Everyday Bliss For Women In Leadership

Today’s the day!! If you purchase my new book: 

Everyday Bliss For Busy Women

out today on:

Amazon.com  (this is a link to the book on Amazon)

..and return with your order number to the book’s website:

 http://everydaybliss.org

...you’ll get a whoppin’ ton of bonuses. Best of all, you’ll get:

The Energy Of Bliss Telesummit

May 5 - 7 at 12:00 - 3:00pm Pacific / 3 - 6pm Eastern

Twelve experts in life, work, relationships, marriage, parenting, stress busting, procrastination, energy therapies, neurolinguistic programming and getting it all done without going crazy. All free, all to support your personal transformation that you’ll find in Everyday Bliss For Busy Women.

(Can’t attend? No problem. There will be replays!)

All the scoop is here, TODAY at:  http://everydaybliss.org

Free membership too, to the freshest online Peaceful Presence community on the web AND a telesummit PACKED FULL of amazing presenters.  What are you waiting for?? Get in here!   

I eat healthy because I want to. Some may say I don’t have a choice, but I prefer to embody the reality of my physical container as a temple, and to keep the temple clean and sacred, I only put the best fuel in it. If I eat bread or glutinous grains of any kind, I blow up like a toad and look like I’m carrying triplets. Discomfort doesn’t begin to cover it.

And when I eat animal products (increasingly rare) they’re organic - meat, eggs and cheese, because even those with their heads still far down in the sand have pretty much acknoweledged the contamination of world food supplies with pesticides, hormones and the like. Ditto veggies, which must be organic.

Above is a picture of my kitchen counter with a few staples on it and my award-winning (with family at least) recipe for Pumpkin Apple Crumblebutter. So healthy it counts as a beefy serving of veggies AND fruit, and I lived on it as a treat and dessert while I was writing the book. Click the link to go to the recipe. It’s gluten free and you won’t even miss Pumpkin Pie at holidays with this stashed in your pantry. 

But if I’m back in my home state visiting friends or in suburban areas, organic is hard to come by, so I’m okay making do with the best I can get. Lots of filtered water, lots of farmer’s market fare. At home, we keep healthy foods on hand and eat more out of the cupboard than outside the house. I pretty much figure out dinner a few hours before we eat.

But I was very suprised to learn that on the other end of the scale from anorexia and bulimia, is a zone where healthy eating becomes unhealthy obsession. Complete with a quiz of course, to see if "this is you".

Check this out, from an article from the NBC11 local television station:

Is there a dark side to such healthy living?  Bay Area doctor Steven Bratman coined the term "orthorexia" from the Greek word ortho, which means correct. The disorder is not in the obsession to be thin, but with being pure.

El Camino Hospital Dietician Kim Bandelier said orthorexia is not a medically-recognized diagnosis, but it’s real and can be very dangerous.

"We normally see it associated with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). It’s a symptom of a mental disorder. They definitely have an unhealthy preoccupation with food," Bandelier said.

Dieticians say the vast majority of healthy eaters are nowhere near orthorexic. But like any eating disorder, there are red flags to watch out for. One of the signs is when someone no longer enjoys food.

Alexis Perlmutter said she and many of her friends have some orthorexic tendencies.  "I used to love Big Macs. Now I look at Big Mac and I think, ‘Poison, poison, poison’ and I won’t eat one," Perlmutter said.

There are some questions you can ask yourself to see if you are obsessed with health foods and may be at risk of developing orthorexia. This quiz is from Dr. Bratman’s book "Health Food Junkies." Give yourself a point for each question you answer with "yes."

• Do you spend more than three hours a day thinking about healthy food? (For four hours, give yourself two points).
  
• Do you plan tomorrow’s food today?
  
• Do you care more about the virtue of what you eat than the pleasure you receive from eating it?
  
• Have you found that as the quality of your diet has increased, the quality of your life has correspondingly diminished?
  
• Do you keep getting stricter with yourself?
  
• Do you sacrifice experiences you once enjoyed to eat the food you believe is right?
  
• Do you feel an increased sense of self-esteem when you are eating healthy food? Do you look down on others who do not?
  
• Do you feel guilt or self-loathing when you stray from your diet?
  
• Does your diet socially isolate you from others?
  
• When you are eating the way you are supposed to, do you feel a peaceful sense of total control?

Light said she’s aware of her hyper-healthy attitude and she believes it that keeps her in balance. So, as the phrase goes, too much of a good thing can be bad for you, even when it comes to health food.

The original article is here: at the NBC11 website

CHICAGO - The first follow-up of a landmark study of hormone use after menopause shows heart problems linked with the pills seem to fade after women stop taking them, while surprising new cancer risks appear.

That heart trouble associated with hormones may not be permanent is good news for millions of women who quit taking them after the government study was halted six years ago because of heart risks and breast cancer.

But the new risks for other cancers, particularly lung tumors, in women who’d taken estrogen-progestin pills for about five years puzzled the researchers and outside experts….

….Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a New York University women’s heart specialist, said the study underscores that in addition to cancer screening, women who stop taking hormones need to find other ways to keep their bones strong, including getting more calcium and exercise.

Well we knew that ingested hormones were bad for you, but here’s even more proof. Get a bone density test if you’re over 35, don’t smoke or quit if you already do, exercise like a rabid rottweiler and drink your milk or oyster shell calcium with an acidic chaser like a shot glass of orange juice or a teaspoon of lemon juice, to help it absorb. Don’t forget if you’re taking a calcium supplement to make sure it has Vitamin D in it to aid assimilation of the calcium inside the body - milk in America already has Vitamin D added. And please do go read the whole article here

The phenomenal Lisa Wilder has brought to our attention the American Lung Association’s 52 Proven Stress relievers.  (Pollyanna Power, girl) Chief among them was: Don’t do anything now you’d have to lie about later. It really took me aback to realize that this is not right now a foregone conclusion for us as a species.

What a gritty way to say…

live from your center

from the blessed bowl of your belly

sup wisdom…

and give to get

All affect each other,

none is seperate

Please get it.

Thank you.

To quote Reverend Dr. King, whose memorial day we recently celebrated, "I have a Dream."  I personally have a dream that all beings will experience simultaneous enlightenment, release of pain and attachment to illusion. And that we’ll all realize we’ve already won the lottery and already live in paradise, each and every day. It’s both a past fact and foregone conclusion.

Doubt that this means you? Then listen to your Bliss Compass: the winged messenger of your Breath, and the measured thrumming of your heart.

Forwarded from powerful beauty, and ace girlfriend, Jasmine White (right) is this "friendly chain mail".  Send it to all the Beautiful Women in your life!  

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Did you know that it’s Beautiful Women Month? Well it is, and that means you! I’m supposed to send this to FIVE BEAUTIFUL WOMEN, and if you’re a woman reading this, YOU are one of them!!!  

Below is a wonderful poem Audrey Hepburn wrote  when asked to share her "beauty tips." It was read at her funeral years later:

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness…

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day. (or your mother, sibling or lover  ~ Maryam)

For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone…

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed;

Never throw out anyone.

And one Maryam-tip:

For a smooth and wrinkle-free face, live in the Now where there are truly no problems to cause brow-furrowing.

Remember,
if you ever need a helping hand,
you will find one at the end of each of your arms.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands;
one for helping yourself and the other for helping others.

If you share this with another woman,
something good will happen.
You will boost another woman’s self esteem,
and she will know that you care about her.

It’s
BEAUTIFUL Women Month
TAG
YOU’RE IT!

When I see disinformation, even very well-meaning disinformation, I’m passionate about correcting it if I can to spare someone some grief. Recently at LifeHacker, the very excellent blog edited by Gina Trapani, there was an article on "Combatting the Common Cold" that contained the advice to eat pasta with garlicky red sauce. Yes’m to the garlicky ragu, not so to the pasta. (about which read more, below)

Inflamed with all the passion of the recently converted, I wrote an off-the-cuff sermon on the evils of gluten which I also give you here. Please take heed. You cannot imagine how very much more healthy you will feel without the "glue" of wheat-based products gumming up your insides!

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Exclude Pasta, make sure it’s gluten-free pasta or better - strands of spaghetti squash - over which you ladle that garlicky ragu. Pasta and other items made of glutinous grains such as wheat, rye, barley, spelt, kamut and millet all form mucus in the body. If your system is clogged with mucus to begin with, and a virus piles more mucus on, it takes you twice to three times as long to recover from ANY illness, no matter what enhancements you use. (Image courtesy of www.kidsaware.co.uk/ where you can get gluten allergy stickers and other gluten-free goods)

Researchers also posit mucus-filled intestines clogged with undigested food, (which can barely extract adequate nutrients from the food we take in) to be the primary source of most of the diseases we face as human beings. Where there is excess mucus present, digestion - and health - is a dicey proposition.

The 7-10 days doctors suggest is the "normal recovery time" for a cold is for the average American body clogged with mucus and fighting for health on several different fronts. Most Westerners are mucus filled due to the fact that the average American and European diet contains a disproportionately large amount of milk and glutinous grains. By "mucus filled", I don’t necessarily mean you have drippy sinuses (though this is certainly a symptom) - this kind of mucus is in the body’s cells and tissues inside organs, muscle and particularly, the intestines. When mucus fills the intestines, food is allowed to ferment, bacteria and parastic infestations can gain hold and low-grade inflamation moves over the body without our even being aware of it.

If you’re gassy after a meal including grain or dairy, this is why. If you have freakish amounts of gas and are wondering how to get rid of it - go gluten-free. Ditto infections that keep coming back and that you just can’t seem to cure. It’s no accident that the primary component of the cold cure above is garlic. Garlic wipes out intestinal parasites in large enough quantities, and is both a virucide and bactericide. Large enough quantities I should note, are quantities big enough to make you severely antisocial, and cause gas and loose bowels of their own. Don’t worry though, you’re excreting the toxins that were making you sick in the first place.

I would also add to the above 10 - 15 mg of zinc every three hours and Vitamin C to bowel tolerance (again, until it makes you gassy) every four hours and sambucus nigra - elderberry - extract, tablets or syrup which has been proven in European studies to fight even the flu virus. On a tertiary level, what a cold is trying to tell you is to slow down. We have cold and other viruses in our environment all the time. We become susceptible when we are stressed, hurried, not eating well or taking care of ourselves.

Ask yourself: "what is my body trying to tell me?"

More On Why You Should Consider Going Gluten-Free:
My pre and post-gluten-free recovery times for an average upper respiratory ailment are night and day different, as most who are gluten and dairy-free find. Unlike the most common of gluten ailments, celiac disease, I do not have serious physical problems - my body is simply allergic to gluten like most Westerners,  and produces gas and liquid in response to it. I had no idea until a naturopathic doctor pointed this out to me by looking at my abdomen girth and measuring it against the rest of my body. When I stopped eating gluten (which was easier than I thought it would be), I lost 3.5" off my abdomen in two weeks, from elimination of the gas and edema (excess liquids) that the allergy caused.

What a great benefit!

Like my "GF" (gluten-free) kindred, I also have by my own reckoning, about forty percent more available energy than I did when eating grains and dairy. I don’t miss grains at all. GF folks can eat rice, nuts, seeds and some of us can also eat corn. Ancient grains are also available to us, such as amaranth and quinoa and grass seed products that are used like grains, such as Ethiopian teff. None of these place the mucus burden on our bodies that wheat, rye, barley and the like do.

And on the virus front….most of the gluten-free find we either just don’t have colds anymore, or it’s a matter of a 48 hour recovery at most. I used to take two weeks to recover from a cold on average, when I was eating gluten. The American Academy of Family Physicians also links gluten with viral issues. (Source: http://www.aafp.org/afp/980301ap/pruessn.html)

YMMV, but when "conquering" a cold, at least for the time it takes you to get over it, consider going gluten and dairy free and taking more water than you think you need. Most Westerners are also chronically dehydrated as we tend to drink coffee, tea and soda over plain, pure water. You’ll get over your cold faster, and your body will appreciate the vacation!

Some sites you might like to visit for more info:

Shauna James Ahern’s awesome blog: http://glutenfreegirl.com
Wikipedia’s Explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diet
GF Diet Helps Autism (Aspergers, ADD and more): http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001526.htm
Karina’s Kitchen: Gluten-Free Goddess: http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/

Or, simply Google "gluten-free" to get more information about this healthy and health-inducing lifestyle. Enjoy!

One of the most important of the Bliss Keys that I’ve discovered is:

The German metaphysicist Eckhart Tolle speaks about our collected personal negative experiences - fear, anger, pain, sadness, guilt and the like, operating as a form of consciousness inside of us. He calls this collection of experience the "painbody". As humans, we are somewhat addicted to paying attention to negativity. When we constantly attend to our painbody, it prevents us from being fully Present. Added to our own personal negativity, we also have that of our immediate family lines and also, of the culture we we’re born into and the one in which we currently live. Sum all that up and the energy the painbody consumes can be a hellishly powerful force.

The painbody feeds upon negative input, and its existence is the reason we can sometimes experience very miserable lives.

Those joining me in the 12 Keys to Bliss Program will learn more about the Painbody, how it operates and how to move past it. You can still join us! Click here for more info  (opens in a new window)

Tolle and other spiritual authors point to the quality of having a fairly large painbody (most Westerners do) as being "compacted" or "compressed". This always makes me think of those trash compacter machines back in the 1980’s. Remember those? They took a whole houseful of trash and compacted it into a cube less than a quarter of its original size.

Imagine being only a quarter of YOUR original size. I’m barely 5"5" in stocking feet. If I were a quarter of my size, I would be less than a foot and a half tall (or, from 162.5cm to 43 cm for the decimal crowd).

Are there days when you FEEL as small as this? As if the weight of the world were bowing you down to the ground? This is the PHYSICAL SENSATION of Compaction - give thanks for this feeling! It is a powerful tool that will lead you towards Bliss.

How? By showing you the opposite of what you really want. Simply flip this state on its back and take a look at the flipside. This is what you DO want. Straighten your shoulders, elongate your upper spine and allow it to pull your entire body upward as you think about what you do want. Engage your abdominal muscles until you feel how strong you really are.

Think about it…
 

We all decided that it would be a sumptuous holiday gift to offer the audio of our last Everyday Bliss Party as a Holiday Gift to bring Joy To the World. I am so pleased that the Breathing Peace Process has been so well received. You can see just a few of the comments that have come in from people here on how this went for them. Feel free to post your own comments, too!

And here’s the Press Release on this from: http://www.prleap.com/pr/109477/

Feel free to copy this WHOLE thing as free content for your blog and a nice giveaway to your readers!

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Free MP3 To END Holiday Stress FOR GOOD

SUMMARY:

Hate the thought of visiting family at the holidays? Does the idea of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or New Year’s leave you stressed and in a tizzy? Well, worry no more, stress management help is here and uncharacteristically at this time of year, that help is absolutely free. In a holiday gift to the world, The Maryam Webster Group and Energy Coach Institute offer a complimentary MP3 audio to help YOU completely END holiday stress - for good.

For quick access: http://www.maryamwebster.com/holidayblissparty/

FULL PRESS RELEASE:

(PRLEAP.COM) December 21, 2007. San Francisco, CA - In a free holiday gift to the world, Maryam Webster, CEO of The Maryam Webster Group and Director of The Energy Coach Institute, offers an MP3 audio of her master class to help END holiday stress, in one hour - for good.

For the investment of a mere hour of your time with no prior knowledge needed, this gentle mental exercise brings uplifting change that will leave you feeling energized and refreshed, and even help you cultivate daily Bliss as a lifelong state of being.

Maryam, an accomplished therapist, trainer and author of the upcoming New Harbinger book "Everyday Bliss For Busy Women" (May, 2008) says of this free class:

"I become dismayed at hearing both clients and friends saying they dreaded going home for the holidays…or for whom the holiday season meant a month or more of depression and unhappiness. With the quick and simple techniques we have today, this is just so unnecessary. I hope everyone who reads this will take the time to give a listen to the audio and work this "Breathing Peace" method to their benefit. It’s wonderfully relaxing and changes relationships, perspective and events like magic!"

The "Breathing Peace" process is additionally good all year ‘round to take care of stress at its source. Though topically framed around the holidays or whenever families and significant others can make everyday living stressful, you’ll be able to transpose the process to many different situations and environments to achieve personal Peace.

No special skills are needed, just sit back, relax and follow the instructions along with Maryam’s able guidance and plucky volunteer client Sabrina, an intern at The Energy Coach Institute. Written instructions on how to perform the method again, plus invitations to monthly telegatherings where similar information is shared, are also included in this powerful gift.

For instant access, catch YOUR audio break for the holidays here:

http://www.maryamwebster.com/holidayblissparty/

The work you’ll experience on this audio is a powerful component of Maryam’s Everyday Bliss Coaching process and her Certified Energy Coach Program’s GAP coaching model - known for its lightspeed transformative power and ease of usability.

Beginning in February, The Energy Coach Institute will be offering Maryam’s personal development program:

"The 12 Keys To Blissful Living"

Taught by Maryam and a a stellar cast of Everyday Bliss Experts, participants will uses methods like you’ll learn in this free audio, to clear the 12 common Bliss Blockers and use the 12 Bliss Keys to generate Peace in everyday life. Plus you’ll learn simple, uncomplicated ways to transform relationships, living conditions, job situations and begin to live a life free of limitation.

You can learn more and register for this unique program (be sure to catch the Earlybird Rate through December 24th!) here:

http://maryamwebster.com/12keys

We at The Maryam Webster Group and Energy Coach Institute hope you enjoy this free peace-bringing method, and wish the world the Happiest and Most Peaceful of Holiday Seasons.

Reference URL’s:

maryamwebster.com
energycoachinstitute.com
everydaybliss.org

Join Us for a Festive and Transformative Holiday Party!

Date:
Monday, December 10, 2007

Call Time:
9am Pacific / 12pm Eastern / 5pm UK

(To translate correct time for your area, check the Meeting Planner link at: www.timeanddate.com)

You’ll learn a technique never seen before…

You’re going to learn a special part of The Everyday Bliss Process -  how to make situations, memories, even objectionable family members bearable and even blissful for the holidays…and onward. This technique is a blend you’ve never experienced before - no one has. And it will be yours from now on.

But there’s also a higher purpose to this telegathering.

"The opportunity for us to grow exponentially as individuals  and community is already present."

Many people are feeling the pull towards a new dimension of being, thought, and freedom from limitation. 

How will you leverage this  opportunity as an individual? As a member of a community?  

And how can you maximize your growth while remaining relaxed, present and in bliss?

Let’s discover how together, using what we’ll learn on this call.

We will be discussing precepts rooted in the teachings of Abraham-Hicks, Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer and The Dalai Lama on how to remain Present when all around you dissolves in chaos. And further, on how to use that chaos as a personal  path to Bliss.

Note:  If you’ve never registered for one of our calls before, you’ll receive an opt-in email which you MUST click through to get call details, downloads and extras.  

Simply enter your name and primary email below and I’ll whisk the details right to your inbox

Name
Email

WIth this dish you’ll never miss pumpkin pie at the holidays. The "crumblebutter" portion is great for an Apple Brown Betty, cobbler topper or with spicing amendments, a spice cake or coffee cake streusel. You’ll have to fight even the kids off to finish this one. It is a foregone conclusion that as with all my recipes, this calls for all organic ingredients, or as many as you can find.  

The Pumpkin - Apple

1 baked squash of any kind. Pumpkin, obviously, but butternut, acorn and banana squash work just as well

Bake small, cleaned and quartered pumpkin in oven in a traditional manner or in glass dish with 1/4 c. water, covered with a towel for 6 - 8 mins in the microwave. For extra added goodness, toast the pumpkin seeds with a little good olive oil and sprinkle to top the dish. You have to chew these up and spit out the hull, but the meat of pumpkin seeds has too many vitamins, minerals and precious natural oils to simply throw out. Enjoy.

Scrub one firm fleshed organic apple such as Fuji, Jonathan, Gala or Granny Smith and slice into eighths, removing core, stem and seeds. Set aside.

The Crumblebutter Streusel

This is where the gluten-free gourmet gets to haul the sorghum flour out from wherever it’s been stashed for the last six months and really go to town. This crumble can be used as noted above for a variety of dessert toppings, just vary the fruit underneath. Or beans, if you prefer. The local mosque in my hometown made a mean navy bean pie that rivaled pumpkin in its taste, smoothness and protein count. Be creative with it!

4 tbsp sorghum flour
1tbsp + 1 tsp tapioca flour
8 tbsp finely ground coconut meal
8 tbsp finely ground almond meal
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp cinnamon or 3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
4 tbsp Blue Agave syrup
4 tbsp softened organic butter

Mix all ingredients in a bowl with a fork until they form a crumbly mash. It’s okay to leave a few large pieces, it doesn’t all have to be uniform. Set aside.

The Puttin’ It All Together Method

Arrange large chunks of cooked pumpkin in an oven or microwave safe bowl. Drizzle the tops lightly with Blue Agave syrup which is very low in glycemic value and can be eaten safely by those with sugar issues. You may wish to substitute honey - either will do. Sprinkle the crumblebutter streusel over the pumpkin. Arrange slices of apple atop the pumpkin in a nice circular pattern. Sprinkle this with a little extra cinnamon or a light dusting of pumpkin pie  spice.

Drizzle a few extra teaspoons of Blue Agave syrup over the top. I like throwing a handful of pecans, broken into tiny pieces over the top for added protien and to round out the "brown betty" type of taste. So much the better if you’ve first roasted them with a little olive oil, but raw works just as well.

Broil on medium heat for a few minutes until the butter melts and apples go soft. Watch carefully - the baking time will depend on your oven. Alternatively, microwave uncovered for 2 minutes. If you microwave, the crumblebutter streusel will not brown, but will otherwise taste just fine.

Serve immediately. The decadent may wish to pour a dollop of heavy cream over the top, but artificial whipped toppings are absolutely verboten. This dish is remarkably low in sugar, high in fiber and protein. If you have it with a side of yogurt, (or mix a little honey and cinnamon into the yogurt and use it as a topping) Pumpkin Apple Crumblebutter makes a nourishing, hot and filling treat for winter morning breakfasts. A dish similar to this has long been our home’s standard Solstice and Christmas morning fare.

Enjoy!