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How your thoughts can heal your body.

Your mindset can heal your body beyond what food and supplements can do. It has taken me a long time to really connect to this thought but i have seen it over and over with clients. We often put a lot of effort into taking the right supplements, green juices and organic foods that is what our bodies need for fuel and to heal. But with every negative thought or judgment of yourself or others you counteract all that good work you’ve done. Don’t get me wrong eating junk and loving your self is not the road to health but eating well and not looking after your mind allowing ‘chatter’, doubt and self criticism that arises daily is not the answer either.

I use to think it was ok to talk to myself and beat myself up in my head. Tell myself I’m not pretty enough, slim enough, talented enough i’ve done it my whole life – hey we all do it, we are all stressed its normal right? . . . but it is not ok and we all do it and we all think the other person has an easier life clear of stress and negative thoughts. Well ladies we all have insecurities and we all think we are not good enough! WHY?

In my dream world we would all celebrate each other, support each other’s dreams and love our differences. We would not look at the girl across the street and think I wish I had her car or her hair or I wish my legs looked like hers or my job was as well paid full of envy and jealosy.

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But we have all heard this before right? Well did you know that every negative thought about you or someone else surges Cortisol through your body and it can take up to 1 hour to process that and disperse it out of the body. It uses up vital minerals and nutrients and stops your body using your fat cells for energy and it therefore runs off of glucose instead which is needed for healthy brain. Meaning it keeps you in that “fight or flight’ state we hear so much about. The mind looks to the past for happy memories to release happy hormones making the future an anxiety fueled place to be. So ladies don’t do it. Live in the now!

Stop that ’chatter’ in your head and stop the negative banter and worry especially what others think of you. Live from your heart not your head, be truthful to yourself and your loved ones. We are all in a vulnerable state and need love. If you have someone in your life who judges you and does not give you what you need . . . maybe now is the time to shed yourself of him or her. You don’t need that in your life so only surround your self with those who make you feel great, support your life and when you come away from them feel secure in that relationship. You need to be surrounded by loved ones who get you without judgment and need things in return. It sound tough but in the long run of your life it is best for you.

Choosing your mindset is as easy as dropping guilt for an action you did in the past – hey you can’t change it and you can’t re-do it, so let it go . . . . I personally held that over myself for years, flogging myself with guilt, self hate, blame and hating the decisions I’d made. But at the time I just did my best with what knowledge I had. A big part of my healing was to forgive others and myself and ‘let it go!’

You choose your actions, mindset and path not your parents, lovers or friends so stop blaming them for your life. Yes others actions and your environment may have influenced you, but you have the choice of how you act or respond to life situations. You can either turn a bad situation in to a positive or let that toxic situation eat you up and make you unwell. Been there done that – no thanks!

When William was diagnosed I fell in to deep depression after struggling to cope for 2 years it was enough to break me. After hitting rock bottom and I mean rock bottom, with the amazing support of my husband a few great friends I worked my way back up and saw all the positives that can come out of out of our new life path. Like a chance to learn and grow and change, to clean up our lives from chemicals and toxins, eat cleanly, live within our means with joy and simplicity. Not to take material things for granted and to stop climbing ladders and striving for goals that are unreachable and unimportant and to share my journey and help others. I had to go through an element of grieving for the life I thought I’d have but now every decision we make or step we take we ask ourselves is this best for the boys our family and in line with our values. This has led us to set up our businesses and we have met some truly beautiful friends on our journey to health who have shown us what’s important.

We are told often to ‘let it go’ and my dearest girl friend and I often laugh at what that means when you’re stressed, up to your eyeballs and exhausted. But over time we have both learnt it means to forgive ourselves, to be kind to ourselves and to let the small things, like a clean floor or perfect makeup or being on time go. These things are all surface things. The true importance is love, health and wellness of mind and compassion for each and every person. The rest you can ‘let go’ really you can let it go and that comes from a control freak with OCD for a clean house haha, you should see my house now!

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A few things that have helped me and still help when I fall off the mindset train of living from love and when I go back to my head and live in fear and with ‘chatter’ are:

Mediation: there is a common misbelief that to meditate you must have a totally blank mind. If you can achieve that, then that’s amazing. But you still get the benefits if you just slow down . . . breath deep belly breaths -In from your nose belly expand and out from your nose belly falls. Even 10 deep breaths will calm your nervous system down. If you find clearing your mind difficult focus on one thing like a candle flame or a tree and hold that thought for a long as you can. If stuff enters your mind sweep it away with a big brush and start again. Laugh at your thoughts and keep trying. Your ego wants to be “chatting” all the time. Don’t let it take over who you are. We use apps on our smart phones to start our mediation off each evening and they are handy if you are in the car before school pick up or a big work meeting. Yoga can help with this too and walking in nature daily.

Mickel Therapy: which is talking based therapy about taking action when an emotion arises and moving through it fast to clear you physical symptoms.

www.mickeltherapy.com/what-is-mickel-therapy/

Homeopathy: which works on lowering your level of stress building your nervous system and supporting you whilst you heal. I have used Dhanvanatari Collage and also more recently Michael Higginson in Geelong to support me.

http://www.geelonghomeopathic.com.au/about.html

http://dhanvantaricollegeofhomeopathy.com.au

A gratitude diary: I write 3 things I am grateful for each night in my phone. This helps me see the positives in the day, even if there were more negatives. So that last thing I think about are positives. We do this with the boys each night too, we talk about their day and pick 3 great things that happened and not dwell on what they may have done wrong or if they were upset.

Debt Clearing: no matter how hard it is if there is something upsetting me or someone had said something that has hurt my feelings I clear the debt by talking it through and not going to bed on it. This means setting boundaries and protecting myself first. It does not mean confrontation or stomping back in to a shop because someone was rude to me. Just simple clearing the air so it does not fester and become a physical symptom.

Happy list: each week I look at my dairy and decide if the tasks in it are + or – and if I have more – than + I plan a trip to the movies, yoga or catch up with a friends or get my nails done to balance up the week. This is putting joy into my life. Making sure I don’t get bogged down with the task of mother hood and running a house or running a business and not going without joy and fun for my being. Its unrealistic to think I can spend my time just in the + zone but if I have a few to look forward to it keeps me from feeling a lack of joy. The body is amazing it likes joy and fun and if it doesn’t get enough it makes you go back in the mind to find it. So feed it joy and fun and show it love and it will keep you in the now and physically strong.

So . . .

When you feel you’re self ‘chatting’ in your head STOP be aware – take action – and practice – clear your mind and start again.

When you have a week of – plan some + joy and fun!

Write down your gratitude list each evening.

Debt clear every night and set boundaries so your not being hurt.

Put yourself first and remember to love yourself and do your self care daily be that a new nail polish, a cup of tea in peace or a day in a spa to unwind or talking to your best friend.

As woman we put our children, partners or bosses first . . . please stop that we come first!

I find as i’m a visual learner I write positive athermations on my walls, mirrors and on postie notes in my car and keep them on my phone to remind me how to think and act. If you are a kinetic learner maybe you could listen to self help books. Find what works for you. . . and roll with it!

The only person that can heal you is YOU! The only person that can truly make you happy is YOU!

Choose to be happy and to live in the now, not the past or future, as that is where anxiety and fear is bred from.

Namaste beautiful ladies x x x

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Constipation and relieving it with natural remedies.

Do you suffer from constipation or bloating? This is a horrible painful problem for so many. Your body is being backed up with toxins that cause havoc on your body. So many people live with this for years trying every product from the pharmacy shelf. But have you looked in to your diet and added natural remedies?

We should all be going twice to three times daily with a perfect formed smooth stool that does not float or sink fast below the bowl and with no cracks or as rabbit droppings. These tips could help you.

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A little cheeky image from the NGV!

The best thing you can do is buy a stool or squatty potty stool. By crouching down with your knees up you are in the correct position. Using the toilet without a stool does not open your bowls properly leaving stools trapped. It may seem silly but just by raising you legs up you will notice it will help you empty your bowls.

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The higher your diet is in ripe in season fruit, greens and vegetables and the lower in drying hard to digest grains, dehydrating packaged foods, salts, and alcohol the healthier your bowels will be. Try adding these foods into your daily diet to see if it helps too:

Aloe Vera juice 10-50 ml daily on an empty stomach.

Organic celery and cucumber juice each morning before food.

Beetroot juice in the afternoon away from foods.

Barley Grass juice powder in your smoothies and green juices.

Orange juice.

1 litre of fresh coconut water each day for 3-4 days.

Magnesium spray on your legs before bed, or magnesium flake baths.

 

Food combining and why is it essential for health!-chart.

Tips that might help your bloating, flatulence and ease horrid tummy pain.

Herbal teas can help like: ginger, fennel seed, liquorice, tulsi and peppermint tea.

 

Oil Of Oregano‘ diluted in water 

Eucalyptus, ginger, peppermint essential oils either rubbed on the stomach or diluted in water upon waking or before bed on an empty stomach.

Activated Charcoal tablets are a must in your ‘healing first aid box’ to stop tummy bugs or food reactions and help with bloating and flatulence.

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Hannah’s Gut Healing Protocol.

And remember look into why you are constipated. . .

Is it a Leaky Gut?

Not enough green fibrous fruit, greens and vegetables?

Not enough water or too much water or water eaten with food?

Food intolerances?

Are you living in a highly stressed state, environment or lifestyle?

Do you have gluten, grains, sugar, and trans-fat in your diet?

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The two are connected work on mindset along side these foods, herbs and supplements to heal your body.

Choosing a positive mindset

You can take back your own health!

From darkness there is light . . .

There is a beautiful light that surrounds our family. It shines with hope, love and promise and it’s there to remind us to keep looking forward to a future of health, happiness and life.

But there hasn’t always been light. Like so many families who live with the uncertainty that Autism and illness brings, our journey to health began in a very dark place.

After our first son was born, we knew something was wrong almost from the start but we were too exhausted and overwhelmed by false information to even see clearly, let alone take action.

We tried to coped with his constant screaming, tantrums that started way before the average toddler age, violent rage that was unbelievable in a young chid. We did this by living day-to-day and numbing ourselves with bad food, alcohol and respite escapes, all the while with others telling us that all parents feel overwhelmed and that our son’s behaviour was normal. Going to health check up and being told we were just like everyone else go home and give him more milk he is a big baby and just hungry. Or parenting classes and told we need to work harder at putting him on the naughty chair.

But in the pit of our stomachs we knew that this wasn’t normal parenting tired . . . we were breaking, we were falling apart, we were not coping.

Somehow in the midst of this chaos we found the strength to begin look for answers. We started removing chemicals from our home and investigated every type of colic remedy before deciding to take our son off diary, thinking that my own diary allergy as a child could be a clue to what was wrong. After more research we also embarked on a gluten-free lifestyle. Life became a bit more settled, but things still weren’t great.

Our idea of what our family was going to be like was shattered. Instead of a loving, happy child ours was not affectionate and only wanted to be touched on his terms like feeding times. From birth he had been in meltdown almost all day, every day. We lived on eggshells. Life was tough and we had little happiness.

Monday 20th February 2012- 12 days before our son turned 2 he was officially diagnosed with High Functioning Autism. I remember my husband and I leaving the office feeling numb and we both fell to the ground and held each other. Life felt like it had stopped. The responsibility and guilt I felt was overwhelming. I felt responsible. Be that right or not it was how I felt for such a long time, I felt that because I didn’t look after myself over the years or that because I had passed on to him heavy toxins and metals during my pregnancy. I felt guilty for feeding him dairy and grains that caused more damage, I felt responsible because I had immunised him on a weakened immune system that contributed to his toxic overload. I’m not saying vaccination or eating dairy caused his autism, it was an accumulation of many factors I was not aware of at the time, so did nothing to change the outcome. Hindsight is a useless emotion and I have had to put all that to rest and move on. If you are reading this and beating your self up about things you could not change please I beg you to stop and be kind to yourself.

Instead I put all my efforts into creating the best life I can and for him to have a better future than the experts were predicting for him.

When he was diagnosed we were told our little boy would never feel empathy, be social or seek our love that life would be tough for us and that we should grieve for the child we wont have. This was my lowest point as I lost hope and did grieve for the boy that I thought I was going to have. But somehow that sense of responsibility kicked in and I researched, researched and researched some more to save our child from what everyone told us was a life sentence.

Gradually we started to understand the connection between the level of toxins in our son’s system, his nervous system and how it was affecting his behavior. We came across the Raw Vegan Diet, Homeopathy and embarked on a clean living lifestyle and removed all toxins and chemicals from our home.

By now were had welcomed our second son, who was tested for Autism at 2-years and was instead diagnosed with a Global Development Delay of 18-months. That meant that although he was a two-year-old, he had the ability of a child aged 10 to 12-months-old. Again, we grieved. Would this little boy ever be able to talk and fit in with his peers?

By now I was determined to heal my boys, and persisted with our lifestyle changes as well as Mickel Therapy and Homeopathy to help me beat the depression, chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia that was a result of years of running the stress treadmill that had become our lives and always putting others first.

Gradually, we began to see our boys blossom, and our family began to feel like the family I had hoped for. By reducing toxins within their bodies, my boys had found a new sense of calm and now had the space to embrace early intervention therapies and for these therapies to be much more effective.

Our boys are now creating their own life sentence instead of following the path that was predicted for them. They are learning, loving and achieving every day. Our older son is clever, kind and thoughtful who loves his family and friends and is coping with kinder really well. Our younger son is a cheeky, funny, social little boy who has healed our family and now has a delay of 2 to 3-months and does NOT stop talking!

So what was the purpose of sharing our story? Our journey shows that there are answers out there and I want to share them with you. Our journey shows that through diet and lifestyle you can get your children back and unlock them from the chains that are Autism.

But most of all, I was to help the amazing mothers and fathers and grandparents who battle a battle each day that others don’t see. I want to help these amazing people look after themselves, so they can look after their beautiful children and live the life they dreamed of.

Your ‘Wellness Warriors’ and you can change your families outcome x x x

contact me for a free consultation of how I can help your family.

hannah@nourishtohealth.com.au

0414967763

Getting your child to drink green juices!

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This may seem very far off for you to imagine, or you might be ready to add more greens in to their current juices that they drink now. Either way be mindful that green juice is something that takes more caution when giving it to children. Because greens are very nutrient rich and a potent detoxifier, our bodies naturally begin detoxifying a bit quicker with greens then other juices. Not that this is bad and when you are trying to heal Autism this is essential, but it can make you/them feel ill if you do it too fast. If you feel that your child needs to detoxify, their bodies will naturally do it through a good diet full of fruit, herbs and vegetables combined with fresh green juices and or green smoothies over time and a chemical free happy environment. But start slowly and build up so they are used to the taste and their bodies get used to detoxify anything that needs to come out. With my boys we started with carrot, cucumber and celery juice and built up to removing all root vegetables and now they have a few different greens like spinach kale, celery, lettuce and cucumber with lemon, and sometimes ginger and turmeric . they have this most mornings before their breakfast. In the afternoon they might have a beetroot or carrot juice but we personally don’t add fruit as they find it sweet enough and I like them to eat their fruit on its own with out mixing with vegetables, this helps their bodies digest it better. As with my smoothie post go slowly and build them up.

The truth about fruit . . .

The difference between a smoothie and a juice, is when you make smoothies they contain fiber which means you can only eat a certain amount at each meal before feeling full (we need the fiber so keep making them!) That is the reason I do not suggest fruit juice  as it doesn’t have any finer in it. Even cold pressed organic fruit juice.

How to get your child drinking and loving ‘green smoothies’ . . .

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But with juicing you can include a large amount of greens that you normally would not be able to fit in to your body in one go. A juice is a large amount of vegetables and it’s a nutrient dense shoot of goodness for the gut and each and every cell! Would your child sit down to a large green salad? Maybe not but a green juice sweetened with some apple might go down well.

Here are a few suggestions that taste yummy and mask the bitter flavour some greens can have.

  • I recommend starting with fruit and wining them off fruit till it is just vegetables as fruit spikes the blood sugar level and causes hormonal crashes. Coconut water is a better option to add with greens.

These recipes are for 1-2 glasses of juice

Carrot Celery:

  • 2 carrots
  • 2 celery sticks
  • 1 cucumber (with skin)

Beetroot Apple:

  • 1 small beetroot
  • 1 celery stick
  • 1 cup spinach
  • Cucumber Apple:

 

Cucumber Pear:

  • 1 cucumber (with skin)
  • 2 pears
  • Small handful of kale

Cucumber Orange Grapefruit:

  • 1 cucumber (with skin)
  • 1 small handful of spinach greens
  • 1 orange peeled
  • 1 grapefruit peeled

Broccoli Pineapple:

  • 4 broccoli florets and stalks
  • ½ pineapple
  • 1 small bunch of parsley

Broccoli Apple:

  • 8 broccoli florets and stalks
  • 1 small bunch of parsley
  • 3 apples

Green Citrus:

  • 1 small handful of spinach
  • 2 sticks of celery
  • 1 handful kale
  • 3 oranges or 1 lemons peeled

Cucumber Watermelon:

  • 1 cucumber (with skin)
  • 1 thick slice watermelon
  • 2 sticks of celery
  • 1 lemon peeled
  • 1 handful mint
  • 1 handful of parsley

Green Bullet!

  • 1 cucumber
  • 2 sticks celery
  • 1/4 lemon
  • hand full of coriander
  • hand full of parsley
  • 1 cup coconut water

Simple Green:

  • 4 sticks celery
  • 2 cucumbers
  • 1/4 lemon

Melon fantastic:

  • 1/4 water melon
  • 1/4 cantaloup
  • 1/4 rock melen
  • 1 hand full of fresh mint

Why Leafy Greens are so good for you and the Nutritional breakdown.

Enjoy trying them all and play with what your child likes!

Tips: I suggest finding glasses and cups that are fun and even using flowers on top to diguse the colour so they try without making assumptions. Also get the kids involved in chopping and making them it will encourage them to want to try it more.

Good luck and remember they sense your fear and emotions – if you are hesitant and scared they will not go for it. Be confident and set an example by eating well yourself. Monkey see monkey do. Kids can not buy their own food, so only stock the best at home and choose only the best when you are out. If you are suffering with self sabotage and food binging and cravings. Contact me to coach you to break free of these . . . like I did.

Much love and Thanks Hannah xx