Call your Psychic!
There is an organizing wisdom in the Universe.
A person can work with and learn from this wisdom.
To work with the wisdom is to be proactive.Support is so important when you have a goal, and especially when you want to lose weight. I have asked one of my main support people, Dr. Patrick Dougherty if he would be a guest blogger before the New Year! Dr. Pat is the author…
Just a note that on November 5 only, when you buy 12 Weeks to Self-Healing: Transforming Pain through Energy Medicine on Amazon.com, you have the opportunity to receive valuable gifts, worth hundreds of dollars, just by buying 12 Weeks to Self-Healing: Transforming Pain through Energy Medicine. You will receive Powerful Personal Enrichment videos with Dr. Brian Weiss, Money Mojo Now videos with Mary Shakun, Universal Principles of Thriving with Dr. Kim, Pain Relief with Sound Healing ebook from Charles Lightwalker, tele-courses, coaching sessions and so much more! (just email me your receipt!)
Many people think about stress as being specific to negative happenings in their lives, but stress actually occurs from both negative and positive situations. In fact, your energy system picks up a great amount of stress without you even being aware. What’s wonderful, however, is that your body is amazing at moving back into balance.
You may remember a time when something happened suddenly and unexpectedly, and you immediately went into a heightened state of awareness. Your body is set up with a protective mechanism toward “fight” or “flight.” This reaction creates an outpouring of adrenaline and other hormones into your blood stream, which produces a number of protective changes in your body. This flood provides you with the energy and strength to either fight or flee from the situation. Here, your heart rate increases, allowing more blood flow to your muscles, brain, and heart. Your breathing also increases to a faster pace in order to take in more oxygen, and your muscles tense in preparation for action. You become mentally alert, and your senses become more aware so that you can assess the situation and act quickly. In addition to this, your blood sugar, fats, and cholesterol increase for extra energy. There is a rise in your platelets and blood clotting ability, which prevents hemorrhaging in case of injury.
Most of the time though, you don’t have this fight-or-flight response. Instead, there is a steady stream of stressors that increase and decrease as the day goes on. You become accustomed to the stress and then see it as normal, and all the while it is taking a toll on your body. You may find you compare yourself to others and then think that you don’t have it so bad, or that your stress is worse than others, which creates more stress.
If this makes you wonder about your own stress level I have provided you with the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. It is a standard test developed initially in 1967 by two psychiatrists, Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe. This test was published as the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS). Using Life Change Units (LCU), they were able to correlate the relationship between stress and illness in participants. In 1970, Rahe implemented another test, which assessed the reliability of the stress scale as a predictor of illness. Take a moment to evaluate your stress level with this Life Event Stress scale.
http://candesscampbell.com/books/self-help-toolbox
Having taken the stress test, you may be surprised by the results. If you find you do not have many of the stressors listed but still struggle with stress, understand that although we share a human experience, we all experience life differently.
In addition to understanding what stresses you, you may also experience physical symptoms of stress such as increased heart rate, pounding heart, elevated blood pressure, sweaty palms, headache, trembling, twitching, stuttering, sleep disturbances, fatigue, shallow breathing, dry mouth, cold hands, itching, being easily startled, chronic pain, susceptibility to illness, and tightness in the chest, neck, jaw, and back muscles.
Emotional signs and symptoms of stress include irritability, angry outbursts, hostility, depression, jealousy, restlessness, withdrawal, anxiousness, diminished initiative, hyper-vigilance, feeling that things are not real, lack of interest in things you used to enjoy, crying outbursts, being critical of others, self-deprecation, nightmares, impatience, lack of hope, narrowed focus, obsessive rumination, lack of self-esteem, insomnia, and either overeating or loss of appetite.
In addition to taking the Holmes and Rahe Stress test mentioned earlier, before you make changes, figure out on a scale from 1–10 how stressed you feel in your life. Do this with 1 being little or no stress, 5 being a medium level of stress (or being stressed about half the time during the week), and 10 being a high level of stress (or being stressed daily). Make a note of your stress score in your journal so you can test yourself again after using some of the tools outlined for you.
Ways in which you can reduce stress:
This is just a beginning for you to start reducing stress in your life. Often when you change your behaviors, you do not notice a difference at first. You may want to put this list on the refrigerator or a mirror and practice for six months to see how your life changes. Then assess your stress level on a scale from 1–10 again and see how much you have improved.
You know your body more than anyone else. Taking an inventory of yourself can be life changing!
A short video that teaches you to ground your energy and relax is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWajD6Upuiw. You can do this daily to teach your body to relax.
Click here to find more information about 12 Weeks to Self-Healing: Transforming Pain through Energy Medicine.
Previously published in Live Encounters Magazine June 2013
This is conversation with Cheyenne Mendel, Licensed Acupuncturist, Executive and long time friend.
Candess: We have a New Year ahead of us and many people are making changes in their lives to increase their health. What are some of the most important changes you suggest to do for their health in the coming year?
Cheyenne:
1. Drink good quality Water!
Chances are if you say, “I don’t like water,” you don’t have a good clean source. The very best investment you can make for your health “HANDS DOWN” is hydration. Your body cannot release toxins without it.
All organs need water. The lungs use one quart of water at sea level just to breathe. Your body need much more at higher elevations. When it is freezing you can see your breath. Some people don’t ever even drink that much. Some people say “I drink coffee…lots of water in that.” Have you ever tried washing your clothes or wiping your counters with coffee? You can also get water by eating water filled foods like raw fruits and vegetables.
2. Avoid the offenders!
Avoid the foods that become “goo and glue” in your body. These are sugar, high fat, and refined carbs.
Anything in a box or with plastic on it has been processed in some way. I am currently in California and finally made it to the ever-famous Trader Joes. The problem with this store even though it is pretty cool, is that most of the vegetables are processed in some way. The vegetables are wrapped in petroleum based plastic materials.
Make sure you are not hungry when you shop because you will end up eating whatever you buy. Whether you make a healthy or crappy lunch for work, when lunchtime rolls around you are hungry and you will eat whatever is there. When you eat healthy it is like giving your cells a high paying job vs. minimum wage or a slave labor job.
If eating healthy is too overwhelming then simply avoid the bad stuff. If that is too much, then start small. If you eat sugar all day long then start by avoiding sugar in the morning. Don’t destroy your whole day with an assault on your pancreas first thing in the morning. Avoid the offenders! Nature abhors a vacuum and the healthy food will creep in.
3. Consciously interact with Dr. Nature 20 min a day!
Dr. Nature has many curing aspects such as fresh air, sunshine, rest, movement/exercise or a combination of these. Try a walk and a quick catnap or a cat rest if you can’t do naps. Today people are so exhausted and over stimulated from technology that rest is a higher priority for a body. You know how to do this. Notice how your thinking and feeling changes as your begin to walk in nature.
4. Contribute to others!
Being an acupuncturist for two decades with 10,000 patient contacts, I can say the unhappiest people I encountered in my practice and in life were people that focused entirely on themselves. It is difficult, almost impossible to be happy when you are not healthy, but of being happy is contributing to another person in some way.
Take 10 -15 minutes a day to contribute to someone else. The opportunity or challenge I am offered is to do something that brings you joy. Write and mail a card of appreciation, make someone’s bed, clean the employee break room for 10 minutes, pick up trash around your neighborhood, or bag your own groceries to help a busy clerk. Sharing a kind word or listening deeply to someone can make you happy by giving.
There are stories about random acts of kindness like the story of people paying the lay away bills for people at K Mart. People who use lay-away are typically very poor or they would simply purchase the items in the first place. You can send a loving thought and prayer for a homeless person rather than sending out a thought like “get a job.” (One I have been working on.)
5. Forgive others!
Forgiveness is for YOU and your freedom. If you are offended or “go to your bed in wrath” or are thinking about what so and so said or did to you, then you are sowing strong seeds of ill health. Try forgiving on a small scale and you will understand the truth of how forgiving contributes to your health. Ten minutes of prayer or mediation can really help in this area.
6. Spend 15 min a day on your Essence Self!
Just like how you are instructed in an airplane, if there is a need, an oxygen mask will appear and you must put the oxygen mask on yourself first; it is important to care for yourself first. We all have family or friend situations that we respond to either in a positive or negative way.
It is important to take time to spend with your Essence Self and to put energy into your own “coffer” and not wait for someone else to fill you up.
In an emergency situation, I recently moved to California to manage one of my husband’s businesses. It is a small complex of studios which I am selling. The first 20 minutes in the unit I unplugged and removed the television. I have lived without a TV in my home for 20 years. My 18-year-old daughter has grown up without TV.
Instead of watching TV, I walk on the beach, read, write old fashioned cards, people watch, sit and zone out and have more time to make special “qi” (life force) filled meals for myself. I have more energy to pick out really healthy food and the list goes on and on. Spend 15 minutes a day with your Essence Self and see what you need to create and what you need to let go of this year.
Candess: My thanks to Cheyenne for sharing this with us. She is the most healthy and pure person I know and I love her continued support of mine and other’s physical, mental and spiritual health. She has contributed to tens of thousands of people in her lifetime!
7. Step 7 is for the reader. As you read this, there is something you know that you need to do that will be helpful to raise your level of health for the New Year!