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Holistic Health without the "woo-woo", or "Don't Throw the Baby Out With the Bathwater!"

10/10/2011

 
How many times have you walked away from a potential healing practice because the person describing it to you either couldn't really explain it effectively OR explained it in "woo-woo" terms that scared you away?

Now, as a Christian, I understand not wanting to get involved in anything that would offend God or go against His word or plan for me.  So, I've done my share of walking away.  But over the years, I've learned that a lot of truth and valuable information get a bad rap because some people feel the need to describe, explain, or wrap it up in mystical, spiritualistic ("woo-woo") terminology.  That doesn't make the practice bad.  It also does not mean that all that "woo-woo" stuff has anything to do with it AT ALL.  It just means that someone or some people decided to attach that meaning to it and other people repeated it.  Sometimes, you gotta just pry the gemstone out of the dirt.

To put this in another perspective, how many books recognized as scripture to different faiths have been used to justify evil actions?  Just about every one I can think of.  I believe there are a LOT more good people who follow the Bible and the Koran than there are evil people using it to justify their evil activities.  I don't want to get specific, but have you watched the news lately?  I personally believe the Bible and I don't look at those who use it to justify evil and decide to disregard the Bible because of those people.  "Oh, those bad people use the Bible, so that must make it bad; I'll get rid of mine right now!"  Can you imagine?  Yet that's what we sometimes do with new ideas that may be introduced to us in a poor way.

Case in point:  As my friend Manna says, "Reiki is not a religion, but a lot of people try to make it be one."  I believe that many people have fit it into their own personal belief system/religious path and then proselyted it, so to speak, in that context.  Christians claim it, Eastern religions claim it, Wiccans claim it has different meaning and applications, yet.  I think the point is that it doesn't "belong" to any religion.

Several years ago, while receiving acupuncture treatments to eliminate allergies, my mom and I asked our acupuncturist for a book recommendation to help us better understand the whole system of Traditional Chinese Medicine, including acupuncture.  He recommended The Web That Has No Weaver by Ted J. Kaptchuk.  We read it and were fascinated by the concept the ancient Chinese medicine practitioners had that everything is connected like a giant web, but that there is no weaver of the web!  Now, it is my personal belief that there IS a weaver and He is God.  But the fact that they didn't believe that didn't keep it from working.  And that fact that I do believe it doesn't mean I can't benefit from TCM.  It blessed their lives, it blesses my life, and I give gratitude for it to the Source I recognize.

I realize that it is sometimes hard to tell where the baby ends and the bathwater begins.  That's what this website is for.  I want to help you determine where that point is for you, without discounting a whole philosophy or practice that may be the very answer to your prayers.  At Le Leche League meetings, LLL Leaders always make this disclaimer:  "You will hear a lot of ideas today.  Please take what will work for you and your family and leave the rest."  That is my suggestion to you, here.

We all want to be able to explain HOW and WHY things work, but that information is not always available.  So, we often hypothesize and try to fit ideas into our own framework of belief.  Just look at how many theories about how our world works in the realm of science have been entirely rewritten or tossed out as new information comes to light.  Sometimes, we just can't know all the details right now.  Does that mean we shouldn't take advantage of the benefits?  I don't think so.

I don't know precisely how every detail of the electronics in my house work and yet I use and benefit from them daily.  Why is it that we can have that attitude about some things and be fine with it, but other things we shy away from as if they must be tainted in some way?  If someone told you that aliens who want to suck out your brains brought the technology for cell phones to earth to implement their nefarious plans, would you throw yours away and never use another cell phone again?  What if twenty people told you that?  A hundred?  I didn't think so.....

The exciting thing is that Quantum Physics is now starting to offer some real possibilities for explaining how much of this works.  Energy medicine IS that medicine of the future, which is why everyone is quoting Dr. Oz's reference to that concept.  One area this really stands out for me is in relation to homeopathy.  Homeopathy has blessed my family's lives for years, although no one could really explain how or why it works.  It is now becoming increasingly evident that homeopathy is an energetic medicine, and it is the energetic imprint of the substance used to make each remedy that does the work, rather than a chemical response.  This explains a lot, since chemists have long disparaged homeopathy as quackery because the amount of the source ingredient was too minute in their estimation to have any efficacy, including often not containing a full molecule of the original substance.  That would stand to reason, chemically speaking.  But take energy into consideration, attribute THAT to the explanation of how and why homeopathy works, and you have a whole new paradigm.  Just because we don't understand everything about quantum physics doesn't mean it's not truth.

But the bottom line is this:  It works.  And if someone wants to come up with some cockamamie mystical "woo-woo"  explanation about HOW it works, they can go right ahead.  It doesn't affect me.  I'll just keep right on being blessed by it.  (Speaking of which, I believe it's time to go have my son repeat his remedy.  Really!)

A little housekeeping and explanation

10/6/2011

 
I'm going to assume you've read my Free Report and are familiar with my principle of improving your health by working from different angles.  If not, I'll invite you to go there now, receive instant access to the report, and then come back and continue reading.

You may have noticed that this website is loosely organized in the six categories that I believe make up our true "whole"-istic health:  Energetic, Physical, Emotional, Mental, Lifestyle, and Spiritual.  You'll probably also have noticed that I don't have a category here for the Spiritual aspect, not because I don't think it's as important, but because it's not the purpose of this website and people get really touchy about this area.  You need to have a spiritual aspect to your life, in whatever way you choose, but I'm choosing to present the other information on this website separately from the spiritual aspect, to make it easier for some people to accept.

So, let's say you're frustrated because you've tried every diet, Way of Eating (WOE), and exercise program out there, but no matter what you do, you just can't seem to achieve the level of health, fitness and energy you're looking for.  Well, it's either because you haven't tried the right one(s) and in the right combination and/or you've got issues in the other 5 categories that need to be addressed.  If one or more of your energy systems are out of whack, diet and exercise ain't gonna give you much in the way of the results you're looking for.  If you've got trapped emotions that only your subconscious brain is aware of, you can eat sprouts and run until you drop and you'll never achieve total health and healing.  If you've got unconscious unhealthy beliefs blocking your progress, you won't get to where you want to be until you replace them with healthy ones.  You can meditate all day long, but if you're not giving your physical body appropriate food and exercise, you will not feel great and full of energy.  And if you're doing absolutely everything else right, but you've got a huge financial debt hanging over your head, it's going to hold you back.  Everything affects everything else.

Now, I realize that these categories aren't organized perfectly, and several of the practices in each one could also be placed in more than one, but you get the idea.  The point of organizing them this way is so you can look at them and get an idea of where you've been focusing your attention and where you're not, and then you can decide where to go next.

So, here's my challenge to you: 

I understand that many of you will probably go right to the area that you've been focusing on most, to see what options I'm going to present and if there's anything new you haven't tried.  That's fine.  But I'm going to invite you to go to at least one other category and choose one new thing try.  If you're really motivated, go pick one from each category.  And if you're already proficient at energy testing, check in with your body to see which direction it wants you to head.  That knowledge is already inside you.

This ain't the Garden of Eden, Folks!

10/6/2011

 
So, you might be asking, "Well, doesn't natural health mean we shouldn't have to do all this stuff to be healthy?"  Okay, well, maybe if we were still living in Eden.  But we're not.

Our soil is depleted of nutrients required to grow healthy plants for food and then our produce is sprayed with chemicals and poisons (to kill weeds and bugs), picked before it's ripe, shipped thousands of miles to the consumer, warehoused and sprayed with waxes to make it look pretty.  Livestock raised for food eat this same depleted food, usually not the type they were born to eat, and raised in conditions that are not only not natural, but create unhealthy animals which are then given drugs to ward off or treat disease.  There's also all the stuff that's sold as food, but can only be most kindly referred to as food- like substances because it's made up of chemicals and some things that started out as food but have been chemically altered to make them act differently (and therefore act differently in our bodies).  Have you checked the ingredients in a nacho cheese Dorito, lately?  There's nothing "real" in it; even the corn is genetically modified and the oil chemically altered through hydrogenation.  And then we eat this stuff and expect to be healhy?  Our food is not natural anymore.

Our air and water are polluted, and chemicals are everywhere: in our clothes, our homes, our cookware, the packaging our food comes in, the products we clean our homes and clothes and bodies with.  And don't even get me started on the hair and make-up products we use.  Oh, and then there's the radiation and electromagnetic fields we're constantly exposed to, the artificial lights at hours that interfere with our natural sleep cycles, and on and on.

Our bodies are trying to cope with more and more environmental stressors while being fed with nutritionally-deficient food.  How could that equation possibly work to our advantage?!

I really can't keep from snickering every time someone is discussing a possible nutritional deficiency they have and then says, "Well, what foods contain that vitamin/mineral?  I prefer to get my nutrients from foods rather than supplements."  And this is usually from someone who totally lives on processed foods and fast-food restaurant fare.  Oh, sure, they might cook most nights, but the ingredients primarily come out of a can or a box.  You can't eat enough of those foods to correct a nutritional deficiency and if you try, you'll be as big as a house and still under-nourished.

And let's please be realistic about those "Nutritional Facts" on the side of the box.  Yes, enriched white flour boasts significant amounts of certain nutrients -- because they stripped out everything of value and then added back in some cheap forms of vitamins and nutrients.  There's no way our bodies absorb and metabolize those "nutrients" in the same way they do when it comes in its whole food form.  There are lots of forms of every vitamin and mineral out there and they are NOT all equal.

So, unless you can find a plot of land free of all that pollution and organically grow your own food and shun all the modern conveniences you've been raised to appreciate, YES, actually, you DO have to do some stuff to help your body cope and still be healthy despite the unhealthy environment  you live in.

Of course, the more things you do to give your body real foods and limit your exposure to all the yucky stuff, the less extra things you'll have to do to feel great.  But if you're not feeling totally healthy and energetic, chances are you didn't get this way overnight and it's not going to be fixed overnight.  Obviously, the more healthy changes you make, the healthier you'll be.

So, where do you start and what should you do first?  Well, keep reading.  You're in the right place!

HOLISTIC HEALTH 101, or Holistic Health for Dummies -- NOT!

9/17/2011

 
If you're not really sure what holistic health is, it's NOT because you're a dummy!  There are a LOT of misconceptions out there, partly because people use so many different terms to describe holistic health, and not everyone means the same thing.  Many people use the term "alternative health", but you'll NEVER hear me use it.  I don't like it, because to me it denotes something other than what's accepted and acceptable.  The only community, in my view, that doesn't accept holistic health practices as valid is the conventional medical community.  But I don't recognize the conventional (allopathic) medical community as a standard, much less "the" standard.  Many of the practices encompassed in holistic health have been around a LOT longer than allopathic medicine and actually have a track record for HEALING, which is not really the case with allopathy.  In my personal view, allopathic medicine is the alternative, and I don't choose it.  (Now don't get me wrong.  If I fall off a roof and need stitched back up, I will avail myself of an allopathic doctor to do so.  But for matters involving health and healing, that's not where I'm going to turn.  I do not believe that dis-ease comes from a drug deficiency, so I'm not going to someone in search of a drug.) 

Also, I don't associate the word "health" with allopathic medicine, so to say that holistic health practices are "alternative health" seems an oxymoron to me.  It is my personal belief that most of the conditions which allopathic medicine "treats" are the result of lifestyle and allopathy administers drugs and surgical procedures to suppress or compensate for them.  Overall, VERY FEW of the conditions allopathic doctors treat are actual birth defects or accidents not brought on by lifestyle choices, percentage-wise.  If your lifestyle choices are causing your body to raise your cholesterol level really high to compensate and patch up the damage, then taking a drug to suppress your body's natural healing process is not going to fix anything.  Your body will just try to find another way to send you a message that it's out of balance and it's trying to save your life by doing what it was created to do.  If your body has taken on a lot of extra fat because you eat a lot of garbage (food-like substances), the answer is not to take a drug to suppress your appetite or have surgery to make your stomach smaller.  Your body is trying to save your life by storing the toxins you're consuming in your fat, away from your organs where they would be more dangerous.  Taking away your body's ability to do that will not make you healthy and fit.  And your body will fight you every inch of the way.

I use the term Holistic Health to encompass practices (modalities) that enable and encourage the body to heal itself.  These would include, but are not limited to, Traditional Chinese Medicine, including acupuncture; Chiropractic manipulation; Shiatsu and other forms of body work; Homeopathy; Herbs; Nutrition, including supplements; Exercise; Massage; Reiki; Energy Medicine and Energy Psychology; Body Talk; Aromatherapy; Gemstone therapy, and many other modalities.

Another term that is often misused is Homeopathy.  Many people are confused about what it is and many mistakenly use it to mean Naturopathic or Holistic.  It falls into those categories, but is a very specific philosophy all by itself.  A Naturopath is a degreed practitioner who specializes in several holistic health disciplines, one of which may be homeopathy.  Holistic just means pertaining to supporting the whole body in healing, and homeopathy does that.  I've often heard people say something is homeopathic, when what they really mean is that it's "all natural".  Homeopathy is one of my favorite holistic health modalities and you will learn a lot about it on this site.  It is one of, if not THE, safest ways to support your body in healing, and I'll talk more about it later.

Pretty much anything and everything I'll talk about on this website is holistic.  You can also find a Glossary of Terms, with more information on common holistic health terms as a sub-page to the Home Page, on the drop-down menu.

(Okay, I'll hop down off my soapbox for now.  I love having my very own soapbox.  This is so cool!)
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    Moyne Gillming
    Holistic Health Life Coach

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