Health and Healing, Lessons Learned from Friends and Animals

I began writing this blog last saturday.  I took the time to contemplate it's content, which is why I have waited a week to post. It is my hope that someone will learn something new and start their own journey to a healthier lifestyle.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Good morning my readers,

It is a cold and rainy spring, Saturday morning.  It definitely evokes a writer to put pen to paper.  My home office overlooks the beautiful, majestic and old maple trees that line my street.  They are in full bloom right now and I so enjoy their luscious green color.  As I contemplate what my writing will be focused on today, awaiting inspiration, my mind wanders to the lessons I have learned from friends and animals about health and healing.

As most of my blog readers know, my cat Ben recently died of cancer and ever since then, I have had a very strong urge to eat even better than I have before and to understand why he developed cancer.  Was it the food I fed him? the stress of his sister Creep dying right after the house fire?, his brother Baileys alpha personality? something in our home environment? or was it something that I will never quite figure out?  Why do we have so much cancer in our world today? Everytime you turn around some knows someone that is suffering or dying from it and animals are getting sicker at younger ages.

Quite frankly I want to hear more about the wonderful food we now have available to us all year round, the thousands upon thousands of healthy recipes you can get on your computer, your IPhone, the people are accomplishing great things with their bodies at ages we never dreamed possible before! What about those 90 year old people who are running races and lifting weights and feeling the best they have ever felt?  I want to hear about the stories of animals that have been healed and what the healthiest foods are for them and how to keep them in their best shape.

I have always loved exercise,eating well and looking the best I possibly can.  Its been a passion of mine ever since I can remember. But now, more than ever before, eating "clean" and healthy is calling me. My mother is a cancer survivor and has been diagnosed with Celiac's.  My dad had high cholesterol and heart issues but has since been a total convert to supplements, ordering beef from an organic farm and eating lots of vegetables and fruits and juicing.  He is totally off his high cholesterol and heart medicine.  My dad is a pretty tenacious guy.  He had six stents put in his heart and was out pulling dry wall down not two weeks later! 

I have been very lucky as I am a very healthy woman who's only health issue is perimenopause and psoriasis.  I am stronger then I have ever been due to a committment I made to employ a personal trainer two years ago this month.  I lift weights three days a week and do some form of cardio 30-45 minutes, five days a week.

I came to study health and healing when my former husband and I are were trying to have a baby.  Diagnosed with infertility and suffering severe PMS symptoms in my thirties drove me to find ways to help my body become pain free and to heal itself.  During that same period, I met a dear friend and her husband who were vegetarian and avid students of alternative medicine. This was the start of a journey that would grip my curiosity and send me down paths I never dreamed over the last twenty years.

I have studied amazing, human holistic teachers such as Dr. Christiane Northrup http://www.drnorthrup.com/ Louise Hay, http://www.louisehay.com/, Wayne Dyer, http://www.drwaynedyer.com/, Deepak Chopra, http://www.deepakchopra.com/ and Andrew Weil, http://www.drweil.com ,Caroline Myss, http://www.myss.com/ and so many others .

My cats vets stand as my teachers in homeopathic and energy medicine. They are
Dr. Alisa Koenig DMV, located in East Aurora, NY, Dr. Donald Hamilton, DMV, in New Mexico and Dr. Cynthia Lankenau, DVM in Colden, NY. 

Recently, I have been following two amazing websites of women who I truly admire for their committment to health. Tosca Reno, http://toscareno.com/ and Kris Carr, http://crazysexylife.com/.
They are women who have embraced health at every level, physical, spiritual, mental.

What have I learned? What can I share with you so that you can begin to ask some of your own questions, answer some that you have pondered or simply be enlightened by some new bit of information?

Answer:  I have learned more than I can share on one blog! Hahahaha!

So perhaps what I can begin with is to talk about Lessons Learned from my 90 year old friend Marquerite with whom I spent precious moments with during my days in Holland, NY.