If its someone else's fault that anything happens to you, then it isn't in your hands to change it.You lose your power of controlling your own body and life.

I have another client who continues to eat foods that are bad for her. She keeps thinking that whatever is happening in her life is an excuse for eating those foods. Then she comes to me and says that her body hurts, she's congested, and cranky because she has to work. She doesn't make the connection between those foods and how she feels.

Blaming someone else or even blaming yourself for your problems, will cause you to crave things that aren't good for you, and then feel unable to control the craving - because its something that came from outside of yourself.

If we continue the cycle of blame, when an illness develops, we blame our bodies for not cooperating with us. We blame our doctors for not finding the solutions. We blame the medicine for not working. We blame our lives for not giving us what we want. Blaming leads us again, to not being able to find the solution that works.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't say that someone caused a problem doing something unconscious, or sort out whoever did something wrong to us. So that makes it a tricky slope, there's a fine line where blame is okay, because we need to see what's going on. There is the point at which blame stops us from being able to move forward because we're stuck in saying that person did something to me.

One of my patients is so angry at her family for not sympathizing with her when she was ill, that she may be keeping herself from getting better now that she finally has treatment for her illness. She's proving to them just how ill she is, and that has become more important than healing her body so she can go on with her life.

It reminded me of a movie I saw a few years ago, Black Orchid with Nicholas Cage. I didn't really like the movie much but there was one scene where he was talking to his brother, also played by Nicholas, about a girl he had been in love with in high school. Nicholas 1 said to Nicholas 2, that he had just been decimated by the girl, and how had he been able to tolerate that? Nicholas 2 said back, "it wasn't about her, it was about my love for her." That sentence changed my whole perspective on love. I had spent my life waiting for someone to love me and to feel that love coming from someone, but it was really mine to feel and give.

We often tell people that when they're angry, it isn't about that other person. Its usually about some anger they are holding inside from a long time ago, and its just triggered by an interaction now. Well love is the same way. We have it inside of us all the time, just waiting to come up. When we fall in love, it is our love to give, and our love to feel, regardless of whether it's reciprocated by the object of our affection.

Pay attention to the air-flow in your home. If you live in a new home, there might be all sorts of chemicals off-gassing to your body – things such as paint, carpet, treated woods, formaldehyde in plywood, new furniture and who knows what else can make your body suffer. You may not notice the symptoms right away. They can be as subtle as feeling cranky, or more tired, which you could assume is just because you moved and your life is in boxes. If you have an older home, you might be exposed to various molds. If you live in the city, you might be getting auto exhaust fumes. If you live in the country, near a vineyard – there are all sorts of lovely chemicals being sprayed on the plants, and flying into your home. Either having a good ventilation system or an air filter will help you take better care of your lungs.

Antioxidants are compounds that keep the body from breaking chemicals down into free radicals – unstable molecules that cause aging and disease. Andrew Weil published a list of the 10 “super” antioxidants in terms of their ability to help prevent illness. These are: CoQ10, alpha lipoic acid, pycnogenol, selenium, beta carotene, zinc, vitamin E, vitamin C, vitamin A, and green tea. These have recently been shown to protect the lungs from damage due to air pollution.

The vitamin A, selenium, zinc, beta-carotene and sometimes E and C are readily available in a good multivitamin. The alpha lipoic acid is very good for the liver – it helps with the detoxification process in addition to strengthening the immune system. You should be careful with green tea because it is often grown in areas that use DDT as insecticide, try to find organic tea if you want to drink it.

Medicinal mushrooms have been shown to enhance immune cell function as well. These include reishi, shitake, maitake and many others. In my own experience, I’m finding that high doses of vitamin C are very helpful.

Eating sugar, dairy, wheat, or gluten can make your symptoms worse if you are allergic to them. They will lower your immune system’s ability to do its job. Actually any food you are sensitive to will cause your symptoms to get worse, since it will increase inflammation in your body.  If you don’t know whether you are allergic to them or not, do an experiment for two to three weeks, cut them out and see if you feel better. Your body will let you know.



An overloaded immune system stops working normally and sends incorrect messages to the rest of the body. Allergies, autoimmune diseases, chronic infections, cancer, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, early or late menopause, and environmental sensitivity are just a few of the signs of a stressed immune system.

We used to say that the people who were environmentally sensitive were the “canaries” of our society in that they were the ones who felt the effects of our toxic environment first. Increasing numbers of people suffer from some form of environmental sensitivity all the time because the level of toxicity has kept increasing. It was recently driven home to me when I moved into a new apartment and started waking up sneezing at 3 in the morning. No way was it due to plants, since there weren’t any nearby.  I had to assume it was the chemicals in the apartment that made me react.

Obviously we can’t get away from chemicals entirely no matter how hard we try. So what does one do to help the body cope with all the toxicity? Stay tuned for the next installment on this theme.



It's your doctor's job to do the research on a particular medication but that doesn't always happen and it doesn't mean that you will do well with that medicine. 

The best solution is to listen to your own body. Your body has an inner knowing and wisdom that is always talking. When you're not sure whether you should take a medication or supplement, the best voice is inside of you. 

If you don't know what it means to listen to your body, think about the first time you met a person that you were really attracted to, everything inside of you said YES! Not that a supplement would make you feel the same way, but...it might be easier to know if you look for the yes.

Various antioxidants such as quercetin, N. Acetyl Cysteine, vitamin C, and rutin stabilize the immune cells involved in the allergic response. Available in health food stores, they prevent symptoms and over time strengthen the immune system to reduce reaction. Bromelain – an enzyme taken on an empty stomach – penetrates inflamed areas to reduce reactions.

Western medical therapies are available as a last resort for people who don’t respond to alternative treatments. There are nasal and inhaled steroids, various antihistamines, decongestants, and allergy shots. Cromolyn sodium is an inhaled product that prevents allergic cells from reacting by stabilizing the immune cells. Begin using it two weeks before you expect allergies to start.

One of my friends suggested that perhaps people have allergies because they don’t spend enough time outdoors. Maybe we have become so disconnected with the outdoors that our bodies rebel against all contact. Even landscapers who use heavy chemicals and don’t work directly with earth can become disconnected from the outdoors. I have made a concerted effort to spend more quality time with my garden digging in the soil and planting flowers. It does seem to help.



In the system of Chinese medicine, allergies result from a combination of imbalances in the body. Springtime is the season of the liver when sap begins flowing in the trees. Liver rules the smooth flow of energy in the body and helps the body with detoxification. It is sensitive to wind and the emotion of anger. If the lungs and immune system are already weak, spring winds agitate liver energy and trap it in the respiratory system, leading to allergy symptoms.

Allergies are not a simple thing. It requires a series of treatments and herbs that may take more than one season to get the body into balance so it will not react to pollens and other things.

Using acupuncture and Chinese herbs several months before allergy season arrives can prevent symptoms. Even if allergies have already begun, treatment can help reduce symptoms.

With your health, it would seem logical that this is also true. It gets a bit tricky to think that your thoughts also create your health. Especially when you get something like cancer or a have a bad accident. How could your thoughts have created that? People often feel like that statement implies that they are at fault somehow for their illness. In some cases, your thoughts did create an illness. I had a client whose biggest fear was cancer and she worried about it incessantly. Eventually she ended up having breast cancer. But this isn't usually what happens. Usually it isn't that our thoughts create our disease, its that our thought contribute to an energy imbalance, which sets us up for disease.

Besides the law of attraction, there is also something in us that wants us to grow spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. In my experience, most of the people I've worked with who got a serious illness or injury did not create it with their thinking. Usually they were busy with productive, active lives and they were taken completely by surprise. When they got it, everything had to change and the illness or injury ended up transforming their lives. It was created so that they could grow.

The other thing is the forgiveness meditation. I've found it to be very healing on a certain level. I haven't really got anyone that I'm still holding a major grudge with anymore, but I have a low grade hurt that causes my attitude to be a certain way. That's healing with this meditation.

I'd love to hear anyone's experiences here if you're having any. Perhaps you just feel a bit better from eating so many vegetables? Or the exercises are feeling good?

The best way to heal anger is to find that place of forgiveness inside of ourselves. In the 5 elements system, the liver leads to the heart, which represents the emotion of joy. To find joy, you need to find forgiveness.

For our cleanse, since we are focussing on the liver, I would like to have everyone do 5 minutes a day of forgiveness meditation. You can do anything you'd like but if you don't have an idea of how to forgive, I would suggest the following. Imagine a situation or person that you still have anger towards. Review the situation in your mind, and let yourself feel all the anger and hurt you have.

Let it grow inside of yourself and think of the person you are angry with. Try to find the positive aspects of the experience you had, how did you grow from it? What did it help you to learn? Then find a way wihin yourself to let go of as much of the anger as you can. Find forgiveness within yourself. You may still find that you don't want to talk to that person or have them in your life, but you can still forgive and find peace within yourslef about this issue.

Do this every day during our cleanse, if you want to use the same event over and over again, that's okay.  Keep at it until you can feel the difference within yourself.