What is Energy Healing?

I have wanted to write more in depth about energy healing for a long time now, but didn't really know where to start or how to articulate my thoughts. I still don't really know where I want to go with it, but I just really feel the need to write about it.  

This blog is a creative outlet for me and I want to write about what I am doing in the moment.  And lately, I have been going to lots of different energy healing and alternative therapy appointments, as I get over the stress of the last couple of months and try to restore my mind and body from the last three years of being pregnant and taking care of a baby, before possible baby number two comes.


I have also always been very nervous about telling people, that not only do I go see energy healers, I am an energy healer.  I guess after I told the world I ate my placenta, telling the world about my energy healing background didn't seem so crazy.  But I realize it does still sound crazy to a lot of people, or even like one of my best friends told me, oh so politely, that it was a little too far out of her comfort zone.


In the future, I would like branch out from my natural remedies posts, and write about anything and everything in the energy healing/alternative therapy world, including things like acupuncture, (which technically is a type of energy healing).

I want to share all the these I have learned over the last ten years of working with healers and the things I continue to learn.  Energy healing and alternative therapies have changed my life for the better and I would love for others to take see and feel the transformative effects it can have in your life.


Energy healing is crazy hard to explain.  But basically, everything is energy.  Your body, the trees, water, etc.  It is all made up of energy.  Each of us have a physical body and energetic body.  Some people call your energetic body,  your aura, but that is not entirely correct, I will go into more detail about that later.


The energetic body effects everything.  If there is a disturbance in your energy field, it will manifest in your mental, emotional, or physical body.  So to heal most anything, you need to heal the energetic body.   And if you only heal something on one level, the physical or emotional, but don't pay attention to the energetic level, it will come back into your life (possibility in different forms) until you deal with it, really deal with it.  

You don't have to do one or the other.  For example, if you are taking migraine medicine, or getting chemo, you would do it in conjunction with your alternative therapies, like energy healing.


In the case of a headache, energy healers deals with the pain of the headache, but also the real cause of the pain. And the real cause could be all sorts of things.  It could be residual angry energy left over from a fight with your husband, or could a symptom of something traumatic happening from your childhood, or even somebody attacking you energetically. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true.  People can actually, purposefully, hurt you energetically, so you have to protect yourself, again that is a post in itself, for later.


Reiki is one the most common type of energy healing.  It is an ancient form on hands on healing.  A person who does Reiki healing goes through trainings and attunements to create the healer within, to learn how to open their energy field to the Universal/God energy.  Then the healer acts as a vessel for the Universal/God energy to flow through them to the patient.


I am a Reiki Master. What that means, is that for over a year, I did trainings that built on one another. So first I was certified Reiki I Practioner, then a Reiki II and lastly I became a certified at the Master level. I have done energy healing off and on over the last 10 years, mostly with friends/massage clients who were open to it or really needed it, but I have never had a full on energy healing practice. Although, one day, I would love if I did.  My main motivation was to have this skill for myself and my family.


I started going to an energy healer when I was 18.  I went with intention of healing trauma from my childhood and teenage years.  Pretty much from 18 to 22, I was on a mission to get myself ready to be married and have a baby.  And for me, that meant doing a lot of hard work to heal old wounds.


Over the years I would go whenever anything came up tough in my life. I have also always gone to traditional talk therapy and done various alternative modalities (like chiropractic and massage).  I have always combined different therapies/modalities to keep everything in balance on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level.  Energy healing combines and enhances all other type of healing work.


If you would like the contact information of the women I have worked with over the past 10 years, please email me.  They all do phone sessions.


So what do you think?  That I am nuts?  :)
Have you ever been to an energy healer?  What kind did you go to?

By Best Kids Health Blog

Netti, Goot and other Natural Remedies for Colds

This is a Netti pot.  They are awesome.  I first started using a Netti pot about 9 or 10 years ago.  They were recommended to me by another yoga teacher.  I remember going to buy one, at New Leaf (our local natural foods co-op). It was my first visit to New Leaf, I became a member that day and it got me started on my journey to eating healthy.  It's been a long, slow journey, but the Netti pot played a bit part!  Penelope broke my original one, a few months back, and I replaced it with this pretty teal ceramic one.

A lot of people are scared of using a Netti pot, but it is really simple.  You just fill it up with water, add a little salt and/or powder probiotics, stick it up one nostril, tilt your head the opposite side and let the water go up your nasal canal and out the other side.  It not only gets snot out when you are congested, it gets bad bacteria, yeast and all kinds of other stuff that is up in your nasal canals out.

I have been feeling good for about a week now, but for the previous 3 weeks I was fighting a type of pneumonia called Mycoplasm.  It was NASTY.  I haven't been that sick in years and years.  I did all sorts of natural remedies to feel better, in the end I had to do, not one, but two rounds of antibiotics.  I hate using antibiotics, but sometimes you just gotta do it.  Using antibiotics, is one of those things that I had in my mind that perfect mothers don't use.  A "perfect mother" can beat any illness without antibiotics, yada yada.  Once I realized that I wasn't going to the doctor to get meds because of this preconceived illusion I had about being a perfect mother, I chucked that mental thought, and made an appointment.


So here are list of things I did to try and kick this illness myself (on top of my normal daily supplements):

Gaia, Quick Defense: It has echinacea, elderberry and ginger root. Usually, if I take this right as I am feeling like I am getting sick, it totally kicks it.  It is expensive as hell, but so worth it.
Nature's Way Elderberry: Elderberry, has immune building properties in it and it also a decongestant.  And if you are breastfeeding, you can not take Mucinex, because it will not only dry out your nose, but your milk glands too, so Elderberry is a good replacement.
Netti Pot: I did this at least once a day, but I tried to do it three times a day.
Goot:  Run, don't walk, over to this site and check out how to do this.  The ONLY thing that made me feel even slightly better, once the fever had taken hold ( I ran a fever for 8 days before I went into to get antibiotics) was putting Goot on my feet.  I found out about this the second day Penelope was sick, and I am confident this treatment made her not get sick as bad or as long.  But oh Lord, is it messy and does it stink! I also ate some raw garlic.  I chopped it up and put it on my food.
Homemade Chicken Broth:  I sipped this in a cup.  I make the broth myself, like this.
Traditional Medicinals Cold Care PM and Breath Easy Tea:  Every night.

Here is a list of other recommendations, from the AWESOME mamas on the Mama and Baby Love Facebook (which is where I found out about Goot too!)page:

• Elderberry syrup.

• Garlic, immunity tea, the original zicam, probiotics in various forms, patience. I've heard royal jelly can help but I can't bring myself to try bee milk yet.

• Neti pot, zinc, good old fashioned homemade chicken soup, and honey.

• Neti pot, Sambuccus (elderberry extract proven to fight the flu and many respiratory viruses, I am convinced it works miracles), probiotics, propolis (comes from bees, smells horrible but wonderful for all sorts of things).

• Netti pot, sambuccal, lots of hot broth, water, NO sugar whatsoever, sleep, I even swear a good run helps me once I get over the worst of it.  A salt water gargle...hope you feel better soon!

• Raw Garlic, Unfiltered Organic Apple Cider Vinegar, Colloidal Silver, Elderberry, Probiotics, Green Smoothies, NO sugar, BONE broth (must simmer the bones in the broth for HOURS because the bone marrow is what is good for immunity), and Constitutional Hydrotherapy Treatment. 


• *5 drops each Oregano, Melaleuca and OnGuard Blend essential oils in capsules 3x a day for Cold or Flu * 3 drops Lemon mixed in 1 Tbs honey in hot water for sore throats and *Breathe blend on chest and back for congestion     

So normally all these natural remedies help me kick what I am fighting and feel better, but sometimes you just need to be sick. Like I mentioned in my post about Natural Remedies for Roseola, all illness, whether a fever or cancer, is a spiritual crisis, a metamorphosis is happening. And man, after 3 weeks of being sick, I can testify that statement is true. I am absolutely not the same person I was a month ago!  I have shed and healed many things, on many different layers, but I will tell you more about that soon when I do a post on energy healing.

What are your most trusted natural remedies for colds/flu?

Vote for me!

By Best Kids Health Blog

Natural Remedies for Roseola

About a month ago my daughter caught the virus bug called Roseola. I didn't know it was Roseola until the fever had stopped and a rash showed up.

It was a really, really hard week. Roseola makes the child have a very high fever (102 to 106) that lasts 2 to 5 days. Then the rash shows up for a few hours to several days.

The whole time she was MISERABLE. Very sleepy. Very cranky. All she wanted to do was sleep (on me or with me) or nurse, see picture above. It was very hard on my patience!

Normally, she does great with independent play and is happy to help me do dishes or laundry, so for me not to be able to get anything done around the house was TORTURE (I am slightly OCD about things being put away and living in a clean house, so when I say torture, I mean it.)  Looking at mess, to me, is like hearing nails on a chalk board.  Mess is one of Penelope's new favorite words actually, as she is toddling around the house she will point to something on the floor and say Mesh, mesh!

But I digress.

Thankfully, I had come across two important articles before her virus hit.

This one is from the Healthy Home Economist about not giving Tylenol for a fever, so the fever can actually do its job of killing the virus.  It says that each time you give Tylenol you are weakening the bodies ability to fight off illness and the next time they get sick it will be much worse.

You can also eventually, completely inhibit your body from making a fever.  People who can't even get a fever are not healthy, to say the least.  So if your kid, goes straight to a high fever with teething or a simple virus.  Be glad!  Your child is healthy and full of vital energy.

So after you read her post, you probably think ok, no problem, don't give Tylenol. Got it. But when you have a child who is MISERABLE and you are terrified that the fever is too high, it's a much different story.

Her fever went up and down for three days. It started off at normal 100 and by the afternoon was gone. But then that night it spiked to 102. It went up and down for the next three days and I never gave her Tylenol once.

On the third night it got to 105. At this point, I was scared. And Peter was pissed. He was pressuring me to give her Tylenol.

In the moment, it reminded me of birth (I am a Doula and Childbirth educator so I often see parallels of normal, everyday life and birth). It felt like a hospital birth, where the Mom didn't want an epidural, but she was being pressured by nurses and her husband to "take her out of her misery."

He kept saying this is when people take their kids to the ER and all I am asking is for you to give her some TYLENOL!!

I had to negotiate and plead with Peter (just like a mom at the hospital has to do if she wants a drug-free, vaginal birth.)

I begged him to trust me on this and that I knew in my gut that giving her Tylenol wasn't going to do anything good for her and would actually harm her immune system in the long run. I immediately got us into a tepid bath and told him if the fever didn't come down in the next 15 minutes, we could give her Tylenol.

After reading this article, and some others, I knew that with a high, high fever of 105, that the high temperature itself, is not what is dangerous, but that it revs up metabolism so high that the child is in risk of dehydration and low blood sugar (which can cause seizures).

So as long as she was sipping, water and fruit juice flavored kombucha I felt like she was ok.  Even though she hardly ate any food for over 5 days, she didn't even want her bottle, she drank plenty of water and kombucha and of course whatever breast milk she gets from me.  One of the nights, when she woke up I took her into the bathroom to take her temperature and laid her on the cool counter, so I could lean over her (to get gravity on my side) and do hand compressions as she nursed.  She groggily but gratefully, did the sign the for milk each time I did the hand compression. It was so sweet.

On another side note, one morning she threw up right after rising.  She threw up what looked to be about 4 ounces of milk.  I had always wondered how much milk she gets throughout the night.  I felt awful that she threw up, but it was wonderful to see how much milk she had in her belly!

So once we were in the bath, I started praying. I was scared and was wondering if I was doing the right thing. Then, I thought of the moment in my labor when my water broke and I saw slightly, green anionic fluid. In that moment, fear took over. But by the grace of God and power of my feminine intuition, despite the green liquid, I knew I was ok. I knew Penelope was ok. I trusted myself and my body completely.

So in this moment, praying for the fever to come down, I was also actively envisioning her aura to change from a red color (because of the fever) to a soft blue and was doing hands on healing.  If I have lost ya'll here, I promise I will go into it in more detail one day, but long story short here, I have been a Reiki Master (a type energy healer) for over 10 years.  I do not have a practice, the main reason I did the training so many years ago, was just for this exact moment.  I knew I wanted to be able to have energy healing as part of my repertoire for my family's personal health needs.

I was able to walk THROUGH the fear and come out the other side. I trusted my intuition and knew I was doing the right thing.


15 minutes go by and Peter is back with the thermometer. Her temp was 101. And stayed at 101 all night. It finally broke for good the next morning and then her rash showed up a few hours later.

When her rash showed up, I was again, terrified. The first thing that popped into my mind was Measles, because she is not vaccinated. But after some fun times via Google search, I calmed down and realized she had Roseola and that it is perfectly harmless.

The other great article that helped me get through this virus, was this one   It's a fantastic article, you MUST read it. The author is a man, who wrote the book the Fourfold Path to Healing, and he some really interesting ideas.

Basically, it says that all illness, whether a fever or cancer, is a spiritual crisis or metamorphosis. You are not the same person you were before the illness, when you come out the other side. You are stronger and your immune system is stronger (if you didn't give it Tylenol or Anti-biotics.)  "The illness created the construction of a newer, healthier body, one that is more individualized to the dynamics of the child."

I also love what he said about the parent's attitude being very important.  That the parent's confidence in the child's natural ability to heal itself, helps the child relax and know that everything will be ok and let its body do its work. 

In the tub, that night, I fought every urge to panic and have a meltdown. I knew Penelope needed me to have laser beam attention to detail of her virus and what her body was doing, but she also needed me calm so that she could just focus on getting better.

In the end, I am so glad I did not give her Tylenol.  We did take her to the Dr. on the third day to rule out if she had an ear infection or strep throat.  I do feel like she is a new toddler after this illness, she really did come out it stronger and healthier.  

I would love to hear your stories of not giving Tylenol for high fever and what you did instead.

Also, this is the second post of our Natural Remedies series, you can check out the first one here, Natural Remedies for Broken Bones.

Natural Remedies for Broken Bones

Phew! It's been a rough month for Penelope medically.  Is that not the saddest picture you have ever seen?  Oh, to see her in a cast, broke my heart.

First, she broke her arm.  Then she got diagnosed with mucosa contagiousum and recently a fever that has lasted more than three days.  I want to share, in three different posts, what I have done to help treat each issue as naturally as possible and hopefully it helps some of you out there in similar situations.

So for her broken arm:

She had a Buckle fracture in her right radius.  I am not even sure exactly how she did got it. None of her falls seemed particularly disastrous, and she falls on a near daily basis. She does seem much more fearless than other toddlers, but her falls still seemed pretty normal to me. Although post arm break, she does fall less, not sure if its from me and Peter making sure we had some sort of hold on her for awhile, no matter where she walked to and constantly saying "watch your feet!" or if she was just going through a clumsy/daredevil stage.

Only when I reached out to grab her hand to put soap in it, and she let out a scream, did I realize something was wrong.  Then I noticed that her wrist was swollen.   I don't know how long it was broken before I realized it.  The Dr' seems to think that I caught it within a couple of days if not 24 hours based on the swolleness being a immediate inflammatory response.   He also said that kids get this type of fracture all the time from falling down and breaking their fall by falling forward on their arms.  He said it often goes undiagnosed and heals on its own.

Now I know to check her arms for swelling after she falls.  

Once I noticed the swelling, I immediately packed her in the car and went to the ER. Well, first I had to get gas.  I will never let my car go past a quarter tank again.  If it had been some sort of real emergency, I would have been up Shit Creek without a paddle.

We got x-rays and that was probably more traumatic then the fall itself.  They were forcing her arm to stay still in a position that was obviously painful for her, on top of her being terrified of the huge x-ray machine. Not to mention all the radiation she got from the three x-rays. I also was holding her and there was no way for me to wear the safety jacket thing, and keep her in the correct position, so that sucked too.

She got a  temporary cast and we went to the orthopedic dr. a few days later and she got a real cast with a ace bandage for the top cover instead of another layer of cast, so I could remove it for bathing (and for once daily playing in the sand box, shhhhhh).

 She kept the cast on for three weeks.  Then when she took it off I was instructed to just watch how she was with her arm, if she was using it like normal and putting weight on it.  It seems to have healed perfectly.

We didn't do a follow up x-ray, her ortho dr. said that it wasn't needed.  Thank God.  Between her broken arm and her Atlas vertebre issues she had as a newborn, she has had a total of 5 x-rays.  Their is a debate whether radiation in your body is cumulative and it never goes away or if you can eliminate through various natural dexox methods. Either way it sucks it was in her little body at all.  Can you imagine if we lived in Japan?  Sigh.


Anyway, here the natural rememdies I used to aid the bone healing process:

• upped her Vitamin D.  I gave her a Solaray chewable Vitamin D, in a lemon flavor of 2000 IU every day.  I have continued to do this.  I have no idea if this is the "correct" amount for a 16 month old, but it felt right in my gut.  
• upped her Vitamin C.  Hyland's makes a dissolvable tablet.  I give her this once a day if I remember.
• I juiced her spinach and pinapple every day for about a week.  Usually, I juice every three or four days, but I wanted to make sure she had plenty of perfect, fresh juice and so did I (so she would get in through breast milk). Spinach and other greens are natural chelators.  They bind to anything bad in our bodies and help flush them out.  They are also full of B vitamins which help restore cells. It will help her body detox the radiation and the Tylenol I gave her the first couple of days for her pain.  Pinapple has something in called bromelian in it, that reduces swelling and inflammation.  
• I rubbed an arnica cream on her arm every time I took the cast off. Later, I found out this is not enough arnica, and the tablets are needed in a case like this.
• I went to a homeopathic Dr. in town and was given a vile of Arnica, Rutta, and Calcarea Phosphorica.  He told me to give her arnica until the swelling was gone and then give rutta, and then the Cal/Phos.  
• He said that the arnica would help with the pain and I didn't need to give her Tylenol anymore.  I also gave her some Camomilla to help with the pain as well.

Here is a site that I got some of my information from.

My first thought when Penelope broke her arm is that she had some sort of calcium deficiency and her bones were weak.  I still have not gotten her calcium levels checked, because the Acupuncture Dr. I talked to about it, said that if we tested her while her arm was healing her levels would be off since her body is pulling more calcium to the bone to heal it.

When I was talking to the homeopathic Dr. he told me that Cal/phos is great for all over bone growth and spine development, for hair and nail growth and helps with teething.


Apparently, if you are calcium deficient your teeth can come in slow.

So I might be on to something, Penelope's hasn't gotten any new teeth in a long time and her molars have been huge and swollen but not pushing through for months and months. Now that her cast is off and her arm is healed we have an appointment to check her levels. I will come back and let you know what we found.

If you know of any other remedies, please share and I will add them for future reference.  Hope this helps!