Accident? I think not … this message is too profound!

Eager to sit down and share my viewpoints on giving your body a chance to relax, open, find ease, and be well, an hours old Instagram post from someone I hadn’t seen on there in months showed up in my feed.

“Great,” you say! “And?”

It not only underscored the message that I have touched on several times between my blogs and YouTube channel, it activated my GO button. Beyond the shock I felt over her announcement (which I will share in a moment), the very next thought that came to mind was,

“Oh my god, the time is now to double down on how we perceive ourselves and harmonize our bodies!”

We have a significant challenge in front of us that beckons a heartfelt shift in the direction of rethinking, reconsidering, reframing as well as reinventing the way we look at our lives, beginning with the mental and physical state of our body. Otherwise, our children and future generations are facing bigger fires than we are! A time we cannot possibly imagine.

Look, I am not a fan of creating fear or even stirring the embers yet being honest with what’s going on and how we got here is imperative if our goal is to be a healthy population of humans from this point forward. I know, this is an odd way to word such a thought, yet it’s true. (Radical redirect coming so thank you for sticking with me).

“A state of fear is typically constituted (in part) by motivating the organism to behave in a certain way, modulating memory, and directing our attention. So, those aspects of motivation, attention and memory, just like certain aspects of behavior, are part of an adaptive response to a threatening stimulus.”

 This excerpt was taken from some rather fascinating research done on fear, titled The Biology of Fear published by ‘Adolphs, Ralph, Currency Biology, Volume 23, Issue 2, R79-R93)

This snippet is a terrific point of reference for the topic of this post because the concept of fear is used to garner consent and compliance. However, when you see it as an adaptive process, you can now adjust the actions that follow to be in alignment with a meaningful response rather than a reaction. The impact of this alone improves the signals being sent to your cells and systems.

A reaction is an excitatory reply that neuroscience defines as a fired action.

Consider for a moment the things that can happen when something is fired. It becomes hot, explosive, and / or inflamed. So, when you react to your fears, you’re triggering inflammatory reactions within your body. This is the reason I have no desire to scare you into action. It makes more sense to shed light on certain facts that offer a foundation for you to take responsive, meaningful choices.

As it goes, the life-altering information that caused me to pause and take note was an apology from this person for not being on IG for the last few months. It seems in November, she learned that she was in need of open heart surgery. However, not long after this news, she had a stroke. With an incredibly confident expression on her face along with a tremendous amount of grace, she smiled and stated that none of this was because of poor health. She just has a ‘bad’ heart.

I sat back. Closed my eyes and shook my head. Did she just say that? This was not a judgment. It was an “AHA!”. It truly struck a nerve because I have spent so many years connecting the dots between our neurochemistry and physical health. There’s a hidden world of emotions that undermines our health and has fueled what I do after seeing what decades of impact have done to my body. So, after a moment, I breathed into this reaction and realized her life and business have taken on new meaning. AND she is the one to do it! I believe that with all my heart. This is a profound moment in her life on every conceivable level and her mission appears to have shifted in the direction of leading women who face similar setbacks in bouncing back even better than before. (This is purely my opinion yet her nature and the look in her eyes were an affirming nod)

As for me, I’ve complied with a healthy lifestyle for most of my life, not just as an adult. I was born a vegan and while I didn’t have the knowledge, I was eating a plant-based diet from the time I started table food. I was also a physically active since tot and continue to be, getting my daily dose without reservation. Yet, I was diagnosed with two types of cancer and arthritis throughout my body.

Here you have two people deliberately living their lives according to what appear to be sound wellness models, only to develop several serious health issues.

Regardless of the message or mission I’ve adopted to bring forward or the belief that everything happens for a reason (which disturbs me to think about from time to time), something’s amiss. With all the good advice out there, how is this happening because you know we’re not the only two people. How many times have you heard about someone surprisingly dying? Or the follow up question: How is this possible? They live a super healthy life.

It’s baffling and scary! If this can happen to them, what about you?

I thought I was healthy. Wholesome food (organic vegan), my daily yoga practice combined with other activities like swimming or hiking. There were times I even joined friends at the gym until I realized that wasn’t the environment for me. I also added time to meditate and journal with the intention of developing an inner peace. Yet even though these healthy choices were a part of my everyday self-care routine, I still had to undergo surgery and treatment for cancer.

The quality of your wellness determines the quality of your health.

Said another way, the body follows the mind.

The mainstream mindset is out of sync with the actual requirements for healing and what it truly means to be well. In my humble, yet professional opinion, it’s wise to question anyone regurgitating popular theories and information and give a little consideration to the voices suggesting something beyond the suggested norm. This isn’t to say mainstream thinking is wrong. On the contrary, there’s a lot of value in the recommendations, they’re simply missing a critically intrinsic element.

So is the collective …

If something is amiss in your body or your diagnosed with a serious health condition, and you want to ‘fix what ails you’ so you experience a healthier time in your body, then it’s time to feel puzzled. When we’re confused about what’s happening, we seek clarity and more importantly, harmony.

On a four-pillared foundation, diet and exercise are just two cornerstones for good health

I n 2016 I developed a course titled Breaking the Cycle of Disease Management. The search for content was a very interesting journey as I encountered a variety of definitions on the idea of good health. As I distilled the message down, the message was lifestyle and the shape of your body. As you know, we culturally we look at the shape of a body because anyone outside the appearance of what we’re told is healthy is automatically considered unhealthy. And then I happened upon one more description of health by a chiropractor that defined it by function. That’s when the gears in my mind clicked.

As you know, we assess the health by the way a person looks. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard people get pissed because someone looked at them and said, “I would never know you were sick by just looking at you.” I’ve had it said to me. This is a terrific example of the adage; you can’t judge a book by its cover.

Health is deeper. It’s the result of healing which is a return to wholeness.

Function, and I understand for a chiropractor to refer to function means he or she is focused on the bones and nervous system, not appearance, however, let’s consider function as systemic performance.

The systems in your body do not work independently of one another. It’s countless processes holistically synced. In other words, they work together and as one area adjusts to the body’s needs, every other area is altered as a result.

When we consider the statement that the body follows the mind, we’re now introduced to the other 2 cornerstones of good health: mindset / emotions and essential oils.

I read an interesting study last summer that revealed that people who practice meditation every day are still emotionally triggered by life and struggle to maintain a state of ease. This was highly informative research. Even though prayer and meditation are massively important to our daily self-care and inner peace, it’s not enough to anchor the body; hence, essential oils. When integrated into your daily lifestyle routine, you’re introducing chemicals gifted to you by God and the life force that connects us to nature and vice versa. These precious compounds initiate a deeper level of communication from the DNA to the cells as well as the reverse.

And when their use is customized to harmonize your emotional and physical state, you're leading yourself back to wholeness.

As you know, your mindset and emotions are entangled. This is one big consideration for using oils. They help with emotional regulation. One tip I strongly recommend is to be sure and include a wood oil whenever your mind and emotions take hold.

With a more grounded outlook on any situation, including the state of your health, you begin seeing the bigger picture and are better equipped to identify how you want to feel in your body from this point forward. Because of this beautiful shift in thinking, it becomes easier to allow the body to relax, open, find ease, and be well rather than feeling the drive to fix or control it because you fear the alternative. Which brings this post full circle!!

Because every body is a unique expression of its own genetic nature, it’s in your best interest to at least find out what oils best match your body’s needs. Therefore, visit my Linktr.ee and click the second link for a complimentary 1:1. And, if you’re ready to learn how and why essential oils are so amazing and how they can help you and your family, click here and follow the top link to learn more about what it means to be a founding member of the Aromatherapy: Beyond Bed and Bath membership as well as join the Essential Oills Masterclass!

One final thought. While we want to believe a healthy lifestyle of wholesome nutrition, physical activity, meditation and breathing are enough, in the ideal world my guess is they would be. Sadly, we live in a world that is riddled with man-made chemicals (thousands of them) that disrupt the hormonal system. Again, this is not shared to alarm you. It’s to inform. And the point is nature responds to natural chemicals i.e., that which is in essential oils before ones produced in labs. This is where I confidently advocate for using oils not only every day, but throughout the day. Let me know if you have any questions!

Until we chat, I appreciate you and so happy to serve you through my discoveries and words.