Heal Something Good

August 12, 2015August 12, 2015

Heal Something Good – 2015 Edition This Fall!

I’m super excited to announce that an updated edition of my book, Heal Something Good, will be coming this fall! It holds new research, new material, and new tips.

The one down side to this is that when the current version of my book is taken down from Amazon and Lulu, I’ll lose the sales standing and reviews.

To encourage reviews (and ultimately sales) of the new edition, we’re offering a free pdf of Heal Something Good to anyone who is willing to leave a review on either Amazon or Lulu when the new version comes out. And for those that actually do leave a review, we’ll send you a free printed copy of the book.

If you’d like to participate, please email me here.

And a special offer to those who already own the first edition – I’d like to offer you the new edition at cost if you’d like to upgrade. Let me know. <3

September 29, 2014August 14, 2015

Random Piecings + My Basic Green Smoothie Recipe

Here’s some clouds from Southern Utah. You’re welcome. That place is incredibly beautiful. I mean:

I joke with Joe that we should go live there and by “joke” I mean “semi-serious” and by “semi-serious” I mean how about in two years or so. Poor Joe. I think part of my joke-not-joking is that we had such an incredible time doing the retreat there a few weeks ago. The entire event was just amazing. I really felt so, oh, I don’t know the right words, it was so big what I felt. But some good words are Useful and On Task and Meaningful and Just Right. And when you feel all the parts of something come together that you’ve been planning and you see how so many people feel great about it and get what they need from it, well….it’s just kind of amazing. I added this picture of Joe because why not.

You’ll have to excuse this stream of consciousnesses and pick through for the good parts due to the fact that I’ve got uncharacteristic pressure and pain in my ear regions and it makes for less than sharp conversation at times.

In my quest for Health & Wellness I make course corrections and try on new things. These New Things might be drastic or small. The course corrections might be just a tad one way or the other or a major right turn. But through it all I seem to have one question in my heart and that is this: Am I where I’m supposed to be, doing what I’m supposed to be doing and with whom I’m supposed to be doing it with? (I’m ever so sorry I ended that with a preposition but it couldn’t be helped.)

One thing I feel I should be doing are the H&W Retreats and the whoms are my sister and our daughters. It’s beautiful when we’re all together and educating and helping people feel more and more well. It’s truly like magic and if I could do it every day the rest of my life I would.

In order to really be “in tune” to someone’s frequency and be in a place to help them the most, I don’t want to muck up my brain and body with chemicals because it can short-circuit our connection. To that end I’ve cut out alcohol and almost all caffeine. I’m down to one cup of decaf a day and I’ll tell you what, the nightly beers were much easier to give up than my morning coffee. I’m feeling a much larger reward than anything negative with this change, though, because I’m not experiencing my afternoon “dip” that I’ve had for so, so long and I’m sleeping better. So, there’s that.

Being more “in tune” means I can pick up on subtler messages that someone’s body/energy is giving off when we talk. There’s so much happening in between the lines and woven throughout the conversation happening with words. I consider it a privilege to be able to tune into those things and it makes it so much easier when I’m not riding a high from caffeine, when I’ve had a good night’s sleep and when I can fully feel my own stuff and not mistake it for someone else’s stuff.

The pressure in my ears has come along with a rash on my neck that is Candida ~~trying to drive me crazy~~ dying off. Because I’m no longer drinking sugar every night (beer and wine) and that was my last main source of sugar, my host body is no longer as conducive to Candida and the yeast is mad. Really, really mad. The rash is itchy and red and looks terrible but I just keep rubbing coconut oil on my feet and encouraging it to get out, get out and keep on going. I upped my water and increased support of my liver. I upped my supplements and fermented foods. I send loving thoughts to my ears and my neck for doing such a great job with this process and then I drink another glass of herbal tea because that’s what I’ve got right now and it’s not that bad.

I wasn’t expecting Candida to burst out of my neck or stack up in my ears and it’s a constant reminder these days to keep an eye on what I’m eating, keep the sugar-foods low, add in more green smoothies and other things Candida doesn’t like.

Here’s my basic Green Smoothie recipe. It makes one really large glass of smoothie plus just enough extra that you’re irritated and don’t know what to do with it so you just stick it in the fridge and forget about the 1″ of old green smoothie and then it goes bad so you dump it and do it all over again. Just kidding. I totally don’t do that. I ask Joe to drink it and sometimes he even does.

1 Kale leaf, stripped off rib
1/2 avocado
1/2 cup probiotic yogurt
1/4 cup coconut milk
2 TBL soaked or sprouted sunflower seeds
Handful of frozen blueberries
Half a frozen banana
2 tsp Spirulina
Enough filtered water to make the right consistency

The banana and blueberries contain all the sugar I can handle right now but if you need some more sweetener, go ahead and add a little raw honey, raw maple syrup or un-sulfered molasses. (There’s a recipe kind of like this in my book.) Sometimes I add sprouted lentils.

I don’t have a great ending for this post (EAR PRESSURE) but I’ll leave you with a thought I keep having. What if we were all doing exactly what we were supposed to be doing, where we were supposed to be doing it, and with the people we were supposed to be doing it with? And what if we did that all the time? I think it would be incredible.

One more of the clouds in Southern Utah because I can’t even.

August 5, 2014August 5, 2014

Blogher 14 Flawed but Authentic Suite Photos

We’re so super happy to present the photos from the portrait studio. You can view them all at the Heal Something Good website. (That’s the lovely A’Driane Nieves shown below.) (Psst. Here are links to the audio you listened to in the portrait studio: Amy Turn Sharp & Robin Plemmons.)

July 30, 2014August 11, 2015

Heal Something Good Wellness Retreats

UPDATE: Check out the new Heal Something Good website for all the details!

I’m so happy to introduce to you our Heal Something Good Wellness Retreats! We’re still in the planning stages and if you want more info as it comes along, please let me know and I’ll keep you in the loop. We’ll be covering a lot of the info that’s in my book plus go in depth with individual needs. We’ll have massages, non-toxic manicures, zytoscans, do energy work, cover nutrition and of course, essential oils. Most importantly, we’ll spend time really getting to understand how our guts and brains are connected, why healing has to take place both places, and how to do it. You’ll leave the retreat with a lot of essential knowledge, refreshed and on your way to true healing.

Our first one is planned for October 8-11, 2014 in Lake Tahoe. We have just a few slots available, so if it sounds like something you’d be interested in, please holler.

If you’d like to host a HSG Wellness Retreat in your city, let me know! There are some great benefits to being the host, such as attending the retreat for free for you, a 50% discount for a friend, free essential oils and more!

I loved getting to chat with so many of you at BlogHer this year! Wow, the Friday night party was fun. We’ll have the photos from the weekend up soon at the FBA site. Thanks for spending some time with me during the conference. Me and the team had a great time.

(photo credit, Jen Myronuk)

May 6, 2014May 6, 2014

When the Water Calls

When my kids were young, when we first came back from Germany, when my marriage to the other guy was being held together with tape and googly eyes, when I couldn’t breathe, when I couldn’t think, when I wasn’t on meds and needed them badly, when I was dissociating, I took the kids to the beach.

My feet, which had walked way too far and way too long to get there, were suddenly surrounded by rushing water and the Space of Nothing I needed. The water was cold and fast and then pulled at my soul before it receded, taking my fears, confusion, disappointments and grief with it on its way back out to sea.

This was “Our Beach” and the kids knew how far they could walk and still yell into the surf and find me. There were huge boulders and small crabs and hot sand for miles. There was my daughter wearing her suit with the rainbow, ruffled rumba-butt, worried what might be lurking in the water that she couldn’t see. And my oldest refusing to have fun because he was just-that-much-too-cool and pulling a towel over his body, taking a nap nestled in the grains of sand while the sun kissed a slice over his leg when the make-due-blanket slid down.

And there were my other two boys, unashamed to have hard, wild and loud fun, running into the waves, grabbing boogie boards and refusing to let me swipe sunscreen on them because they just can’t stop running right now, Mommy. Can’t stop right now, but soon.

I sat. I watched. I stood at the edge of the world where the packed, wet sand meets eternity, with my feet sinking lower and lower with every pull of water and wondered who I was, where I went, and how I could find me.

In the summer more people came. More and more each year. Parking got harder. Walking was further. The jugs of water, towels, sunbathers and canopies that dotted the sand got closer and closer together. The water began to burst with more and more surfers and swimmers but we didn’t stop going to Our Beach because, well, it was ours. No matter what else it was, it was ours.

The world ended one spring, just as we had started going back to Our Beach that year, and I had a vacation in a mental hospital with strangers that knew me better than anyone else. Within minutes the kids had moved with their dad to what might as well have been another country and I had no passport. The gates closed on Our Beach and we never went back.

I spent the next ten years or forever driving past Our Beach every other weekend and sometimes in the middle of the week on a Thursday to see them play sports or be in a play, using any excuse to get to watch their faces talk about everything, anything, please talk about something, to me.

I looked out the window at that water and wondered what it did with all my secrets. But I never went back to Our Beach because it wasn’t ours anymore. It was just a regular beach now, like a hundred other beaches, one that belonged to everyone else in the world more than me or us.

I’m finding new beaches now with my guy, the guy that stands by me when the tide is high or low. I don’t claim these wild beaches or try to make them my own. I understand better that the magic when the water races to the shore and dances around your feet, pulling out the grief and sadness, belongs to everyone. You can’t own a wild thing, anyway. It’s just pretending to think you can and I don’t need to pretend anymore.

I sit. I breathe. I stand in the surf on the edge of the world and watch my guy swim out into the magic and feel so much joy it hurts in a delicious and comforting way, now that I’m healing, now that I’m happy in my soul where it’s quiet, now that I can breathe, now that I can think, now that I’ve found myself.

…

Heal Something Good is available for Pre-Order here.

May 6, 2014

Grain-Free Cooking: Brussels Chips Exclamation Point

If you like Brussels Sprouts, and even if you don’t care for them so much because you’ve only had them water-soggy or over-cooked, this recipe is for you. For you!

When I stopped eating grains, vegetables became a bigger part of my intake and Brussels Sprouts is a weekly contender. I ate them before I even knew how to cook them correctly. And NOW. Well.

Here’s the thing – soggy Brussels sprouts are the pits. But if you roast them with some olive oil? Hoo-boy. And when you peel of a bunch of outer layers so they get crispy while you’re roasting the inner brain-looking nubbins? Delectable.

Here. Let me show you.

Roasted Brussels Chips

A Buncha Brussels Sprouts
Olive Oil
Sea Salt
Fresh Cracked Pepper

1. First things first: soak those sprouts for about 5 minutes, pushing them under the water a few times.

2. Next, shake off the water and cut the ends off each sprout high enough up from the bottom that the damaged outer layers are discarded. Then (AND THIS IS THE BEST PART) keep peeling off a few more layers until the little brain part is too tight to keep peeling. When you get to the core, but it in half or thirds. Put all the layers plus the brain nuggets on a cookie sheet.

3. Pour some olive oil over the whole messagoodness and mix well with your hands. Maybe 2-3 tablespoons? Well, fine. I guess you could put them in a bowl and then use a spoon and carefully do this part so you don’t get oily, but that just makes more dishes. Plus olive oil is good for your skin. But the choice is yours!

4. Grind some real salt (check the ingredients of your sea salt for non-caking agents and trade up if you see it listed) and fresh cracked pepper on the leaves. Do it real good, friend.

5. Bake at 425F for ten minutes, taking out every 3-4 minutes to mix with a wooden spoon or spatula. You know it’s done when the little brains are nicely browned on at least one side and soft when pierced with a fork. The chips should be crispy and brown (AND DELICIOUS).

You’ll never go back to steamed or boiled sprouts again. (Fun addition! Add some super crispy real bacon bits to the top after baking and before inhaling.)

This recipe is included in Heal Something Good.

April 1, 2014

FBA Tshirts – Book Tour 2014!

Oh, look! It’s new Flawed but Authentic Tshirts, available for a limited time only, just in time for Heal Something Good‘s debut.

Look how cute and how many varieties there are! You can buy them directly from RedBubble.

Pre-Orders will get a Tshirt for *FREE!* (Choice of Floral or Plain design. See Details below.)

We purchased some of Joe‘s design of the surfing bear California flag last Christmas and I can tell you that the Tshirts from RedBubble are well made and the screen-printing is stellar.

Details: The free Tshirts will be done in one bulk order, most likely in May/June. They will be grey Tshirts in either Male w/Plain design or Female w/Floral design sizes S to 2X. Pre-Order a copy of Heal Something Good here.

March 31, 2014March 31, 2014

Pre-Order Heal Something Good

You guys. I’m oh-so-close to being done with Heal Something Good, the book I’ve been working on for the past three years.

This has been a labor of love. My last book, Not Otherwise Specified, was such a deep journey of mental discovery that I would never call it “Light” or “Nurturing.” I mean, the subject matter includes suicide attempts and graphic material. It’s an important book for what it is and I continue to get letters of appreciation from people who have found it helpful on their own journeys, which is why I leave it up and available.

But. But! Heal Something Good is light and nurturing and full of joy. It’s educational and fun. I’ve enjoyed every moment of writing and putting it together. Who knew learning about supporting our whole body in healing could be so fun?!

I was asked the other day if my new book was *just* for someone healing from chronic illness or *just* someone healing from mental illness and the answer is an emphatic no.

Show me someone who doesn’t have some physical, emotional or mental healing to attend to and I’ll show you someone who is an imaginary person. Life happens and during that “happens” we encounter all kinds of things that damage us. And surprise! It’s all connected inside us. Our emotions are connected to our body systems are connected to our mental well-being is connected to our emotions. (See what I did there?)

Heal Something Good hits on all that and more. If you have experienced life, I dare say you’ll find it helpful.

Pre-Orders get 25% off the book price plus a free hour of mentoring PLUS a book mark inked & water-colored by yours truly. Today is a great day to pre-order!

The image below was taken just the other day when the sun was out and tapping me on the shoulder and whispering in my ear and I was thinking about you, how happy I feel and how I want to tell you all about it.