Down the rabbit hole...hypervigilance...strep...OCD...and more

It's been a while since I have written anything but it's not for lack of anything going on.  Too much in fact.  Not action type things, just gentle shifts of healing one piece at a time.  Starting with our pnuemonia last spring and then subsequent antibiotics, by summer my digestion was a mess.  I went to the Naturopath, who found I was dealing with SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth) from the antibiotics.  Well, I had been dealing with this already, the antibiotics just made it way worse.  It was basically a battle of good vs evil bacteria of which adding probiotics just adds more soldiers to the fight..bad idea. So, in my reading about SIBO, I found that strep in the gut is a common denominator. (Watch this video for more info)  As well as Epstein Barr virus activation too. (Watch this video here, he's kind of a quack but has the best info I've found on EBV).  So, I treated our whole family since I've probably passed this on to all our kids, and Greg had strep as a child as well so it was likely still lingering in our all our bodies wearing us down bit by bit.  This product was recommended by our Naturopath, just using the dosing on the bottle once a day for a month.  You can get it in tincture or capsules.  When I went back the testing showed negative for both.

But, how do you clean up the mess of both viruses, wreaking havoc for decades?  And the bacteria overgrowth?  They go in and out of dormancy depending on stress, immune levels and many other factors.  Do we really want them gone, or do we just want it so that the body isn't reacting to them anymore?  So that they become innert instead.  We can't get rid of every virus out there, so changing the terrain and helping the body not react to them is the next best option.  (Reread my post on vibration/vital force from recently).

The first thing I'm doing for that is to up our intake of minerals.  Stress depletes them, grief depletes them, illness depletes them, pregnancy depletes them (4lbs per baby!), poor digestion depletes them, and we all know our soils are low to begin with.  These are super easy to replace, but they do take time.  Don't expect to notice anything...for months.  Here's a few ideas for easy mineral additions.  These all promote conductivity which is what our bodies need to function.  Just like a battery, it's either losing charge or recharging all the time.  These recharge us.

Cell salts are the easiest and you can't even taste a thing.  They work at an energetic level not a supplement/physical level healing your body.

Jacksons's cell salts is 500 tablets for $20.  Add a couple pellets to your water each morning and sip all day.   Bioplasma, Schlusser's, Bestmade are all great too, just get the 12 in 1 mixture of all of the minerals.

ConcenTrace drops for your water bottle.

Irish sea moss, nettles, oatstraw, alfalfa, kelp and other seaweed are all great too, in tincture or tea/infusion form.

The next thing was to tackle the EBV, which I did with just juicing celery juice every day for a month.  This sounds exhausting but my body was actually craving it.  I did buy the capsules for the weekends and when I didn't feel like juicing.  I actually just blended a bunch per day in my Vitamix and then let it drip through a seive.  At less than a $1/bunch it was a cheap thing that was doable (just throw the blender in the dishwasher).  He recommends taking it first thing in the morning and then waiting a bit for your coffee/breakfast so it can work alone.  Mixing it with other juices is not recommended either.

The last thing has been tackling the strep which I'm using homeopathy for.  There's a strong connection with the strep virus and OCD, which my family has lots of traits.  Worrying about sin/what is right, handwashing, bad at math (yup!), germ phobias, food phobias (yup!) and many more.  I've been giving all of us streptococcinum every week or two, and noticing subtle shifts.  What we thought were personality quirks were actually virus invaders.  This is really cool!  I follow Dr Andreas Tilch's recommendations although I'm anxiously waiting for his book to come out in English as it's only in German at this point.  Here's his website if you want a preview of what I'm dying to learn more about.

"STREPTOCOCCINUM can help – according to the experience of many patients   – so that serenity emerges from worries, courage from fear, clarity from being torn between, cautiousness from exuberance, calmness from stress, strength from weakness, touchability from defensive armour, connectedness from loneliness, fulfilment from frustration, networking awareness from friend-foe thinking, compassion out of guilt,  from for lack of appreciation emerges gift-giving, stability from instability, flexibility from rigidity, from illness emerges bonding, from existential fear basic trust and joy of the adventure “Earth”. "

Scrupulosity OCD is also a part of this. If you haven't heard of it, here you go! Rooted in strep!

So after tackling these, I still needed to tackle the SIBO, (I'm still doing the strep remedy too, as it's still working and needed as per muscle testing).  I was meeting a friend for coffee and was a few minutes early so stepped inside the business next door to the coffee shop to check out what they had to offer.  I had been praying for a doable solution to this without a million dollars or a million vitamins or a million labs or a million of anything.  This business is a wellness clinic and they set me up with one tincture for the bacteria/virus/fungus that was left, and one binder to excrete it from my body.  I could do that, and it worked.  I also implemented a low FODMAP diet which wasn't hard because I basically just didn't eat apples and ate oranges and bananas instead.  This helped immensely.  I did that for 2 months and then had a bioresonance scan to see where things were and what we needed to work on next, which turns out to be getting my body out of fight/flight/flee/fawn and restoring my organ functions (liver, spleen and pancreas for starters).  The lady uses frequency drops (which have minerals to improve conduction, just like a battery), so I just drop a few into a glass of water once a day.  Easy, peasy.  No weird/restricted diets, no pills, no extensive exercise, therapists, etc.  She also said that those are the two keys to weight loss, and that it usually takes 6 months of restoring the body's function before the body will start to shed some weight.  Most of us women are in survival mode, and our organs aren't working as well as they should as a result of that.  I'm now 2 months in and the shifts are subtle but pretty cool.  

I'm also doing The Emotion Code book of releasing trapped emotions in the body.  We all have lots of them blocking our health.  Every time we have an emotion that we didn't know what to do with, or have support for becomes blocked in our bodies limiting the flow of blood or energy.  (This is what trauma is, our nervous system gets overloaded with a situation; without love, comfort or support during or after it). This system teaches you to muscle test at home, and then how to release them with no counseling, no talking about it or not even leaving your home.  You don't even have to buy anything if you can get the book from the library as I did.  Another one I keep renewing.   The Body Code and Heart Code tell you how to expand to further heal once you get started and work on your physical body as well as walls we may have put up around our hearts when we were hurt or grieved (anything that blocks love in our hearts and doesn't let it out).  The methods are all the same, we just focus on different areas of the body.

So, that's where it's at for now.  Subtle, gentle but oh so cool!!  

Below are some signs of strep in the body.   These are from Angelica Lemke's book Healing Complex Children with Homeopathy which I check out from the library every 1.2 months and then have to get back and then check out again because it's such a great book.  She really gets back to teaching us moms to trust our mom intuition instead of relying on experts to tell us what to do.  Sometimes we need that, but often we need what we know we need.

Here's some more if you think those aren't enough!!

The last thing was to help the gut keep good bacteria where it should be and the bad where it should be.  Our small intestine should have different organisms from the large, and keeping these separate can be a challenge.  Dr Nemechek comes in here with a simple protocol to do just that, so I've been adding this in as well.  He focuses on healing autism, which he feels is rooted in SIBO as well.  Either from low stomach acid or the ileocecal valve (between the 2 intestines) not staying closed properly due to stress mainly.  You can find YouTube videos on how to massage it to close it back up as well.  He uses simple EVOO (extra virgin olive oil), fish oil (high DHA), and inulin (prebiotic fiber).  That's all.  I'm just doing those three things.  You can get his ebook for free on his FB page that explains everything.  He has a ton of videos that explain things too.

 

Lastly, I'm using Bach Flower remedies to balance our emotional worlds.  I'll do a whole new post on these because it's extensive, but Rescue Remedy is the first one you can check out to start with. More to come! 🌷🌺🌸🪷

How to Improve Mood and Lose Weight too

Well, I wrote this whole blog post out already, and as I was adding the last couple charts from my phone on a different app, all my writing disappeared and I can't find it again.  So, here we go again because I think this information is important to share.

This post is based on the books The Mood Cure, The Diet Cure and The Craving Cure all by Julia Ross.  She runs a clinic in California that specializes in curing addictions, eating disorders and losing weight; and has had great success over the years with using amino acids to do so.  The basic premise is that if you have cravings (food, drugs, alcohol, need mood meds, etc), then it's actually your body craving the amino acids and by giving the good stuff to your body, the cravings will decrease and then go away.  Pregnancy depletes amino acids greatly, because building a baby is complicated work!

Amino acids are the building blocks to our health.  They take our food and turn it into energy, healing, strength, hormones and more.  They are found in the protein we eat, and most of us don't get enough good protein these days.

"Breaking down food: When protein is consumed and broken down through the digestive process, amino acids and peptides are what's left inside the body. Promoting muscle growth: Amino acids are metabolized in the muscles to increase strength and endurance. Repairing tissue: If muscle tissue becomes damaged from physical activity, amino acids are produced to stimulate muscle protein synthesis and aid in repair.

"Amino acids make up the enzymes that facilitate the myriad chemical reactions in our bodies. They carry nutrients and other necessary molecules through our blood and across cell membranes and transport signals from one part of the body to another. Proteins are also used to make up hormones. Furthermore, the antibodies which protect us from illness are proteins." (source)

What is good protein?  Well, Julia says it's animal based protein with all the essential amino acids all ready to go.  Plant based protein is almost always incomplete in amino acids, and your body has to combine or convert to make it available, and if our body is in poor health/nutrition status already then it just doesn't happen efficiently.  Quinoa is the only healthy complete plant based protein (actually soy is too but I don't recommend anyone eating any of that, unless it's fermented into Bragg's soy amino sauce or similar).  Just meat and dairy.  She says we need 20-30 g of protein, 3x / day.  That's equivalent of 3 eggs (yes 3!), 3/4 c. full fat cottage cheese or Greek yogurt, a big can of tuna, or a piece of meat the size of your palm.  At 3 meals, every day.  See how we likely fall short?!  Getting those in my diet has been extremely challenging since I've been trying to do it.  I didn't realize how much plant based protein I rely on, and how little total protein I actually eat in a day.

Julia says on her website, "My clinic has found that, in 80-90 percent of over 6,000 cases, it has taken as little as 24 hours to turn off brain-generated carb cravings. How? By nourishing the brain’s five appetite-control functions with supplements of the five specific amino acids known to directly support them. Once the cravings are silenced, an adequate-calorie diet, composed of high quality protein, fat, and low-carb veggies can easily sustain high levels, without continued amino supplementation. Amazingly, this nutritional brain-repair process is safe and rapid." (source)

She talks about how inaccurate the current "calories in vs calories out" is in losing weight.  How many chronic dieters have more will power than we can dare to imagine, yet they're being shamed into believing the stereotype that they just don't have enough willpower to make their calories in < than their calories out by diet and exercise.  She says over half the women in the US eat less than 1500 calories per day (she recommends 2,300 for women, 2,500 for men based on WHO standards; nutrient dense calories, not empty/useless ones) ; and the majority of serious dieters eat less than 900, which is less than the Jews in concentration camps lived on.  When calories are this low, then the thyroid senses deprivation and goes into starvation mode and slows the whole body down, including storing any and all calories coming in.  This then leads to more weight gain, not weight loss.  By increasing healthy food in general, it will increase energy production, and get the thyroid working again and all the other body functions that have been diminished.  The Diet Cure book says right on the cover "NO WILLPOWER REQUIRED" and she stands by that statement.  It's not a willpower issue when your body is missing the essential amino acids to function properly.  

She also goes into what kind of craver you are.  Do you crave foods when depressed, crashed, for comfort, when stressed, or when fatigued?  Hint: most of us who are lacking feel them all or multiple ones of them. Here's the checklist to find out which ones you fall under that you can print off.  Once you know what kind(s) of craver you are, then you can trial the supplements she recommends.

https://www.juliarosscures.com/additional-resources/

How can we get more amino acids into our days?

1. Eat more animal protein.  Remember 20-30 g of protein, 3x/day.
2. Get more fat into your diet by buying meat with fat on it .  Fat is satisfying and will hold you down longer than any sorts of grains/carbs/sugars.  Buy chicken thighs with the skin on them, and then bake and eat the skin too.  Eat a juicy steak or burger, and don't drain the fat. Go for full fat dairy, double your coconut oil and butter on everything, and don't be afraid of fat. (but go slowly or your gall bladder may act up, it's been dormant far too long!)  Get some EVOO in there too!
3. Use a collagen creamer in your coffee.  Drink coffee 1/2 hour before eating so you get the full dose of aminos.  Otherwise it will compete with your breakfast food aminos, and you want the double dosing for now.
4. Use an free amino acid blend supplement.  Again, take on an empty stomach so you get double dosing effects. (supplement + food)
5. Eat more nuts and seeds.
6.  Add some superfoods into your diet.  Moringa, spirulina, chlorella, bee pollen, nutritonal yeast,  aloe vera juice and more.
7. Switch from using soy sauce to either soy or coconut aminos.  They taste the same.

Fat is not your enemy.  Fat creates hormones, protects our internal organs, we burn it for energy, makes hair and skin lustrous, maintains concentration, prevents carb cravings, keeps bowels regular and more.  She says also if our ancestors come from Scandinavia, Ireland or any other coastal area, we need even more omega-3 fats than "plains people".  Our bodies genetically need those good fats to remain healthy.  Avoid the seed oils and stick with unrefined fats instead (cold pressed).

In The Diet Cure, she goes through the ways to rehab the chronic dieter (get rid of diet sweeteners, help for food disorders (bulimia, anorexia)), balance your blood sugar, check your thyroid thoroughly (most doctors only run a TSH which tells us basically nothing, you need a full thyroid panel), overcoming addictions to allergy foods (often we crave the foods that are the worst for our bodies), hormone help, yeast elimination (another reason for cravings is candida yeast overgrowth), essential fatty acid fixing.  

Here's how to check thyroid function at home before getting any labs done.  At home you can do the basal temperature test, or the Achilles reflex test.

The Mood Cure goes into true moods vs false moods. True moods are genuine moods that are responsive to what we encounter in life.  False moods are those that are out of balance with reality and can be skewed by a number of things.  When your brain needs a tune up (it isn't getting the nutrition it needs to function properly); when the bad moods far outweigh the good, when we don't sleep well, worry too much, feel overwhelmed, lose our enthusiasm, etc.  Then the false moods start to take over.

For example with these neurotransmitters-

If you are high in serotonin, you'll feel positive, confident, flexible, and easy going.  

If you're low you'll feel negative, obsessive, worried, irritable, sleepless.

If you're high in catecholamines (cats), you'll feel energized, upbeat, and alert.

If you're low, you'll feel flat and in a lethargic funk.

If you're high in GABA, you'll feel relaxed and stress-free.

If you're low, you'll feel wired, stressed and overwhelmed.

If you're high in endorphins, you're full of cozy feelings of comfort, pleasure and euphoria.

If you're low, you'll be crying during sappy commercials and oversensitive to hurt.

Here's another questionnaire about amino acids/moods.

Same situations, opposite feelings.  See how we can't trust our feelings too much?!  It's easy to blame others when we're in a funk, but often we are the one who is the problem.  Especially us women, and especially us women who are still having major hormone fluctuations on top of daily living fluctuations.  She has a chapter on each of these neurotransmitters and how to heal them with diet and supplements.  Same answers as the charts above from the other books.  3 for 1 cure...yay!  If you're on any mood meds (SSRI's (which only recycle the serotonin you have, not increase it)), she has a chapter on that, of how to integrate both and wean off the meds slowly.

In The Craving Cure, she also goes into pyroluria, which is a genetic glitch that makes it so you don't process vitamin B6 and zinc as well as you should.  This can have huge effects on our moods, and should be looked into for diagnosis if you struggle with mood.  I have it and I'm finally making sense of how I've felt all my life, as does 1 of our kids (maybe more, we just haven't tested more).  We didn't get the official test done, just our Naturopath does muscle testing for B6 and zinc and we've been consistently low on both, as well as on major neurotransmitters.  Here's a link for a questionnaire to see if you should be tested for it.   

Another good resource, that's not quite so in depth as these previous books, but very useful if anxiety is your main complaint is The Anti-Anxiety Food Solution by Trudy Scott.  She uses Julia Ross's ideas (and gives her credit), and it's an easy read.  She also has a website/blog called Every Woman Over 29 that's chock full of good advice if book reading isn't your thing.  

That's all for now.  Please click on the links (I put lots of them!) for more information.

A few new book reviews~

Breath by James Nestor was excellent as far as the importance of how we breathe, and the many aspects of how most of us are breathing poorly.  I started learning about proper breathing from different sources over the last few years.  When James was in wrestling, his coach taught him all about keeping breathing controlled when in tricky situations, and how to calm their brains down when being pinned down.  How to reset their minds through calm breathing to be ready to make a comeback at a moment when defeat is quite probable.  How not to be a victim of his circumstances due to hyperventilating/anxiety.  Important stuff for all of us, in various other situations.  I also learned about mouth breathing vs nose breathing in regards to jaw formation in kids, and why so many kids these days need braces when proper breathing would solve the same problem, but takes much more time and has to be implemented younger, before the jaws grow.   I also learned more about it during speech therapy, as much speech (good or bad) is related to how we breathe.  Tongue/lip tie release, myofascial release, and proper tongue placement is key to good speech.  And when your tongue is positioned right, you'll breathe right.  Is your tongue resting on the roof of your mouth at all times, if you're not talking or eating?  It should be!

This book was more about one man's quest to find out how to breathe properly, and the journey it took him on.  He was his own guinea pig for all sorts of trials and theories on breathing, and he put them all to the test.  He ended finding out that the way we breathe is far more important than we think, and that we can do something simple to improve our health.  Breathe through our nose, intentionally for starters and then it'll become natural over time.  We can build new jaw bone and change the shapes of our faces even as adults after all these years of bad habits.  

There's also a new batch of dentists who focus on this, called orthrotropics, which means changing the shape of the growing jaw rather using braces/retainers to correct it after the fact (orthodontics).  There are many factors involved in the process for causes and effects (breast vs bottle feeding, sucking thumb/pacifier use, eating too many soft foods, etc).  The long and short though, is that we all should be breathing through our noses and not our mouths, day and night.  It just takes retraining yourself to do so if you don't.  Many people who don't, either have a tongue/lip tie or allergies causing the nose to become plugged, but this is solvable too with new habits.   

Another reason for the need for nose breathing is for nitric oxide.  To quote Dr. Steven Lin who wrote The Dental Diet, "Nitric oxide is produced in the nasal sinuses by specific enzymes. It’s instrumental in delivering oxygen around the body efficiently because it regulates blood flow. When it mixes with air delivered to the lung, it increases arterial oxygen tension and reduces blood pressure.  Nitric oxide also has a vital role deep within your body’s cells. There, it influences platelet function, immunity and the nervous system. It’s also important in homeostasis and the regulation of mitochondrial function. It’s produced elsewhere in the body but the biggest contributor is the minute amounts inhaled through the nose into the lungs." (source)

Here are some videos that he mentions in the book on how to learn to breath better. It just takes a little practice to get into thinking that way (and maybe a few note cards taped up to remind yourself).  Some people even tape their mouths shut to remind themselves to keep their mouths shut while they sleep.  Suit yourself!

The next book is called The Genie in Your Genes and it was way over my head as well.  Although I am interested in epigenetics, I'm not interested in all the chemistry involved in making conclusions.  I wouldn't be a good researcher as I just want the end findings and the whys.  I'm too impatient to put in the time to figure it all out.  Since most of it was over my head, I'm just going to review a quote from elsewhere below.  I'm also not sure how this all plays in as a Christian.  He talks much about beliefs of different religions in the book, but I'm not going to say that the power of all of them is equal.  Praying to different gods/God is not going to elicit the same responses, although belief in a "higher being" is known to be more helpful than believing in none.  Only Jesus can free us from guilt and wash away our sins.  No other God proclaims "it is finished"; all other gods demand works, good deeds, and endless lists of more and more to do to please or appease them.  So I don't think you can categorize them all in the same class.

"Your genes respond to your thoughts, emotions and beliefs. The way you use your mind shapes your brain, turning genes on and off in ways that can dramatically affect your health and wellbeing. In this best-selling, award-winning book, researcher Dawson Church reveals the exciting applications of the new science of Epigenetics (epi=above, i.e. control above the level of the gene) to healing. Citing hundreds of scientific studies, and telling the stories of dozens of people who have used his ideas for their own healing, he shows how you can apply these discoveries in your own life. He explains how electromagnetic energy flows in your body and affects your cells, and how the new fields of energy medicine and energy psychology can help cases that are beyond the reach of conventional medicine. He shows how your hormonal, neurological, connective tissue, and neurotransmitter systems all work in harmony to conduct a coordinated flow of information throughout your body. As you take conscious control of the process, you produce a positive effect on your health, becoming an "epigenetic engineer" of your own wellbeing. Practical and scientific, this book has transformed the lives of tens of thousands of people. This new edition is updated with the latest research and clinical breakthroughs."  (source)

Nutrient Power is the last book today.  This book is an excellent resource for any sorts of mental illness, including autism, ADHD and Alzheimer's, which he has complete chapters on.  He worked in prisons for years and ran millions of samples on over 30,000 patients.  This guy has done his homework, and although it's mostly over my head with all the chemistry and terms that I don't know yet, but was a good read.  The long and short of it can be listed below from another review here (on their website). 

"THE REPEAT OFFENDERS: For several years I was perplexed by the repeated presence of certain biochemical imbalances in completely different mental disorders.  For example, copper overload is present in most cases of hyperactivity, learning disability, post-partum depression, autism, and paranoid schizophrenia. In another example, undermethylation is often present in antisocial personality disorder, clinical depression, anorexia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and schizoaffective disorder.  The primary repeat offenders are copper overload, B-6 deficiency, zinc deficiency, methyl/folate imbalances, pyrrole disorder, and amino acid imbalances.  Eventually I realized these factors had something in common --a direct role in the synthesis or functioning of a major neurotransmitter.

"With respect to mental health, the nutrient SAMe is a natural reuptake inhibitor for serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine.  Folic acid is a natural reuptake enhancer that can combat excessive dopamine activity.  The individual levels of methyl and folate in the brain are not as important as the methyl/folate ratio . . ."

He talks of how depression can be from undermethylation or overmethylation as well as copper overload and pyrrole disorder (low B6 and zinc), as can schizophrenia, so the treatment isn't always going to be the same.

Videos of William Walsh (author of the book) on the subject.

Chart of how the symptoms overlap and are specific to each root cause.

Here's a great chart to compare undermethylated to overmethylated symptoms.

Here's the Walsh Institute website where you can find a doctor to test for all these nutrient levels and see what the root problem actually is.  Randomly prescribing medications is like shooting in the dark, without knowing where the target is.  I just talked to my friend who is a Psych RN at the local VA hospital and she said that psych nursing is the most vague thing she's ever experienced.  The meds get changed so often that you never know what is coming or going.  That's why so many patients never get better.  She said it's endlessly frustrating to have repeat patients in the revolving door of severe illness to moderate wellness because no one looks into root causes.  Never remission or complete wellness. So sad.  

Side note:  Dr Kelly Brogan and Dr. Carol Banyas are two holistic psychiatrists who also use nutrition to heal mental illness, if you want more resources.  They both were convicted about the uses of medications and knew there had to be a better way to get better.  Dr. Banyas is a spokesperson for True Hope vitamins and has several videos about her experience using them.

Homeopathy Primer

You remember how everyone got into the essential oil craze a few years back?  How it was a cure all, a panacea for whatever ailed you?  That's how I feel about homeopathy.  It's been a much longer, much more skeptical journey for me, but now I'm on it.  Locked in tight!

Back when we lived in AZ, one of our friends at church was going to Naturopathic school and she told me about it first of all.  She talked how it was the best thing for curing children's ailments, as it was so gentle and harmless.  I had no kids at the time, so didn't pursue it further.  Just listened and stored it away somewhere.  I also had no idea what it was, and wasn't into finding out either.  I was still wholly steeped in mainstream medicine.  Then we moved up here, and later James was born.  He was covered in eczema and we tried so many things trying to make him feel better.  While on a trip to AZ, we took him to see this same friend (who was now a Dr.) and she prescribed 1 little bottle of homeopathic pellets for him.  Pellets the size of chia seeds.   "Give him 3 pellets, once a week" was the dose, if I recall.  Huh?  That's all?  So we tried it.  For maybe 2 months.  No change.  We did phone consults and she kept telling us to wait longer.  But, since I didn't know much about it, and the phone consults were getting expensive with no visual results, we stopped them when the bottle ran out.  And figured it was just another thing that didn't work.  Even though she explained to us that healing came from the inside out ("like peeling back layers on an onion"), I didn't believe in it at all.  So we kept on trying other things instead.  That was the end of that road.

Many years later we went to another couple of Naturopaths who also prescribed them for various ailments, both acute or chronic.  We then experienced almost miraculous results, yet they were gentle with no side effects or expensive supplements to endlessly buy.  Cheap too?  OK, I'm in.  This was around the time of the essential oil craze, and our Naturopathic Dr sold his remedies for $4-6/each.  I surely couldn't buy a name brand essential oil at that cost, so I couldn't justify not trying them for that cost either.  So we did.  We didn't have all successes, but the one biggie convinced me that I at least needed to learn more about how they work and what they can do.  So I asked lots of questions at my appointments, and I got all the books that the library had, and I started reading.

Homeopathy uses "vital force" to heal.  This is the energy within us that keeps us alive. Without it we would be dead.  All healing in homeopathy uses kinetic energy (energy from motion, of which the remedies are shaken/succussed) to strengthen our vital force.  It's kind of obscure to describe, but somehow works.

Now I've been on the homeopathic learning path for about 5 years, and I have yet to have met anyone else who knows anything or cares a hoot about them, other than my doctors.  So that's kind of lame as I get so excited when I learn new things and I can't really tell anyone because no one "gets it".  But that's ok.  I still get excited.  I do have a few online groups that are as excited as I am, and I have learned a ton from them, and it's also place to ask my many questions.

So, what intrigues me so much?  Well, first of all you can heal stuff with them.  All kinds of stuff!  Weird, unusual, "I'll never tell anyone about this" kind of stuff.  Acute, chronic, constitutional, miasmic, animal care, you name it!

Acute would mean affecting or afflicting you right now, and started less than 3 months ago.  Bladder infections, sore throats, smashed fingers (treated one of these this week), burns, coughs, etc. But also emotional things like acute grief, anger, nervous about a job interview, etc.

Chronic means something you've had longer than 3-6 months.  This can be lifetime symptoms (maybe like insomnia or noise sensitivity when people chew their food, or long term hip pain or breathing troubles), or just things you've been stuck with for a long time that you haven't found a solution to yet.  Or didn't think there was one.

Constitutional means more personality quirks and foibles (a minor flaw or shortcoming in character or behavior).  Things like OCD or an inability to express your emotions well, or being an overachiever and burning yourself out, or addictions of any sort.  Things you think you are stuck with because you think were born that way, and maybe you were.  But homeopathy can heal even those.  It can balance whatever is imbalanced so those things don't have the power over you that they've had.  Self-esteem too low? Yep.  Self-esteem too inflated?  Yep.  Either way it can be balanced.  Which leads to...

Miasms.  These are generational characteristics that come down through family lines.  They are not DNA, so they are not genetic; but seem to be passed down more through the microbiome (gut health or illness) from parents to children and on to their children because you all live in the same houses and share life together.  These can be "tendencies" or addictions or illness weaknesses, and can even be healed from several generations back, whether it be disease or trauma that happened several generations ago.  Great grandfather fought in the Revolutionary war and you struggle with anxiety? Check.  Great grandmother had TB, and now your family has extensive lung troubles?  Check.  Fascinating, hey?!
(More info on miasms here.  Please read part 1 & 2)

This book has been really exciting.  I just want to fix everyone!  Starting with myself though.  I'm still quite a newbie, so am just experimenting on myself, letting go of baggage, dealing with my grief, learning boundaries for my own health.  It's caused me to do a fearless moral inventory (AA step 4), which isn't fun.  At all.  Being honest with ourselves is the only way to healing though.  We all have skeletons in the closet somewhere somehow.  Coping mechanisms we've picked up over the years, baggage that we've never dealt with properly, forgiveness for ourselves for the sins against us, or asking forgiveness of others who we've sinned against.  Hard stuff and I'm not done yet.  Still moving forward though.

"One does not surrender a life in an instant. 

That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime." 

~Elisabeth Elliot

Here's some of the things that the Emotional Healing book covers.  Yup.  Digs pretty deep.  Another book on the same subject that comes highly recommended is called Getting Back on Track by Jill Turland.  I have not read it yet, but hope to soon.

Here's a couple of the books below that I've acquired over the years.  The library has plenty, but I've found that having my own reference books at home written by various authors is most helpful (it can add to the confusion also though, when they contradict each other).  I love to highlight stuff too, so that isn't good to do on library books!

This book by Sue Meyer is great, as it gives in depth info on so many remedies (there's around 5,000 total).  Sue has a podcast called Homeopathy for Mommies as well and she talks a lot, so you have to learn as she talks.  I much prefer learning by reading, so don't do best listening to her as it takes far more time than skimming a book does to find what I need.  She also has it organized by symptoms so you can compare them better when trying to find the right remedy.

This book is my favorite, by Joette Calabrese. (sorry for the sideways pic) She's the homeopath who I've learned the most from, as she shares the most free information online.  She has a very thorough website chock full of free info, writes regularly for the Weston A. Price Foundation, has classes you can take and then her book shown above, along with every Monday she posts a video on a new remedy.  They can all be found on YouTube or her FB page.  I'd absolutely love to take all her classes, but right now my bandwidth is pretty limited for time and learning so I'll just stick to my book learning.  Someday... 

Joette uses a different kind of homeopathy dosing methodology, which is called the Banerji protocols, which are a honed in system formulated by the Banerji doctors in India.  She has trained under them and they treat thousands of patients, sometimes each day and needed a more streamlined process for seeing more patients, as well as making it cost effective for the lower income ones.  So, they came up with protocols that are used in a systematic format according to symptoms.  These protocols work approximately 80% of the time, and the rest of the time another method (called Classical homeopathy) is needed to treat the patient's symptoms.  Classical homeopathy takes a very thorough patient history and assessment (2 hours usually) and then the Homeopath chooses a remedy based on the results.  The protocols are based on knowing a diagnosis and giving a basic remedy protocol for that.  Both work, it's just more what you want for what you're dealing with.

Christina Villacorta is another Banerji protocol homeopath with lots of good info.  You can also look at my extensive list of pins on Pinterest if you're just looking for something specific, or just want to see what kind of stuff is treatable.

Right now we are working on some symptoms with one of our kids.  Our Naturopath chose 2 remedies this last round (she uses the Classical method).  She put about 5 little pellets in a little paper envelope and her dosing instructions were to take the first packet when we got home, and then wait 2 weeks.  Then take the next 3 little packets (a different remedy) once per week.  The end.  Sounds too simple.  But the last round we did it, she hit the nail on the head and the symptoms became less frequent and then changed format (thus the need to move to a new remedy).  This is the healing process as the illness/symptoms/challenges are slowly being worked out of the body to a state of balance and health.  So cool huh?!

Now comes the tricky part.  How to know what remedy to choose, what dose, how often, what are signs that it's working or not working?  And what's an aggravation?  That's where I wish I knew more information.  These are all ambiguous questions with vague answers.  It becomes second nature with lots of practice, but for us newbies it can be like drinking from a fire house to figure out all the rules to follow and then all the exceptions to it.  Kind of like learning English as a second language, I would suppose!  BTW, An aggravation is what happens as your body is healing and old symptoms come back that are being pushed out of the body to get rid of.  Eczema returns as your body is healing the root cause of it from way back in childhood after steroids or meds that suppressed it for years, or it switched to more serious symptoms with the same root cause.  Often eczema turns into asthma, as it settles in the lungs.  Skin issues are the most common aggravations, but usually clear up pretty quickly.  

That's about all for now.  Feel free to ask me any questions, and I'd be glad to either answer them or find the answer for them from someone more experienced than myself (more likely!)

Book Review~ The Fourfold Path to Healing

This book was interesting.  It is in the same series with Nourishing Traditions and the Nourishing Baby Care book by Dr. Thomas Cowan.   It teaches you how to heal yourself from various ailments and avoid them if you don't want them too!  Spoiler alert: cod liver oil.  That's the missing factor in all the diseases in the book.  There's other nutrient lacks as well, but that's the one that is the game changer throughout, mostly because the foods we eat these days don't have enough of the same nutrients it has.  This is because when we eat meat; the majority of animals aren't pastured on grass, or they aren't in the wild, or we don't eat the whole animal as traditional cultures did.  If you don't feel like reading the whole book, there's a summary for each ailment on what he recommends to take which is nice, but the explanation on why he uses what he does for healing is very interesting I think.

He relies strongly on Weston A. Price dietary principles and Standard Process vitamins for the other basis of healing, along with body work (think calesthenics) to relax and get energy moving in the right ways through the body.  I'm not so sure how that works exactly, but he tends to think it does help heal.  He also uses something called protomorphogens for healing organs.  We've used these also through our Naturopath to heal specific organs.   They work kind of like homeopathy, allowing the body to heal specific areas using small amounts of bovine organ material.  It kind of reminds the glands to rebuild themselves.  This Dr. is also uses homeopathy in a more methodical and mechanical way than I've seen before, using specific doses for specific conditions across the board.  

He does get into the emotional/physical connections a lot, which is nice, as they are far more intertwined than most of us believe. (I'll explain this in my homeopathy post coming up!)  He also talks about how much of our healing is not due to the Dr, but our relationship with the doctor.  Do we have a friendship with them so that we trust that they are looking our for our true healing (not just symptom management), or is it a purely business deal (involving prescriptions, surgery and the like).  Normal medical doctors spend an average of 7 minutes with their patients twice a year.  How can they establish a caring relationship in that amount of time?  There's just not enough time, even among the best of the best.  Typically a Functional, Osteopathic or Naturopathic Dr. spends between 30-90 minutes in each appointment, thus establishing a caring and trustful bond.  The other lack is that mainstream doctors have to do so much charting and coding for insurance claims (up to half their day is spent this way), this eats into the time they can spend with their patients and it also limits the care they can give as well. (They can only offer what insurance deems worthy to cover, rather than what each patient actually needs).  That's all in this book!

Side Note, not from the book~

A new trend and great option out there that I just learned about is called Direct Primary Care where you pay a monthly fee and have your doctor at your beck and call.  They work for you and will do what you want (within reason, of course!)  They do recommend they you get a high deductible health plan for any major medical issues or emergencies.  The benefits of this system are:

1) you get more time with your doctor due to them not dealing with insurance shenanigans

2) they work for you rather than for insurance

3) less ER and urgent care visits as issues are taken care of quickly and efficiently, there's always someone on call and they know you well enough that a phone call or Zoom interview is often enough

4) each doctor has less patients and thus can give better care overall

Here's the link to find one near you~

https://www.dpcare.org/

Here's a link for one local Dr, which explains it much more thoroughly~

https://www.baxterfamilymedicine.com/

I would say the only downside I can see is that if you are quite healthy, this can get expensive for minimal care.  But isn't insurance the same?!  Sometimes finding a Dr who takes cash payments is a cheaper option overall, with just a high deductible major medical plan of some sort, whether through insurance or a health care sharing co-op.

Things I'm learning these days~

     These last 6 months have been spent teaching my first teenager how to drive.  I'd say it's shown more of my desire for control in my children than any other aspect thus far.  The stakes are so much higher!  While sitting in the passenger seat though, I've had lots of time to contemplate things, and although I haven't come up with any brainwaves yet, I thought I'd share what I've noticed.

1)  Sitting quietly in the passenger seat (without either being a "backseat driver" or "caution queen") is harder than I thought it would be.  If I pointed out every single potential danger, this would lead to discouragement in my teen rather quickly.  I have to just shut my mouth and pray and only add comments when absolutely necessary.  I've also learned that there is a big difference between potential threats and actual threats.  Navigating how to teach about both is all in the tone and the timing.

2)  Teens do best with a 10:1 ratio (or even more!) of compliments/good job/reassurance to keep their motivation up and their discouragement/fear down.  But when I think of myself, I do best with the same.  And don't we all?  Criticism should be always kept to a minimum.  None of us do better due to criticism, as mostly it just leads to despair. 

3)  Prayer is more important than worry.  This should be a given, but it isn't.  My default is more to go to worry first and then prayer.  God's sovereignty over our lives is not determined by my level of worry or fear, and just because I'm scared doesn't mean He's not in control of the situation.  I know this in my head and heart, but I often forget it.  Every day I forget it.  Me adding in peanut gallery comments to be more careful will not result in more care being added, when maximum care is already being applied.  I just need to shut my mouth and pray.

4)  Teens may have less discretion due to less experience, but they also have much quicker reaction time than I've given them (him!) credit for.  I assume he's like me when he's driving, but I've failed to give him credit for times when his quick thinking and quick acting has actually led to better results than it would have if I had been driving.  This is the encouraging part!

    The next thing about raising teens that I'm learning, is that mercy is taught in new ways.  Kind of new, because you offer toddlers the same kind of mercy but then the expectations go up again during the mid-kid years (6-12ish).  But when they become teens, that increased mercy card gets pulled out again.  Between their growing, their sleeping, their picky eating, their bossing, their independence-but-not-independent, their hormones, their moods....the list goes on.  Grace is giving a gift when there is no need for it, blessing others in ways they don't deserve but for no specific reasons.  For example, a teen is often tired.  If I do their work for them and let them sleep in, that's grace.  It also means I don't require them to pay me back in some fashion.  That's grace.  Mercy is when the same thing happens but there's some offense tucked in there somewhere.  They hurt a sibling, they may have run off at the mouth in an unhealthy manner, they offended someone (or they were offended themselves somehow).  As a mom of teens, you realize the outstanding parameters, and you make decisions accordingly.  Did they eat lunch?  Did they have a sleepless night?  Is their heart heavy from some emotional distress?  And then we offer mercy in the gap and nourish the need instead of the  usual required obedience or expectation.

The example of this popped up last week glaringly.  One child had been nasty all morning (I had intervened in 4 fights already, of which this child was the common denominator), and then a friend called to see if this same child could come and spend the day.  On one hand I thought, "well, they sure don't deserve that!" On the other hand I thought, "well, it'll be good to get rid of this child for a few hours so we can all get a break!"  Neither of those responses were what I went on though.  I told this child that they could go, and enjoy themself.  On the drive over, the child even said to me, "I don't deserve to go spend the day with my friend, as I've been mean and nasty all morning!"  I replied, "yes, you have, but you are going to go enjoy a break from all of us for the rest of the day."  And we all did the chores for this specific child while they were gone.  That's mercy.  The gift was given with no outside expectations nor retribution.  This happens often with teens and is where they truly learn about grace and mercy on a personal level.  This child's comment told me they got it without me even having to explain anything.

The next few things just come from things I've been reading or learning about in books or podcasts.  Just tidbits that help me put names to things and figure out puzzle pieces that might be missing elsewhere.  As always, I put my Christian perspective on secular teachings and see how they either overlap or are different.  Sometimes there's relevance, and sometimes there isn't.

Yesterday I was painting my long overdue (15 years) living room, and my kids were all out in the shop having a Nerf war, so I turned on a podcast of Mikhaila Peterson and Guy Winch on relationships.  I tend to like her podcasts as she asks a lot of good questions and there's no chitchat, all business.  Anyhow, I know nothing about this guy except that he's a family/marriage therapist, and has some books and TED talks out on the subject.  In the length of the listening, he mentioned that he and his cohorts can determine the success of a marriage to 90% accuracy all by watching a 5 minute video clip of the couple fighting/arguing.  The traits of success include 

• treating each other with respect (listening until the other person is completely finished talking)
• not getting defensive 
• listening to hear (not just to respond with our rebuttal) 
• listening without eliciting an emotional response

Anyhow, thought that was interesting.

The next thing is about trust.  Have you ever wondered why you do or don't trust someone?  Or why it takes a while to trust certain people?  Or for them to trust you?  Or you trust them in some areas but not others?  Brene Brown has studied into it and has come up with these criteria for trust.  She clarifies that it's unrealistic to expect everyone to meet these criteria (and that we certainly can't meet all these criteria for others!), and that if you have 1-2 friends who meet this criteria then you are extremely blessed.  But, it helps see why some people have never made it into the "trust" category although you may have known them for many years.  Her acronym is called BRAVING.

Boundaries

Trust thrives within boundaries that are clear and consistent. Each party knows where they stand,

“I trust you if you are clear about your boundaries and you hold them and you are clear about my boundaries and you respect them. There is no trust without boundaries.”

Reliability

Researchers are always looking for things that are valid and reliable. A set of scales provides a valid measurement.

A reliable scale is one where if you got on it 100 times, it will return the same result every time.

You cannot gain someone’s trust if you are reliable only once, because that’s not the definition of reliability.

In our working lives, we have to be clear on our limitations so we don’t take on so much that we don’t deliver on our commitments.

In our personal life, same thing. You can’t overpromise and underdeliver.

“I can only trust you if you do what you say you are going to do. And not once, but over and over again.”

Accountability

Own your mistakes and allowing for the transgressions of others,

“I can only trust you if, when you make a mistake you are willing to own it, apologise for it and make amends. I can only trust you if, when I make a mistake I am allowed to own it, apologise for it and make amends. No accountability, no trust”.

Vault

Research shows that when someone gossips with you about a third party, your trust in the gossiper is completely diminished.

Many times we share things that are not ours to share as a way to hotwire connection with a friend.

If you have a friend like that, your closeness is built on trash talking others. Brown refers to this as ‘common enemy intimacy’, which isn’t a real connection.

The vault means you respect my story, but you respect other peoples story.

“What I share with you, you will hold in confidence. What you share with me I will hold in confidence.”

Integrity

Brown came up with her own definition of integrity, with three core components:

• Choosing courage over comfort
• Choosing what is right over what is fun, fast or easy
• Practising your values, not just professing your values

“I cannot be in a trusting relationship with you unless you act from a place of integrity and encourage me to do the same.”

Non-judgement

Brown says it’s vital to be able struggle, fall apart and ask for help without being judged by another and vice versa.

This is hard, she says, because we’re better at helping than asking for help.

If you can’t ask for help and those around you can’t reciprocate it, that is not a trusting relationship.

When we assign value to needing or giving help, there’s an issue,

“Real trust doesn’t exist unless help is reciprocal and non-judgmental.”

Generosity 

According to Brown, it’s essential to be compassionate and make a generous assumption if someone inadvertently betrays your trust.

In this way, it’s better to address the situation early, rather than bottling it up and saving it as blackmail for a later date,

“Our relationship is only trusting if you can assume the most generous thing about my words intentions and behaviours and then check in with me.”

source

    The last thing is a tidbit by Dr. Zach Bush on why covid is such a crisis right now, and why chronic health is so low these days too.  The key word is glyphosate (Roundup).  He explained in the video I watched how Roundup blocks the Shikamate Pathway which prevents 3 essential amino acids (tryptophan and a few others) from being absorbed into our bodies.  Without these essential amino acids (these are ones we need to eat, not ones our bodies can produce themselves); chronic disease is on it's way.  We've been spraying Roundup on (or genetically modifying) crops for 30 years now, and chronic disease is epidemic in the last 30 years as well.  From these lacks in adults (200+ functions in the body) we get diabetes, obesity, anxiety, sleeplessness, dementia and other memory related issues; and in babies/kids we get chronic birth diseases (genetic expression included) of all sorts- starting with the A's- asthma, allergies, ADHD, autism, etc. and on we go.  So, avoiding GMO foods and rebuilding the gut are the easiest things we can do from home to fix our guts and our health.  Restaurant/convenience foods are notoriously not concerned with this health information, so sourcing our food locally and organically is hard work but worth it for the health of our families.  

    This is our current DDT experience that was dealt with in the 1900s and up until it was banned.  "Oh, of course it's safe!" until "Oh, oops no it isn't!"

That's all for today!