Category Archives: Moods

Foods Are Drugs

“Let food be your medicine.”
Hippocrates, Father of Modern Medicine

What is a chemical? And what is a chemical imbalance?

A chemical is a substance used in or produced by a chemical process. Life processes require chemicals. Pharmaceutical drugs are chemicals – yet so are foods.

When seeds sprout and plants grow, they begin pulling, dancing, tearing apart, and rearranging ingredients from the air, sunshine and earth. They are tiny, living, chemical factories. The resulting products of plant factories are a vast array of chemicals. People used to eat foods that were locally grown, without pesticides or poisonous fertilizers, and in season.

Our bodies are also chemical factories. They take food, water, sunshine and other substances and work hard to make healthy bodies and minds. To make healthy bodies and minds, they need to have the right ingredients – ingredients that nature generously and wisely provides.

But what happens when the foods we eat have been highly processed and/or genetically altered? What happens when we eat foods in combinations that are not well balanced? What happens when we eat foods that were grown far away, picked when they were not yet ripe, foods that were preserved with poisons and radiation?

How far from natural can we go before we get sick? Can we learn to feed ourselves in ways that will eliminate the need for illness, dis-ease and pharmaceutical drugs? Yes!

Once we know the key, we can choose our mode and our moods by consciously choosing foods that support the quality of life we desire. We can use foods to help us wake up in the morning. We can use foods to help us sleep soundly at night. We can use foods to help us become more mentally sharp, more emotionally aware, more socially assertive, and more able to perform physical tasks.

There’s a lot of talk about chemical imbalances in the medical community, but doctors do not ask many questions of patients, such as, “What did you eat for breakfast this morning?” “What are your favorite things to eat for a snack?” “Tell me what you usually have for dinner.” “What are your primary activities?”

When it comes to real healing, it’s pretty much a do-it-yourself job. You learn to ask yourself those important questions. You learn to wisely choose what you feed yourself and your family. Here are a few understandings to help you begin to manage your health and happiness.

The following information is compliments of Robert Gray, author of “The Colon Health Handbook”, which he asked me to not publish it until he had published it. He unfortunately died in a hit and run accident many years ago, so it is in his honor and with great respect for him and his work that I share this information with you now.

Air foods for mental alertness at work and school

Foods that grow in trees support mental activity. They help us wake up and get going in the morning. They are sweet, wet, cool and wash the waste out of our bodies. Eating fruits from trees first thing in the morning is like taking a shower on the inside. They make you feel clean and fresh and ready to greet the day.

Air foods are “uppers”. Too little of the air foods and you are mentally dull, bored and boring. Too much makes you feel weak, giddy, silly, goofy, “fruity,” “nutty,” “spacey,” forgetful.

Fire foods for social activities, competitiveness

Foods that grow on vines and stalks, foods you can reach straight out and pick, standing up, are foods that support social exchange. They are good for sales meetings, parties. Notice that most fire foods can be made into alcoholic beverages. Examples are: barley, wheat, grapes. Most of the world’s population makes rice the mainstay of their daily diet and they stay quite healthy.

Fire foods infuse you with enthusiasm. Too little of the fire foods and you may feel shy and retiring. Too many and you are overly aggressive.

Water foods feed the emotions

Emotions need to flow, like water. To have a relaxing day, you might go out on a lake and float on a raft or go to the ocean and watch the waves come in and go out. If you want to feel calm and peaceful, plan to eat water foods daily. If you are going to be working with a therapist in a healing session, you might want to eat lots of water food – like watermelon – the day before.

Water foods are foods that grow in the water and close to the ground, such as winter squash, melons, strawberries, pineapple, sea veggies, and dark green leafy vegetables. Most animals make greens a large part of their diets. To be healthy in body and mind, humans would do well to eat lots of greens too.

“But where do we get our protein?” I hear you ask. “Where do cows get their protein?” I respond. Chlorophyll is the key to radiant health.

The chemical structure of a molecule of chlorophyll is nearly identical to the chemical structure of a molecule of hemoglobin. In hemoglobin, the central atom is iron; in chlorophyll, the central atom is magnesium.

Water foods soothe; they help you sleep well. A nice large salad at dinner time will make you sleep like a baby. Too many water foods and you may feel overwhelmed on the feeling level.

Earth foods support physical movement at home and work, sleep

When you need to do something physical and practical like wash the car, vacuum the floor, or just move your body from one place to another, try a dose of earth food, a nice big glass of carrot juice or a hit of ginger in your smoothie, garlic in your salad. Root vegetables bring you back to a grounded, practical place. A baked potato in the evening will help you sleep.

Too few earth foods and you just plain don’t get things done. Too many earth foods and you feel like the proverbial couch potato. Examples of earth foods are – naturally – potatoes, carrots, beets, garlic, ginger, onions, peanuts.

Essential minerals for good mental & physical health

This is how upside down our food and drug industries have become… If someone is diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, they are also prescribed lithium, a naturally occurring mineral found in seawater. Plain, simple, dehydrated sea salt contains lithium. Bi-polar disorder is actually a lithium deficiency, similar to scurvy being a Vitamin C deficiency and pellagra being a B Vitamin deficiency. If we had been raised with naturally dried sea salt on our tables, rather than white sparkly free-flowing table salt, we would all have plenty of lithium in our bodies and no one would need lithium supplements in pharmaceutical drugs.

It is unknown how many other diseases might also be simple mineral deficiencies caused by the depleted, processed salt that pours easily from most salt shakers. The salt Americans typically use — sodium chloride with a little iodine added — is a byproduct of the mining industry, not a complete food. Where do the minerals go that were mined out of our salt? Ironically, they are sold to pharmaceutical companies which then make drugs with dangerous side effects.

Be safe — use only unrefined, naturally dried, sea salt. It’s moist, sticky, and a bit yellow or grey; not dry and sparkling white. You can get it in bulk at most health food stores. It costs more and it is worth it. Baths with unrefined sea salt allow your body to absorb salt at its own comfortable pace. You can put a few trace mineral drops in your drinking water for a smooth, refreshing drink, blessed with nature’s electrolytes.

Last but not least…

Eat as much of your food as possible raw, organic, locally grown and in season. Avoid white flour, white sugar, white salt. Packaged foods, manufactured in American factories can be hazardous to your health.

You are only as sick as your secrets

Sometimes secrets are intentionally kept. On birthdays we don’t want our friends to know what we are giving them because we want them to be happily surprised.

Sometimes wonderful, velvet memories are kept secret because they are intensely private and personal. We do not care to share what they are because they might be misunderstood and not cherished by others as we cherish them ourselves.

But then there are the prickly or even stabbing secrets that hurt us then and continue to hurt us now. Those secrets are best aired and released. We fear that to tell them would only burden others, so we keep them to ourselves.

Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood said that he used to write and write to get all the horrible secrets from his childhood out of his memory and onto the paper. Many people write, sing, make videos, journal and blog to get their stories out of their minds.

Sometimes secrets are so secret that they are secret even from ourselves. We have buried them deep in our minds because we don’t want to ever think again of the terror, horror, grief, pain, shame, guilt, humiliation. Many of the deepest secrets we have kept hidden from ourselves originated long ago — in childhood and even before.

Unfortunately, secrets unavailable to the conscious mind do not just go away of their own accord. They are still securely stored in the human subconscious, the hard drive, better known as the body. Unreleased tension can be stored in every muscle and cell of our body.

For the sake of our health and happiness, we need to locate and release those tensions. It is not difficult to do and it need not be painful. In fact, releasing old traumatic memories it is usually experienced as pleasant, freeing and empowering.

Here, we focus on simple, safe ways to release forgotten trauma and unpleasant emotions. We are available to coach you to free yourself from the chains of the past. Once you know how, you can release fear as it arises. To gain that degree of control over fear is the most exciting adventure on planet earth.

Everyone is welcome!

A place of feeling good

Don’t do anything that
you don’t really want to do.
Keep yourself in a place of feeling good.
Reach for the thought that feels better —
and watch what happens.
Abraham*

According to Abraham-Hicks, it is in the place of “feeling good” where grace occurs. A Course In Miracles would say that we have only two emotions: love and fear — and that love would be the place of “feeling good” and fear would be feeling less than love, anything less than comfortable.

“Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional.”

To have a human body means you will encounter pain — you will stub your toe or bump your head or experience any number of things that distract you from feeling good. But to dwell on the pain and remain in the pain, to bring yourself back to the pain over and over again in your mind is abuse, self-abuse. And it is obvious that we all want to feel good.

The ultimate in mental gymnastics is that masochists are masochistic because they claim they feel good when they hurt — “It hurts so good.” Not really. They are hoping for a breakthrough, a release, a transcendence from pain into love.

So now we can decide — coming back to the quote at the top of this post — to not do those things we don’t want to do or to not feel the feelings we don’t like to feel. Knowing we have an option, we may become determined to learn to release, let go, feel good in any circumstance. We learn to surf the waves of emotion, to walk on water, so to speak.

Imagine the implication for our world. Nobody would be following in the footsteps of Job… yet everyone would be helpful, because that is the nature of love. The world as we know it would change in a twinkling.

The importance of reclaiming the feeling that feels good jives with everything I’ve learned and have personally experienced.  A Course In Miracles calls it love or forgiveness or releasing fear, Dr. Hew Len of ho’oponopono calls it cleaning. He makes it clear that cleaning is an ongoing activity. Mary Baker Eddy says, “God is Love… God is the work of eternity, and demands absolute consecration of thought, energy, and desire.” Our real job, our real work, is to reclaim our fundamental nature, which is pure, unconditional love.

Observing the judgmental voice between the ears, clearing, releasing, letting it go… getting back to “zero” or “neutral” or “feeling good”… that is our work and that is our fate, because since only love truly exists forever, our return to it is inevitable. Knowledge is the “know how” of how to go directly to the love that we are.

*From the workshop in Boston, MA on Sunday, October 10th, 1999 #563. This quote and much more at Abraham-Hicks Publications

Depression is not irrational – Suicide is not a solution

I was depressed from an early age. As a child, I always wanted to be dead. I know now that it was probably after my clitoridectomy. I was bereft. Life didn’t seem worth living. I went to the kitchen to get a knife to cut out my heart, but I was too small to reach the sharp knives – I didn’t even know where they were kept.

When I went back to my bed that night, I heard a voice say, “What makes you think it would be any different if you were to die?” I had to admit I had no guarantee. But I saw the implication was that I would have to live through those early childhood years again – no way! – and so I have stayed. My teen years and early twenties were no better. But after that, each year my heart has grown more full and rich and happy. I have no external possessions to brag about, but peace of mind and joy are my priceless treasures.

Depression is not irrational. It is a diagnosis that is like that drawer in the kitchen where you put everything you don’t know what to do with. Depression is an accumulation of legitimate, but unreleased fears, angers and sorrows. Our society does not allow grieving and does not offer anything much better than “you are born, life is for suffering, technology advances, and then you die.”. Religion often makes life on earth sound like a prison sentence, a valley of tears, after which – if you are perfect – you get to go to “heaven” and experience something that might or might not be all that much better than what you have known on earth… but there are no guarantees on any level.

lovely lady in flowersWhat finally brought me out of my depression was the discovery that when I was very very quiet, I could feel my heart.

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer… no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” ― Albert Camus

Another way to say that is, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” It is! And it can be known NOW. But only one thing can exist in one place at one time, so as long as we hold on to negative feelings from the past, we do not feel that beauty that already exists in our own hearts.

I came to understand that I had something important to do here on planet earth. Until I released all that old baggage, I might just come back over and over again – no way! And so I began to do my work and began to let go of all that old and ugly stuff.

We are fortunate in this age to have lots of help – from people and healing systems like Jed Diamond, Byron Katie’s “The Work”, Gary Craig’s “EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique”, Hale Dwoskin’s “The Sedona Method”, and many others. It’s all about healing – letting go of fear/anger/sorrow. It’s why we’re here and why “stuff happens” – so that we feel the old stuff and release the past – to “forgive”, which is “for giving ourselves peace of mind, joy and health.” Feelings got stuck when we held our breath in fear. So whatever feelings come up, breathe into them… that’s how we tell ourselves that we’re safe here and now.

See the “Tools” tab, above and release one little thing today, here and now. You will be so glad you did. Then move to another… and let it go…

EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique

Until you make the unconscious conscious,
it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
– Carl Jung

All healing is essentially the release from fear.
– A Course In Miracles

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), also called “Tapping”, does exactly what it says: it is a simple, easy way to release fear. It is a deceptively simple, yet effective tool for healing the mind, emotions and even the body.

To keep it simple, let’s call everything that is not at ease and peaceful, “fear”. Pain and dis-ease indicate a lack of ease, a lack of peace, and we can often track disease to its origin in fear.

We react to fear by contracting muscles in our body; we fight, flee or freeze. Synonyms for “fear” might include shock, terror, horror, dread, panic, anxiety, anger, rage, fury, sorrow, grief, angst, overwhelm, boredom, loss, frustration, irritability, loneliness, broken heart, longing, desire, jealousy, regret, envy, revenge, or any other feeling that is not peaceful and loving. Fear enters the mind, the body reacts by contracting. After that, if the fear is not released, it remains lodged in the muscles and even the cells of the body.

“Fear” is not our original condition – love is. Look into the eyes of any baby who was gently born and not circumcised and you will see eyes overflowing with unconditional love, aliveness, enthusiasm, and joy. Babies who have not been terrorized by intrusive medical procedures, drugs and scalpels, are relaxed. They can fall to sleep in a moment, no matter where they are or what is going on.

Yet a baby who was poked by sonogram, whose birth was medically induced, who was cut out or pulled out of his mothers, whose umbilical cord lifeline to mother was cut before he had downloaded his full allotment of oxygen and blood, who had monitoring devices attached to his head and body, a baby who was separated from his mother at birth and fed cow’s milk, not breastfed, a baby who was exposed to any number of unnecessary procedures such as blinding lights, heel pricks, injections of toxic chemicals into his pristine bloodstream, a baby who had surgery such as circumcision or open heart surgery… This baby, on the other hand, had a head start in the accumulation of fear. He learned to contract and withdraw, to distrust and expect betrayal.

After birth, fear messages are sent directly and indirectly, intentionally and unintentionally, from family members, friends, school, religion, television, movies, society; we make decisions based on things that happen to us and to others, etc and we carry all this fear forever – on our shoulders, in our stomachs or chests – until and unless we let it all go. We carry unconscious fear in the subconscious and the subconscious is the body. Muscles we tensed up long ago when terrible things happened, still hold the tension. They are the spots where we feel pain, tension, weakness. The good news is, we can let it all go and EFT is a very helpful tool in releasing fear. Letting go of fear is letting go of tension in the body and most disorders, disease, are caused by stored fear, tension.

Emotional Freedom Technique is the most effective way I’ve found to quickly and easily loosen and release uncomfortable bodily sensations from the mind and body – both ancient and current.

EFT is also called “tapping”, and you will be tapping on acupressure points to relax the inner organs that have been holding the “fear” you want to be free of.

Steps for using EFT to release fear:

1) Identify a feeling or attitude that causes you discomfort, a “fear” you want to release. Put it into words. If you cannot find a descriptor for it, just identify it by its location in the body. Examples might be: sense of anxiety, pain in my stomach, tension in my shoulders, anger at my mother.

2) Give it an intensity score. Zero means it does not bother you at all, ten means it is very much present, in your current awareness, and is occupying your mind and giving you pain and discomfort at this very moment. The goal is to use EFT until the intensity is gone and the score moves to zero.

3) Make it into a statement:

Even though I have this
[pain in my stomach],
I deeply and completely love and respect myself.

This statement serves a few purposes:

  • Naming the emotion or locating a feeling in the body is an important step in letting it go, for you are no longer unaware of it – you are now conscious of it. You have given the “demon” a name.
  • You can only release something that you already “have”. If you are unaware of a feeling, then you do not “have” it; it “has” you. But once you have it, you can release it.
  • “Even though” minimizes the importance of the “fear” you have named. It says that this “thing” that has been burdening you for a very long time is now inconsequential and you are ready to let it go.
  • To say that you love and respect yourself, even though you have carried this feeling, is a way of saying that you forgive yourself and love yourself enough to live without the burden.

4) The simplest way to perform this “exorcism” on yourself is to repeat the statement in #3, above, and tap 8-10 times on each acupressure point (see diagrams below). Some start by tapping on the side of one hand (karote chop point, in diagram below), using the palm of the other hand, and repeating the statement a few times, adjusting it for accuracy, if necessary. Then, starting at the top of your head, tap each point several times while repeating the statement. Some people shorten the statement after a few repetitions to the ‘complaint’, such as:

Even though I have this [sense of guilt], I deeply and completely love and respect myself…
Even though I have this sorrow, I deeply and completely love and respect myself…
Even though I have this sorrow, I deeply and completely love and respect myself…
this sorrow… this sorrow… this sorrow…”  – concluding with,
Even though I have this sorrow, I deeply and completely love and respect myself.

Now it is time to re-evaluate the intensity score you gave to the emotion in the beginning. On a scale from 1 to 10, how intense is the sensation now?
Some issues will resolve in one short round. Others may require several rounds, alternating tapping on both sides of the body. And some very old – or very fresh – issues may need to be addressed several times for several days. The good news is, it will all go away and stay away, once you have tapped it away. A little bit of attention now prevents years of discomfort in the future.

Here are two helpful sheets that you can access at any time from your phone or computer to remind you of how to use EFT:

EFT mini instructions

and

instructions


Emergency measures for PTSD

Trauma happens. Daily. To many. Those of us who have been suddenly exposed to terror, horror and shock, those of us who have lived in it for extended periods of time, all of us suffer at least some degree of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Sufferers of PTSD — even veterans — are not always correctly diagnosed and are even more often not treated. However, those who do receive attention do not always reap sufficient benefit from conventional treatment.

Sometimes it takes a child to say what no adult will — the emperor has no clothes and the medical field has no cure for PTSD. The conventional mental health system offers diagnoses and medications, but the mere labeling and numbing of symptoms does not equate to genuine healing. Terror and horror persist in the hearts and minds of victims and witnesses, both. The good news is,

All healing is essentially the release from fear.
Healing is always certain.

We can do it ourselves. Fact is, we must. No one else can do it for us; they don’t know what we have been through. Here is where we start. Here is where we learn to release the fear that has tied our minds and bodies into knots. Here is where we learn how to let go of fear.

We learn the principles of self-healing. We practice with ourselves and one another. We address one memory, one pain, one tense muscle at a time. Soon we are free of the shudder, the revulsion, the horror, the past. We feel real peace again. We have taken back our lives.

Search on the Internet for videos on “Emotional Freedom Technique” (EFT) or “Tapping” (they’re the same thing, just different names. This simple yet profoundly effective method of releasing fear might come in handy as you are reading, learning, practicing, identifying issues, and releasing them. Get this helpful stress-release tool under your belt and then scour and devour the rest of the healing methods here on this site. Any one of them might be enough to heal all your wounds. But one might “speak to” you more than another. Try them all.

As we release fear, we feel safer; as we feel safer, others will feel safer around us.

FREE, simple, effective healing tools for PTSD that anyone can use successfully…

“All healing is essentially the release from fear. ”
– ACIM

“Fear and sickness are identical.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

Some say that healing is difficult, or even impossible. Nothing could be further from the truth. Healing is simple, easy and fun. Healing is always certain… when you know how. The simple tools listed below, can help you reclaim your mental clarity, physical health, happiness, and peace of mind.

Anyone can learn and use the tools below. Children love them and benefit from them. If you want help, get stuck or feel a problem is too big to tackle alone, use the Contact tab and fill out the form. We will get back with you as soon as we can.

You need not master every method. Find the ones that appeal to you and use them. I always go for the simplest, most direct route to release.

We recommend the methods below because of their simplicity, efficiency and efficacy They have been tried and tested. They work! Some of them provide almost immediate relief.

We also recommend them because the price is right — they are free — unless you opt to buy a product, such as a book or CD, take a class or attend an event. We do not profit financially from any of these products, but we have used them all and appreciate them all:

Other helpful posts are

Tell your friends, especially vets suffering from PTSD about these helpful techniques. Tell them about this blog. We understand fear and know how to release it.

We support you to release the fear that is causing you distress. Contact us for coaching.

We wish you a pain-free body, mind and spirit. Thank you for your kind and generous support!

Our place in nature

This is one of my favorite books. From 1980, but as relevant now as it was then.

sunlight book cover

“The doctor of the future will interest his patients
in the care of the human frame,
in diet, & in the cause & prevention of disease.
Thomas A. Edison

Author’s Preface to the book Sunlight

At one time or another on the road of life, all of us have arrived at a crossroads in our thinking. Practicing medicine has brought me there, perhaps an illness will place you there too.

As I have seen the options, we may, on the one hand, choose to respect and appreciate nature. We may see within her a wisdom and intelligence that far surpasses man’s greatest technological achievements. We may come to realize that man’s best interest is served through obedience and conformity to nature and that sound health is the result of this obedience.

On the other hand, we may choose to believe that we can improve upon nature, that we can manipulate her to our own benefit. We may believe that we are responsible for nothing but our own pleasure, that we may freely violate and disregard natural law and then artificially manipulate the deleterious consequences. We may believe we can eat poorly, sleep rarely, work constantly, exercise sparingly and avoid any physical consequence by the use of some wonder drug or miraculous surgery. It is evident that this is the road most of us choose, for during the 1900’s the volume of drug business in the United States has increased by a factor of 100. It is estimated that 20,000 tons of aspirin are consumed per year, or 225 tablets per person. Not only is the drug industry booming, but also, as everyone already knows, there has been a tremendous increase in health care costs. To live indiscriminately and pay the price later is easier – for the moment. Maybe that’s really why we choose it. It requires no discipline and no sacrifice. It conforms to our cultural pleasures.

ln my medical practice, I see many whom no drug or surgery will restore to health. The hoped-for escape becomes only a means to muffle the most noxious complaints or a method to prolong a dying existence. For all advances in science, we still remain humbly, pitifully dependent upon the forces of nature: air, water, food, and sunlight. It seems in fact, the more advanced our technology becomes, the more capable we are of destroying ourselves – not only by a nuclear holocaust, but also by more insidious inroads into our health such as the tremendous change that has taken place in the area of food technology. Death has always been easily within man’s grasp, while life and health remain the property of nature and her forces. Out of this conviction, this book has been written. I believe there is ample evidence in the scientific literature that sunlight, free of technological distortions, is not only beneficial, but necessary for human health.

Zane R. Kime, MD, MS

You can read reviews of this book at Amazon.com. If you’d like to download the entire book as a pdf, note that it is a very large file – 36 megabytes. Download here: Sunlight by Zane Kime MD

Re-evaluation Co-counseling (RC)

Re-evaluation co-counseling is a peer counseling system. RC has been very helpful for a lot of people. I consider it to be a “big chunk” tool. It lets you know that tears, thrashing about and shaking are not “bad” but are natural ways the body discharges emotion. I have seen it work miracles. Continue reading Re-evaluation Co-counseling (RC)