Meet my purple elephant. His name is Happy.  Happy is happily tacked to my office bulletin board.  Happy is here for a reason.  Happy serves as a vital daily reminder to me. As I sit to work on my computer Happy lingers in the background. When I take a break from writing, I glance at Happy.   He is the purple elephant in the room, which I want to focus on.  Guess what? When I look at Happy I feel happy!

Here is a simple tip for you for the week: what you focus on expands.  What purple elephant do you want to focus on?  Joy, laughter, gratitude? Find an image that matches your aspired feeling.  Write or type the name of the feeling, you want to feel, next to the image. Print it out and place it throughout your home or office as a consistent reminder. Happy also lives on my refrigerator and computer (he is shrunk to cover the Apple logo on my Mac). Get creative! What’s your purple elephant?

Poor neck posture leads to head, neck, and shoulder pain. Daily activities such as working on the computer, driving, and sleeping (with bad posture) all promote a forward head posture.

Give your head, neck, and shoulders a break this week. Practice awareness, stretch, and get your head back over your shoulders, not in front of them!

Intuition fascinates me.  The ability to see or know something before it happens, or without knowing why you know something, is not only amusing to me, it also holds practical value. How is intuition practical, you may ask? For example, if you lose your car or house keys, your intuition can help you find them.  Or, if you are driving and get lost, you can tap into your intuition to get back on track to your destination.  I recently experienced a fun and meaningful intuitive experience that I would like to share with you. Perhaps this story will inspire you to explore your intuition more deeply.

This month, in a continued commitment to strengthen my sixth sense, I signed up for an online psychic detective class taught by a world-class psychic, Pam Coronado. Pam is a very humble and adept psychic.  She is most well-known for her TV series, Sensing Murder, where she is hired to help detectives gain new insight on unresolved homicide cases.  Pam’s classes help students hone in on their own reading abilities.

Last week Pam asked the question, “I just bought a new vehicle. What is my new vehicle? It will be in my driveway tomorrow.”

I read the assignment before going to bed and decided to try an intuitive technique called, dream incubation, to see if I could receive the answer.  Dream incubation is simply the process of asking a question to yourself and asking your dreams to reveal the answer to you. I asked, “What is Pam’s vehicle?”

When I awoke, all I remembered of my dream was a group of bees flying everywhere and an aggressive bee biting my hand.  The bee, in the dream, was stuck to my hand and drained itself of all its color until it was only black.  I also remembered two words as I awoke — infinity and Aladdin.  I felt very disappointed as I headed to class. I wondered what does this have to do with Pam’s new vehicle?

I posted my answer on the class forum and was surprised to receive a response that Pam’s current vehicle is a Black Infiniti!  I wasn’t even aware that there is a car called an Infiniti.  Notice, I asked, “What is the color of Pam’s vehicle?” I didn’t specify Pam’s new vehicle.  Asking your dreams for answers requires precise questioning. It’s like typing in a web address. If you are one letter off, you will not arrive at your desired web site.

Interestingly, the same night of my Black Infiniti dream, in real time Jeanette, my bee partner, was tending our hives and was stung by some of the bees. We have had our bees for almost a year and have experienced the bees as gentle and calm every time we’ve entered the hives.  It turned out that on that evening the bees had been more aggressive than they had ever been before, just as I saw in my dream.  Ironically, I had been wondering for days, until Jeannette and I saw each other in person, how her time with the bees had been. Little did I know my dream had already shown me.

Have a question about something in your life? Looking for direction on a tough decision? The answers you are looking for may be alive in your dreams…pay attention.  Practice this dream incubation this week and see what you learn!

Other parts of your brain include the limbic brain, which controls long-term memory and emotional learning and your neocortex the “thinking” part of your brain that controls logic, reason, language, creativity and intuition.

The reptilian brain has an attitude of “eat or be eaten”. If you are feeling fear, envy or greed it is likely your reptilian brain is in the driver’s seat.  Your reptilian brain is of-course essential to your survival however; left unchecked it creates unnecessary stress and havoc in your life.

Take for example, Mark, a man who is expecting a work promotion.  Mark does not receive his promotion.  His response is anger, rage, and envy. While some disappointment is natural, a response of anger, rage and envy would indicate his reptilian brain is at play.  His perception is about survival.  He must fight to get his position to survive.

Whereas, if Mark were responding from the neocortex and limbic regions of his brain, he could take a step back, reflect, and evaluate his situation.

One of the easiest ways to relieve stress in your own life is to get acquainted with your reptilian brain. If you are caught in feelings of survival and competition rest assured your reptilian brain is simply doing it’s job—trying to help you survive.  After all, to the reptilian brain it’s survival of the fittest.  Unfortunately, living in survival isn’t much fun and creates a lot of unnecessary stress.

You can shift your awareness from your reptilian brain to your higher consciousness in many ways:

• Bring focus to creativity, intuition, and logic.
• Give yourself a reality check (your not really about to “die” if the car in front of you doesn’t speed up in traffic).
• Focus on collaborative solutions.
• Look for news sources that inform you not scare you. Headline writing & media are infamous for targeting the reptilian brain to attract readership.
• Breathe deeply.
• Focus on a feeling of love and gratitude in your heart.

Relieve stress—get out of your reptilian brain!

1.

2.  “Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” – Eckhart Tolle

3.  “Believing what you want equals what is best for you is a dead end. It makes the mind stiff, inflexible, caught in a picture of reality, rather than open to the wisdom of the way of it.” – Byron Kaitie

4.  “When things look like they are falling apart, they are actually falling into divine place.  The divine place they should be for everyone involved.” – Iyalana Vanzant

5.  “Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.” – Denis Waitley

Ingredients – Serves 4

• 6 cups lightly packed kale, stems removed
• ¼ cup diced red bell pepper
• 1/4 cup diced yellow bell pepper
• ½ cup grated carrot
• ½ cup thinly sliced purple cabbage

Dressing

• 2 Tbl olive oil
• 1Tbl freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1garlic clove, pressed or minced
• 1tsp maple syrup
• 1tsp wheat-free tamari or soy sauce
• 1/4tspcayenne

1.Chop the kale and toss in a mixing bowl with the red and yellow bell peppers, carrot, and cabbage.

2.Whisk all of the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl and pour over the salad. Use your hands to massage the dressing into the kale, making sure that it is evenly distributed.

3.Either serve immediately or chill for 10 minutes or more to allow the kale to soften.

Tips and Tricks

Rubbing oil into the kale and allowing it time to soak in softens the leaves making them increasingly more delicious with time. Another technique is to rinse the kale under hot water to soften.

Variations

~Though eating a rainbow is recommended for health, don’t over-concern yourself with sticking to this precise list of vegetables. Use what you have or what you love.

~Try adding other flavors to the dressing ingredients such as 2 tsp balsamic vinegar, 1tsp stone ground mustard, or ½ tsp red or green curry paste.

You are invited to join Mark’s highly praised on-line cooking class membership program, teaching healthy meal preparation that integrates the many benefits of vegan, vegetarian, raw food, gluten free and plant-based diets. As Mark says, “The Best Health Care Is Self Care” and he should know after teaching hundreds of people just like you and traveling the world sharing this wisdom with all of his students.

Please click here to see free introductory video or to sign up.

This key question will help you become conscious of what you are eating. Ask yourself, how is eating this food going to support my health? For example, avocado is a great source of Vitamin E and has been reported to help prevent prostate cancer. Where Spinach is reported to be rich in vitamins and minerals, it is also concentrated in health-promoting phytonutrients such as carotenoids (beta-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin) and flavonoids to provide you with powerful antioxidant protection.

Food is a medicine chest in and of itself. Remember, you are what you eat. So, eat well!

Why is oxygen so vital?  Often times the importance of something is more clearly defined in it’s absence. Though we can do without food for weeks and possibly water for days, without adequate oxygen supply, we will die within in a few minutes.

So what is happening in our bodies daily when we are breathing quickly and shallowly?  Holistic Living Online reports, “While the result is not as extreme as a heart attack or a stroke there are still a significant series of “little deaths” occurring in the body.  We may experience these as feelings of mental sluggishness, lack of energy, decreased creativity and heightened states of negativity.”

Today, make it simple.  If you are feeling hurried, overwhelmed, or stressed, stop, slow down, and breathe. You will gain the clarity, focus, and peace you need by simply breathing.  Make your breaths even, steady, and slow.

The best six doctors anywhere
And no one can deny it
Are sunshine, water, rest, and air
Exercise and diet.
These six will gladly you attend
If only you are willing
Your mind they’ll ease
Your will they’ll mend
And charge you not a shilling.
~Nursery rhyme quoted by Wayne Fields, What the River Knows, 1990

Be sure to visit the “doctor” this week!