Wellness Blog
In this episode, Lyn interviews Dawn Renee who shares a story of how she became bedridden and unable to walk for 30 days. From an early age, Dawn had struggled with a wide variety of health issues but in 2010 her body forced her to stop and she spent 30 days in bed learning to listening to her mind, body, and spirit.
Dawn also shares about being a caregiver and what she learned from taking care of a woman named Ann with ALS for 7 years. Dawn’s message is one of learning to find joy in your life and take care of yourself.
About Dawn:
Dawn Renee, Minister and co-Founder is an energy doula and holistic caregiver who struggled most of her life to understand the triggers and internal misalignments in her body, mind and spriit that were causing her to experience a system collapse (migraines, allergies, endometriosis, autoimmune disorder, Diabetes II, Lyme, Epstein bar, mold exposure, gallstones and chronic fatigue).
She found herself bedridden for 30 days in 2010. When she was able to recover and stand again it became her soul’s mission to share her message of love, spirit, miracle healing and how becoming a caregiver of herself showed her a new path to living in joy and ultimately how to unleash her own healing potential.
She was a live-in caregiver caring for a friend with stage 4 ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Scloerosis (aka Lou Gherig’s disease). Her friend was told she would not make it a week let alone 6 months, she was bedridden, paralyzed from the neck down, on a ventilator, feeding tube, catheter requiring 24/7 care and support.
With a holistic and spiritual approach the moments of now became the focus and she lived for 7 more years finding joyful moments every step of the way as she unleashed her healing potential.
As a lead singer in Dawn Loves Nash, a husband and wife duo, who are now traveling America expressing their messages of hope, love and faith with their music. Both on a mission to inspire others to tap into their gifts and super powers. They have witnessed first hand how music has transformed spirit and healing potential for themselves and others.
FREE DOWNLOAD: 7 Top Self Care Activities to activating joy in your days! https://travelingcaregivers.com/index.php/product/selfcare-selflove-balance/
FREE DOWNLOAD: Free 21 Day Vegetable only recipes (No dairy, sugar, gluten, oil, processed foods! Highlights Recipes good for elimination diet, resetting and cleansing with vegetables, plant based detox) https://travelingcaregivers.com/index.php/product/31-day-vegan-reboot/ (NOTE: MAIN FOCUS IS TO DO THE VEGETABLE RECIPES, MASTER CLEANSE IS (OPTIONAL)
Find Dawn at www.travelingcaregivers.com or www.travelingcaregivers.org
Facebook @travelingcaregivers
Instagram @travelingcaregivers
Lyn Delmastro-Thomson from Heart Fire Healing was kind enough to share with MysticMag how her own healing journey led her to discover BodyTalk and how gradually she came to help many others embark upon their own holistic healing paths. BodyTalk and the closely related system of Body Intuitive have become the primary healing modalities Lyn works with.
What can you tell us about the beginnings of your personal holistic healing journey?
My journey began in my 20s when I was diagnosed with leukemia. After struggling with doctors who wouldn’t listen to me and wondering why I kept getting worse despite being told that the medication I was given was working, I started to look for other approaches to help me feel better.
I began with biofeedback therapy where I was hooked up to sensors that showed data on a computer and the practitioner taught me how I could learn to balance my nervous system. Then I explored therapeutic yoga to again support me in relaxing and creating the conditions for healing. Eventually I tried acupuncture, then Reiki and soon it became saying yes to things that crossed my path! I found that these approaches helped me to feel more empowered and calm.
Eventually, after 3 years and fighting for a second opinion, I learned that I had been misdiagnosed! While getting the correct diagnosis and stopping a medication that had some horrible side effects helped, I truly believe it was all the other approaches that really supported my own healing and I became passionate about learning more about how these modalities worked.
Is your mission to help others unleash their own body’s healing potential? And does this mean
you take a preventative approach to healing over a curative or therapeutic approach?
Yes, that’s my mission. I believe our bodies know innately how to heal themselves but stress, toxins, and other factors often get in the way of that natural wisdom. I work to support people to create the conditions for that natural healing.
Most of my clients come to me when they are already challenged with a health issue so the approach is more therapeutic although I love it when people want to actually prevent health issues from occurring!
How do you typically work with a client?
I typically work with my clients over a period of about 6 months, sometimes longer depending on what they are seeking to heal from. We meet several times a month and I combine using energy healing in the form of BodyTalk and Body Intuitive to understand what the body is communicating through the illness (really the WHY of what’s going on) and to create the energetic conditions for healing to occur. I support letting go of trauma, releasing emotions, reducing stress and more as part of this.
I also use transformational hypnosis to release old limiting beliefs they might have about healing and what is possible and to create new empowering beliefs that are anchored into their minds to help create the way for their subconscious mind to align with our goals for healing. I also give my clients simple tools and homework and offer some self-study resources on various topics.
Weight loss is such a huge topic in our modern world. What is your advice to our readers?
Most approaches to weight loss focus on diet and especially calorie restriction which is a broken/flawed model. The science of this is flawed as it doesn’t include the QUALITY of the calories (a Big Mac isn’t the same quality of calories as an organic chicken for example).
By focusing on calories, we don’t also look at things like habits and work to change those at a subconscious level. This is a key part of how real change and lasting change can occur. Lastly, we have MANY metabolic hormones (the system is complex and designed to protect us from starvation) and when these hormones are not balanced, you can do all the “right” things to lose weight and never succeed. That’s where the tools I have are so different and can be a game changer!
Why do you believe our bodies suffer from so many forms of chronic illness and discomfort and
is this something that is shifting or moving forward?
I think there are numerous reasons why chronic illness is on the rise. One is I think we are more and more a society that doesn’t allow healthy emotional expression and address trauma, which are 2 key factors that can make us sick. There’s also scientific evidence that our culture of over sanitizing everything (hello hand sanitizer) actually imbalances our immune systems which need training regularly from small exposures to things and this drives bodies into issues like autoimmune diseases. I also think rising levels of stress and exposure to more toxins is part of the picture too.
You might have already tried many different things in an effort to eliminate your chronic health symptoms like pain, digestive issues, fatigue, or your hormones being out of balance.
But over the past 12 years, I have found that the people who come to me are missing at least 1 of 3 key areas (sometimes 2 or 3 of these areas!) that are a crucial part of healing.
Are you curious what those areas are??
The first area is your beliefs, both conscious and subconscious. What I have found is many people consciously say they want to heal and they believe they can heal but their subconscious mind might be playing out another story.
This is in no way to blame you because I have found some of these sneaky subconscious beliefs in my own mind and had to use tools like hypnosis to help me pull them out like the weeds that they are!
You likely received programming from a young age that it is someone else who will heal you (often a doctor) and you have been conditioned to give up your own power.
In addition, many times we have beliefs and thoughts around the things that we gain from staying sick that we often aren’t aware of! These can be things like “If I get better, people won’t give me so much attention and support” or “If I heal, I will have to take on more responsibility.” Again- no blaming here as often these aren’t even in your conscious awareness.
The amazing thing is through the powerful tool of hypnosis, I can help you reprogram your mind so that it aligns with your desire to heal and that your mind feels safe to allow that to happen!
The second area that many people often miss in their healing is to truly understand what their bodies are communicating through their symptoms.
Many approaches to healing simply go into symptom management without ever even getting curious about why the symptom is happening in the first place. This is certainly true of the Western medical system but it can also be true of some alternative approaches to healing. Some healing approaches have a standard protocol for treating a specific diagnosis like IBS or chronic fatigue but don’t dig for the root cause.
From my perspective, every symptom is a message or communication from your body (you might not know what it’s saying and that’s where I come in!) and when we actually understand what it is saying, it can often begin to resolve on its own because we can listen to what our bodies are asking for. This is so specific to you and often why a protocol doesn’t always work.
It is so powerful when we understand WHY we keep having a particular symptom over and over again!
The third area that often gets overlooked is the role of our emotions in our health and healing.
Many times we don’t know how to process the emotions that we are feeling or we are overwhelmed by their intensity and so we have learned to shut down what we feel and push the emotions down and say we will deal with them later. But for many of us, later never comes and our bodies are left holding those emotions for us.
Each emotion that we feel is made up of different chemicals (things like hormones and neurotransmitters) and when we don’t deal with them, our bodies store them in our organs and our tissues! This is why sometimes you can develop a pain out of nowhere (no injury, no obvious cause).
The work that I do with my clients allows us to actually clear those emotions that are stuck in the body, as well as addressing things like traumas and memories of events that still hold emotional charge. Sometimes a pain or symptom can just disappear by doing this alone!
In my signature Heart Fire Healing Method that I use with my clients, I incorporate all 3 of these areas that are often overlooked into the healing process with powerful results! If you are curious about working together using this method, I invite you to book a complimentary no-pressure consultation call where we can explore how working with me and using this method can help you!
In this episode, Lyn talks about why hypnosis is, how it helps you to access and reprogram your subconscious mind to help create change in your life and health, as well as dispelling myths and misconceptions you might have about hypnosis (like you will be made to do something silly or you will lose control).
Lyn then shares why she has chosen to incorporate hypnosis into her healing work and the role that the mind and our beliefs have in our ability to heal.
We think between 50,000-70,000 thoughts every single day. Yet many of those thoughts are the same ones that we have been thinking for months or years!
And we often aren’t even consciously aware of many of those repetitive thoughts because they are occurring at a subconscious rather than a conscious level…
So what does that mean when it comes to the topic of your health?
If we are continually thinking thoughts like “I’m so exhausted,” “I’ll never get better,” or “I always feel sick,” we are reinforcing those beliefs AND our bodies are also listening to those thoughts like they are on a never-ending recording loop.
You might be familiar with the idea that your thoughts help to create your reality.
Your body is listening to every single thought you have and if those thoughts are negative thoughts that focus on what you DON’T want, then you are helping to create more of that in your mind, body, and life.
Yet if many of these thoughts are subconscious, you likely aren’t even really aware that they are happening or how often they are reoccurring.
Earlier this year, I was working on changing some of my own beliefs and when I started paying attention, it was AMAZING how many times each day I was thinking certain thoughts— which were not the things I really wanted to reinforce believing. When I started working on catching those negative thoughts and replacing them with what I DID want to believe, it made a powerful difference but it also took a lot of work and awareness.
One of the tools that has made a big impact in my life and has helped me to reprogram my subconscious mind has been hypnosis.
I first started seeing a hypnotherapist about 3 years ago because I found myself still struggling with PTSD from a car accident. I had tried quite a few other healing approaches to resolve the issue and yet found my issues resurfacing so I gave hypnosis a try, despite being a bit nervous and skeptical since my primary exposure to hypnosis was in tv shows and movies. I found that the sessions did make a difference and I was able to feel safer and more comfortable driving on the freeway again.
I have used hypnosis for other areas that I’m working on changing and decided this year to become certified as a hypnotherapist because I could see the benefit in my own life and I believed it would be a powerful addition to the work I do with clients, which in the past month it has definitely been!
Hypnosis can help you change old habits that you want to eliminate (like overeating, self-sabotaging behaviors, skipping self-care practices), it can reduce your stress, heal trauma, and create new empowering beliefs about what’s possible for your health!
The power of hypnosis to work with the subconscious mind is that the guided process does a lot of the heavy lifting. I definitely encourage clients to notice and reframe beliefs that they want to change in a conscious way but by listening to their hypnosis recording daily, the process is a lot faster and easier.
If you’ve been struggling with some beliefs or old habits that are getting in the way of your health, consider learning more about hypnosis sessions and booking a free consultation call with me to discuss how I might help you!
We live in a world that has many different toxic chemicals to which we are all exposed on a daily basis. While some of the toxins we are exposed to are beyond our control (for example, air pollution), there are things that we can do to help minimize the amount of toxins to which we we are exposed.
One helpful way to begin to minimize toxins is to look at how they are coming into your body through the food that you are eating. Conventional produce is sprayed with herbicides and pesticides and those chemicals then are left on the produce you buy even after you wash them.
While buying all organic produce is ideal, sometimes we can be limited by budget so one thing that I recommend doing is checking out the “Clean 15 and the Dirty Dozen” list published by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). Click here for the Dirty Dozen list. Click here for the Clean 15 list.
These lists can be helpful to know the top most important produce items to buy organically and ones that are less critical to buy organically (often because there is some sort of a peel on the produce or the crops tend to be sprayed less). You can print out this list and have in your purse or wallet to refer to when you are making buying decisions.
In addition, another way that we are often exposed to toxins is through processed foods.
Products like frozen entrees, breakfast cereals, and potato chips often have many chemicals added to them to make the food taste better and make you want to keep on eating them. For example, when you see “natural flavors” on the label, this often means that chemicals are used to make that item highly addictive to your taste buds and you can end up eating the whole package in one sitting! I don’t know about you but I’ve had that happen in the past and it is interesting to understand why that is!
Many processed foods also have things like food coloring added to them to make them visually more appealing. Many of these dyes are actually banned in Europe yet they are used in products in the US! Research has revealed that many of these food dyes have negative effects on our health. For example Red Dye #3 has been linked to cancer when tested on animals. And Red #40, Blue #1, and Yellow #5 are all made from petroleum and have often been found to be contaminated with carcinogens.
The more you learn about what ingredients to avoid (a great place to learn more is The Food Babe website), the healthier you will be because the more we are exposed to toxins, the harder our bodies have to work to try to eliminate those toxins.
Toxins can strongly impact how our various genes are being expressed (for example, turning on a cancer gene that wasn’t active before). By making the best choices for your health, you can be more empowered to stay healthier.
I’ll be diving deeper into this topic and other factors that impact your health on my free webinar on Wednesday July 28 so make sure you get signed up for that now!
Over the past 8 years, I have been continually fascinated by the Chinese 5 Elements system and how it provides so ways to support our bodies with the seasons of nature. There are other systems like Ayurveda that also have beautiful ways of doing this but 5 Elements theory has always drawn me.
I thought some of this information might be beneficial for you to as a way to look at how to support your body in this spring season.
So let’s dive in…
The organs associated with the Wood Element and Spring are the Liver and the Gallbladder. That means that spring is a nice time to support your body with cleansing (I always recommend gentle cleanse work and getting support from a professional on this. I’m no expert on this topic but can connect you to others as a resource. You can also add some of the foods listed at the end of this post to your diet).
The associated emotion of the Wood Element and the Liver and Gallbladder is anger so this is a powerful time to also reflect on anger in your life and to help clear old stored up anger from your body and mind. Anger in a balanced state is about movement so when we don’t let it move, that’s when we get more explosive anger that can be unpleasant or scary.
The movement energy of Wood is about expansion and growth which perfectly reflects springtime and coming back to life after winter. How can you support those energies in your life?
The taste that supports the Wood Element is sour and some foods that are beneficial to eat to support the Wood Element in the spring include:
Leafy Greens, Lemons, Vinegars, Saue
Take a few minutes to think of ways you can easily add a little Wood Element support to your life in the next few weeks. I’d love if you share in the comments what approach you are taking to nurture this element in this season.
Did you know that it is estimated that 73.9% of all doctor’s visits involve drug therapy?After experiencing a year full of so much change, challenge, and uncertainty, many are looking to manifest positivity as we enter a new year. And one of the best ways to do this is by creating a peaceful home environment.
So to help you bring more positivity, peace, and zen to your home, we reached out to experts across the country – from Portland, OR to Salem, MA – for their best advice. From being more mindful of the energy in our homes to incorporating crystals and calming scents, here are 15 simple ways you can create a more peaceful home this year.
1. Begin the day by focusing on your heart until it feels relaxed and open. Then visualize light emanating from your heart with the intention of connecting every being, every inanimate object, the rooms, corners, floors, ceiling, and yard with this energy. You can play around with color in your home, such as blue light to calm anger, pink light to attract positivity, or green light for health and prosperity. – Sacred Transformations
2. Use crystals to harmonize your home. Place Black Tourmaline by your front door to protect and repel all negative energy. For your bedrooms you can use Red Jasper and Green Calcite to help your energy relax and feel grounded. At your work table place Citrine, Pyrite, or Green Aventurine to bring vibrations of prosperity, growth, abundance, and success in your career. Lastly, add Shungite near your laptop to protect and shield you from EMF. – Sugar, Be Crystal Clear
3. Minimize energetic clutter in your home by limiting items to only things that you love and bring you joy. Take a look around your home. If there are things that trigger negative feelings as you look around, extend gratitude to that item, and then release it – no matter how much it cost, who gave it to you, or the sense of obligation you attach. You’ll feel a significant increase in your sense of personal peace when you release the things that are no longer serving you or bringing your joy. – Brenda Winkle
4. It’s all about the energy and intent you set for your space. Simply setting the intention for a more peaceful home, the energy will shift naturally. It doesn’t have to require buying or rearranging furniture if you don’t want it to be. I love lighting candles, a fire, or some incense and setting the intention for the space to become more peaceful, the highest frequency possible and zen, and even more loving if you’d like. You’ll be amazed at how powerful this simple practice can be. – Crystal Heinemann
5. Diffusers can help create a more peaceful home. Set up a diffuser in your bedroom and in other areas where you spend most of your time. Great scents for relaxation include lavender, bergamot, vetiver, and chamomile. The sense of smell is one of the key ways to quickly calm your nervous system. – Heart Fire Healing
6. Self-care is key to creating a more peaceful home. Start by creating a space in your home that is just for you. A space where you can meditate, breathe, practice yoga, qi gong, state affirmations, or whatever you feel will bring you peace. Make it easy for yourself to take a minimum of 10-20 minutes out of your day to focus on self-care. Be sure to pick a place that can be dark when you need grounding and relaxation or bright when you need to feel uplifted. – Chi For Healing
7. Leave technology at the door. Encourage yourself and those who live with you to detach from their cell phones and social media in certain rooms of the house. Technology has become another layer of stressful distraction, and we need to take periods of digital detachment to properly observe ourselves and our experiences. Perhaps you can make the kitchen a phone-free space to ensure organic and distraction less connect. – Erin Doppelt
8. Find a quiet spot to surrender. Create a space with a comfy chair you can sink into to clear your mind and let go of your worries. This spot can include a pillow and blanket, a favorite crystal to hold, and be sure the space is free of clutter. Then settle into that comfy chair, hold your crystal while closing your eyes, reconnect your breath with your body to notice any tension, and then release stress with each exhale. – Jessica Roth, Jess Kay Crystals
9. Open up your living space and let the positive energy flow. A tight, crowded living space not only encroaches upon you physically, but also mentally and spiritually. So cast out the clutter, embrace wide-open spaces, keep flat surfaces clean and clear, and place objects that delight in your line of sight. These shifts help promote peace of mind, engage your focus in the moment, and create beauty and harmony. – Krishanti
10. Clear the energy in your home and fill it with love. Energy clearing is one of the most powerful ways to make your home feel more comfortable, bright, and beautiful. The simplest method is to use your voice to speak your intention and request. For example, saying phrases such as, “Please help make this home a sacred space for rest and nourishment, where I naturally let go and relax. – Isa Dona, Spiritual Healer & Transformation Coach
11. Learn Reiki. Reiki is an easy method of energy healing that you can use to calm your mind, heal injuries, and make yourself feel better whenever you want. Anyone can learn Reiki in just 2 days and then you can send yourself pure positive energy just by placing your hands on your body. You can also help heal your family and friends, your pets, and even your plants. – Healer Source
12. Be the sage and smudge. This is an ancient technique of clearing and lightening up not only one’s energy, but the energy of your environment. Simply light sage and wave the flame out gently, allowing the smoke from the burning of the sage plant to softly billow into the room. Stand at the center of the room and waft the smoke around yourself and the room with your hand; clearing your energy and the energy in the room. – Gwendolyn C. Natusch, M.Ed., MSW, The Center for Personal Evolution
13. To feel more supported in your space, try grounding it. Grounding is a common exercise for bringing your energy back into your body but you can do it for an energetically scattered home as well. Sprinkle some salt on your floors to connect to the element of Earth, and soak up any negative energy at the same time. Then just sweep or vacuum it up. For hard surfaces, you can follow up with a magical mopping by adding a few drops of an essential oil that brings you back to your body when you smell it. – HausWitch
14. Scent is a powerful way to calm and soothe. During these challenging times where many people are working and learning remotely, your home can retain odors you’d prefer not to have linger. Lighting a soy candle in your favorite scent or diffusing lavender essential oil or a refreshing citrus blend can make your home more relaxing and peaceful. – Jenn Aubert
15. Increase your home’s positive vibes by adding green plants or fresh flowers. Then pull open the blinds and let the light of the moon and the rays of the sun clear negativity and energize your home. Healing stones can also make any room vibrant and feel more zen. – Gabrielsen Healing Center
Originally published by Redfin
We are quickly approaching the shortest day of the year, Winter Solstice, which happens on December 21 this year.
I’ve always found that particular day a powerful time both symbolically and energetically. As we experience the shortest day of the year and the most darkness, it can be a time to go inward, to reflect, and to get ready for a new cycle and new beginnings. It has also been a time where it is said that the veils between dimensions is thin and a powerful time to connect with Earth energies.
In a year as intense as 2020 has been, taking some time for reflecting and releasing seems particularly important.
This particular Winter Solstice seems extra potent because it coincides with the Great Conjunction, an event that happens once every 20 years, when both Jupiter and Saturn align in the same degree of the same zodiac sign.
While I am certainly not an astrological expert, reading about this particular event highlights this as a powerful moment for change and new beginnings. Some astrologers point to this time as a shift to a new era where we are more focused on community-based living and shifting away from big business and big government. It is also heralding a potential shift to focus on equality and our deep interconnectedness.
Since this is a particularly potent moment in time (which happens a week after a solar eclipse), I thought I would share a simple idea of a ritual to help you use this time for your own healing and growth.
Make sure you have a bit of time to be undistracted and focus on this simple ritual. You can do it alone or with family or friends.
Begin by taking a few deep breaths and allowing yourself to become more fully present in the moment. As you become present, use any grounding practice you like. I like to visualize a cord coming down from the bottom of my spine and into the earth. I prefer to see it as wide as my hips but you can use what feels good to you. Allow yourself to take a few minutes connecting the the Earth’s energy.
Spend some time listing the different things that you are ready to release as this cycle comes to an end and a new one begins. I like to do this on a piece of paper that I can burn so you might not want to write in a journal for this. What things are holding you back? What things are you ready to let go of?
On a separate page, you can journal or reflect on what new things you are calling into your life during this new cycle and new beginning. Try to be as specific as you can.
After you’ve written your lists, you can read the list of what you are releasing out loud, saying goodbye to each item on the list and then burning the list at the end.
There are definitely other ways to work with this powerful day but I find this is a simple ritual that is easy to do.
If you are wanting to dive deeper into using the power of this time for your own healing and transformation, I invite you to check out my virtual retreat on December 19 or my group healing session on Winter Solstice.