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Healing Chronic Disease

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“I Can Make Diseases Disappear”…

…says the honest medical doctor featured in this enlightening TEDx Talk. Like every other medical doctor, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee was trained in medical school to prescribe medications. But after his own infant daughter nearly died from an extreme deficiency in calcium and vitamin D, he realized his education was not complete and decided to get fully educated. Medications only suppress symptoms, while letting the cause of chronic disease go untreated thus causing more problems. If that’s enough to motivate you to start watching this excellent video, go ahead. If not, please read my summary below and then decide.

Chronic disease disappears when we find and eliminate the underlying cause.

Summary: Medications can be lifesavers for acute illnesses, like pneumonia, bronchitis, infections, etc. However chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, IBS, acid reflux, GERD, and heart disease, all can be caused by a variety of different underlying issues. Like Naturopathic doctors, Dr. Chatterjee, has learned how to identify and treat the cause of chronic illness.

He understands that even so-called psychological disorders aka mental illness – anxiety disorder, depression, ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), ADHD, cognitive decline, dementia, Alzheimers, and more – all can be reversed at the cause level. But the causes can be different for different individuals, and this takes time and diligence to achieve. Most medical doctors can only allow 7.5 minutes per patient visit!

Chemical imbalances start with processed junk food, shallow breathing and chronic “fight or flight”.

Here’s one example of a cause that is not discussed in the video. Psychological problems, such as depression and anxiety, are usually considered by doctors to be caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. When you’re trained to prescribe drugs (chemicals) it is easy to forget that there must be a root cause for the imbalanced brain chemistry!

One recently discovered cause begins with the balance of bacteria in the gut (aka “the microbiome”), which Dr. Chatterjee does touch on in the video. I won’t bore you with all the details, but a chain of reactions to that bacteria imbalance leads to a “loosening” of the blood brain barrier. The brain is no longer protected from all the stuff in the blood that doesn’t belong in the brain! The beginning of that chain reaction? Decisions you make about what you do and don’t put in your mouth.

Okay, but why do some people LOVE eating foods like organic kale, broccoli, fermented foods and gluten free foods, while others find it disgusting or impossible?  Sliding down the “rabbit hole” a bit further, we find the culprit: emotional and spiritual imbalances.  Yet even these “causes” stem from deep-seated beliefs held secretly in the subconscious mind. Don’t believe me? Click here to discover a common belief (aka “conditioned response”) that literally deprives the brain of oxygen when it’s needed most. And if you agree that “crying is a sign of weakness,” you really need to click here!

Cure chronic mental illness and physical disease

Nutrition is key for body and brain health.

Like me, Dr. Chatterjee looks for nutritional imbalances, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, microbiome imbalances of gut bacteria, as well as emotional stress and chronic inflammation. I also work with Transformational Breath, EFT Tapping, and Reverse Therapy.

Then we work together to bring your body, mind, emotions and spirit into balance and… voila! Disease disappears.

Take a listen to the video if you haven’t already. It’s 18 minutes well spent.

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Alzheimers Reversed Naturally

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UCLA Study: Alzheimers responds to natural treatment

UCLA Study: natural treatment for Alzheimers

Western medical doctors still have no effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, even though it was recognized over 100 years ago. But UCLA researchers are now reversing memory loss for the first time. They’ve developed a program that incorporates many of the natural approaches to health that I’ve been teaching – and coaching clients to adopt – since 2002.

In a newscast on ABC News 7 and an article featured on the station’s website, Denise Dador says: “It’s not a drug; it’s not a procedure; it is a novel, comprehensive and personal approach to treating memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s.” Articles have since surfaced on many reputable news sites including Huffington Post.

I find it interesting that the healthy lifestyle you are about to discover (if you remember to watch the video below ;>) is considered “novel” by this news reporter.  Watch the video to see exactly what can be done to reverse what Alzheimer’s does to the brain.

It’s a complex disease. In the report from UCLA’s Dr. Dale E. Bredesen, he explains that Alzheimer’s is affected by sleep, diet, even exercise. “These — and other things — all contribute to this critical balance in plasticity,” says Bredesen.

Ten patients with memory-loss participated in the small UCLA trial , “MEND” , which stands for Metabolic Enhancement for NeuroDegeneration. Some of the patients had patterns of Alzheimer’s that were confirmed by brain-scans. For a more in-depth (but not too technical) look at the study, click here.

In the UCLA protocol, significant lifestyle changes had to be made by patients. They were told to avoid simple carbs (like white bread, white rice, sugary foods, etc). They were also told to eat only gluten-free foods and avoid processed foods. They also increased their consumption of fish, took yoga classes and meditated regularly. Additional instructions included taking melatonin at bed time and to get adequate sleep. And they added significant doses of vitamin B-12, D-3 and fish oil to their daily regimen.

Six months later, nine of the ten patients had a noticeable improvement in memory. Only one patient, in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, did not improve. UCLA researchers say the findings suggest, at least early on, that changing a person’s metabolic processes can bring back memory and cognitive function.

Prior to the study, six of the subjects had been forced to discontinue working due to the ailment. However, after benefiting from the new lifestyle adopted during the study, they were able to return to their jobs. Study authors say some patients were followed up to 2.5 years and the improvements remained.

Plans are underway to do larger studies on this therapeutic program. For those who cannot wait and are willing and able to make significant changes in their lives, I am available as a coach via online conferencing as well as in person in East Hartford, CT.

 

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Media Tells Medical Fairytales

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“Our love of ‘significance’ pollutes the literature with many a statistical fairy-tale.”

~ Richard Horton, Editor in Chief of The Lancet

Richard Horton, BSc MB FRCP FMedSci

Richard Horton, BSc MB FRCP FMedSci

You might expect Fox News or CNN or SOME mainstream news show to report it when a statement like the one above gets published by the Editor in Chief of the world’s most prestigious medical journal. Sorry to disappoint. Despite his extraordinary qualifications as Editor in Chief of The Lancet, Richard Horton’s published statement has been virtually ignored by mainstream media channels.

You can read the entire full page statement here or just search online for the title, “What is medicine’s 5 sigma?” But you won’t find it on any of your trusted mainstream news media websites. I checked the major five and nothing… see the screenshots below my blogpost. Meanwhile, here’s a taste of what Horton openly declared:

“Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.”

Wow! Mr. Horton is quickly becoming my new hero. While the mainstream medical industry continues to pay off healthcare hit-men Lancet article by Hortonlike Stephen Barrett, MD (www.quackwatch.com) to marginalize much safer holistic health modalities (their competition) as “quackery”, Horton is standing up and telling the truth.

Could he lose his job? Follow the money! It will probably depend on how much financial support The Lancet journal relies upon from advertising sales and other not-so-obvious funding sources. Since the World Bank, The Robert Koch Institute, the Breast Cancer Campaign and other seemingly innocuous organizations (many of which have no obvious connection to health care) seem to be funding the submission of research articles, my guess is that his career might indeed be in jeopardy. Time will tell.

He didn’t mince words, “The apparent endemicity of bad research behavior is alarming. In their quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world. Or they retrofit hypotheses to fit their data.”

Many of the pharmaceutical-sponsored studies he refers to were designed to develop drugs and vaccines that supposedly help people. These same studies are used to educate medical students and train medical staff.  So your doctor is not lying to you, he has just been trusting faulty information and calling it fact, because it is supposedly “evidence-based”.

Want more “evidence” of the medical research scam? Longtime Editor-in-Chief of another most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journal, Harvard-trained physician Dr. Marcia Angell stated in her book, “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEMJ).”

And don’t expect your doctor to be apprised of the situation unless s/he took time to read Horton’s shocking comments. He wrote them after attending a conference about how reproducible and reliable biomedical research is, in London, where the participants were forbidden to disclose what they heard or learned there! Horton began his article by quoting another participant: “A lot of what is published is incorrect.” followed by his own admission that he was “not allowed to say who made this remark, because we were asked to observe Chatham House rules [of confidentiality]. We were also asked not to take photographs of slides.”

So if you think there is not a conspiracy to withhold important facts and information from you, think again! Oh, right, it’s not a conspiracy, it’s just the rule.

“Can bad scientific practices be fixed?” Horton asks later in his article. “Part of the problem is that no-one is incentivized to be right.”

There are however, quite rich incentives for “proving” that your (research-sponsor’s) hypothesis about a profitable drug or vaccine is right.

Fairy tales have a place in the world, for sure, but not in a doctor’s office, where innocent lives are depending on honest science!  But that’s just my humble opinion. What’s yours? Who are you gonna trust?

Please leave comments below these screenshot graphics, which show that four major news outlets published nothing about this very important development… NOTHING!

USA Today search for Horton Lancet Fox News re Horton Lancet story  MSNBC search for Horton Lancet storyCNN search for Horton Lancet story

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Medical Masterminds Confess

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One More Girl Movie imageOne More Girl is a documentary film about the Gardasil vaccine, which is claimed to prevent Human Papilloma virus. A former vice president of Pfizer (one of the biggest drug manufacturers in the world), Dr. Peter Rost, MD, told the truth, in the film, about the unholy union between the mainstream medical community and the pharmaceutical industry. Given his resume’, it’s safe to say he is an insider-expert on pharmaceutical marketing tactics.

Author of The Whistleblower, Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman, Dr. Rost is a brave whistle blower who has come clean about corrupt marketing practices used by his former employer. He also asserts that most, if not all, of the pharmaceutical companies function in much the same way.

The quotes below came from a former and a current editor-in-chief of the two most trusted and influential medical journals in the world. I include them in this blogpost, since they back up what Dr. Rost says in the video.

Dr. Marcia Angell, physician and former editor-in-chief of the New England Medical Journal has stated publicly that: “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Still planning to “ask your doctor”? Still willing and trust what s/he recommends about that debilitating chronic fatigue, painful fibromyalgia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome or even that diagnosis of cancer? Consider yourself warned!

Dr. Richard Horton, the current editor-in-chief of The Lancet – one of the most well-respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the world – has warned those who will listen: “The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.”

Please, friend, watch the video below as if your life depended on it. Because it does!

We must learn to think for ourselves and get help from people who see the whole picture! There are healthy ways to prevent problems like HPV.  And there are natural holistic solutions to most of the so-called “incurable” health problems that plague our society.

Chances are slim that you’ll be informed of them at your Medical Doctor’s office, however… unless there happens to be a holistic health oriented magazine sitting on the table. But that would be considered “contra-band” at many mainstream medical offices.

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Need to Quit Smoking? 2 Tools You Need.

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quit-smokingSmoking cigarettes is a habit – or addiction – that is very hard to quit for many reasons. We all know about the physical addiction to nicotine- it’s known to be as hard to beat as heroin. But many people do not realize that there are many deep-seated emotional issues, as well as subconscious beliefs, that keep them smoking.

Smoking cigarettes is often used to stuff feelings and emotional pain that’s left over from historical trauma and/or belief patterns. These lead to stress, anxiety, depression, and high blood pressure (just to name a few).

If you are aware that cigarettes calm you down, chances are good that you’re wanting to avoid dealing with some old unprocessed emotions. If you don’t believe this, my question to you is: why do you need cigarettes to calm down? Many people who don’t smoke can calm down without cigarettes or another substance.

There is the addiction, as discussed earlier, and just missing the nicotine can make you feel anxious. But there are people who quit cold turkey and stay quit. So why do YOU rely on cigarettes for calming down?

What most people don’t realize is that our social and cultural conditioning dictates a lot about how we experience ourselves and the world we live in. These perceptions dictate how we deal – or don’t deal – with emotions and challenges. Over time, these patterns just seem normal so we assume it’s just “the way I am”.

You might say, “I have an addictive personality” but that tendency toward addiction is really based on how well you deal with stress. If you don’t have natural tools and skills for dealing with stressful people and situations, then you can’t calm down and think clearly when you face a challenge. You might turn to substances that make you feel better. But you are still not dealing with the challenge and things often get worse.

Stress can be dealt with in ways that don’t make you unhealthy and eventually kill you. Two tools that I use with clients include EFT, which stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques, and Transformational Breathing. These powerful techniques can dramatically change the way you:

  • see, value and take care of yourself
  • experience the world and other people
  • honor and communicate your needs and desires
  • experience emotions and feelings
  • go with the flow, and benefit from it, rather than resisting what is

You can certainly continue to smoke. That is the easy way at this point. But as you know, the end result is an early, very unpleasant death. And along the way, you are losing the opportunity to have a richer, more fulfilling life. Because when you are busy stuffing your feelings, you are missing out on the richness that life has to offer… through feelings!

Call me if you want help kicking that old habit into the can!

 

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Crying Relieves Pain & Stress

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We are all born with the innate ability to express emotions. Express literally means “push out”. Emotion can be thought of as “energy in motion”. When emotions become overwhelming and they are not expressed, they can become “stuck”, so to speak, causing a blockage in the flow of energy.Crying for relief from pain

Laughter, yawning, crying, sighing, and even singing – all facilitate the expression of a variety of feelings. These natural and contagious inclinations serve to cleanse the body, mind and soul, so that we can maintain a healthy balance. It is important to note that all of these can also be seen as breathing exercises, since they expand the flow of breath.

As we are conditioned to live in society, however, many of these natural forms of expression are stifled and even shamed. For example, pretty much as soon as we begin to talk, we quickly learn that it is not acceptable to cry. In order to hold back those tears, when we feel physical or emotional pain, we must constrict our breathing and disengage our mind from body and soul.

When we do this, the energy that was meant to move through us, on a “wave” of breath, gets trapped instead in our muscles, which must be held – constricted – to prevent the breath/energy from moving. This painful energy is then stored as tension in the subconscious mind and body (which are not really separate at all). If this buildup of pain is not cleansed, the results can be devastating – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

As infants cry, they breathe in a connected wave pattern. “Connected” means there is no pause (or holding) between the inhalation and exhalation. It’s a “wave” because the in-breath rises in the lower belly, first, and flows upward to expand the chest area. The out-breath is an uncontrolled flow, similar to a sigh of relief, but with loud sound attached. Crying allows that buildup of pain energy to exit the body/mind. It is indeed a big relief when this happens, and this is why we think of babies as being so resilient. They cry, letting the pain energy leave the body/mind, and the event that caused the pain is often forgotten.

A Transformational Breathing session is a process that relies upon breathing in a similar fashion to re-establish the healthy ability to process emotions. In the process, we can clear and release self-defeating beliefs that were formed as a result of the cultural conditioning that says “don’t cry”.

A series of ten weekly sessions typically restores the innate ability to move energy through us, releasing tension and deep rooted stress. At the same time, we are restoring (or creating) a sense of safety and worthiness to express our authentic feelings in the world, without fear of being shamed.

What’s more, when the subconscious mind is cleared of excess baggage, those old familiar voices of conflict are quieted, allowing the voice of Spirit to be heard more clearly. Many people report profound experiences of feeling connected to God, a higher power, Jesus, or whatever name they choose to refer to the essential Source of Life which breathes through each of us.

One of my favorite quotes came from an Asian mother, who had suffered with Traumatic Brain Injury for years.  She attended a workshop along with a group of her peers from Boston, MA. After her first Transformational Breathing session she said. “Before this experience, I did not think there was a God. But today I know God.”

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Effective Trauma Resolution is a Physical Affair…

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Lois Grasso

scary dog faceWhen you experience something overwhelmingly scary and threatening, your body generates a truckload of energy so that you can have the resources to survive. You have three possible ways to react: fight, flight (run away), or freeze. If you fight or run and get away from the threat, you have expressed the fear energy, often by turning it into anger. Doing so empowers you, by giving you the energy to fight or run for your life.

Studies show that those who successfully and actively escape a threat usually don’t develop the same degree of symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) if at all.

If, on the other hand, you realize that fighting or running will make things worse, or you try and it does make things worse, chances are you’ll then go into freeze mode and therefore experience yourself as powerless. This leads to PTSD and lots of related problems, such as anxiety disorders, depression, panic attacks, paranoia, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, chronic illness or chronic fatigue.

For example, my client Rachel’s father (see previous post) was her abuser. She was often tied down and, as a child, had no where to run afterwards — no way to sustain herself outside the family.  Her mother dismissed her complaints and made it clear she was not available to help. Rachel had no choice but to freeze and dissociate from the torture. So the energy of overwhelming fear became frozen and trapped in her body, mind and involuntary nervous system.

Like a wild animal trying to escape a small cage, this trapped energy can be very damaging to the body and mind. It can cause severe mental stress in the form of panic attacks, anxiety, depression, hyper-vigilance and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and even more severe mental illness, due to the inability to trust anyone.

Unresolved trauma can also cause physical stress and illness. In fact, I would wager that a dominant portion of all mental and physical disease in this world has its roots in unresolved trauma. I believe this is why Transformational Breathing™ and EFT are so effective. They resolve trauma at the core energetic level, underlying all physical and mental/emotional processes.

EFT and Transformational Breathing™ are body-oriented therapies that can cross the bridge between the conscious and subconscious minds, as well as allowing us to voluntarily access the involuntary nervous system.

We are moving massive amounts of energy through the meridians by tapping on acupressure points to stimulate the flow. At the same time, the deep, connected breathing pattern of Transformational Breathing™ generates a powerful circuit of energy that cleanses the body, mind and soul.

After a few minutes of Transformational Breathing™, Rachel gets into a kind of altered state, in which she shakes, trembles, punches, kicks and sometimes yells or cries uncontrollably. Many mental health practitioners would get nervous and try to calm her down, but these are natural responses to trauma. They are needed to move the stuck energy, so it can be pushed out (aka “expressed”).

As a Transformational Breath™ facilitator for 14 years, I am trained and experienced in supporting this process. It’s messy, but it works for most people and, contrary to popular fears, it does come to an end when the innermost being finds self-acceptance. Acceptance comes from me, at first, and eventually the client begins to give it to themselves.

These involuntary body movements and vocalizations are welcomed, accepted, even encouraged with my full-hearted support, appreciation, and TLC.  I like the way Dr. Levine describes this in his book, Waking The Tiger… “To move through trauma we need quietness, safety, and protection similar to that offered the bird in the gentle warmth of a child’s hands.”

Rachel often alternates between a quiet state and kicking and punch as much as her body wants to. No matter what, her feelings and expressions are honored and encouraged. Even growling, yelling and cussing are okay, as Rachel’s internal freedom to express anger slowly returns to re-empower her.

 

This natural trauma relief process is the key to pushing out (aka expressing) the chaotic, emotional dynamite of trauma, so trauma survivors can truly calm down inside. But only after being restored to their natural, self-empowered state of peace and balance.

“With this support and connection,” Dr. Levine says, “we can begin to trust and honor the natural process that will bring us to completion and wholeness, and eventually peace of mind.”

Know someone who has been traumatized in some way? Do them a favor and pass this along to them. This works for all kinds of trauma, not just sexual abuse. Of course, no one method works for everyone. But if this can work for sexual abuse, it can work for just about anything.

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Why “Manage” Stress? Master It with Conscious Breathing

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Lois Grasso, CTBF

Anxiety, PTSD, peace of mind, brain, Dr. AmenAre you dealing with social anxiety, panic attacks, depression, PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), chronic pain (aka fibromyalgia) or chronic illness, chronic fatigue? Maybe you’re trying to figure out how to manage the stress of parenting, weight loss, financial problems or difficult relationships? If so, you’re not alone and there is real, drug-free help available right here! Here’s the scoop.

According to Dean Ornish, M.D., author of the highly-respected bestseller, Reversing Heart Disease, “Deep breathing exercises are the most powerful and effective form of stress management”. This is no surprise, since stress is the number one reason people get sick and heart disease is the number one killer of Americans.

Likewise, pioneering psychiatrist and brain activity researcher, Dr. Daniel Amen says in his bestselling book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, that he teaches all his patients “deep, diaphragmatic breathing” as the first step in healing the brain. Hmmm.. so deep breathing is key for mental health, too!

So if our leading heart and brain doctors know healing is mostly a matter of plain old deep breathing, why are so many people so stressed out and taking drugs to deal with the consequences? It turns out that most people are not breathing properly. Taking a deeper breath in the wrong way, does not help. In fact, this can possibly make matters worse.

So let’s back up a moment. We all know that when we go without oxygen for even five minutes, we usually die. It’s pretty black and white. But there are also many shades of gray in between life and death. How well you are breathing also determines how well you are living, in more ways than one.

When your cells are bathed in abundant oxygen, you are free to relax and enjoy an abundant life. Chances are, however, your cells are starving. How do I know? Almost 80% of the population restricts their breathing! And it happens especially when they need oxygen most: under stress.

This is how anxiety and panic attacks happen, and it’s all because of a conditioned response to stress (recall Pavlov’s dogs? Bingo.). As children, we usually learn very early on to restrict our breathing because it’s the only way to “stop crying or get something to really cry about!”

Remember hearing that? Maybe you’ve even said it to your own kids? But you didn’t realize the long term damage it was doing – neither did your parents – so don’t beat yourself up. Because of the need children have to gain parents approval, they learn to breath shallowly – using tiny, weak chest muscles instead of the diaphragm – the 2nd most powerful muscle in the body.

Restricted breathing severely limits health and vitality, as it depletes your energy and brain power. This depletion in turn spirals into deeper levels of stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, and illness.

The good news is: this cycle of doom can be reversed. But not with drugs.

Click here for more info…

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Breathing Techniques to Reduce Stress

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Lois Grasso

Breathe DeeplyYou can use conscious breathing to either manage your stress or master it. While there are many different breathing exercises taught and practiced worldwide, most of them do not actually reverse improper breathing, as described in my previous post.

Pranayama is yogic breathing developed in India, while Chi Kung (aka Qigong) is commonly practiced in China. In fact, in major Chinese hospitals, Medical Qigong is commonly used by doctors to treat ailments as serious as broken necks! Developing this skill is known to require decades of dedicated practice, however, and this may not be as profitable as typical high-tech treatments currently used in U.S. hospitals (which may explain why you’ll probably never hear about this on TV or other mainstream media).

Pilates and yoga are both breathing-focused forms of exercise, that are now becoming very popular in the U.S. And there are many others. If your breathing is restricted, imbalanced or worse “backwards”, however, practicing some of these could actually make the problem worse, at least for a while, and may be very difficult to stick to.

There are methods that offer shortcuts to mastery. I recommend starting with a process that is specifically aimed at reversing restrictive breathing patterns. Then, when you can automatically breathe “into the belly” (aka diaphragmatic breathing), even when feeling pain or stress, it’s time to move on to these other wonderful methods (above) and achieve even more in your life.

The common factor in each of the following “shortcut” methods is the use of “conscious-connected breathing”. This effectively means deliberately keeping your breathing going without pausing between inhalation and exhalation — usually for about an hour. Many different styles and brands of conscious-connected breathing have popped up over the years.

I have experienced many different forms of conscious-connected breathing, since 1981, when I attended a Rebirthing weekend with Dan Brule’. To my knowledge, these three have been the most successful and widely shared worldwide:

1) Leonard Orr discovered Rebirthing in the early 1960s, while breathing under water with a snorkel in his hot tub! Leonard is still teaching what he now calls Rebirthing Breathwork, across the globe at the young age of 80+. The name was changed mostly to differentiate from the so-called “Rebirthing” session that suffocated a 10-year old girl in England the 1990’s. (There is no connection between the two modalities.)

2) Stanislav Grof, PhD discovered Holotropic Breathing® around the same time Orr was discovering Rebirthing. The two pioneers were unaware of each other. Dr. Grof had been conducting lab experiments with LSD, and somehow discovered that conscious-connected breathing could provide a healthier, more productive experience than the drug- induced altered states.

3) Judith Kravitz got her start as a Rebirther 40 years ago, but has been continually developing Transformational Breathing® ever since. She has trained hundreds of facilitators worldwide, and hundreds of thousands of individuals have attended Transformational Breathing® sessions. In my experience, her methods are more fine tuned because they include key aspects to emotional clearing and spiritual development, as well as physical expansion of breathing capacity.

For a fascinating discussion of the specific differences between these modalities, please subscribe to this blog and stay tuned.

I trained with Judith to be a facilitator in 1998, and then published and edited her book in 1999. So I cannot claim to be completely impartial, I just know how well it works, after 14 years in private practice. Mostly I prefer Transformational Breathing® because there’s a strong focus on breathing with the diaphragm – key to overall health and stress reduction.

Judith Kravitz has been “Breath facilitator to the stars” you might say, and some of them have come forward. For example, after a Transformational Breath session, Canyon Ranch owner Enid Zuckerman, was quoted saying, “My breathing is so much freer… layers of stress have melted away. I highly recommend it.”

Closer to home, one of my favorite groups to work with was a group of Asian-American clients of South Cove Community Health Center, Boston, Massachusetts, all of whom had sustained Traumatic Brain Injuries. One woman shared this afterwards,”Before today, I didn’t think there was a God. Today I know God.”

Eric Lee, the group leader who arranged the two day long retreats wrote, “What a wonderful job done. Every one of the participants enjoyed the trip. They had the best, now there is no looking back. I admire your work and wish in the near future to take more courses.”
On 6/1/2012, Holly McHaelen posted the following on her Facebook page after about three months of private Transformational Breath and holistic coaching sessions with me:

Lois Grasso is a gifted Breathwork facilitator and healer, who made a great difference for me. I want to give her the gift of a spontaneous, unsolicited and grateful testimonial. I had several years of increasingly crappy health, but I’m doing extremely well now (YAY!).

I resisted going, because I thought I knew how to breathe. But my friend, Jeri Reid (another wonderful holistic practitioner), kept urging me to see Lois. I figured I had nowhere to go but up. Yowsa! I couldn’t believe the difference that the effortless ‘work’ with Lois made in my health and life — like growing wings. I know that I’m healthier, happier, stronger, freer, dancier, singier, clearer and aliver today because of Lois.”

Not sure if this approach is right for you at this time? Click here to read more testimonials from my clients who have come forward.

Bottom line? While differences between the various styles and brands of breath work can certainly affect the results, they all offer significant benefits. The physical, spiritual and emotional benefits of restoring deep, balanced and effective breathing patterns are reported to be life-changing by those who experience it.  Nobody can do it for you, but I can sure help.

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Reliving Trauma May Not Relieve Trauma

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Lois Grasso

As a holistic health coach and practitioner of Transformational Breathwork® and EFT (aka Emotional Freedom Technique aka Tapping), I am often amazed by the results provided by these two holistic healing methods. After reading Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Dr. Peter A. Levine, the reasons for the results have become quite obvious to me: Almost everyone has some degree of unresolved trauma and these two body-oriented methods are effectively resolving trauma.

Look, it doesn’t take much to traumatize a young child. But trauma is easily shoved to a dark dungeon in a child’s mind — hopefully to be dealt with later in life (or not) at great cost and difficulty.

Unfortunately, few adults have the patience or understanding to even realize this, never mind being able to help the child process the trauma. So, most of us – children and adults – have unresolved trauma stored in our bodies and minds. I believe this is what causes the all-too-common “chemical imbalance” blamed regularly for mental health issues.

Mainstream medicine acts as if our brains are just randomly selected for chemically imbalanced. And supposedly the only thing we need to balance the brain chemistry is Prozac, Zoloft, Celebrex, or perhaps Ritalin or Adderall, etc.

Contrary to popular belief, unresolved trauma causes all kinds of physical and mental health issues. Relationships and families suffer, phobias and/or control issues develop, trust issues keep us isolated, fibromyalgia (unexplained pain) develops. And then there’s the anxiety disorders, eating disorders, weight problems, panic attacks. Perhaps depression or chronic fatigue emerges. Even irritable bowel syndrome (aka IBS ) can be relieved when early childhood trauma or adult trauma is resolved.

Rachel (not her real name) came in recently, after repeated prodding by a former therapist, who knew of my work. Rachel said she wanted help with a career change and fibromyalgia (unexplained pain) throughout her body. In the second session, we uncovered the origin of her difficulties: Trauma from decades ago – a result of severe childhood sexual abuse.

Apparently, after years of psychotherapy, despite bringing many repressed memories to the surface and gaining many valuable insights, she was still suffering in many ways that were interfering with her ability to move forward.

After just 11 months of regular coaching sessions, with Transformational Breathing® , EFT Tapping, and my own method: On The Ball Anger Clearing™, Rachel was feeling good enough to choose a new career direction. She now feels very good about supporting adult rape victims at a non-profit agency.

Granted, childhood sexual abuse is one of the most challenging of traumatic experiences to recover from, but with body-centered “energy psychology” approaches, like Transformational Breathing® and Emotional Freedom Techniques, there is hope for the determined person.

After reading Waking The Tiger and doing the work in my office,  Rachel realized that simply reliving the horrific experiences in her mind by talking about them was not going to resolve the trauma. Here’s why…

Please share this information with everyone you know. You never know who might benefit!

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