A Quest for Well-Being

This episode is about Accelerated Self-Healing and its Fundamental Principles: — The Body, the Mind and the Spirit are mutually interactive and interdependent. All three are essential to optimize self-healing, life quality and spiritual development. Self-healing is an innate, intelligent, and self-organizing process. The self-healing process targets a limited number of causal factors to address at...

— Valeria interviews Amy Draper the author of  "Love Letter" Gratitude Journals Series and also the "Not Now, I'm Gratituding: The 1 minute-a-day gratitude journal for people who want more peace, balance and positivity in their lives. Amy Draper designed the "Love Letter" gratitude journals series to help us delve more deeply into our heart, mind, soul and body and discover ways for us to be grate...

Valeria interviews Meir Schneider the author of Movement for Self-Healing: An Essential Resource for Anyone Seeking Wellness. Meir's book gives specific guidelines for healing back problems, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, breathing difficulties, eye problems, and muscular dystrophy. Movement for Self-Healing parallels the stories of Schneider and the people he has worked with, detailing his holist...

Valeria interviews Janice Bell Meisenhelder the author of Surviving the Unthinkable: The Loss of a Child. "Trust your instincts. Your inner voice will guide you with each step that is right for you." For a bereaved mother, grief never ends. We always miss our children's earthly presence. We always carry them in our heart. We always long to talk to them. Our yearning for our child gradually becomes...

— Valeria interviews Tim Grimes the author of The Joy of Not Thinking: A Radical Approach to Happiness. You don't have to battle through things or constantly strive to improve yourself. We often try hard to do this—and it usually fails in working. The truth is most of us just need to become more relaxed because we aren't that good at it. Thinking less and becoming more relaxed is, surprisingly, en...

— Valeria interviews Ragini Michaels, the author of Unflappable: 6 Steps to Staying Happy, Centered, and Peaceful No Matter What. We all want to be happy. But, sometimes life gets in the way. People lose jobs. Spouses are unfaithful. Kids are hostile. Friends die. Houses burn down. It is a jungle out there. Unflappable is a book that helps readers not only survive but embrace these ups and downs o...

"Some say no one really lives his own life, true face covered by a mask, stuck tight and fashioned by a series of random voices, interactions, childhood dreams of flying, long lost, adult desires for comfort superficially gained, mismatched pieces welded sequentially over time, firmly, to the fragile, baby skin of who we really are. Some say all paths lead to these false lives discarded, rain-soak...

Eight years ago, a man who was not Sandra A. Miller's husband invited her on an armchair treasure hunt—a search for $10,000 worth of gold coins buried in New York City, of all places. When she said she'd go, her world was upended. At the time Sandra was helping her ailing mother to die and her almost-teenage children to fly, but her biggest challenge was the confusion she felt about entering middl...

"Meditation is a way for nourishing and blossoming the divine within you." — Amit Ray Molly Larkin starts by citing two studies that help explain what meditation can do for us. Several years ago, a study was done that estimated our brains think up to 50,000 thoughts each day, and 90% are the same as yesterday. There's some dispute as to the accuracy of this statistic, but even if the number is hal...

Yoga Therapy is a means to utilize the various tools of yoga: intelligent movement, breath, meditation, visualization, and life-style to facilitate an individual's healing process. Essential Yoga Therapy offers a gentle, therapeutic orientation to yoga that is supportive of those with limited mobility. The springboard for developing our programs arises from the same fundamental teaching of yoga: T...

Science shows that involvement in social relationships benefits health. When both of you are demonstrating self-respect and happiness, you are more likely to be healthy. Well-being includes your physical health but goes beyond to include mental, emotional, social, and spiritual aspects. The Bahá'í teachings say this: "... [M]an's supreme honor and real happiness lie in self-respect, in high resolv...

On awaking, bless this day, for it is already full of unseen good which your blessings will call forth; for to bless is to acknowledge the unlimited good that is embedded in the very texture of the universe and awaiting each and all. On passing people in the street, on the bus, in places of work and play, bless them. The peace of your blessing will companion them on their way, and the aura of its...

  "Everything has energy and consciousness, even your coffee table! – Quantum physics gives us a peak into this unreal world behind what we call reality. How we feel about our homes has an impact on the energy there. And vice versa. So if we feel good about our homes, it just confirms the good feeling there. The opposite is also true." – says Maureen Calamia A luminous space is restorative and nur...

"Eagle, will you teach me how to fly?" Eagle glanced at me and nodded. Then it looked straight ahead for a moment as if contemplating where to start. It communicated with me telepathically in thought-forms. "First, never take off unless you know where you are going." What a good point. "Once you are in the air, stay alert as you look for opportunities, and be flexible enough to change course if an...

"Your body is your most priceless possession. Take Care of it." —Jack Lalane We are all aging. From conception to birth, we all go through a cycle of growth and degeneration. Thus, aging and death are inevitable. No one lives this life forever. Throughout our lives, we earn wrinkles, gray hair, baldness, and shriveled bodies. We bear the marks and scars of battles won and lost during a life well-l...

"Don't wait until you're completely down and out to begin trying to pull yourself out of the ravine. Do things preemptively to cultivate happiness. Go back to the list of ideas to Raise Your Vibe and incorporate as many as possible into every day. Every day, do something positive before bed, sleep well, wake rested, and think or say positive statements that feel good such as "This is going to be t...

Societal norms tend to dictate a reliance on the rational mind for life decisions, but we must work hard to avoid this in order to connect with our higher selves. Turning off the mind's ever-flowing fountain of thoughts will allow the heart and gut to be heard. Once all three brains are connected and "allowed" to properly function, the seeker will form a conduit to the higher-self, opening up to a...

A Transformational Healing Process has begun on the planet Earth. Due to a profound change that has taken place in the energy field of Collective Human Emotional Consciousness, resources are now available to us to do healing that has never before been possible in recorded human history. Human beings now, for the first time, have the capacity to directly address the core issues of the human dilemma...

Psychological studies have described and shown the benefits of human-animal relationships on one's health and well-being. It was also found that people did not always need to be among animals to achieve these benefits. Simply looking at animals or their images can have a healthy impact on levels of happiness. Introducing elements of nature to our living space can have a positive impact on our cogn...

To deeply heal anything, we have to better understand the symptoms and their root causes. If pain and illness are messages, then we need to hear, heed, and work with them. Denying, burying, or eradicating symptoms and their inherent messages with superficial healing or chemicals are typically only temporary fixes. Just as important as healing work—if not more important—is prevention. We've all gon...

Happiness starts with you. Not with the relationships, Not with a great job, Not with money or wealth, Not with status, yours or the one you are connected to, But with YOU. — Mandy Hale A major obstacle to success and happiness is what Paul Angone calls "Obsessive Comparison Disorder." It's our need to evaluate and decide if we are good enough by checking how we stack up next to others. Since it's...

Embodying your wisdom and your courage is the path to experiencing freedom and a more authentic life!  But what does it mean to embody your wisdom, courage, and freedom?    The goal of some spiritual paths is to transcend the body in order to achieve enlightenment or some higher state of being.  But in a yogic/tantric tradition, your body is the gateway to wisdom.     Your body is the place from w...

If you were to hear me talk with youth in The Poetry LAB you would know how I need them, this work. If you were to see me sitting in front of my computer, typing their poems and editing their recordings, long into the evening hours, then you would know how I am changed by them, their stories. A 16-year-old girl who acts like she doesn't care, volunteers to read her poem, and lets loose her story o...

"Burnout" as a term was first applied by Freudenberger (1975) to describe what happens when a practitioner becomes increasingly "inoperative." According to Freudenberger, this progressive state of inoperability can take many different forms, from simple rigidity, in which "the person becomes 'closed' to any input," to an increased resignation, irritability, and quickness to anger. As burnout worse...

"Without being present, we cannot be fully aware, and without being fully aware, we remain unconscious." This moment you are in right now — The Present Moment — is the most important moment there is. You are alive in it, and it is uniquely yours. It is unlike any other moment you have ever had, or will have again. Yesterday has come and gone, tomorrow is not here yet. It is this present moment tha...