Wikis related to body-and-soul

Most of you know me as someone who writes a lot about the wonders of homeopathy.  But homeopathy isn't just about using remedies to heal -- it's also about staying healthy in the first place. As Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (the developer of homeopathy in the 1800s) said, one must remove "maintaining causes" -- eating and living habits that lead to ill-health. There are also a variety of natural means for restoring health that don't involve the use of remedies. These can be handy if you are on a good constitutional remedy and don't want to interrupt its action with the use of a different remedy...

By Shannon Valenzuela   Three Simple Skills to Lower Your Stress Now   As a mother of many who homeschools her kids and has decided to birth a career as a write-at-home-mom, I was feeling all the negative effects of my abundantly full life -- high stress, exhaustion, and a roller coaster of energy flares and burn-outs. I decided that I needed to do something about it -- I had too much to love and enjoy to feel so run-down and out of it! I needed to make some changes...fast.   I read Dr. Sara Gottfried's new book, The Hormone Cure, to fill my idea tank. Her approach to hormone...

By Laura Grace Weldon         1. Give genuine compliments. You might want to challenge yourself to give compliments to five or ten people a day. It keeps you on the lookout for truth and beauty. Tell a clerk she has a lovely voice, a child that his smile made your day, a loved one that their eyes are beautiful.   2. Keep duplicates of your child’s toys and books in the diaper bag. When you encounter fussy children, offer an extra to their parents.   3. Call an elderly relative or neighbor once a week to chat. You may think you’re enriching that person’s life. They’re enriching...

An article I wrote awhile back (titled “Sorry? Only Say It If You Mean It”) elicited some good thinking and rambling. Like this from White Hot Truth reader, “S”, who said: “… A sister has stopped speaking to me ‘unless I apologize.’ I could say I’m sorry just to have her back in my life and to soothe things over, but it would be a sell-out. It has been her pattern to “create” victimhood in her life, giving her a reason to always be angry. I am breaking my lifelong habit of enabling her.” “I demand an apology!” If you have to demand it, is it really worth receiving? As I said to S.,...

This resource list intended to be a compilation of helpful MDC threads, Mothering articles and member-recommended website links dealing with grief and loss.  MDC Discussion Threads Remembering Our Loved Ones: A Memorial Mothering Articles The Art of Grieving Gracefully It Won't Hurt Forever: Guiding Your Child Through Trauma  Raging Grief The Life and Death of a Hurricane Grief Tea Accepting the Gift: Grief and Loss His Way  My Mother, Myself Charlotte's Grace (stillbirth) My Morning Glory (neonatal death) Helpful Website Links National Mental Health Information Center:...

By Brian Leaf   Whether you're stressed this holiday season from the gift-buying and consumerism, the in-laws visiting, or just too many wakings in the night, try these quick and easy fixes to move you from stress case to relaxed mama.   1. Alternate Nostril Breathing    Sit in a chair or on the floor with a blanket or pillow underneath your bum.   ➊ Close off your right nostril with your thumb, and inhale slowly through the left nostril. ➋ Then close off your left nostril with your ring finger, and exhale slowly through the right. ➌ Then inhale through right. ➍ Switch fingers and...

By Ruxandra Looft     This week is Inflammatory Breast Cancer Awareness Week; a week dedicated to raising awareness for a particular type of breast cancer that is often left out of the mainstram conversation. IBC is a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer that does not present like “normal” breast cancer (in that there is no lump) and that spreads rapidly. It’s easy to miss IBC or to confuse it with a clogged duct, especially if you are a breastfeeding mom, as it makes the breast look red and swollen. That is what happened to my friend Heather, when her doctor thought the “hot...

Beth, our yoga instructor, took a dry erase marker and wrote a word I’d never seen before on the board: citta. “Citta. Anyone know what it means?” she asked. She pronounced the word chitta. I was attending an all-day fertility yoga workshop, and there were about ten of us sitting in a circle. Women began guessing: love breath wisdom “Um, it’s kind of a negative thing,” Beth hinted. I made no guesses. I was stumped. “Citta. Chatter. The stuff that goes on in our heads,” Beth said. “We have so much of it. A lot of it is about how we want things to happen.” All of us...

I was recently interviewed by MomsLikeMe.com, and I thought I’d share a snippet of the interview with the mamas here on Mothering.com. Without further ado: Q&A: Marketing and Motherhood Mold-Breaker Danielle LaPorte Danielle LaPorte. Writer. Motivational speaker. “Firestarter.” New-Age business advisor. “Super rogue” entrepreneurial creative force. Inventor of “white hot truths.” Mother. If you haven’t heard of Danielle, you need to stop what you’re doing and check her out at whitehottruth.com. While you’re at it, follow her on Twitter. You won’t regret it. We’re so glad this...

Creative types get typecast as meandering goal setters for a reason. They tend to meander. We resist structure (even tho’ we crave it it.) We relish spontaneity (even tho’ we’re intrigued by five year goal setting plans.) We tend to be driven by inspiration (when we’re not obsessed with looking good on paper, or to our parents – who still can’t figure out how we make a living.) We get there in our own way and when the ‘flow’ works, we’re so smokin’ productive that pert charts and to-do lists cringe in the wake of our creative productivity. Creatives have a thing or two to teach the...

Last year, around this time, I was pregnant. I never expected, or desired pregnancy. It was just something I never thought of or wanted. I never “tried” getting pregnant. I was never one of those women who desperately wished for children. I have never heard the proverbial ‘biological clock’ ticking. I had no trouble conceiving (four times total, one full-term pregnancy and birth), even with the added complications of being on anti-convulsants-for Epilepsy- for most of my life. I wouldn’t find out for sure until December 2, but I knew I was pregnant for at least a week before. All...

It was January. My husband and I had left sunny California and moved all the way across the country to D.C. The days were heavy. Gray. Cold. I was homesick. I was struggling to build a new career. And then I had a miscarriage. It was one of the worst winters of my life. That was three years ago. I’d like to think I’ve gotten better at handling D.C. winters and my seasonal affective disorder (SAD), but I wonder. The other day, my alarm went off and I looked at the pile by my bed: yoga pants, running shoes, a warm pullover, mittens, and a hat. I knew it was important to walk outside to...

One of my most pleasant, in fact, euphoric, car-buying experiences was at a dealership in Virginia. They had a “no haggle” policy. “So let me get this straight,” I said, leaning against the shiny Jetta. “THIS sticker price is THE price?” “Uh huh,” said Mr. Sales Guy. “Can you throw in new tires?” I pressed. “Nope, this is the price.” “You gonna hit me with some hidden costs?” I prodded. “Nope, this is the price.” “Do you think I can get it it cheaper at the lot down the road?” I asked, eyebrow raised. “Maybe, but probably not by much.” he shrugged. “I’ll take it!” And...

Success and failure go hand in hand. “The things you are fired for are often the things that in later life you will be celebrated and given life time achievement awards for!” Francis Ford Coppola was canned for writing an “odd” and awkward script for the now legendary film Patton. The film was shelved, took years to make, and then went on to win an Oscar for best screenplay. Meanwhile, Coppola was working on The Godfather and was also on the verge of being canned from that film. He figures the glory from the Oscar saved his butt from being fired from The Godfather…which as we all know,...

Hello all!  Thanks to a beautiful deep layer of snow that fell on our land this past weekend, we’ve been without internet for five days now.  What feelings does imagining that bring up for you?  A healthy dose of panic, perhaps? It is striking, isn’t it, how utterly dependent we’ve become on this beast called the internet.  I wanted to find a special pumpkin pie recipe - it was online.  I needed the phone number for internet repair – it was online.  I wanted to let friends know about a great fundraiser happening in our community last weekend – on facebook… I wanted to watch the video...

I write from my home office, on a danish teak table, in front of a big window looking onto our street. I usually have the blinds closed because the sunlight makes it hard to read the computer screen. And from the sidewalk, at nearly the same time everyday, I hear loud hollering yelps, a groaning-holler of confusion and speculation that is impossible to ignore. The noises are coming from a young man, about 20-something with really short brown hair and big brown eyes. He’s clearly mentally disabled. I don’t know his name. I’ve named him Jerry. He wears a red rain coat and white runners....

The café hour came at a time when I was doing almost all of the childcare and my husband was doing almost all of the work outside the home. I realized that once a week, I needed him to come home and not only help but relieve me entirely. I needed alone time more than I needed family time. So we put it on the schedule: Thursdays, 6-7pm, my husband would take over and I would take a “cafe hour.” I was clear I needed to leave the house; if I retreated to another room and closed the door, I would still be able to hear them with their needs, demands and concerns. It would be hard not to...

  I work with a lot of serious entrepreneurs. By “serious” I mean devoted, aware, hungry, keen. At conferences and parties, I come into contact with plenty of hobby-preneurs, freshling-preneurs, just-getting-on-the-path-preneurs. I adore them one and I adore them all.       But this takes the wind right out of my strategic cheerleader sails:     I ask: “So how much money do you want to make this year?”     Reply: “Um…I…well…” Knife in my heart. Hole in my sails.     You’re in business to make money, right? (BTW, I operate on the premise that you’re doing work in the...

So many people are looking for it: their big life purpose. Becoming YOU is your purpose. You’re the very purpose of your existence. Realizing what lights your fire and floats your boat — THAT’s your life purpose. What else could it be? If it gives you true joy {not the seemingly happy-high that is fleeting, but the reliable, always-there kind of satisfaction} to…grow a family or a garden; to help people feel powerful … whether by fueling their bank accounts or working their bodies or writing their stories; to make people laugh, to commune with nature, to make things a little more...

Oh would some power the gift give us, to see ourselves as others see us! - Robert Burns To be truly witnessed is a mighty thing. When we are recognized and validated by someone else, that moment of communion becomes it’s own little “satellite of love,” as Lou Reed might say. Objectivity is a powerful thing. Objectivity + love can rewrite your whole storyline. Recognition doesn’t have to be glowing to be powerful. Sometimes having a well-intentioned heart standing next you to say, “I see what you’re going through and man, it sucks,” can be the most helpful thing to hear. And then...