In her new book, Journey of Healing, Kathy Gruver shares the challenges, solutions and the many health enhancing insights she has developed and applied in her personal healing journey.
It is common knowledge that there are several key essentials for optimal health—nutrition, exercise, daily habits are all important. In addition, health consciousness – the CONSCIENTIOUS attention to all of health is by far the most important trait for health and longevity.
“The more you focus on holistic health the more you find that there are ways to create a healthy life that is filled with genuine and original thoughts, happiness and feelings of well-being.”
Gruver cover the many aspects of holistic living as she shares stories from her practice and her own adventures and personal stories. In her own case, she found out she had an adventurous streak. So she shares her stories of skydiving, paragliding, parasailing, spelunking, repelling, zip lining, scuba diving and swimming with sharks. Her latest passion is in flying on the great trapeze.
“After 20 years of doing massage and having my hands on people, I’ve learned that we underestimate our own power to heal. I have helped make drastic changes in people’s lives. We can heal the wounds we experience, both emotional and physical. Mainstream medicine helps cure… but we heal ourselves. We have to choose healing.”
“What people don’t realize is the power lies within us to make huge changes in our lives, just by adjusting our thoughts and words. We have the innate ability to change our bodies, by changing our language.
Gruver covers the many aspects of holistic health from the perspective of a long-time body worker and therapist.
“We have the ability to change our bodies. We can’t control so much outside of us, but what we can control is powerful and it’s inside of us. It’s our minds! And by changing what we think and say, we can be healthier, stronger and richer.”
Here are some of the many insightful ideas:
Get massaged frequently.
We know massage feels good and so many people around the country get regular massage. But do you know the difference between Swedish and shiatsu, sports and hot stone? Knowing the type of massage that is going to work the best for you well help you enhance your experience and improve your health. For example, trigger point massage is really going to help you get to the root of the problem. But make sure you go to a qualified practitioner and know what you want to accomplish.
Eat healthier by choice.
Eat less sugar, GMO’s, High Fructose Corn Syrup, soda, artificial sweetener and MSG. It can be hard to navigate all the ins and outs of nutrition but eliminating just a few things from your diet can help.
Exercise in ways you never tried before
We know we should be getting regular exercise. One of the keys is to find the time to do it. The other is to find an activity that you have a passion for. Look back at your childhood and think about the things that you enjoyed when you were young. Maybe it was dance (as was mine), bicycling, running or swimming. If you find something you truly have a passion for, you are going to make time for it. Or try something different, maybe it’s yoga, crossfit, P90X or flying trapeze (one of my passions).
Focus on what pains you
Do you have aches and pains? Do you have carpal tunnel? Pain in the neck? Do our feet hurt? Don’t be afraid of pain. Take the next step. Find out not only what ails you but go to work on fixing what ails you. Unlock the mystery as to why you are having pain and illness.
To stress or not to stress, that is the real problem.
Stress is ever present factor in life. How you handle it is the problem – it’s our reaction to the stress that impacts our health. We can’t control anything outside of ourselves. But what we do have within our power are our thoughts and reactions to what is happening. You can choose to use things like meditation, visualization, affirmations, and mindfulness to help you take control of your reaction to stress.
Get to know yourself better than ever before
One of the greatest things you can do for yourself and your practitioners is to know yourself. So many times people don’t know how they’re feeling or don’t know where their pain is. If we can’t identify how we’re feeling when we’re healthy, then how will we know when something has gone awry? Take just a few minutes every day to do a scan of your body to see how you’re feeling both physically and emotionally so that way if something goes wrong you can identify and help your practitioners help you.
Realize the choice – you make more time for health or you make more time for illness. It’s a choice you get to make.
Kathy Gruver received a PhD in Natural Health and has authored Body/Mind Therapies for the Bodyworker and Conquer Your Stress with Mind/Body Techniques (Winner Indie Excellence Awards, Beverly Hills Book Awards, Global E-book Awards, Irwin Awards, Finalist for the USA Best Books Award). Her award-winning book, The Alternative Medicine Cabinet, was turned into a national talk show. She has also produced an instructional massage DVD, Therapeutic Massage at Home; Learn to Rub People the RIGHT Way. For more information www.thealternativemedicinecabinet.com
