Insomnia and the Holistic Alternative

Insomnia is a problem for many people. Getting to the root cause of insomnia can be frustrating with some people going for days, weeks, months and years without sufficient sleep.

There is a Holistic Alternative to dealing with getting yourself to sleep at night. Meaning you must look at many aspects of it physically, mentally and emotionally to bring a person back to balance.

The lack of sufficient sleep can trigger deeper mental and emotional issues.  Without addressing these issues a person can only get marginal success.

Often times when a person has these issues they try many various things to get themselves to sleep at night.   Getting back in balance often takes time.  It’s a longer fix than simply taking a medication for it.

Meds
After using various OTC ( Over The Counter )  medications people often resort to trying prescription medications.  Medications such as Ativan, Ambien, and other benzodiazepines and non-benzodiazepine often called hypnotics can be used.

To restore your proper sleep patterns the first step is to get off of all medications.  The reason is that these medications cause higher cancer rates and higher heart disease rates and other illnesses.  Additionally, if you take a medication for sleep one of the side effects of the medication is insomnia. That’s right it actually gives you the symptoms in which you are taking it for.  These medications have much more severe symptoms as well.  They can give you suicidal thoughts, depression, and anxiety. They will also give you issues during the day such as headaches, tremors, fatigue, weakness, etc.    There are many more symptoms as well this is only a few. Even more alarming however is the higher mortality rate from sudden death from these medications.

It’s easy  for a person to have issues with heart disease including heart attacks while taking benzodiazepines.  These drugs lower your respiration. It shuts down your breathing. If you add any other risk factor for lowering your heart rate such as smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol or taking hot baths you become even more vulnerable.

Many times, people take these medications in a very sporadic way. Mostly because they were never told how these medications work and how they create issues when you take them on an irregular basis.  Often times doctors will tell their patients to take them on an “as needed basis”.

The psychological impact of these drugs cannot be understated.  Because of their extreme addictive nature, they will cause a person to create issues in their mind that necessitates taking the medications.

Medication Half-Life
The other issue is that these medications have what is called a “half-life”.  This means the amount of time it takes for half the drug to leave out of the body.  Here are some common medication half-lives:

Zolpidam (Ambian), Non-Benzodiazepine hypnotic:  2.5 hours

Lorazepam (Ativan), Benzodiazepine:  10-20 hours

Diazepam (Valium), Benzodiazepine:  20-50 hours

Eszopiclone (Lunesta), Non-Benzodiazepine hypnotic:  6 hours

Ramelteon (Rozerem): Melatonin receptor agonist  1-2.5 hours

Triazolam (Halcion), Benzodiazepine:  1.5-5.5 hours

Temazepam (Restoril), Benzodiazepine:  8-15 hours

Alprazolam (Xanax), Benzodiazepine:  12-15 hours

Zaleplon (Sonata) Non-Benzodiazepine Hypnotic:  1 hour

Doxepin (Silenor), Antidepressant ( Tricyclic):  15 hours

Medication Madness
After the half-life expires your body then starts to feel the withdrawal from them.  Withdrawal symptoms of most of these medications are as follows:

Dizziness, drowsiness, constipation, insomnia, liver problems, sexual problems, cognitive impairment, lack of motor coordination, constipation, nausea, weakness, confusion, hallucinations, amnesia, depression, dry mouth, tardive dyskinesia (delayed movement of muscles), tardive akathisia (internal tension and anxiety).

When the half-life of a medication expires, you start to experience withdrawal symptoms.  Because they are so unpleasant you will be motivated consciously and even unconsciously to taking more of them. So if you are taking say Ambian to go to sleep, it only has a 2.5 hour half life before you go into withdrawal.

Another problem with all these medications is that as you continue to take them your body builds up a tolerance for them.  Requiring you to take more and more of them to get the same desired effect.  In considering getting off these medications please be aware that you can not just stop taking them abruptly.  In fact, you can’t stop taking them by reducing them beyond a very small percentage at a time.  These medications are more dangerous than you may have been lead to believe.  In fact, you may not have been told anything about their side effects, withdrawal symptoms or half-lives by the person who prescribed them to you.  To get off of these medications is a complex task.  I wouldn’t advise someone on them to try getting off of them without knowledgeable support.

The Mind
Another issue with them is that these medications actually get you stuck in your mind.  This actually works against what can help you in relaxing and getting to sleep naturally.  This issue may not be well understood.

Our mind is a problem-solving device. When we are stuck in our mind it takes us into the past at our hurts and pains or into the future trying to deal with our perceived problems.   So it can get stuck going back and forth into the past and future focusing on our problem. This then can become part of the problem in getting ourselves to rest and deeper natural relaxation states.

In understanding how to get someone back to natural sleep you have to look at their life and their issues as a big ball of yarn that needs to be unraveled. When a person has problems sleeping and they are taking medications for it, part of the unraveling process is recognizing that a person probably had problems long before they started taking medications.  So in understanding the challenges of getting the restful sleep you need you have to unravel what symptoms are caused by the drug and what symptoms they were dealing with before taking the drug.  The problems created by the medication may exacerbate problems that started long before they took the drugs.  And now that they are taking medications you have the issues of the medications combined with the issues they had before taking the medications.

That is why it’s very deceptive when taking them.  Say the medications create anxiety.  But the person had anxiety long before taking the medications.  When you tell them that the medications create anxiety they think that it’s not much different than the anxiety they always had.  Same thing with any other symptoms.  So in that sense, the symptoms that a person gets from taking medications are “masked” from the person taking them.

Dealing with the mind after it has been “hijacked” by medications is especially challenging.  The mind is usually the main issue in dealing with being able to sleep naturally.

Beyond the mind
Getting a person to get beyond their mind is the goal of the mental aspect of a Holistic approach.  What that means is that in order to find peace, and to get to a relaxed state a person has to be able to disassociate from their mind. This is particularly difficult when the mind has been taken over by medications.   Most people even before taking medications are “mind identified”.  In other words, they see and believe they are their mind.    It goes from the past to future in search of finding solutions to our problems.  You can look at our minds as being essentially untrained.  In addition to medications challenging a person, trauma can also challenge a person to bring themselves to a peaceful state and be able to relax.

Brain Frequency
Our brain has 4 major frequencies in which it operates.

	1	Beta emitted when we are consciously alert, or we feel agitated, tense, afraid, with frequencies ranging from 13 to 60 pulses per second in the Hertz scale.
	2	Alpha when we are in a state of physical and mental relaxation, although aware of what is happening around us, its frequency are around 7 to 13 pulses per second.
	3	Theta more or less 4 to 7 pulses, it is a state of somnolence with reduced consciousness.
	4	Delta when there is unconsciousness, deep sleep or catalepsy, emitting between 0.1 and 4 cycles per second.

 

Beta frequency is often referred to the fight or flight frequency.  When we experience shock or trauma to our being it causes us to be on this frequency.

There is something called the “stress hormone” in the body; cortisol. It gives us the “fight or flight” response.  It correlates as well to our higher beta brain frequency.   Cortisol has a cycle where there are times when it is naturally supposed to be higher say in the case of a naturally stressful time and times when it is naturally lower like when we are sleep.

Cortisol- The Stress Hormone
Bringing the hormonal system in balance, particularly the cortisol levels is another important factor in getting someone back to proper restful sleep.  There are different natural therapies that can support us in this regard.  One is detoxifying the liver and kidneys. They are both involved in the process of hormone production.  Interesting enough medications cause liver problems so once again they could be causing the problems that they are meant to address.  Bringing one into balance can be supported by being in nature and walking barefoot on the earth. One can do “sun gazing” or light therapy.  A process of looking at sunlight to help bring balance back to our hormones.  All these natural therapies when employed all at one time can bring about a much better result than not using them at all or only trying one of them.

To get our brains to operate on a lower frequency we must essentially train the mind.  Our mind is like a “runaway train”.  Or it’s like the little mouse on a Ferris wheel.

There is the past, present, and future.  Our goal is to get a person to live and exist in the present moment.

Where is the present moment?  The present moment is wherever the second hand is on the clock.  To get a person to do that they have to recognize that their mind can’t lead them to a place of peace and relaxation.

The Ego
Albert Einstein once said, “ You can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it”.  In that respect, a person has to begin to see the fallibility of their mind. They have to realize that their mind is not and cannot find peace.  It can’t solve their problem for them.  That is a tall order for most people. People who have had their being strengthened by their mind find it even more difficult.  Most people who have higher education, for instance, have come to have their mind and their reliance on their mind strengthened through this process.

Getting a person to abandon the method of solely using their mind to create success in life is also a tall order. But this is the crossing point between their depression and their recovery. Realizing that the mind has caused the problem and that it can’t find the solution is key and critical.

A helpful understanding is realizing that the mind is “the ego”. The ego is “fear-driven”.  So in that regard any fear that a person has, the mind will focus on that. And as such take the person into the “future place”.  And this works directly against the person being able to relax into a peaceful state.  When you talk about the ego it’s hard for people to really understand what that means.  The ego is our attachment to form.  That form most often is a thought form. That thought then translates into a physical form.  When we are attached to the thoughts we have we hold onto that thought as if it is real. Most often it is the attachment to the thought that creates our pain and our suffering.

So in order to find peace a person has to train the mind to be present.  How to train the mind to be present is the goal of a meditation technique that I call “empty mind meditation”.

This technique has been developed over many years with our guests and is designed to train the mind.  We look at the mind as a thing.  “We run things”, “we don’t let things run us”.

One thing to help this process is breath work.  Where a person learns to be aware of their breathing cycle.  When a person is in their mind.  All of their energy is focused in their head.  In fact just from all the energy concentrated in the head a person could be said to be frying their brain.  By becoming mindful of one’s breathing cycle and rate one brings the energy from their mind to their stomach.  This an important aspect of shifting their energy.

There is a critical distinction between our holistic approach and the approach of western medical practices.  Western medical practices sees and deal with the mind.  They make no distinction between the mind and consciousness.  This traps western approaches into a single method of looking at and dealing with a person’s dysfunction.

This makes the interventions used by western medicine one which creates greater and greater dependence.  That dependence starts with medications and then postulates that at some point the person has a “psychiatric” problem.  This then requires psychiatric medications such as “antipsychotics”, anti-depressants, electromagnetic shock therapy, etc.  Its a cycle of dependence that tries to use more and more different types of medications and finally electro shock as its methods.  Its not sustainable and will create a whole host of issues not the least of which is dependence. It also creates resistance, as well.

This cycle can be broken, however.

The pH Factor
Other physical aspects of a Holistic approach to insomnia involve alkalizing the body.  When the body is in a state of acidosis it is much more difficult to get to a state of relaxation and restfulness.  In that regard, a person should be more on a very specialized diet in order to achieve it.

The acid/ alkaline balance of the body can be determined by doing pH testing of the urine and saliva.  This has to be done over at least a 4-day time frame for three times a day.

This level of pH testing is never done in medical facilities.  Usually, pH is done once.  But you can’t get a good baseline just based on one test.  By testing three times a day for 4 days you get a more accurate baseline.

Understanding pH can also be better determined by doing a food record.  Foods are either classified as either acid forming or alkaline forming.  This can be confusing because food like fruit can be thought of as acid in and of themselves since they may have citric acid for instance in the case of lemons, or tomatoes.  However, these foods are actually alkaline forming.  Likewise, meat in and of itself is alkaline but when it is digested by the body it is acid forming.  Most people unless they have worked to be otherwise are likely acid in their metabolic residue.  In addition to understanding foods pH effect it is important to know that your hormones and neurotransmitters are made only from superior nutrition.  Only superior nutrition can create the hormones and neurotransmitters necessary to bring a person back to balance.  We provide that nutrition nutrition through a whole host of nutritional superfoods blended into smoothies that can bring an imbalance back to balance.

Protein Binding
When people are taking medications such as benzodiazepines and other sleep medications and they are looking to get off of them one thing to be aware of is their protein binding nature.

This means that the medications bind to the protein receptors in the body particularly the GABA receptors as well as the proteins in foods that you eat.  So the more protein you eat the more challenging for a person to get off the medications. In this regard, a person looking to come off of those medications should be aware of their protein binding nature. Once again this points to the need to be on a very specialized diet.  People eating a Standard American Diet would find it much more challenging to get off of medications.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
CBT is the connection of how our thoughts relate to our emotions and to our physical self.

When a person has negative thoughts, it can create tightness or constriction in the body.  It can also suspend a person’s breath. The suspension of the breath can cause for the mind to increase the thoughts often negative thoughts and to cause a person to entertain their fears.

There is a reason that “suspense” movies are called that. It’s because when you are in the grip of such entertainment it suspends your breathing.  This can happen whether you are watching a suspenseful movie or you have stressful situations happening in your work or personal life.

Connecting these responses by bringing mindfulness to each one is the goal of cognitive behavioral therapy and supports a person in the changes that can bring greater relief and relaxation. Presenting these techniques in a non-intrusive manner and a manner that empowers the person is important.  People don’t react well to force. But they do react well to curiosity, and to self-discovery.  These are nuances that when well-developed can and most often do bring a person back to balance.

The Vegas Nerve

The Vagus nerve is the longest nerve in the body. It originates in the brain as cranial nerve and then travels down through the neck and then passes down to the digestive system, liver, spleen, pancreas, heart, and lungs.
This is important because your Vagus nerve actually works to help your brain relax so that you can sleep.  And you can consciously activate it to do just that.

Waiting to Fall asleep vs. Putting yourself to sleep
When people lay down to go to sleep often they are waiting until they “fall asleep”.  This is our common relationship to sleep. We lay down when sleepy or we get in bed in the hopes that eventually we will fall asleep.  I would like to pose a different approach.  That we can actually “put ourselves to sleep”.  This goes along with the principle of “Self Mastery”.  There is a YouTube video of two women who tickle a young man to the point of him going unconscious. < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D5o3PYcJoM> What is happening is that he is putting pressure on his egas nerve to the point that he passes out.  This is, of course, an extreme example but it should give you an idea of just how powerful that nerve is and how you can consciously put pressure on it and cause your brain to relax.

The Triple Whammy 

There is a technique to do that.  A way to “hack” your nervous system to get you to sleep.  It’s a three-step process that involves putting pressure on the vegas nerve,  slowing your breathing down and focusing the mind.   Getting yourself to sleep is not as difficult as we have been lead to believe.  Once you learn these techniques you will be able to put yourself to sleep with little to no effort.  Putting pressure on the vegas nerve is the first step.  One in which you put pressure there on your lower abdomen for a few seconds.  Like as if you were going to the bathroom.    But not really.    Say you do that about 5 or six times.  Then you normalize your breathing but breathing deep into your lower abdomen down to your lowest diaphragm right above your pubic bone.  At the same time bring your mind to the present moment.

The Present Moment

The present moment is where ever the second hand is on the clock.  Hold your mind there for as long as you can. This is a meditation technique that requires practice.  Your mind wants to go back and forth to the past then to the future.

This is, in fact, a critical step in your success.   To be able to hold your mind in the present moment is a near impossible task as anyone who has ever tried to do it will tell you.  But in time and with practice you can actually train your mind to do it.  The present moment is where the peace, the love, and the happiness is.  It’s where you can finally and deeply relax.  Its the only place that you have control over.  So training your mind to follow your dictates is of paramount importance.  Taking medications makes you more mind identified and keeps you from making the distinctive difference between your consciousness and your mind.     Along with the stimulation of your Vegas nerve and breathing exercise, you should be able to put yourself to sleep. Of course everyone is an individual and we take each person as an individual requiring an individual approach with some taking longer then others.  This is the path of Self Mastery.

Nature is intelligent

Have you ever been in nature and observed the trees, birds, insects, and wild life that may be there?  If you observe them long enough you start to realize just how intelligent they are.  Yes nature is intelligent. Its built in.  And we are a part of nature and that same intelligence is built into us to.

Yin vs. Yang 
When you go to a doctor he or she is looking to solve your problem with “force”.  Using medications is the use of force.  Giving yourself time and attention is the opposite.  Our society is crippled because we only use one approach to solving our problems.  I might be so bold as to say to you that the methods we have used most often are a “male approach ” to a problem.  It’s a part of our society in that it is a patriarchal society where most often men are in charge.  In that regard, we often use a male approach to a problem without even realizing it.  Our society is waking up ever so slowly to the realization that there are a male and a female approach to things.  Let’s call them yin and yang.  This is the law of opposites according to an ancient Chinese philosophy called “The Tao”.   Each opposite balances out the other. When they are out of balance illness occurs.  We can continue to just use force to bend something to our will or we can stop and check in with our what our emotions are saying. What is on our heart?  Imagine a society where we gave ourselves the time and attention to discuss and consider what is weighing on our heart instead of just given a pill and put back on the treadmill.  In a society where heart disease is the number one killer, you would think people would see the connection.

The Gift of Love
Getting a person to heal their insomnia is possible.  But it takes time and understanding. It takes a commitment  to Self Mastery and to regaining your natural state in which we were all born with. Such commitment to yourself is what we call love. Giving oneself this level of love is key and critical to success.  These tools are not ever explored when using western approaches to issues of insomnia.  We  from the premise that your body is perfect.  Your body is always working on healing you.  If you cut your hand your body heals up on its own. You don’t really have to do anything to it. Humans have somehow been lead to believe that instead of understanding themselves in relationship with  nature we try to conquer nature.  Most people never really give themselves this level of time and attention. That is in part because of the culture of our modern day society.

In this short article I have given a few of the concepts of Holistic Health that we employ.  It is not all of what we do in addressing the issue but it should give you a flavor for some of the many approaches at our disposal.  Give yourself the love, the time, and the attention you need to discover how to bring yourself back into balance.   Taking medications for it is not sustainable and fraught with disastrous consequences.  Love, time and attention is the Holistic Alternative. This is why people come to Sacred Space Retreats in Anderson Springs, California.

 

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Alcohol Addiction and the Holistic Alternative

Alcohol addiction is the number one substance abuse problem in the US. Many people every year die from the effects of their substance abuse and addictions and many more die from the issues created by other people’s problems with alcohol.

When it comes to rehabilitation from Alcohol the success rate of all programs offered is extremely low.
There are many reasons for this. The biggest problem when it comes to rehabilitation from alcohol is that most all programs are not holistically structured. The most used method in dealing with alcohol addiction is Alcohol Anonymous. According to the tenants of AA you have to admit to the group that you are an “alcoholic”.
While in the meetings you at some point have to get up before the group, declare you are an alcoholic and tell them your “story” of your life and how alcohol has adversely affected you.

AA started many years ago when a couple of guys who were having problems with alcohol decided to come together and support each other. Over time the program expanded to provide mentors for people getting into the program. Despite how long it may have been since you used alcohol you still have to declare yourself an “alcoholic”. The stories are legendary of people going to meetings and despite the fact that they haven’t used alcohol in two decades or longer they still have to declare themselves an alcoholic.
AA is touted by many rehabs as the “only” method that works for alcohol addiction. Peer-reviewed studies peg the success rate of AA somewhere between 5 and 10 percent. That is, about one of every fifteen people who enter these programs is able to become and stay sober. That statistic is sobering in and of itself. Even with low success rates AA has helped thousands if not millions of people. And we applaud their success. But anything and everything can be improved upon if you spend enough time studying the problem and developing a  better approach to it.

I would like to present another more holistic approach to alcoholism and why someone would want to come to Sacred Space Retreats in Cloverdale, California, to deal with their issues of addiction instead of only the traditional methods of the AA model.

First, let me start by talking about my own personal family observations with alcoholism.

My first introduction to the problems of alcoholism came in the form of my family, in particular, my father.
As I have observed our family issues with it I find that for many people, particularly men in our society we have a similar pattern when it comes to predisposing us to alcohol addiction.

My Dad was in the military on active duty for 30 years. Then after he retired he “volunteered” for the military for another 30 years. And in so doing he is what I call one of the original “hard chargers”
For many years he had an alcohol problem as a lot of people in the military do as their way of coping with the tremendous stress they have.
As time went on I tried to get him to make some changes to his lifestyle such as taking more responsibility for his health and to do things at home like prepare more healthy meals for himself.
He was from the “old school ” for sure. He couldn’t relate to taking better care of himself and eating better. He left all the food preparation to my mother. He said to me once that “it wasn’t in his contract” to prepare his own food. I think he was also from the depression era and so for him, he thought I was crazy to suggest that he eat more, healthier ( in his mind more expensive) food.

For instance, he loved ice cream. And he would always go to the Air Force base not far from where he lived and he would get the cheapest ice cream they had. He would often brag about the inexpensive food he could get from the base commissary. I don’t even think it was real ice cream more like “ice milk”. Anyway, he could just not understand why someone would pay more for something he could get cheaper. Eventually, I gave up trying to convince him.

My father started to develop Alzheimer when he was in his mid 70’s. My mother was so wonderful in that she insisted on taking care of him there at home and not have him go to some convalescent home. In the end, it took quite a toll on her. Dad died in 2009.
The last 8 years of his life he continued to decline cognitively. At 82 he died not even knowing who I was or even who his wife of 61 years was.
It was quite heartbreaking of course for all of us but especially my mother.

I fully believe that part of his decline was all the years he spent struggling with alcohol. I think it damages a person’s brain that makes them more susceptible to these issues later on.
So as I look back on his life I swore I would do my life differently. I would make time to take care of myself.
I would not be a “hard charger ” like him. That is one of the reasons that I gave our motto here, ” To Retreat is Sometimes the Better Part of Valor”. Sometimes it’s better to Retreat then to just continue to charge ahead.

The issues of alcoholism is not an isolated issue unique to anyone of us. I see it as a pattern of our culture. Particularly for men in their own unique way and women in theirs.
If you look at most people we kind of follow a similar pattern. We go to school. Eventually, we leave school, get married or create relationships. Then we work like a mad man or woman until we retire or die, whichever comes first. Somewhere along the way, we loose ourselves as we put all our energy into everyone else especially our businesses and work. Everything except ourselves.

This is what Sacred Space Retreats in Cloverdale, California stands ready to support our guests with. It’s all a matter of giving yourself the time and attention and love that you must give yourself. You have to realize you are totally worth the level of time and attention it takes to figure yourself out and to learn to “master yourself”. We all make a choice; give ourselves time and attention or ignore your body’s cry for help and “charge ahead”.

For me personally one of the things that helped me out was that I started having health issues very early in life so I basically had no choice when it came to giving myself the time and attention that I needed.
In that respect, I believe we all have problems, it’s just that some people’s problems are just a little more apparent than others.

I could never get my Dad to consider coming Sacred Space because I believe he had a lot of pain that he just wasn’t ready to deal with. Being in the military and doing the ungodly things they ask you to do could only be a very painful experience. We can all see that now as our soldiers come back from war. Psychologically damaged.
So he never considered it. Of course, it’s hard for parents to accept guidance from their children.  I understand and accept that.

For the rest of the world, however, we are here to be that support for you. To create the environment you need to do this.
One thing I learned though my years and especially with my family ( two brothers who died from liver cancer from their addictions ) is that I am completely and utterly powerless to save anyone.
What I can do is save myself and offer myself as a good role model for others to emulate. No one can “fix” you. It’s really about you fixing yourself. And the only way I believe that is possible is giving yourself love ( time and attention).

One of the first issues you would have to deal with when it concerns alcoholism is the food you eat.
Most people are not aware of this and most rehabs don’t address it.

In fact, there is a common pattern that occurs when you go to rehabs for help with alcohol. They almost always load people up on caffeine, sugar, pastries, starches and grains.

When we eat starches, grains, sugars they are converted in our body into alcohol by an organism called Candida.
It’s a “yeast overgrowth”. So these programs simply feed them these foods which satisfy their craving for alcohol. Unbeknownst to them the Candida organism converts those foods back into alcohol in their blood stream ultimately keeping them at a higher blood alcohol level. That high blood alcohol level and the infestation of yeast leaves them only a step away from their next drink.
Most all rehabs ignore this critical issue and this, as a result, is one of the biggest reasons for their extremely low success rate.

Most rehab food is institutional food ( a common distributor being Sysco ) which is high in starch, sugar, grains like bread, pastry, pasta, cookies, etc.
Once as a Nutritional Consultant to Walden House Adolescent Facility I had occasion to go to their food pantry to see what they were serving them. To my disappointment, everything they served from the fish sticks to the ketchup to the corn or beans, had sugar in them.
So being on a specialized diet is important to help you get free of the cravings you may have for alcohol. The problem for rehab institutions is that very little resources are budgeted for their food. So to keep within their budget they get the cheapest institutional foods available to them.

Most rehabs talk about the psychological aspects of a person’s alcohol use but they don’t address the physiological part. Unless you address that then you may be unwittingly giving yourself your next drink just in a different form. In fact, your craving for alcohol, or sugar or grains or starches may not actually be coming from you. It is a well-known fact that in order for Candida Albicans to grow in your body it must be fed. So while a person may think they are craving alcohol or sugar, starch etc, it may actually be the Candida organism craving it for their growth.

If I was going to make beer, for instance, I would take some sugar, yeast, and a grain like hops. Put them all in a big pot. Then through a process called fermentation, the yeast converts those grains and sugars into alcohol.
That is precisely what is going on in your body.

Most all people addicted to alcohol eat a lot of meat.  So in addition to eating foods high in starch, grains, and sugars, they eat a  high animal protein diet. This creates additional problems for when you want to come off of alcohol because it creates an acidic ph of your blood stream and it is high in saturated fats.  This puts your body ill at ease to try to deal with that.  And strange as it may sound alcohol is actually an antidote to both. Acidosis is actually very uncomfortable. It makes the body more “inflamed”. That inflammation process makes it challenging to withdraw off of alcohol because alcohol is the “antidote”.  Checked your ph lately?  Don’t worry we will have you do it when you get here.  We will have you check it for 4 days, 3 times a day. That will confirm to you where your ph is and give you further understanding of why your body is doing what it is doing.  The same with the saturated fat aspects. Alcohol puts that saturated fat more into solution in the arteries.  Here at Sacred Space Retreats in Middletown, California, we serve a vegan diet.  A diet free of animal protein. You will be amazed that your craving for alcohol diminishes dramatically when you eat a vegan diet.  Does that mean you have to eat a vegan diet forever in order to be free of alcohol addiction? No. When you understand what is going on inside you, it will be easier to keep yourself in moderation once you leave here. While you are here you are being treated for your intense cravings for alcohol. Once that craving is gone and you are healthier you can eat meat but in more moderation and understanding of what it is doing to you physiologically.

Another physiological aspect of addiction that is related to that is the use of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications.  These medications have grown more prevalent in the last 20 years.  One of the issues of using them is their tendency to promote the use of alcohol as a way of dealing with their unpleasant side effects.  These drugs, in particular, can give a person tardive dyskinesia and tardive akathisia.  Disconesia is uncontrolled movements of the body muscles particularly of the face and body.  Akathesia is internal tension and anxiety.  Many people after taking these medications experience this and may not even be aware of it.  Often times people will use alcohol as a means of self-medication.  All of these issues must be addressed if you are going to successfully defeat this demon.

This is why in order for anyone to successfully address alcoholism, you have to address the physiological aspect.
To be on a specialized diet like that is one of the reasons people come to Sacred Space Retreats in Cloverdale, California.

Understanding your Feelings and Emotions

If you are going to successfully address your issues with alcohol or any drug you really have to look at your thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
Alcohol especially is a real pain reliever. So you have to look at your pain and find its source and pull it out like a weed growing in a garden.

You really have to get to the core of how you process your thoughts and emotions. And for identifying when you are in a state of resistance that could lead you to seek out something like alcohol to deal with the stress that it creates.

When you are resistant to something that is happening or has happened in your life it causes your body to contract and you experience discomfort. That “resistance ” is stress. Stress will kill you if it persists.
The more you resist something the more stress you have and the more the problem persists. To cope with this stress and resistance people then turn to alcohol. But of course, it only has a temporary effect because it doesn’t stop you from being resistant. It just stops you from feeling the pain and discomfort of your resistance. Ultimately all of our problems start in the mind. The emotions and feelings we have is our bodies way of reflecting what our mind is thinking.

Attachment creates suffering.
Our program ultimately is about mastering oneself. Mastering one’s mind. And becoming One with oneself.
There is a story of how they catch monkeys in Africa. The way it goes is to say that to catch a monkey they take a large container that has a very small neck to it. Then you take some fruit and put it in the bottom of the container. When the monkey comes along the monkey looks inside, sees the fruit and reaches in and grabs it. Once he grabs the fruit he tries to pull it out but he can’t get it through the small opening at the top. Being attached however he won’t let go of it. So that is how they are able to catch him.

This illustrates well how we regard our thoughts. We are attached to them. And in out attachment to the thoughts, we have we create pain and suffering for ourselves.
Learning to let go of the things that we are attached to is the beginning of our healing and the end of our suffering.
Of course, to do this you have to be able to train your mind. Training your mind to not be attached to your thoughts from the past or future is a practice. One in which will engage in each day during our meditation practice and as you become more mindful of your thoughts throughout the day.

You will be surprised at how your stress level goes down and you are able to experience peace by training your mind to be present.

Are you an “Alcoholic”? 

One thing we don’t do is label you according to your illness. We don’t make you admit that you are an alcoholic. Because by labeling you as such then your behavior will never be more than the label you give yourself. We want to give you the most powerful sense of who and what you are. You are here to learn to “Master Yourself”.
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Martial Arts
Martial arts can be an important tool in the rebuilding of your success. This involves exercises where we demonstrate some movements and you have to repeat and replicate the movement. Of course, you won’t be able to do it but in time and with practice you will. Your mind has a mind, and your body has a mind. The problem is that they are not always in alignment with each other. When you see a move with your mind, you ask your body to replicate the move. But your body has its own ideas about what it wants to do. By practicing the same moves over and over you cause for your body to eventually submit to what your mind is telling it to do. This makes you become more in alignment mind and body. And in this way, you get stronger from the inside out. To become ONE.

Abuse of alcohol leaves you open and vulnerable. It doesn’t matter if you go outside and someone hits you upside the head and kills you or if you start drinking alcohol and it kills you. Dead is dead. You have to learn how to protect yourself. Learning these movements will give you more confidence in yourself and help you protect yourself from anything that could hurt you. Rather than sitting in meetings all day listening to other people’s “drunk- a-logs” or even your own you could spend that valuable time learning to master yourself and protecting yourself.

By coming to Sacred Space Retreats in Middletown, California you will be giving yourself the gift of your own love, time and attention. And in so doing you will be giving yourself some new tools that can help you rebuild your mental, physical and emotional house. Our program is about “Self Help” and “Self Mastery”. It’s how to get your mind and body into alignment with each other.
Until you do that you will be “divided” between your mind and your body.
When you become unified with yourself then you step fully into your power. When you are divided you become weaker and more easily conquered. This is where the term “divide and conquer ” comes from.
We use tools to help you become more unified.

On becoming One

If you put ten people in a boat and they are all rowing in different directions then the boat just turns around in circles. If everyone is rowing in the same direction then the boat can proceed, “full speed ahead”. This is what happens when you commit to “Mastering Yourself”, to becoming ONE.
That is when you step fully into your power. “when your story ends your life begins”.
Everyone has a story of how they were hurt in the past. How they didn’t get what they wanted. You can either be stuck in your story or you can commit to your success.

Institutionalization or Private Retreat

Going to rehabs, taking medications and drugs from doctors can make you more and more “dependent”. The more dependent you are the weaker you become. The weaker you become the less successful you become.
Getting stronger has to be from the inside out not the outside in.
It’s a process. We have designed our program to be sure that you don’t feel like you are in some “institution”. Moreover, its designed to make you feel like you are in your own home. That way you can get to your most relaxed state.
And when you get deeply relaxed you can let your armor down and you can be more open to looking at yourself and understanding yourself.

We only take no more than three people because we want you to feel more like you are in a natural setting. We also want to bring to you the highest quality of service, which includes a more specialized and more vital diet.
Everything we have created here at Sacred Space Retreats in Cloverdale, California is by design. Its design is to allow you to give yourself the time and attention that you need in order to solve your problem.
That is why and how you will create success. And it’s why we have a much higher success rate than only going to AA meetings. Of course, if you really want to include AA in your program then we would be happy to accommodate you as well.  Any tool so long as it is supporting you in creating success is welcome.

The Rising Threat of Infections and the Holistic Alternative

According to “The Rising Threat of Infections Unfazed by Antibiotics,” a recent article posted by the New York Times (dtd 2/26/10), New York City hospitals have become the global breeding ground for another drug-resistant Gram-negative germ, Klebsiella pneumonia—perhaps due the large numbers of patients they treat. More than 20 percent of the Klebsiella infections in Brooklyn hospitals are now resistant to virtually all modern antibiotics.  And those super germs  are now spreading worldwide.

In this  situation—tragic yet unfortunately predictable—people are dying despite the fact that they can afford the strongest antibiotics and the best doctors that money can buy. Money itself cannot combat disease, and cannot buy health and resources that are nonexistent. Furthermore, this growing problem of antibiotic resistance is only going to worsen as more antibiotics are used.  Herein lies the problem with western medicine: it revolves around a fundamental lack of understanding of bacteria and their place in our world and in our bodies.  Western medicine suffers from an inability to think and respond holistically to any such problems.

Let’s be clear: bacteria don’t cause diseases anymore than flies cause garbage.  But where there is garbage you will most assuredly find flies.  Does that mean that the flies are the ones responsible for the garbage being there?  Every time we find bacteria in the body we must then conclude that they are there for a reason and we have to adopt a more holistic response in order to bring the body back to health.

Or, look at this way.

Say you have ants and roaches running rampant in your kitchen.  (I know, I’d freak out too).  So you rush to the local store and get a can of Raid or similar product.  You come back home and you spray the Raid in all possible directions, killing all the tiny invaders.  You take the Raid and stash it away under the cupboard, feeling satisfied that your job is done.  However, it won’t be long before you find that the ants and roaches have returned.  No matter how much Raid you spray or whatever stronger versions you use, it still will not solve this fundamental error to your approach.   Predictably, you will have the same results every time.  The ants and roaches always return.  And what’s more fun? Now they are becoming themselves more resistant to the sprays that you are giving them.

What to do?  Examine the source of the problem. Big surprise, but if you scatter the food that the ants and roaches eat on the floor and countertops then you will eventually find that the ants and roaches return.  This is metaphorically what is occurring in the body.  Unfortunately the doctors and hospitals don’t have a way of dealing with this issue because their process is not holistic.  Instead, it is this thinking that drugs alone can solve your problem. And it is this thinking and approach that will have even more dire consequences for the public at large.

People die not only of their infections, but they also die from the treatment protocol.  It is well-known that antibiotics cause kidney damage, kidney failure, liver damage and cancer.  The word antibiotics literally means “against life.”  It is essentially a form of poisoning.  The idea is that it should do its job killing the bacteria before it kills you.  Sometimes, this happens. Sometimes, people don’t make it.  And sometimes, they do survive, but thereafter suffer irreparable damage to their health.

Anytime that the cure is worse than the disease, consider that a red flag. It’s time to rethink our approach.

But rethinking our approach is something that we don’t do when it comes to western medicine.   Because so many people have a financial interest in the continuation and success of this industry,  it will likely be many years if ever before something changes. But so it goes. Every change is gradual, but it needs to begin somewhere.

The definition of insanity is to continue doing the same thing while expecting a different result.  That seems exemplify rather well the approach that we have had thus far to “health care.”

I will tackle that larger topic in a moment, but first allow me to continue dissecting the issues of those rising infections. The first impression that I get when going to a hospital or doctor for anything is that the folks there seem to give antibiotics like it is candy.  Everything from acne to bladder infections are routinely given  antibiotic treatment, although no actual tests are taken to even see if the antibiotic and the dosage is the effective amount.   Supposedly in our lifetime, it is not uncommon for a person to take antibiotics from 20-100+   times to two to three  or more every year of their life.  That is a startling and slightly terrifying statistic.

Antibiotics are also widely used in food production.  It was in the 1940s when the use of antibiotics became quite popular. It was discovered that the animals gained weight when routinely given antibiotics.  And when humans ate the animals and drank their milk, they ate the antibiotics as well.  Eventually, the bacteria that are exposed to the antibiotics become resistant to its bactericidal effect.  So continually taking antibiotics and eating antibiotics indirectly makes the organism—the bacteria—that you are trying to kill even stronger.

To understand the history of bacteria and their association with illness, think back to Louis Pasture and Antoine Béchamp.  They were two pioneers in microscopy and in the development of the “germ theory.”

Louis Pasture explained that diseases are caused by the bacteria or germ. On the other hand, Antoine Béchamp suggested that disease is a result of the environment.  It wasn’t long before it became convenient to think that if an illness or disease was caused by a certain bacteria, then all you would need to do is develop a drug to kill the bacteria. Viola, problem solved! What really happened was that this approach gave drug companies and allopathic medicine the foothold they needed to be promoted as the only way to really deal with the problem of “the rising threat of infections.”

Reportedly, Louis Pasture did acknowledge right before his death that Antoine Béchamp was correct in that the environment caused diseases. By then, of course, it was too late.

Fast forward several hundred years and you have this theory continually being played out, to the point that doctors have run out of options in solving the problem of “the rising threat of infections.”

Let’s begin to look at the situation more holistically. We will find the solution to what ails us.

To visualize it better, think of a simple metaphor. If you have a swimming pool or hot tub and want to keep it sanitized and free of bacteria, one of the things you will have to do is check the ph balance of the water.  If the ph is too acidic then it means that you have to add some alkalizing mineral salts in order to raise the ph balance of the water.  This is a basic tenet and understanding of anyone trying to maintain a swimming pool or a hot tub.  It’s not enough to say just keep adding chlorine. Other factors must be considered. And thus you act accordingly.

Consider your blood stream, then, like that swimming pool or hot tub.

If your blood ph is trying to maintain itself at 7.3 ph ( slightly alkaline)  and you are continually putting things in your body that are acid-forming, this will lower your blood ph down to the effect that bacteria will be able to manifest more easily in your blood stream.

Understanding ph is confusing.  Most people don’t know what you mean when we talk about ph.  They think that by acidic I mean things like tomatoes, and fruit. That is not what I am talking about.  So to understand ph you must have a better working knowledge of nutrition and its effect on the body. Just so for your body, you must be informed in order to keep it at its most healthy and efficient state of being.

To reiterate, the problem in going to doctors and hospitals is that they feed you the very food that has contributed to your problem. When bacteria are growing rampantly in your body it is because they have food to eat.  Bacteria are doing a job that we would never allow, had we better understanding and wisdom. Bacteria are there to eat the acidic waste that has accumulated in the body. So we actually should give thanks for bacteria. We don’t need to fear them; like most anything else, they are here to perform their purpose.  And they do it quite well.  The only thing is that you have to be smarter than them (or at least as wily!) if you want to coexist peacefully with them.

Ignorance is sometimes bliss; other times, it can mean sickness, accidents, or death. Most people spend their entire lives eating at least 70–90% acid-forming foods.  So it’s not at all surprising that this is a problem.  Why do you think that the American Cancer society has recommended more fruits and vegetables? But when you are trying to deal with an immediate problem such as this, it requires a complete and total change in one’s approach.

Remember, Einstein once said: “You can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” You must change your mentality.

Most doctors do not understand ph.  Not when it relates to nutrition and to bacteria. They don’t, for instance, measure your ph over the course of several days, thrice a day, to get a better understanding of where your body balance stands.  All they are looking for are quick answers, quick results, and a more powerful drug.  By the time you form a drug that is that is powerful enough to kill every bacteria in your body, you will have destroyed your kidneys and liver, thus making the treatment even more devastating than the disease.  A cure that kills, in other worls. If the doctors and hospitals understood the relationship of ph and bacteria then they wouldn’t feed you the very food that caused your problem in the first place.

Doctors have only two things to offer you: drugs and surgery.  It’s not a holistic approach. It doesn’t take the spectrum of all things into account and as a result it enjoys only a limited amount of success in such intervention.

There are other aspects that should be included and understood, as in the Holistic Alternative.  Isn’t it true that every doctor takes an oath to do no harm to any fellow creature? And yet they are all harming the patients when they give the patients drugs that have the potential of harming them, and even killing them!

There are natural antibiotics that, when used in a total holistic program, can be even more effective than these manmade antibiotics. Natural antibiotics that are not chemicals, are not toxic to your liver and kidneys, and when you combine them in a total program of change then you have got your best chance at healing yourself. Naturally.  Consider another part of the Holistic Alternative picture: quite a few years back, I got a hot tub for our healing center.  I played around with the idea of using chlorine to keep it sanitized.  After about a week of that, I decided I wanted to use something less toxic.  After some research I found that I could get a liquid enzyme that could digest the organic matter in the tub, making chlorine unnecessary.  What a fantastic realization!  Light bulbs were going off everywhere.   Enzymes are now being used for everything from unclogging household drains to odor- and stain-removal from carpets.  Enzymes were used to help clean up the Exon Valdez Oil spill.  Enzymes can also be used in dealing with keeping our bodies and circulation system as naturally clean  and fresh as a gurgling mountain stream (such as the one that I am looking at right now outside my window).

All bacteria and parasites (which are a part of this whole immune suppression story) have a protein coating around their membranes.   Enzymes have the ability to digest exogenous proteins.

The problem with using a holistic approach is that rarely does someone try all of these different things all at the same time in a knowledgeable way.  They might try one thing.  And when that doesn’t work, they throw up their hands and ask for the drugs. This is why there is a need for Holistic Healing Centers, where you could get all of these modalities together, giving you a much higher success rate than if you tried any one of them separately.

If we had Holistic Healing Centers in the magnitude in which we have hospitals, and with the level of support that hospitals get from pharmaceuticals , insurance companies, the government, etc., then hospitals wouldn’t really be able to compete.  But because holistic concepts and usage have been suppressed by the doctors, as well as the AMA and their pharmaceutical allies, then most people don’t have any idea of how they can be used. Until very recently, most people didn’t have access—unless you were one of the lucky few with an open mind and open eyes to devour information such as that which is in this article—to such a comprehensive approach. It’s not widely advertised in the media, either. As a result, it’s not surprising that people turn to drugs: the common answer.  They don’t know or understand any other options.  Western doctors certainly don’t understand, and they can’t give their patients options that they don’t know of..

There are a powerful few who seek to maintain their financial interests  secure; they only want to see the status quo maintained. Most governmental agencies are only fronts for pharmaceutical companies. If you are looking to your government to save you, forget it. If you don’t want to become a victim of ignorance (and all the respective consequences) when it comes to your health, then it will take a greater understanding of your personal health and greater knowledge of the holistic alternatives at your disposal. The choices for your health and your life are in your hands alone.  Only you have the power to heal yourself and avoid becoming just another victim the moment that the doctor throws up his hands and tells you to go home and settle your affairs because there is nothing to be done for you.

Doctors and those who support them have built themselves up to be like God, the ultimate commander and decider.  Who has authority over your health is not to be questioned when you are under their surveillance.  After all, they wear white coats and seem pretty intelligent.  The problem is that they only know what they have been taught.  And they only have been taught two solutions for dealing with your problem. Drugs or death. Your choice?

You can either veer off that road and decide to take responsibility for your own health—or you can continue that same path until you are ready to declare yourself another victim and are looking for someone to blame. The choice is always yours.

By putting trust only in doctors to keep them healthy, most people become passive in their approach to their health.  They expect their doctor to know everything and to basically save them.   If the doctor says “there isn’t anything else that can be done,” then most people take it to heart and truly believe them. They have made a choice to believe them; thus then ready to die.  When you leave your doctor’s office and you die, your doctor looks up and says “NEXT.” He doesn’t have a vested interest in your survival.  If you die there are many people waiting outside his office to be served and who are going down that same dead-end street.

There is an alternative. It is the Holistic Alternative.  Only you can truly heal yourself.  Do you have any fight left in you or are you completely exhausted as a result of being  poisoned, maimed, and burned from the inside out through western intervention strategies? If you still have some fight left in you and desire to live… then all you need is a better understanding of how to do that. There is a solution to every problem.  If you don’t understand the solution then it doesn’t mean that it does not exist. It merely means you haven’t found the solution yet. Keep looking, keep asking questions. You will find it. Because now you know: Your life is in your hands.

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Stress and the Holistic Alternative

Mastery of one’s Self begins by the Mastering of one’s Mind. Are you controlling your mind or is your mind controlling you?

The importance of meditation cannot be overstated. It is in all ways beneficial, healthy, life-giving, and peace-bringing. There are many forms of meditation. I would like to shed light on one in particular, a type of meditation that I call No Mind Meditation, or Empty Mind Meditation.

The problems that we humans create for ourselves are derived and cultured more in the mind than anywhere else; they are, generally and mainly, mental. And if that is the case, then by developing the mind and healing the pathology of the mind, we should also be able to subsequently heal the body. Whether our issues entail violence or mental illnesses, are emotional or physical, we could most definitely say that it all starts in the mind.

Every day, pharmaceutical companies would like to convince you that the problems of your mental illness or of your physical and emotional illness are something that you can solve—quite simply, quite drastically—with a drug. And yet there is a holistic alternative with far better results and none of the potentially horrific side effects: it is more effective and it doesn’t kill you or warp you further as some drugs do (and thus making you an inconvenience or even threat to those around you)!

Problems such as high blood pressure, depression, anxiety, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), and stress can all be healed by utilizing the powerful force of cultivating No Mind. Consider that most people have never trained their minds. The mere collecting of information—that we all do on a daily basis, of course—doesn’t train your mind. It only fills it with stuff. Albeit useful, this doesn’t at all reach the optimization, creativity, and mindfulness that your brain and self are capable of. Either you are running your mind or your mind is running you.

The positive effects that meditation can have on the brain and the frequencies in which it operates are endless. For instance, meditation:

* Allows you to access deep, super-pleasurable meditative states
* Strengthens your immune system, health, and overall well-being
* Amplifies feelings of inspiration, vitality, rejuvenation, happiness, and confidence
* Enhances and improves sleep, eliminates insomnia, and boosts energy
* Permanently reduces stress, worry, anxiety, depression, irritability, and moodiness
* Helps the mind attain self-actualization and enlightenment
* Contributes to you living more in the “now” by enhancing your daily awareness
* Naturally boosts DHEA, Serotonin, GABA, Melatonin, Endorphins; reduces Cortisol
* Eliminates all uncontrollable habits, fears, and phobias
* Significantly decreases “mental chatter” and self-destructive impulses
* Explores and expands your self-awareness and state of consciousness
* Restores your natural PH Balance, creating a sequence of enormously beneficial changes
* Increases emotional stability, psychological balance, and mental harmony
* Enhances your motivation, personal growth, intuition, creativity, and goal-reaching abilities

* Provides you with more mental processing power and instant “whole brain synchronization”
* Increases your learning ability, memory, and concentration
* Maintains your clarity of thought at all times

Given all these positive life-altering effects, it’s a wonder that more people don’t practice meditation! Of course, the primary reason that people don’t do it is quite simply because most people don’t understand it or know how to do it properly. If anyone has tried to meditate, they quickly realize that it is not very easy to be able to find that place (physically and mentally) where your mind settles and you are able to attain a sense of ultimate peace. Most people think that they just don’t have time for it. The problem is not that they don’t have the time… the issue is that they think they don’t.

Our mind is like a runaway train. It wants to be anywhere but the present moment. There is the past, there is the present, and there is the future. It’s really rather amazing and ironic, but the vast majority of people are never able to be in the present. They exist somewhere in this past-future place: a liminal space of being alive, but not really living in the fullest. As a result they come to a station called Depression. It’s because they have tried to utilize the mind and the emotions in order to create the things that they want, but unfortunately their mind and emotions are not strong enough to do it; they have not cultivated themselves enough to be strong enough.

It seems amazing especially when considering the people who are well-educated. Their belief in the power of their mind has been reinforced by many years of education. But this education, the gathering of information, is really only the collection of things that have form. Say, for example, that you have never had sex before, and you read a book about how to have sex. And say you read it several times over (you’ll likely find it fascinating each time). So you read it and read it many times. At the end of reading it and collecting all the information within, could you say you actually “know” how to have sex? Probably not—not until you do it, at least. You need to put theory into practice; otherwise it is merely theoretical. But this is the place that most of us find ourselves at: the theoretical world. Always looking to be “informed” and never really “knowing.” It’s because the mind is only able to hold onto thoughts (which are, if you think about it, just condensed energy forms) and it actually blocks you from essentially “knowing.” So here we find ourselves with a strong mind and strong emotions associated with them. And know that emotions are equally powerful; they are the body’s way of expressing—consciously or subconsciously—what we think and believe. Do not underestimate neither the mind nor the emotions.

Most people are traumatized by the pain and hurt of their past, and this in turn is connected to their fear of it in the future. The future isn’t real—not yet. The future is what we make up in our mind. Whatever you focus on is what you create. So if you focus on your fears, you wind up creating them. This is the reason for our anxiety. We have what is called the Monkey Mind. Here is how the monkey mind works: say you want to catch a monkey in Africa. So what you do is you get a big jar that has a small neck opening at the top. And you put some fruit in the bottom. Then when the monkey comes to grab it, it sticks in its paw and is caught because it refuses to let go. It is attached. Attachment can bring pleasure, but it also brings suffering. So this is the reason we suffer. It’s really a function of the ego, of the mind. Will a drug help this? No, it won’t. A drug will only do what all drugs do: make you addicted to the drug. No drug can solve this problem. Sadly, the gullible public, not having any other solutions, goes for the bait.

Don’t be fooled. Realize that your problems require a holistic alternative. That holistic alternative must include an approach to deal with your stress, your monkey mind. And that approach—that solution—is to go inward. “The kingdom of heaven is within,” as the biblical line states—and there is much truth in that. This is what your problems are calling for: real solutions, not a magic act. Not someone to tell you, “You have a brain chemical imbalance,” or some other such nonsense (can you even test that? no… but still that’s just what they tell you!). And consider this: If you have a cup full of water, then you can’t put anything else in it. You must empty it first. And once you empty it, this allows you to put something else in it. Our minds are this way. Emptying your mind will give you access to the infinite source for everything in your life. Call that source God, the Universal Mind, Jehovah, Allah, The Great Spirit, a Greater Power—call it whatever you want. Whatever you call it, it’s already inside of you. You don’t have to go anywhere to get it. You just have to get your mind out-of-the-way in order to experience it.

It is only by cultivating that state of No Mind that you become more clear-headed, more at peace, and able to experience the one true emotion: love. Love is peace with yourself, and with all others around you. It will allow you to go from peace to pleasure, which is what happiness is.

The inner conflict that you have doesn’t just go away. Like any other problem, it needs to be healed. It cries out for a solution, a treatment, a permanent respite. And if you drug it, it will still be there, drugged and hibernating and stirring every so often and ever so horribly. It will haunt you, for you would have not only your original problems, but also an additional drug addiction: a poisonous cherry on a killer cake. Drugs also kill you as every single one of them is toxic to your liver. Your depression is because you know you are capable of so much more. Deep down you realize that the methods of using your mind and emotions will only get you so far. Try the No Mind meditation and you will be amazed at how much your stress will dissipate, and how happy you can be. Material things will never bring you satisfaction. But connecting to the inner part of yourself will. It is up to you to decide to reach your full healthy and happy potential.

Success to each of you in accomplishing this great work!

Love.

 

Take the first step today! Find the answers you are looking for and the solace you seek with the help of my “No Mind Meditation,” obtainable by either Instant Download or on a CD at:

http://www.SacredSpaceRetreats.com/MysterySchool.htm

 

The Holistic Alternative

When it comes to Trauma Medicine, there is no one who does it better then modern medicine and hospitals.  Anyone who has seen “Trauma in the ER” on TV can’t help but marvel at the great work done by many of the doctors, nurses and staff who treat people in a very stressful and traumatic situation.  The coolness and professionalism that is exhibited by doctors and others is quite an amazing thing to behold. Doctors performing intricate medical procedures such as   separating conjoined twins or doing face transplants are the cutting age of modern medicine.  Pathology is also a great use of the skills and usefulness  of doctors which has been popularized by TV.

Modern medicine, however, has a dark side.  For people with chronic illness  the Health Care System may not provide the  health that many people expect  Whether a person is insured or not, even if they are rich and can afford the best doctors and the best medicines and surgical procedures does it in the end provide health? For many people suffering from chronic illnesses modern medicine is a trap and a dead end street.  More often then not a person gets hooked on prescription drugs without solving their problem.

In 2005 and in 2009 studies were conducted into the reasons that people filed bankruptcy.  The biggest reason for personal bankruptcy was ill health resulting in high medical bills. These studies were telling but one of the most telling factors of the study was that even if a person had medical insurance they still were susceptible to bankruptcy.  This is an important finding because it really speaks to the idea that even if you had insurance you couldn’t afford the medical bills for drugs and surgery, loss of work and business productivity.  The reason is that the health care system doesn’t provide health.  It only gives the appearance of health while at the same time draining its consumers of their resources and their life.

“If the Doctors of today do not become the nutritionist of tomorrow, then the nutritionist of today will become the Doctors of tomorrow.”
The Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research

The goal of any undertaking is success.  And what is broken in our Health Care system is that it does not deliver health any more then the justice system always dispenses justice.  Like the justice system the health care system gives the appearance of health but to anyone believing that you will get health when you are going to a doctor for chronic health problems what you will often experience is your symptoms managed through a well programmed slight of hand.

“He was in perfect health”

“The Continental Airlines pilot who died on a trans-Atlantic flight from Brussels to Newark was in “perfect health” …. his wife told a Houston television station. Craig Lenell, 60, had no known heart condition and underwent twice-a-year physicals, Lynda Lenell told KHOU-TV.”

This incident shows the dark side of only going to doctors for physical exams. and believing falsely that you are healthy as a result.  When you go to a doctor for a physical exam and they take your blood for a Complete Blood Count or CBC what they are doing is  comparing your blood to a known average.  This known average is called the “normal range” which is established from  all the sick people who went to the doctor or hospital before you.  If the values fall within the “normal range”  which is a bell shaped curve of all the samples, then your test is discarded and that is all that is done with it. If some of the values are outside  high or low of the normal range then those values are flagged for further analysis by your doctor.

The problem with this is “statistics lie”.  I once had a client who came to see me who said she had recently went to the doctor and got a physical and CBC for which the doctor found nothing outside the normal values and declared her healthy.  A month later she was experiencing pain in her stomach for which she then went back to the doctor for which he informed her that she had stomach cancer.  If she had stomach cancer at that time then it means she had it a month later when they declared her healthy.  The reality  is clear that from using this method as the only method of determining health the  person can be made complacent about the state of their health.

The Holistic Alternative

Live Blood Analysis using a Darkfield Microscope can give a person greater tools to not just be a patient and to take whatever the doctor says but to be more in charge their health.  By looking at your blood you can see what your blood looks like and began to take more aggressive action at creating health.   You can be a victim  or a patient and left with someone to blame or you can utilize more effective tools to determine the full extent of your health or lack of it, despite traditional methods utilized by modern medicine.

To get health a review of the methods to achieve it is necessary. Allopathic medicine, the idea that drugs and surgery can bring health is the real flaw in our thinking when it comes to health.   This is the tenet upon which our health care system is based and is the reason why more then anything it is bankrupt.  My question is this: Does taking drugs and getting surgery accomplish our goal of being healthier?

Meet Sara: Sara is 29 years old and was diagnosed at age 19 for mononucleosis.  After that she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  She was given pain medications vicaden and at some point was diagnosed with depression for which she was given Zolof.  She also was given meloxicam for pain and Ambian to help her to sleep.  She is a typical example of someone who goes to doctors for help and they proceed to poison her and turn her into an addict who can’t go a day without taking these medications.  What started out as health issues has now been made worse because not only does she still have the issues of pain, the fibromyalgia, fatigue, depression and in ability to sleep now she has the toxicity from each one of the medications as well and because she still has all the issues for which she went to the doctor for it is obvious that this approach has not succeeded in accomplishing better health for this person.

The  Holistic Alternative

You can take a drug for a headache and your headache seems to go away.  But invariably it comes back if other changes are not made.  And if your headache went away after taking the aspirin would you say you were healthier? Taking one pill always leads to taking another one.  A true healing therapeutic must involve making changes. Without making changes a person doesn’t get healing.  By this definition alone it is clear that real healing doesn’t occur by going to doctors and taking pills or even getting surgery.   To make changes a complete understanding of a person’s physical, mental and spiritual self is needed  upon which  changes can be  made that would allow the person to be healed.  When you see a doctor he or she spends about 15 mins with you.  They “diagnose” your problem, prescribe some medications or surgery and send you out the door.  This is a crude undertaking and primitive attempt that doesn’t respect who you are as a whole being.   You can manage your symptoms and they will keep returning.    This is not getting to the cause to why a person has a problem.  And this is how consumers of the health care system are turned into addicts of drugs and surgeries which then end up in continual trips to the doctor, prescriptions for more drugs and a continuation of their health issues ending in greater ill health, bankruptcy and untimely death.  The public is hoodwinked into thinking they are getting their needs met when in fact they are not. They are simply being drugged.

All drugs are toxic to the liver whether its aspirin or morphine.  Most drugs cause the problem they are meant to correct.  By manipulating the symptom we get the problems associated with the symptom and we get the toxicity from the drug.  If you have high blood pressure you can take a drug to manipulate the symptoms of your blood pressure being high without getting to the cause to why you have the problem you will keep having to take the drug and eventually you will have an even bigger problem as the underlying reasons for high blood pressure will still affect you.

Modern medicine is an approach that attempts to go against nature and the natural processes of mind, body and spirit.  This is why this approach will never work.  As long as you go against nature instead of getting in alignment with nature and allowing nature to be the teacher then you will continually have problems and no amount of drugs and surgeries will solve that problem.  It seems odd that so many people believe in medicine and that so many millions of people subscribe to such an approach.  And perhaps in certain cases there may be a use for them.  It might be appropriate if the good doctors had a whole range of options to offer their clients but it seems they only have two, drugs or surgery.  The question remains, does this approach make you healthier?

Meet Alana: Alana   had a problem in sleeping for 14 years now.  For that length of time she has been taking many different prescription medications to go to sleep.  And to get her up and going in the morning she has been taking prescription drugs which amounts to speed.  When came to me for help.  I was sure she could accomplish her goal but the first thing she had to do was get off of all the medications.  By this time she was certainly ready.  She was only in early thirties and basically had lost all hope of having a normal life, and pursuing her dreams of meaningful work, loving relationships and children.  After spending some time detoxifying her of the medications Karen was able to get herself back to her natural self and sleep soundly without medications.  This is after having going through every conceivable approach that modern medicine could come up with including sleep labs and shock therapy.

Here is her experience in her own words:

Thank you for changing my life to everyone at Sacred Space

I want to thank you all for the part you played in changing/saving my life. I had been struggling with chronic insomnia for 14 years and had been taking heavy medication day and night for a large portion of that time. I had tried everything, sleep labs, therapy, and learning different techniques to try to help me sleep. I was even hospitalized at one point and received ECT (shock therapy) treatments, all to no avail. My doctors just kept prescribing different medications and treatments in hopes that something would help me get some sleep and get my life back. I wasn’t able to finish school or have a job. The sleep deprivation I suffered also caused all kinds of health problems. I had also tried acupuncture and various other holistic oriented treatments as well. I tried to stay positive through it all and kept searching for a new way to approach my problem, that’s when I came across your website. I was so tired (in every sense of the word) of being heavily medicated and not living the life I knew was somehow possible. Before the insomnia I was very active, energetic, and spontaneous and just loved living life to its fullest. I knew it had to be somehow possible to get that back. After speaking with you, I had a new sense of hope and couldn’t wait to get there and start this life changing process. You provided me with the resources necessary to learn, heal and grow. Every person I met there had an impact on me, along with the environment, and I learned how to change my life. The food was absolutely incredible! I never knew all the stuff you could do with fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds! It is no exaggeration when I say that the time I spent there has truly changed and saved my life! I am no longer just barely existing, I am LIVING and I am LOVING IT!!! Thank you again for all of your help and for the follow-up on my progress since leaving.

These people are not just strange cases but the average person who knocks on our door.  If this was unusual, or not typical then we could say that modern medicine was doing its job.  But that is not the case.

Having been involved in a holistic health practice for over 20 years, I propose a success driven program.  Success means that we actually get health as oppose to a manipulation of our natural processes.  By listening to our bodies and what it is telling us we can become more in alignment with our natural self as oppose to working against it. Some people have low expectations and low self esteem.  Being treated by doctors or anyone like you deserve the problems they give you is all that some people expect.   Living a life taking drugs each day, continually having the pain and discomfort that it gives you without a true resolution to your problem is all that some people expect out of life and becomes a familiar pattern that they think is “normal”.

That the human body is capable of  being free of drugs, and in alignment with nature is rarely experienced by most people.  We have been programmed to believe that all we deserve out of life is a happy meal.  We have been reduced to slave labor and are thankful for a weekend off.  By the time we are 50 years old we are lucky to still be alive.  Those that are have hips and knees replaced, hysterectomies, heart valves replaced, are taking a multitude of drugs and have one foot in the grave. Our emotional and mental state by this time is severely fractured and our relationships with anyone significant in our lives is strained at best and usually broken.
Our children are on recreational drugs and are expected to have shorter life spans then their parents.  This in my mind is not success.  We are capable of so much more.  We are held down and controlled to the nth degree at every level by every institution we come in contact with from education to religion, to our health care.  We speak with pride as we march our children off to war and then cry with grief as they are slaughtered for some unknown and unjustifiable cause like oil or our “freedoms”.

The basis of Holistic Health is that what is natural will ultimately bring us peace, love and happiness. It’s hard to experience peace love and happiness if your body is in pain.  If your body is giving you pain then that pain is a message from nature that you are doing something against the natural flow of life.   In allopathic medicine we seek to subdue pain and to bend it to our will.  Pain is the messenger.  Instead of listening to the message we subdue it, through drugs. And if that doesn’t work we use surgery.  First we start off with simple over the counter medicine that we can get in any drug store.  And when that doesn’t do the job then we go to a doctor who gives us something stronger. This acquiescence on the part of our doctors makes them the chief purveyor of the denial of natural causes.

We live in a causal universe. There is the symptom and there is the cause.  The cause creates the symptoms.  Allopathic medicine works on the symptomatic level.  Without getting to the cause to why something happens then the symptoms will always return.  Or they will reroute themselves only to return in a different way stronger and more potent.  And this is why the system of working on the symptomatic level will bankrupt anyone who tries to engage it that way.

Relationships can be mirrors, in which we can see ourselves more clearly.  And in so doing we can make changes in ourselves so that we can grow.  Growing can be difficult when one is not committed to it.  We all know people who have not accepted responsibility for their lives and continue to blame others for their problems.  I know people in my own family who fit that description so I don’t have to go far for an example. This is someone who isn’t growing and learning.  And this is the problem with the consumers of our health care system.

In order for there to be successful  in life we must be committed to growing and learning.  We can’t say that people who are grown adults and who act like children are being successful.  Children are the sort that can’t be satisfied. And who blame their lack of satisfaction on someone else not giving them what they want instead of taking responsibility of getting it themselves.  Have you ever given a child something only to have the child be dissatisfied and wanting  more only a few minutes later?  Adults who act like children are the same way.  This lack of satisfaction and demand for more is a result of our childlike self and shows the lack of spiritual growth.  It is ego driven.  And the ego is never satisfied.  The ego is attached to the form of things and is fear based so this is where we find ourselves as a society.  Our engagement in wars around the globe reflects this as well as the violence and disharmony that exists upon people who are as close as husband and wives or is shown in the disharmony, crime and violence of people within our own community.    Success is about spiritual, mental and physical growth.  To grow one has to be willing to cut off the things that do not support ones success.  There is a pathway to success.  When there is pain then this is a sign that says we are going the wrong way on the pathway to success.

My indictment of our failed health care system is directed to all the parties involved in it.  The consumers who receive products and services from it, the doctors who administer it, the hospitals who manage it, the pharmaceutical and medical  companies who produce products for it and the media who promote it.  All are complicit.  All bare and share some of the blame  for having created it. But blaming others is not going to solve our problems.  Only takiing responsibility for our lives, for our heatlh and for our happiness will solve the problem and that is something that each one of us can commit to that achieving.

The problems that it affects the most are the humans who consume it.  It is the consumers who suffer the pain and the loss of life from it.  A look at the elderly is a great way to see the end result of a life committed to allopathic medicine.  Most elderly people think the doctor is God.  And they regularly go to them and take all of their medicine.  The problem is that the more a person is involved with the health care system the more drugs and surgeries they consume.  As a result by the time a person is elderly they will have generally speaking had several operations and are now taking many drugs.  And since each drug is toxic to the body, when you combine them they become even more toxic.  So by the time they are say in their 60’s, 70’s , or 80’s they are taking so many drugs they will be having such side effects from those drugs that it is the drugs themselves that will kill them not the illness for which they are taking the drugs in the first place.  Side effects like dizziness and hallucinations are common.  If you get dizzy and you fall down and hit your head and they rush you to the doctor and the doctor says that you have brain inflammation from the fall and there is nothing they can do for you and you die, do you think they say the reason for your death is because of the drugs or because of the fall?  A certain percentage of the drug disclaimers say that one of the side effect of taking the drug is death.  Doctors don’t tell their patients the side effects of taking the drugs so the consumer is left none the wiser.  Even if they do tell you, the consumer thinks he has no other options and consumes them anyway.  All these and more are the result of a medical system that is built on false assumptions. It is based on the idea that they are providing you health care when in fact they only make you dependent on them.

My treaty to each one of you is that there is a holistic alternative.  A program that takes all of the aspects of our being into consideration will always have more success.  A program that restores us to our natural balance has to be the goal.   A process that looks at the cause to why we have the problem and seeks to correct can lead us to the path of success.

The problem of having a holistic health care system involves several issues, one is education.  Most people don’t fully understand it. The second is that most holistic approaches are not all encompassing.  So you might go to a nutritionist, you might go get a massage. You might get acupuncture, or you might get some spiritual counseling but rarely would you go to one place to get them all integrated into a complete package.  The corollary to this is that there is no magic bullet.  There are many aspects of us.  Say there are eleven different parts to ourselves.  To get the greatest amount of healing you would have to address all eleven aspects of yourself.  If you only address one issue then you may get some improvement but you wouldn’t get the improvement that would come when you address three of the eleven or say 7 of them or say all 11.  This is why when people change one thing or get one service they may be discouraged.

Speaking metaphysically being discouraged or depressed means that one doesn’t have a “plan” or they don’t understand what the plan is for their success.  I believe that if we start with the idea that success is our goal, then there is a plan that leads us from where we are at currently to where we are going.  When a person can’t intuit what that plan is then they have depression.  Depression is not a problem of low serotonin levels.  It is a spiritual problem not a brain chemical imbalance as we have been led to believe.   So if you are depressed then it is because you are not connected to that part of your self that knows.  And not knowing is like driving at night with your headlights out.  If you drive at night with your headlights out then you are sure to hit something that you didn’t know was out there.  So in order to see ahead of yourself you have to turn your head lights on.  Then you can “see”. Seeing allows you to intuit or know what the plan is.  The fact that our nation has depression at record numbers is not because there is a shortage of depression drugs.  Can it be that the spiritual development of our nation has been stifled by the control of institutions that keeps us manipulated and dependent?

This brings me to another important point and that is that a true system for health and healing has to be based on Self Help.  Self help and self determination is the only way that a person can heal.  You can only find the greatest healing within yourself.  That is it must come from the inside out not the outside in.  It must be one of developing power internally and not externally imposed upon you. Any system that is based on control, which is imposed onto someone from the outside, is not a system that can work.  A true healing system has to be based on Self determination.  The person has to become there own doctor.  This means the persons delivering the program have to be on equal footing with the person taking the program.  This is where responsibility is a basic and important factor in success.  The person taking the program has to assume all responsibility for their success.  If not then they will not get the success they are looking for.  Most programs are unequally based.  So it creates a parent-child relationship.  Parent – child relationships are based on control.   Most children do what their parents tell them especially when the parent is nearby to watch over them.  But as soon as the parent goes away the children resort to doing what they want to do.  Even if the parent threatens punishment often that will not change behavior.      The program can’t be fear based.  Fear is the main reason that stops us from growing.  Fear is the opposite of growth and is what stops a person from creating success.  Responsibility is an important aspect to a successful health program simply because it is the result of our own actions, our own thoughts that works against us.  Most of us are concerned with being treated unfairly but we do more to hurt our own self then anyone else can do to us.    We have actually been programmed to work against our own selves.  We in fact are our own worse enemy.  So we have to undergo reprogramming.  One of the best tools for helping us to reprogram is martial arts.  Martial arts is a system of learning how to protect ones self.  Allbert Einstein  once said ” You can solve the problem with the same mind that created it”.  The analytical tools we used to solve our problems are done with the same mind that created the problem.  Thy mind has its own brain. The mind says it wants cookies, cupcakes, drugs and alcohol. The mind is saying that it knows things are not good for us but it can’t overcome the bodies cravings and desires.  As a result we capitulate.  Part of a holistic process would be to reprogram our mind and body to become One.

There was once a movement on the part of allopathic medicine to disregard and to even sabotage holistic health practices.  Many years ago before there were drugs for things or people couldn’t’ afford to go to a doctor they had people who practiced more natural forms of health.  If you were sick you might go to a neighbor lady who would put together some herbs for you and might suggest an enema or you might go to the “healing waters”, natural mineral springs that existed in many parts of the country.  The systems of control that all of our institutions are based on wanted to take the power away from those that it feared.  In some parts of the states and other country’s you had occurrences where the people who practiced this natural healing were labeled as “witches” and they were gotten rid of by the ruling power at the time.  So while allopathic medicine has many years to develop it, holistic medicine has been subdued and held down in its development.  It has been disregard as not important.  Even to this day you have some doctors telling their patients that what they eat has little consequence to their health or encouraging them to not pursue holistic methods because it might interfere with their medications.  Not long ago you had doctors even promoting smoking cigarettes.  The treatment of holistic health by allopaths has been one of disdain and disregard.  This leads many people to distrust it.

In order to for people to really utilize holistic health they will have to change how they approach it.  Many people feel like they don’t have the time for it.  They want something quick  and fast.  Our society is speeding up or so it seems.  It seems like with all the things that must be done in a day, no one has the time to meditate or even to go to a grocery store and spend more then a few second’s grabbing things that are familiar.  The rise of convenience and of fast food reflects this.  What seems odd however is that the more things we have that get us there faster the less time we have.  Despite fast food, tivo, computers that go at ever faster speeds, we seem to have less and less time for the things that are important to us.  This is what happens when you have an artificial environment such as cities.  Cities do not promote the natural environment. As a result we have gotten disconnected from our natural environment and as a result we want things to happen now.  Any trip to a natural country side will give you a more natural and relaxing experience. It will give you more time to actually think or not think and more time to enjoy the present moment.

This country is going through a big change and for those who are ready to stop being ”played” by drug pushers  and those that conspire with them I propose the Holistic Alternative.   Success can be measured in your experience in returning you to your natural self.  This is a new proposition for many of us but it has its roots squarely in the history of what real health is about.

Freedom, liberation and success are the goal in life. This is characterized by our experience of peace, love and happiness.  Our various institutions have not fully  supported us in achieving this what some may believe a Utopian existence.  This is the problem of the society as a whole and the institutions that govern it.  Success is guaranteed when we use more parts of ourselves that allows us to rise above the small minded egos that have created the institutions that control us.  Freedom and liberation from the things that hold our physical, mental and spiritual selves down is possible.  Consciousness is everything.  And with a growing consciousness of ourselves of who we are on a physical, mental and spiritual level we will one day find ourselves free. Ultimately the freedom and the power to achieve it must be found inside of ourselves. And it can’t be given by someone to us and ultimately it can’t be taken away from us. With adequate resources, a strong will and love anyone can find their natural balance.   There will come a time when Holistic Health institutions will be as common as hospitals.  Instead of waiting for your body to breakdown from stress and an unnatural environment, people will go to centers located in the country, where they can find themselves and connect with their natural selves.  They will be respected and given all the tools they need to heal themselves, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.     That time is now for those who are ready.

Depression and the Holistic Alternative

Depression has been co-opted by the psychiatric medical profession as an imbalance that should be treated with drugs. There is a holistic alternative. But why use herbs, diet, exercise and communication to deal with depression, rather than your doctor’s prescription?

Drugs like Prozac, Xenax, Haldol, Lithium and a a whole host of psychiatric drugs are being prescribed by doctors across the country as a quick antidote and long-term solution to depression, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and other psychiatric problems. But what is the cost?

The first thing that must be understood about using drugs to treat any problem that you have whether physical, mental, emotional is that DRUGS DO NOT ALLOW YOU TO HEAL. Drugs treat the symptoms but do not treat the cause. In dis-ease you have the symptom and you have the cause. Its like taking a drug for a headache. When you do, and the pain goes away, you may think you have solved your problem. But in reality you have only manipulated the symptom; the cause as to why you had the pain in the first place is still there.

We have been led to believe by the psychiatric doctors that depression is a physical-mental illness caused by an imbalance of seratonin levels. Amazingly enough this has never been proven. In fact these drugs are actually spreading an epidemic of long-term brain damage; mental “illnesses” like schizophrenia, depression and anxiety disorder have not been proven to be genetic or even physical in origin. Neuroleptic drugs are chemical lobotomizing agents with no specific therapeutic effect on any symptom or problems. Their main impact is to blunt and subdue the individual, rendering the individual less able to react or to move. Thus they produce a chemical lobotomy and a chemical straitjacket. These drugs are the cause of a plague of brain damage that affects up to half or more of long-term patients. (Peter Breggin, M.D. 1991)

So these drugs cause the very mental imbalances that they are meant to treat. Your body does not have a medical requirement for anything produced by a pharmaceutical company. The American Psychiatric Association – like the American Medical Association – has been fully bought out by the pharmaceutical industry. To take these drugs is to doom yourself to more mental illness. Furthermore, these drugs can cause permanent brain damage. Tardive Dyskinesia and Tardive Dementia is a disease frequently caused by neuroleptics. The term “tardive” means late developing or delayed; “dyskinesia” means abnormal movement. Tardive dyskinesia is a movement disorder that can afflict any of the voluntary muscles, from the eyelids, tongue, larynx, and diaphragm to the neck arms, legs and torso. On rare occasions it can occur after a few weeks or months, but usually it strikes the individual after six months to two years of treatment. Any of the neuroleptics can cause tardive dyskinesia. The total dosage probably affects the likelihood of this happening but the dose relationship is not easily demonstrated and any amount must be considered dangerous. While some symptoms improve or even disappear after removal from the offending mediations, most are cases are permanent. There is no known treatment for tardive dyskinesia. Often the start of this symptom goes unnoticed, because the drugs that cause it also tend to suppress the overt symptoms. Tardive dementia is a complete deterioration of mental faculties. While tardive dyskinesia is a firmly established disease, tardive dementia remains more controversial (although evidence for its existence seems incontrovertible).

So what is the alternative? First of all if you are taking these powerful drugs, do not stop taking them abruptly. Most psychiatric drugs are far more dangerous to take then people realize, but they also can become dangerous when discontinued too abruptly. Most have addictive qualities and can produce withdrawal symptoms that are emotionally and physically distressing and sometimes life threatening. Drugs that can produce withdrawal symptoms include narcoleptics or anti-psychotics, such as Haldol or Thorazine, antidepressants such as Tofanil and Elavil, stimulants such as Ritalin, minor tranquilizers such as Valium and Xanaz, and prescription sedatives or sleeping pills. Stopping psychiatric drugs should usually be done gradually and only with professional guidance.

With professional help, you can find the holistic alternative. Nutrition, herbal alternatives such as St. John’s Wort, Kava Kava, Melatonin, Valerian Root, and Ginseng can all be used to support the transition and treatment of someone suffering mental illness. Also exercise, internal cleansing and detoxification must be a part of a holistic program to address one’s health needs.

On the spiritual level, depression certainly have its roots in the loss of something or someone that one has relied upon. If you have lost a significant relationship that you have relied upon, you will undoubtedly be depressed. Also it has to do with a lack of a plan for how one can be successful and accomplish their goals. Perhaps on a deeper spiritual level some people don’t truly have an idea of what their spiritual goals are in life, or a plan of how to achieve them. We are made up of many parts. Bringing those parts into alignment with the higher parts of yourself and of our universe is part of what spiritual counseling can do for you.

When you have problems in life you can search for the quick fix that numbs your mind, body and spirit, or you can truly search for the physical, mental and spiritual reasons for why you have the problem. Presenting yourself to your local doctor may be something that you do in your search for truth. But if you find yourself not satisfied with what you have been given, then maybe it is time you continue your search. Don’t give up. You are in a fight to survive and to be successful. One thing is for certain: your body is made perfect and whenever something is happening with it, you should use that as an opportunity to listen to your body and bring your body in alignment with the Higher forces of the universe. Pain on any level is a sign that your body is out of balance with these higher forces. Don’t thwart your body’s efforts to be truly free and to be liberated from the chains that bind you. You can and will be successful. Your commitment to live truth and to be successful is something that you can and should commit yourself to. Better to fight for that and die for your freedom, than to be enslaved by the chains that would bind you.

Prescription Drugs and the Holistic Alternative

In remembrance

Health Ledger, Anna Nicole Smith and  Michael Jackson dead but not forgotten. Each separate individuals, miles apart but each one ending up in the same place.

What do all these high-profile celebrities have in common? Most likely they have people around them who enabled them to continue taking prescription drugs for their pain and ailments.  The whole world knows of these three but there are many millions of people who do the same thing just without the notoriety.  The other side of this coin is personal responsibility.  Regardless of who is around you everyone is personally responsible for their own health.  There is no one to blame.  It’s either be a victim or a victor of your circumstances. Each of these people were going places.  But the place they wanted to go couldn’t be obtained because they neglected one of the most important assets they had, their physical body.  You can’t achieve the highest level of success physically without a healthy physical body to support you.  A healthy physical body starts with a healthy mind and healthy emotional state.

Is this your wake call?

This is America’s wake up call.  You can’t be in your 40′s and 50′s or older and using prescription meds for pain, sleep and depression and expect to last very long.  The use of prescription drugs is our denial

Yesterday my neighbor died. He was in his mid 80′s. May he rest in peace. He was a nice man. But for some reason I couldn’t impress upon him the need to get off of his prescription drugs. Elderly people have such a strong belief in Doctors and prescription medications. They have been led down the prim rose path by the belief that their doctors can save them. That the doctor can relieve them of their ailments. It’s a sad and very often repeated refrain. Little do they know until it’s too late that the doctor can’t save them. And prescription drugs can kill them.

Drugs are Toxic to the body

Taking any drug is toxic to you. So let’s be clear about that. When they show commercials on TV for prescription meds they will give you their disclaimer at the end. “Don’t take if you have liver problems” Can cause ……..”But that now is so ingrained into people’s unconscious that the don’t even hear it or they pay little to no attention to it.
If you are in your 30′s or 40′s or 50′s and you are taking medications then God help you when you reach your 60′s , 70′s and 80′s. You will by that time be taking a boat load of medications and each one of those medications by themselves and combined with each other will undoubtedly be your undoing. And if you should have to go to the hospital then for sure only God can help you because the doctors , and nurses have a whole system set up that will kill you faster than any thing you actually went in there for will. It’s a frightening scenario.

Holistic Solutions

As a Clinical Nutritionist I have been talking to people for many years including my own family about the need to seek holistic solutions for their health. Some people get it and some never do. Some get it but by then its the 11th hour and by that time they don’t have any fight left in them. And the drugs will take the fight out of you that is for sure. Once your will to live leaves then you might as well kiss it, your friends and family goodbye.

The downward spiral

Usually people start this demise by going for the non prescription stuff like aspirin, Tylenol and the like. They get a headache and they take an aspirin. The headache goes away and they think they think nothing else about it until it returns. And of course it will return. Taking an aspirin for a headache or any pain is not really doing anything for the problem. Because the reason that you have the problem is still there. You can manage your symptoms but without getting to the cause then you will get another occurrence of it. And it is clear taking aspirin and Tylenol is very harmful to you.  Every year 50,000 people die from liver failure from taking Acetaminophen ( Tylenol) alone.

Ants and roaches in your kitchen?

Take antibiotics for another instance. Taking antibiotics is like having roaches and ants come into your kitchen because there is food there for them to eat. So you logically conclude that you need to get rid of them so you reach for the Raid or other similar product. You kill all the ants and roaches and then conclude that your job is done and you put the Raid back in the cupboard under the sink. Now that is a logical solution to the problem but it is not holistically logical. The reason is that if you don’t clean up whatever the ants and roaches were feeding on then they will inevitably be back. Besides that the Raid not only kills ants and roaches it is toxic to humans and kills them too!
Taking antibiotics causes cancer. But yet people take them like they are candy. It’s no wonder that the third leading cause of death is at the hands of doctors and prescription medicines. There is a better way. But it requires you to make changes in how you live your life. This is the critical point. If you don’t make any changes then you don’t get any healing. By that definition along what the doctors offer is not a true healing therapeutic. When he /she gives you those pills they don’t tell you to make any changes. They just give you pills or surgery. They don’t say that you have to make any changes. Or the changes they do suggest are not going to do what you need to have done. There is no use in getting nutrition advice from a doctor. They are not nutritionist. There advise if they give any is not sufficient. And when you go see the doctor they only spend a small amount of time with you, prescribe you some medicine and then say “Next”! This is one of the main problems with our health care system. It relies too much on doctors and drugs and not enough on making changes to a persons physical , and mental self. How a person deals with stress, etc.

The solution to relying on prescription drugs is the holistic health alternative.  But unfortunately most people don’t understand it.  Most people try some alternatives such as taking some vitamins , they might try getting a massage, or they may even try  to get some exercise.  But usually they try only one or two things and then when it doesn’t yield any appreciable results and then they continue with what they normally do, taking over the counter drugs and then prescription drugs.  Everyone seems to have a regular doctor that they see and it is the mindset of the doctor to only offer them drugs or surgery.  It is this mindset and the lack of understanding of the alternatives that have most people doomed to following the doctors orders. One pill always leads to another pill.  And before you know it the person is taking a whole host of drugs and suffering greater and greater symptoms.

Holistic Health is really the only thing that works when it comes to being healthy.  Now I am not talking about a traumatic threat to your health.  If you get hit by a bus, or some other tragedy then by all means go to a doctor.  Emergency medicine is what doctors do best.  I am always amazed at how they are able to keep a cool head and attend to the persons trauma.

After the events around the death of celebrities came to light, there was a tremendous outcry and call for the heads of the doctors who gave them the medications.  But the problem isn’t  just a problem of doctors over prescribing.

Taking medications to deal with health issues

The core of the issue has to be in the use of medications at all.  It’s within the culture to use medications. Certainly all the advertising which is essentially programming that makes people comfortable with the idea of taking medications.    Its starts with simple aspirin and over the counter meds. One drug always leads to another drug.  Most of the people in the US use aspirin , Tylenol and the like.  And the problem with them all is that if you start to use them then your body becomes tolerant of it and so you need more.  No matter what the drug, pretty soon you will be taking more of it.  And this is why they whole idea of using them in the first place is to take you down a path of no return. Its a path towards death.   Health is not where you are at, more its the direction in which you are going.

But if it isn’t a trauma then Holistic health should be an approach that people should start to consider.

 

Which Direction are you going?

Life<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<            >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Death

One of the least understood aspects of a person’s health is that most people don’t understand the context of their health with the symptoms they have.  There is a progression of health in one direction or the other.  You are not standing still in space and time.  In fact you are moving through space and time  in one direction or the other.  Your body is always trying to bring you back to a state of homeostasis.  Your body is self healing.  It is trying to heal you from the imbalance that you put it in.  When you get up in the morning and have to go to the bathroom, that is your bodies attempt to heal you.  The direction you are going in will be signified by the symptoms you have.  Say you start in the middle and you don’t have any symptoms, or say you only have a very few symptoms.  Say you have some slight indigestion, and maybe some constipation.  Maybe you get headaches occasionally.  You take some fiber product, you take some pepto bismal, you take and aspirin for the occasional headache.  But your problems seem to keep reoccurring.  So at some point you have to keep taking these things or you get reoccurrences of the same problems.

This is an example of someone not heading their bodies warnings and basically killing the messenger.  So instead of making fundamental changes to diet and lifestyle you just take something for it.  This sets you up in a pattern of looking outside of yourself for something to take as a way of balancing your energy.  This is where the fundamental problem comes from.  This idea that its all about looking for a pill or something outside of yourself to make you feel better.  Lets consider indigestion for example.  Indigestion has a lot to do with your feelings and emotions.  No matter how good the food is , if you are an emotional person then it will effect your bodies ability to digest properly.

So how a person handles their stress.  How they identify with their emotions will effect their digestion.  In addition to these factors one has to look at the foods they eat and whether they are also a part of the problem. In Holistic Health we don’t separate the body from the mind and emotions.  They all are connected and unless you deal with them all then you will only have a small amount of relief.  And when you are only getting a small amount of relief you will wind up going for something stronger like a drug.    For a doctor to tell someone they have “brain chemical imbalance” and then prescribing antidepressants is in my mind , next to a criminal act.   Especially in light of the fact that 90% of the serotonin production in your body is done in your stomach! The blind faith that we put into doctors is really at the core of our problem.  We think of doctors as Gods and only result to malpractice lawsuits when they don’t meet up to our expectations.  This is one of the reasons that these lawsuits are spiraling out of control. Rather then resort to victimization I would like to support everyone to taking charge of their lives.  Your body is perfect.  And its self Healing.  Get back to who you naturally are.  You can achieve your highest level of health without the use of drugs.

If you are in need of greater support to do that then, the support you need is here.  This is why we have created Sacred Space Retreats in Middletown, California. Giving yourself the time and attention that you need is really at the core of Holistic Health.   You can’t achieve health from a pill.  You can achieve it only through love. What ever you love grows. And so by giving yourself the time and attention you need you will discover that your body can heal itself. And that in your commitment to yourself you will achieve your highest goals in life:  Peace, love and happiness.