Browsing Category

Spirit for Healing

How Long Does It Take To Heal The Gut?

Educational Information, Spirit for Healing December 29, 2018

The answer is…

Everybody is different. It could be only for a few months for some people become completely symptoms and discomfort free but could be years for some to become so.

What makes it difference?

We are all born with strengths and weaknesses. In my practice, I provide an Iridology assessment in order for me to know which organs, systems should be supported first, inherited weaknesses, and to learn potential emotional blockages through associated chakras. And this iris analysis can also tell me how toxic the colon is whether the client is constipated or NOT, or having digestive problems or NOT.

Our colon is the most toxic part of the body and it is from the sluggish elimination system, toxic food and water, medications, high physical and emotional stress, dysbiosis (bacterial imbalance), environmental pollution, and MORE. Symptoms like bloating, constipation/diarrhea, eczema, asthma, ADD/ADHD, acne, food allergies/intolerance, nutritional deficiencies, mood swings, recurrent infections, SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth), eating disorders, learning disabilities, etc. are signs that the gut requires healing and sealing. (-> How to and GAPS diet)

I was born with some weaknesses in the immune system as I could tell from my family health history – my grandparents had asthma, eczema, and allergies, and so do my parents. On top of this, in my teenage years, I abused my body with daily laxatives which I took 3 times more than recommended for years, along with hydrocortisone cream as my daily moisturizer. When I decided to cleanse my body in 2012 and be free from anything that is toxic to my body, I had massive flare-ups which we call a “healing crisis”.

Information you can find about a healing crisis tells you that it lasts for a few days, is “temporary”, and “worst comes before better”. But it wasn’t my case. Once I got flare-ups, they lasted for months one after another. I almost felt like it was NOT temporary.

Between 2012 and 2016 was the hardest time of my healing. Long downtimes and a bit and brief up times. You can imagine that for hours I spent searching for “the quick solutions” during this time.

(->MORE healing stories)

After 2016, cycles of the healing crisis started to change – shorter and less frequent. It really took me for good 5 years to finally feel the toxic levels in my body are much less and my gut is working the way it’s supposed to.

I got to be honest. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to say “My gut is HEALED!”.

Why?

  1. I still have small breakouts here and there. Depends on how much sleep I get, how much stress I get, how much exercise I have done, what food I eat, etc. We must know that our body is different every day. Eating french fries didn’t cause any symptoms one day doesn’t mean that your body can handle it every time, especially for people with some weaknesses.
  2. I believe healing is an ongoing process for life. Taking care of our body according to the situation, and the feelings that are part of our intuition never ends.

So for now, I can say a few things regarding this topic.

Be patient.

The timing is always right. When it’s time, your body will know. Meantime, your job is to support the body nutritionally, emotionally, and environmentally.

Trust your body.

Your body knows what to do and working so hard to balance and work at its best. It’s your time to connect and look within.

Know that you’re on the right path.

The moment you decided to commit to your health and wellness, the healing has already begun. Learn to enjoy the ride.

And please know that you are ALWAYS supported by anyone you trust and feel safe with. Reach out to them when started to feel lost, exhausted, and overwhelmed.

Our universe is always there for us.

Lastly, I’d like to share my sort of “Before/After” picture for the first time. I was very ashamed of my skin and the way I looked with inflamed skin from head to toe. For this reason, I even stopped looking in the mirror for a long time and never took selfies till I thought my skin was ready.

But one day, I decided to record my journey to inspire people who are in the same shoes as mine. So here it is. While this still gives me heart aches when I look at it, I’m so grateful for my body.

from my Instagram @balanced_within

I was frustrated, hated myself, and depressed for years. Then I learned that self-love was the key to this healing journey. I have been learning a lot more about myself and my family ever since.

Our body never fails us to return as long as we never fail to nurture it.

Would you choose temporary drugs to “cure” symptoms OR the healing to a much more promised long ride for life?

Practice for mindful traveling

Make Choices, Spirit for Healing April 6, 2018

 

When it comes to commitment to the healing, traveling is the best or the worst enemy you can fall for. A lot of my clients are very inspired and commit to spending a good amount of time for daily self-care after having a session with me. But when they go on a vacation or business trip, this is when they stop following their daily regimen.

What can you do?

Pack your own snacks before flying

Make sure you preplan and pick up something to bring with you before leaving home so that you can snack on while you are at the airport. You may have to spend up to two hours waiting for your plane to takes off.

It is very hard to find something that doesn’t break your healthy eating habit.

Booster juice? Starbucks smoothie? Well, could be a better choice than fries, potato chips, muffins, etc. But what’s even better? You prepare your own food that you know there are no chemicals or additives in it.

Packing your own lunch box is a great idea, or chop vegetable sticks (celery, cucumber, broccoli, etc), just grab one or two apples, and mixed nuts and seeds (fat) can make you feel full for a while.

Mindful traveling starts from the day you started getting ready for the mindful traveling happen. Anything is possible as long as you really want to keep you on track.

Drink plenty of water

When I had my first trip after I made my commitment to my healthy eating, I didn’t know whether I could carry on my own food that I bought. So I had never had my own snacks to fly with. I never really wanted to buy something from the airport either. All I did was to drink plenty of water.

As much as I believe in nutrition from whole foods, I also think it’s healthy to fast for a half day by drinking just clean water. By clean water, I mean a bottled “spring water”. Although I’m a no supporter of plastic bottles, when we are traveling, we got to give up certain things that we have no control over.

Show your gratitude. This is mindful traveling.

Search for local stores and restaurants

When I go traveling, one of my favorite things to do is to search for local organic restaurants, health food stores, and kombucha brewers. I love to find different products they sell than where I live. Since the “health” is my passion, my first priority is to eat healthy no matter where I am. Plus, I will be spending my money on local artisans when I’m eating a restaurant uses locally grown organic produces.

Once you find the stores and restaurants with where you can stay with your healthy eating habit, you feel like you are actually not traveling.

Once I was in the UK, I had a hard time finding one healthy food store around the hotel. I had a choice eating out in a non-organic restaurant. I gave my prayer over the plate and appreciated the food that I could eat. I believe what’s important is to accept and appreciate what comes to me. Disappointment and anger won’t help us digest any food that we put in our mouth.

Take time for yourself

Whether you are traveling on your own or with somebody else, it’s easy to lose track of time. Staying up late and waking up early can exhaust you before coming home. Take your time at least 10 mins daily to connect with your self. Set your mind and body peaceful.

Even though you might not be able to perform some self-care regimen that you do at home, you can easily get back on track if you don’t lose completely.

Have fun

While a lot of people fell behind of their daily regime, some want to stick to their daily habit while they go on traveling. They don’t want to forget the multiple supplements they are taking every day so that they are stressed whether they packed enough amount, and worry about the food they might or might not be able to eat during the trip.

We all adapt ourselves in a different environment. The important thing is to be easy when our environment changes. If you forget to take supplements, then forget it. You can’t stress about it like the end of the world.

As I mentioned above already, you will do your best to stay on track. And again, it’s possible. But if you fail, you may or may not have your health challenges back. It’s a learning process.

You can’t live based on your fear.

So enjoy while you are away.

If you lost it, you challenge yourself the next time to stay on track a bit longer.

What is “Self-Love”?

Educational Information, Healing Procedure, Make Choices, Spirit for Healing March 23, 2018

I was asked one day.

What does self-love mean?

Do you think I have known what self-love is before starting my healing journey?

NO.

I believe this is something you learn as you experience certain events in life and be willing to heal from those events emotionally and physically. I’m sorry but I don’t believe people lightly say “I love myself.”. Because that’s not what I’m not talking about.

Abusing is NOT self-love.

My abusing started when I stopped looking after my body.

I intentionally held bowel movement as I was ashamed to go to the toilet when I was like 7. Then started skipping meals or stopped eating “food” to lose weight. Which led to the anorexic behavior for about 6 years. The reason for the weight loss was that a boy in my class told me that I was chubby. Around the same time, my mother also told me that I was chubby. Since I was sort of competitive in nature, I promised myself to get skinny.

While I kept losing my weight, I also had an extreme pressure from my mother regarding the school work. I was probably a decent student in elementary school but the pressure was put before I enrolled mid school. This pressure gave me stomach pains every morning. I remember taking painkiller pills every day for the next several months until I collapsed in the middle of the class.

Apparently, I almost had a hole in my stomach. Who knows if that was from the pills or the stress.

In the meantime, I have introduced to laxatives from a senior student in school when I was 13 for my constipation. Luckily, my family wasn’t big on any medications unless it’s an emergency. So when I discovered the pills that helped my bowel movement, I was hooked. And addicted.

The daily dose of the laxative was two. How much I took daily was 6. It also helped me keep losing weight. This laxative addiction lasted another 10 years from then.

When I became a high school girl, my eating habit started to rebound. I binge ate pizza, cookies, and other snacks. My mother was happy I started eating no matter what I was eating. I tried to keep my weight just below 100 lbs (my height was 5’6″) with laxatives until I moved away from my parents’.

I started living alone in Tokyo while I was in college. Here I started having serious bulimic behavior. It was very tough times as I had never been able to tell anyone about my “secret”, even my boyfriend whom I was in a serious relationship with.

Tokyo is such a big city where I could easily abuse my body, such as lack of sleep, heavy alcohol intake, binge eating, and very lonely in the heart.

Let me remind you that none of above is ever “self-love”. I abused my body both physically and emotionally. Especially, I remember I cried every time I was trying to throw up in the toilet which often wasn’t an easy procedure.

And HATED me.

I hated myself not knowing when this was going to end. I hated myself not to be able to control my eating attitude. I hated myself hiding “true self” from my partner I loved. I hated myself acting happy in public and being a mess when I was alone.

On the contrary…

I’d like to think of myself I’m a much more self-loving girl now. Sure, the environment is different and I am older. I have learned what I was supposed to along the way. “Wholistic Healing Arts” – body, mind, and spirit. And I am still learning every single day.

Physically Self-loving

I sleep (at least trying to intentionally, if not.) 8 hours a day. I eat 100% organic including plenty of vegetables and occasionally fish and organ meats that nourish my body. I also quit alcohol in 2011 when I decided to commit to my healing. I excuse myself to go to a toilet whenever I need. I stopped weighing in 2005 (I have weighed once in 2009 and was the last time I did so.) but don’t feel pity about my body. I exercise lightly but daily. I enjoy the detox procedures such as Epsom salt bath, castor oil packs, vaginal steam, and coffee enema to help my body regenerate.

Mentally Self-loving

I learned to forgive myself and others in any situations. I learned to understand the unique human being. I learned to set my own boundary. I learned my limitations. I learned that every emotion (anger, sadness, grief, fear, etc) had its own right to be felt. I learned to let myself express how I feel. I learned to say no. I feel comfortable being self-reserved. I learned to let go of toxic relationships. I don’t waste my time with people engage in drama. I laugh every possible moment.

Spiritually Self-loving

I practice 1000 gratitude a day (I haven’t reached 1000 yet, I am trying every day!). I learned the relationship between female hormonal cycle and intuition, which helped me to understand when I would be more intuitive and when I would be more logic. I always ask “Why” to whatever happens in life which will let me become more aware of signs from the universe. I listen to my heart. I say thank you in every possible moment.

Other Self-loving

I don’t try to become someone whom I am not. This is a tough one from time to time, however. We meet people who are like-minded in some topics and completely opposite in other topics. Can we be still close to those people?

The answer is YES. All we have to do is to accept who they are. We don’t need to be with them 24/7. We hang out when we are talking about something in common. You don’t need to project yourself to like everything they do.

I know that I’m not for everyone. What I believe in life is not for everyone. How I see life isn’t for everyone. What works for me isn’t for everyone. Sure. If a lot of people show up in my life and they are all like-minded people, that’s great. But that’s not really my goal for self-love. Self-love here is to be okay with who you are, no matter how many people will become your people. What’s important is that you keep loving yourself despite the change “outside” you.

How to … “Oil-Pulling”

Educational Information, Healing Procedure, Spirit for Healing March 19, 2018

 

How to – Oil-Pulling

  1. Make sure to perform the oil pulling up on waking before eating, drinking anything, or brushing your teeth.
  2. Swish 1-2 teaspoons of cold pressed organic oils such as coconut oil (the best!) and sesame seed oil for 20 mins.
  3. Spit out the oil and rinse with warm salt water.
  4. Brush the teeth as usual.

 

** Time your oil pulling. As 20 minutes is definitely the ideal timing to dissolve the plaque and weaken or kill bacteria but not long enough that the body starts re-absorbing the toxins and bacteria that the oil chelated from the mouth. The oil will get thicker and milky as it mixed with saliva during the swishing but make sure not to swallow.

** If you are using coconut oil, spit out the oil in a trash can. Do not spit in the sink as it may solidify as the temperature goes down.

** Try this 3-4 times a week for the improvement.

 

 

 

Reference:

Oil Pulling Therapy by Dr. Bruce Fife

 

What are FREE RADICALS?

Educational Information, Healing Procedure, Make Choices, Spirit for Healing December 21, 2017

 

Free radicals are not new in nature. They have been around for millions of years along with vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids (EFAs), and protective anti-oxidants found naturally in food. A free radical is an atom or molecular fragment with an unpaired electron. It is very unstable, highly reactive particle, because it hates to be alone and like to be paired. Therefore, it will draw an electron from wherever it can, including other molecules pair in the body, causing them to change structure. These molecules then become free radicals creating a chain reaction with millions of molecules being affected in nanoseconds.

Endogenous (from inside the body) Sources of Free radicals:

Free radicals are intermediates of the normal chemical reactions taking place in the body, including oxidative reactions to produce the energy that our cells require for detoxification, nutritional assimilation, and more. Our body’s immune system also produces free radicals which it uses to kill bacteria, viruses and fungi. If the immune system becomes chronically over-activated by chronic inflammation such as allergies and major operations, there is an extra burden of free radicals in the body.

While those oxidative reactions and immune responses are vital and absolutely necessary, unpaired electrons involved in oxidation can damage molecules in cells and tissues. And this becomes free radical stress, also known as oxidative stress in the body which leads abnormal, toxic, and biologically unsuitable substances to cause degenerative health conditions such as cancer.

Also, it is so important to mention about emotional stress. Emotional stress significantly increases the release of hormones (epinephrine/norepinephrine/cortisone) which in excess act like free radicals creates bio-chemical changes and damages the cells and tissues.

Exogenous (from outside the body) Sources of Free radicals:

  • Preservatives and other chemicals in food
  • Pesticides, antibiotics, synthetic hormones in non-organic food
  • Alcohol and smoking
  • Prescription drugs
  • Pollution
  • Radiation and microwave
  • Toxic metals like mercury, aluminum, and lead
  • Trans and hydrogenated fats

 

Luckily, our body is so incredible that it uses antioxidants like Vitamin C, E, A, selenium, CoQ10, as well as enzymes that contain minerals like zinc, manganese, and copper to neutralize free radical toxicity.

How Free radicals become “Bad” guys?

As I mentioned above, free radicals are produced from our body’s biological reactions besides exogenous sources and they can’t cause cell destruction when protective antioxidants are present in the body.

But in this fast-paced modern society, nutritional deficiencies are on the rise, especially vitamins and minerals (antioxidants!).

We eat packaged foods that are highly processed (often with chemicals), heated with high temperature in vegetable oils, and exposed to the light and oxygen. Those are perfect candidates for free radical damages in the body. There is no doubt that free radicals cause degenerative health conditions but the root cause for this is the nutritional deficiencies. By addressing the deficiencies, we could tame the free radical stress.

When I was working in a health food store, people asked me if it was really beneficial to take Omega-3. They were informed by Mr. “google” or some doctors didn’t know much about the benefit of Omega-3 that they cause the free radical damages rather doing the good.

YES. Omega-3s (and Omega-6s) are very sensitive to light, heat and oxygen (I have written about fats here.). Special care needs to be taken in processing, packaging, and storing rich in EFAs in order to avoid free radicals damages. However, to set such conditions costs labour and time. As a result, the necessary care is not usually taken.

Some haters (or just got a job writing about health and wellness) focus on this fact that scares readers without proving the solution to it. I think it is so important to intake Omega-3 either from food or nutritional supplements if you are dealing with asthma, eczema and other health conditions chronically. If you are scared of free radicals from processing the EFAs, eat more whole foods that can protect the cells with antioxidants.

It is so twisted if you are eating highly processed packaged foods and scared of free radical damages from bottled EFAs that could protect your cells. But only if your body has vitamins and minerals that assimilate the fat and act as antioxidants. Again, those have to come from whole foods or nutritional supplements.

Nature does its best to protect our body. Our job is to listen and take action.

References:

Organic restaurants are safe and healthy choice when going out for food?

Make Choices, Spirit for Healing December 21, 2017

 

When we are just about to enter the healing journey, eating out isn’t the first one to cut out of your life, because we have our social lives to keep. So we start suggesting friends to go to restaurants that serve more vegetables, gluten free, vegan/vegetarian options, and better yet they are either partially or completely organic. As far as I know, most of those restaurants support local farmers. That’s great! We feel less guilty eating fries if they are made in “healthy” restaurants.

Are they really healthy?

I have worked in different restaurants such as a bar, oyster house, and vegan/vegetarians’ over the years as a cook. And I have never found any restaurants that satisfy my way of eating when it comes to the way those restaurants make food, and ingredients and the way they are combined in a dish.

First of all, you don’t know what you are about to eat is really fresh. The food prep is usually done at least a day or two ago. If restaurants were slow on those days, they could be sitting in a fridge for days. Vegetable are exposed to oxygen and lights after being cut into pieces. Nutrients will be lost quickly, especially when they were pre-cooked.

Secondly, I like to mention about kitchen equipments. Among the restaurants I had worked in the past, some restaurants used teflon frying pans and aluminum pots besides stainless steel or cast iron ones. How about dishwasher they use? Do you think they use chemical free dish soap? Unfortunately, they don’t. That’s so rare to find places completely chemical free. Once dishes are washed with soap full of chemicals, they stays as they dry out. And you will be eating your food with toxic chemicals on the plates.

Lastly, yet most importantly, the biggest concern of mine is the oil. Especially, the vegetable oils such as canola oil, sunflower oil, olive oil, avocado oil, and other vegetable oils. I have written more about oils here.

The word free radicals has been well-known since a lot of scientists and doctors confirmed that they were responsible for the health crisis and degenerative diseases.  They are created from our body’s natural metabolism but the problem here I want to talk about is the way we consume oils is hugely contributing the free radical toxicity in the body.

When oils are heated, exposed to light or air, they change the chemical structure and become active as unpaired electron in the structure tries to pair up with other electron. This unpaired electron acts like a knife in the body damages the tissues and organs. This is so called free radical damages in the body.

Some oils such as coconut oil, palm oil, butter, ghee, and refined oils like high oleic sunflower oil, or high oleic safflower oil are more stable in the heat. But ideally all oils should not be heated especially when we are healing from degenerative conditions.

Restaurants consume so much oil a day so that they have to buy oils in huge bulks which usually come in plastics. When they are used for cooking, usually they are heated in high temperature.

Everybody has their own unique healing abilities. And there are differences how fast you degenerate your health or heal from health conditions. Because we all have weaknesses and strengths in different tissues and organs. So we can’t really compare with others who could be eating McDonald’s for years and they could be having no problems at all (or not paying attention to their health. Usually they are on medications masking what really is happening to their body.).

I come back to the question “How bad you want your health back?”. We can’t force anyone to do what they should do.    It’s always up to us whether we want to commit to our health.

Love in food that we are eating!

I also believe in healing property of the food we are eating. When we make food our own with love and healing energy, the food become more nutritious and will be assimilated optimally in the body.

If a cook in a restaurant had a bad day and making your food with anger, or is having a super busy moment and making your food with the pressure, your food could be burnt (which is carcinogenic) and carries on the stress as its energy.

Especially, when you are willing to reverse the health condition, take time to make your food with prayer and good healing energy.

That’s probably what you would be doing if you are trying to impress someone who you really like.                                     So why don’t you for yourself? (This is SELF-LOVE!)

Do you blame on genetics?

Healing Procedure, Spirit for Healing October 31, 2017

 

The word genetics is mentioned a lot from people, especially who faced health challenges at some point in their life – allergies, hay fever, candida, etc. In fact, almost every health problem is commonly blamed on genetics. My parents also believed eczema, allergies, and asthma that were running in the family were brought by genetics.

We pollute the water we drink, the food we eat, the air we breathe with industrial and nuclear wastes and when we get ill we blame it all on genetics. We deplete our soils of minerals and other nutrients and replace them with pesticides, organophosphates, weedkillers and lots of other chemicals, we grow our crops on these soils, we eat these crops, we get ill and blame it all on genetics. We damage our children’s immune systems with vaccinations and antibiotics and blame it all on genetics. we regularly consume processed foods with virtually no nourishment for the body that are full of chemicals and detrimental to health, and when we get ill we blame it all on genetics. We regularly intoxicate ourselves with alcohol, tobacco and drugs and when we get ill we blame it all on genetics.(1)

How about all the epidemics of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, depression, anxiety, learning disabilities, autoimmune disorders, obesity, etc.? These are all conditions starting at young age which doctors very rarely encountered a hundred years ago. Have our genetics gotten very poor so quickly to cause those degenerative diseases?

Genetics are a very convenient excuse. It is something we are born with, I would call them some strengths and weaknesses of our constitution. Therefore, there is nothing we can do about it at the moment. If we were born with weaknesses in kidneys, we have potential to have problems in kidneys genetically. If we have strengths in processing alcohol, we may be able to drink more than people who don’t. But does this mean we have no responsibility for our food that we eat, environment or lifestyles? Can we conveniently blame our state of health on our genetics?

As with the rapidly increasing numbers of modern epidemic sufferers, there is a genetic predisposition to the disorder rather than a genetic cause. That said, there has to have certain environmental conditions before any predisposition materializes into a disease. Diet is a major part of this environmental conditioning as our diet profoundly influences on gene expression, in other words what we eat could change our genetics throughout our lives. By changing the environment (diet, lifestyle, pollution, stress, infections, etc.), we can make sure that whatever genetic predisposition we may have, this predisposition won’t develop into a disease. And at the same time we can alter gene expression with the correct diet which will indirectly improve our genetics.

We don’t need to have the same disease that our family members have. We may have the predisposition, weaknesses, or genes that had expressed as symptoms. But it’s completely up to us whether we want to struggle with it or not. When we wisely choose what we eat, the way we live, and healthy relationships with others, we are not only healing ourselves but the future generations.

**Here I am not talking about clearly identified genetic conditions like haemophilia and many others where specific faulty genes have been discovered. They are not the main concern as what I wanted to discuss here was the epidemics that are becoming the real problem in the modern world.

 

(1) GAPS™ Gut and Psychology Syndrome Dr. Natasha Campbell-Mcbride MD

 

 

How bad you want your health back?

Make Choices, Spirit for Healing October 21, 2017

 

Among those who came to see me for their health conditions, I would say probably less than 20 % was ready to make their lifestyle and dietary changes. And I’m not complaining nor trying to change them.

Their priority is the main reason. I would say they are not ready to make changes because of it.

I was lucky enough to have been able to say, “Sorry, I have to be alone for my healing. I can’t see you while I am going through ups and downs. I really need to be focusing on myself.”, when I was just about to enter the most difficult time for healing. I knew my priority. I knew what was the most important matter for me to focus. So I chose me over a very loving man. He understood and gave me a huge respect for my decision. He understood how bad I wanted to heal. He understood how painful it was for me to see him with the red scaly inflamed itchy skin all over my body.

But not a lot of people can make a decision like I did. Some are in a long relationship so that they are living together for many years. Some have the family members who don’t understand holistic healing arts what so ever. Some are too scared to change diet which they grew up on. Even though they are super inspired by healing their conditions without medications but with diet, the nutritions.

I had a Japanese client who was married to a man who never had an interest in healthy eating. But she sought for my professional advice for her allergies. I have suggested the food combining to begin with and all other things. First thing that she worried was her husband. She asked me how she could convince him to understand what she was just about to do. And her second concern was her social life, eating out with her friends.

Well, first of all. We have to explain the reason profoundly why you will be changing how you eat if you are doing the food combining, for example. Give them the reason or two in order for them to understand how badly you want your health back. And most of people who love you, who care for you your health, they will understand you and be supportive for your decision.

I have to say, however, some people say things oppose to your decision because they don’t want you to get what you want. Simply, this could be because they are jealous of you who are strong enough to try to achieve your goal. Or in some cases, especially your parents, they worry no matter what.

One of my mentors once told us about his client. He was obese and had multiple disorders but his background was Italian. He grew up in a family eats greasy pasta, pizza, and other cheesy food. But since he started working with my mentor, he lost 45 lbs (which was still normal weight range) and some symptoms disappeared after couple of months. When his parents saw him leaner, they said that he was too skinny!

Family and friends are the most challenging people that you may have to convince. But if you try to take time to explain sincerely with passion, they will for sure understand you and support you. I believe this will happen to your spouse and children. More over, they could benefit from the dietary change you make!

Social life could be one of obstacles to make changes in your life. But I think it is totally up to you. I would certainly suggest to prepare your own food as much as you could in order to avoid additives, potential toxins, and excess sugar. And if you are 100% committed to your healing, you will do so. However, I understand it will be very difficult to cut every single social gathering all together. If you can have some snack before the gathering at home, you may not need to eat at the party. Whether your food is randomly prepared or made to order, be wise to choose what you eat. Social life with people who aren’t eating as strict as you are could be hard at the beginning but I found it will become easier once you familiarize yourself what/what not to eat or the proper food combining. It doesn’t matter whether people around you know your dietary restrictions or not.

Once your digestion, conditions, or symptoms get better, you should be able to eat without restrictions. For some, they may have the weaknesses in the system so that they won’t be able to eat like before. They have to stick to the certain protocol. Some prefer to stay with the protocol because it feels good.

When conditions and symptoms disappear, we tend to go back to an old habit. Because the pain, discomfort, and all other challenges with the conditions we had will disappear too. And we forget how it was like. But we have to remember what brought you the health challenges in the first place. If we keep doing the same thing dragged you down to the point you had to struggle for your health, it will get us again.

If your body fails you, where will you live?

Stages to become a whole ~ my second step~

Spirit for Healing October 6, 2017

 

I was almost running away from the past or the reality. I had all my friends who knew me with a normal skin. I was scared when they see my skin all red and patchy, they would judge me and say “Are you okay?”. It was true that I needed some change. I needed to change the social life as I think I wasn’t over the relationship I had previous years.

Anyway, I got on a plane on January first in 2012. I moved to Toronto, ON. In a new place, there are new people who didn’t know me and my past. I thought I could be a bit more comfortable with the skin if people didn’t know my healthy skin.

In Toronto, there were a lot of transitions happened for me. Even though I still think I would never live in the east side of the county, I have met the most beautiful inspirational people in my life.

Without them, I couldn’t go through the ups and downs of my healing. I’m not gonna lie that those ups and downs were super hard for me. But now I know that my body had to go through this in order to get better and the universe sent me those people to help me go through it.

Only one time, please let me use this…

About a couple of months after moving to TO, I had an important event back in my home. My brother was getting married and I was to attend. Because my family didn’t know what I was going through, how my skin looks like, I thought I didn’t want them to worry.

My parents thought I had a healthy skin the whole time as an adult. Since I was never be like a kid who talks things to parents, I just decided to use the cortisone cream before going to see them. So I could have a healthy skin while I was there.

Me before the wedding in Japan 2012

Here is the picture in March (2012) after I “fixed” my skin. I was truly happy to have my “healthy” skin back again, even though I knew it was fake. I could expose my skin and wear some make up on again!

Be strong and start healing…

Despite of my joy having that smooth skin again, I knew I really needed to commit to heal. As soon as I came back to TO from Japan, I threw away the last portion of the cortisone cream. There were no way I could go to the walk in clinic to ask for the prescription again.

I was still drinking some alcohol and had some social life, meeting new people as I somehow kept my fixed skin since Japan. It was till the next winter. I started to have some flare ups again. Because of the new work environment, I enjoyed eating foods that I eliminated in BC such as gluten, dairy, soy and eggs with new co-workers.

New commitment

While I was still figuring out what I could eat and what not besides eating 100% organic, one thing I thought I should do was to quit alcohol. It was already easier for me to do so as I wasn’t really drinking much by then.

It was the last glass of vodka martini at a NYE party in TO. From 2013 January 1st, I am ever sober.  You can’t really stress the liver as it’s the most important organ when it comes to healing the skin.                        I also quit coffee as I started to become thirsty more as I drink it. I’d rather be hydrated than the taste of it.

As I was taking a course in IHN Mississauga for a certification of Iridology, I learned about “coffee enema” to help the body detox. Around the same time, I added a castor oil pack as a daily regime.

I have to tell you that those are a quite commitment. My regime at night was to do the coffee enema at least twice daily and castor oil pack 5 days a week.

Diet v.s. skin?

When I moved to TO, I started going to a rock climbing gym myself. Here, I met couple of my best friends for life. One of them is a girl, Anya who was a hard core vegan for 7years then, and was a holistic veterinarian. She was an out of ordinary girl whom I can’t say enough about. We hit off right away and talked a lot about deeper heavy stuff. I told her what I had been going through and what I had been trying out in terms of diet and supplements.

But one day, she said to me…

“Fumi, have you ever thought looking into more emotional traumas?”                                                                   ” You have tried almost everything but if things are not getting better… you may need to solve some emotional stuff.”

I mean… I knew the concept of being “holistic”, being a “whole”. We see us as a whole… mind, body and spirit. But I only understood it in my brain, not in my heart.

Emotions v.s. skin?

After about a year living in TO, I met someone who I liked to get to know more. He was really lovely and was interested in the healthy living and eating healthy.

Because his work schedule was completely the opposite, I could keep my daily regime for healing. When he called me on his break and asked me what I did in the evening, my answer was the same.

Coffee enema and castor oil pack!!

Me few years back was living to be loved by someone I loved. But then, I was doing something for myself… to heal.

Even though we only dated like a couple of months, there were interesting things happened to me. While we were dating, my skin started to get worse again. One day, he wanted to come over after work but I said I didn’t want to see him because my skin was so red and itchy. I was embarrassed to be seen by anyone. I insisted that we wouldn’t see that night. But he came over anyway. And as soon as he come to my room, he said to me..

“You look beautiful.”

“I don’t get why you think that you weren’t.”

I don’t remember I kicked him out of the room after that or let him stay. But I remember I was really really angry and hated myself… my skin. Despite of what he told me… I looked beautiful. And then, of course I scratched my skin that night and the next day, some part of my skin was bleeding.

During this relationship, Anya asked me why I was still with him because I was scratching my skin every time he comes over. There were always some anger coming out from me and as a result, I scratched till I bled.

I didn’t know why I was angry while I was with him. But I know the anger was causing more irritation in my skin. And for sure the anger was waiting for the chance to be released from my body for years.

 

Read my third step here.

Stages to become a whole ~ my first step~

Spirit for Healing October 6, 2017

To be quite honest with you, I have been going through A LOT! If I think of all that, they are all relevant, meaning… all comes back to lack of “self-love”. But while going through all, my focus was on how to get rid of all the pain psychologically and physically.

While I wasn’t sure how, I wasn’t also ready for the change till I was. I’m gonna talk about stages at which I peeled my thick “onion skin” little by little.

I talk about this “onion skin” quite a lot.  We as a raw human being, we are so fragile to live without any protection around us. When someone judges you, when someone hurts you, when someone lies to you, when someone betrays you, when someone gets angry with you, when someone dies, etc… we start creating a guard (onion skin) to protect ourselves. When we don’t peel it off (process the emotions), we keep creating the new ones around us. The older they get, the harder they become to peel off.

We all have different steps to go through as our body knows which one is the most important to work first, and next at the time. (This is one of my favorite things about our body!!!) And the first one is always the hardest to go through and could be the thickest skin to peel off.

It takes time and patience.

First Stage…

In 2011, I started going to school to become a certified nutritional practitioner (CNP) in Vancouver, BC. I first had no idea what “holistic nutrition” meant. After a half year passed, the contents of each course got deeper, especially when we learned about “Chakra”, the energy center in the body.

Around that time, I freaked out about what I had been doing to my body. Especially, this made me promise myself to quit cortisone cream forever and decided to cleanse my body.

New commitment

I started eating 100% organic. Luckily, because of the school, I didn’t really drink alcohol but still having late nights even though healing requires a lot of sleep which I couldn’t have really.  After a couple of weeks into the cleansing program, I started having a huge flare up from head to toe. I asked around the instructors in school what I could do for that. One recommended to take fish oil, and the other recommended to stop whatever I was doing. She said I may have been reacting to some ingredients I was talking for cleansing.

Emotional breakdown

Since the flare-up which happened during the summer, I couldn’t stand being in public as my face had red patches. Because my whole body was red and itchy, I wore hoodie and jeans in summer to hide my body. And because I was embarrassed and depressed, pretty much what I did was minimal, went to school and came home or went to work and came home. This was like for months.

What have I tried during the time of first flare up?

Since I was committed not to rely on cortisone cream anymore, I went to see an acupuncturist who someone told me was healing skin diseases. She gave me a salve made of Chinese herbs. One day, someone told me to use coconut oil.

Well, guess what?

It wasn’t so simple!!!

When it comes to skin problems, we traditionally think we need some cream to fix it. Let me tell you that I have tried billions of creams on the market! None of it helped to clear up the skin in couple of days like some say.

What was I eating?

I eliminated dairy, eggs, and gluten from my diet around this time. And ate more raw vegetables with simple apple cider vinegar with honey dressing. And this happened.

One morning, I was eating a huge salad with nuts and seeds like usual. My eye lids started to swell. I freaked out so much and luckily I had an allergy test kit that my school gave us sometime. I pricked my finger and sent it to the lab.

The result showed me I was allergic to every single item on the list even green vegetables.

Leaky gut => Heal the gut!

Easier said than done. As a baby nutritionist still then, all I did was to take fish oil and probiotics and eliminated all the major allergens like eggs, dairy, wheat, and soy. I was eating raw vegetables less.

After almost 6 months into the journey, my skin was slightly better. I decided to move to the east side of Canada after graduating from school in 2012.

Read my second step here.