetic part, the part that controls the Fight or Flight response. Think about the difference between a quick gasp and adrenalin surge when you are startled, vs. a long, slow sigh of relief…

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Finding Balance – EFT and the Bigger Picture

February 23, 2020 by Carol 1 Comment

We humans tend to focus on what’s wrong, and like a dog licking a sore paw, we go over and over our stuff. The Energy Psychology technique EFT tapping is one of my favorite techniques for clearing stuff and finding balance. It provides a unique way to expand your focus, to broaden your view and create some welcome space for healing.

In EFT, we use words to bring the issue, problem, trauma, whatever to our consciousness, and then tap on acupuncture meridian points (known as Meridian Tapping) to clear the energetic connection to the problem. We also expand our focus to find a place of balance. Even though I have this problem, I am also something greater than this problem; there is a larger reality, a bigger picture, a place of balance and peace.

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What Does it Mean to Be Centered?

July 22, 2019 by Carol 2 Comments

Being centered means having a reference point, a place to come back to when life and emotions and stress push you off balance. Think about those wobbly toys that kids play with; you knock them down and they bounce right back. They have the kind of balance that we wobbly humans often wish we possessed! They have such a strong sense of what their “center” is, that they effortlessly go right back to it, no matter how many times or which direction you push them.

Being ‘centered’ is that kind of dynamic balance point. It doesn’t mean we are always there, it means we always know where to go back to. Kind of like knowing where your home is. Meditation is one very effective way to get more familiar with your center. Regular meditation teaches you where it is, what it feels like and how to get back there when you get temporarily lost.

How else do you get centered?

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Moods Are Like the Weather… Seasonal Affective Disorder

November 17, 2018 by Carol Leave a Comment

From a spiritual perspective, it’s been said, you are really the vast, deep, limitless sky, and your emotions are really just the clouds that come and go across that background. Sometimes they frame the sun and create a beautiful panorama, or a spectacular sunset. Sometimes they seem to block the sun and you can feel sad and gloomy. But then the wind blows, air currents shift and suddenly you are your true radiant self again…

As we move toward winter in the Northern hemisphere, we enter a time of challenging skies, often gray and cloudy, no longer balanced by the lush green of trees and plants. And many people find it difficult to remember the sun, remember the gentle air of spring, the brilliance of summer and most especially, their own inner light. They fall into seasonal sadness, also known as SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder. And it gets really hard to maintain a spiritual view on it all…

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Choices…

October 19, 2018 by Carol Leave a Comment

So many people seem to be stressed about making choices these days. Whether it is a major life change or decision – health issues or decisions about treatments, divorce or separation, career changes or simply the myriad of lifestyle choices we face on a daily basis – it is so common to feel unsettled and stressed and keep second guessing ourselves. When we make a choice, we want to feel a sense of peace and resolution.

But that’s not always easy… And the more distant or dis-connected we feel from our intuition and inner guidance the harder it is to be relaxed and at peace with our choices. Connecting with our deepest inner selves is often hardest at the times when we need it most.

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Ancestral patterns – what we take on that isn’t ours…

July 11, 2018 by Carol Leave a Comment

EFT Master Jaqui Crooks teaches some brilliant work on clearing ancestral energies – you know, the stuff we took on from our parents and their parents before them and on and on and on… I was privileged to study this work with her some years ago and have been using it more recently.

We learned a very elegant tapping technique to clear these energies, and restore ourselves to our original field. Sometimes these pre-verbal experiences are like computer viruses, contaminating our energy field and we need to clear them out. I am planning a workshop on clearing ancestral patterns for the fall, I look forward to sharing her powerful work with you.

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Where Does the “Four Steps to Center” Meditation Come From?

February 16, 2018 by Carol Leave a Comment

People have asked me how I came up with the Four Steps to Center™ process that I use in many of my guided imagery meditation CDs and mp3s. It evolved out of my belief of who we really are; not just physical beings, but beings of multiple levels, of heart and mind and spirit as well as body. I try to incorporate this understanding into all aspects of my life and my work, though of course, like everyone else, I frequently forget!

I call my blog and my newsletter “Living in Your Body” because I think that’s what we are really here to do; to learn how – as limitless beings of spirit – to live in the confines and confusions and endless possibilities of a physical body. So I developed the Four Steps process as two things.

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Every problem has a gift for you in it’s hands…

October 17, 2017 by Carol Leave a Comment

Health and healing are like life – filled with mystery and complexity and change. It makes the whole question of analyzing symptoms, getting diagnoses, of fixing and curing things quite complicated.

Richard Bach wrote, in his remarkable book Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah “Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.” I add to that “and every illness and symptom has a lesson.”

So when we look at our health, what do we see? A bunch of random symptoms and complaints, sent by a random and perhaps not very kind Universe to bug us and make our lives more difficult?

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