Alternative Therapies

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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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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Finding your WAY – intuition, common sense and overwhelm…

January 5, 2011 by Carol 4 Comments

So many teachers think they have THE WAY – the one technique or philosophy that will cure your health problems, find your soul mate and build your bank account. It’s so easy to be overwhelmed by the myriad of methods and schools and masters and experts. But it really comes down to listening to your gut, to following your intuition, and yes, a dash of common sense. Let me say it bluntly – I don’t believe that anyone has THE WAY!

As human beings, we share many characteristics, many patterns, many common problems and issues. We all have bodies, that have their own particular strengths and vulnerabilities, gifts and patterns. We all have hearts,that can love deeply, and often be wounded deeply. We all have minds that function in such a fascinating variety of ways. And I believe we all come from Spirit, and carry within ourselves the spark of the Divine.

But we are all unique individuals, with our own unique paths to follow.

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so what’s a detox anyway?

September 13, 2010 by Carol Leave a Comment

Detox is really popular these days, but unfortunately few people know what it really means. And that leads to a lot of ineffective and often dangerous fad detoxification diets. We humans are so good at making simple things complicated…

Our bodies are very wise. They know what we need, and often more importantly, what we don’t need to function optimally. We evolved in the wild, eating what’s known now as the Paleolithic diet; vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and lean animal protein like wild game, (and yes, grubs and snails and insects!) We usually skip the insect part these days, but the rest of it is really the ideal human diet. No human cultures were originally vegetarian, that came later to accommodate for a population that grew so fast that they ran out of game!

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Enlightenment and flossing…

July 4, 2010 by Carol 1 Comment

A friend just sent me this zen proverb “After enlightenment, the laundry.” And I thought, “and after every cool, cosmic, transformative experience, you still have to floss…”

We search for the peak experience, for the magic bullet, the Answer, the Way… Even if it existed, there’s still the regular Stuff of life; laundry, flossing, and no matter how many times you cut your toenails, you still have to do it again!

If only we could be content with the Yin and Yang of life, the excitement and the mundane, the epiphany and the falling back into our old unconscious habits, inhaling and exhaling, transformation and cleaning up dog poop. Our eternal search for transcendence makes us glorious – our stubborn denial of the mundane stuff of life makes us like ostriches.

What’s your favorite contradiction? And is it really contradiction, or is there really Yin and Yang, in-breath and out-breath, light and dark for a reason…

~Carol

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Sunlight and Vitamin D

June 21, 2010 by Carol 1 Comment

It’s the first day of summer, and today was a gorgeous sunny day in the Northeast. Time to look at the benefits of sunlight and the dispel some of the fear that has been generated about sun exposure in recent years. Human beings evolved in a warm, sunny climate, and our bodies rely on sunlight, not food sources to produce Vitamin D.So much fear has been generated about skin cancers that many people never allow their skin to reap the benefits of healing sunlight (without Vitamin D-blocking sunscreens.)

And ironically, it is nutritional deficiencies of Vitamin D and antioxidants that can make us more prone to skin cancers. It is estimated that for every case of skin cancer eliminated by avoiding sun exposure or sunscreen use, there are 20 or more cases of breast or prostate cancer caused by the ensuing lack of Vitamin D!

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