According to the (1) American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA) Autoimmune disease affects up to 50 million Americans. It is a global epidemic that is growing rapidly.

One of the reasons I chose this topic is that Autoimmune disease is one of the top 10 leading causes of death in female children and women in all age groups up to 64 years of age and many people still have not heard of it!

Researchers have identified more than 80 different autoimmune diseases and suspect at least 40 additional diseases of having an autoimmune basis. These diseases are chronic and can be life-threatening.

So what is an autoimmune disease? It develops when your immune system, (which defends your body against disease), decides your healthy cells are foreign. As a result, your immune system attacks healthy cells. In other words, your body starts to attack itself.

Depending on the type, an autoimmune disease can affect one or many different types of body tissue. Different diseases attack different organs.

You may not realise you have an autoimmune disease as many are hard to diagnose. It is also possible to have more than one autoimmune disease at the same time. Many of the symptoms in autoimmune diseases are the same in each disease.

Medical education provides minimal learning about autoimmune disease. Specialists are generally unaware of interrelationships among the different autoimmune diseases or advances in treatment outside their own specialty area.

I believe we need to educate ourselves so we can empower ourselves with knowledge. Many of these conditions are not easy to diagnose and many can be relieved and sometimes reversed with a change in lifestyle.

I want to list just a few conditions here. I guess you will know at least one person, if not more, who are suffering from one of these conditions.

They Are More Common Than You May Think:

• Rheumatoid arthritis: inflammation of joints and surrounding tissues.

• Inflammatory bowel diseases: a group of inflammatory diseases of the colon and small intestine.

• Systemic lupus erythematosus: affects skin, digestive tract, joints, kidneys, brain and other organs.

• Psoriasis: a skin condition that causes redness and irritation as well as thick, flaky, silver-white patches.

• Hashimoto’s disease: inflammation of the thyroid gland.

• Addison’s disease: adrenal hormone insufficiency.

• Graves’ disease: overactive thyroid gland.

• Vitiligo: white patches on the skin caused by loss of pigment

These are some of the common diseases, but as stated above, there are many more. There are also many symptoms and signs of autoimmune disease.

There are many things we can do to change our lifestyle if we are prone to an auto immune deficiency. Currently modern allopathic medicine controls the symptoms with medication.

Throughout this magazine, our experts will help you to understand healthy ways to manage your autoimmune conditions and may even help you to reverse it so you can live a healthier, happier, more energetic life.

I hope you gain lots of information to help you and your family.

Enjoy.

References:

(1) American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, https://www.aarda.org/autoimmune-information/autoimmune-statistics/, accessed 20th November 2015

Edition three of Holistic Living Magazine seems to be a nice place to reflect on what we have covered so far; Depression and its triggers, Diabetes and its causes and now in this edition, autoimmune disease.

On the face of it there seems to be little to connect them, other than the standard approach of, “Have some drugs”, or a shrug of the shoulders from the third doctor you’ve seen saying, “Sorry, I can’t help you.”

But is that strictly true? Recent research has uncovered evidence that Depression isn’t just a mental illness, but that there are biological and physical health components to it as well.

More specifically cytokines and inflammation could be a contributing factor in its causes. As for cytokines these are linked to obesity and trans fats and sugars have been shown to promote inflammation.

We already know that Type 2 Diabetes is related to diet, and more specifically sugar intake, which has also been identified as a cause of inflammation. So now we have two of the diseases that we have covered, being at least partially linked to diet and exercise.

Now while the autoimmune literature will state quite clearly the actual causes of such diseases are unknown, there is sufficient evidence to point at:

• Bacteria or virus
• Drugs
• Chemical irritants
• Environmental irritants

Of course three of these points have already been covered by many of the Experts in how they affect your overall health.

And when linked to the myriad of stories, such as Meghan O’Rourke in the New Yorker, of people keeping at bay their individual autoimmune disease with major lifestyle and dietary changes, there does seem to be a pattern emerging within the three topics.

That thread is the fact that all of them seem to be, to a greater or lesser extent, what you are eating and seemingly just as importantly what you are living in.

While it could be simplistic to say that, and it is hard to move away from the environment, the food and the lifestyles we all lead, it is still a great starting point. Change the diet. Start eating an autoimmune disease diet to cleanse your body.

Reduce the stress in your life. Remove some of the more extreme chemicals that you use, either on yourself or in your home. You don’t have to worry too much about where you start just start somewhere to start healing your auto immune system.

I’ve chosen to write about mindset because of the parallel between the fact that autoimmune conditions result from our immune system mistakenly attacking our body, and the fact that our own thoughts sometimes attack our mind.

Time and time again, my clients see the benefits of adopting mindset management techniques to minimise the risk of derailment by way of negative self-talk and counterproductive mindsets.

Let me quote Einstein here to set the scene. He said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its life believing that it is stupid.”

The simple fact is that if you take control of the way you approach life from the point of view of what goes on in your mind, you’ll experience much more joy.

You’ll experience more peace of mind; you’ll improve your health, your relationships, and your prospects of a happy and healthy future.

It seems to me that the confluence of the educational systems that most of us come through, the families most of us are brought up in, and more generally the world we live in, sets us up to struggle with the kind of crazy reference points Einstein mentioned.

The upside here is that the ball is in our court in terms of deciding how we respond to the kinds of cultural/psychological undercurrents that we’ll experience in one way or other as we move through our life.

Mindset Management Is Key In Improving So Many Things

Taking the time to look under the hood and see what’s going on in our mind on a day to day basis takes us a long way toward being able to avoid wasting time on mindless thoughts and actions that can generate a lot of stress, and even spiral out of control into obsessions or addictions if the conditions are right for those conditions to take hold.

The exercise at the end of this article invites you to unearth some of the negative beliefs that might be sitting in the unconscious part of your mind.

Negative beliefs are very good at filtering experiences in a way that only lets us see the ways in which we are ‘not’ good enough. ‘Not good enough’ thinking or imposter syndrome as it sometimes manifests itself, is incredibly common.

It’s perverse really. I see clients who’ve achieved fabulous things but still manage to worry about being ‘found out’.

It seems that the prospect of being made to feel inadequate in general and stupid in particular, are among the biggest fears we harbour. What’s more, they’re being harboured by some of the smartest people I know.

The bottom line is that worrying about being a fish that can’t climb a tree is an exercise in futility and a license to be miserable.

With effort and focus, I was personally able to swap that kind of license for one that cleared the way for me to be, for the most part, happy and well.

The strategies around mindfulness and mindset management that I used, as I was going through a period of burnout recently, helped me to breathe life into my future.

Gaining an awareness of what was being played out on a psychological and emotional level enabled me to metaphorically and practically come up for air.

If you don’t take the initiative to manage what goes on in your mind, you’ll find that your mind manages you with its default programs. One of these default programs involves compulsively thinking.

Another one adds in automatic negative thoughts that seem to spring up out of nowhere. ‘Not good enough’ thinking is a great example of this.

The fact is that without strategies to keep a perspective on things and manage our mindset, we can find ourselves resorting to tactics like blame, justification, numbing, and denial to avoid dealing with the hard truths that are holding us back.

These habits of mind along with things like perfectionism are particularly limiting frameworks that keep us cycling around our problems without making any ground in terms of transcending them. I love Brené Brown’s work on shame and vulnerability.

Her take on perfectionism is that rather than it driving us toward being better, it’s actually just shame wearing a disguise. ‘Not good enough’ is the language of shame that leaves us feeling as if there is something wrong with us at our core.

Furthermore, a tendency to generalise when we’re feeling down can take the idea – ‘I’m not good enough’, and turn it into ‘I’ll never be good enough’, and ‘I’m no good at anything’.

Another thing that keeps us stuck is compulsively ‘doing’, rather than ‘being’. Never slowing down to feel, and to check in with our body to find out what’s real.

Starting to experience life on the level of feeling rather than just experiencing it at the level of thinking was a real game changer for me. I now know that one of the keys to wellbeing is to regularly feel into my body for clues about what’s really going on.

I invite you to pause now and take a moment to feel into your body, to take a snapshot of the tone of your current mindset via answering the questions below.

To prepare yourself for this, exercise just sit comfortably and take three long breaths. Notice any tension in your body.

Adopting practices that involve deliberately checking in with your body, and developing awareness of what’s going on in your mind, will set you up for a more peaceful and joyful existence than you would otherwise have. Believe me – it’s worth the effort.

Re – invigorating the storyline of your auto-immune system. I would love to gift you a FREE Sound Healing to help you realign.

This concept may be a bit unusual or even unheard of in your world so first I am going to tell you the story of Mother Earth and Father Sky from the perspective of a life alchemist.

In my perception of the world whales sing the song lines of the ocean, birds sing the song lines of the sea and humans (usually indigenous and shamans) sing the song lines of the earth.

As the whales migrate they are re-energising the song lines of the seas and their calls reshape the energy stuck in places in the ocean, releasing stagnant energy so it can flow naturally.

Migrating birds sing the song lines of the air, cleansing the air, keeping all the wild vibrational knowledge intact, all the way up to the Karman line (where ‘space’ is designated to start).

Traditional aboriginal songs not only activate the earth, they also retain teaching, custodianship and ‘right way’ to look after resources, often also containing knowledge of tides, eclipses and celestial movements.

In fact the sound of the Earth herself resonates to all these song line sounds… she amplifies the beat within herself; science calls it the Schuman Resonance.

An absence of Schuman Resonance causes humans to become ill, disoriented and ultimately we die …. Now am I starting to sound familiar? Without a doubt, we all need regular immersion in the sonic heartbeat of Mother Earth.

Did you know that NASA ensures each space craft is fitted with a Schuman simulator, exposing astronauts to the 7.8 hertz heartbeat at all times, thus ensuring their internal rhythm stays intact and keeping them well?

Could you be out of sync with the frequency of the planet?

As a healer and life alchemist it is clear as day to me that if you have developed an autoimmune disease, you have somehow dropped the beat of yourself and lost your connection to the sonic heartbeat of the planet.

Within your physical body you hold the patterns of your health and well-being … your song line that resonates your personal health history to you and holds the blueprint for your health moving forward.

Is it time to revive your autoimmune song line? … to regenerate all of your deep body intelligence … trust me, that part of you is just waiting to be acknowledged and sung back to life.

How do you imagine you would feel if you could revive the memory of your true authentic self? Pretty damn good I should imagine!

OK Valentina, I get the concept. How do I re-energize my autoimmune song line and get my FREE Sound Healing?

Set the intention of re-activating your autoimmune song line within you and then relax and listen to it … letting go so that you can hear the sound all around you and through you.

Allow your breath to join the vibrational sounds; this will create amplification in your body that will bring your autoimmune song line back to life. 20 minutes a day is perfect.

With any energy healing, repetition is the key … a little bit every day (or twice a day) is more effective than, say, 2 hours once a week.

I FEEL EXHAUSTED JUST READING THIS I have composed and uploaded an ‘autoimmune sound healing journey’ mp3 for you on my shop (type ‘song line’ in the offer code box as you check out and it will be yours for free).

Play it as you go to sleep, don’t worry if you nod off, it will work wonders when your conscious mind is disabled (i.e. when you are sleeping). In time, with regular listening/sleeping to it, you will start to feel aware, awake and alive.

Repetition is the key. This mp3 can be used on your iPhone, android, laptop or iPad … so no excuses please! You will have the correct intention set for your song line and be treated to ethereal whale sounds overlaid with Tibetan singing bowl sound healing.

When chakras are blocked or out of balance your immune system suffers because it is unsupported energetically and slides into confusion and responds in an opposite to expected manner or over-responds. It may generate an attack on an infection, toxin, or allergen and then continues attacking healthy cells.

Homeostasis, in which the body’s various parts work together to maintain health, is highly dependent on balanced chakras. Please contact me if you need help with this.

So now I know you understand my advice…. But the question is, Do I understand you? My compassion and sympathy goes out to you if you are reading this and suffering under the yoke of an autoimmune disease and coping with the side effects of any medication you are taking.

I know there are many conventional treatments available can make you feel worse.

I have read that anti-inflammatory drugs like Advil, steroids, immune suppressants like methotrexate, and the new TNF-alpha blockers like Enbrel or Remicade can lead to intestinal bleeding, kidney failure, depression, psychosis, osteoporosis, muscle loss, and diabetes, not to mention overwhelming infection and cancer.

Research tells me that when used selectively these drugs can help people with autoimmune diseases get their lives back.

This is such a difficult burden to bear and I hope that my article today can help so that you no longer have to suffer a hostile attack from within on your joints, your brain, your thyroid, your gut, your skin… and sometimes your whole body.

I am acutely aware of the pain and misunderstanding you live with daily.

Take home message? All life’s roadblocks, including illness are essentially our soul self or higher self wishing to have a conversation with us that we are avoiding or refusing to have… we can all be very stubborn in this regard. In this case, the message is…

Tune in! Listen to the rhythm of life around you and most importantly, find your autoimmune song line and activate it now.

How? Scroll up! Too tired? Scroll up! Will it work? Seriously, you are a child of the earth. It is that simple!

I love how when the time is right, it’s right! I find it interesting as I write this article that, as the creator of ‘Boori Boori’ labyrinth, my first article in Holistic Living Magazine is about autoimmune disease.

Why is it interesting I can hear you ask? ….because autoimmune processes may cause labyrinthitis which is an inflammatory disorder of the inner ear, or labyrinth within the ear. A metaphor for not listening to our bodies?

The labyrinth as a physical sacred geometry seed pattern allows us to connect our bodies’ immune system through our thoughts.

Our negative self-talk, our judgements and complaints about our lives and the constant comparing ourselves to others within our mind does incredible damage to our self esteem.

By taking our focus from the mind and connecting it back to the Heart and Soul, by becoming aware and making conscious decisions about what we need emotionally, by looking within, we can use the labyrinth as a metaphor for our life and take the focus back to the emotions that are causing our Dis-ease.

Each and every ‘sacred walk’ of the labyrinth is a personal and unique experience. This is not a fly-by-night therapy as labyrinths have been around for over 4000 years and are currently undergoing a resurgence of interest.

They are being used in natural healing processes and wellness programmes for individuals as well as being constructed in our hospitals, jails and communities.

I look at the labyrinth as a psychological immune system that is a metaphor which can be used to deal with the issue at hand – on the walk into the labyrinth – and as we start our walk by setting an intention for the healing on one or many multidimensional levels.

It is also an opportunity to recognise energy and its rhythms both in our bodies and within the universe.

On reaching the centre, this is where you can shift your conscious mind over to receive inspiration, connect with the Creator, Source, or your guidance, create space or just integrate and breathe in and be in acceptance.

The labyrinth is an archetype, a Divine imprint which has ancient power.

It is mindfulness in action as you become aware of your breath and the issue at hand and as allow the bubbles of inner wisdom to percolate up to the surface and allow yourself to consciously sense the unseen forces of the Universe and receive the innate sense of Love from the Centre, (God, Creator or Universal Power).

On the return journey out through the unicursal pathway, there is transformation, you cannot now look at your issue in the same way. When we accept peace and harmony as a state of being, we can see our life differently.

The labyrinth has a beautiful way of balancing our left and right hemispheres of our brain to create more peace and allows us to get out of thinking mind into our feeling body. When we feel balanced and more harmonious, we can create feelings of positivity.

We can then deal with the issues at hand as we have found the peace within us and possibly a few answers to how we might want to deal with the issues we are faced with. I

t has also been said that it reduces chronic pain for sufferers and also helps with ADHD. This I have experienced myself.

Walking the labyrinth is used as Mindful meditation and a way of helping those that can’t sit still but also as a beautiful way of stress reduction. The simple art of putting one foot in front of the other knowing that you are not going to get lost is its promise. What it offers is that you just might find yourself!

As a facilitator of labyrinth walks and ritual ceremonies, I have found that through constant walking of the labyrinth, we can realise the sacred in everyday and find a peace that soothes our soul.

How can Hypnotherapy and NLP help illness? Autoimmune disorders are a relatively new health challenge that are coming to light, and is faced by more than 24 million people throughout their lifetime.

There are at present over 80 known autoimmune disorders. As environmental tensions and chemical pollution levels rise, this figure will continue to increase in numbers and variety of these disorders.

Autoimmune disease shares commonalities with allergies; inappropriate immune response. In fact, autoimmune disease could be closely described as “an allergy on the inside”.

Whereas allergies involve an unacceptable immune response toward an external anti-agent, an autoimmune disorder includes an unacceptable immune response toward the immune system’s own host body.

Some known Autoimmune diseases include rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, celiac disease, thyroid disease, and the many other difficult to classify syndromes in the 21st century.

Autoimmune diseases at the root cause are connected by one central biochemical process; a runaway immune response also known as systemic inflammation that results in your body attacking its own tissues.

Your immune system is your barrier defence system against invaders. It is your internal support network and its role is to clearly distinguish friend from foe. Autoimmunity occurs when your immune system gets confused and your own tissues get caught in the friendly mash up.

Your body is often battling something, an infection, a toxin, an allergen, a food or a stress response, a virus, all of these are experienced through your system as an attack on your joints, your brain, your thyroid, your gut, your skin, or sometimes your whole body.

This immune confusion results from what is referred to as molecular imitating.

Conventional approaches don’t have a method for finding the invader causing the problem. Functional medicine provides a map to find out which molecule the cells are imitating.

It is also interesting to note that autoimmune disorders occur mostly exclusively in developed countries.

In our busy stressful society, where time seems to be a limited resource, we have less time to pay attention to what our body is telling us, and near no time for relaxation, exercise or to prepare healthy meals.

People in under developed countries without modern amenities like clean running water, flush toilets, washing machines, or proper health care, don’t experience these diseases.

Lifestyle choices is a great contributor to the quality of your life, for instance if you lived on a farm with animals, nature, bushland, away from highly dense polluted areas and busy lifestyles you are also less likely to be affected by any of these autoimmune disorders.

Being exposed to dirt, living in a calm balanced setting can be helpful to train your immune system to recognize what is foreign as well as give it time to strengthen and recover.

Autoimmune diseases, when considered all together, are becoming a growing health crisis. It is the eighth leading cause of death among women, shortening the average life expectancy by eight years.

Unfortunately, many of the conventional treatments available can sometimes leave you feeling even more helpless and worst than prior to treatment.

Most of us are advised to rely on anti-inflammatory drugs like Advil, or steroids, which can lead to worsening the condition further, without providing any real solution.

When dealing with autoimmune disorders, it’s often a good idea to work with natural resources and therapies alongside conventional practitioners.

Alternative medicine has shown promising results with regard to helping clients resolve allergy issues. Practitioners of Hypnotherapy, N.L.P. and various energy healing modalities have all experienced successes with allergies.

Due to the common aspects of allergies and autoimmune disorders, it may be possible to achieve similar results in helping resolve immune response issues.

From an NLP, perspective, disease is viewed as a state of dis-ease, or discomfort, this approach believes that whatever we think, and feel, is connected to how we feel physically and results in the quality of health we experience.

Similarly other natural and holistic approaches, look at the mind body connection and focuses on addressing the three aspects for optimum wellbeing:

Deepak Chopra sums up this mind body connection perfectly, “every thought and emotion you experience touches every single cell in your body. So what do you think happens to your body, when you constantly feed it negative thoughts?”

It is experienced in a negative emotional state, which then leads to either physical pain or discomfort.

As we know, the major contributors of autoimmune disease is related to our social environment, our physical, emotional and mental being, and choice of lifestyle.

Who Drives Your Mind?

Users of NLP and Hypnotherapy believe all learning, beliefs and behavior is learnt in the subconscious mind. My question to you is, can we therefore learn a new way of being when confronted by something like multiple sclerosis, anxiety and depression, or celiac disease?

We all have a choice, we can choose to find a better way, or surrender to accepting helplessness.

Knowing that you are the driver of our own mind, you decide which path to take, what you want to experience, you have a choice to learn how to conquer the journey or to give in.

The human being is a creator, a natural being of light, it naturally strives to progress, to improve, so why not use it to its fullest potential.

Reprogramming Un-Resourcefulness

So is it possible to reprogram your thoughts and behaviour about a particular health belief you have about yourself? After all isn’t it a habit created by us?

As the famous psychiatrist and hypnotherapist Milton Erickson once said: “The subconscious mind is like a warehouse of resources and most people go into the warehouse with a little flashlight rather than turning on all the lights.”

In simple terms we choose what resources we want to work with at the time, so why not choose the ones that will empower you.

Our Subconscious Mind As A Powerful Instrument

Many difficulties, habits, diseases, illness, compulsions, nervous disorders, neuroses and mentally generated illnesses involve some part of the subconscious. It is hard sometimes to understand that the very area that is creating a problem is the same area that protects us from harm and danger every day.

The Conscious Mind Set Our Limitations

By using hypnosis, and NLP techniques we can learn the scientific way to tap into the territory of infinite power within us, allowing us to get what we really want in life. Only using our conscious mind sets boundaries.

If we desire a happier, fuller, and richer life, let’s begin to use the power of our subconscious mind. And we can set ourselves up for success. The subconscious mind is really where all learning, beliefs, habits, behaviour is created, and it is also where change occurs.

Before we look at the lifestyle factors that can increase our risk of autoimmune diseases, let’s look at some facts according to the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, AARDA and the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy, ASCIA.

Living With Autoimmune Disease Facts

“Autoimmune diseases are a broad range of related diseases in which a person’s immune system produces an inappropriate response against its own cells, tissues and/or organs, resulting in inflammation and damage.

There are over 80 different autoimmune diseases, and these range from common to very rare diseases.

Some autoimmune diseases affect mainly one part of the body (such as multiple sclerosis, autoimmune thyroid disease, type 1 diabetes) whilst others affect many parts of the body at the same time (such as systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis and systemic vasculitis)

Autoimmune diseases affect around 1 in 20 people and are one of the most important health issues in Australia and New Zealand.

Common autoimmune diseases such as thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes affect more than 1 in 100 people. In contrast, a rare autoimmune disease such as Goodpasture’s disease (a form of vasculitis) affects around 1 in a million people.” Source ASCIA

The National Institute of Health (NIH) estimates up to 23.5* million Americans suffer from autoimmune disease and that the prevalence is rising.

However AARDA say that 50 million* Americans suffer from autoimmune disease. Why the difference? The NIH numbers only include 24 diseases for which good epidemiology studies were available.

Researchers have identified 80-100 different autoimmune diseases and suspect at least 40 additional diseases of having an autoimmune basis. These diseases are chronic and can be life-threatening.

Autoimmune disease is one of the top 10 leading causes of death in female children and women in all age groups up to 64 years of age.

Commonly used immunosuppressant treatments lead to devastating long-term side effects.

Symptoms cross many specialties and can affect all body organs.

Medical education provides minimal learning about autoimmune disease.

Specialists are generally unaware of inter-relationships among the different autoimmune diseases or advances in treatment outside their own specialty area.

Initial symptoms are often intermittent and unspecific until the disease becomes acute.

NIH estimates up to 23.5 million Americans* have an AD. In comparison, cancer affects up to 9 million and heart disease up to 22 million. Source AARDA

The causes of autoimmune disease are unknown, however, research does lean towards there being an inherited tendency towards developing an autoimmune disease.

What I would like to bring awareness to, is the science of epigenetics and how our lifestyle choices can increase the risk of triggering an autoimmune disease, which if you are genetically more susceptible to developing an auto immune disease, an understanding for the science of epigenetics is even more important.

For example if you got into a car which you knew had a partially flat tire, or tires, that needed changing because the grip wasn’t 100%, would you drive that car in the same way as you would a brand new car?

No, you would drive with more caution making careful choices along the way as to how fast you where going etc.

Well having a genetic or inherited gene mutation that increases your risk to developing an autoimmune disease requires you to make choices with even more care and awareness for the cause and effect than someone who doesn’t have a gene mutation.

The key point being, it’s your choices that influence the expression of your genes. Through each choice we make we have the potential to suppress our genetic potential and express our genetic weaknesses or suppress our genetic weaknesses and express our genetic potential.

As a preventive holistic health practitioner, my focus is on the preventive lifestyle factors that reduce the risk of developing disease.

It just so happens that these preventive lifestyle factors are also the keys to managing, elevating and in some cases even reversing chronic diseases such as Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune disease affecting the thyroid gland.

Inflammation, we now know, is at the root cause of 98% of diseases and autoimmune disease is no exception here. In order to create a favorable healing environment for the body it is essential to make lifestyle choices that are going to quell inflammation in the body.

Below Are 7 Keys To Reducing Cellular Oxidative Damage Caused By Chronic Inflammatory Responses.

1. Follow An Anti–Inflammatory Diet

Come off all the processed and added sugars, including “healthy” liquid sugars like fruit juices and Gatorade! Significantly reduce your intake of fresh fruit, stick to the berry family, green apples and pears, slightly un-ripened bananas.

Secondly come off all refined starches such as cereals and grains. There is so much conclusive and compelling evidence now that links gluten to autoimmune disease, and you don’t have to be a celiac to fall prey to its destructive autoimmune stimulating antigens.

Thirdly cut out all refined vegetable oils and processed fats, they feed the fire creating global cellular oxidative stress.

Choose some clean pasture fed meat or chicken (grain and corn free), fresh wild fish and fresh vegetables and salad with healthy fats choices like nuts, seeds, avocado, butter, ghee and coconut oil.

2. Address Food Sensitivities

If you know you’re sensitive or intolerant to certain foods, then get off them! Every time you have them you create an inflammatory response from the immune system, which increase, you risk to leaky gut and eventually an autoimmune disease.

The most common food sensitivities are gluten, preservatives and yeast in alcohol, foods containing amines such as histamine, tyramine and phenylethylamine, lactose or casein in dairy, nuts, soy and eggs.

If you’re not sure then either seek a comprehensive food intolerance test or follow a clinical food rotation diet.

3. Move Right

Learning to move in a way that supports the body to pump and balance its biological oscillators (heart, brain and digestive system) is a vital component to taming the fire.

Movement when prescribed correctly can reduce stress and inflammatory hormones such as cortisol, improve circulation and flush out inflammatory free radicals in circulation.

Seeking the advice of an experienced exercise specialist that is holistic in their approach and understands exercise and it physiological effects are in my opinion a must.

4. Manage Your Stress

There is nothing more pro inflammatory than stinkin’ thinkin’! Exposure to periods of prolonged negative thoughts and stressful events increases cortisol and elevates blood sugar levels, increasing insulin levels.

A perpetual cycle that is extremely pro inflammatory while suppressing the immune system. The links between stress, and all disease shows that managing stress becomes a critical component of the preventable lifestyle.

Taking a yin yoga class, learning mindfulness techniques, spending more time in nature and engaging in something creative are just a few examples for what is available to you to help reduce stress levels.

5. Tame The Fire With Sleep

You have heard me say it before, research shows that sleep is the chief anabolic (healing) force available to man. It’s free and when both the quality and quantity is in balance then you have the healing advantage no money can buy.

Insufficient quality and quantity of sleep will keep the hormonal fires burning, impacting the body’s ability to neutralize and dispose of toxic waste which only happens whilst you’re asleep.

Going to sleep by 10 pm and rising by 6 am or with the sun has a positive effect on every system of the body, especially the hormonal System.

For a better night’s sleep, minimise your exposure to bright lights, especially fluorescent lights and EMF’s for at least 2 hours before bed. Avoid inflammatory choices like a “workout”, caffeine, sugar, alcohol, and too close to bed as they will stoke the fire while you sleep!

6. Drink Adequate Amounts Of Quality Water Between Meals

Water provides the energy and information required for all biochemical reactions to take place. Water is therefore a vital component to not only help put the fire out but flush the waste by products of all that we are exposed to within our environment.

Use this formula from the research by Dr. Batmangheildj in his book, Your Body’s Many Cries for Water. Calculate 0.033 x kg (your body weight) = the minimum amount in litres you need to be consuming per day.

7. Chemical Free Zone

The reality of today is that it’s not just what we put in our bodies but also what we put on our bodies and what we are exposed to within our environments. GMO foods, glyphosate from pesticides and BT toxins are one of the environments greatest health risks.

Their poisons have been linked to multiple diseases including autoimmune disorders.

Other consideration are within your personal hygiene products and home cleaning products, even down to the BPA plastic containers, aluminum foil and glad wrap used to cover foods.

The more you are at risk of developing an autoimmune disease or in the position of living with one, then becoming more discerning and diligent to what you choose to use within your environment becomes paramount. A great resource for more information on toxic chemicals to avoid is ewg.org

Reclaiming your health lies in the power of awareness and choice. You don’t know what you don’t know, but once you do, there is no going back!

Yours in good health

WOW! What can I say, I’ve just returned from a 7-day Live Workshop in Perth, Australia with the Founder & Creator of Forensic Healing Marisa Russo and 33 other amazing women who are all talented and gifted in a variety of modalities.

What an electrifying, emotional and incredible healing workshop that was spent with these women! This was my 3rd return of doing the course, not because I needed to but because I wanted to.

Each time I’ve attended it has always been a new and profound learning experience. This time I attended the 7-day Workshop so that I may now share the passion of being able to teach as a Certified Instructor for Forensic Healing in The Essentials Workshop Events.

These events are held on various dates by a handful of qualified instructors located globally (myself included) to provide women that are interested in learning energy healing, an overview about Forensic Healing.

I signed up to do the Forensic Healing Essential Course in April 2014. I had always been interested in Detective shows writers such as Patricia Cornwall, so energy healing was new for me, but somehow resonated instantly.

Knowing what I know now in such a short time, I can truly say, though I may not have years of experience as a healer, that is not thwarting (did I just say that word…?) me from going out doing what I love and knowing I can help people.

I had never been to an energy healer before, yet I felt compelled to dive in, find out about the stories I was hearing and feeling from women that had used Forensic Healing (this was my first real awareness about energy that was explained so perfectly).

I met Marisa when I attended an Essentials Workshop in May 2014. I had already read the introductory course manual and videos and wanted more. Before I even finished the workshop I knew I wanted to do the course online, then I knew I wanted to attend the Live Workshop.

Since I’ve been a qualified Forensic Healer, I’ve engaged with clients (that’s seems an odd name for me to use now as I’ve never before seen people in this capacity as a healer, and that’s exactly what I am!).

I can tell you how completely satisfied and amazed I am when I see and feel the difference helping someone who is disconnected, out of balance, feeling blocks or has disharmony in their life.

I actually knew that this form of alternative therapy in energy healing would be what I’m meant to do.

Forensic Healing & Autoimmune Disease

So what can I tell you about Forensic Healing that can be informative and possibly having anything to do with Autoimmune Disease? Well first of all, what actually is autoimmune disease?

Mmm, no it hasn’t got anything to do with your car! I decided to do a brief “Google” to find out more about it…

When you look at the signs or symptoms they give you, how many of us has had these symptoms and not realised the seriousness? Autoimmune diseases are considered a top 10 leading cause of death in women under the age of 65.

What causes autoimmune disease? A majority of this has underlying issues associated with genetics, and then there are other factors such as toxins, free radicals, moulds, infections, food sensitivities. The list goes on!

So I want to share an aspect of how the Forensic Healing System has been developed and focus on one of the modules within the system on Physics. Now I’m not a Doctor, so I’m not diagnosing, or prescribing any condition of a person whilst I’m doing a healing.

I’m purely connecting and I become a conduit of their energy. The body reveals the information that suggests the condition we need to address and help release that, by all means confer with your specialist but I allow what the body has already retained in information and let it guide me.

Within the Physics system, this covers all aspects of the physical aspects or blocks that need to be released and the powerful pathways that will assist the release.

This course covers the physical aspects that may come out as pain or many of the conditions mentioned above.

The categories that are covered, there are 14 of them, each have healing pathways and a related scan list relative to that category, just for instance within the genetics category we have 18 words within that list, and for me I can’t even pronounce some of them!

The beauty of Forensic Healing is everything has been provided for us and we only need your body to give us that information. That’s where the power of Intuition and logic plays a part for us as well.

The Physics aspect of Forensic Healing is about the physical traumas, allergies, substances, toxins that may unbalance our body. These aspects or blocks can be released from the body with using the powerful healing pathways to assist the release.

So going back to autoimmune disease, I believe you can align yourself back into better health once we detect or find out the cause and apply this powerful and effective process to release.

So let me show you what Forensic Healing can do for you. You’ll love the amazing technique of getting “the story”, finding the clues and release those imbedded fears, traumas, pains that can prevent you from living your life to the fullest in health, love, happiness and freedom!

Yes freedom…. isn’t that what we really are wanting in this life?

Why You Should Choose The Forensic Healing System…

• Forensic Healing uses Healing Secrets to activate spontaneous healing forces
• Words of Power are used to close down negative forces and open positive energies
• We follow a protocol of Opening and Closing statements to bless, access higher sources and guidance etc.
• The Client plays an active part in the identification of life patterns and the emotions that run them
• Identifying the clients age where the impact with programs, beliefs and patterns occurred
• Embeds Law of Attraction to enhance life changes
• Exposes how are relationships leave imprints on ourselves and others
• Addressing all healing pathways – energetic, physical, emotional and spiritual
• As a Forensic Healer I know exactly what to do, step by step for any condition
• Understanding the patterns of clients who heal easily and the clients who don’t
• As a therapist we too are healed with the client, creating good karma and attracting what we need to make your healing experience successful
• A feeling of passion and excitement solving life problems
• I genuinely care about your progress as a therapist

Do we treat symptoms or seek causes? Read about autoimmune disease from a shamanic perspective.

There are many diseases we humans are susceptible to that science and Western medicine have no understanding of. They don’t know where they come from or how to heal them.

And many of these are on the rise – some at incredibly rapid rates. Autoimmune diseases fall within this group – with an ever-increasing percentage of humans experiencing them.

Collectively these diseases cause a great deal of pain, which is heightened by little understanding of the why’s, how’s and what’s of their cause and treatment.

Some quick facts – about 50 million Americans are affected by autoimmune diseases – almost 17% of the total population. And 75% of those are women.

There are 75 or more diseases currently classified as autoimmune diseases. In 2000, about 9% of the population were said to be affected and most were thought to be women. So this is no small problem – and a growing one.

Autoimmune diseases cause the body to see healthy cells as diseased and so attack them. Organs, glands, skin – all can be attacked. Allergies and mental disorders can also occur.

The shamanic explanation for diseases of this sort differs greatly from Western thinking, which is exactly what can make shamanic medicine and alternative healing approaches more effective than the “guessing game with drugs” some Western practitioners prescribe.

First, I will share some thoughts about the difference between cures and healing. Western medicine seeks cures for disease and assesses effectiveness by the remission of pain. This is dealing with symptoms, which is what pain is.

A shamanic approach to an autoimmune disease (any disease in fact) is to go deep and seek the cause of the disease. Pain is a tool to help guide this journey of discovery. This allows for true healing and the cessation of pain.

If the symptoms – the pain – become too intense to focus on healing, then measures need to be taken to lessen it to a bearable level.

There are many non-invasive means to accomplish this: meditation; journeying; Reiki; acupuncture; hypnosis and other energy and spirit-based modalities.

If some medications are needed then natural, plant-based remedies are the best way to proceed. Most shamanic practitioners can suggest plant remedies best suited to the patients’ body. If not, they may suggest an herbalist as part of the healing team.

Once the pain is decreased to the point a patient can tolerate it, the shamanic practitioner can begin to guide the healing process for the patient.

Depending on which of the autoimmune diseases a person has, an alternative healer may be what is needed. For those deeply rooted in the psyche and spirit of a patient, a shamanic practitioner is often best.

If the disease causes seem to extend to past lives energetically and/or may lead to physical death in the present, a shamanic practitioner can bring their knowledge of the spirit and the totality of human beings (mind, body, spirit, emotions, sexuality, dreams) to explore causes that Western medicine is not equipped to even admit exist, let alone follow leads in this way.

How we view disease is very important to the effectiveness of a shamanic approach as well.

If you research Western medicines’ thoughts on autoimmune disease you will find something like this: “Autoimmune diseases are chronic diseases with no cure.

Treatment involves attempts to control the process of the disease and decrease the symptoms.” ~ Healthline.

See the issues in this? They are said to be chronic diseases without cure. Set that belief and it will be so. Cure? I covered that. Cure means stopping pain, not seeking causes. ‘Control’ the process.

Trying to control disease or illness simply pushes it deeper down into your body and spirit – it always comes back. The point is, the approach is critically important when dealing with disease of mind, body, and spirit.

I have been fortunate enough to have guided people in discovering the causes of their diseases that doctors had told them were incurable and watched them heal. And then seen them move ahead with their lives in a positive fashion.

These were physical, mental, emotional and all other parts of a patients being. Often more than one part of the psyche is involved – hence the imbalance that causes the disease in the first place. This may come from any time in their life – or a past life incident.

Some have asked me if autoimmune diseases are like cancer. No. In fact, they are opposites. Autoimmune diseases entail the body seeing healthy cells as diseased. With cancer the body does not see the diseased cancer cells as disease.

They have a similar confusing effect on the mind and body. A true shamanic practitioner knows and feels the difference and understands how each needs to be approached.

I can hear people asking now “How do we find a person with good shamanic training?” In the last edition of the magazine I spoke about what a shaman was and was not. There are very, very few true shamans, but many with shamanic training who carry the energetic medicine needed.

I use shaman and shamanic practitioner interchangeably here for convenience. Here is an unattributed description of a shaman that I really like. It is very old and uses ‘him’ only – I mentally add him/her each time this occurs.

When looking for any energy worker, especially one with shamanic medicine to share, be leery of the “I am” people. I am a healer, a guide, a teacher… often all strung together.

When you do find someone, (asking alternative healers sometimes helps with this) ask them for some people to speak to they have aided in their healing. If they won’t share – be careful. Also ask from whom they have learned their healing knowledge and for how long they studied.

When people ask me for past patients I have worked with to speak to, I provide some (as long as the patient has agreed to this). And I am always willing to share where I learned, from whom and the number of years I have worked with shamanic medicine in the jungles, the mountains and in teaching settings.

Taking a few months off to dive into shamanic healing lessons – even doing so several times – does not make someone proficient in true shamanic wisdom. It takes years and practice and many teachers.

Just be certain you are ready for the hard work and the heavy lifting shamanic healing entails. Read the “If you go looking for a shaman” again.

What exactly will a shamanic practitioner do for me and what will he/she expect of me? There is no one answer to these questions. Each person’s healing journey is unique, so often a lot of questions come before any course will be recommended.

And even once a healing journey is mapped out, the guide and the patient must be ready to adapt and change at any time. It is critical that the patient want to heal and be willing to experience pain or discomfort at many levels to do so.

And trust the shaman to provide them with pain-easing methods as they move ahead. Shamanic medicine deals with the deepest, most difficult diseases of mind, body and spirit – diseases that do not give up their battle easily.

With that said, when one has felt the pains of a disease for extended periods and the ebb and flow of autoimmune disease symptoms, finding a shaman who can assist leaving that road of pain is a true blessing. Having walked that side of the road I can say this with full understanding.

When potential clients call me and seek my healing help I expect them to ask many questions – and most do. I also ask a lot of questions, since I want to take as patients those who are truly ready to walk this healing road.

I do this out of respect for both of us and the other patients I treat. So ask questions – don’t be shy. Autoimmune diseases can be healed from within with the right help and a spiritual and alternative approach.

I wish you good healing!

There’s no secret the world is facing a nutritional crisis of astounding proportion; quite literally our modern diet is killing us. Today more people die of obesity than starvation, and the obese are also often malnourished.

Indeed this is a confusing time in human evolution. Yet figuring out the optimal diet is a minefield and an often-emotive topic as so-called experts all claim to have the answer.

As one study seems to debunk another how can we truly trust constantly conflicting advice? You do not have to be a health expert to look around the globe to see that mainstream nutritional guidelines have led us down the wrong path.

And you don’t have to be an expert to use common sense – if the ‘supermarket diet’ is killing us, then don’t eat the standard ‘supermarket diet’! Much of what we’ve been told about nutrition has been wrong and it’s time we all truly questioned why.

As you begin to understand food politics you get a clear picture that nutritional advice is not based so much in science as it is engineered to support agriculture, the processed food and supermarket industry.

Dieticians are bound by rules that force them to promote the official dietary guidelines which is a grain/carbohydrate rich, lower fat diet, which originated at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

When we reduced our fat intake and increased our grains we have become fatter and unhealthier than ever before.

Apart from the dramatic increase in processed sugars, modern health issues are said to be due in part to the fact that grains also convert to glucose (sugar), and a diet high in glucose producing foods such as grains can cause a myriad of health complaints as these foods are pro-inflammatory, and inflammation can lead to chronic disease and early preventable death.

I am shocked to see one of our countries ‘leading dieticians’ on television promoting a highly processed grain-based cereal as a healthy breakfast for children, when it has a glycemic index of 76 which means the body basically converts this instantly to sugar!

But hey it contains whole grains and has been fortified with nutrients (only because they were stripped out during processing to begin with) so it must be good for you!

The diet industry has brainwashed us to think low-fat grain-based cereals will make us slim! They do the opposite! Just look around you!

The first supermarket opened in the 1940’s.

Prior to that we all grew our own organic vegetables and fruits, we had access to organic pasture fed meat, our milk was raw and unpasteurized, and we had a fraction of the sugar that we do today, and importantly our body did not have to navigate the thousands of chemicals approved for agriculture and as food additives.

With the tidal wave of the ‘supermarket diet’ we’ve seen a rapid increase in food intolerance, autoimmune disorders, digestive complaints, mood disorders, obesity, heart disease and cancers, and because of this, more and more people are turning to traditional diets and are avoiding the ‘new foods’ that are being blamed for the current health and obesity crisis.

And the good news is global health crisis is reversible. Clinically I have never seen a patient who hasn’t had dramatic health improvements when they embrace a diet prior to the industrial and agricultural revolution, health simply transforms and we are literally able to wind back the clock and often undo the damage that the modern diet created.

Your body is a miraculous thing; given the right environment it is capable of healing the seemingly irreversible.

So What Exactly Is The Paleo Diet?

Otherwise known as ‘Ancestral Eating’, or the WAPF diet (Weston A Price Foundation), Paleo has become an umbrella term for traditional diets. There are many alternatives and approaches to this style of eating however the foundation of these diets is all the same;

However traditional dietary approaches can have differing opinions about what foods humans ate.

The strict Paleo diet is based on what they believe humans ate 10,000 years ago and suggests we avoid all grains, legumes, fermented foods and dairy, claiming that humans didn’t eat these foods back then.

Others argue evidence to prove indeed we did eat these foods 10,000 years ago. Yet a more important argument to me is how far back should we actually go in history to find the optimal diet?

If our recent relatives thrived into centenarians eating unprocessed foods just 100 to 200 years ago, is that type of traditional diet more in line with human evolution and genetics today as opposed to 10,000 years ago?

The reality is humans evolve and adapt to their diet and will continue to do so, however the crisis we currently face is that food has evolved dramatically faster than the human genome has had time to adapt, and that’s the key issue.

Eventually we may evolve to cope with a chemical laden, high-grain, high-starch, high-sugar diet, however currently that diet is killing us.

Will It Help Autoimmune Disorders?

The paleo diet is excellent for auto-immune disorders because it removes the vast majority of pro-inflammatory foods from the body.

Anti-inflammatory diets are an essential part of healing the body. We are what we eat and all the drugs and herbal medicines in the world cannot replace what diet can do in the body. This is the foundation for your healing.

If you are unsure where to start, do visit my website for details about my online learn from home nutrition programs as these were designed to help you.

What About Grains & Legumes?

What we do know about traditional dietary grains, legumes, seeds and nuts was that they were prepared in ways that made them more digestible to humans. Traditionally these foods were soaked, fermented and or sprouted.

Compare that to today where our grains are commercially grown and processed without this traditional preparation and it becomes easy to see why 1:3 people suffer with digestive complaints.

This is why many people avoid commercial grains but enjoy small quantities of properly prepared grains, such as traditional fermented sourdough bread, sprouted flour products, and well soaked legumes.

When it comes to grain all traditional diets would agree, that humans are not designed to tolerate the high quantities of commercially processed grains they are consuming today.

Low to no grain and higher fat intake is primarily what makes traditional diets stand apart from what is promoted as healthy by our so-called diet experts today whom promote the opposite.

What About Fat?

Traditional diets do encourage adequate protein and traditional fats, including animal fats and other saturated fats such as coconut oil.

These fats have been demonized for the best part of the last century, however the scientific community is beginning to take a dramatic U-turn on this stance that many considered the biggest diet blunder in history!

Fat intake could be anywhere from 40 to 70% of calories on a traditional diet as opposed to the recommended 20% that’s been promoted to us.

What About Dairy?

Dairy is in itself a controversial topic, many nutritionists believe no one should consume dairy however evidence would prove we should take this on an individual basis.

The famous China Study certainly makes a great argument for avoiding diary, however Europeans are not Asians, and some European cultures have developed the ability to digest dairy in ways other cultures have not.

What we do know about dairy though is that raw unpasteurized dairy is said to be far more tolerated and nourishing than processed dairy, so again we see that food is better for us in its whole unadulterated form.

Another key consideration is that traditional diets consisted of far greater biodiversity to what is available today. Globalization has induced a tendency towards uniformity in eating habits.

A report prepared for the United nations Environment Program states that although about 7,000 species of plants have been used as human food in the past, only 150 crops are now commercially important, with rice, wheat and maize accounting for 60 percent of the worlds food supply.

Genetic diversity for each crop has been drastically reduced as agriculture has become monoculture farming, for example only nine varieties of wheat make up 50% of the crop in the USA and the number of rice varieties has dropped from 2,000 to less than 100.

The problem with this is that the human body is designed for food diversity.

So one importance aspect of eating a traditional diet is to enjoy as many heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables you can possibly obtain.

This means visiting farmers markets, growing your own heirloom vegetables and purchasing fresh food outside of the supermarket, as supermarkets offer the same foods all year round and lack the biodiversity our body and the environment requires to be healthy.

So Is The Paleo Diet A Fad?

Well if you call how humans ate for thousands of years a fad, then yes. But the reality is it’s a commonsense intelligent way of eating that intuitively feels right and no one can argue about.

Humans will evolve to the modern diet but we need thousands of years of progressive evolution for Adaptation to occur. In the mean time eating nutrient dense nourishing and healing foods makes sense.

But we must also be real; we aren’t cavemen, we aren’t hunter-gatherers, and even our whole foods including fruits and vegetables differ from even 100 years ago, so we need to take the principles, but be flexible and realistic as to what we can achieve, and it’s okay not to be perfect, nobody is.

We are what we eat so why be cheap, fake or easy? Convenience foods are inconvenient in the end.

While a traditional diet may sound restrictive, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Real food is incredibly tasty and satisfying, I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t prefer a meal cooked from scratch over a frozen TV meal.

There is no need to miss out on any of your favorite foods, it’s simply a case of knowing the alternatives. When you know how to prepare healthy bread, nourishing crackers, delicious cakes and slices; the world of Ancestral Eating becomes a wonder world of new flavours, tastes and culinary experiences. So get experimenting and open your kitchen to a whole new world of foods!

There is a lot to be said about eating well using seasonal fresh produce. The more we learn about what bad foods have been doing to our system, the more we realise that we have to clean up the way we eat.

Autoimmune disorders are so prevalent in our society these days and they come in so many different forms that from an eating perspective, clean and simple fresh foods are the practical way to help the body recover.