Although I’ve never developed a serious disease I believe that, had I not begun to incorporate the many principles and practices that eventually came together to create the integrated approach that I call Deep Healing, I would have eventually. This is my story.

            My awakening and healing began in earnest in my late twenties, around the time that my children were born. Previously, particularly in my teens and early adulthood I was pretty asleep to my true nature. I was painfully shy, insecure, arrogant, guarded, almost constantly irritated, and often sad and tense. After I had my children, I was exposed to many new things that inspired me: the vegetarian diet, holistic nutrition, intuitive movement, energy work, therapy, yoga, meditation and many things that had not previously been in my life. In a way, I felt like I was waking up and it was very exciting. At the same time I became painfully aware of the emotions that I had been carrying, and of the unhealthy patterns that ran through just about every aspect of my life. The next 10 years were extremely challenging.  They included my marriage ending, hitting rock bottom financially, losing my home, and stress in pretty much every relationship I had, including my children.

            I remember waking up one night, lying beside my then husband, and noticing a pain in my lower abdomen. Something said to me “Caroline, if you don’t deal with this, you will get sick”.

            In my early forties, although I was continuing to make what I thought were health supportive choices, like whole foods, regular movement, meditation and emotional work, some health challenges were coming to the surface: waking up in the middle of the night unable to go back to sleep, low energy, poor digestion, gum disease, restless leg syndrome, and the scariest to me, abnormal cells in my cervix.

           Around the same time, one of my clients uncovered the gift of channelling while I was doing energy work on him. Every time he came for a session, he would go into a deep trance state (meaning he couldn’t remember what he said when he ‘came back’) and tell me things about myself and my life that he could not have known otherwise. Of course this was quite amazing for me, and one day I asked the spirit guides that were speaking through him why this was happening. We were told that we had planned our meeting several lifetimes ago, and that we were to work together, seeing clients and doing readings. Before long, people began to come to see us for guidance. As he was lying on the energy work table with my hands under his head, he would begin to drop into a deep state. Within five minutes or so, the guides (including Edgar Cayce, the world renowned trance channel who died in 1945) would present themselves and the client was told to go ahead with questions. People would ask questions about their health, relationships, careers, past-lives and more. The guides had taught my friend to read the Akashic Records which is like an energetic computer system with information about individual lives as well as the collective life of humanity from the beginning to times. It was all very fascinating, and now I realize that I was receiving an education that would inform my healing and the work that I do now. A few things stand out from the hundreds of individual and group readings that we did. Everyone was told to meditate twice a day for 25 minutes. All souls come here with a purpose, and we are being influenced by karma from past lives. Everyone was told to clean up their diets, but to do it gradually at the same time as they worked with emotions and cleared their energy bodies. When people came with physical problems, pretty close to all of them were told that the ‘root cause’ was 100% emotional.
           
                  Around this time, a local naturopath offered to demonstrate her work by giving me an appointment. She hooked me up to a machine which could apparently detect any physical issues in my body. It also tells someone on a scale of 1 to 10 the probability of developing a particular disease, 10 being the highest. The two things that stand out in my mind are that she told me that my score for cancer was a 9, and that the levels of toxicity in my body were very high. I remember shutting down at this information, making myself believe that her stupid machines were wrong. When I got to the car though, I broke down in tears. There was a part of me that knew that there was some truth in what she had shared with me (although I don’t feel that the way she went about it was all that masterful). But how could this be? I ate a vegetarian diet, I bought mostly organic food, I didn’t drink alcohol, I thought I was working on releasing stuck emotions, I meditated diligently, I was even teaching and guiding others to be healthy! I felt discouraged, angry, scared and confused. I pushed the information away for awhile, until shortly after, I felt compelled to see a local acupuncturist who came highly recommended by friends. He told me that my liver was blocked. After seeing him a few times and taking the herbs that he had prescribed he didn’t see much change in my liver. Around the same time a PAP test revealed that the abnormal cells on my cervix were still present and I was told to go for further tests with a specialist.
            
             I asked the guides about these issues in a private reading with my friend. I thought they could tell me what dietary or lifestyle changes I might make to heal myself. They told me that the only way was to heal my emotions. While it was true that anger and irritability were a constant issue for me, I guess I felt that if I could just perfect my lifestyle a little more, I might not actually need to look at it. I asked them where the anger came from and they said that it didn’t matter, just heal it. Now I had no choice. My body was suffering, and if I was honest I still had issues in many other areas of my life. I had to find a way.
           
             I began to bring my body into my meditations more often and started receiving information and guidance. One day I was meditating on my cervix and the name of a local naturopath kept flying through my mind. It was persistent and only went away when I agreed I would make an appointment with her. Another time, I was meditating on my liver, and a memory from my childhood suddenly came back to me with great clarity and detail. I was staining the back fence with my sister and we decided to paint our whole bodies with the varsol that my mom had given us to clean the brushes. I clearly saw that my liver had gone into a sort of shock with the toxic burden and that it was still feeling the energetic and chemical effects 35 years later. The naturopath that I saw confirmed the presence of solvents in my body and the state of my liver.
           
            I saw that in order to heal my cervix, I needed to deal with the overall toxicity in my body. Since the liver is the primary organ of detoxification it was to be my focus. The liver also holds anger so I knew that if my liver was to heal and release chemicals I needed to allow the anger to surface and work its way out. I realized for myself, that no matter how great our lifestyle choices are, when the body is tight with emotions it can’t take in nourishment and it can’t let go of toxins.
           
           Some of the other things that I felt drawn to bringing into my Deep Healing were energy work sessions, counseling sessions, dietary shifts (letting go of heated oils, more living foods, decreasing and eventually eliminating dairy, among others), a juice fast, and a couple of silent retreats.

            One of the silent retreats was particularly significant for me. It was to be a 5-day retreat spent with my teacher, Adyashanti, at a centre on the ocean near San Francisco. I felt compelled to dedicate the retreat to healing anger. I had no idea how that would manifest as there didn’t seem to be anything that could possibly anger me in this idyllic setting. There I was, nothing to do but meditate and listen to Adya speak, with 300 like-minded people (that I wouldn’t be interacting with!), near the ocean, one gorgeous sunny day after the next. I’d even arranged in advance to have special vegan and mostly raw meals.          

            At these retreats, you are asked to choose a seat in the meditation hall at the beginning of the day and to return to the same seat at every sitting. In the early morning meditation of the first day, I noticed that the man beside me had a lot of gurgling coming from his stomach. I thought ‘okay he’ll have breakfast and it will go away’. But alas, it continued at every meditation sitting for the rest of the day. I got more and more irritated as the day progressed. I had paid so much money to get here and he was interfering with my meditations and ruining my retreat! I made a note to myself to avoid him the next day!
           
             The next morning I woke up already grumpy and I remember looking around in the dining hall feeling extreme judgement for all of these ‘so-called spiritual people’ eating bacon, eggs, coffee, etc. Didn’t they know how animals suffered? How could they want the end of their own suffering but not recognize what happened to the animals that they were eating? How could they be so naïve as to believe that they could even have the slightest spiritual experience without taking care of their body? And on and on… At lunch I was so overwhelmed by my emotions that I inhaled three buns with an extremely generous portion of butter, obviously not part of my vegan, raw regime! What irony!

            After lunch there were three 40 minute meditation sittings separated by a 30 minute break. As I sat in the first one, struggling with irritation and judgment I heard some beeping coming from behind me. Someone’s watch was going off every couple of minutes or so! As I recall this from a healed perspective, I can feel God smiling. Be careful what you ask for! At the time though, it just added fuel to the fire. Why didn’t he leave? God, people are so ignorant! What a clueless idiot! By the end of the meditation I was even more infuriated, but decided that I would stay when everybody left so that I could have some peace and quiet and hopefully a ‘good’ meditation. I needed relief from what I was feeling, it was so intense. Well, most people did leave. My friend with the watch did not. He decided to stay and fix it. Now it was beeping every 10 seconds! I turned around, gave him a dirty looked, pointed at the sign that I had around my neck (it said ‘in silence’ so that staff and people attending other events would know), pointed at him and then the door! He looked at me in a bewildered way (I can’t even imagine what he might have thought about this crazy woman) and didn’t move. By this time I felt like I needed to just get out of there. But where to go? I practically ran to the ocean and collapsed in a heap in a sand dune. As the sand, warmth, and sound of ocean waves embraced me, I softened and the anger gave way to sadness mixed with fear, and finally, a flood of tears. It felt like I was digging up emotions from the floor of my pelvis as wave after wave of heaving, and choking sobs came up. I missed the second afternoon meditation but what transpired on the beach that day was tremendously cathartic. I felt so much lighter and open-hearted. That evening I sat at the table and watched my fellow spiritual aspirants eating chicken and chocolate cake and thought: ‘Oh my goodness, look how sweet they are.’ Watching them enjoy their food was so beautiful!. The veil had lifted and I could only see with the eyes of love.
           
            Later that year, when I went back to my naturopath to be tested she asked me to share with her what I was doing as there had been drastic positive changes in my body that she felt could not possibly be attributed to the homeopathic remedies that she had prescribed for me. The physical issues that I mentioned earlier either halted or reversed themselves. I’m no longer doing readings with my friend, as all things pass away when they have served their purpose. My health continues to improve, and at 52 I feel better than I ever have. Anger isn’t a problem for me anymore, although it continues to be a beautiful teacher. I’m still driven by an unquenchable thirst for truth, do my best to honor my body for the amazing gift that it is, and am awed by the perfection of Life in every moment no matter what it looks like on the surface.
           

Although physical disease has multiple causes, and therefore requires a multi-dimentional approach to heal, a primary root cause of most diseases is emotional. When we hold onto false beliefs for long periods of time along with the emotions that they anchor in our bodies, this creates energetic stagnation that can lead to disease over time. Our biography in fact becomes our biology. Everything that we have experienced, that we haven’t completely processed, leaves an emotional residue in the body that results in blocked or sluggish energy.  Remember that every cell, tissue and organ in the body needs free flowing energy to function well.

To clarify, let’s look at the stages of symptoms and disease from both a physical and energetic standpoint. Even though they are one and the same (the physical is simply condensed energy that can be felt, seen and touched by the senses), it can be helpful to separate the two realms to understand how one leads to the other.

1. Because we are essentially energy beings, all symptoms begin on an energetic level, primarily as stagnant emotions that are being anchored by false beliefs. Our bodies reflect both individual (a direct result of our life experiences) and collective energies (the energy ‘soup’ of the society that we live in).
2. An area of contraction is created around the energy that is being suppressed.
3. The contraction leads to habitual tension in the surrounding tissues.
4. Tension reduces the inflow of physical (blood, nutrients, lymph, oxygen) and energetic (life force, chi, prana) resources.
5. Tension also decreases the outflow of physical and energetic toxins.
6. Over time this begins to affect the proper functioning of the physical body. Often, the first sign of disease is fatigue. Our physical tissues aren’t receiving what they need and toxins are building up. Also, we are spending a lot of our life force holding down energetic patterns. During this stage, we often ignore the fatigue and push ourselves to ‘keep up with life’.
7. If we don’t acknowledge the fatigue, eventually the body will begin to malfunction in subtle ways: we gain weight, our joints feel tight, digestion is compromised, we have minor skin complaints, we aren’t sleeping well, etc. Modern medicine’s tests don’t pick up any issues at this stage.
8. If we continue to disregard what our body is asking from us, the system will go into greater and greater imbalance, and the symptoms will worsen to the point where a medical test can now diagnose us with a specific ‘disease’.

Hopefully what you take from this is that ultimately it’s much simpler to nip disease in the bud at the earlier stages when it is still simply blocked emotional energy. Also, when we begin to feel tired we can catch things early by getting extra sleep, cleaning up our diet, doing a juice fast or other cleanse, and dealing directly with the burden of stress in our lives. If you have symptoms or a diagnosed disease remember that you too can heal by committing to health and peace,  giving your body and soul what they need to thrive, and opening to receive all the help that is available for you.

Blessings of health and peace on your unique journey,
Caroline

As a nutritionist, it’s impossible not to notice the abundance of books, experts, opinions and controversies around food. Most of us sense that food has a profound impact on our health and have tried numerous dietary approaches. And yet, most people I meet are ‘not happy’ about the way they eat and feel, and many are confused about what they should be eating.
          One of the key steps towards making peace with food is to realize that as a human being living in the modern world, your current food choices are a response to physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual factors, and therefore in order to make peace with food you must address all of these factors.

Physical

Give your body what it needs
Every body needs the nutrients and calories from food in order for the cells and systems to function well. Many of us are nutrient starved even though we take in plenty of calories. The most nutrient dense foods are whole, fresh, organic and properly prepared. When we rely on poor quality, processed, nutrient stripped foods it’s no wonder that we  feel profoundly unsatisfied.

Let go of looking for the perfect diet
All healing diets have certain commonalities: they’re made up of whole, high quality, preferably organic foods, they’re low in calories and rich in nutrients, they tend to be plant-based, and are lower in animal protein than is typical in the developed world. The food is fresh, or naturally preserved, and much or all of it comes from local sources. Traditional cultures, in addition to eating intuitively, have an attitude of gratitude and reverence for what the earth provides for them and there is a lack of guilt and fear in connection with food selection. The actual foods vary from one culture and one healing approach to another so we need not get overly concerned about that part of it aside from paying attention to how our bodies respond to our choices. This will enable us to refine our food choices on an ongoing basis, as well as shift them depending on the weather, physical demands, health conditions, where we’re at emotionally, energetically and spiritually.

Learning to listen to the body
Our bodies are constantly giving us information as to the suitability of our food selection. Slow down and pay attention! Eat without distractions in a beautiful, relaxed environment.
Bring as much awareness as possible to your body before you eat:
• Do I feel like something dense, light, warm, cold, salty or sweet?
• Am I hungry?
• What do I need?
• What food would feel satisfying for my body right now?
While you’re eating:
• How does the food look?
• Can I appreciate the unique beauty of each food, the colors, shapes and intricate details?
• What do I smell?
• How does the food taste?
• Does the taste change as I chew?
• Am I rushing or enjoying?
After you eat
• Do I feel satisfied?
• Does my body feel content?
• Do I need more food or something else?
• Do I feel tired or uncomfortable?

 Notice all of these things with openness and curiosity. If judgment and uncomfortable emotions come up then bring those into your kind awareness too. Where do you feel the emotions in your body? Can you allow them to be as they are? Allow pleasure, enjoyment and appreciation into your experience as well.
              Notice those things that are harder to accept with gentleness. Sometimes we just make peace with the fact that we can’t yet accept something.

Mental

Question food beliefs
Much of the confusion that we experience around food comes from the unending stream of conflicting nutritional information in the form of newspaper and magazine articles, internet blogs, books, advertisements, ‘expert opinions’ and more. When the mind is confused, it’s simply pointing to its’ limitations with respect to caring for the body. If you rely too heavily on your conditioned and educated mind and it’s need for proof and scientifically proven facts, you’ll forever be pulled in various dietary directions, often with this year’s findings being disproven next year (in retrospect you just knew it didn’t feel quite right!), and superstar supplements (based on supposedly sound scientific studies) often being shown to be harmful a handful of years later. Many alluring dietary approaches are being shared by charismatic people who may mean well but often have not been following their particular dietary approach for long enough to really understand its long-term implications.
                The best way out of confusion is to drop into the body where we can access and involve intuition in our lifestyle decisions. Intuition is a deep inner knowing that arises from the place where body and soul met, and is the most valuable tool that we have. Deep Healing is impossible without honoring and nurturing it.

Let go of everything you think you know
To access intuition, let go of everything you think you know about food. Without outside opinions and all the rules that you’ve created for yourself, and a willingness to listen to your body, you would arrive at your personal Deep Healing diet much faster than any other route. After all, there is no other being on the planet that needs a book to tell them what to eat! Of course, some of the choices that you make will feel good while others will give you uncomfortable symptoms. Be kind and patient with yourself and your body. Let go of perfectionism, bring mindfulness, awareness and sincerity to the process and stay open. With this attitude you will find your food choices shifting on their own.

Education
At first glance this may sound like a contradiction to the last point but on the contrary, when we connect to the aspiration to heal deeply with peace as the underlying current, and begin to connect to our intuition, we will be led to sincere practitioners, authors and teachers that give us their input at just the right time. They come to confirm what we have already intuited but needed confirmation for, or as an answer to a question that we’ve put out to the universe, or to offer us a gentle nudge us into a whole new world of possibilities. Their teachings may also shorten our learning curve and give us practical skills that make embracing a holistic lifestyle less daunting, particularly in cultures that have been exposed to incessant indoctrination by big business, and the processed food, dairy, egg and meat industries.
             When we are coming from a place of inner peace first and foremost, there is an elegance to the healing steps that are presented to us, rather than a frantic jumping from one expert and one diet to the next.

Emotional

Recognize that many of your emotions are involved in most of your food choices.
When emotions that we’re not comfortable with rise to the surface, we eat to suppress them. When we eat food that doesn’t fit into our beliefs about what’s healthy or allowed on our current diet we feel guilt and frustration. When we have tried various diets with seemingly no lasting benefits we feel confused and discouraged. We’re enmeshed in so many emotions around food that it’s no wonder that we can’t hear what our body and intuition are telling us.

Set your emotions free
It’s pretty obvious that suppressing emotions is a temporary state at best. In fact blocked emotional energy is the primary root cause of physical dis-ease, non health-promoting  choices, spiritual disconnection and human suffering. As mentioned previously, in order for Deep Healing to occur, we need to create an environment in our lives where all emotions are welcomed and integrated, so that they are no longer interfering with our ability to access clarity and intuition, in this case, with respect to food choices.

The best Deep Healing food choices come from a place of inspiration and peace.
When we connect to a desire to make peace with food, what we’re really saying is that we are tired of all of the emotions surrounding our food choices. We sense that it’s possible to create a joyful and easy relationship with food that best supports both our body and soul.
                  So many of us have tied up our precious life force battling with food. The truth is there is no battle and never has been one. We fight food or habits that we’ve been led to believe are bad. Food, any type of food, is neither good nor bad in and of itself. That being said, certain foods make us feel more or less alive physically and spiritually. If this is what you truly want, it’s up to you to commit to this with your whole being, and then to pay attention to your body’s feedback: contentment, satisfaction, lightness, energy, clarity and vitality are some of qualities that you can enjoy on an ongoing basis with the right food choices for you.

Emotions are energy
Fundamentally, we are energy beings and all that we attract corresponds directly with our current vibrational level. We choose foods (and other habits) that match and keep us vibrating at a frequency that we’re comfortable with. As long as we choose not to face challenging emotions we will continue to choose lower vibration foods.
                 Thankfully we are also spiritual beings. When we anchor ourselves in the spiritual truth of our being regularly, we are graced with a sense of peace that helps us to ride out the various storms of emotional release that are part of the process of awakening to our true nature. 

Spiritual

Connect to peace as your primary aspiration in all things
It’s helpful to remember that peace is possible right now regardless of the state of your body, in fact peace in the future is not possible if we’re not able to access it this moment. Oftentimes we tell ourselves that we’ll feel peaceful after we lose the weight or get rid of this symptom or disease. Can you make peace with your health condition as it is? Can you accept your weight as it is? Can you love your body as it is? Can you open to all the emotions that you feel around food? Can you be content not knowing how your healing journey is going to unfold? We are infinitely more open to receiving intuitive guidance when we make acceptance of this moment as it is our primary orientation.

In summary: don’t make food less important than it is, AND don’t make food more important than it is.
To recap, there are typically four stages to making peace with food:
1. In the first stage, people are unconscious about what they eat. They are simply eating and seemingly enjoying what they’ve been raised on, what media encourages them to put in their bodies, and what feels good in the moment. These people are making food less important than it is, ignoring basic care of a human body.

2. Next, people start feeling bad physically and begin to question their food choices. Unfortunately some people never get to this stage. If they do, they start educating themselves and making new choices. This is the stage where people tend to get rigid about their food choices and foods are separated into ‘bad’ or ‘good’. They may begin to feel better physically but some of the joy of eating often gets lost. The tendency is also to swing back and forth between a particular dietary approach (often extreme), fall off the wagon, feel bad, gather up our will-power to do better, and on and on. This is where most relatively conscious people get stuck. They are making food more important than it is, overriding emotional and spiritual factors.

3. This next stage is the biggest leap. In order to find joy and ease in eating we realize that we must begin to trust our bodies and souls to guide us to the best choices. Learning to listen to the body, and connect to the soul requires clearing of the emotional energies that have been laid down over the course of a lifetime, and that block our intuition. This is the most challenging stage and it requires spiritual depth in order to be still in the face of the emotional detoxification that will undoubtedly occur. When we make spiritual evolution our greatest priority, and we all will at some point, we will access the strength and stamina to do this work. Until then, we continue to avoid facing difficult emotions and live on the surface of life lost in our distractions and addictions.

4. After having done some emotional work, we begin to really trust the process of coming home to ourselves through spiritual awareness, and our food choices reflect this ease and joy. We naturally crave high-quality foods, and love the feeling of lightness, energy and inspiration that comes from eating in a way that nurtures both the body and the soul.

We have realized for ourselves that the laws of health are written in our very cells and the ink is the color of peace.

I look forward to the days when I can play the Natural Time Game.

My kids often tease me about the things that make me light up. They see me as different from their friends’ moms who are enthused by new clothes, TV shows, vacations, jewelry and maybe a hot drink from Starbucks… don’t get me wrong, I appreciate those things too sometimes, but the game I’m about to describe to you is one of my favorite things to do. My sense is that you’ll either nod your head in approval or think I’m crazy! Maybe both!

I started playing this game several years ago when I realized how much stress putting myself on a schedule and giving myself a list of things to do on any given day was causing me. I’ve found that the more I learn to relax and unwind (this has been a life’s work!), the less I want to wind myself back up. I’m much more aware of how painful it feels to live a regimented life, where I’ve discovered that I’m the army sergeant!

So here’s how I play the game. I find a day in my week where I have no commitments. For me that means no classes to teach, no clients to see, no writing deadlines and no outside obligations. A gloriously free day! Then I write down a list of things that I could do. Note that I said could, not should. A list of things that I’d love to do in the next while and that are a possibility for my Natural Time Day. I write everything from the mundane (cleaning out the fridge) to the practical (organizing my garage, planting my seedlings) to the indulgent (having a nap in then sun, taking a long bath, giving myself a pedicure, reading a book that ‘s been waiting for me) to the romantic (making a nice meal and spending the evening with Dave) to the necessary (writing a chapter in my next book, doing my taxes). Some days, I decide that my Natural Time Day will include a break from the computer and the car.

When I get up in the morning (no alarm clock!) I do what I feel like doing. This morning, which just happens to be a Natural Time Day, the first thing I felt like doing was to take a bath and read. Then I made myself an Earth Bowl (chopped apples, celery, raisins, hemp seeds and orange juice), and called to arrange my vacuum cleaner to be fixed. I haven’t looked over my list yet but obviously what I’m doing now is writing this blog post. It’s what I felt like doing. Once I’m finished what I’m doing I get quiet and see what feels good. It’s amazing to me that something that I wasn’t enthused about 30 minutes ago now feels like fun! Yes, even scrubbing the toilets seems just fine if you wait for the impulse! I only look at the list when I’m stumped. As I look it over, one of the ‘things to do’ glows a little more than the others, on the page and inside of me! Other times, I don’t end up looking at my list much,  but end up doing things that I hadn’t thought about previously. 

Some days I do more indulging than anything else, in which case I may need to meditate on my guilt! I do my best to not let my perfectionist tendencies get the better of me and stay committed to a soft belly, relaxed shoulders and an open heart. If I find myself getting tight, I know that it’s just my inner sergeant doing what she thinks her job is. I hope to let her retire very soon so that my soul can take over guiding my life completely.

Other days, I’m so productive that I find myself feeling quite delighted and proud of myself. The perfectionist is obviously still alive and well! 

I love it when the unexpected happens - like my kids dropping by for dinner, a neighbour needing help or a friend calling for a chat.  

Regardless of how the day turns out it feels good to honour the flow of things, and I start to understand the Tao Te Ching a little better, not because I’m reading it but because I’m living it.  I find these days deeply nourishing and creative and kind. Human beings are naturally turned on by life and motivated. We’ve buried this tendency underneath piles of conditioning around what we need to do to get approval (sometimes from parents or teachers who are not even in human form anymore!) or to match up to our idealized version of ourselves. What a waste of time and precious energy! There is a beautiful and abundant flow to Life that lies buried beneath the should’s, have to’s, obligations, so called duty, guilt and fear. By letting ourselves live in Natural Time we learn to let go of inauthentic ways of being, we vote for joy and ease with our actions, and tap into our ability to manifests our unique genius.

My goal is to play the Natural Time Game every day.

If you’ve played versions of this game yourself , or if you try it as a result of reading this, I’d love to hear about your experiences.

Will I feel hungry?
Yes, you likely will feel hungry at some points during the fast, although the odd person does report not feeling hungry at all. Here are some thoughts on hunger:
• Unless we’re emaciated, we all have more than enough stores to make it through a week without solid foods.
• You are receiving loads of nutrients (arguably more than you usually do) through the juices, teas and broths: minerals, vitamins, protein, fats, carbohydrates and phyto-nutrients.
• When you feel ‘hungry’ soften to it… in other words, don’t brace against it … rather make space for it in your being and breath into it.
• Be open and curious about the sensations associated with hunger.
• Notice how hunger comes and goes.
• Notice how hunger abates even when you haven’t eaten anything at all.
• Notice how when you’re relaxed, hunger is less uncomfortable.
• Soften your jaw, your belly, your throat, your shoulders and your forehead.
• What happens when you are present to ‘hunger’ without creating a story about it?

I’m afraid of cheating and failing. Is this normal?
It’s normal to be fearful of new experiences, and in the case of a juice fast, particularly if you struggle with emotional eating – welcome to the human race! Bring awareness to the fear that you’re feeling. Let go of the idea of cheating and failure. It exists only in your mind. If you eat something solid, you can always start again where you’re at. The fast is a beautiful opportunity to get some insight and begin to heal your addictive food habits.

Can I shorten the fast?
Giving your body a break from digestion while nourishing it with juice, broths and teas is always a positive thing. So yes, you can fast for a day, or two or three. However, generally the first couple of days of a juice fast are the most challenging and by day three the system adjusts, and the experience can become quite pleasant. Some of my best fasting experiences have happened during the latter days of a week-long juice fast.

Can I exercise during a fast?
It’s best to let go of heavy exercise during a juice fast so that your body can focus its energy on healing. Walks, and gentle movement forms are fine. That being said I’ve guided group fasts where some participants were training for endurance events and didn’t want to completely let go of their training schedule. They managed fine and found that consuming sweeter juices before or after training was helpful.

Where will I get my protein from?
First of all, the juices that you’re drinking do contain some protein. That being said, one of the benefits of fasting is that it is in fact probably lower in protein that our usual diets. Because of this, the body begins to break-down protein from unhealthy cells, growths, and tumors, while sparing healthy tissue. It will only use healthy tissues as a last resort and that won’t happen on a week-long juice fast, unless you are already underweight and malnourished, in which case a fast is not advisable. It will also break down arterial plaque, kidney and galls stones and other diseased tissues. This is one of the reasons why a fast is so healing. In our regular life, the system is rarely encouraged to do this kind of scavenging because for most of us there is more than enough, and usually an excess of available protein. To put this in perspective, many people have undertaken juice fasts that last 40 to 100 days with no negative consequences, and in fact many seemingly miraculous improvements. Seven days is a walk in the park!

How long do juices keep for? Can I make a big batch and drink it for a couple of days?
As mentioned previously, the ideal is to drink freshly made juice. At the same time you don’t want your juicing to become an unpleasant chore so making some juice in advance may feel right for you. Many juicers are being built with magnets that are supposed to keep the juice from oxidizing as quickly. My suggestion is to drink the fresh pressed juice within 6 hours. When I fast, I juice twice a day, once in the morning and once in the mid to late afternoon. Each time I juice I make enough for two 8 ounce glasses.

 Isn’t fiber important?
The fiber is removed from fresh juices in order to receive the benefits of highly concentrated and easily absorbed nutrients without much effort from your digestive system. Your energy is then freed up for the task of detoxification and elimination. The fiber from fresh juices can be added to your compost, or directly to the soil beneath your food plants. The worms love it! When you return to your regular diet, fiber is indeed important and you’re encouraged to eat a high fiber whole foods diet in addition to fresh juices.

What kind of juicer should I use?
There are many types of juicers on the market today. Generally, a single or twin gear masticating juicer is best. They work well on vegetables, including leafy greens as well as fruit. They are relatively easy to clean. Make sure that your juicer has a slow rotation speed so that the produce doesn’t heat up. Twin gear juicers (for example Green Power and Green Star) tend to be a little more expensive, have bigger motors and take up more counter space. There are vertical single gear juicers (Hurom and Omega Vertical) available that work really nicely, are quiet, self-feeding and have a small counter-top  footprint.
            If you’re new to juicing you might want to ask friends and family if they have one that you can borrow while you decide if you want to purchase your own. You could also try purchasing a second-hand one on-line.
Note: I make Omega Vertical Juicers available at discounted prices for juice fast participants.

Can I go longer than seven days?
It’s quite common in our bi-annual community juice fasts that some of the participants decide to prolong their fast, or some start earlier so they can fast longer and end with the group. Sometimes we intuitively sense that the body is in the midst of an important process and that it’s not quite time to return to solid foods. So yes, if you’re so inclined, by all means keep going. If you end up going more than 3 weeks then I would advise getting some guidance from an experienced health practitioner.

I’ve heard of water fasts. Are they more effective than juice fasts?
There are two sides to this answer. On the one hand a water fast is extremely powerful because the organs are spending even less energy processing nutrients than in a juice fast thereby freeing most of our resources for the process of detoxification. My concern is that these days, most people are lacking, sometimes severely, in minerals and other nutrients necessary for the body’s proper functioning, because of depleted soils, hybridized and processed foods. A water fast can potentially use up some of our already low reserves leaving us feeling depleted. The beauty of a juice fast is that while the detoxification process may be somewhat slower than on water, we are doing so much to replenish our body’s reserves.
           That being said, if you’ve done multiple juices fasts and sense that you’ve replenished your nutrient stores, you can add one or more water days to your juice fast and see how that feels for you.

 What if I’m just unable to fast at this time? Is there anything else that I can to do cleanse?
If you’re not ready for a juice fast yet, my suggestion is to start by adding juices, tea infusions and mineral broths (they make a nice base for soups) to your diet. You could do a week-long cleanse that includes these as well as raw and steamed vegetables, salads, fruit and green smoothies. A typical day might start with tea infusion, followed by a green smoothie, a big salad a lunch, a juice and some fruit in the afternoon, and plenty of steamed vegetables or a vegetable soup towards the evening. Include some cleansing practices like oil pulling, tongue scraping, enemas, skin brushing, essential oils, etc.

Remember….
Committing to your physical and emotional health is truly a blessed opportunity to affirm a longing for clarity and connection to your true nature. Move into your cleanse without expectations. Yes there may be challenges but I’m confident that you’ll also feel lighter, brighter and clearer than ever!

And finally … do it again!
The benefits of a juie fast continue and deepen with each fast. Your being will bring to the surface and heal the physical and emotional issues that relate the next layer to your unfolding.
The best time to fast is:
• when you’re feeling unwell
• when your digestion is compromised
• when food isn’t appealing to you
• when intuition says it’s time
• when your schedule allows the time
• when you can join a Community Juice Fast and do it with others.

I hold twice yearly Community Juice Fasts through my practice because I feel that on a grand scale, when groups of people gather with the shared intention of nurturing their bodies and souls, it creates a strong energy current that can dissolve common cultural beliefs and corresponding emotions surrounding the body and disease. Done in a group, the environment is supportive, committed and fun, and people feel more prepared, informed, confident and relaxed. The meetings can be attended in person or on-line.

As we apply more and more of the principles of Deep Healing, take in nourishing foods, undertake regular Deep Healing Juice Fasts and help the organs of elimination, the body has all that it needs to heal.

            You will find the process most enjoyable if you surrender to the wisdom of your body, while paying attention to its needs. In general people find that when they make positive changes, initially there is an increased feeling of well-being. This is always followed (days, weeks, or months later) by a healing crisis. A healing crisis, which differs from a disease crisis (when the body is actually in crisis), is when the body goes out of balance temporarily in order to find deeper balance and better health. There are symptoms, which on the surface are similar to a disease crisis, but these symptoms are actually the body’s way of excreting old toxins, both physical and emotional. In other words, as the body rests, rebuilds, and strengthens, it has the energy to do the work of digging to heal more and more deeply. You can recognize a healing crisis by the following criteria:

• it follows a time of improved food choices

• it follows a time of increased self-care, and/or the beginning a new holistic therapy

• it follows a time of feeling better than ever

• you are aware of an emotional component, which comes to the surface simultaneously with the physical symptoms

• there could skin eruptions, headaches, fever, discharge, diarrhea, coated tongue, body aches, etc.

• you might experience temporary deep fatigue

• conversely, you might experience symptoms but without feeling ‘sick’ or tired

• the symptoms may mimic issues that you had in the past, or there may be a brief intense flare-up

• even though you feel unwell physically and challenged emotionally, there is a deep sense of ‘okay-ness’ with the process

• it generally lasts from a few hours to a week

            Many astute health practitioners have noticed that in general, the body heals from the inside out. That means that it will heal the gall bladder, for example, before it will heal a skin condition. It also tends to heal from the top down, for example clearing sinus issues before it deals with fungus on the foot. Finally the body tends to heal recent symptoms first, working its way back to long-standing issues. If you developed arthritis recently, the body will heal that before it gets around to the asthma that you’ve had since childhood.

            All that being said, the body is ever-so-wise and each body operates within a mystery that cannot be defined or predicted. In the end, it heals in its own time and its own way. Rather than controlling the process, your energy is best spent on giving your body simple and utmost care, and surrendering to the mystery of its healing.

            Learning to trust is the greatest challenge we face, as many of us have been taught that the body is unreliable from the very beginning of our time here in a physical body. On the whole, most developed societies create people who have forgotten what it is to be a good steward of a physical body. Before we start school, most of us have been given multiple vaccinations, drugs and antibiotics. Our fevers have been suppressed with aspirin, and our runny noses and coughs have been dried up with chemicals.  We are encouraged to put ‘non-food’ into our bodies on a daily basis. Parts of us have been cut out, and many young people are already on medication for depression, asthma, diabetes, or attention deficit before they reach their teens. The body is clearly seen as something that is out of control and un-intelligent.

            In the end, trust in the body’s ability to heal is innate and will be uncovered at some point during our deprogramming. In truth, physical and spiritual wholeness is the natural course of things when you give the body and soul what they need to thrive.

If you’re trying to heal a symptoms or disease
If you’ve been diagnosed with a disease do your best to remember that any disease is simply a label that we’ve given to a set of symptoms that the body manifests when it’s out of balance. It has taken many years for this disease to manifests, and it will be a process to heal. When you adopt the Deep Healing principles some positive changes will be felt almost instantly whereas others may take months or even years.

            I feel that the greatest obstacle to overcome is the collective fear that surrounds physical disease in general. Collective fear is an energy that we hold as a culture around death primarily, which then manifests when we are ‘diagnosed’ with a label that confirms that our body is seemingly failing us. But of course that belief is all wrong… if anything we’ve failed the body by disregarding it’s sacred role in the marriage of soul and flesh.

            Along with the fear that we feel, we are angry with it because it won’t do what we want it to. I can’t encourage you enough to allow yourself to feel the emotions that come up around your symptoms or dis-ease because they are part of the energetic complex that have led to the symptoms. As the emotions are released, all of the energy that we’ve been using to suppress them can be freed up to help us to access our intuition and heal deeply.

          Isn’t that beautiful?

We’ve all heard of detoxification: but what exactly is it , why is it needed, how does it contribute to healing, and how does it relate to our authentic growth?

Where toxins come from
Toxins can originate from exogenous or endogenous sources.
Exogenous toxins enter through the mouth via our food, water and drugs, through the skin via bathing water, skin, cleaning products, and immunizations, and through the lungs via the air that we breathe. These toxins, which include chemicals as well as heavy metals, come from poor quality food (especially refined fats and oils, sugar, white flour, preservatives, chemical food additives for texture or flavor), alcohol, cigarettes, pesticides, tap water, drugs and vaccinations, household cleaners, outgases from construction and home decorating, industrial and urban pollution, cosmetics, amalgam fillings, plastics and radiation.  Exogenous toxins also come to us in the form of noise pollution, information overload from television, newspapers, radio, and books.
            Endogenous toxins are produced inside the body and include by-products of digestion, putrefying food residues, cellular wastes, fungal and parasite waste products, acidity from excessive acid forming foods (processed foods, animal products, alcohol, too much grain, legumes, fats), toxic chemical reactions, and internally generated negative thoughts and emotions.
             Once we’re aware of where toxins are coming from we hopefully easily recognize that most of what I’ve listed here can be avoided. We are fortunate that nowadays we have many healthful options for food and drink, cleaning products, skin creams and cosmetics, and building materials. We have access to water purification systems and shower filters. Instead of drugs, we can opt to treat physical imbalances with food, herbs, homeopathy, acupuncture and many other approaches that honor and truly support the body. We can free our lives of toxic people. Also, there are many therapists, teachers and practices that can help us to release stressful emotions and false beliefs.
             The less toxins we expose our bodies to, the stronger our bodies get. As our bodies get stronger they can begin the work of digging out old imbedded toxins. As this process unfolds we can expect the following improvements:

• more physical energy
• re-balancing of bodily rhythms:  digestion, elimination, sleep, female cycle
• strong disease immunity
• mental clarity
• emotional fluidity
• enhanced intuition
• inspired creativity
• a sense of inner peace and overall well-being

          It’s interesting to note that the more that we connect to our own authentic nature, the more we naturally avoid toxins and effortlessly make choices that support purity, energy and health. We are less inclined to over-consume in general, but also to purchase and consume products that contain some element of human, animal or planetary suffering. Everything is indeed connected.

The six physiological processes
In order to understand how to encourage detoxification and elimination through food choices, it’s helpful to remember that the body has 6 distinct phases in the processing of food: intake, digestion, distribution, utilization, detoxification, and elimination.
           If we can minimize the time and energy spent on intake, digestion, distribution and utilization, the body is able to mobilize more of its efforts towards detoxification and elimination. Fortunately a low-fat, high-quality plant-based diet is the best dietary approach towards this end. The nutritional recommendations offered in The New Enlightened Eating are easy on the digestive system, provide all the nutrients needed to thrive, leave very little residual toxins for the body to deal with, and provide plenty of fiber to aid in elimination.
          When we undertake dietary changes or a specific cleanse like a juice fast, not only does physical detoxification occurs, it’s wise to consider that we will also encounter the many layers of emotions, resistance and false belief that make up our own conditioning as well as the collective conditioning of the societies that we live in. In fact what is happening is an ongoing detoxification of beliefs, emotions and energies that no longer serve us. Some have called this process re-tracing. Dietary changes, and juice fasts can be very powerful influences, as our energy fields are revitalized, bringing mental clarity, emotional fluidity, spiritual connection and physical vigor.

next post…. what are the routes of elimination and how can we help?

Tea infusions are concentrated preparations made from herbs that are nutritious, balancing and healing. For example, a mug of an overnight infusion like oatstraw contains 300 mg of calcium plus large amounts of other minerals and nutrients. They help to rebuild and alkalize the body, have healing properties and should be enjoyed regularly to get the full benefits.

            I like to use dried herbs that have been grown in my local environment, and choose those that are beneficial for the whole system and are safe for the whole family to drink. You can make your infusions from single herbs or try my Nourishing Tea Infusion recipe below.

            Here are just some of the properties of my favorite herbs:
• Oatstraw is an excellent source of calcium and strengthens the bones, hair, nails and teeth. It nourishes the nervous system, helps with relaxation, can promote deep sleep, nourishes and strengthens the liver, stabilizes blood sugar and reduces cholesterol.
• Nettle Leaf is a valuable herb for the whole system. It nourishes and strengthens the endocrine glands including the ovaries and testes, nervous system, circulatory system, digestive system, kidneys and lungs. It helps promote joint health, stabilize blood sugar, and provides iron.
• Red Clover Blossoms is a nourishing and alkalizing herb that purifies the blood making it excellent for supporting healthy growth (anti-cancer). It promotes joint health and eases inflammation, is endocrine and liver balancing and promotes healthy skin.
• Raspberry Leaf is mineral rich and generally strengthening for the whole system particularly the reproductive system. It also helps to build resilient bones, teeth, blood and tissues.
• Comfrey leaf is a powerful builder and healer of bones, skin, nails and hair. It’s helpful for joint inflammation and gout, supports the respiratory system, aids and nourishes the digestive system, and contains significant amounts of iron and other minerals.

Nourishing Tea Infusion Recipe
This is an all-purpose tea that deeply nourishes the tissues, bones and organs. It’s ideal for all members of the family, including children and pets.

1 cup nettle leaf
1 cup raspberry leaf
1 cup red clover blossoms
1 cup comfrey leaf
1/2 cup oat straw
1/4 cup peppermint leaf (optional)

1. Combine the herbs in a large container with a lid and store in a cool dark place.
2. Put 3/4 cup of the combined herbs in a quart-size jar (4 cups) and fill with water that has boiled and settled.
3. Let steep for 1 to 8 hours (overnight). Strain, and drink throughout the day, warming the tea infusion as needed. You can add a little honey or other sweetener if desried.

Note
• Once you’ve strained the tea, return the herbs to the glass jar and fill will hot water again. Let cool, strain, and feed this to your plants. They love it!

Variations:
Fasting Tea Infusion to cleanse the body and curb the appetite: 1 cup dandelion root, 1 cup fennel seed, 1 cup nettle leaf, 1 cup peppermint leaf, 1 cup red clover leaf.
Relaxing Tea Infusion to help you to sleep, or calm down during stressful times: 2 cups chamomile flowers, 2 cups oatstraw, 1 cup lemon balm leaf, 1 cup catnip leaf.
Calming digestive tea infusion to settle and soothe the digestive system: 2 cups chamomile flowers, 2 cups marshmallow root, 1 cup fennel seed, 1 cup peppermint leaf, plus 4 thin slices of fresh ginger root added to each quart jar.
Women’s Health Tea Infusion to nourish, calm and detoxify: 2 cups nettle leaf, 2 cups raspberry leaf, 1 cup chamomile flower, 1 cup dandelion root, 1 cup rosemary leaves, 1/2 cup licorice root, plus 4 thin slices of fresh ginger root added to each quart jar.
Men’s health tea to benefit the heart and prostate: 1 cup hawthorn berry, 1 cup oat straw,1 cups nettle leaf, 1/2 cup cinnamon bark, 1/2 cup fenugreek seed, plus 4 thin slices of fresh ginger root added to each quart jar.

Enjoy!

Deep Healing is simple
The most powerful truths are the simplest. Healing is simple too. Our body and souls have very basic needs. Often we make our healing plans far more complicated than they need to be and forget the basics.

Rest
In order to heal from within, the body needs energy. Most of us are profoundly sleep deprived and this severely limits the health of our whole body but particularly the endocrine system which affects our energy levels, hormonal balance, reproductive organs, moods, sugar and fat metabolism, weight, and sleep cycles. Remember that the effects of the best food are limited if we are tired. Go to bed early regularly and let yourself wake naturally when you are rested. Begin to re-orient yourself to the health supportive practice of aligning with the rhythm of the rising and setting of the sun.

Real food
The most important choice when it comes to a health-supportive diet is that it is made up of real unprocessed food, made by nature for you. Try not to get lost in the fine details, as this can be confusing. As you have no doubt noticed there is even a lot of controversy in the whole foods nutrition world: grains or no grains, cooked or raw, fruit or no fruit, plant or animal based, etc. For every expert that says that a particular food is ‘bad’ for you there is one who will say it’s ‘good’ for you. Let you intuition, wisdom, and level of peace guide you. When we study the longest lived populations we see that what they have in common is that they eat a primarily low calorie plant based diet, made up of a variety of whole foods (often that they’ve grown themselves), they don’t tend to eliminate any particular food group (they all eat leafy and root vegetables, fruit, grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, as well as occasional animal products for most), they are physically active every day with purposeful movement (walking to the market, tending their garden, visiting friends on foot, etc.), they have a sense of purpose, feel deeply supported by their communities and have faith in something greater than themselves. For interesting reading on longevity I suggest the books Healthy at 100 by John Robbins, and Blue Zones by Dan Buettner.

Regular movement
Every healthy child and animal loves to move. We forget this as we get older. Besides having sedentary jobs, many of us have been programmed to believe that certain forms of exercise are better than others, or we’ve forced ourselves to do soul-less and mind-less forms of exercise that take the fun out of it. Move the way you love to move, and do it often. It also helps to have a variety of activities that you can do: hiking, bicycling, skiing, rollerblading, canoeing, dancing, yoga, tai chi, qigong, gardening, housework. Bring movement into your daily life by going to work, errands or events on foot or bicycle.

Contact with nature
As beings that are created from nature, we are deeply nourished by the sights, sounds, smells and vibrations of nature. Modern research is showing that ‘nature therapy’ has significant positive effects on stress and disease that by far surpass drugs and many other forms of therapy. Include daily connection with nature in your life. Take a meal outside, go for a walk in a local park, work with plants, spend your leisure time surrounded by nature, bring plants and natural objects like stones, branches, feathers and flowers into your home. Slow down and appreciate the subtle yet powerful gifts of nature that are all around you.

Fresh air
Get outside and breathe deeply! The air in your house has been shown to be on average 4 times more toxic than the air outdoors because of building materials, cleaning products, carpets and upholstery, dust and moulds, etc. Open your windows regularly, especially when you sleep at night, and bring plants in the house as well as onto your property to filter the air.

Clean Water
Unless you have access to clean spring water it would be wise to purify your water in some way to remove chlorine and chemicals. Chlorine reacts with other substances in water to form carcinogens, and also destroys the beneficial bacteria in our bodies that we depend on for health. Most water, including city, well and spring water contains chemicals from agricultural and industrial run-off. Our bodies have enough work to do without having to deal with these.

Sunshine
We’ve been evolving under the light and warmth of the sun since the beginning of time. It has endless benefits many of which have not yet been discovered by science. Many holistically-minded practitioners include gentle sunbathing in their programs to reverse various diseases including cancer, depression, candida, psoriasis, acne and eczema. Research has also shown that sunlight lowers blood pressure and cholesterol, increases white blood cell count (a measure of immunity), increases growth and height in children, enhances the blood’s ability to carry oxygen, and destroys bad bacteria, thereby healing infection. Of course the sun is also our greatest source of vitamin D which has many functions including strengthening bones and teeth, supporting the immune system, increasing metabolism, and protecting the brain from aging and dementia.
            How about sitting outside with your face to the sun, while you enjoy breakfast, lunch or dinner? Or do a series of sun salutes in a sunny spot in your backyard or a local park. Or have a refreshing outdoor nap in the late afternoon with as much of your skin exposed as possible. Of course any time spent working in your garden, or playing in nature are obvious and extremely enjoyable ways to naturally take in the sunlight that we all depend on. Avoid using sunscreens (many contain toxic chemicals) unless absolutely necessary (in which case use one made with natural ingredients), instead using a hat, light fabric long-sleeve shirts and pants to protect you in blazing sun. Listen to your body’s craving for the sun rather than believing the fear-based media about how ‘bad’ the sun is for you. If the sun is uncomfortable then it’s a good sign that you should be protecting yourself. Choose early morning or late afternoon gentle sun. On cooler days in the fall, winter or spring, find sunny spots that are protected from the wind.

Explore and express your natural talents and abilities
Each of us has a unique essence which expresses itself through the gifts that we have been given. Many of our gifts are so second-nature to us that we don’t realize how inspiring they are to others. Often our talents and abilities have not been valued by the world around us (commonly, the perception is that they don’t have any monetary worth) and as a result we set them aside or don’t take the time to nurture them. And yet, it’s clear that developing and expressing our gifts is thoroughly soul-satisfying and necessary for our health and happiness. As we do this, Life itself is enriched – ours, our loved ones’, our community’s, and the planet’s.

Find harmony in your relationships
Our closest relationships hold some of the greatest gifts on the path to Deep Healing. Because of the law of attraction we attract to us people with whom we share common lessons and karma. Our relationships mirror back to us our strengths, weaknesses, motivations and fears. When we’re challenged in relationship, the common tendency is to blame the other person, to judge, control and insist that they change. However, the most transformative attitude is to turn our awareness towards our reaction and inquire into the beliefs that we’re holding, and the emotions that are being triggered.
            For example when we insist that someone we love (our partner, parents, children, for example) take better care of themselves (eat better, sleep more, exercise more, work less, drink less, etc.) what is actually going on? Is it true that at this particular point in their lives, given their past experiences, their emotional health, and where they are on their path that they should be doing anything different than they are right now? How does it make you feel to hold on to the belief that someone should be taking better care of themselves when clearly they just do what they want (don’t we all?). You’ll notice tension and discomfort in your body which is telling you that you’re fighting with reality. Every person’s body, and how they take care of it is their business. Your reaction to it is your business.
            I’ve found over and over again in my own experience as well as conversations with clients that when we worry about how others take care of their health we are actually being invited to take a closer look at how we take care of our own health. As we deepen into a commitment to greater health we will invariably have to look at the emotions and fear that keep us disconnected from the body-soul relationship, where health supportive choices are natural. We choose to avoid this personal work by focusing on other people’s health!
            The other thing that I’ve discovered is that the more at peace I am with my life, the more balance there is, the less inclination there is to try to change others through force. A much more gentle but empowering way of being comes forward that trusts the wisdom of each person’s journey, and that I sense is deeply transformative for those around us. I suspect that this is what Ghandi meant when he urged us to be the change that we want to see in the world.

Be a part of your community
One of the underlying values of the world’s longest lived and healthiest populations is that they feel a deep sense of connection and commitment to their extended families and community. Although most of them have very little in the sense of material possessions, they trust and know through experience that in times of need they will be helped by the people around them. This is not a given in many of today’s modern societies.
            How can we begin to deepen the connection with our communities? While for the most part feeling part of a community is an ‘inside’ job (an inner core value that comes from the deep knowing that we are all connected) here are some ideas:

• Get to know your neighbours and lend a helping hand.
• Support local businesses and get to know the owners.
• Shop at local farmers markets.
• Attend or organize community events.
• Get involved in community projects.

Connect to your true nature
When we are oriented towards discovering who and what we really are, all of the above guidelines for Deep Healing will unfold naturally because they are written in the very fabric of our being. Every soul is encoded with information about how to best take care of the body in which it is being housed.

As a holistic health practitioner, being introduced (although it was more precisely a timely remembrance) 20 years ago to the fact that all matter, including we human beings, is made of energy, profoundly affected my view of healing and life in general. It was one of those moments that brought forth those sudden, torrential and hard to explain tears that contain both joy and sadness. The joy came from uncovering a knowledge that instantly helped me to make sense of so many of life’s mysteries and that on some level I sensed would profoundly shift the direction of my life. Like a reunion with a long lost loved one, as the joy burst forward it carried with it the deep sadness at having been separated from this felt recognition of my spiritual nature and interconnectedness of all things.

Principles of energy

Any quantum physicist will attest to the fact that there is nothing solid about us at all. When we go into matter deeply enough we begin to see that amidst the components of atoms are yawning chasms of ‘empty’ space. The electrons, protons and neutrons themselves seem to flash in and out of existence. As we explore deep healing and its basis in energy let’s start by reviewing some of the principles of energy.

Everything is made of energy

All matter, inanimate as well as animate, is made of energy. A dog, a stone, a pen, a plastic container, an apple, are all fundamentally energy, and each one holds a unique energy pattern and frequency.

Energy permeates all space

Even the space between objects is filled with energy that can’t be detected by the five primary senses. However, many of us are sensitive enough to pick up unseen ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ energies in the spaces that we visit. The universe is a vast energy soup, and the objects that float around in it are like ‘carrots and peas’. We can take the metaphor further and know that not only are the vegetables contained within the soup, they flavor the broth, or space around them.

Thoughts and emotions are also energy

The experience of thinking about someone that we haven’t spoken to in a while and having them call or e-mail us shortly after is universal. Thoughts, being energy, can travel through space and be detected by the object of our thoughts. Many of us are also aware that we can detect emotional energy. For example, a person might be smiling as they talk to you but your body is picking up an entirely different story. Each human emotion carries a distinct energetic signature that is felt in various places in the body. Sadness is felt as a heavy energy in the chest, while anger is often felt as tightness just below the rib cage, for example.

Harmonic inductance is happening all around us

We are all picking up energies on an ongoing basis. The vibration of one object affects another. This is called harmonic inductance, or entrainment. When we spend time in nature for a few days we begin to resonate with the energy of nature, and we feel more peaceful. When we spend time around people with a negative outlook we feel heavy and sluggish.

Food is energy too

As a nutritionist I love to underscore the fact that food is energy too. Every whole food contains an energy signature that is unique to that food, like a personality. The food, being energy, is also affected by all the energies that it was exposed to during its growth and processing, because of harmonic inductance. Animals that have suffered and been sad during their lives bring those same energies to us when we eat them. Is it any wonder that anti-depressants are so commonly prescribed in these days of compassion-less mass production of animal products? Farmers who love the earth and love you enough to grow food that is nourishing and clean, even though it means more work and less money for them, infuse the food that they grow with love and health. The parent who prepares food with sincere blessings of wholeness and peace for their child, infuse their creations with that energy. We begin to understand that food is so much more than mere calories, vitamins and proteins. The intentions, values and emotions that we bring to the cultivation and preparation of our food affect us immensely in unseen but very real ways.

The frequency of health and disease

Many researchers have discovered ways to measure the frequency of the human body. Although every cell, tissue and organ has its own resonanace, on average our bodies vibrate from 62 to 68 MHz. Dr. Royal Rife developed a machine that measured frequencies and concluded that every disease has a specific frequency. The research of Bruce Tainio of Tainio Technologies determined that:

• Human cells can start to change (mutate) when their frequency drops below 62MHz.
• 58 MHz is the frequency of your body when you have a cold or the flu.
• When candida is present within your body, you vibrate at a frequency of 55MHz.
• 52 MHz is the frequency of a body with Epstein-Barr virus present.
• 42 MHz is the frequency of a body wherein cancer can appear.
• When the death process begins – the frequency has been measured at 20 MHz.

It’s clear that pathogens and diseased cells thrive at specific sub-optimal  frequencies and good vibrations are crucial to staying healthy.

Our mental and emotional states as well as our spiritual connection arguably have the biggest impact on frequency levels. A negative mental and emotional state can lower a person’s frequency by at least 10 to 12 MHz. Conversely, meditation, prayer and positive states can raise it by at least 10 to 15 MHz.

As mentionned above, the food we put in our bodies has a tremendous impact on our vibrational frequencies. Poor quality, processed canned, genetically modified, chemically sprayed foods, as well as foods produced with an element of human, animal or planetary suffering all lower our frequency level when ingested, and of course create environments where disease sets in.

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, people tend to choose foods that will keep them at the vibrational level that they’re used to. In order to keep emotions suppressed we subconsciously choose low vibration foods. As soon as we begin to eat a higher vibration diet composed of whole, plant-based, living foods, lower vibration energy pockets that contain suppressed emotions will start to dissolve … this is of course positive in the long-term, but in the short term it can create some uncomfortable ‘emotional detoxification’ as they dance their way out of our systems. High vibration practices, like spending time in nature, meditation, prayer, and any other activity that speaks to the soul are the key to moving through these transitional times with greater ease.

The key shift I believe is to stop thinking of uncomfortable emotions as ‘bad’ and pleasant emotions as ‘good’. All emotions are valuable messengers of self-knowledge. Grasping at so called pleasant emotions to avoid challenging ones is the root of all addictions, and is a profoundly soul-numbing way of relating to life. Creating a friendly awareness of all emotions frees up tremendous amounts of energy used to suppress them, and allows for a deeper connection to our true nature, in a vibrantly healthy body.