Introducing Generation P

Definition Of A Legacy

A Legacy is any behavior or belief system that sets up a negative pattern or cycle that persists from one generation to the next in a family or relationship dynamic, e.g., sexual abuse, domestic violence, alcoholism, verbal abuse, obsessions, depression, drug abuse, negative and destructive behaviors or thought patterns. These patterns and cycles affect how we interact with each other at every conceivable level, whether it’s a brief encounter with a stranger or an acquaintance, to how we treat our loved ones and ourselves. This includes our children.

Our thought patterns and belief systems influence how we parent, how we work with children’s issues, and how we educate them. It affects how we think about children, how we talk to children, how we discipline them, and determines how and what behaviors and belief systems we model for them to learn. Today’s children are demonstrating to us the effects of these old belief systems, patterns, and cycles in ways that leave adults feeling confused, helpless, and vulnerable. These feelings are sending adults into depression, anger, and anxiety. Adults are in chaos right now because they don’t understand who the children are. They don’t fit the mold of previous generations and they are causing adults to challenge all of society’s old patterns and belief systems about themselves and children.

Who Are The Children?

Today’s children share characteristics, talents, gifts, and challenges that have never been seen before in any previous generation. They have achieved critical mass around the planet to the point that we have been able to label and categorize their behaviors into labels such as ADD/ADHD, bi-polar, learning disabled, gifted, or behavior-disordered. It’s interesting that almost all the labels are classified as mental and emotional disorders by the psychiatric and medical industries.

The chemical and medical community has persuaded the public that any behaviors or attitudes found to be disruptive, not understood by the establishment or that seems to threaten the authoritarian order of things, are mental disorders that require drugs to control.

Introducing Generation P

We believe that there is nothing wrong with today’s children. All of the labels used today categorize children by behaviors and learning styles. None of them describe who the children really are or why they are here on the planet at this time. All of the children, regardless of their behaviors, talents, gifts, or abilities are here for one reason and one reason only: They are here to usher in the prophesied thousand years of peace. Peace is an acronym:

Prayer
Through the use of prayer, the children will
Enlightenment
lead us toward Enlightenment,
Awareness
raising our Awareness of the negative patterns and cycles in our lives
Centering
This creates the Centering that
Everyone
Everyone must achieve to attain the reality of the world living in
PEACE.

Children today have a particular level of awareness around this mission. Every child, regardless of the labels or categories we use to understand them, plays a part in helping us achieve a level of consciousness that creates a reality of the world living in peace. For this reason, we would like to introduce a new term that doesn’t segregate children by behaviors or perceived disabilities. If we are going to put a label on it, it should describe what all children are here to do. Today’s children are the Peacemakers. Let’s call them Generation P.

Interacting with Generation P

Society is still operating under a very old pattern that has existed since the patriarchal system gained dominance in civilization. This pattern is a belief system that has permeated everything. This belief system says that women and children are chattel, property, and not human. A pattern was set up that everyone - men, women, children - had to agree on to make it work as well as it has. This belief system allowed us to parent using the authoritarian, militaristic philosophies and behaviors that most adults experienced growing up. All of these old systems set up patterns and cycles that science is now beginning to prove become permanently ingrained in us. The resulting behaviors and attitudes can and do manifest throughout an entire family genealogy, setting up the legacies that keep us from achieving the peace and wholeness we deserve in our lives. Recognizing these patterns and cycles and then applying holistic and spiritual modalities to heal them will break the legacies that bind us.

With the use of holistic modalities and spiritual belief systems (not religious or religion-based), adults and children are healing their own legacies so that we can all pave the way for PEACE. Everyone is helped through the apparent chaos that is created when we begin the process of dissolving the fears that keep us from becoming Who We Are. Every person who enters into Chaos needs to be supported through the process so that they can emerge into the light of awareness and higher consciousness. As each individual achieves healing in that process, they help raise the vibration of the planet. As the vibrations increase, we come closer to achieving a thousand years of peace. The Generation P’s mission is to usher in that Golden Age of Peace. As awake and aware adults, we are here to create the scenarios that allow the children to be successful.

Detox Protocols

Over the years, I have repeated the nutritional advice I'm about to give hundreds of time. I have been requested to summarize this information. I recommend this protocol because of my own personal experience with it, as well as the results witnessed with my clients. I encourage everyone to do their own research. There are as many ways to detox as there are people on the planet. If necessary, consult your nutritionist and/or the appropriate doctor or chiropractor for personal assistance.

Change Of Seasons

All over the Eastern World and Europe right now, a ritual is taking place as the seasons change. At every change of season, as advocated by Traditional Chinese and Auryvedic Medicine, people will do a 7 - 30 day long detoxification process to prepare for the change of weather. This is a preventative measure undertaken to insure good health throughout the season. How many of us experience sinus problems, colds, flu or flu-like symptoms, bronchitis, or general malaise when the weather changes?

In this country, we don't know very much about seasonal detoxification. Heck, we don't know much about detoxification, period. But, it makes sense that we incorporate this thousands-of-years old practice into our preventative healthcare regimen. Below is a summary of the standard detoxification process I give to everyone. For those who have followed it, we have seen digestive disorders clear up, severe muscular pain decreased, emotional stability become easier to maintain, some allergies all but disappear, and, of course, weight loss. Over the years, people have done all of these things or only part of them, but all have had success.

The Deb Redman Protocol

As Fall approaches, I will do the following:

Begin a regimen of cleansing herbs that come in the following products. Below is an outline of how to use the herbs.

Candistroy - 30 days
Paracleanse - 2 weeks
Complete Liver Cleanse - 2 weeks or 30 days

I squeeze two lemons into a cup of hot water every morning. I learned about the wonderful detox properties of lemon from a naturopathic doctor who recommends it to all of her patients. This stuff can be drunk all day long for the rest of your life! I complete at least four sessions of colon hydrotherapy during the 30-day detox program.

For the last couple of months, I have been testing a liquid vitamin called VIBE. This is a nutriceutical supplement that the above mentioned doctor told me about. In the next newsletter, I will share her story of how this product has worked for her son and why I am, after 16 years of not endorsing anything, agreeing to risk my integrity on this product. I have one client who agreed to test it for me and we watched his digestive challenges disappear in two weeks. If you would like more information, please email or call me.

How To Use The Herbs 1 - 14 Days

Candistroy is for a Candida cleanse. Candida is the umbrella term for the "bad" yeast that gets out of control in the digestive system. I will change my diet to eliminate sugar, yeast, wheat, dairy, and other allergens for the next thirty days. In addition, I will do at least four, if not five or more colonic hydrotherapy sessions to faciliate the elimination of the dead waste material produced by the candida cleanse. The dietary restrictions are highly important. The Candistroy product provides a list of recommended foods to remind you.

For more information about the effects of candida, candida diets and recipes, start with the Candida Page. I like this page because it isn't trying to sell product and it is a comprehensive list of resources. Take your time going through it.

14 - 30 Days

After you have been taking the Candistroy for about 14 days, start the Paracleanse. Read the instructions. The idea here is that you have to begin killing off the food source (candida, sugar, etc.) of the parasites so that it makes them easier to kill and eliminate. There is a lot to learn about parasites. The best site I've found so far that has an easy to read explanation is http://www.appliedozone.com/parasites.html. This is a comprehensive website, but they are selling product. If you try it, let me know about your results.

Here's a bit of information to get you going from Applied Ozone:

"Parasites and worms can invade your bodies through food and water intake, through transmitting agents (like mosquito), sexual conduct or through the nose and skin. Once established, they will eat the same foods you eat or they will eat you. People with intestinal parasite infections are usually under-nourished and weak, infected with viral, fungal, or bacteria, and have various types of chemical and metal poisoning. Human intestinal parasites can be present in any disease, in any person, at any age. They are responsible for many health problems because they secrete toxins and steal the vital nutrients from our bodies. They can irritate or exaggerate other health problems you may be experiencing. Everyone is at risk and under their mercy during parasitic infections.
We create the perfect living environment for parasites when the bowel becomes ineffective in the elimination of our waste products. The build-up of fecal material on the walls of the colon is attributed to constipation and the amounts of junk food, chemicals, bad fats and sweets [candida!] we consume. We poison ourselves from our own toxic waste and the waste from these creatures (auto intoxication) when this ideal habitat is created."

If that doesn't make you want to detox, I don't know what will!

Complete Liver Cleanse

During the 14 - 30 day period, you can also begin a product called Complete Liver Cleanse. You may choose to only do a liver cleanse if you have successfully completed a candida cleanse or parasite cleanse within the last 30 days. There are many home-based protocols for doing a liver cleanse. I like the herbs in a pill because most people I know won't take the time to do it the old-fashioned way. The liver is THE most important organ in the body! If your liver cannot get rid of the toxins, excess hormones, medication build-up, and other junk produced by the body, you die. Period. Doesn't matter how healthy your heart is, how much you wiegh, how old you are, or what your overall health condition happens to be. Your liver is the foundation for all of it.

I have not found a website that is neutral about product or method or that is comprehensive enough in its explanation about liver cleansing. I recommend you do your own Google search. If you find a website you like, send it to me so that it can be referred to others.

Conclusion

I know this seems like a lot to do. Remember that it took years for your body to build-up toxins and parasite infestations. The results are worth it.

Weird Things Happening

I often find that whatever is happening in my experiences is about to happen with my clients. I learn from the event and then clients who need the knowledge show up. It's worked that way for me for years. This time I am encountering a time period where weird things are happening to a number of fellow healers. Some of the ways this energy is manifesting include getting fingers caught and seriously cut in car doors, being attacked by yellow jackets, migraines, car accidents, or a disturbing drop in regular client appointments.

One healer hasn’t had a migraine in ten years and was taken down a little over a week ago. I haven’t had a car accident in 14 years and had one a week ago. Another healer was closing the same car door she’s closed for years and still can’t figure out how her hand got caught in the latch to cause a deep cut two weeks ago. Because we all know each other, we have been able to help each other facilitate rapid healing processes. Another healer who has had the fortune to have a very steady clientele for four years has experienced a precipitous decline in appointments in the last two months. In fact, we all have experienced that phenomenon. WHAT is going on? That is the big question on our minds.

My car accident has helped bring some answers. I did three things that have helped me and I’m sharing with you. First of all, I followed my own advice and got IMMEDIATE care after the accident. I received energy healing, chiropractic care, and craniosacral therapy to prevent the whiplash, mild concussion, and overall disruption of systems to set up any memory in my body.

Secondly, I meditated and set an intention to only look for the positive things that occurred and will only accept that there is good in this situation. It may not look like it as I drop a chunk of money on car repairs and related expenses, but I have learned that what is in our highest good doesn’t always look the way we think it should.

Thirdly, I looked to the collective energies that have been surrounding us as so many people begin to experience similar events. When I shared what happened to me, other healers began sharing similar stories. What we all feel is that there has been a big shift in the collective energies of the planet that is causing a rise in vibration. These infusions of new energy seem to require some dramatic ways to knock out the old patterns and low vibrations we have been carrying around. The message I received is to be focused on my purpose but be flexible and non-resistant to the energies that buffet me around, seemingly trying to knock me off course.

One healer likened it to dancing with ocean waves. As she taught her 9-year-old son to ride the waves, she realized that it’s best to keep watching the wave as it approaches. Rather than turn against the wave, she told him, watch it as it comes in and when he feels it begin to come over him, jump into the wave. The force of the water lifts him up, keeping his head and shoulders above the wave. He never losses sight of the ocean as he is temporarily moving with the water’s ebb and flow. He learned that by doing this, he won’t drown and he can experience what it’s like to sort of body surf. I can’t think of a more appropriate analogy for what’s happening to all of us at this time.

We are all experiencing a cleansing of old patterns and energies right now. This will manifest in any number of ways and will be similar but individual to each person. I learned that stubbornly clinging to one way to do things is no longer serving me. I can keep my eye on the prize while riding the waves with flexibility. Learning to move with, instead of trying to bulldoze through, these energies makes life a lot easier. Doing what it takes to make sure I stay in that state of flexibility is my job at this time.

Bodywork, energy work, meditation, group support, exercise, and having fun are the best ways to do my job. Check in with yourself. What are the best ways for you to clear old energy?

The New Nature of Relationships

Nature of Relationships

As a healer, I do quite a bit of relationship coaching with clients. That includes all types of relationships - significant other/significant other, divorce, separation, family member/family member, friend/friend. Regardless of the sexes of the individuals involved, the dynamics and vibration of relationships is the same. No one has a monopoly on that. Well, unless you subscribe to the traditional, conservative social mores and ethics. If you do, then you aren’t going to understand anything I’m about to say.

The nature of relationships is changing as the vibrations of the planet get higher. We’ve been in a huge vibratory shift for a long time now that has gotten very much stronger in the last year. It’s going to increase gradually over the coming years until we achieve a balance between higher and lower planes of existence. The Light, as we like to call Higher Vibration, is now firmly anchored into the heart of Mother Earth. As this has occurred, the Low Vibrational energy that has existed there has to be displaced. We tend to look at Low Vibrational energy as the Patriarchal Energy.

The Old Perception of Marriage

Patriarchal Energy has been what has shaped our belief systems and given us the boundaries that structure how we behave in relationships. We believe it’s immoral and unethical to covet another man’s wife because it was a law laid down by a bunch of men over 2,000 years ago. Who remembers that that law came into being because women were treated like property? It was illegal to covet another man’s donkey, too. I love donkeys, don’t get me wrong. But the old Mosaic Law put the punishment for stealing a woman on par with stealing a donkey. Both were considered equal assets to a man’s wealth. Today, in many states across the United States, you can technically be convicted of adultery and serve a jail sentence of as much as two years even for a first offense. There are people who have stolen a car for kicks who only get six months or probation for a first offense.

Now, a person getting convicted of simple adultery doesn’t happen too often anymore in this day and age. Mind you, I’m not talking about the guy who marries multiple women to swindle them. I’m talking about the common situation of when one person in a marriage decides to have an emotional and/or sexual affair with another person outside the marriage. If a divorce ensues, the "injured" party has the right to sue the person who cheated on the grounds of adultery. The Rule of Common Sense is applied in divorce cases by the courts because they have no choice but to rule on an ancient law that went on the books in the 18th or 19th century and never got removed or modified to fit the changing times. A judge who is capable of being truly impartial and discerning of the truth of the situation, listens to the story of how the adultery occurred and determines whether and how the behaviors of all the individuals contributed to the end of the marriage.

Almost always, the "injured" party claims the charge of adultery because money is involved and there was not a successful negotiation to the resolution of the relationship. The other aspect to this charge is the emotional reaction we still have as a collective consciousness to this situation. There is a lot of "trauma drama" in being able to go around to everyone discussing your hurt feelings and how awful it is to be betrayed and how justified you are in having a trial by jury so that you can get revenge and be proven in public to be the most moral and righteous in the drama. In the end, you might get the public to commiserate with you and the Ego that pushed you toward this behavior will be greatly satisfied. It feels good to the Ego to have people cluck their tongues and say "What a Pity!" and "Oh, poor dear so-and-so, how mistreated she was!" And then the truth of the relationship leaks out. The behaviors, beliefs, and actions by the "injured" party begin to circulate. And then the adoring public starts to say, "So-and-so really did that? Oh, no wonder there was an affair." All of a sudden, the person who cheated is viewed with compassion, kindness and understanding. The "injured" party has to eventually look inward to see what behaviors, beliefs and actions caused the irretrievable dissolution of a relationship that was believed to be "forever."

Somewhere in the last few hundred years, marriage began to be about Love. How do two people feel about each other? How do they behave with each other? How do they react to the world together? How do they influence each other’s behaviors, belief systems and actions? Was it a positive and strong enough experience to enter into a legal contract binding them together by law? Money and the acquisition of property and power is still a factor in why two people get married, but now emotions enter into the mix that make some people decide that money, property and power aren’t as important. They feel that a legal contract is an appropriate way to demonstrate their love for each other to the world.

Beginning a Re-definition

This is marriage: a legal contract between two people who promise what they will do and will not do while they are together, presumably "forever." Now, I sound like I’m against marriage. Trust me, I am not. I’ve never been married. Fortunately for me, I passed on that offer from boyfriends who weren’t equipped to be life partners. I’m looking forward to the day I can walk down the aisle in my non-traditional wedding dress, listening to the choir sing a song written especially for the occasion by my best friend. Don’t think I haven’t thought about this. The vows will go something like this: "I agree to make this legally binding contract with you because at this time in my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual evolution, you and I are matching vibrations with each other. Because we feel this resonance, we agree to explore the nature and wonder of what this experience can teach us about ourselves. I look forward to the good that comes from all of it, regardless of what that looks like. When our lessons are completed with each other, we may no longer be vibrationally compatible. If we decide to part ways, I commit to being in gratitude to you, recognizing that there is no blame, shame, guilt, judgment or condemnation so that I may honor the calm peace of my soul and yours." Wow. Kinda blows my hair back wondering how the congregation reacts to that, especially if they thought they were going to hear "love, honor, and obey." The thought of that makes me laugh.

Two people meet and feel that they want to be together, regardless of how they actually feel about the other person. All of us have entered into a relationship with someone whom we may not really like but feel compelled to interact. You are irresistibly drawn to the person. They drive you nuts, create chaos in your world, cause you to behave in ways you never thought capable, and no matter what you do, you can’t get away from them. WHY does this happen? Because at some level, there is a vibrational match. The Law of Attraction is always in play.

Ok, great, that’s not news if you understand and practice Universal Law and spiritual principles. Why am I talking about this? Because, people who are just entering into a spiritual growth process don’t understand how vibrational resonance works in relationships. All of a sudden, their marriage isn’t working anymore. "We’re just on different paths. He/She doesn’t understand me anymore. I can’t take his/her negativity anymore. I’m evolving. Why can’t my partner evolve with me?" are all things that people say as they realize they don’t want to be with the other person any longer. They are feeling the discomfort of a vibration that is now in disharmony with their own. The cacophony of that feeling usually begins subtly and grows into a loud, clanging noise by the time one person says "Enough! I want out." How a person decides to react to the change in vibration is where we begin to see why people have affairs of all kinds outside of a legally binding contract.

We all seek to be in vibrational harmony with another human being. When that is no longer possible with person A, person B will automatically seek out person C. Now, the problem comes when persons A and B don’t acknowledge that there is no longer vibrational matching between them. If either person is unconsciously aware of the evolution that is taking place, things can get uncomfortable. In a place of low vibrational energy, there’s going to be a lot of ugly behavior that doesn’t honor anybody’s Divinity. When there is consciousness from one partner, the process can still be ugly if the other person remains unconscious. It’s then up to the awake partner to work hard to maintain a high vibration in order to facilitate and negotiate a new arrangement that honors the Divinity of both people. The sleeping person doesn’t have the facility to do that. If both partners are awake, then they have an opportunity to create a new arrangement between them that works for them.

Application of Universal Principles

DISCLAIMER: The case studies represented here are a synthesis of many different client situations that have been in my practice over the last 16 years. No specific client's story is disclosed.

In my practice, I have coached many people who are just waking up to their spiritual evolution or who have been on the path for a while. Even for those who have been on the path for a while, there may come a time when they are unclear about what is happening in a significant relationship. In one case, a client's spouse had been having a long affair when he announced he wanted a divorce. When she came to see me, her body was clearly reacting to the emotional upheaval of the situation.

Because she had recently entered into a place of seeking spiritual information, she didn’t know how to use her knowledge to apply to the dissolution of her marriage. She realized that she had denied the evidence of her own feelings and intuition when she began to suspect that her relationship with her husband was uncomfortable several years prior. Everything was kept to a low simmer while the children were younger. Now that the children had become teenagers, things were beginning to come to a boil. She continued to deny that the relationship was tenable and felt that she was blind-sided by her husband’s actions – even though she had suspected that he was having an affair. At the point that she came for bodywork, her counselor had helped her to see that she needed to start releasing that energy from her muscles and cells.

When they finally entered into divorce proceedings, the counselor suggested that she have a final meeting with her husband so that she could "have closure with him", meaning that it would be her opportunity to tell him what a schmuck he’d been and how hurt and betrayed she felt. She had originally felt that she wanted to behave like the "betrayed wife" and wanted to hurt him with a nasty divorce. Before that meeting was scheduled, she asked what I thought about that. During our work together, I introduced the concepts of vibrational matching and the Law of Attraction. We discussed the impact her spiritual awakening was having on her relationships with her husband and her children. We talked about the positive things that could happen in her life if she realized that this was the Universe giving her a kick in the butt to facilitate her healing and purpose in life.

After working together for three months on these topics, I asked her how she felt towards him now. She realized that she had an opportunity to pursue her love of her old career. She went back to school. She realized that in those same three months, her husband had been in two car accidents, had incurred some professional chastisement at work, and generally looked terrible, as if he was getting sick. She was still uncomfortable about how things had turned out, but she realized that she wasn’t bitter and could have compassion for him. She didn’t feel a need to have a yelling match with him, so the meeting didn’t happen. The divorce went as smoothly as these things can and she was awarded by the court everything that she asked without any fight from the now ex-husband. Two months after the divorce was final, she had found the perfect job and was positively radiant as she told me about how well things were going. She continues to apply the spiritual, emotional, and life lessons she learned to help her complete her healing process and that of her children.

So, what happened? In a nutshell, she began to understand vibrational matching and that ultimately there was nothing and no one to blame for what happened. Everything had transacted Perfectly to help her make the breakthroughs she needed and wanted to make for her own evolution.

A client came who was seeking alternative therapies to help herself with a number of issues. She was in therapy with a counselor, working both individually and with her husband in marriage counseling. They were making an attempt to heal the relationship and find out whether they could create something new in their relationship that would advance them both. Her husband was a life-long spiritual seeker. They committed to finding new ways of being together, as she was able to release the old energies of things related to boundary issues. This knowledge helped her to identify unconscious thought processes, belief systems and behaviors ingrained in her energy form childhood that were impacting how she felt in all of her relationships, not just her marriage.

As we worked together to release the old cellular and muscle memories, she was able to easily identify that some very positive things had occurred. For one, her marriage was now becoming stronger than ever. For two, she validated her ability to honor her own boundaries. She is becoming stronger emotionally and spiritually. Physically, she no longer has constant pain and she’s more physically fit than ever.

In this case, one person in the relationship was already awake and instinctively applied his knowledge to the situation. The other person had been on the path, which helped her begin to understand the energies of the situation from a higher perspective. They are beginning to see that there is no blame, guilt, judgment or condemnation necessary since they are realizing the positive things that are occurring. These two people are at a complementary vibrational match that gave them the ability to create a new way of being together.

Our Role As Spiritual Seekers and Practitioners

In the old Patriarchal Energy, these two outcomes would probably have never happened. The first one could have portrayed the betrayed, grieving, "injured" woman, caused a scene with her husband, friends, and family. She’d be bitter, resentful and hateful for the rest of her days. The husband in the second case could have kicked his wife to the curb so he could "make her pay" for her betrayal by taking the kid in a nasty custody hearing. In the old energy, people would cluck their tongues, taken sides, made judgments and condemnations, and generally everything would be the way we’re used to seeing them in these situations.

And now, we come full circle to where we started. The Light is replacing the Patriarchal Energy. As we begin to raise our vibrations, each of us is pulled toward our individual spiritual awakenings. The Course in Miracles discusses in Chapter 21, Reason and Perception, page 448, how all we need to transform our relationship to ourselves, to the Universe (God, The ALL That IS, whatever you call it) and to others is the willingness to shift our vision from the Ego-based world we currently perceive in order to see the our Wholeness and Oneness with All. The affirmation stated there says:

I am responsible for what I see.
I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide
Upon the goal I would achieve.
And everything that seems to happen to me
I ask for, and receive as I have asked.

Ultimately, ACIM says perception is a result and not a cause. Damnation is your judgment on yourself, and this you will project upon the world. If you behold disaster and catastrophe, you hurt yourself. If you see holiness and hope, you will acquire joy and happiness. Perceiving the lessons you have placed before you as being a part of your path to Oneness, you no longer have to suffer and experience pain.

When we apply Universal Truth to how we perceive relationships and the nature of marriage as it stands today, we have an opportunity to realize that things are shifting. As more and more people become awake and aware, they are less willing or able to stay in a place of vibrational disharmony. This is evident as the percentage of divorces beats the number of marriages taking place in the U.S. alone in the last twenty years. This trend is only going to get stronger until things come into a place where the balance of masculine and feminine energies occurs.

Our lessons, as a society, as a culture, as participants in Universal Consciousness, are to help each other understand the application of vibrational matching, Law of Attraction and Universal Truth principles to create positive and joyous results that foster healthy relationships between each other. When we stop the blaming, shaming, guilt, judgment and condemnation, we shift our vision toward The Light. This new vision allows each individual to create exactly the Right and Perfect dynamic in every relationship. There can be no low vibrational outcomes as we see the wonderful results of what occurs. Everything happens Perfectly.

The Real Purpose of Depression

A client of mine is having a tough time right now. Actually, she's been having a tough year for years now. Some form of depression has haunted her for a good portion of her adult life. Recently she had a car accident during a time when she's been struggling with challenges in choice of career and honoring her passions in life. How to do both and meet the material needs of this world are something all of us are contemplating right now.

She's been unemployed for a few months now and the money is running out. The material world is making it difficult to be in a higher frame of mind. As things have seemingly become more dire every day, she's allowed the car accident to bring up a thought process that 's been with her for a long while. Does she check out, meaning commit suicide, or does she stay? While she was not physically hurt enough to require hospitalization in the recent car accident, she still suffered some physical impact to her body that has her in some pain right now. Lying in bed has brought up the deep depression issues that she has refused to deal with in her life.

Many spiritual teachers have addressed the issue of depression and its role in our emotional and spiritual evolution process. I believe the best explanation I've been able to synthesize from various sources is that depression is the Universe's way of putting It's Cosmic Thumb on you, like the giant out of some fairy tale. Imagine the Giant from Jack and The Bean Stock coming down and pinning you to the ground with his thumb, daring you to squirm outta that. You ain't goin' nowhere, are you? Until you surrender to the Thumb, that Giant isn't letting you up. Depression is exactly like that.

It's the Universe's way of telling you that you have created an opportunity to reach down into the bottom of the well, pull up all the old crap that's buried there, dump it, and start over. It used to be that we felt we had to be consciously aware of what that crap is or was. Psychology tells us that unless we consciously know what's going on, it won't go away. From my personal experience and that of witnessing the healing of my clients over the last 15 years, I don't think that is so true anymore.

I think our job in our healing process is to simply be willing to surrender to the process. A lot of healing takes place at the subconscious level, the place where we may never have any consciousness. How do we know healing has taken place? Because all of a sudden things change. Maybe it's as simple as we begin to think more clearly. Or the things we need in our lives manifest more easily and rapidly. Or we simply feel better, brighter, more optimistic for "no reason." We don't have to know what the healing process healed. We just have to become aware of the gifts it brings us and be grateful.

In order for this to happen, we must invoke the affirmation of "I will to Thy Will." Or maybe the better scenario is meditating on waving the white flag of surrender. Maybe then the Giant will relax the Cosmic Thumb. Now, if you keep waving the flag, thinking that you are going to fool the Giant into letting you go, you don't know Him/Her very well, do you? Giants are not fooled so easily. They've been there, done that, seen it all. They have all the time in world, which is interesting, since time doesn't exist, but that's another conversation for later. That's not such good news for the person under The Thumb, is it? Eventually the squishee has to truly give up and wave the white flag for real. When that happens, miracles occur. No exception. Every time.

When you surrender into the conscious and subconscious healing that is taking place during depression, you let go of all that no longer serves you. This creates the space that allows the new you to emerge. So, depression can be viewed as the energy or apparent chaos that's taking place while you, the catepillar, are morphing into the butterfly. I love that image. The Giant's Thumb could actually be utilized as an anchor for the cocoon needed for you to go through the growth and metamorphisis of emotional and spiritual evolution. I personally find that comforting. The catepillar has no idea how it becomes a butterfly. It doesn't need to know, does it? It simply surrenders into the process.

So, if you find yourself in depression, don't buy into the hype and media that it is a bad thing. It could be the best thing that ever happened to you, if you let it. Be willing to surrender, even if it's just a little bit at at time, to the process. Keep digging through the crap. There's a pony in there somewhere who's chasing butterflies.

Taking Back Our Power

Taking Back Our Power
The following was submitted to Massage and Bodywork Magazine in response to an article about medical massage therapy. For a complete understanding, please read the article at http://www.massageandbodywork.com/Articles/FebMar2007/medicalmassage.html.

Kudos to Deane Juhan for an excellent analysis of the current state of affairs regarding medical massage. I wish to comment on the “strictly uncoincidental” American Medical Massage Association (AMMA) link to the American Medical Association. He is correct in linking the attempt of the AMA to defraud the public about the benefits of holistic therapies. Many people don’t know that Medical Freedom was an original vision of the Founders of America.

“History can often yield insights into our dilemmas. Health care is no exception. The Founders of America envisioned a health-care system based on principles of the dignity and liberty of every person. They were:

1. A right to work. England’s system of guilds and licenses kept many people out of the healing arts. America would allow anyone to become a doctor or to open a healing school or clinic.
2. A right to choice. America would permit a variety of healers and healing modalities. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Constitution and the “Father of American Psychiatry”, believed that Americans should enshrine the right to medical freedom in their Constitution, much as the right to freedom of religion is expressly guaranteed in that document. Rush is reported to have argued that "Unless we put Medical Freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship . . . to restrict the art of healing to one class of men, and deny equal privilege to others, will be to constitute the Bastille of Medical Science. All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no place in a Republic ... The Constitution of this Republic should make special privilege for Medical Freedom as well as Religious Freedom." (1)
3. A limited role of government to protect the right to contract and to prevent fraud. Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution reads, “No state shall ... pass any ... law impairing the obligation of contracts.” Laws against fraud were to protect the health consumer. The government was not to play favorites and could not pay for, restrict, or subsidize any group or healing method.” (2)

Why was this not included in the Constitution of the United States? I’m still looking for the history of that.

The history of the AMA is that it engaged in a deliberate propaganda war against what it termed “irregular” practitioners starting in 1900. “The main purpose of a medical society/association is to provide political pressure to adopt laws that would kill the competition.” (1) For more information on what the AMA doesn’t want you to know about it, go to http://www.newstarget.com/008845.html , “What the American Medical Association hopes you never learn about its true history.” (3) In this excellently researched article, you will discover that the AMA continues its campaign to kill the competition over 100 years later.

I shudder to think what would happen if the AMMA is successful in its propaganda campaign against “fringe” massage and bodywork modalities. I am trained in and use almost all of the “fringe” therapies they list in their position statement with great success and benefit to my clients. As a “therapist of high caliber desiring professional recognition for what [I] am able to do”, I am not willing to stand by and let that happen. For my part, I educate my clients, as well as the public, through my newsletters, website, and blog. I encourage everyone to do the same. Through grassroots efforts that include all of the massage associations and the public we will be able to achieve the ability to be a respected part the healthcare team functioning in a multidisciplinary environment, just as Deane Juhan envisions.

Debra Redman, LMT, NCTMB
Atlanta, Georgia

(1) The Wellness Directory of Minnesota, http://www.mnwelldir.org/, History of Medicine
(2) Dr. Lawrence D. Wilson, “Healing the Health-Care System” (2001), http://www.fff.org/freedom/1201e.asp
(3) Jessica Fraser, “What the American Medical Association hopes you never learn about its true history”, (Thursday, June 23, 2005), http://www.newstarget.com/008845.html

Clean Living Announced As Newest Health Craze

November, 2004
The cover of Forbes magazine dated November 29, 2004, declared that the pharmaceutical industry has a new enemy: Clean Living. To have a respected influential business magazine make this a major cover story is great news for those of us who are holistic wellness practitioners. While I agree with much of the Forbes article, I feel that it doesn’t go far enough in giving people the information they need about all of the choices they have in moving towards clean living.

Living “clean” today is far more difficult than this article suggests. The reporter, Robert Langreth, tells us that it’s estimated that 2 million cases each year of chemical drug complications results in at least 180,000 deaths or life-threatening illnesses and that every few years some 'miracle cure’ is found to be toxic. I laugh about that because we are beginning to see that the drug companies know their so-called miracle cures are toxic before they ever hit the market.

Mr. Langreth goes on to list some of the common things for which people are taking drugs such as heartburn, hypertension, high cholesterol, thinning bones, anxiety and depression, chronic pain, and insomnia. The drug alternative he lists for all of them is diet and exercise. For the last three he also adds cognitive-behavioral therapy. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is talk therapy that teaches people to condition themselves to break distorted thinking patterns during a course of 12 to 20 sessions. During those sessions, anti-psychotic drugs, such as Paxil, Prozac, and others, are prescribed. The drug-free alternatives that are by no means the only effective drug-free alternatives available.

Factors That Inhibit The Clean Living Movement

There are so many factors that create “Clean Living.” Diet and exercise are certainly a huge part of that; however, consider the following influences: Disease-causing chemicals in our food and environment are insidious and difficult to remove. True and complete nutritional information about the effects of food allergies such as wheat, soy, and dairy would have to be revealed.

The American public is still fearful of natural healing modalities thanks to the American Medical Association’s century-old propaganda campaign against natural healing modalities. Much of the American public does not have access to the resources they need to make informed decisions about their health and well-being. The American public is cowed into believing whatever “the authorities” tell them to believe. We have become a nation of people who have given up our own personal power and allow the media, government agencies, and the pharmaceutical and chemical companies to control us.

How Do We Begin?

How does someone who wants to begin real Clean Living go about doing it then? In order for anyone to live cleanly, they must be able to 1) break away from the herd and do their own research; 2) be willing to buck the trends and pay for only those things that truly promote clean living once they know what those things are; 3) be willing to develop a level of patience and determination to allow the new information and processes to have an effect; and 4) their experiences as they move through the physical, emotional, and spiritual changes that clean living creates must be validated.

I believe the American public is ready and willing to move in this direction. As of 1999, it is reported that Americans spent over $13.7 billion on complementary and alternative modalities. That estimate only includes the four most cited and officially (government sanctioned) recognized modalities: chiropractic, massage, herbs, and acupuncture. It is my conviction that as Americans begin to take back their power through clean living, they will be motivated to advocate for societal changes that will create better government, safer environments, and a more peaceful existence in the world.

Taking Back Our Power

Dr. Benjamin Rush was the first physician general of the new American government, being appointed to that office in 1777. Rush Medical Hospital in Chicago, IL is named after him. At the Constitutional Convention in 1776, Dr. Benjamin Rush told legislators: "The Constitution of this Republic should make special provision for medical freedom. To restrict the art of healing to one class will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic." He went on to say: " Unless we put medical freedom into the constitution the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship and force people who wish doctors and treatment of their own choice to submit to only what the dictating outfit offers." Indeed, his prediction has proven to be very accurate.

The need for a more vocal and active grassroots public education campaign is needed in order to promote Clean Living as the new healthcare and political action program in America. The pharmaceutical and chemical companies have a proven track record of misinformation and lying by omission (i.e., Vioxx as the most recent example). How many people in the general population know that the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), a branch of the National Institute for Health (NIH), has existed since 1992? The government does not promote the fact that in 2004 Congress approved and allocated almost $118 million in the federal budget to study CAM. This would be good news if it weren’t so evident that the pharmaceutical companies and the medical industry heavily influence the activities of NCCAM. We can’t rely on the existing special interest groups to promote Clean Living. The public needs advocates who can do the research, disseminate unbiased information, and provide the forums for the public to speak out and be heard. For this reason, I propose that people be motivated to establish an official Clean Living movement who’s goal is to help each individual American citizen take back their power through the use of whatever holistic modalities work for them.

Resources Cited:
http://www.mnwelldir.org
http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/index.asp
Forbes magazine, November 29, 2004, volume 174, number 11, pages 102-112, “Just Say No!” by Robert Langreth.
http://nccam.nih.gov
Hawaii Med J. 1999 Feb;58(2):9-19. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM): a review for the primary care physician. Onopa J., University of Hawaii, Department of Medicine, Honolulu 96813, USA.

The Importance of Doing Your Inner Work

When I finally decided to go to massage school in Chicago, IL, I had already been a practicing energy worker and craniosacral therapist for about eight years. Like so many people who have abuse histories, I turned to alternative healing when traditional therapies no longer worked. I was introduced and practiced healing modalities such as reiki, vibrational healing, Healing Touch, and many others for seven years before becoming a paid therapist.

During those seven years, I experienced quantum leaps in my own personal healing. I went from being in victim-mode to transcending survivor-mode. Along that road, I learned many things about what it means to be a healer. I witnessed what happens when a person who is not working on healing their own emotional and spiritual life calls themselves a "healer" and then attempts to use the techniques of energy healing to manipulate others. When I became a professional therapist, I used these examples to remind me of the potential power a therapist has on a client's healing. Over time, I found myself teaching the importance of doing inner work to other therapists, some of whom had been practicing therapists for years. I also attempted to teach these concepts to new students in a massage therapy school. Unfortunately, the standard massage therapy program does not allow for that kind of information to be taught.

Many people gravitate to the healing professions (psychotherapy, counseling, massage therapy, vibrational healing, etc.) because they are using those modalities to heal the emotional and spiritual issues they are experiencing. Almost everyone, as they achieve milestones in healing, wants to share what they've learned with everyone they know. They naturally want others who are also experiencing similar traumas to benefit from what they've recently learned. The best way to know that you have learned something is to teach it to others. This is the beginning of being a channel of healing energy. Whether the "teacher" is a clear channel of healing energy is another issue.

As Gregg Braden writes in his new book, The Divine Matrix, quantum physics is now proving that there is no separation between anything. When you come into contact with another being, you leave behind a part of you that stays with that person. The emotions that you feel react instantly, beyond distance and time. When you touch someone, you leave behind epithelial cells. Those cells are not separate from you just because they are now on someone else's body. They continue to react to your emotions. If you feel anger, fear, sadness, depression, happiness, joy, or peacefulness, those cells feel it at exactly the same time. The person to whom those cells were transferred also feels your emotions. When you consistently feel low-vibrational feelings, the other person reacts to those feelings and the cycle of emotional and spiritual chaos continues until someone changes their feelings to a higher vibration.

The impact of this scientific fact on the healing professions has, I believe, not been fully appreciated. For example, there are hundreds of institutions teaching massage therapy. With some exceptions, the required curriculum in most of these schools does not include any training on vibrational healing nor is there any formal discussion about the importance of emotional and spiritual health of the massage therapist. Potential students are not educated about this important requirement before they are enrolled in a program and, unfortunately, many people teaching massage therapy do not understand it.

Ok, to be fair, there is a five-minute discussion about the concept of psychological transference and counter-transference in the required ethics class. That is the only discussion about the role the therapist's emotions play in the healing process or the impact of the client's energy on the therapist. Students are required to memorize the formal definitions of each term and regurgitate it on a test. This is certainly not the way to impress upon a potential channel of healing energy the importance of doing their inner work! More time must be devoted to developing a complimentary program in the standard massage curriculum that supports the emotional healing and spiritual growth of people who want to be massage therapists.

Why is this important? As the public becomes more and more aware of the power of therapeutic massage modalities, the massage industry has exploded. Potential clients are searching for a therapist who can address them holistically and help them heal physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Therapists who are consistently working to maintain their own emotional and spiritual health will be highly sought after because they will be capable of facilitating that process. The therapist who has technical skill and who does not do their inner work will continue to serve those in the population who don't want to experience holistic healing. Both people will be successful monetarily. Both people will facilitate a particular level of healing. Only one will consistently demonstrate an understanding of the work and participate in the joy of watching clients make miraculous breakthroughs in healing. And isn't that the reason why you wanted to be a healer in the first place?