Butterfly Balance Wellness Center

What Are You Settling For?

Are there things in your life that you're settling for? Putting up with even though they're not for the greater good? I saw a link to this blog post called 20 Things Life Is Too Short To Tolerate on the Marc and Angel Hack Life blog that I wanted to share with you.

Please read that article now and come back here. I'll wait.

I've done a lot of personal work on not tolerating things that don't serve me. I think I've been pretty successful at it too. But this list was a little starting because I realized I've still got some work to do. (#5 anyone? 12? Hmmm ...)

I love the final line in their post:

And remember, you only live once, but if you live it right once is enough.

Are you living your life in the "right" way?

What are you settling for and why?

What can you do right now to start changing that?

(I'm going to start thinking about this too ... you're not alone! And ... pssst ... Health Kinesiology can help get through those blocks that are holding you back too!)

 

Note: Due to FTC guidelines, I am now required to disclose that if you click on a link in this post (or any other post or link on my blog) and purchase Young Living Essential Oils, books/products through Amazon.com or nutritional supplements through AIM Companies, that I will receive a small commission as a result of those purchases. Thank you for your support.

Butterfly Balance Featured in Seattle Natural Awakenings

I was recently interviewed for an article in the January 2012 issue of Seattle Natural Awakenings Magazine about Health Kinesiology, along with my friend and fellow HK practitioner Bobbie Rice of Sacred Elements in Minnesota.

Right now, to my knowledge, I am the only HK practitioner in the Seattle area, so unless you've met me, seen me as a client, or read this blog, it's likely you haven't heard of it before. I absolutely love the work that I do and the results I've seen in my clients, and I'd like to make Health Kinesiology a household name in Seattle!

I love this quote from Bobbie in the article:

“[Health Kinesiology] helps
people go inside themselves
and clear out those things that
are keeping them stuck, so that
they can move forward without
extra junk holding them back.”

I hope you'll take the time to read the article, learn more about my practice and the Health Kinesiology work that I am so passionate about. Click here to download the pdf of the article:

Download Health Kinesiology Article in Seattle Natural Awakenings (pdf)(1066.6K)

Please contact me with any questions you have about Health Kinesiology after reading the article, and I'd be honored to work with you as a client. You can book an appointment now by clicking on the button below. Ask me about my new client special and multi-session discounts.

 

 

Insights Into Job Stress and How to Manage It

Almost everyone I know has been asked at a doctor's office if they are "stressed out" and most people (myself included) tend to laugh at that, and think "well, of course I'm stressed out ... who isn't?"

I read this article today called "Job Stress? How to Keep Catastrophic Thoughts from Killing You" which was really interesting because it just didn't commiserate with you for being stressed, but explained some of the reasoning behind how our bodies react to stress and what happens when we overreact to things that shouldn't have a "life or death" stress reaction from us.

From the article:

"Chronic stress kills more people every year than traffic accidents, nicotine, or alcohol from the host of conditions it stokes, from heart disease to strokes, yet we hear next to nothing about it -- no anti-stress ad campaigns like the anti-smoking spots. In Britain, they take work stress seriously enough that the law requires that companies there undergo regular stress audits. Can you imagine that happening here?"

The article explains how our body deals with (and can overreact to) stress:

"The problem is a design flaw in our brains that leaves us prone to false emergencies. We were designed for life-and-death struggles on African savannas, not overflowing in-boxes or sales quotas. That's especially true for the part of your brain that sets off the stress response, the amygdala, a hub of the emotional brain, the ancient limbic system, which ran operations before we evolved the higher brain organs that can make decisions based on reason and analysis, not raw emotion.

In times of perceived danger the amygdala hijacks the 21st century brain and takes the helm again. This ancient alarm system is as good at measuring threats in the workplace as a yardstick is at calculating the distance to the sun. A hundred and fifty emails a day is a hassle, but it's not life-or-death. But if an overloaded inbox makes you feel you can't cope, off goes the signal that sets off the stress response, which floods your body with hormones that suppress your immune system to help you fight or run ... away from your computer?"

Robinson's article gives some great advice on handling stress. Health Kinesiology is also extremely helpful in dealing with things that stress our bodies and energy system, and it can be very effective even when you don't know consciously what is stressing you out. Even when you don't think you know the cause, your body knows on an energetic level.

I can help you to discover what those stressors are and help your body to no longer overreact to them. I had some things that were stressing me out to the point of them being phobias, and I had a far more intense reaction to them than would be perceived as "normal." Using Health Kinesiology, I was able to easily and quickly take the charge off that issue and face it in a far more reasonable way. It's been life-changing for me! I hope you will let me help you find that place of peace around the things that are stressing you. Click below to book an appointment:

 

Mindful Spending

I just finished reading this really interesting blog post about Mindful Spending that I wanted to share.

Mindful spending is something I've only started really implementing in the past few years. A great deal of my life was spent pulling out credit cards a bit too freely, running up debt, and confusing wants for needs. I've done a lot of soul searching about the whys of what I'd done in the past, and why that couldn't continue anymore. I'm grateful to have righted the situation before things got worse than they were, and learning to live within my means.

But this post I read reminds me that Mindful Spending isn't just watching how much you spend, but also considering the intent behind what you spend - putting your money where your mouth is, if you will. From the article:

Mindful spending is a way of treating yourself, your community, and your money with respect. 

Mindful spending begs you to consider each dollar you spend an extension of your personal values, creating an individual economy that centers on what you love and not what society tells you you have to have. It means choosing not to spend money at all sometimes, choosing to spend more on high-quality, well-crafted items that support your community, and choosing to spend less on items that commercialism has put an unnecessary price tag on.

It really did make me reflect on how I spend my money. One of the biggest changes I've made is in how I spend my food dollars. I used to always look for the bargain - spending a great many years eating cheap, processed food (ramen noodles, anyone?). I remember in my first apartment with my best friend Ben, we used to say that we drank nothing but soda because it was cheaper than milk and juice. I bet that's still true today (although I don't drink milk or soda anymore, so I can't say for sure). But now, I really think about the quality of what I buy, how it's processed and where it comes from. Sure, I still buy processed foods from time to time, but I look at ingredients - if the ingredients are written in 5 pt. font so they can fit all 100 ingredients (chemicals), I just put it back on the shelf. I deserve better than that. I shop at the local PCC Market (food co-op/health food store) and invest in local, organic foods when I can.

Even a choice of store reflects on mindful spending. There is a store that I've browsed in that sells gemstones, rocks, and various other natural items. The prices are so insanely low that you just know that they have to using some sort of slave labor to obtain these items. I love the items in the store, but I refuse to buy any of it to support these prices that must likely reflect unfair trade.

Another example is a a major retailer that two years ago was selling king size flannel sheet sets for $20. I really needed sheets, and who doesn't like cheap prices? So I bought them. But now that I need more sheets, I'm having a hard time with the concept of $20 king sized flannel sheets. Think about the material and the workmanship that goes into making a king-sized set of sheets. I have a hard time thinking of ethics and fair trade when prices are that low.

For me, making the choice to not purchase is living in integrity and by my values.

Not all my choices are so virtuous. I'll be first to admit I still run through a drive-thru from time to time or buy some worthless junk I don't need, but I'm trying to make those events the exception and not the rule.

What does YOUR spending say about your personal values?

 

 

Human Exposure to BPA "Grossly Underestimated"

"Americans are likely to be exposed at higher levels than previously thought to bisphenol A, a compound that mimics hormones important to human development and is found in more than 90 percent of people in the United States, according to new research.

"U.S. EPA says it is OK for humans to take in up to 50 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight each day. The new study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, suggests that we are exposed to at least eight times that amount every day.

"Our data raise grave concern that regulatory agencies have grossly underestimated current human exposure levels," states the study."

The text above is from an article in yesterday's New York Times: Study: Human Exposure to BPA 'Grossly Underestimated' which I found highly disturbing.

I've been on a quest for a long time to remove a majority of plastics from my household in the quest to reduce my exposure to BPAs. When I mention this to friends/family, I'm often told that I'm overreacting, and that it's not really a big deal. And I've probably felt complacent for a while about the removal of BPAs from what I buy. I don't drink out of plastic bottles, and none of my glasses, dishes or food storage containers are made of plastic anymore. But I'm all for convenience foods and have conveniently ignored the BPAs that are present in the packaging of the foods I buy, and the containers I'm microwaving them in. (The microwave is a whole different issue that I want to write about.) I figure I'm doing "so much already" in terms of avoiding it. But when I read articles like this, I realize I'm not doing enough.

BPAs are stored in the body in fat (among other places). So if this hormone-disrupting substance is storing itself in the ample fat storage of my body, and now studies are showing that "they" really underestimated how much humans are exposed to, well, it makes me think twice about my health and what I'm doing for it.

It's frustrating to think that as I make so many changes to "detox" my body of the chemicals and exposures of my lifetime which have caused the many ailments I've suffered from, that simultaneously I'm returning these substances to my body.

One thing I urge you to pay attention to are the numbers on the bottom of plastics that you purchase.  If you see a symbol that looks like the one to the right with a #7 on it, I recommend that you avoid it. This is the symbol used when a plastic doesn't fall under all the other categories, and while all #7 plastics do not contain BPAs, those that DO contain it will usually bear a #7 on it.

There are so many things in our environment that we do not have any control over, but this is something that we can start to become aware of and avoid when possible. Don't just take my word for it - do your own research into the reported effects of BPAs, as I did when I first heard about it.

I have BPA samples (and other toxic substance samples - all in energetic form so as not to be harmful to anyone) in my Health Kinesiology test kits, which I can use in corrections to help the body recognize it and learn how to process it out of our system. But it's always easier to keep things from happening than work to fix them later!