Welcome to the March Carnival of Natural Parenting: Natural Parenting Top 10 Lists

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have shared Top 10 lists on a wide variety of aspects of attachment parenting and natural living. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

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I’ve had lots of folks ask me how I got pregnant after healing from Graves’ disease (autoimmune hyperthyroidism) and previously undiagnosed Celiac disease. Then I had extended lactional amenorrhea ; my period didn’t return until 29 months postpartum. But, each time I was ready to conceive, we got pregnant on the first try. Some I attribute to luck, but I also take credit for working hard to make sure that my body was as ready as it could be.

Here are some suggestions I would make to anyone thinking about trying to conceive (TTC). I’m focusing on the mama’s health, but of course it’s important for the father to be paying attention to his nutrition, too, and a sperm issue should always be ruled out if things seem to be taking a long time. But in most cases, these ten strategies should be about all you need if there isn’t something more serious going on (and maybe even if there is!)

1. Read about your body

Anyone considering pregnancy would be well served by first reading Taking Charge of Your Fertility and Garden of Fertility. The journey really starts here to understand your body’s fertility signs and to get clear on what might be going on with your cycles. These books explain how even light in your bedroom can affect your fertility and a whole bunch of other stuff you will likely not get from a doctor.

Me with my son after my motherblessing, 8 days before baby girl arrived

If you think of your body in a loving, nurturing way, you will train yourself to be a good parent and be more likely to have your body happy to work with you. Become an expert on yourself and your fertility the way you would a child who had a particular need or condition.

Another great book to read if you are at all concerned about your toxic load is Sandra Steingraber’s Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood. It just might make you want to wait a little longer and detox from medications, environmental pollutants, and unhealthy eating before your body becomes a home (and, later, food source) for a little being.

2. Consider your diet

Nina Planck’s book, Real Food for Mother and Baby, is my go-to resource to explain how to get the nutrition a preconceptual body needs. The short version: eat plenty of fat from good sources (avocado, coconut, grassfed dairy, wild fish, and pastured eggs and meat), avoid sugar and processed food.

Make sure you are getting enough fat: forget low-fat items that are processed/non-whole food! If you’re vegetarian, think about animal fat/protein sources you might feel comfortable with. I was near-vegan in 2003, subsisting largely off of soy and grain, and I hadn’t had a period for 3.5 months when a nutrition counselor convinced me to lay off the soy and start eating eggs and full-fat dairy. I ovulated two weeks later and began having regular periods.

Down the line, I eliminated gluten, dairy, corn and soy, and I’ve recently eliminated grain/starch/sugar on the GAPS diet. If you are eating something your body can’t tolerate, it is not in a good place to conceive. So consider food sensitivities. And, if you’ve had a restricted (especially vegan) diet for a long time, consider vitamin and mineral deficiencies. A good health counselor can talk you through this and get you some testing that might give some clues.

And no matter what, eat lots of organic produce! And probiotic foods.

3. Get acupuncture

This healing modality can help increase circulation, regulate hormones, decrease stress and physical pain and just generally open your body, mind, and spirit up to creating a new life. When I went in around the time of conception, my practitioner did a few extra spots to let my body be a good “host.” And then when I went in just two weeks after conception, she put in one needle that positively buzzed with energy in a way I’d never felt before because I was carrying the beginning of a new life. Pretty cool!

4. Get chiropractic

If there is a structural issue in your way, chiropractic might be worth consulting. Perhaps you had a car accident or a fall many years ago , and your hips never quite realigned. Or maybe your neck has a constant problem that is influencing your thyroid or a nerve near your pituitary. Get checked out!

At a chiropractic conference, I met a practitioner who developed a method called Mercier Therapy, which has been successful at helping women with fertility issues related to endometriosis, scar tissue and other problems. One session with Dr. Mercier working on my c-section scar (after my home VBAC) made a dramatic difference. Dr. Mercier studied a lot of osteopathy to come up with her method, which leads me to my next point.

5. Get energy work

Sometimes there are more subtle nuances at work at the cellular level. Our bodies carry memories of emotions, traumas, events, and sometimes this energy can get stuck. Craniosacral therapy or cranial work with an osteopath can help release some of this energy. I am convinced that both of my pregnancies were assisted by CST. The first time, the practitioner commented specifically on energy around my ovary shortly before ovulation, and I think he helped things move in the right direction. The second time, I had several treatments in the weeks prior to conception because I ran into a glass door (d’oh!) and was very bruised on my nose. That same CST practitioner said the force was so strong it actually let him into my sinus cavity area such that he could work on trauma from my own birth (and my asymmetrical facial structure). I think this might have helped my pituitary, and also just taking the time to slow down and give my body attention was probably necessary for me to conceive.

Other energy modalities that might help include Reiki, chakra healing and crystal healing.

6. Do saliva hormone testing

Blood tests only provide part of the picture on a certain day; they don’t tell you about your whole menstrual cycle. A more comprehensive look at what is going on with your body can be found through a cycle-long saliva test through DiagnosTechs. At 11 different points during your cycle, you spit into a tube, and when you’re done, you send the tubes off to the company that will provide you and your practitioner with a report that shows the arc of your cycle compared to optimal hormone levels. This will show if you have estrogen dominance (too much estrogen related to progesterone), for which you might try using some progesterone cream and you would for sure stop eating or using all phytoestrogens (including soy) and xenoestrogens (including plastic containers). It could show a quick drop in a hormone after ovulation, or a low level throughout, for which supplements might be indicated.

Reproductive hormone issues are often related with adrenal hormone issues, so your practitioner might recommend diet or other lifestyle changes depending on what your profile suggests. There are also panels specifically for adrenal health and other hormone issues that can be done at different points throughout the day to see what your cortisol levels are doing compared to what would be expected.

My first test in 2005 showed estrogen dominance with my very long cycles. Within a short time of starting progesterone cream, I ovulated and conceived my son. My test in 2009 showed much more average hormone levels. How interesting to see what difference time — time in general and time off the Pill — and a changed diet could do!

7. Do yoga

In addition to helping you manage stress and to oxygenate your body with all that great breathwork, yoga can offer therapeutic benefits for a number of conditions. Certain poses, like cobbler’s pose or butterfly pose, are great for bringing circulation to the reproductive system. The Iyengar yoga book, Path to Holistic Health, has several series of poses for different fertility-related issues.

Days before I conceived my son, I walked out of a yoga class where the energy just didn’t feel right. I came home and, with my Iyengar book at hand, did my own practice that I believe helped things go in the right direction!

8. Clear your emotional baggage

Okay, this one is a life-long process. But seriously, try to unleash your burden before 1) some of it gets passed on to your baby and 2) you become a sleep-deprived parent. If you are holding a lot of fear or anger, that’s not a good foundation for a new being, and it might be blocking your body from creating one. So free your mind, and the rest will follow. Work with a practitioner who does a meridian tapping technique like Emotional Freedom Technique or Be Set Free Fast, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Or consider hypnotherapy. Mainstream talk therapy is great, too, but adding in these modalities can energetically re-set you in some powerful ways. So can flower essences and essential oils.

9. Laugh, sing, dance (and bellydance!)

Joy is what you want your baby to be born into, right? So cultivate it and inhabit it. Find some old school tunes you haven’t heard in a while, or discover a new artist that you want to sing to at the top of your lungs. Believe in your body’s beauty through dance. There are volumes written about how bellydance in particular can increase fertility — check out some research or just get yourself to a class!

10. Imagine your empowering, orgasmic birth each time you have sex

Okay, this one isn’t so much necessarily going to contribute to your likelihood of conceiving. But if you’ve gotten to think of sex as a chore, well, just imagine how you’ll feel about parenting! Approach sex full-on for its own sake, and imagine — not to stress you out, but just to keep you positive — that each act of intimacy could be the predictor of a birth experience nine months down the line. Ina May Gaskin and others have said that your birth experience mirrors the act of conception, and when I thought back to my son’s conception (described in this poem of mine), it made sense how he ended up with a short cord that necessitated a c-section. So get in it to win it every time!

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Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

(This list will be live and updated by afternoon March 8 with all the carnival links.)

• Attachment Parenting in the NICU — Erica at ChildOrganics shares some strategies to help you parent naturally in some unnatural circumstances.
• 10 Reasons to Choose Baby Led Weaning — Luschka from Diary of a First Child shares ten reasons to choose Baby Led Weaning when it comes to solids.
• Choosing to Breastfeed — From selfishness to self-giving, CatholicMommy at Working to be Worthy lists reasons why breast is best for her and her family.
• Ten Things I Wish I Knew About Before Little Man — In this reflective post, The ArstyMama discusses ten things she wishes she knew more about before the birth of her son, Little Man.
• 10 Things That Helped Me Become a Natural Mama — The Accidental Natural Mama counts down ten things that helped her find her moderately crunchy inner mama self.
• Top 10 Reasons to Breastfeed Your Toddler — Extended breast-feeder Kate Wicker of Momopoly makes her own top 10 list for why she loves nursing her 2-year-old.
• Top 10 Tips on Authentic Grandparenting — Mamapoekie of Authentic Parenting offers a list of tips to make the grandparent-parent-child relationship flow smoothly.
• Top Ten “Dad” Things — Liam at In The Now talks about his favourite ways to spend time with his children.
• Top 10 Natural Strategies for Conception (aka How to Get Pregnant!) — Despite facing plenty of health issues, Jessica Claire at Crunchy-Chewy Mama found her way to two first-try pregnancies thanks to these natural strategies.
• Top Ten Reasons Why Home Birth Rocks — Lucy at Dreaming Aloud shares her passion for birthing at home – the natural place for natural birth.
• Top 10 reasons why cloth nappies are fun — Tat at Cloth Nappies Are Fun shows how using cloth nappies can brighten up your day.
• Top Ten Ways to Be Present With Family — Amy at Innate Wholeness shares how to make the most of parenting and family life through being present.
• Top 10 Things In My Arsenal of Kitchen Witchy Mama Tricks. — Joni Rae at Tales of A Kitchen Witch shares with us the simple things she would never want to be missing from her cupboards.
• Top 10 ways I’m not very good at natural parenting (and why I keep trying anyway) — Jenny at Babyfingers shares the ways she is imperfect as a natural parent, and why she embraces natural parenting anyway.
• Top 10 Ways to Know You Are a Natural Parent — So what makes us “natural parents,” anyway? A lighthearted look at the Top 10 Ways to Know You Are a Natural Parent by the editors and readers of Natural Parents Network.
• The Top 10 Things Every Natural Household (with children) Should Have — Amanda at Let’s Take the Metro shares a list of the most common natural products and remedies she uses for health and cleaning.
• Top 10 books for raising loving, spiritual children — In her ‘food for the soul’ post, Mrs Green from Little Green Blog shares her favourite spiritual books. No matter what religion you practise, there’s something for everyone!
• Top 10 Things No One Told Me About Natural Parenting — Adrienne at Mommying My Way explains that the best things about natural parenting are things she never expected.
• Top 10 Flower Essences for Families — Kim of Nature Baby Bloggings lists her pick of the top ten flower essence which can help ease families through the ups and downs of life.
• My Top Ten Parenting Tools — Amyables at Toddler In Tow names the top ten tools that have been helpful to her while learning to parent respectfully and successfully.
• Ten Ways Families Can Enjoy Nature (for free!) — Spring is nearly in the air, and Jenn at Monkey Butt Junction is dreaming of the fun and frugal ways that her family is going to get out and enjoy nature this summer.
• 10 Reasons We Unschool — Patti at Jazzy Mama explains why unschooling is the right choice for her family.
• Must Read: Natural Parenting Top Ten — Amy at Anktangle wants you to do a little reading! She shares her top ten favorite books to help parents prepare for pregnancy, birth, and parenting.
• Top 10 Breastfeeding Misconceptions — Sheila at A Gift Universe examines ten reasons women give for why they didn’t breastfeed as long as they wanted, and shows how these obstacles can be overcome.
• Ten Reasons to Plan a Home Birth — Since a home birth can be an incredibly empowering experience, Leslie at Lights and Letters outlines ten reasons why you should plan to have your baby at home.
• Top Ten Books for Birth, Breastfeeding and Parenting — Megan at Just Me(gan) writes about the ten books that have helped her the most in her natural parenting journey.
• A Top Ten Letter To Me… — Kat at Loving {Almost} Every Moment writes herself a letter of reflections and bits of wisdom she would have liked to know as a new mama.
• Top Ten Mama Necessities Money Can’t Buy — Buying baby gear is fun, but Emily at Crunchy(ish) Mama knows real parenting must-haves can’t be bought in stores (or even on Amazon).
• Top 10 Books for a Natural Mum — Isil at Smiling like Sunshine talks about her Top 10 Books for a Natural Mum.
• Ten Great Spring Activities To Do With Preschoolers — Kellie at Our Mindful Life and her family have come up with a great list of activities to do together this spring.
• 10 Ways to Reuse Yogurt Containers — Acacia at Fingerpaint & Superheroes keeps the stacks of yogurt containers out of her recycling bin by reusing them in both practical and creative ways.
• Top Ten Ways To Have a Harmonious Home — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama shares her natural parenting-inspired methods for maintaining a harmonious daily life with her toddler.
• 10 Natural Baby Items I Love — Charise at I Thought I Knew Mama shares product ideas to support your natural parenting.
• The Pandas’ Top Five Crunch-osophies — Top five crunchy philosophies, as employed at the Panda Residence by Ana at Pandamoly.
• Top 10 Reasons to Leave Your Son Intact — Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children has shared 10 reasons why you should leave your newborn son intact.
• Ten things everyone should know about unassisted homebirth — Olivia at Write About Birth shares practical tips for women considering an unassisted homebirth and debunks some common myths
• 10 Most Popular Ways To Treat Cloth Diaper Stains — Chante at My Natural Motherhood Journey gives ten easy tips to make your diapers like new.
• 10 Lessons in 1 Year — Abbie at Farmer’s Daughter shares 10 parenting lessons that she has learned throughout her first year of motherhood.
• Top 10 Ways to Get Breastfeeding Off To a Good Start — Sheryl at Little Snowflakes shares 10 effective ways to ensure breastfeeding gets off to a good start.
• Top 10 Ways to Avoid a Time-Out — If you are uncomfortable using time-outs in an attempt to control your child’s behavior, try one of these gentler alternatives. Dionna at Code Name: Mama shares her Top 10 Ways to Avoid a Time-Out.
• My Top 10 Parenting Scriptures — Dulce de leche is learning to integrate faith and parenting. Whether it is breastfeeding, babywearing, comforting her children, or gentle discipline, she finds that the Bible has beautiful passages to encourage her on her journey.
• Natural Cleaning Ideas – Top 10 — Laura at Laura’s Blog lists the ways she keeps her house clean and clear of chemicals.
• My Top Ten (plus two) Life Altering and Growth Inspiring Books — A top ten list of books from MJ at Wander Wonder Discover that changed her life as an individual, a parent, and an earth dweller.
• Top 10 Ways to Use Natural Parenting for Children with Special Needs — Danielle at Mommy Makes Cents feeds the needs of her family and special needs child through the use of Natural Parenting.
• Ten Fundamentals — Seonaid at The Practical Dilettante gets philosophical with a list of the fundamentals that drive her natural parenting.
• 10 reasons why I chose breast over bottles — Becky at Old New Legacy writes a quick list of why she chose breast over bottles.
• Top Ten Natural Tools for the Work of Play — Lori at Beneath the Rowan Tree offers insight into 10 natural toys that will span the early years (and save you money).
• 10 differences between pregnancy and parenting in Japan and the US — Megan at Ichigo Means Strawberry gives her impressions about differences in pregnancy and parenting in Japan and the US.
• Natural Parenting Benny & Bex Style — Pecky at Benny and Bex explains why Natural Parenting principles work best for her boys.
• Top 10 Reasons to Co-Sleep — 10 practical, emotional, and completely selfish reasons to co-sleep and share a family bed from Lily, aka Witch Mom.
• My Top Ten New Mommy Moments — Melissa at The New Mommy Files recounts the ten most memorable moments of her daughter’s first year.
• Top Ten Things Every Breastfeeding Mother Needs to Know — Kristen at Adventures in Mommyhood believes knowledge is power and wants all moms to be well informed.
• Top 10 Nursing Positions / Situations — Momma Jorje uses her 5½ years of nursing experience to share her Top 10 Nursing Positions/Situations. She includes some adorable photos of her youngest daughter at the breast.
• Ten Top Ways to Connect Kids with Nature — Terri from Child at the Nature Isle offers 10 ways to immerse ourselves in the natural world and develop a love affair with the Earth.
• Top 10 Slacker Ways to Natural Parent — Guavalicious is happy to show you how to parent naturally the slacker way.
• Simply what it looks like — Andrea!!! from Ella-Bean & Co. offers a glimpse into natural parenting through the eyes of mama and babe.
• Top Ten Reasons Why Natural Parenting Dads Are So Attractive — Nada at miniMOMist sure digs her husband, but it’s not just his good looks — it’s his parenting!
• 10 Family Systems and Routines That Work for Us — See what routines, organizational systems, and parenting approaches work for Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings to help avoid conflict and maintain sanity in a family with three young children.
• Top 10 reasons to choose midwifery care — Lauren at Hobo Mama lists the features that drew her to midwives’ care for pregnancy and birth.
• 10 Ways to Cloth Diaper on a Budget — Michelle at The Parent Vortex shares her best thrifty cloth diapering tips.
• Ten Reasons it Felt Sew Good To Make My Own Play Food — Brittany at Mama’s Felt Cafe lists her 10 (OK, 11) favorite reasons to grab a needle and start sewing your own felt play toys.
• Top10 Ways to Spark Interest, Learn, and Have Fun With Everyday Tasks! — Bethy at Bounce Me to the Moon gives you her top 10 ways of incorporating fun and lessons into everyday tasks and chores.
• Postpartum Gift Ideas — Alicia at I Found My Feet suggests a top 10 list of gifts for mother’s after giving birth.
• My Top Ten Shows Worthy Of Screen Time — Tree at Mom Grooves shares her top ten list of shows that she believes are positive, educational, kind, joyful, and a nice way to share some downtime with your children.
• The Top 10 Ways to Succeed as an Working Attachment Parent — That Mama Gretchen shares tried and true ways to succeed with attachment parenting even when working away from home during the day.
• Top Ten Books for Natural Parenting — Pregnancy, herbs, cooking, and healthcare the ten books Asha at Meta Mom the most.
• Preparing for a Hospital VBAC: My Top 10 — Thomasin at Propson Palingenesis shares 10 ways she’s preparing for her upcoming hospital VBAC.
• Top Ten New Mom Survival Tools — Wolfmother shares her most beloved motherhood survival tools at Fabulous Mama Chronicles.
• Top 10 Montessori Principles for Natural Learning — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now gives her top 10 list of Montessori principles parents can use to encourage their children s natural learning.
• Going Granola — Tashmica from The Mother Flippin’ Blog describes the 10 ways that natural parenting sneaked up on her. She never expected to go all granola on the world.
• Step Away From the Amazon List — Stefanie at Very, Very Fine wishes she hadn’t bought so much useless stuff.

Welcome to the January Carnival of Natural Parenting: Learning from children

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have shared the many lessons their children have taught them. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

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It almost goes without saying that my son has taught me about living joyfully, living in the moment, and living as though every detail in the world were worth exclaiming over, lessons I forget and re-learn daily.

But what he’s really taught me is about me.

It’s not that I was new to introspection before he came along. I’ve written plenty about the various roads I went down pre-child to deal with my issues and get healthy in my head and heart: talk therapy, craniosacral therapy, emotional freedom technique, flower essences. I always considered myself a pretty self-aware gal, almost annoyingly so.

But. Then I had a child. Plenty of books talk about needing to get in touch with yourself in order to be a good parent. And plenty of people probably find ways other than parenting to really explore their own complexity. Still, there is something special about having a being that is a product both of your nature and your nurture, something that screams: “So that’s who I am!”

Some of the things I’ve realized about myself have been surprises, but most have been frightening confirmations.

I talk a lot. This I knew. But hearing the never-ending stream of narration from my toddler then preschooler’s mouth. It’s not just a phase. He’s using my words.  My gestures.  My inflection. I even titled my first blog “Mama’s Mouth” because he had a replica of mine, both in shape and in spirit.

I am messy. I do not live a ritualized, orderly life. My son has inherited and/or learned to copy my hoarding tendencies and my failure to put things away in a logical place when we are done with them. Yes, this is the opposite of a Waldorf approach, and yes, we’re working on it.

I am judgmental. Not in a scary way. But when I hear him — with a finger-wag in his voice — spouting about how someone biking without a helmet is not safe or that someone shouldn’t eat a certain food because it has chemicals, I cringe. He’s been learning a bad/good dichotomy from me that I don’t want to be a part of our lives. Safety is cool, and good nutrition is great. But telling people what they should and shouldn’t do? Not so much. The more bossy his four-year-old self gets, the more I remember being that obnoxious girl in preschool who told her classmate, “There’s no such word as ‘buyed.’ It’s ‘bought!’” Notice I said classmate, not friend. My haughty ‘tude never made me all that popular.

I am sensitive. The more I write, the more it sounds like I’ve been stunted at the developmental level of a four-year-old. But when my son stomps his foot, or says he wants something NOW, or falls into sobs on the sofa, I know just how he feels. I can remember doing the same thing at his age, and I’ve spent the intervening 33+ years trying to figure out more appropriate ways to channel the same frustration, sometimes more successfully than others. My heart broke like a Christmas ornament when he came home bleeding from a sledding accident, telling me his friend’s parent said “it would be the most fun run” and that the third parent on the scene was supposed to keep them safe but didn’t. I’m not sure when or how I’m going to get over watching his faith in adults drip out of his mouth.

I am a singer. Never a soloist, I’ve still always been someone who likes to say it with a song. I remember lyrics like nobody’s business, and making up new ones is a specialty. I’d forgotten this until Junior came along, and it was like I rediscovered an old friend in my new and returned singalong self. Now that he’s doing the same (all. the. time), I’m reminded to call on that self with his baby sister, who tends to get me more often distracted than channeling my inner Ani DiFranco.

I am loving. The sincerity with which my son tells me he loves me at least once a day gives me a clue that, despite all of the above, I’m not doing so bad. He seems to get supreme joy from sharing his feelings, making his love known. That won’t always be the case, I’m sure, but I don’t think he’d say it if he didn’t hear it, really hear it, from me.

I can make a positive difference. The baby is the best teacher of this right now. When I’m just muddling through, trying to get dinner made or get the boy run around while it’s still light out, I catch my five-month-old daughter just staring at me with her big blue eyes. All I have to do is smile at her, and she’ll smile back. Wiggle my hips and she’ll giggle. Clap my hands above my head and she’ll laugh.

Then, and when she’s crying in her dad’s arms but stops the instant mine take over, it’s those times I know that I’m not just a broken mom passing her bad habits and quirks onto her children. I’m someone who can create joy, soothe spirits, warm hearts.

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See also this post about watching parents lost their cool at the zoo; at the end, I list some books that discuss how learning about yourself helps you become a better parent. And how to deal with all those issues you carry from your own childhood so they don’t become your kids’ issues, too!

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What is the most profound — or the simplest — lesson you’ve learning from your child, or just from parenting?

Or a lesson from a parenting book that made the biggest difference?

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Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

(This list will be live and updated by afternoon January 11 with all the carnival links.)

• Affection — Alicia at I Found My Feet has finally become a hugger and kisser, now she has someone sweet and small to snuggle with. (@aliciafagan)
• Learning from Daniel — Amy at Anktangle hopes that she and her husband will always be open to learning from their son. (@anktangle)
• Kids Cultivate Awareness of Universal Truths — From forgiveness to joy, Amy Phoenix at Innate Wholeness has become aware of deep truths that come naturally to children. (@InnateWholeness)
• What the Apple Teaches the Tree — Becky at Future Legacy has learned about imagination, forgiveness, and strength.
• A Lesson in Slowing Time — Bethy at Bounce Me To the Moon revels in the chance to just be with her baby.
• Learning From My Children: I Am So Honored — WAHM Chante at My Natural Motherhood Journey is learning to choose tea parties over work. (@MyMotheringPath)
• P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E — Now that she’s a mother, Danielle at born.in.japan is finally learning about a personality trait she lacked. (@borninjp)
• Top 5 Homeschool Lessons My Children Taught Me — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares what she learned from homeschooling her (now grown) children. (@DebChitwood)
• Learning to Live in the Present By Looking to the Future — Dionna at Code Name: Mama finds the patience to be a gentle parent, because she knows how fleeting childhood really is. (@CodeNameMama)
• The watchful Buddha boy — At Dreaming Aloud, they are learning to cherish their thoughtful, sensitive child in a action-driven, noisy world. (@DreamingAloudNt)
• What My Children Taught Me — Dulce de Leche’s children have taught her to value herself for the wonderful person and mother she is.
• Lessons from the First Year — Having a child made Emily at Crunchy(ish) Mama realize that her decisions affect more than just herself. (@CrunchyishMama)
• Lessons from Loss — Erica at ChildOrganics learned so much from the love — and loss — of her sweet Bella, five years ago. (@ChildOrganics)
• The Socratic Baby — Erin at Multiple Musings has so-called “identical” twins to serve as a daily lesson in nature vs. nurture. (@ErinLittle)
• Learning to be a Mother — Farmer’s Daughter learned the type of patience that enabled her to calmly eat one-handed for months and change clothes seven times a day, before noon. (@FarmDaughter)
• A Few Things Being a Mom Has Taught Me — Heather at Musing Mommy shares the curious, hilarious, and sometimes Murphy’s Law-like tidbits we learn from our children. (@xakana)
• I Feel You — Motherhood has taught Jamey from At the Bee Hive empathy, and it extends beyond just her child. (@JameyBly)
• Lessons From My Child… — Jenny at I’m a full-time mummy shares the inspiring ways she’s learned to expect the unexpected — and have a camera ready! (@imaftmummy)
• My child is my mirror — Jessica Claire at Crunchy-Chewy Mama has seen herself in her children – and it’s not bad. (@crunchychewy)
• There is enough to go around… — Kellie at Our Mindful Life learned that love doesn’t diminish when it’s shared.
• Learning From Our Children, Every Day — Kimberly at Homeschooling in Nova Scotia, Canada is continually inspired by her children. (@UsborneBooksCB)
• Life Lessons From My Children — Kristen at Adventures in Mommyhood has learned that every slug is fascinating, doing the dishes is fun, and sharing a banana is a delight. (@crunchymamato2)
• Things I’ve Learned From My Children — Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings uses pictures to share what she has learned from her children. (@sunfrog)
• Beyond the questions lies the answer — Lauren at Hobo Mama stopped wondering and started knowing — loving and liking our children comes naturally. (@Hobo_Mama)
• Learning from Children — Lily, aka Witch Mom, finds out just how enchanting balloons can be. (@LilyShahar)
• Lifelong Learning — Lindsay at Living in Harmony has learned that what works for one kid might not work for another. (@AttachedMama)
• Walking alongside my daughter — Lindsey at Mama Cum Laude is learning to give the clock less power over her family’s life.
• Things my baby taught me about me — Luschka at Diary of a First Child is proud of how she has grown as a mother. (@lvano)
• From my children, I have learned — Mama Mo at Attached at the Nip has a litany of beautiful lessons, from selflessness to sleeplessness.
• The Little Things in Life — In a simple and lovely prose poem, Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children shows how adults worry about the wrong things and forget the little, important ones: watching ladybugs, jumping in leaves, cherishing each moment as it comes.
• The Virtues of Motherhood — Melissa at The New Mommy Files has had opportunities to learn from children as both a teacher and a mother. (@NewMommyFiles)
• My Kids Have Taught Me That It’s Time To Stop Blogging — Melodie at Breastfeeding Moms Unite! has learned that childhoods fly by too fast to blog. We’ll miss your wonderful online presence, Melodie, and we wish you much peace and happiness. (@bfmom)
• Having Kids Has Taught me a Thing or Two — Michelle at The Parent Vortex learns all day long — from fun facts about hedgehogs to tying a complicated wrap with a screaming child and an audience. (@TheParentVortex)
• We Could All Learn from the Children — Momma Jorje takes time to get on the floor and play so that she can see the world through her child’s eyes.
• Teaching Forgiveness — Mrs Green at Little Green Blog has a daughter who’s taught her unconditional love — even when she feels like she does’t deserve it. (@littlegreenblog)
• Parenting as a joint venture — Olivia at Write About Birth appreciates watching the astonishing way her children learn. (@writeaboutbirth)
• Beginner’s Mind — Rachael at The Variegated Life learns from a child who builds bridges to nowhere, calls letter magnets his numbers, and insists dinnertime is truck time. (@RachaelNevins)
• A baby’s present — RS at A Haircut and a Shave presents a short poem on the differences between a baby’s mindfulness and ours.
• Self-Confidence Was Born With My Daughter — Sara at Halfway Crunchy learned to trust her instincts by responding to her child’s needs — and saw her self-confidence bloom.
• The Importance of Being Less Earnest — Seonaid at The Practical Dilettante has one list of earnest and one list of silly things she has learned as a parent. (@seonaid_lee)
• Lessons my children have taught me — Sheryl at Little Snowflakes learned that attachment parenting was the best way to meet the needs of her child and herself. (@Sheryljesin)
• Till the water is clear — Stacy at Mama-Om learns that being present is the best present. (@mama_om)
• I Hold It — Stefanie at Very, Very Fine has learned that the ability to communicate is much more important than the number of words a child knows.
• What My Children Taught Me About Letting Go — Summer at Finding Summer is learning from her kids to laugh in the face of heartache. (@summerminor)
• Finding My Tools — The Artsymama has applied some of what she’s learned as a mama in the classroom, with great results!

Here is a health-focused piece cross-posted from my main blog, Crunchy-Chewy Mama. I had been putting more health-focused pieces here and more snippets from life on the alternative mainstream divide over there, but I now that I am writing for The Washington Times Communities at “Reading Ingredients: Tales of a Health-Conscious Mom,” I’m re-evaluating my blog strategy (which includes looking for someone to help me upgrade them all or combine at least these two blogs.)

Here is my tale of a recent illness and how I fought it off the pharma grid.

***

We’ve got 60 degrees here in Metro DC and I think I’m finally getting over a cold that started two weeks ago. I never get sick and stay sick. This was annoying. Not so bad that I had to make the husband stay home or back out on a major event I was planning, but bad enough that I sounded like the woman from “The Nanny” if she had a sinus infection. Not pretty!

We don’t do drugs in our house, so I did my best to self-medicate. This starts with food — lots of nutrient-dense homemade (from pastured chickens) bone broth and a limit on refined carbs. When I look back, the weekend before I got sick I had hot rice cereal for breakfast one day and French toast another day (GF millet bread, but still) and a bunch of rice crackers. That’s way more packaged food than usual. So I cut out what I could but still allowed myself some antioxidant-rich raw cacao.

When I started to feel an illness on I restarted the flower essences I maybe should have been taking all season long from Perelandra. On Tuesday the 12th, I tried the homeopathic remedy Hepar. Sulph. Calc. and promptly got worse with a sore throat and swollen glands. I think I honestly fell asleep on the floor of my bathroom while my son played with toys in an empty bathtub. A homeopath said it was most likely that this reaction was just pushing the natural course of events forward and that now I just had a cold I might as well let run its course. So I gave up on the homeopathy – none of the indications seemed 100% right on anymore,anyway – and just tried garlic & ginger in hot lemon water in the morning, eating well, getting sleep, staying in bed even if I couldn’t sleep well (instead of getting up to work), and putting some eucalyptus in my shower. I kept meaning to get even just a basic saline nasal spray but didn’t, and we found our humidifier but never got it working.

Well, all that, and a lot of water and a lot of bodywork. My head was killing me with major sinus pressure, so I looked for whatever healing hands had openings. On Wednesday, the day after I felt terrible, I had a chiropractic adjustment and acupuncture. On Saturday morning I had a massage, primarily of craniosacral therapy. On Monday afternoon I had another bodywork session, a combo of craniosacral therapy and lymphatic drainage massage. Each time I handed over my credit card after a session, I did feel better. But it didn’t last to the next day, not as much as I wanted. I still had a lot of nose-blowing and some coughing.

Then, on Wednesday when I’d been sick for a week, my eye looked red in one corner, which I thought was from not sleeping well until the next morning when it was sticky and red all over. This was the day of my event. None of the many homeopathic remedies for conjunctivitis sounded spot-on for my symptoms, but I got so weepy when my friend rang the doorbell while I was trying to have my son nap, that I decided to take pulsatilla. And I found some homeopathic eye drops at CVS, which I think helped, for sure with the redness. The eye was cleared up a day later. (The second eye got it too and also cleared up after a day).

Friday I saw an osteopath who worked a lot on my head in general, my sinuses and even in my mouth and upper palette. I sounded like a different person after that appointment — much less nasal. But the next morning I slept in and still felt like I’d regressed. Maybe shopping for a sofa, meeting friends for coffee and walking a mile in mild winter day were too much. But we did get a new rebounder, which I used twice, hoping that it would help my lymphatic system clear out. And I did fit in a little yoga.

Sunday I had to drag myself out of bed but felt a lot better after starting the morning off with Vitamin C before my lemon/ginger/garlic drink, to which I added turmeric and elderberry. And then I had a full breakfast and set to work on some reorganization of the house, which felt great. I even had a little decaf coffee and some GFCF sugar-free (maple syrup only) chocolate cake my son and I had made as a celebration of my successful event Thursday night (adaptation of this cake recipe but using mashed cherries instead of applesauce and adding cacao and coconut flakes).

Despite this indulgence, I could tell I’d turned the corner Sunday afternoon. It’s now Monday afternoon, and though I still am not ready to go out and do a full run in this gorgeously warm day (or to be too far away from a tissue), I am glad I was able to ride this out and that so far, no one else in the house seems to have any symptoms.

I don’t claim to understand exactly what craniosacral therapy (CST) does, but I believe in it. I’ve read some books by Dr. John Upledger, and I’ve talked a whole lot with my practitioners about my body and my son’s body.

And I’ve seen its results firsthand.

I’ve been getting CST for six years, since I first started pursuing alternative therapies, which ended up including diagnoses of celiac disease and autoimmune thyroid disorder en route to dealing with infertility.

I learned about the therapy through my sister and her work with her son, who is on the autism spectrum. CST has been immensely powerful for me, helping me to let go of a whole lot of energy I’d been holding onto, which caused physical and emotional problems. (For more, see my article in the Winter 2008/2009 issue of the Journal of Attachment Parenting).

I had my craniosacral therapist there at my son’s birth, which was supposed to be all-natural in a birth center but instead was a c-section due to my baby’s breech position and extremely short umbilical cord (see my poem about that in Exhale magazine). So instead, the therapist videotaped the birth, which gave her great insight into how to treat my son hours later. “There’s a lot of unwinding in his hips,” she said; I later learned breech babies sometimes need to wear harnesses because of their in-utero position (hip dysplaysia).

My son is now 3.5 years old. I schedule CST for him every few months, when it seems like he’s just kind of off or working on something I don’t know how to address. I’m so grateful that she’s been seeing him since he was an infant — really since even before he was born.

A few months ago I asked the therapist what might have been different if he hadn’t been seeing her. I trust her with my life. She does tell some people they don’t need to come back. She’s never said that to me. “It’s hard to tell. Maybe speech or other development issues. Maybe ADD or sensory integration problems.”

I’ve had several different practitioners work on him, and they all say the same things about tight parietal bones and jaw intensity. Lately, E has been chewing on his shirt in a way that disturbs me. A lot of kids have oral fixations, but this one is causing my son’s skin to be chapped, and, well, it just looks like an anxious reaction. So I made an appointment.

Usually she just plays with him on the floor with toys while they work in a gentle way. The appointment lasts a full hour. Today, after a while, she invited him up to the table, where she tucked him in. It was the first time I’d ever seen him laid down like a patient. It was a little freaky, but he looked so nurtured and cared for in the soft glow of the massage center room.

She said her recent sensory disorder training recommends letting kids follow their interest/obsession while they are getting treatment. So she did. He chewed on a toy and then, when she felt a big release, he was done with the mouthing and just sort of flopped into relaxation.

After seeing him so manic and wound up recently, it was a real gift to see him so calm under her hands. She explained some other physical things and gave me more ideas for ways to work with his particular needs, including broad and heavy strokes on his body and heavy weight on his legs in front of him, and offering him straws and other mouthing options. Her questions about other behaviors — “does he seem to need to run full boar into things?” — seemed so spot on. He’s never gotten any kind of diagnosis, and I don’t understand all the ins and outs of sensory integration issues and proprioception. But I do feel very good that I have this therapist on my team.

She said that it felt like a phase but like there was also an emotional component that was not yet resolved. His neck and chest were pouring off heat, she said.

I left a little poorer but more resolved to model and live the grounding, solidifying presence he and I both shun but deeply crave.

For more information on CST and children, see “Craniosacral Therapy and Scientific Research, Part II” by John Upledger, DO, OMM. The website for the Upledger Institute is http://upledger.com/. Find practitioners at http://www.iahp.com/

Almost a month ago, I went to the grand re-opening of Holeco Wellness Medi Spa, the first holistic/wellness medispa recognized by Green America as a Green company and listed in their Green Pages. The owner is a wonderful woman who recently spoke at a Holistic Moms meeting. They are in a building that just underwent some lobby renovations, including new glass doors. On my way into the event, where I hoped I might win some fun beauty or energy door prize, I got instead the most ironic of injuries — I walked right into the glass door that I thought was open, cutting my nose bridge with my glasses and giving myself a huge blow that resulted in a mild black eye a few days later.

As someone who has gotten a ton of craniosacral therapy, I knew that this blow was going to be with me for a while. The knowledge that I was setting myself back hurt more than the immediate physical trauma, though that was pretty bad, too. I was so upset that I was not aware enough to prevent this injury. Honestly, a perpendicular piece of glass did sort of look like the door, but I still should have seen that the door was closed before I rammed into it.

So after I bled all over the ground, went up to the open house and got some ice (and got looked at by a nurse), I drove home as soon as I felt it was safe to do so. When I got home, I immediately took Emergency Trauma Solution and then later Arnica. This was a Tuesday, and on Friday I had a previously-scheduled craniosacral appointment. The therapist said there was quite a bit of trauma, and he recommended Traumeel cream and anything to help with lymphatic drainage.

The next Tuesday, a week after the incident, I saw an acupuncturist and chiropractor who, before he did acupuncture, used an activator on my sinuses, which kind of freaked me out. But some stuffiness cleared up right away, and when I saw the craniosacral therapist again on Friday, he said I seemed much better than he would have expected. He gave props to the acupuncturist. Two weeks later, I saw him again, and he said that the intense jarring of energy actually let him work more deeply into my birth strain than he’s been able to before.

So even though I really hadn’t planned to spend that much money on treatment and time without exercising (even after three weeks, I still felt the injury in my nose when I first went jogging), I am trying to believe that there is/was/will be something good to come out of this injury, as the spa owner suggested when she kindly called me the day after the injury to check up on me!

“This is why health care costs are so high,” hissed my endocrinologist when she looked at the results of the labwork my holistic physician had ordered. To her, the additional blood tests were a waste of time and money. But the information – a full, more complete picture of my thyroid levels and antibody levels– helped me to get better. And whose fault is it that the tests cost a lot in the first place?

At the time, I was dealing with autoimmune thyroiditis. I sought help from alternative health care providers in addition to the endocrinologist. She spent a short amount of time with me, mostly hunched over her prescription pad figuring out how to alter the dosage of my medicine. By contrast, the holistic physician spent close to an hour talking to me to explain in great detail – even drawing me graphs – how the chemicals in my body were working together – or not working so great, as the case was. With his help, I came to understand what was going on in my body, which helped me to heal.

So what is a waste of money? Time to talk with a patient? Time spent to investigate lifestyle choices that might make a huge impact?

Without the advice of a nutritionist, I might have never figured out that I had both casein intolerance and gluten sensitivity on its way to celiac disease, both problems undetected by gastroenterologists, none of whom suggested I cut back on processed food, either. And both problems long in the making that could have been part of my developing thyroid disorders — Graves’ Disease (autoimmune hyperthyroidism) and Hashimoto’s Disease (autoimmune hypothyroidism).

Without the help of acupuncture and craniosacral therapy, I don’t think I could have learned how to make the kinds of inner shifts toward a calmer mind that I believe were critical to my disease going in remission and my fertility returning such that I was able to have a healthy pregnancy.

The holistic physician helped me utilize the standard medication I needed but also taught me how to rebuild my whole body health such that my body could help heal itself. He – a trained MD – and another practitioner trained in BioSET allergy elimination and other energy healing modalities both came to the same conclusions about herbs and supplements that would support my thyroid and my adrenals.

To these folks I am grateful. To them – and to other alternative healers – I paid hundreds and hundreds of dollars out of pocket. The endocrinologist’s fees were covered by insurance. All the labwork was covered at the time, but now that my consultant husband is self-employed and self-insured, I have no coverage for anything thyroid-related. None.

So far, I haven’t needed coverage. I am many times healthier now than I was before I figured out how sick I was five years ago. I get discounted tests from a holistic MD, and we (currently, luckily) have the ability to afford healthy, organic food and alternative health therapies (whenever I can get childcare to schedule them, that is).

But why is true healing available only to the privileged? Can we please get away from a medical culture that sees dollar signs in prescriptions for drugs that might not be necessary if we looked further into the whole picture of a person?

Adapted from a post that originally appeared at DC Metro Moms Blog.

“But he showed remorse,” said my kind friend when I called her crying to apologize that my son had bitten hers at school. “What more could you want?”

Um, for him to not do it at all?

Really, what I want is for my son not to feel that kind of out-of-control anger. I know he’s three and a half and that some socially inappropriate behavior is, well, developmentally appropriate. But I also know that when he went through a similar phase two years ago, some body work and energy work really seemed to help.

And I know that as someone who suffered from undiagnosed depression all through my childhood, it’s no fun to feel unhappy inside. Although medication helped through a few dark periods in my adulthood, it’s become crystal clear to me that what has made the most profound difference has been a combination of non-drug remedies: a gluten-free, casein-free diet; regular exercise and yoga; and body work and energy work, including acupuncture, chiropractic and craniosacral therapy (CST).

So when my son had a biting episode a few weeks back for the first time (a 12-hour playdate is a rough thing for overtired cousins inhabiting a small space on a rainy cold day), I made an appointment with the acupuncturist who saw us when he had an ear infection months ago. While I waited the three weeks before that opening, I also got him in for CST work, which I though was probably more useful for him (lasting a full hour) but is twice as expensive as the acupuncturist who works with kids.

The acupuncture was scheduled for Friday at the end of the first week of school. E seemed to enjoy school fine and had none of the crying some other kids did upon leaving their moms for the first time. But on Tuesday, the second day, he did bite the arm of his friend, G, in what was probably a tussle over a toy. “It might have been provoked,” the teacher said, having not seen the lead-up. But I was deeply troubled.

My kid is nice. He’s usually patient and kind. When he does physical stuff, something seems like it’s just not right inside. That’s an awful feeling, and I don’t want him to have it. To me, the biting is a symptom. Maybe he’s feeding off of my stress. Maybe it’s partly the change of season, as the acupuncturist suggested. Maybe it’s that we’ve been trying some dairy in his diet, and maybe it doesn’t agree with him any more than it does with me.

What I do know is that he and I both had a nice day Friday and a pretty mellow weekend after a week of volatility and meltdowns. All the doctor did was use a little roller on a few spots and then put little acupressure stickers on his ears, hands and feet. Thinking we might try needles on him next time, she did a demo on me with a quick insertion to two points that address the kidney meridian and fear. “You’ll have a good day, too,” she nodded to me.

And I did. Within a few hours, the sense of urgency and crisis was gone. My son and I had a lovely time together. We’ll see if he can hold onto that calm through today, the first day of the second week of school.

I haven’t been pro-vaccine for a long time, since I got the flu vaccine in my 20s and felt terrible.

Now that we’re facing a potentially bad flu year, there is a lot of talk about vaccines for flu and specifically for H1N1/Swine Flu. I’m hoping that the alternative folks are right that the best way to avoid getting seriously ill is by avoiding refined foods — especially sugar and flour — and generally eating a healthy diet, along with giving our bodies assistance in fighting things naturally by getting chiropractic work, acupuncture or craniosacral therapy.

But we don’t always get the sleep, exercise, or nutrition that we need, so I’ve ordered from Perelandra the 2009-2010 Flu Season Balancing Solution from the Microbial Balancing Program and also FSBS+, which is supposed to address pandemic strains of the flu. These bottles are $10-15 and from a farm local here in Virginia. I know some folks are hoping their homeopaths can make a homeopathic version of the standard vaccine.

I hope that we can do okay, as we did last winter on health and wellness except for the week after the Holistic Moms chapter launch (and the Inauguration, which was an exciting but very long day). The following week, my son came down with an ear infection that I’m pretty sure was his system’s response to his mom’s stress. That lasted over a week but cleared without drugs. We were still nursing at the time, though, and this year, he won’t have that protection.

This season, I hope we can find the inner balance we need and can count on the Perelandra solutions (the above, as well as the Immune and Lymphatic solutions) to stay healthy.

I just spent $132 at the Vitamin Shoppe. Wow. My husband has an eardrum that has been ruptured for over 48 hours and still hurts a lot. I bought some tea, colloidal silver supplement and nasal spray, grapefruit seed extract ear drops and nasal spray, some probiotic (on sale), calendula tincture (seemed like a good idea) and some more homepathic remedies (including something that my son grabbed because it came with a little Curious George pouch – even the alternative stuff markets to kids! He’s been sick, too, so I cut him some slack, especially after he agreeably put several items back on the shelves and since he’d been whining a whole lot before we got into the car).

When I first went on my Save-My-Adrenals-and-Thyroid health kick starting in early 2004, I spent that kind of coin on capsules often. A lot was at the Vitamin Shoppe, where you get little coupons every so often if you spend a lot, and I also shopped at Village Green Apothecary in Bethesda, where they carry brands usually only practitioners have but at a better price. Since my thyroid has stabilized and my nutrition is so much improved, I haven’t been as much of a supplement junkie. And certainly in this economy with a one-income family, I’m usually more reserved before throwing $25 bottles of dried mushrooms into my basket (my sister-in-law swears that one helped her). But since the hubby isn’t of a mind to get energy work and is still in a lot of pain, he told me to get “whatever looks good.” After a week at home with my sick son, who was on a nursing binge to fight his fever (which also turned into an ear infection), I was ready to jack up the credit card for our health at the supplement store (and I already have with craniosacral therapy and an acupunturist who used some cute little tools on my boy to open his meridians and did a few needles on me when I mentioned his clinginess. It always comes back to me!)

Considering a possible run for reconception, I’m also thinking that it’s probably time for me to actually see a doctor — a holistic-minded one for sure, and preferably one who starts with some energy work, but someone who can make sure I’m in a safe place to possibly go forward with trying for a bigger family. That will cost a pretty penny, too, I’m sure!

Two weeks ago, I fell taking a step onto a neighbor’s basement stairs. My foot just slipped on the carpet and I was about to bounce down the stairs on my bottom. Having sprained my ankle in September 2007 two weeks before I was going to run a half-marathon, I was determined not to let my legs take any of the ill effects of this fall.

So I braced myself with my hands – I let all the weight fall into my upper body. Within minutes, I knew my arms were going to hurt. I was in a fragile emotional state before the fall, and I knew that the feeling of upset and the trauma were going to settle into my body in a powerful way. I went home and sobbed for a few minutes after I took my first round of drops of Perelandra’s Emergency Trauma Solution (ETS Plus). I repeated the drops every 5 minutes four or five times. Then I took arnica and applied Traumeel lotion topically.

But it hurt a lot to raise my arms out to the side, and I knew that whatever I did, I was going to need help. I kept taking arnica – no OTC painkillers and the next morning called the massage therapy center where I’ve been going for over a decade. I knew my regular craniosacral therapist wasn’t working that day, but the other one was, and she had an opening. Fortunately, my husband had a few days off of work, so I could take the appointment.

The session was very powerful. Not only did I leave feeling like almost all the pain was gone, I was profoundly relaxed. It was clear that I needed the session anyway; CST simply needs to be part of my regular life, at least as long as I’ve not got a consistent yoga and meditation practice going on.

I happened to get in this past week with another CST practitioner I used to see a lot before my son was born. He has more experience with visceral manipulation and other aspects of Upledger training. He worked on my son for 30 minutes and for me for the remaining 20 minutes. The work felt deeply therapeutic. He said I was still locked up from the incident and that he worked to release the tension. That night I actually felt tired before 11:00 for the first time in a long while. That would not be the first time that CST helped me to chill out enough to be able to get to sleep at a decent hour.

I’m very glad to have these practitioners in my life to keep me from holding on to negative patterns and then compensating for them in other problematic ways.