11 Ways to F.E.A.R.™

11 Ways to F.E.A.R™
by Rev. Debra Redman
(excerpt from Fall Down, Go Boom!)


The motivational phrase “Feel the fear and do it anyhow” doesn’t have the same energy as Flowing Easily, Allowing Rebirth or F.E.A.R™. Being scared and acting against that feeling requires courage, true, but it does nothing to help you let go of the resistance that created the feeling of fear in the first place. When you can allow the feeling of fear to flow through you, you have an ability to identify what is false evidence and determine for yourself how and why it would appear real to you. This is the beginning of your Dis-Illusionment. It’s the beginning of C.H.A.N.G.E.™

When you are ready to Flow Easily, Allowing your Rebirth, you need some ideas, mantras, and tools that can help you lessen the discomfort of your C.H.A.N.G.E.™ Presented now are eleven ways to F.E.A.R™

F.E.A.R. ™ Tool #1
Your idea of how things should be is not how it is and that’s OK. The illusion has you fooled. You can disempower it by accepting that you don’t really know what’s going on.

F.E.A.R. ™ Tool #2
Quit “Shoulding” on yourself! Your tribal belief systems are rearing up and trying to stop your process every time you find yourself saying things like “it should be like that” or “I should have done this”, “I shouldn’t have done that.” Every time you should on yourself, you are beating yourself up. You are holding yourself to standards and rules that no longer serve you. Let them go.

F.E.A.R. ™ Tool #3
Don’t compare your experiences, your reactions, your process to anyone else’s. Every time you do, you set up the “Should” complex and you succeed in beating yourself up some more. Comparisons will never be one-to-one. This creates confusion, reinforces the guilt machine, and causes a great deal of pain. It’s unnecessary. Stop it.

F.E.A.R. ™ Tool #4
Many people have said it. It’s true. What other people think of you is really none of your business. Your friends, family members, trusted advisors, the guy at work are all going to have an opinion. Remember that most people’s reactions to your process arise out of their own fears.

F.E.A.R. ™ Tool #5
Trust yourself. Your intuition, your heart, never lies to you. It’s incapable. Trust that you know how to react, cope, and respond to whatever you attract during your C.H.A.N.G.E.™ When you work to make sure that your intuition and heart are connected, your expression of your Truth will be perfect, regardless of what that looks like.

F.E.A.R. ™ Tool #6
Cry. A wonderful holistic physician defines these times as “moisturizing moments.” Tears are a release of the old energy. They release the dam and get things flowing again. There are lots of ways to release energy blockages, but crying is the easiest and fastest way to clear your brain of the physical and emotional toxins that are causing pain and discomfort. You can think clearly again when you’re done.

F.E.A.R. ™ Tool #7
Affirm that you are safe. Say to yourself “I AM safe.” This is the Truth of your situation. Everything is happening perfectly and the Universe has got your back.

F.E.A.R. ™ Tool #8
Show up even when you don’t feel like it. It’s so tempting to try to go crawl under a rock and hope that you can stay there until it’s all over. There are times when retreat is absolutely required. If you try to stay under the rock, you’ll make yourself sick.

F.E.A.R. ™ Tool #9
Learn to discern. Discernment is not judgment. Judgment says there’s black and white, right and wrong. Judgment is best recognized as the dreaded word “should.” Discernment assesses how, when, where, why, and what is appropriate for you at any given time.

F.E.A.R. ™ Tool #10
Get support. Identify people who are capable of discernment and unconditional love who can be your guides and your shoulder to cry on. Create space in your energy to allow yourself to be supported. When you do, your Dory will appear in many forms.

F.E.A.R. ™ Tool #11
Get happy. See the humor. Be in the Joy. Laugh at the events of C.H.A.N.G.E™ Enjoy the rapids of F.E.A.R.™ Disempower the fear, turn the illusion on it’s head.

Your gift to the world is to show others how to use chaos, change, and fear to get what you want out of life. Since everyone is beginning to accept that thoughts create reality and that we are all connected, your microcosm is the hologram that mirrors the macrocosm. This goes back to the Hundredth Monkey Theory. You are the Hundredth Monkey. Now go have fun swinging through the trees!

The Microcosm Mirrors The Macrocosm

From an energetic point of view, Sarah Palin represents the choice we get to make about where we are vibrationally on the planet. Never before in the history of this country's elections has the choice of a vice president mattered so much. There is a real possibility that neither Obama nor McCain will survive their first terms in office. It is speculated that McCain is to die of stress and Obama will be assassinated. by the fanatics who will be outraged. while nobody wants to manifest such a thing, the deaths of either candidate will cause a major fundamental shift in the energetic psyche of this country. Will we choose to lead the world through the dominoes of global depression that have started to fall or will we close the door, so to speak, and tell the world to go to hell? Will we allow ourselves to arrange new growth opportunities that allow us to flow easily into a new paradigm that allows for a smoother ride through these chaotic times or will we choose the hard path and have to experience social, cultural, and economic revolution similar to what we experienced in the 1960's?

We are poised and ready to make an enlightened decision. Either way, whoever ends up leading this country in the next four years, there will be the appearance of hard times. The choice we make now is whether to move through them smoothly or the hard way. Sarah Palin represents the hard way. Joe Biden represents the easier way. How do you want to move through the chaos we are about to experience?

We will not end up back where we've been if McCain/Palin get elected. That's impossible. There are too many things occurring that are initiating global transformation. The U.S. is meant to lead that process. Biden will find himself having to be extremely creative in handling the events of the next four years. If he's as good on foreign policy as we hope he is, there will be a number of energetic blocks to the transformation process that will fall away with grace and ease.

However, if Palin is the one, she will become a lightening rod for social, economic, and cultural change. This is not a bad thing, but it is going to be the harder way for global transformation to take place. We have an opportunity to choose whether we will make global transformation easy or hard. The energies are such that we don't have to do things the hard way anymore. Our task at the moment is to get the global consciousness shifted into the new dynamic of flow, ease, and grace and out of the mentality of the ego which has our faith invested in the falsehood that transformation must be hard.

This national transformation is being mirrored in individual lives. There are ways to make the challenge of emotional and spiritual shifts easier to integrate and accept. How each of us chooses to move through personal chaos will be how the nation moves through global chaos. The microcosm mirrors the macrocosm. If we collectively choose the easier path on our individual journeys, the national journey will also choose the easier path. Now is the time to prove the spiritual theory that thought plus feeling equals manifestation. Use your thoughts and feelings to manifest easy lessons and gentle transformation in your life. Watch what happens to the national psyche as it happens in your life. It will be wonderful to watch.

The Shadow of the National Psyche

From: Deepak Chopra |
Posted: Friday, September 5th, 2008

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City . By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin's pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.

She is the reverse of Barrack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of 'the other.' For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don't want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.)

I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin’s message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision.

Look at what she stands for:

--Small town values -- a denial of America 's global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.

--Ignorance of world affairs -- a repudiation of the need to repair America 's image abroad.

--Family values -- a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don't need to be heeded.

--Rigid stands on guns and abortion -- a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.

--Patriotism -- the usual fallback in a failed war.

--'Reform' -- an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn't fit your ideology.

Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from 'us' pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of 'I'm all right, Jack,' and 'Why change? Everything's OK as it is.' The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness.

Obama's call for higher ideals in politics can't be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow -- we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.

www.delphian.7gen.com
www.theawakeningprocess.com

Diving Into The Abyss by Chantal DeBrosse

There comes a point in one’s life, especially when you are making moves to improve your lot, where you may experience what I am calling “Diving Into the Abyss”. An abyss is defined as an immeasurably deep chasm. It is also used to mean anything incomprehensibly profound or infinite such as the concept of the infinity of time. The derivative word, abysmal, means extremely or hopelessly bad or severe. When one is in the abyss, often plunging headlong or whirling and spinning with no concept of which way one should turn, it feels like things are hopeless. You know you are falling and the bottom is somewhere. You don’t know where the bottom is or when you’ll hit it, but you are sure there is going to be one and it’s gonna hurt when you crash against it. The impact may even break something or at the very least leave a scar. You just know this from past experience or from watching others as you observed them during their personal plunge.

š

However, there is one thing that the abyss gives us that we are no longer focusing on as a result of changes in linguistic meaning and philosophical beliefs. In Greek mythology the abyss is the primal chaos before Creation. Chaos, you say? Yes, Chaos. Or as my friend Debra Redman calls it, C.H.A.O.S. - Catalytic Hunches Advancing Our Spirituality. Catalytic Hunches, eh? Well, here’s what I did on my very long two-year fall.

I panicked.

I adjusted.

I rationalized.

I was in denial a few times.

But I kept falling thinking this will end any minute now. But it didn’t end. Two years is a long time. So like a prisoner in a concentration camp, I accepted what was. I no longer counted on the end of the day as being one step closer to my breakthrough. Another day was just another day. There was no indication on any calendar as to when things would get better. Sometimes things got worse and other times they would ease up and be less severe, but not better.

š

There was always another layer to the relentlessness of experiencing my life’s challenges. Though I live in a prominent neighborhood and have an important position in a respectable company, I was struggling to survive. Paying the mortgage on time meant not having enough food to eat. Buying food meant a check would bounce. Heating the house in the winter meant no gifts during the holidays. No gifts meant suffering the embarrassment of letting everyone know that I was in dire financial straits. Loving my son meant that I would be broken hearted yet hopeful for his present and his future. Loving my daughter meant I had to let her express her love for her father even if I wanted to tell her to shut up about that man that I divorced after 23 years of marriage. I knew I couldn’t tell her to wait on her feelings until I stopped being so mad and feeling so betrayed by my ex-husband and by my own self for making such a challenging choice for a spouse.

š

Not one thing I did made anything better. Everything I did netted zero. That is, I was merely in a state of “hanging in there.” Plus, everything took practically forever. In 1983, my family emigrated from Haiti. Just this year, a letter from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (formerly known as the INS) arrived announcing that I will be processed and become a fully naturalized citizen within 450 days. Imagine that. Over 25 years of paying taxes and I get “the opportunity” to wait 450 days. Well, I say to myself, at least I know that it is in the works. At last, I accepted as my mantra: “It is what it is.”

š

Finally, something happened to signal that the fall was over. There were a few triumphs during my fall but none of them felt like this one. There was no thump because there was no bottom. Nothing broke. It didn’t hurt and instead of a scar there was healing. I felt my awareness sharpen as the shift made its presence known. In spite of myself, I learned something. I develop some very important skills for my continuing journey through life. I was learning to wait and not act on my impulses to lash out at everyone or run from everything. This whole experience was about waiting. Waiting on God, the Universe, the Angels and All-That-Is, trusting that everything is conspiring on my behalf for my greater good. I didn’t know that I was learning to trust. While falling, I honored the times when I needed to be still and enjoy the silence. I learned to keep myself busy by noticing my thoughts and not taking action on any of the ones that I felt would undo all that I believe I deserve. I believe I deserve peace, love, prosperity, health, and a clear connection with my divinity. The chaos was the matrix from which my newly revealed being was nurtured, cleansed and birthed. I am now in a state of suspended animation. I know don’t have to do anything. The upswing will soon begin. Let’s just say I have a Catalytic Hunch.

The Hundredth Monkey: Ten Tools for Chaotic Living

By Rev. Debra Redman

(This article excerpted from Rev. Debra’s forthcoming book, Fall Down, Go Boom!)

The Hundredth Monkey

Chaos is going to look like your world falling apart. In the coming years, it’s going to look like the world is falling apart. It’s all necessary and happening for a reason. These ten ways outlined below of living successfully with chaos are going to be the difference between emerging as a butterfly at the end of the process or getting stuck in the chrysalis stage of your spiritual evolution.

This is true on a personal level and on a global level. Every time someone deals successfully with chaos, change, evil, and fear, that experience enters the Universal Consciousness where it becomes knowledge available to everyone. People with whom you come in contact will learn from your example. They will be inspired to deal with chaos more positively and productively. This may sound utopian, but this is actually the application of a scientific principle known as the Hundredth Monkey Theory.

The Hundredth Monkey Theory found that when monkeys in the wild learn a new methodology for doing something, such as using a stick to pull ants out of an ant hill or washing dirty fruit in the river, that information is eventually picked up by other monkeys. When enough monkeys know about and start using the new tools, there seems to be a knowledge transfer that occurs to monkey populations all over the world. The knowledge has achieved critical mass.

With that idea in mind, think of the following ten ways to live with chaos as tools.

Ten Tools For Chaotic Living

What can you do to be comfortable living with chaos? First, accept that chaos and change are not out to hurt you. C.H.A.O.S. and C.H.A.N.G.E. are a necessary part of your spiritual evolution. Acknowledge, accept, and allow chaos and change to happen.

Second, use the traditional concept of fear to motivate you to some extent; however, remember that fear used wisely allows you to flow easily, allowing rebirth (F.E.A.R.). Your panic response will almost always block your highest good and make you miss the signs of what is the right action. Sometimes you are lead to do something, but a lot of the time you will probably be Told to Sit Your Ass Down (S.Y.A.D.)!

Third, stay present and grounded as much as possible. This helps you to not panic and lower your energy reserves anymore than they already are. It also helps you to identify when you are attracting the energy vampires that want to take advantage of your weakened condition. Energy Vampires and Energy Vampire Incognito as Light are discussed in the chapter called Transforming Traditional Evil into Light and Love.

Fourth, practice Trust and Faith. Remember that Trust is your conscious response to the appearance of less than ideal circumstances. Faith is the subconscious thought that all is well, regardless of what it looks like. Faith counterbalances the Shadow.

Fifth, take stock of what tribal belief systems are coming up for you. These subconscious and conscious belief systems are blocking the true condition of your situation. Figure out which ones still work and which ones need to be released in Light and Love.

Sixth, review your affirmations and denials. See if you can identify how the destruction of current circumstances may be leading you toward your goals or helping you achieve healing. Did you know you needed to heal a particular part of your life before you could receive the abundance of the Universe? Revamp old affirmations or create new ones. Use denials whenever necessary.

Seventh, don’t beat yourself up when you realize that you aren’t at your peak potential. Most likely, your energy will be depleted from fighting to keep chaos from happening. This low energy state is what allows the Universe to minister to you without your resistance. It’s also what allows energy vampires and Energy Vampires Incognito as Light (EVIL) to enter your life. So, if you realize that you are in a low energy state, allow the process to show you how to get back into a fully funded state of personal power as quickly as possible.

Eighth, practice Faith and Trust, compassion, awareness and patience when the EVILs, energy vampires, and P.I.G.S (People in Great Stupidity!) enter your life. They are there to help you heal whatever it is that no longer serves you.

Ninth, follow the catalytic hunches that are arranging your new growth experiences as much as possible. You are being advanced in your spirituality whenever you enter C.H.A.O.S. C.H.A.N.G.E is actively moving you on your path.

Tenth, have compassion for yourself. Forgive yourself for any reactions that may appear to be less than stellar, learn from the mistakes, and make the adjustments that are needed to keep you on the right track.

This is how the global spiritual awakening that is occurring now is happening. So, your individual response to chaos, change, fear and evil makes a critical difference to the world. Are you the Hundredth Monkey?

The Shadow Knows

“Accepting a larger level of anxiety is the price of growth. The failure to grow will produce either depression, or such fixated adaptation as we find in our daily neuroses.”

James Hollis, Why Good People Do Bad Things, pg. 70

Defining Traditional Chaos

James Hollis applies the Jungian philosophy that your ego consciousness is splintered and therefore you have what Jung called the Shadow. Some of these shadowy facets of your personality or ego are unconscious to you and it is these aspects of the personality that can control your thought processes, feelings, emotions, and actions. He advocates searching out these hidden parts of your ego consciousness because until you heal and accept them, they will cause you to behave in ways that deny your Highest Good. When this happens in your life, you go into chaos. The Shadow creates the chaos.

In Greek and Roman mythology, the Goddess of Chaos, also called Strife, has two sides which have opposite effects on your human life. The Goddess of Chaos is of The Light, regardless of how she appears to you. Strife can be a motivational energy that causes you to work harder to achieve your dreams or she can bring destruction for what seems to be no good reason at all. In whatever form she appears in your life, you can be assured that nothing will be the same when she’s gone.

Chaos causes the disintegration of old paradigms, out-dated institutionalized reactions and systems, and all things that no longer serve you. Chaos forces you to release old tribal belief systems inherited from the societal, cultural and family environments you were exposed to growing up.

Chaos shines the light on things that you haven’t dealt with in your life that are holding you back. Sometimes you consciously know what those thoughts and emotions are. Sometimes they remain subconscious and you are asked to move to a new level of Trust and Faith that everything that is happening is in your Highest Good. When you get on a roller coaster, you do so with complete Trust and Faith in the company who built the track, the safety harness, and the computer systems that run the ride. Allowing Chaos into your life is like riding a roller coaster.

Re-defining Chaos, Change, and Fear

When Chaos shows up, your response could be “hold on! The ride has begun!” Go on the roller coaster with her. OK – here you go- you’re ramping up to the top of the first hill. The car hesitates for just a moment – AND YOU’RE OFF! The car is shaking, hair is flying everywhere. You are screaming your lungs out! Here comes the Loop de Loop. You are upside down! And look – you haven’t fallen out of the car. Sometimes it felt like you could fall out during that ride but, you reach the platform all in one piece. Every time. Regardless of what happens on that ride, you always come out in one piece. You may be dead, but honey, you will be all in one piece wherever you land!

Did you tense up or relax while on that ride? If you relaxed into the ride, you probably weren’t scared much at all – a little concerned, maybe, but not terrified. That’s healthy. If you can realize that CHAOS is exactly like that roller coaster ride, the FEAR OF CHANGE practically disappears. When you can reach that state of balance, CHAOS moves out of the Darkness, into the Light to become CATALYTIC HUNCHES AWAKENING OUR SPIRITUALITY. Change becomes CATALYTIC HUNCHES ARRANGING NEW GROWTH EXPERIENCES. Fear becomes FLOWING EASILY ALLOWING REBIRTH. Do you see the beauty in that? The Goddess of Chaos never comes without bearing gifts.

You may have to walk into your Dark Night of The Soul. You may have to face terrible hardship. You may have to do it all by yourself. You will have to walk through the swamps before you reach your destination. You will have to face your illusions – False Evidence Appearing Real – before you are able to use the catalytic hunches that lead you out of the Forest of Darkness. You will have to learn how to Flow Easily Allowing the new growth experiences arranged specifically for your Rebirth.

What are you going to release in order to create space for the abundance and prosperity that’s waiting for you? CHAOS gives you that ability to achieve what you desire. Embrace her. Rejoice when the Goddess of Chaos enters your life or someone else’s. Someone lose a job, get fired? Call them up and tell them Congratulations! Relationship ending or changing? Congratulations! Don’t know what you are doing with your life? Hurray! Move into chaos with faith and trust that all is right and perfect in your life, even if it doesn’t look like it.

Chaos gives you a unique opportunity to practice looking at it from a higher perspective. This is where you begin to learn what it means to be in the human experience with a spiritual awareness. When you see what is occurring as simply an indication of the larger energies manifesting around you, you have an ability to relax into the human experience regardless of whether the human experience is judged “good” or “bad”.

When observing Chaos from this view, it becomes possible to read the clues that are given to you that show you where you are and what the next right action is going to be. Strife is doing her job to motivate you out of complacency and into action. However, action may not be what you think it is. Sometimes the right thing to do is to simply S.Y.A.D, as in “SIT CH’OR ASS DOWN!” Sit your ass down. Don’t move. Don’t DO anything. Not doing anything is doing something. The Universe will tell you when to move, what to do, and usually how to do it. If you stay present and aware, the signs will appear.

At this point is helps to remember that chaos and change are most likely happening in response to an affirmation or denial you put out into the Ethers. Affirmations create chaos. Denials create chaos. The Universe is setting up the conditions required to give you what asked. The old saying “Be careful what you asked for!” probably came from someone who was experiencing chaos and realized that what was happening was answering his prayer.

The Ultimate Affirmation and Denial

As discussed in the last article, intellectualization, tribal belief systems, Divine Timing, and the subconscious/conscious awareness of Faith and Trust are all blocks to your ability to manifest affirmations and denials. There are many ways to form an affirmation but the one that seems to consistently have the most power to shatter those blocks and causes manifestation is the one that acknowledges the God within you when you say “I AM.” The ultimate affirmation and denial begins with a realization that you are God.

Any statement that begins with “I AM” and ends with whatever you say is a statement of the condition of God within you or is blocking the true state of God within you. For example, if you say “I AM Powerful”, then the condition of God within you is to be powerful, this is the true condition of God within you. If you say “I AM weak”, then you are blocking the true condition of God within you which seeks to have you be powerful.

The Full Moon cycle is about going deep within to uncover what no longer serves you. On August 16, 2008, a major astrological eclipse cycle was completed for 2008. The end of an eclipse cycle mirrors exactly what was happening in your lives six months prior. In this case, the start of this cycle was February, 2008. The key to successfully navigating this cycle is to see the patterns and alter your reactions to the circumstances if necessary. For many, this cycle was about clearing out what no longer serves on a subconscious level. The energy of this final clearing at this vibrational level, where ever that may be for you, will sift through the fallout for another month. The clearing for a lot of people had to do with healing and releasing tribal belief systems.

The impact of tribal belief systems to block your highest good can show up as the internal wounded child who is now demanding to be recognized and acknowledged. The 14 year old who took responsibility for the family’s woes can appear as gallstones and an inflamed gallbladder. The detoxification process required to pass those gallstones could symbolically be the process required to deal with the woundedness of that child. When the old energy is cleared, it creates the ability of the forty-four year old adult to care for and nurture the inner 14 year old. The affirmation of the forty-four year old that says “I AM powerful” now has the feeling and the energy to manifest. “It feels as though I've been released. The tightness in my stomach and chest is gone and I just feel warm inside.” says the forty-four year old adult. The affirmation of “I AM” is all that is required to manifest abundance and prosperity in your life.

You exist now in an energy that supports your ability to say “I AM” and feel how simply Being allows right action to flow through you. This has been one of Jesus’ main teachings and it’s taken over 2,000 years for the energy to be available to the masses so that Being is now our definition of Who You Are. No longer are you defined by what you DO. “I AM” is all you need.

Jesus said don’t caste pearls before swine, meaning don’t waste your time trying to convince, convert, educate or enlighten someone when they clearly have no interest in listening to you. It won’t change the pig and you will have done nothing more than waste your time at best and caused yourself enormous frustration at worst.

As you shift from one plane on the spiral of spiritual evolution to the next, you discover much to your dismay and surprise that certain people aren’t going to go with you. When you discover that a cherished friend, partner, parent, child, lover, or co-worker is no longer resonating with you may have feelings of guilty, sadness, anger, fear, and confusion at having to let that person go. As you increase your awareness and abilities, you want everyone to partake of the new discoveries. Alas, not everyone can nor has the desire. It helps to understand that everyone is at a different stage of development, at various rates of speed and ability, on different planes of the spiral.

It is enough to be aware that everyone is on the path of spiritual evolution and that you must honor each person by allowing them to be where they are. It does not honor a person who has chosen to stay in a low vibration to force them to constantly interact with a person moving into a higher vibration. All that does is make the lower vibrational person feel aware of their own perceived shortcomings. This causes great discomfort that usually causes that person to react with anger, shame, guilt, manipulation, and abuse.

A person of higher vibration cannot sustain the higher vibration for long when the pull of the lower vibration wears down the energy of the other. This is why people who are expanding must leave behind those who are not moving into a complimentary or comparable vibrational level. Lower vibrational people are not in their own personal power and they unconsciously seek out sources of energy that can help them maintain their states of being. Higher vibrational people have built up a level of energy that can power themselves and still have enough to give to others for short periods of time. Lower vibrational energy seeks to drain all of the power the higher vibration possesses. We know these people as Energy Vampires. When this happens, the higher vibration person will find themselves behaving in ways that are not consistent with what they know to be Truth.

Lower vibrational people will always seek the Light of the higher vibrational person. It becomes the responsibility of the higher vibrational person to know when, how, and how much energy to give away in the interaction so that both people are served. The higher vibrational person who learns this is not easily depleted and can move through the world easily, attracting and manifesting what they need and want. Usually, however, this is a lesson learned in time after many experiences of bouncing back and forth between lower and higher vibrations. I call those experiences “Fall Down, Go Boom!”

You pick yourself up because you know you can’t stay in the lower vibration. As you perceive where you are, you move towards the higher, more comfortable vibration. Eventually, most of your time is spent there. You’ll always have periods of time where you slip back into a lower vibration. Those periods serve you and you must learn to honor them and use them as learning and healing circumstances just as much as you value being in higher, more comfortable surroundings. Without contrast, you cannot continually appreciate what you have. You would take what you have for granted.

The advancing spiritual seeker begins to realize that they are tired of being held back and rebels. Sometimes relationships with the stuck seeker can continue in a new way. Sometimes it is best if the advancing seeker realizes that their new energy makes the stuck seeker extremely uncomfortable and the best strategy is to simply not interact with them at all or in limited ways. It is impossible to honor another person’s journey when the level of discomfort rises to a level that causes damaging behavior to occur.

Meditation with the “I AM” as the mantra has the power to move considerable amounts of energy. It would not be unusual to feel that as the crown charka opens, the third eye opens immediately. If there are blocks in the heart and solar plexus charkas, feelings of expansion, clearing and lightness will enter those areas as the blocked energy is cleared with the power of “I AM.” All charkas can be cleared with powerful “I AM” statements.

Use “I AM” to begin figuring out what you need to do to unblock the true condition of God within you. These blocks are usually related to feeling states. “I AM Powerful” is a feeling statement. It is the opposite of weak. “I AM Real” is a feeling statement that is the opposite of feeling like an imitation or substitute. “I AM THAT I AM” is simply the ultimate statement of the true condition of God within you.

Unblocking the feelings that keep you trapped in the false evidence that you are not an individuation of God is the key to manifestation. Achieving that state requires the “simple” act of just Being. That would be easy to do if you didn’t have your monkey mind, your intellect, bombarding you with noise. “I AM” is the going to help you get to that state of just Being. Try it. Watch what happens.

Is That What You Really Want?

By Rev. Debra Redman

The most frustrating thing for anyone practicing affirmations, particularly people who are new to the concepts of the Law of Attraction, is when they are doing everything “right” and “nothing” appears to be happening. You were told to be really clear about what you want to attract. Visualization of every detail you can think of is the way to get exactly what you want. In the popular movie The Secret, prosperity gurus told of how they achieved their wealth, happiness, and success by visualizing the material things they wanted or needed. Visualize, Visualize, Visualize. Then tell the Universe when you want to it appear. Write about what you want to have happen. Say it out loud. Ask others to visualize with you and say it out loud. This is how an affirmation is constructed. Indeed, what people are being taught is what the New Thought movement calls affirmative prayer.

So, if you are doing all of the steps outlined above, where’s the new car? Where’s the money? Where’s the trip to paradise? Where’s the new significant other or the healthy relationship? Has it arrived? Has every affirmation been answered? Maybe one or two? Maybe none? Why didn’t you get everything you affirmed like the Law of Attraction is supposed to do and the way you were told it would? Why do affirmations work sometimes for most people and not at all for other people? What are denials and why would you use them? How do you use affirmations and denials so that they work for you? When do you know if either has worked in your life? Where do you begin looking for answers when you can’t seem to manifest anything according to the way you’ve been taught by the prosperity teachers you’ve read or the workshops you’ve attended?

The Secret did one big disservice to the masses who embraced the concepts from the movie and the book. The people who contributed their stories and philosophies left out the main ingredient necessary to make the entire formula work. They made it sound like all you needed was an intellectual thought generated in your mind in order to manifest material wealth and happiness. Affirm that there is happiness in your life even though everything is really going to hell in a hand basket in your life. Affirm that you can pay all your bills on time even with a negative balance in your checking account. Most people will tell you that they gave up on doing affirmations when life got hard because obviously the affirmations didn’t work or the money and happiness would be here. This is the wrong time to give up on the process, but we all do it.

The Law of Attraction is one of nine Universal Laws that are immutable. Universal Laws are considered the highest Truth by which we all live and function as humans on this earth, in this lifetime. So, what part of the equation to in the Law of Attraction did The Secret leave out? Feeling. They left out feeling and emotion. Thought plus feeling equals manifestation is the entire Law of Attraction equation. The Secret primarily said thought equals manifestation.

As you move into new levels of spiritual awareness, you naturally wish to start taking advantage of the Truth of Universal Law. However, this is not an automatically easy thing to do. As you begin to die to the old ways that no longer serve you, you are continually confronted with the subconscious and conscious belief systems that hold you back from manifesting positive, helpful, abundant, prosperous events in your life. You need to be able to acknowledge these blocks, beginning with Trust and Faith.

Trust and Faith are developed as you do your internal work of releasing tribal belief systems that keep you from believing that you are capable of manifesting anything that is in your Highest Good. However, when an affirmation involves a team of people and particular circumstances to be in place, it can appear that an affirmation is not being answered. Universal Consciousness is working for you at all times to help you. The timing of when, how, and where your affirmation is usually out of your control.

When this happens, the manifestation of what you asked for may not look, act, or appear to be what you asked to be delivered. How to tell when an affirmation is being answered is tricky sometimes. This article explores these aspects of affirmations and what appears to be its opposite, denials.

Faith and Trust: Subconscious vs. Conscious

What is the difference between trust and faith? An example would be a statement such as “I may not trust what is going on but I have faith that the Universe will take care of me.” Subconsciously, you have faith that things will turn out fine, even though you may not trust the appearances of the situation. As Mark Twain so aptly said, “Faith is believing what you know ain't so.” What you know ain’t so is the conscious reality of Trust. You may have Faith that the rent money will appear on time, but you don’t trust the circumstances as they appear now that the money will be there. Subconscious thoughts are stronger than conscious thoughts. Seventeenth century French scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal summed it up nicely when he said, “Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.” Faith is ultimately a feeling, an intuition, that when cultivated, guides your life even when it appears that you are being foolish and distrusting.

The Power of Tribal Belief Systems

Affirming often magnifies your conscious feeling that you don’t have what you are affirming. The more you affirm you do have whatever it is, the more you fight the feeling that you know you don’t really have it. You may have Faith and Trust, but you also have something else to deal with – your tribal belief systems. If you don’t heal and shed the old entrenched belief systems, they continue to rule your life even when they no longer serve you. The prime examples of tribal belief systems which usually interfere with manifestation fall under the categories of Self-concepts, Guilt, and Tradition.

Self-concepts include self-worth, self-respect, and self-confidence. Also included is a sense of your Highest Self working with you to help you determine what you wish to affirm and/or deny in your life. A sense of Oneness with the All That Is becomes real when you allow your Higher Self to guide through your intuition and feelings.

Chapter Thirteen of A Course in Miracles is a treatise on guilt. ACIM 13:I:8, verse 6, says “Guilt, then, is a way of holding past and future in your mind to ensure the ego’s continuity.” Continuing to explain how survival of the ego is the purpose of Guilt, “The ego teaches you to attack yourself because you are guilty, and this must increase the guilt, for guilt is the result of attack.” (paragraph 11, verse 1). As long as you hold onto Guilt, you cannot remember that you are God and One with All.

Believing that you are separate from All That Is is a habit. Habits become known as Traditions. Traditions are nothing more than habits that became ingrained in a tribe. As the tribe performed the same processes over and over again, some of them came to be worshiped and idolized, regardless of whether the habit was healthy and beneficial to the tribe. When you, as one member of the tribe, recognize that the Tradition no longer works, at least for you, the fight is on to keep you performing the habit. Your internal work is to identify and eradicate the traditions and habits that no longer serve you. Breaking free of the tribe will be necessary to be successful unless the tribe is ready to support your efforts.

You Are Not In Charge

You are not in charge of the how, when, who, what and where of your manifestation. You have two responsibilities when it comes to getting what you want from your affirmations and denials. The first is to be responsible for your reactions to the things the Universe does to set up the circumstances required to answer your prayer. The second responsibility is to recognize when your prayer has been answered. When an affirmation (or prayer) is answered, it just may not look the way you thought it was going to look. Sometimes our affirmations are the source of our chaos.

When your affirmations involve other people and a specific set of conditions, the universe has to shake things up to make that answer come true. For example, let’s say that you ask for a pony but you live in an apartment in the city. There are no stables in your vicinity and at the moment you have no access to horses. One day you find that you no longer have your city job and that you have to move to the country. If you are aware of how the circumstances are manifesting, you may think this is the Universe answering your prayer. You are moving to the country. There are horses in the country. You begin taking riding lessons at the local barn only to find out that you are highly allergic to horses! There goes your prayer! It got answered but only so that you can find out that it isn’t what you really wanted or that it isn’t in your Highest Good after all. You may walk away thinking that your affirmation was not answered. However, one day you interview with a new company called “Pony Express” and it turns out to be your dream job.

Your prayer was answered. The Universe provided you with the conditions needed to find out that you don’t really want to own a horse but you can enjoy them differently and you were set up to get the next Right and Perfect career and living opportunity. That’s a win-win situation! The only thing that prevents it from being an answered prayer is your reaction to the circumstances that occurred along the way.

Intelligence Blocks Feelings

The one thing that will keep your prayer from being answered is your mind. If you decide to resent being forced to move out to the country rather than react with a feeling of inquisitiveness, wonder and openness, you may not allow the information that you moved within five miles of a riding stable to enter your consciousness. You could drive by that barn every day for a year and not know it was there. The Universe doesn’t answer your prayer until you open up your reactions to allow for all possibilities. Your mind, where your intellect is found, is another stumbling block to getting your affirmations manifested.

Intelligence and intellectual knowledge of a thing do not help you manifest the larger affirmations you have for yourself. Intelligence relies too much on logic, rational thought, and concrete proof. It denies the power of feeling. Feeling is the gas in the Law of Attraction equation. This is where denials may be very useful to you. Begin to loosen the reins of Intellect by denying the power of the mind to keep you from using your intuition.

Divine Timing Sucks!

No matter how much you try to affirm your way out of it, you have to accept that your Highest Good is unfolding and accept that sometimes what you want does not fit into the Universe’s greater life plan for you and that is beyond your conscious understanding.

With all of this knowledge, you learn to understand that there is a higher consciousness that moves through you and, while you have free will, there are things that are simply out of your control. Sometimes you activate and align and seem to make things happen. Other times you can only stand still and be in the quiet moments, knowing that your highest good is being revealed to you in due time. It’s during those times that you are most likely to say Divine Timing sucks!

When you create and activate an affirmation, you want it to manifest immediately, if not sooner. Unfortunately, this is a result of Western society’s belief in immediate gratification. The old wisdom of “Good things are worth waiting for” is worth remembering while you learn how to allow Right and Perfect circumstances, conditions, and energies to coalesce into your Highest Good. If an affirmation really only involves yourself, then you may realize instant manifestation. However, most affirmations ultimately do involve energies outside yourself as well as a readiness to accept the gifts you have asked to be delivered.

Sometimes Divine Timing is perfect and you aren’t ready to receive what you thought you wanted. The nice part about this missed opportunity is the knowing that the Universe will try again and keep trying as long as that affirmation still serves you. When you release the intellect’s hold on feeling, become more flexible in your reactions, and learn to recognize the signs of a prayer being answered, you tell the Universe you are ready to receive all the Gifts that are waiting for you. This is the only way you get any influence over when the Universe delivers. You can influence, but you don’t get to make the decisions.

Denials Are Coping Mechanisms

In the meantime, while you are waiting for the affirmations you ordered to manifest, you get to cope with life as it is. The reality of your current situation may range from being merely uncomfortable to downright horrible. When you are in those times of despair, chaos, or stress, an affirmation isn’t going to magically change the situation. When used at these times, affirmations seem to simply magnify the reality of your uncomfortable situation. At these times, the appearance of Chaos, Change, Stress and Fear seem like very real entities that take over your mind, body and spirit.

Affirmations, no matter how often they are repeated, are not going to manifest to change the bad situation into a good one when you believe that Chaos, Change, Stress, and Fear have power over you. Denials do not seek to change the situation as it is. Denials do have the ability to change how you react to the negativity surrounding you. When you deny the power of an empty bank account to keep you from believing you have abundance and prosperity in your life, you open the Universal door to possibilities. Deny the power of another person’s negativity to make you believe that you are not capable, worthy, or honored as a human being and you begin the process of opening up to your own personal power.

Eventually, denials help put you on the road to healing your tribal belief systems so that you can begin constructively and successfully using affirmations. Denials help you have positive reactions to events that would normally have caused a negative reaction from you. The day you recognize that you responded differently to a particular situation than you would have previously, you will know that your denial worked.

Affirmations and Denials Take Practice

Repeating affirmations and denials over and over again aren’t going to get them manifested any sooner. However, there is power in saying your affirmations and denials as meditative mantras. Meditation helps you achieve the feeling that your prayers are being answered. When that happens, you can move through the day with calmness and peacefulness that keeps your intuition open to the signs the Universe sends to you. The Universe is constantly signaling to you that It’s working on your requests. It takes practice to know how to read the clues.

The manifestation of your affirmations and denials is your birthright. No one can take that away from you except you. Every day you must practice staying in a place of feeling and intuition. The intellect will be there as a tool to help you make sense of the signs. The feelings and intuition are going to help you recognize them. Striking this balance of mind, emotion, and intuition takes practice. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been on the spiritual path. Every day is a new day with its own unique set of challenges, energies, and possibilities.

Some days you’ll get it and Trust and Faith will seem natural. Other days, you’ll think you’ve completely lost it. Regardless of what appears to be Chaos, Change, Stress and Fear, your Faith is going to keep you going even when you don’t Trust what is going on around you. Bravely dumping the old belief systems that no longer serve you opens your ability to start creating and activating affirmations and denials that are in your Highest Good. Knowing how to read the signs takes practice. So, keep your physical and spiritual eyes open and your head up. Relax those hands on the reins, cowboy. Sit up and relax so that you can enjoy the ride.

Footnotes:
1. Quotes researched and copied from www.famous-quotes.com.
2. (1992) A Course In Miracles. Foundation for Inner Peace, Chapter 13, Section I. ISBN 0-9606388-9-X.

Have You Had A BM Today?

by Debra Redman, LMT, NCTMB

It’s easier to talk to your kids about drugs, smoking, and sex than it is to ask them if they are having bowel movements and have them describe what they look like. Children as young as four years old can experience impacted bowels, constipation, acid reflux, and heartburn. Behavior problems are exacerbated by toxicity in the body. In addition, teenagers may also be battling conditions such as severe acne and weight problems.

It is important to know how often a BM occurs for your child. A healthy colon facilitates two to three bowel movements a day. When there is one or less per day, toxins build up in the muscles and cells of the body over time. This build-up of toxins causes aches, pains, swelling, stiffness, stress reactions, and disease states such as cancer and diabetes. Parents who help their children detoxify and maintain a healthy intestinal system see reductions in mood swings, temper tantrums, and other behavior problems.

The absolute best way to maintain a healthy colon is with a diet of fruits, vegetables, and unprocessed foods. Unfortunately, the American lifestyle doesn’t easily support healthy food choices. As long as processed foods remain in the diet, the need for colon hydrotherapy exists.

Colon hydrotherapy uses water pumped into the colon to get into the folds and crevices of the internal walls of the colon, loosening and removing plaque build-up, fecal impactions, candida, mucous, and parasites. Enemas only reach the first four to six inches of the colon, which is three feet long. Children as young as ten years benefit from this form of detoxification.

For children of all ages, including infants, abdominal massage, oil of oregano, a magnesium supplement called Calm, a fiber-rich diet that eliminates dairy as much as possible will be the most natural ways to help your child maintain a healthy digestive system.

How To Detoxify for Good Health

by Debra Redman, LMT, NCTMB

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 health care regimen. Below is a simple, effective, and easy-to-use method for cleaning up your internal organs. Following this protocol will help you clear up digestive disorders, reduce severe muscular pain, achieve and maintain emotional stability , alleviate allergies, and, of course, lose weight. Begin a regimen of cleansing herbs that come in the following products.

In the first 14 – 21 days, use a product called Candistroy is for a Candida cleanse. It is made by Nature’s Secret. Candida is the umbrella term for the "bad" yeast that gets out of control in the digestive system. Eliminate sugar, yeast, wheat, dairy, and other allergens for the next thirty days. For more information about the effects of candida, candida diets and recipes, start with the candidapage.com. This is a good website because it isn't trying to sell product and it is a comprehensive list of resources. Take your time going through it.

After you have been taking the Candistroy for about 14 days, start the Paracleanse, also made by Nature’s Secret. This is a three week herbal program. The Candistroy started killing off the food source (candida, sugar, etc.) of the parasites so that it makes them easier to kill and eliminate. According to the website Applied Ozone, “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.” More information can be found at www.appliedozone.com/parasites.html.

During the 14 - 30 day period, you can also begin a product called Complete Liver Cleanse made by Enzyamatic. 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.

Remember that it took years for your body to build-up toxins and parasite infestations. Stick with the program. The results are worth it.

Your Lymph System In Every Day Life

by Debra Redman, LMT, NCTMB

Margarette is the picture of health so a mini health crisis came as a surprise. In the same week her divorce was to be final, she was scheduled as an outpatient for an ablation, a type of heart surgery, on Wednesday and replacement breast implant surgery on Friday. The post-surgical recovery would have most people flat on their backs for more than just a few days. Imagine her therapist’s surprise when she answered the door for a manual lymph drainage massage the day after the heart surgery.

The immune system does not react well to being over-stressed. Margarette was experiencing a very stressful time in her life. She had swelling in her right leg from the malfunctioning valve in her heart. The collapsed breast implant left her chest feeling heavy. Her medical massage therapist suggested she relieve some of the discomfort with a medical massage modality called Manual Lymph Drainage (MLD). This specialized technique is designed to stimulate the immune system and help the lymphatic system achieve healing in the body.

The lymph system is a part of the immune system. It’s responsible for delivering the nutrients and vital substances required to nourish, repair, protect, and clean up the body. Lymph fluid is the transport mechanism. The pathway of lymph fluid mirrors the circulatory system. The circulatory system is a closed system that sends blood flow through veins and arteries that lead back to a central pump called the heart. The lymph system is an open system that does not have a prescribed path of flow and it does not have its own pump to circulate it. Lymph fluid flows between all cells of the body, picking up and delivering to and from the circulatory system whatever is required by various cells.

There are five ways that the body keeps the lymph fluid flowing in the body: muscle movement, deep breathing, pumping of the arteries, peristaltic movement of the intestines, and manual lymph drainage massage. The lymph system begins just under the surface of the skin. Movement of lymph fluid is caused by the friction between muscles and lymph capillaries. Deep breathing causes pressure changes in the body which stimulates fluid movement. Arterial contractions which move blood through the body also help transport lymph fluid. The rhythmic movement of the intestinal system stimulates lymph flow as the lymph system picks up nutrients to be delivered to other parts of the body. Manual lymph drainage massage removes fluid from soft tissue by mechanically stimulating the lymph system through a series of specific techniques.

Margarette received MLD massage both before and immediately after her surgeries. Pre-operative MLD cleans the area so that there is little bleeding, creating an environment that decreases pain levels and the chance for infection. This primed her lymph system to start moving toxins out of her body before the surgeries.

The effects of MLD massage last up to 72 hours, depending upon the duration of the massage. The result is that it slows the amount of bleeding during surgery down and causes the body to start detoxifying the chemicals from the anesthesia and other medications immediately.

The post-operative session kept the process going, diminishing pain levels to the point where Margarette didn’t need any medication. She recovered so quickly, she was back at work by the following Wednesday, missing only five workdays.

MLD uses very gentle, precise strokes to promote the release of fluid build-up in the body called edema. Any interruption in lymph circulation can impair the functioning of the body’s immune system, its ability to repair damaged tissue, and cause chemical imbalance in the body. Edema is a condition defined as swelling that occurs when interstitial fluid builds up in the muscles of the body. Swelling indicates that the body is in the process of repairing an injury site. Once the repairs are completed, the lymph system normally clears out the waste material and the site goes back to normal. The amount of time the body needs to repair an injury site depends upon the nature of the injury; however, If left untreated, the swelling could potentially lead to a more serious medical condition called lymphedema. Unlike edema, lymphedema can become a chronic condition that has consequences for the whole body. Swelling, pain, numbness, sensation of pressure, a sensation of a limb feeling heavy or dull, increased susceptibility to infection, loss of mobility, and impaired wound healing are all a result of chronic lymphedema.

An example of a chronic condition is demonstrated by a chiropractor who was bitten by a spider during a workout. Kevin was bitten by a large spider on his left knee cap. Immediately, his body reacted to the bite with localized swelling that went from the lower half of his thigh to just below his knee. His physician recommended letting the body take care of it since they weren’t sure how to treat the toxicity of the spider bite. Six weeks later, the swelling had reduced considerably to approximately 70% of the initial injury. However, he was still experiencing stiffness and mild pain in his knee. The knee was visibly swollen on one side of the knee cap and micro-edema could be felt ranging from the lower half of his thigh and back of the knee. Any swelling that lasts longer than 72 hours can become chronic edema.

Chronic swelling has four levels of manifestation: micro edema, mild or pitting edema, non-pitting edema, and severe hardening. The first two can be reversed and usually completely alleviated with MLD. The last two cannot be reversed but the symptoms may be helped by MLD.

Micro-edema is not always visible to the naked eye. It manifests as a sensation in the body that something is not feeling ‘right.’ A joint feels stiff or maybe an arm or leg seems harder to move than the other limb. Anything from a mild injury to the residual effects of surgery could be the cause. This subtle form of edema is easily reversible by stimulating the lymph flow in the area.

Mild or pitting edema is usually visible. A slight finger pressure on the area will leave a slight depresson in the tissue that doesn’t release right away. Some reasons why the lymph system will respond with edema include illness, lack of exercise, injury (i.e. sports, surgery, disease) and being on an airplane flight. MLD helps both acute and chronic conditions. A typical example of acute pitting edema occurs after an injury, like spraining an ankle. Chronic edema will make the area of swelling a little misshapened.

Melody underwent oral surgery that took place over two sessions with the dentist. After the surgeries, her face swelled, as expected. However, after three months, the left side of her cheek was clearly still swollen and the left side of her head felt heavy, as if it wasn’t a part of her face. Stimulating the lymph system in her head and neck released the blockages to the area and her face returned to it’s normal symmetrical shape.

The conditions of non-pitting edema and severe hardening are not reversible. The ypes of conditions which cause permanent edema include kidney disease (nephritis), leaking blood vessels, varicose veins (not spider veins), third degree burns, congestive heart failure, untreated high blood pressure, obstructions in the circulation system (thrombosis or clots), and active cancers.

Many people learn about the effects of lymphedema when they experience cancer. For example, breast cancer patients often experience swelling in an arm and chest after surgery or chemical treatments. Because the lymph system has been damaged in most cases, edema management will become a fact of life for breast cancer survivors.

In an informal survey of 100 healthy people, participants were asked if they knew about the lymph system and what they could do to keep it healthy. Zero percent of those surveyed knew what the lymph system does in the body nor what they can do proactively to keep it healthy. Very little information is disseminated to healthy patients about how to take care of the swelling they experience after a sports injury, accident, or surgical procedure. Not very many people are told about the benefits of MLD prior to surgical events or the impact on healing after surgery. I have discussed MLD with heart surgeons, podiatrists, chiropractors, orthopedic and plastic surgeons over the course of five years. It is my concern that few know how to fully utilize MLD or pay any attention to the role that edema plays in healing. Doctors don’t seem to be addressing the impact chronic swelling has when treating conditions that won’t heal appropriately.

Manual Lymph Drainage Massage is used to treat clients who have experienced injuries from sports (acute and chronic), accidents, or surgeries, cancer patients in remission, Parkinson’s patients, pregnant women, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, allergies and sinus problems. It is also recommend for MLD for breast cancer prevention and maintenance. These are just some of the conditions that can be treated with Manual Lymph Drainage massage.

There are several ways to find an MLD therapist, however the best way is to google “manual lymph drainage massage” for directory listings in your area for therapists. You can also call local privately owned massage schools rather than technical college training programs. Technical training programs do not teach the advanced skills required to become a manual lymph drainage therapist. Finally, word of mouth referrals will always ensure that you are working with a professional who gets results. So ask your friends who get bodywork done regularly for their therapist’s qualifications.