Everyday Bliss For Women In Leadership

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

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!

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!

Last year the National Institute of Health published a study that said echinacea, or purple coneflower (at right - isn’t she pretty?), does nothing to help or cure the common cold. (Hundreds of years of pioneer and native American experience to the contrary). Now, the British Journal Lancet has published a counter study that says granny was right. From USA Today Health:

A new study published today in the British journal The Lancet: Infectious Diseases  finds that the popular herbal supplement echinacea cuts the chance of catching a cold by 58% and can reduce the duration of colds by about a day and a half.

This directly contradicts a major study funded by the National Institutes of Health and published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine which found that echinacea doesn’t work.

The Lancet study looked at the results of 14 previous clinical trials that investigated echinacea’s effects on the common cold. Those trials involved a total of over 1,600 patients.

The analysis was done by Craig Coleman, a professor of pharmacy at the University of Connecticut, and colleagues. Meta-analyses combine the findings of large numbers of studies to tease out trends that might not be visible individually.

Coleman and his colleagues looked at all the randomized, placebo-controlled, peer-reviewed studies available and by combining their data, found that echinacea reduced the incidence of contracting the common cold and its duration.

And they wonder why the herb grannies sometimes cast a jaundiced eye at ‘that newfangled doctorin". While science has its place, you’ve got to wonder sometimes why hundreds of years of anecdotal evidence is often pooh-poohed. Perhaps because big pharma can’t lay patent to what is essentially a weed?  Full article here 

Yesterday I went to see my wonderful friend Jasmine for a tui-na and tuning forks massage. (if you don’t know what tui-na is, it’s the best thing since sliced tekka) Afterward, I went to the large Asian shopping center on Wolfe Road in San Jose, to the HK Potsticker for takeout. On the way I stopped at the adjacent Ten-Ren for a jasmine peal tea and a bag of tea eggs - mmm, delicious. While I don’t eat potstickers anymore (no gluten for me!) I had their yummy minced shrimp in lettuce cups, always a crowd pleaser.

I sat outside under the walkway roof and admired the fine day and local wildlife while sipping tea and waiting for my takeout order. A small young finch, taking his first steps out of the nest caught my eye in the rafters above me. His entire little body was quivering with nerves and every fluffed feather trembled. Cheeping constantly, he took one hop after the other and finally flittered up to the rafter above, where his mother chirped her congratulations.

“Good boy!” I called out in encouragement. “Way to go!” His siblings in the nest put up an angry, squabbling chorus. As the little finch looked back at them, he seemed to sag, trembling all the harder - I fancied they were not being very supportive.

Mombird flew a few rafters off to a higher beam, turned around, cocked her head and chirped, fixing her offspring with a beady eye. Looking back at his nest-mates, the little fellow trembled even harder and his cheeping entreaties increased in urgency. He made several false starts and I cheered him again, joined by the hostess from the restaurant and a passerby who stopped to see what the commotion was about. I was cheering in English, they in Mandarin. We were all saying the same thing though: “Go on little guy, you can do it!”.

The young’n looked first to his mother, then to the three of us standing on the sidewalk cheering him on. Finally, with a huge cheep, swelled breast and fluttering of tiny wings, he flapped unsteadily but successfully, up to the higher beam.

Mombird clucked over her baby and preened his feathers by way of comfort. The two ladies and I laughed delightedly, called our congratulations, and shook hands before going our separate ways.

This Brave Little Bird reminded me again to pay attention only to those who cheer me in life and ignore those whose sour grapes attitude wastes time and energy with displays of anger, jealousy or attempts to bring us down.

He reminded me to look for and pay attention to those who are supportive, even if they don’t know I can do something, but simply believe I can. And who are willing to give the gift of their Belief to me freely, just for the joy of doing so. This is a gift that is best enjoyed by passing it on. Let others know you believe in them, cheer them on to success! That’s like money in the bank, for when you need someone to cheer you, they’ll be there.

It also reminds me of Abraham-Hicks saying that we are blessed with an “emotional self-guidance system”. When we go for what is purely pleasurable and blissful to us, we will always succeed and attract what is highest and best for us. The Brave Little Bird needed to push through his fear and learn how to fly. While I can only imagine, to quote Jonathan Livingston Seagull, flight is the most purely enjoyable thing for a bird, it’s their reason for being. “I Fly, therefore I Live.”

What is YOUR “flight” - your reason for living? Do you get enough of that in your everyday life? Let’s talk about it. Comment here, below….

Could it be because I eat a lot of garlic?? We put it in our food, add it to our fresh veggie juices, make an and have it in teas when we do get ill…which isn’t often. Came across a great article from Ashland, Oregon herbalist, Julie Avena on this. If you’ve got a cough, flu or other inflammatory problem, listen up! This is great stuff:

Daily use of garlic has been known to prevent heart disease, balance blood pressure, lower cholesterol, and increase overall immunity. Eating raw or lightly cooked garlic is the best way to benefit from its healing virtues. Lightly cooking chopped garlic in olive oil helps to infuse the medicinal constituents into your meals. It is best to let the chopped garlic sit for ten minutes, adding it at the very end of the cooking process to preserve more allicin, the beneficial compound responsible for fighting disease. It is questionable whether encapsulated powdered garlic has any medicinal benefit at all.

When addressing an acute condition, only raw garlic will fight infections. Try it chopped and mixed in honey, juiced with vegetables (start with ¼ tsp garlic juice per 16 ounces of juice, up to 1 tsp garlic juice, every hour), sprinkled over soup or salad. Keep in mind that too much raw garlic can cause nausea, vomiting and irritation to the intestinal tract, so start with small doses. One should avoid taking raw garlic on an empty stomach.

Different solvents extract different constituents of garlic. Boulder herbal guru, Paul Bergner, shares this “Connoisseur’s Garlic Cocktail” in his book, The Healing Power of Echinacea and Goldenseal and Other Immune System Herbs: Blend together 3 cloves garlic with 1 tsp each red wine, vinegar and olive oil, add ¼ cup hot water and let sit 6 hours. Without straining, add 1/3 of the mix to a cup of hot water and drink up, repeating every 3-6 hours.

This sounds like a recipe for salad dressing, but this stuff really works. If you are still freaked out about the possibility of a bird flu pandemic, may I suggest a simple act to ease your conscious. Plant garlic! Simply take a healthy looking, fat clove off the garlic head and put it in the earth with the tip facing up; if you plant now you can have a harvest by mid-summer. Getting your hands in the earth and growing your own medicine is therapy in itself. Don’t let their fear tactics weaken you! Remember, prevention and peace of mind is the best medicine.

Julie Avena is a certified clinical herbalist, teacher, writer, mother, musician and dancer living in Ashland, Oregon. She creates a line of herbal body care products available at www.earthmamagoods.com. She can be reached for classes and consultations by calling 541-292-6062 or writing to mail@earthmamagoods.com.

GOT DENTAL OR OTHER MINOR SURGERY COMING UP?  

I am running a PRIVATE STUDY on the methods I use to consistently eliminate pain, described below. If you are interested in reducing or eliminating PRE-OP MINOR SURGERY ANXIETY and POST-OP DENTAL OR OTHER MINOR SURGERY PAIN, do consider enrolling in the study. We’ll be using my patented Energy Coaching Pain Relief Process to experience NO pre-surgery anxiety and elimination or great reduction of post-operative pain.

You’ll get three sessions of energy coaching, customized energy exercises, follow up and a healing audio made just for you, for the price of a single session with me. These techniques work, that’s all I can say. I’m proof positive. Won’t you join me in being pain-free?

Interested? Call the Minor Surgery Pain Relief Study line at: 641-985-5700  x 467157, then press Extension 7

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Ahem. Hem. Yes. Hear Ye, Hear Ye, this: "HEALTH ALERT & BRIEF COMMERCIAL FOR DENTAL HEALTH"

So if you’re reading this and have a potential interest in your own gum health, you might be wondering what causes gumline or gingival recession. Though my dentist said it was genetically caused, I know drinking acidic substances are bad (goodbye coffee, my occasional diet soda and the heavier teas…) and vigorous tooth brushing is directly detrimental. (thanks Dad, for insisting I "attack" teeth with brush as a kid!) Gum-line defects occur when erosion of the gums exposes the sensitive upper root portion of a tooth, below the enamel line.

Gumline erosion is common, especially as people age. If you’re over forty, you might want to have an intimately close peek at your gums on both sides of the tooth. Gingivitis, inflammation of the gums and gumline recession has been implicated in heart disease, so it’s best to get it fixed ASAP. Brush gently, in tiny circles. Floss. Every. Single. Day. I hear you saying "but my gums bleed when I floss!" Of course they do. You have gingivitis! Flossing actually toughens the gum up and they stop bleeding within a week of flossing AND become more impervious to bacterial damage.  And if you want to know how to NOT HAVE PAIN DURING DENTAL PROCEDURES….keep reading.

<END BRIEF COMMERCIAL FOR DENTAL HEALTH>

And back to my story, for those who are still reading…

All the "thought viruses" I was given by all those who said it would be "worse pain than childbirth" went into the void. I used a mixture of NLP and hypnotic processes, Tapas Acupressure Technique and kinesiology exercises and had NO pre-op anxiety, NO pain whatsoever during or after the operation almost 48 hours later and no loss of function in my daily life.

Last time, with the emdogain, I had significant discomfort with the same anaesthesia used. I took one pain pill then and still have the rest of that bottle three years later. This time, I haven’t had any discomfort, and don’t intend or anticipate any. I programmed myself for swift healing and that’s happening too. How cool is that?

I told the doc’s secretary I was in no pain when she called today to inquire about how many painkillers I’d downed. Full bottle of oxycodone just sitting there. Haven’t touched it and won’t. When I have stitches out, will tell doc the same thing. I’ll offer him slots for referrals to other patients who would like to have the same intra and post-surgical benefits. Such an opportunity!

Many have asked "what DOES it feel like then"?  It’s akin to when you burn your mouth on a hot drink and the roof of the mouth sloughs off. The burning sensation I never had, but the feeling of sloughing is there. It’s not pain by any dimension, just a slightly odd or interesting feeling. I programmed myself for "slightly interesting feelings" so that’s no suprise.

The roof is where the graft skin was taken, and I was suprised to find it such a delicately thin slice of skin - I’d expected it to be far thicker. There is a line of blue nylon sutures along either side of the roof of my mouth, just above the upper molar gumline. The part where the roof skin was grafted onto the six lower molars has no feeling whatsoever, unless I touch or pull my chin or lower lip. And then it’s only what might be called a "tentative" or "slightly fragile" feeling. Much like the new skin grown under a peeling sunburn. And I’m too smart to touch it much!

I hope this has been informational and fun…or at least interesting for you to read, and if you do have receding gumlines, that you’re prompted to start taking care of them and yourself!

And again, if you’re interested in joining the MINOR SURGERY PAIN RELIEF STUDY, just call the hotline here:  641-985-5700  Input Access Code: 467157 then press extension 7.

Looking forward to speaking with you and getting you going on PAIN FREE minor surgical interventions. And I promise you, I WILL NOT dwell too long on the 3rd Stage Turkey and Vegetables baby food. Not tooooo much at least, though it was quite important in the overall scheme of things.

Want to know what I’m talking about and how the cat saved the day?  ("Anoofka! Annnooffffka! Get you fuwwy bo’ in hya no yun wady!")

Stay tuned for Part III: "How To Survive A Gingival Graft So Successfully You could just Scream For Joy".

Warm Holiday Wishes, Maryam Webster, M.Ed. M.NLP Wellness and Pain Relief Coaching

Here’s something my buddy Andy would describe as "toad-ally FOOOO-GLY" …..but ver-r-r-r-y interesting. Ladies and gentlemen, the horrifying pre-gumline graft recession:  Bleah!! Blouwoeooeoeoeoeoeoh! Geeyakkata-ick!

It’s a terrible thing, truly awful to have happen. The phrase "becoming long in the tooth" suddenly takes on a new and awful meaning. A meaning to the tune of nearly $4,000 that insurance pays only a quarter of. Yeee-ikes!

How do I know so much about this subject?  Yesterday I had a gumline restoration to six lower molar teeth. After several years of watching my lower gumline go south, I bit the bullet, sucked it up and scheduled myself for a gumline graft with the best periodontal surgeon in Silicon Valley. 

Dr. R. tried Emdogain on the upper molars a few years ago and it was only partially effective. Emdogain causes tissue to grow, but unfortunately it didn’t grow enough and has partially recessed again. Now you may think I might look like a snaggled toothed country cousin, but these defects largely didn’t show when I smiled. Yep, my smile pretty much looks like the picture over on the left of my blog here.

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GOT DENTAL OR OTHER MINOR SURGERY COMING UP?   

I am running a PRIVATE STUDY on the methods I use to consistently eliminate pain and anxiety. If you are interested in reducing or eliminating PRE-OP MINOR SURGERY ANXIETY and POST-OP DENTAL OR OTHER MINOR SURGERY PAIN, do consider enrolling in the study. We’ll be using my patented Energy Coaching Pain Relief Process to experience NO pre-surgery anxiety and elimination or great reduction of post-operative pain.

You’ll get: Three sessions of energy coaching, customized energy exercises, a healing audio made just for you, and followup, for the price of a single session with me.

These techniques work, that’s all I can say. I’m proof positive! Won’t you join me in being pain-free?

Interested? Call the Minor Surgery Pain Relief Study line at:  641-985-5700  x 467157, then press Extension 7

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Here’s the glam shot, of the after-work. No, these pics aren’t mine, I borrowed them from the good doctor at the website here. But do you see how nicely the fooo-gly exposed root got covered up? Mind you, this must be six months to a year after surgery, it takes awhile for the graft and the surrounding area to match up color wise. But all in all, not bad, eh?

Now, let’s talk about how I remained cool, calm and had no pain during or after the procedure…

STAY TUNED FOR PART II In The "Dental Adventures" Saga…

Maryam Webster reporting after another day spent in the trenches with coaches. We’re all here in San Jose at the ICF Conference and are meeting the most FABULOUS people! There’s talk of blogs, (and of blog carnivals - wait for it!) Go Blogwild!, Andy Wibbels’ newest publication, joint venturing, conference concatenation, Coaching Innovation and what we’d like to see in terms of workshops for more advanced coaches. I’ve spent the last three days with Andy, whom I do not see enough of, and can say that it has been some of the most pleasurable and educational time I’ve spent in months. We met for dinner the night before the ICF conference here in San Jose, California and discussed Chitika, The Book, the future of podcasting and the great outdoors at Spiedo, on San Carlos Street. We lapped up the fabulous bruschetta, pasta and lamb grigliata, setting a gourmet Italian food tone that was to continue in successive days.

Thursday saw the Multiple Streams of Coaching Income folks, Andrea Lee and Tina Forsyth, rolling out their new book "Pink Spoon Marketing"  (cue supportive "hurrahs!" from the assembled crowd). I bought a copy of this very heavy-in-the-conference-bag tome and can’t wait to read it.  The book is currently photocopied and looseleaf bound, though I suspect it will see perfect binding in short order. It also came with five CDs that a cursory skim-through listening told were worth the $297 conference price. It will be a joy to read the book and give a more thorough review. 

Susan Austin was on hand at the Coaching Innovation booth talking about the Coaching Makes A Difference project to help coach victims of Hurricane Katrina. She was also reporting for the Blog-Squad-ICF-Conference project and disgruntled to find the wireless in the conference hall was not all it should have been. <*cue embarrassment for Silicon Valley, home of computer wireless!*> Undaunted, the effort goes on, this is my entry into the fray.  I’ll speak for all the rest and say that though the day was tiring, it was very, very good to see friends we don’t ever see in person but once a year, but who are so dear to our hearts.

Friday, workshops were the last thing on people’s minds as networking, joint venturing and a very late lunch at Il Fornaio predominated. It’s White Truffle Oil month at Il Fornaio, and all who have ever heard my White Truffle Oil Blog Success Story know what *that* means. (grin) I dined in the scintillating company of the aforementioned Mr. Wibbels, Donna Steinhorn, Kim George, Sheri Horne, Stever Robbins and others in the know about good conversation, news of the industry and as ever, more Italian food. We stayed so long talking that they threw us out and we ended up back at the networking station outside the exhibition hall laughing ourselves silly and having a ton of fun.  I’m to have Stever as my date at the Gala tomorrow night - he will be teaching me East Coast Swing while trying madly to follow my lead. Or something like that. 

Tomorrow dawns bright and early and I am off to bed.  All of us here are glad we came, but are musing upon at less expensive, more experienced-coach-content-rich ways of doing this more often. Who knows what might come out of it? I’m for a coaching retreat, where things get worked on but there is ample time for socializing, fun and room for opportunities to grow.

All for now, signing off…

I was thinking about all the toxins in the water down south. About how they’re pumping the New Orleans floodwater into Lake Ponchartrain and the toxicologists are saying the Lake may not recover living organisms for years. My stomach tried desperately to have a hissy fit, but a strong session of releasing with energy therapy stopped it. Then I remembered that I, that anyone, can *bless*. The following is from my manual for The Certified Energy Coach Program. It contains the teachings on water from many different traditions, normalized to fit our basic, multicultural American experience. Bless the water that you drink. Bless that which you bathe in. Send long distance blessings to the toxic, lead-laden water in the southern states. And send blessings to the water all the survivors are drinking…bottled or not.

From: The Certified Energy Coach Program Manual, ©2004, 2005 by Maryam Webster, Program Director ISBN: 0-9761085-4-2

Falling in Love with Water…

One of the deepest mysteries of the Energy Coaching tradition is the initiation through Water. We are born perfectly hydrated. Within a few years of life, we slowly lose that perfect state of hydration to exist in an ongoing state of semi-dehydration. It is this state that researchers (see below) have pinpointed as the core cause of most of the diseases and mental difficulties that ail us. When properly hydrated, things work beautifully. Without enough water, we sludge along at a fraction of our capacity, susceptible to diseases, mechanical dysfunction and emotional fragility. Our bodies are over 70% water. Fail to replenish this supply, and your success at Energy work will be marginalized for both you and your clients. It is therefore the Energy Coach’s first instruction both for themselves and their clients to:

“Drink water!  Lots of it!â€?

The work that we do in Energy Coaching is accomplished through the physical mediators of nerve and muscle. These in turn run best when very well hydrated. Water is needed to grease the mechanisms by which our tissues do their various jobs and also to carry away waste products. I will therefore pass along to you the first commandment that Margaret Hennessey, my Touch for Health teacher quipped: “Thou shalt drink a minimum of eight, 8 ounce glasses of water per day. No less than that shalt thou drink, and let the water be pure!â€?  Being British, Margaret also believed heartily in a good strong cup of tea on a regular basis, but it’s best to leave tea and coffee for occasional treats due to their dehydrating, acidifying effects.

Like many people, I’ve been an ardent devotee of coffee, tea and soda. I finally had the penny drop on water as a cure when I connected a number of seemingly unrelated symptoms to dehydration. As a result, I have spent the past year falling in love with water and coming home to its incredible powers of healing, age-proofing, meditation and depth. Also for its pliability, programmability and how soft it makes my skin when I drink lots of it. More and more as I up my intake of pure water, interesting things are occurring within my biocircuit. I am increasingly able to think about a thing one moment and it literally appears the next. The time between observing that change is desirable and that change being implemented has shortened dramatically and since I’ve upped my intake of water, I’m not hungry at all. Dr. Batman [see below] says that most hunger pangs are really signals of thirst. With all this water on board, I’m hydrated and my stomach is comfortably full, hence am eating less. I’m losing weight, my skin glows and I’ve not had major illness since upping my intake of water. I feel lighter, cleaner and very, very calm. All in all, a grand and excellent thing.

A Japanese researcher, Dr. Masaru Emoto has been sharing some interesting observations about water in his Messages From Water books which interestingly corroborate the properties of water that spiritual practitioners have long worked with. The reviewer from Amazon’s website shares these perceptions:

"The Hidden Messages in Water is an eye-opening theory showing how water is deeply connected to people’s individual and collective consciousness. Drawing from his own research, scientific researcher, healer, and popular lecturer Dr. Masaru Emoto describes the ability of water to absorb, hold, and even retransmit human feelings and emotions. Using high-speed photography, he found that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concentrated thoughts are directed toward it. Music, visual images, words written on paper, and photographs also have an impact on the crystal structure. Emoto theorizes that since water has the ability to receive a wide range of frequencies, it can also reflect the universe in this manner. He found that water from clear springs and water exposed to loving words shows brilliant, complex, and colorful snowflake patterns, while polluted water and water exposed to negative thoughts forms incomplete, asymmetrical patterns with dull colors. Emoto believes that since people are 70 percent water, and the Earth is 70 percent water, we can heal our planet and ourselves by consciously expressing love and goodwill."

While this may seem a stretch for some, this concurs with current theory about energy therapies and is a perfect complement to them. Folks have been charging water since prehistoric times to help and heal. Baptist and Mormon ministers, Catholic priests and Jewish mothers as well as shamanic practitioners all do this. Water is commonly used as a sacred element in many rituals of healing and sacrament as from ancient times, we knew that water had the ability to hold resonance. Spiritual masters of all traditions blessed water to be given to the sick and water as a sacred substance is used to baptize, cleanse and nourish. Since most illnesses have their roots in chronic dehydration, water’s ability to heal is not as much of a stretch as it might first appear. And if water were given the added imprint of loving, perfected energy, such as the Hado or "universal" frequency of perfection Dr. Emoto speaks of, such charged water would invite the fibers it hydrates to resonate at that same frequency, as it is absorbed. Reiki is one well-known energy therapy that taps into this universal harmonic and its essence is said to be “universal life-force energyâ€?.  All energy therapies tap into the universal frequency however, whether they say so or not. And that energy can only move perfectly thorough the body when it is well hydrated. And what water can do is sheer magic.

Water Magic If you want to try and amp-up your energy when you intake water, here is a simple water charging/cleansing that the women of my family (who are very superstitious on my Welsh granny’s side) use to purify our family’s drinking water. This is magic of the holiest sort. How does this work? You are bringing your intent, or resonance into contact with the main constituent of your physical body, creating sympathetic resonance between both you and it until you both resonate at the Universal Perfection frequency. Be reverential as you hold the water vessel - you’re holding your family’s very health in your hands (and your own - you should be drinking your own product!). This is the magical part…and what would magic be without an incantation? Here it is, incant with good cheer as you feel or visualize the container filling with pure white light:

"O pure and perfect creature of water, I cast out all unclean within you Let light and love dwell here within With (Deity’s) hand upon it So it is, blessed be it"

Or words to that effect. You can substitute your Deity of choice or not, as you wish. The point is to raise the vibration of the water if it’s polluted, passed through the hands of a negative person (becoming imprinted with negativity) or otherwise contaminated. The goal is to raise the energy frequency to water’s most perfect expression. You could also say that you’re trying to get water’s most basic and pure molecular format, or you could see it as raising water’s frequency to, as Wayne Dyer says in his landmark book The Power of Intention, “the intent of the mind of Godâ€?.

Simple chants like this are a form of prayer that ask politely for the Divine to cast out any unclean spirits (or pollution, or negative thoughtform impressions, etc.) and return the water to it’s original pure and perfect state. A simple matter, also easily accomplished with no chant or supplication, just the power of one’s focused intent. Choose your tool, each will get the job done. And when you consume such positively and lovingly charged water, you will notice a wonderful boost of energy and a cleaner feeling to your entire system. To get as near to perfect as possible before we even get out of the gate, start with water that has already been purified, preferably by carbon block filtration. Advanced Mages will want to go even further and use a pure-sourced water such as Trinity or Evian. Recommendation: Do this little blessing at least once a day, if not more often. Repeat often, as desired and drink deep of health, purity and perfection.

As I was reflecting on the immense healing power of water I thought how nice a thing it is to love your family so much that you want them to drink only the best, and that the essential elixir vitæ is both medicament and “Wellness Aid Numero Uno�. My grandmother Mimi served up water for breakfast, lunch and dinner in a huge blue Delftware pitcher replete with little Dutch boy and windmill. She had a way of brushing the pitcher with her hand before putting it on the table. Her lips would move in the briefest of blessings as she set the pitcher down, and always before the first grabby grandbaby (often me) clapped grubby paws to the drink. I still have that pitcher today and it still radiates the gentle loving my grandmother, then mother, and now myself, put into it. What a sacred treasure!

What small, comforting rituals can you develop to make sure you are fully hydrated and taking in the loving intent and other qualities you want in your life?

Recommended Resources on Water

You will want to get for your office, and suggest to your clients the absolute source on water as a healing potion, a physician with the rather interesting name of "Dr Batman" who has several wonderful books on the subject that quite enlightened us all. Dr. Fereydoon Batmangelidj advocates moisture of the purest kind as a panacea - water, and only water as a restorative, antihistamine, anti-cancer agent and a direct counteractant to back pain and obesity. All of these topics caught my eye as I raced with wild abandon through his Water for Health, For Healing, For Life: You’re not Sick, You’re Thirsty! Dr. Batmangelidj was a political prisoner in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. Pressed into service to doctor other inmates and having little else, he began scientific experimentation with water as medicine. During this time he documented miraculous cures by giving copious quantities of water, and only water to his patients. His website speaks of this and of collusion between organized medicine and the drug companies to conceal the fact that dehydration is the cause of most illness:

"It is chronic dehydration that causes the pains and degenerative diseases of the human body." It is clinically and scientifically clear that the human body has many distinct ways of showing its general or local water needs. Depending on where there is water shortage, many localized complications such as asthma are produced. We believe this information has been methodically and fraudulently concealed until now. Over 18 years of research has now revealed a simple natural cure for so many painful and serious health problems. It is called "WATER CURE."    - Dr. F. Batmangelidj

Guess what? those "eight, eight ounce glasses" are just a starting point. Pour a pinch of salt on your hand every morning says Dr. B., and lick it off before your first glass of water for the day. That will keep just enough moisture inside your body. Enjoy the experience of enlightenment. Very enlightening, particularly combined with the action of further charging the massive amount of water you NEED to take into your body every day with the positive intent of whatever you need in your life right now. Wouldn’t that be an interesting thing to play with? I wonder what that would get you and your clients if you blessed your water with intent every day, as many times a day as you filled your glass, for the next year? Sheer magic, and one we cannot do without.

May You Never Thirst!