Most people know that getting outside to get fresh air and sunshine is good for you. The sunlight comes from above and the fresh air from all around us. If it is good to connect with Nature above and around us, what about the Earth below us?
It is also very good for us to connect with Nature below us via walking or standing barefoot on Earth- (rock, dirt, grass, water). Do this as often as you can and see if you notice a difference.
Check out this quick exert from the Chopra center and read the article here:https://chopra.com/articles/grounding-the-human-body-the-healing-benefits-of-earthing
“Losing Touch with the Ground You are a bioelectrical being living on an electrical planet. Your body operates electrically. All of your cells transmit multiple frequencies that run, for example, your heart, immune system, muscles, and nervous system. With the exception of humans living in industrialized societies, all living things on our planet are connected to the ground’s electric energy. In industrialized societies, you rarely go barefoot and walk around outside or wear natural leather shoes that allow you to absorb the ground’s energy. For many decades, people have increasingly been wearing rubber and plastic-soled shoes that act as a barrier to the Earth’s energy, insulating them from electrical contact with the Earth. People also generally don’t sleep on the ground anymore, as many cultures have done throughout history. They live and work above the ground, even far above the ground in high-rises. The truth is, you’re disconnected. You’re ungrounded. You are not in touch with the Earth. Could this disconnection be an overlooked factor in the increase of illnesses noted earlier?”
Grounding
Weather changes and staying healthy
Its supposed to get cold later today so be sure to grab a jacket.
Large temperature swings like this are stressful for our bodies and nervous systems as they have to change or tweak many of their automatic processes to adapt to the change in the external environment. This can make it easier to get sick, especially if your nervous system is already overwhelmed or out of balance.
Here are some of the things we personally do to stay heathy. We do these as reguallry as we can, and we do them more when we are fighting getting sick or are sick.
Getting entrained. Getting entrained helps keep your nervous system in rest or digest versus fight or flight as a default. In flight or flight, energy is diverted away form the immune system into skeletal muscles needed to fight or run away. This can predispose you to getting sick as well as other misfunctions of the immune system. In rest or digest, your immune system has more energy and works better. You are able to digest stored physical, mental and emotional stresses. Your body is also able to better digest bacteria and other aberrant cells.
We do our best to get plenty of rest and sleep although that has been harder the last 12 weeks 🙂
Lots and lots of fluid. When sick or fighting sickness, our go to is hot water with lemon, honey and cinnamon.
We share 1 subscription of Juice plus that we take in spurts. We do not like to take the same supplements or supplement regimen regularly. We use this to perdiodiaclly fill any gaps from our diet. We also take it when we feel we might be fighting getting sick.
We periodically take CBD. One of the important things with CBD is that you need to be consistant while taking it. We usually share a bottle and take it until it runs out. Usually 15-30 days depending on the size of the bottle.
Vit D- almost eveyone is deficient in Vit D. We get as much Sunlight as we can and take Vit D supplement daily, or often as we remember. We also take small dose of Vit A and high dose Vit C.
I persoannly love raw garlic for immune boosting as it is a natural antibiotic. I crush it or cut it and let it sit for 15 min. I eat 1 or 2 cloves every hour while I can stomach it. I usually drink kombucha while doing this to help digestion.
We love coloidal silver. When sick or fighting sickness we take it orally or in nose spray. We also use it in the oil diffuser and humidifier.
I am sure I am forgetting some things as Sarah is always adding to or tweaking our regimen as she is constantly researching and learning, so when you see her in the office, feel free to ask what else she suggests.
Gratitude practice
Its the start of a new week which makes it a great time to remember that we can choose what emotions we practice.
I invite you to stop and practice gratitude for 30 seconds to 1 min and see how it sets the tone for your day.
An easy way to do this is to focus on an event from your life (past, present or future) that you can be grateful for if you pause and reflect.
Start off by by thinking about the event. Remember or focus on any details you can and notice how this makes you feel. Focus on any feelings you have in or around your heart. You might even want to put your hands over your heart and breath deeply into your heart as you do this.
If this has has been easy for you and you still have time, find something else you can be grateful for and repeat the process.
Wishing you all a grateful day!
Eyes open or closed during an entrainment?
Should you keep your eyes open or shut during an entrainment?
The answer is- keep them shut.
Your eyes are the source of about 80% of your sensory input. When you shut your eyes, you are cutting out this extra information so it is easier to be aware of your breath, energy in or around your body or the movement of your body. Remeber awarnessis the first A in AAA. Aware, Acknowledge, Accept.
Face up or face down?
Someone reacently asked why we sometimes have you go back face down after being faceup on the table, and I figured more people might have this currisioty.
Face down care is typically Discover care where you are able to connect to and release stored stresses in your body. Its goal is to add stability to your body/ Nervous System. (Early transform care is also done facedown). If you come in with lots of stored stress/ tension, we will typically work in Discover or discover integrate to increase the ease and flexibility (decrease tension/stress) in your body/Nervous System before potentially going on to work in Transform or Awaken. Discover care helps you process stress to have more fuel for transform and awaken care.
When we have you lay faceup, we are working with either late Transform or Awaken care. The goal of these seasons is radically different than in discover care. These seasons are about growth and making effective change. They add a temporary reorgazational instability to your body/Nervous System. This combined with the new energy your system has from processing stress allows your system to reorganize to a higher level of function. As a practical example of processing stress, think about the energy that goes into holding a muscle spasm being redirected in a more useful way as your body relaxes during an entrainment.
The reason we might have you go back face down, is so we can recheck your spine, muscles and how everything is moving to make sure you are in better shape than when you came in, especially if you experienced a lot of instability or had really big changes in your body that day (ie: came in with a lot of stress in your body.)
As a reminder – instability with a new energy source or more energy = upgrade the system. Instability without a new energy source or more energy= downgrade the system or dis-ease.
If your spine is has large amounts of instability after going back facedown, we will usually do 1 -2 quick discover contacts to help your system organize to a higher level of stability.
Here is a video of Donny talking about the seasons of wellbeing from 2010. Donny is much healthier now than he was in this video. https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=seasons+of+wellbeing+donny+epistein&view=detail&mid=6C1DC4B985C5E15D82976C1DC4B985C5E15D8297&FORM=VIRE
How to tell if your body is stressed- self awarness
Good morning!
How can you tell if you are in stress mode (in the automictic part of your body and nervous system)?
Its easy to know when you can actually feel your heart beating out of your chest or your palms sweating and mind racing. It can be harder to tell when you are not actively feeling the effects of the initial stress response. For example, are you able to turn off your flight or flight system after getting home from a crazy stressful day? In this case, a better initial question would be- how can you tell if you are in stress mode when you “feel” fine?
Self awareness is the answer which is ironic because this goes down when you are in stress mode. In a stress response your attention goes out to your environment to access for threats to your safety. This is why you can feel fine and also be in stress mode without knowing it. Luckily our bodies give us plenty of signs if you know where to look. These signs start out small and grow over time if the underlying internal stress environment is not resolved.
Some of the signs you might notice are:
Physically it will be harder to stand up straight and you will notice that you are defaulting to a leaned forward or slumped posture. It will be uncomfortable to correct your posture with your conscious mind since your subconscious mind is defaulting to fight or flight posture. Poor posture, poor muscular coordination, and poor biomechanics will lead to pain and tightness somewhere in your body. This pain will most likely come and go for a while and get worse or move to another area if Nervous system is not addressed. You might find your digestion not working as well as it has been and overall lower energy levels.
Some emotional signs you might notice are: anxiety, worry, mental chatter/ running mind, trouble sleeping, irritability , and being on edge all the time.
Another things that is important is to observe your habits. Are you naturally wanting to do positive things and willing to delay gratification – examples could be reading, working out, meditating, yoga, journaling, eating healthy, going to bed in time, drinking / thirsty for water?
or
Are you craving things not so great for you in the long run? Such as going home to watch Netflix and skipping your working out, getting fast food instead of cooking, drinking to cope with stress, staying up late ect.
Finally observe how you are handling stress in life. Are you going with the flow/ making the appropriate shifts or are you trying to control and force everything? Check out this old post on flowing vs shifting as an preview to a possible triad of change email in the next weeks. https://nextlevelchirodallas.com/7-29-19-going-with-the-flow-vs-making-a-shift/
Any of these signs could help you determine if you are in stress mode. Only after you become aware you are in stress mode, are you are able to do something about it. There are many more ways to know if you are operating in your peak state or not, these were just some that I though of while writing this. Let us know if you have other ways of knowing that we did not include here.
Next week we will cover how we, your Network Doctors, check to see if your system is in stress mode and to what degree. We will also cover how this effects the entrainment you get that day.
Towards or Away- a new view of your Nervous System
| Good morning and wishing you a happy Monday!
As a refresher overview- the automatic or auto pilot part (technically called the autonomic nervous system) of our nervous system makes up about 90-95% of our nervous system (can also be called subconscious), and this automictic part has 2 modes it can be in. Sympathetic/ fight/flight/freeze or parasympathetic/rest and digest. One of our goals at Next Level is to help your Nervous system return to a parasympathetic dominate state, and then to continue to move in that direction. |
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Now that that is out of the way we are going to discuss how the orientation of your nervous system affects your health and life in a fun new way,
That way is towards or away. Towards will represent parasympathetic dominance and away will represent sympathetic dominance. |
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The towards direction starts off moving towards better health and function as more energy is automatically focused on cellular repair, homeostasis, upright posture, digestion and all other healing. As your body, mind, and emotions work better, you can start to improve your life.
Moving further in the towards direction requires more energy and momentum than simply helping your self. At this point you might find it easier and more appealing to be open to collaboration, community and helping others. It is easier to collaborate with others because in a parasympathetic dominate state, you do not automatically see others a threat / source of stress. More options are available to you in many areas of life as your brain function shifts to using more of the prefrontal cortex and less of the limbic system(animal brain). This allows you to see the bigger picture and make long term rational decisions as your automatic random thoughts will be geared more for long term growth rather than pain or pleasure. It is easier to delay gratification now for a better future. Continuing in the growth direction will require more energy and efficient use of that energy. This can be achieved by the leveling up of your nervous system via Network care. The far end of the towards direction moves you towards greater meaning and connection in life. This usually means some sort of spiritual practice or greater connection to your own beliefs or Religion. We say some sort because this can be deeply personal and different for everyone. |
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In contrast, in the away direction, energy is automatically focused on skeletal muscles that would be used to flight or run and on staying on high alert (think anxiety). Repair is minimal and healing is slow. Homeostasis is not a priority so hormones and blood chemistry can easily become out of balance. Instead of repair, the body slowly degrades similar to the way most people think about aging. Focus is generally not on making large improvements in life so much as conserving what you already have.
Moving further in the away direction leads to stagnation and isolation in life. It will be harder to get along with people, much less collaborate since new people will be seen by the automictic part of your nervous system as threats. The mentality will be “what does this person want from me” and we all know how fun that can be. Random thoughts will be driven more by the limbic system and will be more often concerning immediate pain or pleasure. It will be harder to see the bigger picture as blood flow moves away from the prefrontal cortex. This makes it harder to make good long term choices for your health and life. It is harder to delay gratification even if we know we will pay for it later. |
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I was recently asked if we promote any particular religion and why we have so many items associated with different spiritual practices in our office. The answer is no. We support all practices and do not promote or try to convert anyone to any religion, rather we simply believe in a higher power. We respect everyone’s own journey. Network care can help you move more in your own towards direction whatever that might be by helping your auto pilot be oriented towards growth.
We have a rosery from the Vatican, a Taoist blessing, statues of Hindu deities, flowers from the Hare Krishna temple, multiple photos of Buddha and more. Everything except for some of the photos has been gifted to us over the years. When we see them, we are reminded of the feelings of gratitude and connection. The art that we have purchased mostly comes from events we have done with Donny (gates and AWEs), and they remind us of very energy rich times for our family. Having these around the office makes it even easier for us to serve from an energy rich place. Next week we will cover how to tell if your autopilot has shifted to any degree of sympathetic dominance or stress mode. I also plan on covering why you might feel “worse” after an entrainment in coming weeks. |
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Our Hours for: 9/09/19-9/13/19 Monday- Thursday: 10:00am-1:15pm and 3:30pm-6:00pm Friday: 3:30pm-6:00pm |
8/26/19- Rest and Digest
| Good morning and happy Monday!
Thank you to everyone that has emailed, texted, gifted or otherwise sent love this way! We are very grateful. Sarah and Atlas are doing great. He is an eating and pooping expert at this point and even sleeps really well (during the day 🙂 lol). Max loves being a big brother and overall has been doing a great job dealing with all of the change. Over the last few weeks, we have discussed how Network care, specifically the respiratory wave, helps to stimulate a parasympathetic tone. Generally speaking sympathetic and parasympathetic are the 2 modes of the our human auto pilot with sympathetic being the fight, flight or freeze mode and parasympathetic being the rest and digest mode. Lets take a closer look at what rest and digest means. To rest is to be able to recover. In this state, your body is able to focus on recovering, making repairs and maintaining homeostasis throughout all of its systems and subsystems. It is also able to digest all of the things that it lacked energy to digest while it was stuck in stress mode. In stress or survival mode, energy is pumped into your skeletal muscles that you will need to fight or run for your life instead of to digestion. Digestion can of course mean digesting food that we have eaten or that has become lodged in our digestive system somewhere. It can also mean digesting unprocessed emotions or feelings that we previously not allowed ourselves to feel. It can mean digestion of old thought patterns that have previously been playing on repeat. It can mean digestion of stored chemical stresses from any chemicals exposure you have previously had- think air and water pollution, processed food, bug spray, cleaning materials etc. In the case of rest and digest, digest can refer to the processing of ANY stored stress. As some of these old thoughts and emotions get digested, sometimes there is an overflow from the subconscious (where most of this is happening) to the conscious. When this happens we might find ourselves feeling grumpy, angry or frustrated for no reason at all. (this can also happen with positive emotions, however most of us have shoved down way more of the darker emotions than the positive ones) This generally will not last very long, and the best thing to do is to simply be with whatever comes up. Do your best not to judge anything or avoid feeling what you are feeling. That is how we got in that position in the first place. The remnants or overflow will never be as stressful or extreme as the original stress that was stored. Again, most of the digestion will be in the subconscious part of our bodies. This usually only happens once or twice and does not last but a few hours or moments. The great part is that after digesting something, you can get the benefits from it. Over time, expect to experience a fuller range of emotions with the potential for more and more positive emotions as you gain momentum in the growth (rest and digest) direction. Our Hours for: 8/26/19-8/30/19 Monday- Thursday: 10:00am-1:15pm and 3:30pm-6:00pm Friday: Closed Have a great week, Your Next Level Team |
8/19/19- Somatopsychic wave
Good morning and happy Monday!
We had a baby–Thank you for all of the love and support! We appreciate all of the emails and texts!!
Meet our newest source of instability. Atlas Sol Johnson was born on Thursday evening 39 hours after Sarah’s water broke. Our hearts are overflowing with love. We are so grateful he decided to join our family. Our dear friends have set up a meal train for us and I have included the link under the photo below if anyone feels drawn to participate or donate gift cards. Please do not feel obligated. I am only including it here since so many of you have asked if we were registered anywhere or if they could get us anything.
Our journey this week was more challenging and rewarding than we could have ever imagined. We were pushed up to and past our breaking points in many ways and were also loved and supported beyond what we could have imagined from friends, family, soul family and even strangers. We are beyond grateful. This week we berthed Atlas Sol Johnson, and in the process Sarah and I were reborn as well.
Somatopsychic wave
Over the last few weeks, we have talked about the respiratory wave. The respiratory wave helps you connect to and release stored stress and stimulates an overall parasympathetic tone in your body and nervous system. This wave creates more stability in your spine and overall system.
The other wave in Network is the somatopsychic wave (sp), and it creates temporary instability. It does this in order to help your spine and overall system reorganize to higher levels of efficiency and function.
This wave is muscular in nature and its job is to carry energy and information (from stored stress processed via the respiratory wave) up and down your spine and from different parts of your body into the gateways we are working with. Essentially it picks ups up newly liberated energy and information as it travels through your body and carries it to the areas where we make contacts. This allows your system to use the energy that was previously bound (as stored stress) to grow, heal and reorganize.
Network helps improve your spine and life by stacking levels of stability and instability during each entrainment and from entrainment to entrainment as described above. We are constantly accessing if your spine needs more stability or instability before each contact we make. Some days your system will require more stability and some days your system will require more instability. If you experience a lot of instability in one session, you will likely need more stability the next session. This is another reason we recommend coming regularly. Imagine cleaning out a closet or garage. At first, things get a little more messy or unstable as you take things out. Later the overall system moves to a higher level of stability as you get rid of things that you no longer need and then put things back in a more efficient/functional way.
In general, the sp wave looks like a sine or ocean wave that moves up and down your spine. The way your individual wave looks and the way you experience this wave depends on your Triad of Change (to be covered later). Some people will have very large or small fluid waves, some people will have large or small jerky or staccato wave and some people will have more of a feeling of a wave. That said, no two persons Network wave is exactly the same. Everyone has a unique wave just like they have a unique fingerprint or gait (the mathematical pattern of the way you walk).
In general, learning something new, getting better at anything or growing as a person requires stacking levels of stability and instability. Too much stability is boring and leads to stagnation. Too much instability leads to constant stress and burn out, and it is hard to make progress without laying a solid/ stable foundation. This is why we are constantly accessing if your spine/life needs more stability or more instability at the start of and throughout each entrainment (I say life because, as Donny says, “the shape, position and tone of your spine equals the shape position and tone of your life”).
I look forward to seeing everyone in the office this week
Love
Homer and Sarah