Musings: Make Your Home A Healing Haven
In a sense, we are all homing pigeons. Be it ever so humble, there’s no place you will ever feel more comfortable or secure than in your own home. Perhaps this is due to the innate safety we felt in the womb, our very first home, and like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we always seek a return to that initial sense of security.
At home you are free to be yourself more than anywhere else on the planet. Naturally in tune, home is the place we establish our soothing, comforting and healing routines — a favorite spot, food or activity that restores and rewards the body. Home is where we eat, love, rest, feel safe and thrive; we collect our possessions there. Without a home, we are healing impaired — all the more tragic for those who are homeless, in foreclosure or have no choice about living in a home that is not a safe haven. Unfortunately, it is during those stressful times that we most need the regenerative powers that only home sweet home can provide.
Consider yourself blessed if you already appreciate your home as a healing center. By far, the best medicines to get well and stay healthy are nutritious food, energizing the body with movement and breath, stress reduction and the avoidance of toxins. You need no other pharmacy than your own home to dispense or fill all these prescriptions — and with no danger of overdosing or harmful side effects. Better yet, even the smallest dose of any of these medicines injected into your daily routine eventually adds up to better health.
Ironically in our mainstream culture, medicine at home that has been practiced for thousands of years is called “alternative” and medicine that has been practiced for less than 100 years in a doctor’s office is called “traditional.” Medical science, while dazzling and impressive, is still evolving; the intelligence network running your body knows more about your unique health needs than all the doctors in the world combined. The question is, are you willing to listen?
Fortunately our bodies are amazingly resilient, adaptive and forgiving. It’s never too late to start making new healthy choices; even decades of unhealthy habits can be healed and reversed at home once you learn what is making you sick. Clearly, the two biggest culprits in our culture are unhealthy, processed foods and toxic products.
Most household cleaners, air fresheners, cosmetics and personal care products on store shelves contain numerous toxic ingredients as defined by our own EPA, FDA and other government protection agencies. Despite outright bans on these ingredients by most European countries, the US insists there are safe levels of exposure to these toxins for humans and allows manufacturers to include them in their products. Manufacturers make non-toxic versions of these same products for their European markets.
These products and ingredients are not safe; every whiff of Febreze® Air Effects nets you 87 different chemicals up your nose, including known neurotoxins, endocrine disruptors and lung irritators, according to the Environmental Working Group. Years of inhalation and absorbing these toxins through your skin increases your cumulative toxin body burden. The sooner you stop sniffing and lathering these products on your body, the sooner you can begin to divest it of this burden and allow your body to heal. You may discover some surprising results.
While common sense tells us we should avoid processed foods, red meat, unhealthy fats and sugar, enticingly promoted fast foods are filled with these ingredients and remain the most popular comfort foods in America. They are the true “SAD” Standard American Diet. By contrast, holistic cancer centers offer successful treatment and cure to stage four cancer and other terminally ill patients using a raw vegan diet, colon cleansing, vitamin and mineral supplements, and other mind-body treatments. Tens of thousands of patients have been cured naturally without surgery, drugs or radiation once the body is cleared of its toxic body burden and nourished with healthy food.
Perhaps because of these stunning medical successes, raw vegan is no longer a threatening and extremist choice, but visionary. A raw vegan diet includes no animal products of any kind, including dairy or honey, and various percentages of raw according to individual preference. Some vegans include cooked fruits, vegetables or grains in a more modified diet. Cancer curing protocols are strictly raw.
In addition to its remarkable health benefits, eating a vegan diet means one less person feeding off the abuse and contamination of concentrated animal feedlot operations (CAFO), which are exempt from many animal cruelty laws. Celebrity health chef Mark Bittman just launched his new VB6 diet — Vegan Before Six. This means no animal products in foods eaten before 6:00pm, but allows for those who want to incorporate healthy, sustainably produced and humanely raised animal products in their diet. It’s all about choices.
Turning your home into a healing haven will not happen overnight, but keep in mind that any home, at the very least, provides a level of convenience, privacy, freedom and comfort you would be sorely lacking without. Keep focused on working in cooperation with your inner wisdom and watch how quickly your thoughts manifest as new healing experiences at home.
Carol Bedrosian is the publisher of Spirit of Change holistic magazine. Visit www.spiritofchange.org.
See also:
Vegan Cooking Mini Guide
Whole Foods Healthy Cooking: An Organized Kitchen
