This year we want to focus on really supporting the whole body, mind and spirit in a positive way.
Failure to keep resolutions has more to do with the resolution itself and the process that went into creating it. If you want direction in keeping yours I'd be delighted to support you.
Here is my story of change that might give some insight.
It's amazing how one's life can change in a nano-second.
Years ago, I'd been carelessly traveling around the world from mountain peaks in the French Alps to ocean floors off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Skiing down 2,000-foot couloirs to scuba diving in some of the most pristine seas in the world.
But after an water ski accident, I had to be extraction - excruciatingly - from a high mountain lake, in the back of a Suburban over dusty washboard roads and a mountain pass.
The doctor said it was "leg threatening." My left knee had come up to touch my left hip. The posterior cruciate ligament pulled away from the joint and was just floating inside. Both the lateral ligaments shredded from the knee. My patella was pushed upwards, somehow intact, driving bone the width of a quarter through the growth plate of the tibia plateau. Even though I couldn't feel anything below the knee or move my leg, the pain was all consuming.
Instead of being on top of Mount Rainier for my 40th birthday, I was on crutches, and then wheeled daily to physical therapy looking to gain one more degree of bend in the leg.
Alagna and Julie
Though Sun Valley orthopedic surgeon Dr. Stephen Wasilewski successfully reattached my leg, arthritis built up all over my body. My L5 disk herniated after months of limping and interfered with more physical therapy. Having a baby (pictured above!) several years later exasperated my weakening limbs, ligaments and connective tissue.
Lessons in self-repair would be years in the making. In the hours, days, weeks, months and years that followed I never recovered from the pain and ensuing exhaustion from this one injury.
My symptoms were:
- Reoccurring blood clots in both legs
- Candida over-growth
- Debilitating back pain
- Poor appetite
- Completely anti-social
In 1976, I'd learned about nutritionist and author Adele Davis and a decade later I studied homeopathy at Jon Bastyr in Seattle.
I was regularly juicing carrots and greens from our garden. By the time of my injury I'd been a raw-food vegetarian for six years. But I suffered from unexpected bouts of bloating alternating with diarrhea, constipation and occasional depression.
These following symptoms are associated with borderline depression, a typical symptom of chronic pain.
Sound familiar?
- Lack of short term memory
- Constant fatigue, and inability to sleep at night
- Inconsistent weight (in my case, I was scary thin)
- A shattered self-image
You get the idea.
Luckily, I could put my hands in the soil, could commune with "Plant Medicine" and breathe clean, fresh air. In so doing, my path became loud and clear. We all have a lot to offer this world. The true sin is when we are not in full expression of ourselves.
I went back to my nutrition books and recalled what I'd learned about eating whole, local foods in Europe. I purchased a stockpot and began cooking again. I made gluten-free, seed crackers in the raw tradition to sell, and involved myself in our local food movement.
Because of my personal experience I've a lot of information about rebuilding one's life. Among the things I learned is that holistic health transformation is about discovery: What we really want, and then working to make our actions congruent with our desires.
I offer two programs, the "28-Day Jump Start" and the "90-Day Transformation"
The Transformation Process includes a series of questions that will help us identify hidden desires and defenses. It has been an amazing journey for myself personally and those I have helped facilitate with their own journey.
To manage your stress, whether it is food or relationship related contact me to book a private consultation:
juliefoodstransformation@gmail.com
**
_____________________
Julie on the Radio
Julie Johnson's being joined in January by a new co-host (Dr. Jody Stanislaw) for Our Health Culture, her radio show on the Valley's community radio station,KDPI 89.3. The show's time has changed as well. It can be heard on 89.3 FM or streamed live at KDPIFM, 11 a.m.-Noon, Thursdays.
The show delves into health and nutrition, local farming and sustainability, why people pursue healthier lifestyles, and how we work energetically in those pursuits.
Check the KDPI twitter account @kdpiradio orFacebook for updates.
**
Suggested reading:
The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat, and Cheese Belong in a HEALTHY DIET
by Nina Teicholz.
With exhaustive reporting and lucid science explication, author Nina Teicholz drives home her central thesis: that dietary fat, even (if not especially) the saturated kind, is actually good for us. But that's not even her most impressive feat. She shows why the food industry's recent rush away from trans fats-whose evils she herself helped establish in a2004 Gourmet article-may actually be a net negative for public heath. (Partial spoiler: Unlike trans fats, which are artificially hardened vegetable oils, LIQUID vegetable oils generate lots of "toxic oxidative breakdown products" when they're held at high heat for an extended time-as they are in fast food industry's fry bins.) All in all, a must read.
--Tom Philpott, Mother Jones
