This is an 8 week on-line course available from DailyOM and Catherine Ann Jones. We will email you when your new lesson is available and you will be able to login and read each lesson on-line or print as they become available and click to listen to the guided audio meditations. Your first lesson will be available immediately after you enroll. If you have any other questions, please contact us.

Our lives may be determined less by past events than by the way we remember them. You are invited to come aboard this inner adventure that offers a step by step journey of discovery and re-visioning through focused journaling. Throughout the eight sessions, you will be engaged in exercises designed to facilitate healing and transformation. Telling stories about our past through focused journaling can help change our perspectives to enable healing and empowerment. In this way, we are able to make meaning out of memory and put the past where it belongs – behind us. Healing and transformation are only possible through changing one’s perspective from within. In this way, global healing takes place one individual, one tribe, at a time. What story are you living? How do you choose to remember your story?

There is a Native American parable about a grandfather who says, I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is the vengeful, angry one. The other wolf is the loving, compassionate one.” When asked which wolf will win the fight in his heart, the old man replies, “The one I feed.”

ABOUT CATHERINE ANN JONE
Catherine Ann Jones holds a graduate degree in Depth Psychology and Myth from Pacifica Graduate Institute where she has also taught. Earlier she has played major roles in over fifty productions on and off-Broadway, as well as film and television. Disappointed by the lack of good roles for women, she wrote a play about Virginia Woolf (On the Edge) which won a National Endowment for the Arts Award. Ten of her plays, including Calamity Jane (both play and musical) and The Women of Cedar Creek, have won several awards and are produced both in and out of New York. Her films include The Christmas Wife (Jason Robards & Julie Harris), Unlikely Angel (Dolly Parton), Angel Passing (Hume Cronyn & Teresa Wright) which played at Sundance and went on to garner fifteen awards here and abroad, and the popular TV series, Touched by an Angel. A Fulbright Scholar to India studying shamanism, she has also taught at The New School University, University of Southern California, and the Esalen and the Omega Institute. Ms. Jones lives in Ojai, California, leads The Way of Story and Healing Yourself with Writing workshops throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Her recent book, The Way of Story: the craft & soul of writing, is used by many schools, including NYU writing programs.www.wayofstory.com

We have reviewed EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), a simple tapping on several points that has helped people with many emotional and physical challenges.

The Tapping Solution takes 10 people with ten different problems and applies EFT with amazing results. This is one free method you can add to your healing tool kit. The free e-book at the site explains the points and the affirmation. If you don’t know about this powerful technique, please do yourself a favor and check it out. It just might make a real difference in your ife.

And here is the link to the video and more.

From Mike Adam’s NaturalNews.com
by: Patty Donovan, citizen journalist

(NaturalNews) Although we strive to maintain health and avoid doctors and especially hospitals, bad things can and do happen. Sometimes it’s an accident; sometimes we come to a healthy life style too late and have incurred too much damage to completely recover. Now, music is taking a major role in helping critically ill patients recover. Imagine the role it could play in our lives when we aren’t critically ill!

Music Speeds Healing
As Victor Fabry slept in his hospital bed after open heart surgery, music gently filled his room. Immediately after surgery a live harpist played at his bedside, followed by the undulating strains of a Brazilian guitarist playing nearly nonstop from a CD player. His heart literally began beating in rhythm with guitarist Tomaz Lima. The music became medicine. “Very restful, very soothing,” said Fabry, 68, now almost two years removed from the surgery. “The mind influences your recovery. Anything that quiets your anxiety is powerful.’”

Science supports Mr. Fabry’s observations. Many hospitals, including such renowned names as Massachusetts General and the Mayo Clinic are treating patients with music and medicine simultaneously. This therapy is being applied with ICU patients, cancer patients and patients with brain disorders with astounding success. Even physicians admit there is more at work here than just a psychological high from the natural enjoyment of music.

Music weaves an intricate physiological dance with the body’s neurons and blood cells and this dance is now being intensely studied by various researchers. Their findings are being applied in more and more hospitals. Music therapy has actually been used for thousands of years. Today, scientists are just beginning to understand how it works. Dr. Claudius Conrad, a senior surgical resident at Harvard Medical School and a gifted pianist is about to launch a study of music’s impact on the sleep cycle of acutely ill hospitalized patients. It has already been shown that if certain slow pieces such as some of the works of Mozart are played, the listener’s heart will adapt to the beat of the music.

From Music Notes to Hormones
Musical tones follow an intricate highway from the head to the rest of the body. The trip begins with sound waves traveling through the air and landing in the middle ear where they cause the eardrums and bones in the middle ear to vibrate. The brain transforms the mechanical energy into electrical energy and then sends the electrical impulse to the “thinking” part of the brain, the cerebral cortex which controls thought, perception and memory. The cerebral cortex then sends the impulses to the response centers of the brain that control emotion, arousal, anxiety, pleasure and creativity. Then there is yet another stop: the hypothalamus, a small area deep in the brain that controls heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, body temperature and the nerves in the stomach and skin. The hypothalamus strives to maintain equilibrium throughout the body. Think about how certain songs will give you “butterflies” in your stomach or goose bumps on your arms. This entire trip through the brain happens in less than a heart beat, but the journey has just begun.

First, these electrical signals are converted to hormones in the brain. Dr. Conrad found that along with the need for fewer sedatives and the need to normalize blood pressure and heart rates, critically ill patients showed a 50% spike in growth hormone, produced in the pituitary gland, after listening to just one hour of Mozart piano sonatas. If patients or their families are unable to choose the music, Dr. Conrad often chooses Mozart for his critically ill patients. The various hormones then leave the brain and flow throughout the body via the bloodstream where they calm or stimulate various systems.

Classical music is the most common choice among doctors and therapists. The vibration of stringed instruments in particular is thought to intertwine with the energy of the heart, small intestine, and the thyroid and adrenal glands as shown by research at the Gagnon Cardiovascular Institute in New Jersey.

Hip Hop Healing?
Scientists are now wondering what effect other genres of music such as hip-hop, country, rock, etc will have on healing? Will you heal faster with Mozart or with The Back Street Boys?

“I recommend listening to joyful music as part of an overall prescription for maintaining good heart health,” said Dr. Michael Miller, director of the center for preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Dr. Miller defines joyful as any music that brings on a natural high and maximizes the release of endorphins; the body’s own feel good chemicals. His research has shown that hearing your favorite song causes your blood vessels to dilate, hence increasing blood flow. He examined healthy volunteers as they listened to songs of their choice and discovered that the diameter of upper arm blood vessels increased by 26%. After listening to music which they hated however, these vessels narrowed by 6%. His research currently supports that any music the patient finds enjoyable will be healing regardless of genre.

Will Music Be A Prescription For Healing Brain Injury?
Some of this research involves deep brain stimulation while the patient is awake. “We’re in the infancy,” said Dr. Ali Rezai, director of the Center for Neurological Restoration at Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic. During a surgery called deep brain stimulation, performed while patients with Parkinson’s disease are awake, Rezai and his team play classical compositions and measure the brain’s response to those notes. “We know music can calm, influence creativity and can energize. That’s great. But music’s role in recovering from disease is being ever more appreciated.”

This research at Cleveland Clinic during brain surgery is showing exactly how music stimulates neurons. Neurosurgeons collaborated with The Cleveland Orchestra to compose unique classical pieces which are then played for patients during brain surgery. Rezai then compares how neurons fire hearing this never before heard music vs. how they fire when hearing familiar music. He uses hair sized sensors placed in the brain which then translate the signals from the neurons to an amplifier. The study should be completed in three to 6 months.

When patients tell Rezai they find the music soothing, he is able to hear the changes in a single neuron. He is hoping this research will serve as the cornerstone for other studies of music’s potential in treating traumatic brain injury, depression, stroke and multiple sclerosis.

Will Oldest Turn Out To Be Best?
The oldest healing music is possibly still the most potent. Frescos painted around 4,000 B.C. depict harp-playing priests. Because of the unique properties of the harp, live harpists are being used today at such places as Gagnon, at the University of Rochester Medical Center and at least five other hospitals.
“This gentle but powerful instrument goes to the deepest places of the body that need to be healed,” said Tami Briggs, a pioneer in “harp therapy” who has played at the bedsides of hundreds of patients, including many at the Mayo Clinic. Ms. Briggs, while not a medical professional, has observed blood pressure decreasing and oxygenation increasing while she plays and watches the monitors. She has also noticed subtle signs of relaxation such as the patient sinking deeper into the bed.

What makes the harp so unique is that it is the only instrument that has 20 to 50 strings and is completely open, unlike other stringed instruments such as a violin or guitar. When a harpist strikes a chord, not only are the notes of the chord vibrating, but the strings above and below those plucked also vibrate. These vibrations appear to be absorbed by the body.

Music and Children with Cancer
At Texas Children’s Cancer Center a unique program has been developed to help patients and their siblings cope with cancer and its treatment. Here the children work with Anita Kruse and other professionals to write and record their own songs. This project is called “Purple Songs Can Fly”. The children are able to make CDs which they can share with family and friends. The songs are also recorded onto purple CDs and taken on flights with participating pilots, passengers and astronauts and returned to the child signed and with a complete flight record. Yes, the Purple Songs have even gone into space! Purple Songs Can Fly symbolically lifts the child, flying and soaring, above the obstacles of their illness and provides a tangible symbol of the hope for healing.

Sources:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30990170/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/2113454…

(Video of music and dance helping Parkinson’s patients)

http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/a…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/2113454…

(Video of Purple Songs)

http://www.purplesongscanfly.org/bi…

This beautiful video goes to the heart of healing our world through compassion.

Visit Charter for Compassion now.

Fron The National Post (Canada’s larget paper)
by Meghan Telpner

Meghan Telpner is a Toronto-based nutritionist and holistic lifestyle consultant. Her Making Love In The Kitchen video series will bring you tips on how to prepare healthful, nutritious goodness from whole foods.

Coconut
I love coconut. I love coconut water. I love coconut milk. I love coconut meat. Perhaps most of all, I love coconut oil. When I was down in the Caribbean for my little holiday, one of the things I loved most is getting fresh coconut right off the beautiful palms!

Coconut oil got a bad wrap back in the 80′s with margarine marketing boards bad mouthing the tropical fats. Is it merely a coincidence that since tropical oils have become commonly regarded as dietary nightmares and heart attack inducers, essentially oils to avoid at all costs, obesity rates and cardiovascular disease continue to rise?

Cold pressed, extra virgin coconut oil is a miracle food. It is incredibly nourishing, healing, protective and delicious. When my friend Vanessa discovered its use as an underarm deodorant, I was again reminded of the dozens of ways I use coconut oil on a daily basis- in hot water as a tea, for cooking at high temperatures, in smoothies, as a moisturizer, in my hair, to balance my blood sugar when I feel an afternoon crash coming on. Coconut oil is amazing.

The health benefits of coconut oil include hair care, skin care, stress relief, maintaining cholesterol levels, weight loss, increased immunity, proper digestion and metabolism, relief from kidney problems, heart diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes, HIV and cancer, dental care, and bone strength. These benefits of coconut oil can be attributed to the presence of lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid, and its properties such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, antifungal, antibacterial, soothing, etc.

Coconut oil contains less calories than other oils, its fat content is easily converted into energy and it does not lead to accumulation of fat in the heart and arteries and helps in boost energy and endurance.

Add this oil into your diet. Replace vegetable oil, butter or margarine with coconut oil. Replace your fancy moisturizers with coconut oil. Replace your morning cup of tea with hot water and coconut oil. Get it in there. It is delicious and uber healthy!

Health benefits of coconut oil include the following:

Hair Care: It helps in healthy growth of hair providing a shinny complexion. Regular massage of the head with coconut oil ensures that your scalp is free of dandruff, lice, and lice eggs, even if your scalp is dry. It is an excellent conditioner and helps in the re-growth and nourishing of damaged hair.

Stress Relief: Coconut oil is very soothing and hence it helps in removing stress. Applying coconut oil to the head followed with a gentle massage helps in removing mental fatigue.

Skin Care: It acts as an effective moisturizer on all types of skins. Coconut oil is a safe solution for preventing dryness and flaking of skin. It also delays wrinkles, and sagging of skin which normally become prominent with age. Coconut oil helps in treating various skin problems including psoriasis, dermatitis, eczema and other skin infections.

Heart Diseases: It contains about 50% lauric acid, which helps in preventing various heart problems including high cholesterol levels and high blood pressure. The saturated fats present in coconut oil are not harmful as it happens in case of other vegetables oils and does not lead to increase in LDL levels (bad cholesterol). It also reduces the incidence of injury in arteries and therefore helps in preventing atherosclerosis.

Weight Loss: Coconut oil is very useful in reducing weight. It contains short and medium-chain fatty acids that help in taking off excessive weight. It is also easy to digest and it helps in healthy functioning of the thyroid and enzymes systems. Further, it increases the body metabolism by removing stress on pancreases, thereby burning out more energy.

Digestion: Coconut oil helps in improving the digestive system and thus prevents various stomach and digestion related problems including irritable bowel syndrome. The saturated fats present in coconut oil have anti microbial properties and help in dealing with various bacteria, fungi, parasites, etc., that cause indigestion. Coconut oil also helps in absorption of other nutrients such as vitamins, minerals and amino acids.

Immunity: It strengthens the immune system as it contains antimicrobial lipids, lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid which have antifungal, antibacterial and antiviral properties. The human body converts lauric acid into monolaurin which is claimed to help in dealing with viruses and bacteria associated with disease like herpes, flu, and even HIV. It helps in fighting harmful bacteria such as listeria and h.pylori (common cause of stomach ulcers), and harmful parasites such as giardia.

Healing: When applied on infections, it forms a chemical layer which protects the infected body part from external dust, air, fungi, bacteria and virus. Coconut oil is most effective on bruises as it speeds up the healing process by repairing damaged tissues.

Infections: Coconut oil is very effective against a variety of infections due to its antifungal, antiviral, and antibacterial properties. According to the Coconut Research Center, coconut oil kills viruses that cause influenza, measles, hepatitis, herpes, SARS, etc. It also kills bacteria that cause ulcers, throat infections, urinary tract infections, pneumonia, and gonorrhea, etc. Coconut oil is also effective on fungi and yeast that cause candidiasis, ringworm, athlete’s foot, thrush, diaper rash, etc.

Liver: The presence of medium chain triglycerides and fatty acids helps in preventing liver diseases as substances are easily converted into energy when they reach the liver, thus reducing work load on the liver and also preventing accumulation of fat.

Kidney: Coconut oil helps in preventing kidney and gall bladder diseases. It also helps in dissolving kidney stones.

Diabetes: Coconut oil helps in controlling blood sugar, and improves the secretion of insulin. It also helps in effective utilization of blood glucose, thereby preventing and treating diabetes.

Bones: Coconut oil improves the ability of our body to absorb important minerals. These include calcium and magnesium which are necessary for development of bones. Thus coconut oil is very useful to women who are prone to osteoporosis after middle age.

Our favorite Organic Coconut Oil is from Nutiva.