This Solstice I took a long and detailed look at my life. I wanted to identify my core loves, to prioritise the things that really nourish me and my family, and to release things that were holding me back, or weighing me down. Clarity was what I was after, and so I turned to my Bach Flowers, taking my Clarity blend for a few weeks before and after the MidWinter Solstice.
What came of this therapy was a huge amount of contemplation. Clarity is obtained through quiet contemplation, directed Meditation, and a desire to open up and see clearly what one's situation is.
I have obtained much joy and a large sense of achievement by producing the Holistic Therapy Connections MiniZine over the last 5 years. (yes! its been that long!) I've enjoyed presenting a free text connection and imparting information to others with the intention of helping and supporting them towards a more harmonious lifestyle. I've loved the feedback. I'm in awe of the connections it has brought me and very grateful that it has been a success.
But it is not a priority anymore. Now that I have assessed my needs and my priorities, the HTCM is something that is being waived bye-bye to, and given a great big farewell hug. Thankyou to you the readers, thankyou to the contributors and supporters. Its been a great journey, and one I hope to continue with you on this blog into the future.
As many of you already know, I am home educating my children, and this is a primary consideration to roll back my list of commitments elsewhere so that I can give them more time. I am also enjoying the collaboration with Ross Lamond, editing and formatting his truly wonderful stories into ebooks. This is where I feel a great 'pull' towards something that combines my desire to express harmonious concepts and also provide a creative outlet in the form of illustration and more. Over a year ago I set a goal to be involved in 'publishing', and at the time thought to publish my own books (yes, there are a few 'on the go' even now), but I sit here now, with the accomplishment of helping Ross self-publish two ebooks already, and with another 3 or 5 to go!
How great is Synchronicity?! :)
The Monthly Flying Stars Forecast will be published each month on the blog, along with a steady flow of articles about all sorts of holistic therapies. You can get these posts automatically by following my blog at this link here.
Love and Blessings
Jannette
xx
Saturday, 17 July 2010
Why use Holistic Therapy?
When we are unwell in our body, or feeling uninspired and perhaps confused, Nature offers the most beautiful and potent remedies for us to heal ourselves with.
My personal journey towards living a holistic lifestyle began with my core interests in the natural world, medicinal plants, aromatherapy and 'magic'. I'm in love with the magic of this world, and grateful that I can still find things to wonder at, to marvel at and to inspire me onwards through this existence. Systems of explaining the world like Feng Shui helped me to grasp the concepts of harmony and living alongside our environment. Through Meditation I found a way of obtaining inner Peace. Via Flower Essence Therapy I found release and healing for emotional issues. With Aromatherapy I found not only physical healing, but also emotional soothing and the ability to be spiritually uplifted. Sound Therapy in the form of Mantra and Kirtan was a way of expressing the Divine resonance within.
With the birth of my first child I started to look into the hazards of the modern world, and how I could protect and nourish myself and my family so that we can live a life of high quality experiences. That begins with high quality physical and mental health, as well as deep and abiding connection to Spirit, or our inner-self.
We are wonderful Beings, capable of living wondrous lives. By using the holistic approach to life and its challenges, we'll be able to reap the largest rewards, one of which is contentment, and the most prized of course, Harmony.
My personal journey towards living a holistic lifestyle began with my core interests in the natural world, medicinal plants, aromatherapy and 'magic'. I'm in love with the magic of this world, and grateful that I can still find things to wonder at, to marvel at and to inspire me onwards through this existence. Systems of explaining the world like Feng Shui helped me to grasp the concepts of harmony and living alongside our environment. Through Meditation I found a way of obtaining inner Peace. Via Flower Essence Therapy I found release and healing for emotional issues. With Aromatherapy I found not only physical healing, but also emotional soothing and the ability to be spiritually uplifted. Sound Therapy in the form of Mantra and Kirtan was a way of expressing the Divine resonance within.
With the birth of my first child I started to look into the hazards of the modern world, and how I could protect and nourish myself and my family so that we can live a life of high quality experiences. That begins with high quality physical and mental health, as well as deep and abiding connection to Spirit, or our inner-self.
We are wonderful Beings, capable of living wondrous lives. By using the holistic approach to life and its challenges, we'll be able to reap the largest rewards, one of which is contentment, and the most prized of course, Harmony.
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
You're not hungry,...you're malnourished!
Food now is so low in natural nutrients that we have an epidemic of malnutrition. That means we are not receiving the necessary minerals, vitamins and trace elements necessary for basic health.
If you take a look at the average dietary intake of an adult it is shockingly poor in raw and unprocessed, high quality fruit and vegetables. Unfortunately the era of 'convenient foods' has come and its brought with it a host of side effects, similar to the problem we see with pharmaceutical medicines.
Society just can't seem to get enough of pizza, pasta, biscuits, breads, 'energy snack bars', cereal for breakfast, and 'fast food' like burgers, chips etc that are laden with bad fats and sugars as well as synthetic salt. The saddest thing is that this generation and the last, and the one before that, has been brought up to believe that these things are 'food' when in fact they are 'filler', just like chaff that livestock are fed to fatten them up. We aren't hungry, we don't NEED breakfast lunch and dinner to be such enormous undertakings and in such huge servings, its absurd. WE aren't doing 10 to 14 hr heavy labour days, tilling fields and tending to livestock....most of us work behind a counter or a computer! But the programming is there, and the more sedentary lives we lead the worse off we become using the kind of diet intake that our ancestors used. We aren't living and existence even close to what they were, so our need to change is imperative for our own health.
It takes a giant mind-bend to get past 20 or 30 years (or more) of programming, to realise that real food is fresh, its unprocessed and it doesn't necessarily need to be cooked. Changing your dietary intake by just 25% to raw and unprocessed high quality fruit and vegetables will increase your ability to not only burn fat, but also to throw off small infections like the common cold and flu! Many people find that allergies simply disappear, aches in the joints and pain dissolve within a few days, and syndromes vanish with the change in diet. My personal experience is that several long term (20years +) health issues were healed by introducing fresh food and probiotics, and the removal of toxic food.
Processed sugars, grains and fats are not foods. But they fill you up a little for a time, and turn off the 'hungry' switch in the brain. Yet only an hour or so later you're ready for morning tea or a snack. Why is this? It's because you haven't actually got the nutrition you require from those foods. Its as simple as that...you are malnourishing yourself with heaps of food. Odd, isn't it?
Being healthy isn't about 'finding the substitute' for what you are eating now. It is the REMOVAL of what is harmful in your diet now and INTRODUCING nourishing foods. This introduction can be done gradually which is good for you and your body too.
What to REMOVE:
White Flour products
Processed Grain products (breakfast cereals)
Factory farmed meat of all kinds (use wild caught game if you cannot do without meat)
Processed and packaged foods with additives and preservatives
Processed Sugar and products (sweets, lollies, etc)
Fried fats and oils
Dairy Milk products
What to INTRODUCE:
Fresh fruit and vegetables (from your local area if possible)
Fresh herbs (from your own garden or pot garden if possible)
Raw Honey and Dried Fruits (use dried fruits without sulphur and preservatives of course)
Nuts and nut milks
High Protein grains (Amaranth, Quinoa etc)
Probiotics (as drinks or cultured vegetables & fruits)
Good hydration from clean, pure water
I have personally introduced all of these measures over the last 3 years, and find that whenever I do eat any of the 'REMOVE' list I suffer with headaches, or have an emotional 'blow out' similar to what I always thought was 'normal'. Now I know its a reaction to my dietary intake, and its enormously obvious! Good health is so easy, but it takes commitment, and it takes time. However 'inconvenient' we may feel these changes might be, it is a lot more inconvenient to deal with illhealth and medications, intervention and surgery for ailments and diseases that are a direct result of taking in toxic food.
We can't help living in a world that is toxic, but we CAN help ourselves to remove as much toxin from our bodies as we can.
If you take a look at the average dietary intake of an adult it is shockingly poor in raw and unprocessed, high quality fruit and vegetables. Unfortunately the era of 'convenient foods' has come and its brought with it a host of side effects, similar to the problem we see with pharmaceutical medicines.
Society just can't seem to get enough of pizza, pasta, biscuits, breads, 'energy snack bars', cereal for breakfast, and 'fast food' like burgers, chips etc that are laden with bad fats and sugars as well as synthetic salt. The saddest thing is that this generation and the last, and the one before that, has been brought up to believe that these things are 'food' when in fact they are 'filler', just like chaff that livestock are fed to fatten them up. We aren't hungry, we don't NEED breakfast lunch and dinner to be such enormous undertakings and in such huge servings, its absurd. WE aren't doing 10 to 14 hr heavy labour days, tilling fields and tending to livestock....most of us work behind a counter or a computer! But the programming is there, and the more sedentary lives we lead the worse off we become using the kind of diet intake that our ancestors used. We aren't living and existence even close to what they were, so our need to change is imperative for our own health.
It takes a giant mind-bend to get past 20 or 30 years (or more) of programming, to realise that real food is fresh, its unprocessed and it doesn't necessarily need to be cooked. Changing your dietary intake by just 25% to raw and unprocessed high quality fruit and vegetables will increase your ability to not only burn fat, but also to throw off small infections like the common cold and flu! Many people find that allergies simply disappear, aches in the joints and pain dissolve within a few days, and syndromes vanish with the change in diet. My personal experience is that several long term (20years +) health issues were healed by introducing fresh food and probiotics, and the removal of toxic food.
Processed sugars, grains and fats are not foods. But they fill you up a little for a time, and turn off the 'hungry' switch in the brain. Yet only an hour or so later you're ready for morning tea or a snack. Why is this? It's because you haven't actually got the nutrition you require from those foods. Its as simple as that...you are malnourishing yourself with heaps of food. Odd, isn't it?
Being healthy isn't about 'finding the substitute' for what you are eating now. It is the REMOVAL of what is harmful in your diet now and INTRODUCING nourishing foods. This introduction can be done gradually which is good for you and your body too.
What to REMOVE:
White Flour products
Processed Grain products (breakfast cereals)
Factory farmed meat of all kinds (use wild caught game if you cannot do without meat)
Processed and packaged foods with additives and preservatives
Processed Sugar and products (sweets, lollies, etc)
Fried fats and oils
Dairy Milk products
What to INTRODUCE:
Fresh fruit and vegetables (from your local area if possible)
Fresh herbs (from your own garden or pot garden if possible)
Raw Honey and Dried Fruits (use dried fruits without sulphur and preservatives of course)
Nuts and nut milks
High Protein grains (Amaranth, Quinoa etc)
Probiotics (as drinks or cultured vegetables & fruits)
Good hydration from clean, pure water
I have personally introduced all of these measures over the last 3 years, and find that whenever I do eat any of the 'REMOVE' list I suffer with headaches, or have an emotional 'blow out' similar to what I always thought was 'normal'. Now I know its a reaction to my dietary intake, and its enormously obvious! Good health is so easy, but it takes commitment, and it takes time. However 'inconvenient' we may feel these changes might be, it is a lot more inconvenient to deal with illhealth and medications, intervention and surgery for ailments and diseases that are a direct result of taking in toxic food.
We can't help living in a world that is toxic, but we CAN help ourselves to remove as much toxin from our bodies as we can.
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