In my 20 years as a holistic nurse I would have to say that digestive disorders are one of the most common complaints I get from my clients.

And yet, Ayurveda offers treatments that can completely reverse symptoms and digestive problems. As a clinical ayurvedic specialist the simplicity of the treatments I recommend to my clients often surprises them. Just because the remedies are simple, easy, and don’t require prescription or over the counter medications doesn’t mean they aren’t effective.

Here’s one of my simplest tips that you can use to heal your digestion at the source, the root of the problem, once and for all.

~~ Know your “dosha”

According to Ayurveda, every individual has his or her own unique and specific body type.

It is referred to as your constitution, or “dosha”. There are nine basic body types in Ayurveda that are used as general guidelines to determine your unique physical, mental, and emotional make up. The proportion of various elements in your body type is the key to healing in Ayurveda.

It’s important to have an idea of your constitution because each body type has conditions that it is prone to and treatment is individualized according to your body type and needs.

So how does that effect your digestion? And how can you use this information to restore balance and promote health and healing? Read the rest of this entry »

This has been a saying that I adotped many years ago.  I can’t honestly remember when or where I first heard it.  When a colleague sent me this article by one of the leading experts in the field of clinical aromatherapy  I felt it an important reminder for any one wishing to heal illness with a bodymind approach.

Release the Emotion and the Disease Disappears
~~ by David Stewart

There are many books that connect physical diseases, illnesses, and conditions with unresolved emotions buried in our body and psyche. These books include “Feelings Buried Alive Never Die,” by Karol Truman, “A More Excellent Way,” by Henry Wright, “Heal Your Body,” by Louise Hay, and “Releasing Emotional Patterns with Essential Oils,” by Carolyn Mein. There is also a DVD entitled, “Emotional Releasing With Oils,” by David Stewart.

The idea is this. When we face a stressful emotional issue that we are unable to handle, our mind saves the memory for us to access at a later time when we will be more mature and better able to deal with it. Experiences that result in buried feelings tend to happen more often in our childhoods when we are less able to cope. They may be forgotten, consciously, but they are not lost. Instead they lodge as cellular memories, lurking in our bodies, only to come back to us as teenagers or adults resurrected, but disguised, as physical maladies. How does this happen?

Your Body as a Digital Library

Each cell of our body has 6 gigabytes of memory and we have an estimated 100 trillion cells. This provides each and every one of us an almost unlimited capability to store memories of forgotten traumas in our cells. When we face a situation we can’t handle, we don’t get to avoid it. We can postpone it, but we can’t avoid it. Stressful situations are opportunities to learn spiritual lessons we need to learn. So if we don’t handle the situation and resolve the feelings now, in present time, our minds do not forget and erase. They just postpone us having to deal with the crisis until we are more ready at some future time.

At the instant of the unbearable experience, your emotional (limbic) brain acts as a librarian with your body as the library. Your mind will choose a place to store that memory for future reference. If, say, the chosen place in your bodily library is your pancreas, then that tramatic memory will lodge there and you won’t even know such a memory is there, perhaps, for years. Eventually you develop hypoglycemia or a pain in your left side, which is your Pancreas’ way of tapping you on the shoulder to say, “There is an issue here you need to deal with.” If we don’t understand that the pancreas is attempting to communicate a message to us and we keep misunderstanding and postponing the taking of appropriate action, the hypoglycemia develops into diabetes or the pain just gets more severe. If we still don’t understand the message and respond, the condition can get worse and worse until we die.

Diseases as Coded Messages

Most bodily diseases are coded messages from our subconscious minds to remind us that unresolved issues, stored in our tissues, are seeking to be resolved. They are saying, “Now is the time. Fix it now.” You don’t need to wonder if you are ready and able to deal with the buried issues at this time or not. Your body’s wisdom knows when you are ready and chooses the right time for you. So any time you suffer from any physical condition, chronic or acute, ask yourself what happened in the past, perhaps even the distant past, that is the root cause this condition and then attempt to decode the message and take action to resolve it.

It takes a lot of honest introspection, prayer, and inner spiritual effort to succeed, but it is what we have to do. An emotional issue resolved is a spiritual lesson learned. When the emotional root of a physical condition has been resolved, the physical condition will disappear because it was only a message, a message no longer needed. It may not disappear overnight, it may take time, but it will disappear and, sometimes, literally overnight.

The rewards for engaging in dialy efforts to clear our emotional baggage are many. Our physical disabilities can disappear. Our happiness level increases and a sense of peace comes over us. We feel closer to God and a greater sense of security. We become more stable, more focused, and a more pleasant person to be around. Working on ourselves to throw out our emotional hitchhikders is one of the most rewarding things we can do for ourselves and for everyone around us.

A Case in Point

I recently was witness to a near-instant healing from an emotional release that dramatically demonstrated that “When the underlying emotion is cleared, the overlying malady disappears.”

I was doing a free public program on emotional releasing. 40-50 people had come. Before the meeting began I noticed a lady seated beyond the back row with her legs proped on a chair. I went back to tell her that she wouldn’t be able to see or hear as well back there and there were plenty of seats closer to the front. She replied that her legs and feet were severaly swollen and she had to keep them up on a chair in order to sit through the program without too much discomfort. She said that she did not know anything about essential oils and had come out of curiosity.

I returned to the front of the room and began the program. About an hour into the program I was talking about how certain physical conditions correspond to certain emotions. I asked the audience to name me some physical problems and I would look the roots in one of the books I had on hand. The lady in the back raised her hand and asked me to look up “edema or swelling in the lower limbs.” I did, and the answer was this is symbolic of “hanging onto things you need to let go of.” She nodded in agreement with that finding.

Later, during the last 45 minutes of the program, I called for a volunteer to be the receiver of a facilitated emotional release to be done on a massage table a the front of the room. Since many raised their hands as willing volunteers, we took names and drew one from a hat. The person with edema in the back of the room was the one drawn.

We went through the emotional releasing protocol, using a number of oils, as a teaching demonstration for the audience. Oils were applied to her feet, neck, and head while she was given oils to apply to her abdomen and heart at certain times during the demonstration. After the preparatory stage, releasing stage, and concluding grounding stage, all of which took only about 30 minutes, she was ready to sit up. She commented that she had let go of a lot of “stuff.” But that was all she said. She was given a bottle of water to drink and the program was concluded. That was in the afternoon.

“My Edema is No More!”

That evening I was giving a public program on “Healing Oils of the Bible” at the same community hall. An even larger group showed up for that when in walked the lady who had had the swollen legs and feet.

“Dr. Stewart,” she said, “Look at my shoes. They are brand new but I have not been able to wear them for months because of the swelling. But look! My edema is no more!” she exclaimed. “Today, within an hour after the program, my edema completely and totally disappeared and I can wear my new shoes again.”

It was quite visible that her extremities were no longer swollen. She was very happy and her face appeared to be years younger. That afternoon she had not been planning to return that evening for the Scriptural Oils program, but she did. And she was able to sit comfortably in a chair for a program lasting two-and-a-half hours without needing to prop her legs up, as had been necessary just a few hours earlier.

This is a good illustration of the dictum: “When emotions are resolved, the corresponding body condition disappears, because it was only a message which is now understood, acted upon, and no longer necessary.”

So many times people assume that using “holistic” medicine means they  have to spend a lot of money on all sorts of supplements and organic foods, and in these “lean” times they see it as an added expense with little long term benefits.  Not True.  Using an truly INtegrative approach to health can save you money.

Let me give a recent real life example on how holistic medicine saved about $900.

I broke a tooth.  There was no pain, and it was not sensitive to hot or cold.  I did not go running to the dentist.  For a few weeks I brushed and flossed diligently and put a dab of lavender essential oil on it 3 times a day.

Forward two weeks, listening to my intuition it was time to get the tooth fixed. the dentist took an x ray, patched the tooth and sent me on my way.  Three days later I had a toothache and abscess.  The dentist was convinced the tooth was “dying”, and assumed it was time for a root canal.  Yet, when he took another x ray he said he could not do a root canal based on the results.  He sent me home on an antibiotic.

I was happy to take the antibiotic if it meant no root canal, I know plenty of things to do and take to counter the damage the antibiotic would do to my intestinal flora and immune system.  I loaded up on omega oils, beneficial bacteria, and smoothies with lots of enzyme rich fruits, and vitamin C. 

After two weeks, all fixed, all better, all healed…..I’m a happy camper.  Still financially way ahead of the game versus a root canal, and saved several hours of my time not sitting in the dentist chair….not to mention pain.

I continued using Lavender essential oil but also added Thieves Oil,  Thieves mouthwash, and Thieves toothpaste.  (for more info on Thieves www.MarthaGesegnet.com )

Fast forward three weeks, I woke up with an abscess in the same area, now it’s painful.  Off I go to the dentist.  Now he is REALLY pushing for a root canal.  He states that this is an indicator, the repeated abscesses.  He takes yet another x ray, but doesn’t charge me for it.

He is puzzled, he doesn’t see what he expects to see. This is when it pays to really tune in to your intuition.   My experience as a nurse and holistic practitioner, for 20 years, has shown me that when modern medicine can’t find a reason for your symptoms, this is the best time to emply principles and techniques from energy medicine.  Your body-mind has not “cemented” the physical symptoms into your energy field yet!

This is when you have the best chance of changing the “vibration” of the illness, and preventing it from becoming permanent.  ( that’s also why energy medicine is for preventing illness, it can break up congested areas before it turns into a serious illness).

I resisted my dentist’s urgings for a root canal.  We scheduled an in depth cleaning on that side of my mouth for two days later.  I continued with the essential oils and increased their use to every 2 hours.  I also got out my Louise Hay book, “Heal Your Body”.  I looked up abscess, gum disease, and teeth.  The metaphysicalal suggestions were very close to what I was currently experinceing on an EMOTIONAL level in my life.

I began repeating the corresponding affirmations every hour and continued with the essential oils.  I returned to the dentist for the cleaning.  He again urged that despite the “inconclusive” x ray, the tooth was mostly likely dying and I needed a root canal.

Being aware of your own health and body is very important.  I was very aware that this second abscess was not located around the original broken tooth, but rather the one next to it.  This would again lead me to believe that from an energetic perspective, the infection/ abscess was mobile, not locked in to the same tooth.  When I questioned the dentist he had no real explanation.  I inquired, “then are both teeth dying?  Which tooth needs a root canal? “ 

Trust yourself. Listen to your intuition. If you don’t know what that sounds like, learn. Find a holisitc practitioner that can help to reconnect you to your own inner healer.  Find a team of practitioners that can reconnect you to the language of your higher self and your body.

Until the dentist could show me definitive proof, or I was in constant excruciating misery, I was not willing to let him do a root canal.  Let’s remember , that is how he supports his family and life style.  He was very familiar with Thieves products, some of his hygenists use them at home.  He said he could not consciously recommend them to his patients because there are no proven clinical trials.

It is prudent to remind everyone reading, Aspirin was never approved by the FDA in clinical trials, no one really knows how it works, yet it is taken by millions every day.

Fast forward 3 months my tooth is fine, no more problems.  By combining good dental cleaning,  xrays, antibiotic therapy, essential oil therapy, energy medicine, and mind/spirit affirmations I was able to heal two dental abscesses and avoid a root canal.

A savings of about $900.  I already had all those oils on hand, but they cost about $75.  The antibiotic, x rays, cleaning, and office visits were about $215.  Had I let him do the root canal, $1200.  Cost of trusting yourself and working with your own inner healer? PRICELESS.